The three wars of 1864, 1866 and 1870 conducted by “Liberals” like Moltke and Bismarck mark the three stages of German unity.  As for Italian unity, Liberalism played a very inferior part in the make-up of Mazzini and Garibaldi, who were not liberals.  Without the intervention of the anti-Liberal Napoleon we would not have had Lombardy, and without the help of the anti-Liberal Bismarck at Sadowa and Sedan it is very likely that we would not have got Venice in 1866, or that we would have entered Rome in 1870.

During the period of 1870-1915 the preachers of the new Credo themselves denounced the twilight of their religion; it was beaten in the breach by decadence in literature.  It was beaten in the open by decadence in practice.  Activism:  that is to say, nationalism, futurism.  Fascism.

The “Liberal Century” after having accumulated an infinity of Gordian knots, sought to cut them in the hecatomb of the World War.  Never did any religion impose such a terrible sacrifice.  Have the gods of Liberalism slaked their blood-thirst?

Liberalism is now on the point of closing the doors of its deserted temples because nations feel that its agnosticism in the economic field and its indifference in political and moral matters, causes, as it has already caused, the sure ruin of States.  That is why all the political experiences of the contemporary world are anti-Liberal, and it is supremely silly to seek to classify them as things outside of history—­as if history were a hunting ground reserved to Liberalism and its professors; as if Liberalism were the last and incomparable word of civilisation.

9.  Fascism Does Not Turn Back.

The Fascist negation of Socialism, of Democracy, of Liberalism, should not lead one to believe that Fascism wishes to push the world back to where it was before 1879, the date accepted as the opening year of the demo-Liberal century.  One cannot turn back.  The Fascist doctrine has not chosen De Maistre for its prophet.  Monarchical absolutism is a thing of the past, and so is the worship of church power.  Feudal privileges and divisions into impenetrable castes with no connection between them, are also “have beens.”  The conception of Fascist authority has nothing in common with the Police.  A party that totally rules a nation is a new chapter in history.  References and comparisons are not possible.  From the ruins of the socialist, liberal and democratic doctrines, Fascism picks those elements that still have a living value; keeps those that might be termed “facts acquired by history,” and rejects the rest:  namely the conception of a doctrine good for all times and all people.