title: The Culture

text: The Culture is a posthuman society, which originally arose when seven or eight roughly humanoid space-faring species coalesced into a quasi-collective (a group-civilisation) ultimately consisting of approximately thirty trillion (short scale) sentient (more properly, sapient) beings (this includes artificial intelligences). In Banks's universe, a good part (but by no means an overwhelming percentage) of all sentient species is of the "pan-human" type, as noted in "Matter".


title: The Culture

text: Although the Culture was originated by humanoid species, subsequent interactions with other civilisations have introduced many non-humanoid species into the Culture (including some former enemy civilisations), though the majority of the biological Culture is still pan-human. Little uniformity exists in the Culture, and its citizens are such by choice, free to change physical form and even species (though some stranger biological conversions are irreversible, and conversion from biological to artificial sentience is considered to be what is known as an Unusual Life Choice). All members are also free to join, leave, and rejoin, or indeed declare themselves to be, say, 80% Culture.


title: The Culture

text: Within the novels, opponents of the Culture have argued that the role of humans in the Culture is nothing more than that of pets, or parasites on Culture Minds, and that they can have nothing genuinely useful to contribute to a society where science is close to omniscient about the physical universe, where every ailment has been cured, and where every thought can be read. Many of the Culture novels in fact contain characters (from within or without the Culture) wondering how far-reaching the Minds' dominance of the Culture is, and how much of the democratic process within it might in fact be a sham: subtly but very powerfully influenced by the Minds in much the same ways Contact and Special Circumstances influence other societies. Also, except for some mentions about a vote over the Idiran-Culture War, and the existence of a very small number of "Referrers" (humans of especially acute reasoning), few biological entities are ever described as being involved in any high-level decisions.


title: The Culture

text: On the other hand, the Culture can be seen as fundamentally hedonistic (one of the main objectives for any being, including Minds, is to have fun rather than to be "useful"). Also, Minds are constructed, by convention, to care for and value human beings. While a General Contact Unit (GCU) does not strictly need a crew (and could construct artificial avatars when it did), a real human crew adds richness to its existence, and offers distraction during otherwise dull periods. In "Consider Phlebas" it is noted that Minds still find humans fascinating, especially their odd ability to sometimes achieve similarly advanced reasoning as their much more complex machine brains.


title: The Culture

text: To a large degree, the freedoms enjoyed by humans in the Culture are only available because Minds choose to provide them. The freedoms include the ability to leave the Culture when desired, often forming new associated but separate societies with Culture ships and Minds, most notably the Zetetic Elench and the ultra-pacifist and non-interventionist Peace Faction.


title: The Culture

text: Techniques in genetics have advanced in the Culture to the point where bodies can be freed from built-in limitations. Citizens of the Culture refer to a normal human as "human-basic" and the vast majority opt for significant enhancements: severed limbs grow back, sexual physiology can be voluntarily changed from male to female and back (though the process takes time), sexual stimulation and endurance are strongly heightened in both sexes (something that is often the subject of envious debate among other species), pain can be switched off, toxins can be bypassed away from the digestive system, autonomic functions such as heart rate can be switched to conscious control, reflexes like blinking can be switched off, and bones and muscles adapt quickly to changes in gravity without the need to exercise. The degree of enhancement found in Culture individuals varies to taste, with certain of the more exotic enhancements limited to Special Circumstances personnel (for example, weapons systems embedded in various parts of the body).


title: The Culture

text: Most Culture individuals opt to have drug glands that allow for hormonal levels and other chemical secretions to be consciously monitored, released and controlled. These allow owners to secrete on command any of a wide selection of synthetic drugs, from the merely relaxing to the mind-altering: "Snap" is described in "Use of Weapons" and "The Player of Games" as "The Culture's favourite breakfast drug". "Sharp Blue" is described as a utility drug, as opposed to a sensory enhancer or a sexual stimulant, that helps in problem solving. "Quicken", mentioned in "Excession", speeds up the user's neural processes so that time seems to slow down, allowing them to think and have mental conversation (for example with artificial intelligences) in far less time than it appears to take to the outside observer. "Sperk", as described in "Matter", is a mood- and energy-enhancing drug, while other such self-produced drugs include "Calm", "Gain", "Charge", "Recall", "Diffuse", "Somnabsolute", "Softnow", "Focal", "Edge", "Drill", "Gung", "Winnow" and "Crystal Fugue State". The glanded substances have no permanent side-effects and are non-habit-forming.


title: The Culture

text: For all their genetic improvements, the Culture is by no means eugenically uniform. Human members in the Culture setting vary in size, colour and shape as in reality, and with possibly even further natural differences: in the novella "The State of the Art", it is mentioned that a character "looks like a Yeti", and that there is variance among the Culture in minor details such as the number of toes or of joints on each finger. It is mentioned in "Excession" that:


title: The Culture

text: Some Culture citizens opt to leave the constraints of a human or even humanoid body altogether, opting to take on the appearance of one of the myriad other galactic sentients (perhaps in order to live with them) or even non-sentient objects as commented upon in "Matter" (though this process can be irreversible if the desired form is too removed from the structure of the human brain). Certain eccentrics have chosen to become drones or even Minds themselves, though this is considered rude and possibly even insulting by most humans and AIs alike.


title: The Culture

text: While the Culture is generally pan-humanoid (and tends to call itself "human"), various other species and individuals of other species have become part of the Culture.


title: The Culture

text: As all Culture citizens are of perfect genetic health, the very rare cases of a Culture citizen showing any physical deformity are almost certain to be a sort of fashion statement of somewhat dubious taste.


title: The Culture

text: Almost all Culture citizens are very sociable, of great intellectual capability and learning, and possess very well-balanced psyches. Their biological make-up and their growing up in an enlightened society make neuroses and lesser emotions like greed or (strong) jealousy practically unknown, and produce persons that, in any lesser society, appear very self-composed and charismatic. Character traits like strong shyness, while very rare, are not fully unknown, as shown in "Excession". As described there and in "Player of Games", a Culture citizen who becomes dysfunctional enough to pose a serious nuisance or threat to others would be offered (voluntary) psychological adjustment therapy and might potentially find himself under constant (non-voluntary) oversight by representatives of the local Mind. In extreme cases, as described in "Use of Weapons" and "Surface Detail", dangerous individuals have been known to be assigned a "slap-drone", a robotic follower who ensures that the person in question doesn't continue to endanger the safety of others.


title: The Culture

text: As well as humans and other biological species, sentient artificial intelligences are also members of the Culture. These can be broadly categorised into drones and Minds. Also, by custom, as described in "Excession", any artefact (be it a tool or vessel) above a certain capability level has to be given sentience.


title: The Culture

text: Drones are roughly comparable in intelligence and social status to that of the Culture's biological members. Their intelligence is measured against that of an average biological member of the Culture; a so-called "1.0 value" drone would be considered the mental equal of a biological citizen, whereas lesser drones such as the menial service units of Orbitals are merely proto-sentient (capable of limited reaction to unprogrammed events, but possessing no consciousness, and thus not considered citizens; these take care of much of the menial work in the Culture). The sentience of advanced drones has various levels of redundancy, from systems similar to that of Minds (though much reduced in capability) down to electronic, to mechanical and finally biochemical back-up brains.


title: The Culture

text: Although drones are artificial, the parameters that prescribe their minds are not rigidly constrained, and sentient drones are full individuals, with their own personalities, opinions and quirks. Like biological citizens, Culture drones generally have lengthy names. They also have a form of sexual intercourse for pleasure, called being "in thrall", though this is an intellect-only interfacing with another sympathetic drone.


title: The Culture

text: While civilian drones do generally match humans in intelligence, drones built especially as Contact or Special Circumstances agents are often several times more intelligent, and imbued with extremely powerful senses, powers and armaments (usually forcefield and effector-based, though occasionally more destructive weaponry such as lasers or, exceptionally, "knife-missiles" are referred to) all powered by antimatter reactors. Despite being purpose-built, these drones are still allowed individual personalities and given a choice in lifestyle. Indeed, some are eventually deemed psychologically unsuitable as agents (for example as Mawhrin-Skel notes about itself in "The Player of Games") and must choose either mental reprofiling or demilitarisation and discharge from Special Circumstances.


title: The Culture

text: Physically, drones are floating units of various sizes and shapes, usually with no visible moving parts. Drones get around the limitations of this inanimation with the ability to project "fields": both those capable of physical force, which allow them to manipulate objects, as well as visible, coloured fields called "auras", which are used to enable the drone to express emotion. There is a complex drone code based on aura colours and patterns (which is fully understood by biological Culture citizens as well). Drones have full control of their auras and can display emotions they're not feeling or can switch their aura off. The drone, Jase, in "Consider Phlebas", is described as being constructed before the use of auras, and refuses to be retrofitted with them, preferring to remain inscrutable.


title: The Culture

text: In size drones vary substantially: the oldest still alive (eight or nine thousand years old) tend to be around the size of humans, whereas later technology allows drones to be small enough to lie in a human's cupped palm; modern drones may be any size between these extremes according to fashion and personal preference. Some drones are also designed as utility equipment with its own sentience, such as the gelfield protective suit described in "Excession".


title: The Culture

text: By contrast to drones, Minds are orders of magnitude more powerful and intelligent than the Culture's other biological and artificial citizens. Typically they inhabit and act as the controllers of large-scale Culture hardware such as ships or space-based habitats. Unsurprisingly, given their duties, Minds are tremendously powerful: capable of running all of the functions of a ship or habitat, while holding potentially billions of simultaneous conversations with the citizens that live aboard them. To allow them to perform at such a high degree, they exist partially in hyperspace to get around hindrances to computing power such as the speed of light.


title: The Culture

text: Some inhabited planets and all orbitals have their own Minds: sapient, hyperintelligent machines originally built by biological species, which have evolved, redesigned themselves, and become many times more intelligent than their original creators. According to "Consider Phlebas", a Mind is an ellipsoid object roughly the size of a bus and weighing around tons. A Mind is in fact a entity, meaning that the ellipsoid is only the protrusion of the larger four dimensional device into our 'real space'.


title: The Culture

text: In the Culture universe, Minds have become an indispensable part of the prevailing society, enabling much of its post-scarcity amenities by planning and automating societal functions, and by handling day-to-day administration with mere fractions of their mental power.


title: The Culture

text: The main difference between Minds and other extremely powerful artificial intelligences in fiction is that they are highly humanistic and benevolent. They are so both by design, and by their shared culture. They are often even rather eccentric. Yet, by and large, they show no wish to supplant or dominate their erstwhile creators.


title: The Culture

text: On the other hand, it can also be argued that to the Minds, the human-like members of the Culture amount to little more than pets, whose wants are followed on a Mind's whim. Within the Series, this dynamic is played on more than once. In 'Excession', it is also played on to put a Mind in its place—in the mythology, a Mind is not thought to be a god, still, but an artificial intelligence capable of surprise, and even fear.


title: The Culture

text: Although the Culture is a type of utopian anarchy, Minds most closely approach the status of leaders, and would likely be considered godlike in less rational societies. As independent, thinking beings, each has its own character, and indeed, legally (insofar as the Culture has a 'legal system'), each is a Culture citizen. Some Minds are more aggressive, some more calm; some don't mind mischief, others simply demonstrate intellectual curiosity. But above all they tend to behave rationally and benevolently in their decisions.


title: The Culture

text: As mentioned before, Minds can serve several different purposes, but Culture ships and habitats have one special attribute: the Mind and the ship or habitat are perceived as one entity; in some ways the Mind "is" the ship, certainly from its passengers' point of view. It seems normal practice to address the ship's Mind as "Ship" (and an Orbital hub as "Hub"). However, a Mind can transfer its 'mind state' into and out of its ship 'body', and even switch roles entirely, becoming (for example) an Orbital Hub from a warship.


title: The Culture

text: More often than not, the Mind's character defines the ship's purpose. Minds do not end up in roles unsuited to them; an antisocial Mind simply would not volunteer to organise the care of thousands of humans, for example.


title: The Culture

text: On occasion groupings of two or three Minds may run a ship. This seems normal practice for larger vehicles such as s, though smaller ships only ever seem to have one Mind.


title: The Culture

text: Banks also hints at a Mind's personality becoming defined at least partially before its creation or 'birth'. Warships, as an example, are designed to revel in controlled destruction; seeing a certain glory in achieving a 'worthwhile' death also seems characteristic. The presence of human crews on board warships may discourage such recklessness, since in the normal course of things, a Mind would not risk beings other than itself.


title: The Culture

text: With their almost godlike powers of reasoning and action comes a temptation to bend (or break) Cultural norms of ethical behaviour, if deemed necessary for some greater good. In "The Player of Games", a Culture citizen is blackmailed, apparently by Special Circumstances Minds, into assisting the overthrow of a barbaric empire, while in "Excession", a conspiracy by some Minds to start a war against an oppressive alien race nearly comes to fruition. Yet even in these rare cases, the essentially benevolent intentions of Minds towards other Culture citizens is never in question. More than any other beings in the Culture, Minds are the ones faced with the more complex and provocative ethical dilemmas.


title: The Culture

text: While Minds would likely have different capabilities, especially seeing their widely differing ages (and thus technological sophistication), this is not a theme of the books. It might be speculated that the older Minds are upgraded to keep in step with the advances in technology, thus making this point moot. It is also noted in "Matter" that every Culture Mind writes its own , thus continually improving itself and, as a side benefit, becoming much less vulnerable to outside takeover by electronic means and viruses, as every Mind's processing functions work differently.


title: The Culture

text: The high computing power of the Mind is apparently enabled by thought processes (and electronics) being constantly in hyperspace (thus circumventing the light speed limit in computation). Minds do have back-up capabilities functioning with light-speed if the hyperspace capabilities fail - however, this reduces their computational powers by several orders of magnitude (though they remain sentient).


title: The Culture

text: The storage capability of a GSV Mind is described in "Consider Phlebas" as 10 bytes (1 million yottabytes).


title: The Culture

text: The Culture is a society undergoing slow (by present-day Earth standards) but constant technological change, so the stated capacity of Minds is open to change. In the last 3000 years the capacity of Minds has increased considerably. By the time of the events of the novel "Excession" in the mid 19th century, Minds from the first millennium are referred to jocularly as minds, with a small 'm'. Their capacities only allow them to be considered equivalent to what are now known as Cores, small (in the literal physical sense) Artificial intelligences used in shuttles, trans-light modules, Drones, and other machines not large enough for a full scale Mind. While still considered sentient, a mind's power at this point is considered greatly inferior to a contemporary Mind. That said, It is possible for Minds to have upgrades, improvements and enhancements given to them since construction, to allow them to remain up to date.


title: The Culture

text: Using the sensory equipment available to the Culture, Minds can see inside solid objects; in principle they can also read minds by examining the cellular processes inside a living brain, but Culture Minds regard such mindreading as taboo. The only known Mind to break this Taboo, the "Grey Area" seen in "Excession", is largely ostracized and shunned by other Minds as a result. In "Look to Windward" an example is cited of an attempt to destroy a Culture Mind by smuggling a minuscule antimatter bomb onto a Culture orbital inside the head of a Chelgrian agent. However the bomb ends up being spotted without the taboo being broken.


title: The Culture

text: In "Consider Phlebas", a typical Mind is described as a mirror-like ellipsoid of several dozen cubic metres, but weighing many thousands of tons, due to the fact that it is made up of hyper-dense matter. It is noted that most of its 'body' only exists in the real world at the outer shell, the inner workings staying constantly within hyperspace.


title: The Culture

text: The Mind in "Consider Phlebas" is also described as having internal power sources which function as back-up shield generators and space propulsion, and seeing the rational, safety-conscious thinking of Minds, it would be reasonable to assume that all Minds have such features, as well as a complement of drones and other remote sensors as also described.


title: The Culture

text: Other equipment available to them spans the whole range of the Culture's technological capabilities and its practically limitless resources. However, this equipment would more correctly be considered emplaced in the ship or orbital that the Mind is controlling, rather than being part of the Mind itself.


title: The Culture

text: Minds are constructed entities, which have general parameters fixed by their constructors (other Minds) before 'birth', not unlike biological beings. A wide variety of characteristics can be and are manipulated, such as introversion-extroversion, aggressiveness (for warships) or general disposition.


title: The Culture

text: However, the character of a Mind evolves as well, and Minds often change over the course of centuries, sometimes changing personality entirely. This is often followed by them becoming eccentric or at least somewhat odd. Others drift from the Culture-accepted ethical norms, and may even start influencing their own society in subtle ways, selfishly furthering their own views of how the Culture should act.


title: The Culture

text: Minds are constructed with a personality typical of the Culture's interests, i.e. full of curiosity, general benevolence (expressed in the 'good works' actions of the Culture, or in the protectiveness regarding sentient beings) and respect for the Culture's customs.


title: The Culture

text: Nonetheless, Minds have their own interests in addition to what their peers expect them to do for the Culture, and may develop fascinations or hobbies like other sentient beings do.


title: The Culture

text: The mental capabilities of Minds are described in "Excession" to be vast enough to run entire universe-simulations inside their own imaginations, exploring metamathical (a fictional branch of metamathematics) scenarios, an activity addictive enough to cause some Minds to totally withdraw from caring about our own physical reality into "Infinite Fun Space", their own, ironic and understated term for this sort of activity.


title: The Culture

text: One of the main activities of Ship Minds is the guidance of spaceships from a certain minimum size upwards. A culture spaceship "is" the Mind and vice versa; there are no different names for the two, and a spaceship without a Mind would be considered damaged or incomplete to the Culture.


title: The Culture

text: Ship Mind classes include General Systems Vehicle (GSV), Medium Systems Vehicle (), Limited Systems Vehicle (), General Contact Vehicle (), General Contact Unit (GCU), Limited Contact Unit (), Rapid Offensive Unit (), General Offensive Unit (), Limited Offensive Unit (), Demilitarised ROU (), Demilitarised GOU (), Demilitarised LOU (), Very Fast Picket (–synonym for dROU), Fast Picket (–synonym for dGOU or dLOU), and Superlifter.


title: The Culture

text: These ships provide a convenient 'body' for a Mind, which is too large and too important to be contained within smaller, more fragile shells. Following the 'body' analogy, it also provides the Mind with the capability of physical movement. As Minds are living beings with curiosity, emotion and wishes of their own, such mobility is likely very important to most.


title: The Culture

text: Culture Minds (mostly also being ships) usually give themselves whimsical names, though these often hint at their function as well. Even the names of warships retain this humorous approach, though the implications are much darker.


title: The Culture

text: Some Minds also take on functions which either preclude or discourage movement. These usually administer various types of Culture facilities:


title: The Culture

text: Minds (and, as a consequence, Culture starships) usually bear names that do a little more than just identify them. The Minds themselves choose their own names, and thus they usually express something about a particular Mind's attitude, character or aims in their personal life. They range from funny to just plain cryptic. Some examples are:


title: The Culture

text: Some humanoid or drone Culture citizens have long names, often with seven or more words. Some of these words specify the citizen's origin (place of birth or manufacture), some an occupation, and some may denote specific philosophical or political alignments (chosen later in life by the citizen themselves), or make other similarly personal statements. An example would be Diziet Sma, whose full name is Rasd-Coduresa Diziet Embless Sma da' Marenhide:


title: The Culture

text: The Culture has a relatively relaxed attitude towards death. Genetic manipulation and the continual benevolent surveillance of the Minds make natural or accidental death almost unknown. Advanced technology allows citizens to make backup copies of their personalities, allowing them to be resurrected in case of death. The form of that resurrection can be specified by the citizen, with personalities returning either in the same biological form, in an artificial form (see below), or even just within virtual reality. Some citizens choose to go into "storage" (a form of suspended animation) for long periods of time, out of boredom or curiosity about the future.


title: The Culture

text: Attitudes individual citizens have towards death are varied (and have varied throughout the Culture's history). While many, if not most, citizens make some use of backup technology, many others do not, preferring instead to risk death without the possibility of recovery (for example when engaging in extreme sports). These citizens are sometimes called "disposables", and are described in "Look to Windward". Taking into account such accidents, voluntary euthanasia for emotional reasons, or choices like sublimation, the average lifespan of humans is described in "Excession" as being around 350 to 400 years. Some citizens choose to forgo death altogether, although this is rarely done and is viewed as an eccentricity. Other options instead of death include conversion of an individual's consciousness into an AI, joining of a group mind (which can include biological and non-biological consciousnesses), or subliming (usually in association with a group mind).


title: The Culture

text: Concerning the lifespan of drones and Minds, given the durability of Culture technology and the options of mindstate backups, it is reasonable to assume that they live as long as they choose. Even Minds, with their utmost complexity, are known to be backed up (and reactivated if they for example die in a risky mission, see "GSV Lasting Damage"). It is noted that even Minds themselves do not necessarily live forever either, often choosing to eventually sublime or even killing themselves (as does the double-Mind "GSV Lasting Damage" due to its choices in the Culture-Idiran war).


title: The Culture

text: The Culture (and other societies) have developed powerful anti-gravity abilities, closely related to their ability to manipulate forces themselves.


title: The Culture

text: In this ability they can create action-at-a-distance – including forces capable of pushing, pulling, cutting, and even fine manipulation, and forcefields for protection, visual display or plain destructive ability. Such applications still retain restrictions on range and power: while forcefields of many cubic kilometres are possible (and in fact, orbitals are held together by forcefields), even in the chronologically later novels, such as "Look to Windward", spaceships are still used for long-distance travel and drones for many remote activities.


title: The Culture

text: With the control of a Mind, fields can be manipulated over vast distances. In "Use of Weapons", a Culture warship uses its electromagnetic effectors to hack into a computer light years away.


title: The Culture

text: Artificial intelligences (and to a lesser degree, the non-sentient computers omnipresent in all material goods), form the backbone of the technological advances of the Culture. Not only are they the most advanced scientists and designers the Culture has, their lesser functions also oversee the vast (but usually hidden) production and maintenance capabilities of the society.


title: The Culture

text: The Culture has achieved artificial intelligences where each Mind has thought processing capabilities many orders of magnitude beyond that of human beings, and data storage drives which, if written out on paper and stored in filing cabinets, would cover thousands of planets skyscraper high (as described by one Mind in "Consider Phlebas"). Yet it has managed to condense these entities to a volume of several dozen cubic metres (though much of the contents and the operating structure are continually in hyperspace). Minds also demonstrate reaction times and multitasking abilities orders of magnitude greater than any sentient being; armed engagements between Culture and equivalent technological civilisations sometimes occur in timeframes as short as microseconds, and standard Orbital Minds are capable of running all of the vital systems on the Orbital while simultaneously conversing with millions of the inhabitants and observing phenomena in the surrounding regions of space.


title: The Culture

text: At the same time, it has achieved drone sentiences and capability of Special Circumstance proportions in forms that could fit easily within a human hand, and built extremely powerful (though not sentient) computers capable of fitting into tiny insect-like drones. Some utilitarian devices (such as spacesuits) are also provided with artificial sentience. These specific types of drones, like all other Culture AI, would also be considered citizens - though as described in the short story "Descendant", they may spend most of the time when their "body" is not in use in a form of remote-linked existence outside of it, or in a form of AI-level virtual reality.


title: The Culture

text: A major feature of its post-scarcity society, the Culture is obviously able to gather, manipulate, transfer and store vast amounts of energy. While not explained in detail in the novels, this involves antimatter and the "energy grid", a postulated energy field dividing the universe from neighboring anti-matter universes, and providing practically limitless energy. Transmission or storage of such energy is not explained, though these capabilities must be powerful as well, with tiny drones capable of very powerful manipulatory fields and forces.


title: The Culture

text: The Culture also uses various forms of energy manipulation as weapons, with "gridfire", a method of creating a dimensional rift to the energy grid, releasing astronomical amounts of energy into a region of non-hyperspace, being described as a sort of ultimate weapon more destructive than collapsed antimatter bombardment. One character in "Consider Phlebas" refers to gridfire as "the weaponry of the end of the universe". Gridfire resembles the zero-point energy used within many popular science fiction stories.


title: The Culture

text: The Culture (at least by the time of "The Player of Games") has developed a form of teleportation capable of transporting both living and unliving matter instantaneously via wormholes. This technology has not rendered spacecraft obsolete – in "Excession" a barely apple-sized drone was displaced no further than a light-second at maximum range (mass being a limiting factor determining range), a tiny distance in galactic terms. The process also still has a very small chance of failing and killing living beings, but the chance is described as being so small (1 in 61 million) that it normally only becomes an issue when transporting a large number of people and is only regularly brought up due to the Culture's safety conscious nature.


title: The Culture

text: Displacement is an integral part of Culture technology, being widely used for a range of applications from peaceful to belligerent. Displacing warheads into or around targets is one of the main forms of attack in space warfare in the Culture universe. "The Player of Games" mentions that drones can be displaced to catch a person falling from a cliff before they impact the ground, as well.


title: The Culture

text: Through "neural lace", a form of brain–computer interface that is implanted into the brains of young people and grows with them, the Culture has the capability to read and store the full sentience of any being, biological or artificial, and thus reactivate a stored being after its death. The neural lace also allows wireless communication with the Minds and databases. This also necessitates the capability to read thoughts, but as described in "Look to Windward", doing this without permission is considered taboo.


title: The Culture

text: Starships are living spaces, vehicles and ambassadors of the Culture. A proper Culture starship (as defined by hyperspace capability and the presence of a Mind to inhabit it) may range from several hundreds of metres to hundreds of kilometres. The latter may be inhabited by billions of beings and are artificial worlds in their own right, including whole ecosystems, and are considered to be self-contained representations of all aspects of Culture life and capability.


title: The Culture

text: The Culture (and most other space-faring species in its universe) use a form of Hyperspace-drive to achieve faster-than-light speeds. Banks has evolved a (self-confessedly) technobabble system of theoretical physics to describe the ships' acceleration and travel, using such concepts as "infraspace" and "ultraspace" and an "energy grid" between universes (from which the warp engines "push off" to achieve momentum). An "induced singularity" is used to access infra or ultra space from real space; once there, "engine fields" reach down to the Grid and gain power and traction from it as they travel at high speeds.


title: The Culture

text: These hyperspace engines do not use reaction mass and hence do not need to be mounted on the surface of the ship. They are described as being very dense exotic matter, which only reveals its complexity under a powerful microscope. Acceleration and maximum speed depend on the ratio of the mass of the ship to its engine mass. As with any other matter aboard, ships can gradually manufacture extra engine volume or break it down as needed. In "Excession" one of the largest ships of the Culture redesigns itself to be mostly engine ( Even more impressively, this is later discovered to be thanks to combining the hyperspace engine fields of thousands of semi-slaved warships which have been constructed in secret, and housed within the ship itself, and out of view) - and reaches a speed of 233,000 times lightspeed. Within the range of the Culture's influence in the galaxy, most ships would still take years of travelling to reach the more remote spots.


title: The Culture

text: Other than the engines used by larger Culture ships, there are a number of other propulsion methods such as gravitic drive at sublight speeds, with antimatter, fusion and other reaction engines occasionally seen with less advanced civilisations, or on Culture hobby craft.


title: The Culture

text: Warp engines can be very small, with Culture drones barely larger than fist-size described as being thus equipped. There is also at least one (apparently non-sentient) species (the "Chuy-Hirtsi" animal), that possesses the innate capability of warp travel. In "Consider Phlebas", it is being used as a military transport by the Idirans, but no further details are given.


title: The Culture

text: The Culture has highly advanced nanotechnology, though descriptions of such technology in the books is limited. Many of the described uses are by or for Special Circumstances, but there are no indications that the use of nanotechnology is limited in any way. (In a passage in one of the books, there is a brief reference to the question of sentience when comparing the human brain or a "pico-level substrate".)


title: The Culture

text: One of the primary clandestine uses of nanotechnology is information gathering. The Culture likes to be in the know, and as described in "Matter" "they tend to know everything." Aside from its vast network of sympathetic allies and wandering Culture citizens one of the primary ways that the Culture keeps track of important events is by the use of practically invisible nanobots capable of recording and transmitting their observations. This technique is described as being especially useful to track potentially dangerous people (such as ex-Special Circumstances agents). Via such nanotechnology, it is potentially possible for the Culture (or similarly advanced societies) to see everything happening on a given planet, orbital or any other habitat. The usage of such devices is limited by various treaties and agreements among the Involved.


title: The Culture

text: In addition, EDust assassins are potent Culture terror weapons, composed entirely of nano machines called EDust, or "Everything Dust." They are capable of taking almost any shape or form, including swarms of insects or entire humans or aliens, and possess powerful weaponry capable of levelling entire buildings.


title: The Culture

text: Much of the Culture's population lives on orbitals, vast artificial worlds that can accommodate billions of people. Others travel the galaxy in huge space ships such as General Systems Vehicles (GSVs) that can accommodate hundreds of millions of people. Almost no Culture citizens are described as living on planets, except when visiting other civilisations. The reason for this is partly because the Culture believes in containing its own expansion to self-constructed habitats, instead of colonising or conquering new planets. With the resources of the universe allowing permanent expansion (at least assuming non-exponential growth), this frees them from having to compete for living space.


title: The Culture

text: The Culture, and other civilisations in Banks' universe, are described as living in these various, often constructed habitats:


title: The Culture

text: These are vast, brown dwarf-sized bubbles of atmosphere enclosed by force fields, and (presumably) set up by an ancient advanced race at least one and a half billion years ago (see: Look to Windward). There is only minimal gravity within an airsphere. They are illuminated by moon-sized orbiting planetoids that emit enormous light beams.


title: The Culture

text: Citizens of the Culture live there only very occasionally as guests, usually to study the complex ecosystem of the airspheres and the dominant life-forms: the "dirigible behemothaurs" and "gigalithine lenticular entities", which may be described as inscrutable, ancient intelligences looking similar to a cross between gigantic blimps and whales. The airspheres slowly migrate around the galaxy, taking anywhere from 50 to 100 million years to complete one circuit. In the novels no one knows who created the airspheres or why, but it is presumed that whoever did has long since sublimed but may maintain some obscure link with the behemothaurs and lenticular entities. Guests in the airspheres are not allowed to use any force-field technology, though no reason has been offered for this prohibition.


title: The Culture

text: The airspheres resemble in some respects the orbit-sized ring of breathable atmosphere created by Larry Niven in "The Integral Trees", but spherical not toroidal, require a force field to retain their integrity, and arose by artificial rather than natural processes.


title: The Culture

text: One of the main types of habitats of the Culture, an orbital is a ring structure orbiting a star as would a megastructure akin to a bigger Bishop ring. Unlike a Ringworld or a Dyson Sphere, an orbital does not enclose the star (being much too small). Like a ringworld, the orbital rotates to provide an analog of gravity on the inner surface. A Culture orbital rotates about once every 24 hours and has gravity-like effect about the same as the gravity of Earth, making the diameter of the ring about , and ensuring that the inhabitants experience night and day. Orbitals feature prominently in many Culture stories.


title: The Culture

text: Though many other civilisations in the Culture books live on planets, the Culture as currently developed has little direct connection to on-planet existence. Banks has written that he presumes this to be an inherent consequence of space colonisation, and a foundation of the liberal nature of the Culture. A small number of home worlds of the founding member-species of the Culture receive a mention in passing, and a few hundred human-habitable worlds were colonised (some of them terraformed) before the Culture elected to turn towards artificial habitats, preferring to keep the planets it encounters wild. Since then, the Culture has come to look down on terraforming as inelegant, ecologically problematic and possibly even immoral. Less than one percent of the population of the Culture lives on planets, and many find the very concept somewhat bizarre.


title: The Culture

text: This attitude is not absolute though; in "Consider Phlebas", some Minds suggest testing a new technology on a "spare planet" (knowing that it could be destroyed in an antimatter explosion if unsuccessful). One could assume – from Minds' usual ethics – that such a planet would have been lifeless to start with. It is also quite possible, even probable, that the suggestion was not made in complete seriousness.


title: The Culture

text: Ringworld-like megastructures exist in the Culture universe; the texts refer to them simply as "Rings" (with a capital "R"). As opposed to the smaller orbitals which revolve around a star, these structures are massive and completely encircle a star. Banks does not describe these habitats in detail, but records one as having been destroyed (along with three Spheres) in the Idiran-Culture war. In "Matter", the Morthanveld people possesses ringworld-like structures made of innumerable various-sized tubes. Those structures, like Niven's Ringworld, encircle a star and are about the same size.


title: The Culture

text: These are asteroids and other non-planetary bodies hollowed out for habitation and usually spun for centrifugal artificial gravity. Rocks (with the exception of those used for secretive purposes) are described as having faster-than-light space drives, and thus can be considered a special form of spaceship. Like Orbitals, they are usually administered by one or more Minds.


title: The Culture

text: Rocks do not play a large part in most of the Culture stories, though their use as storage for mothballed military ships ("Pittance") and habitats ("Phage Rock", one of the founding communities of the Culture) are both key plot points in "Excession".


title: The Culture

text: Shellworlds are introduced in "Matter", and consist of multilayered levels of concentric spheres in four dimensions held up by countless titanic interior towers. Their extra dimensional characteristics render some products of Culture technology too dangerous to use and yet others ineffective, notably access to hyperspace. About 4000 were built millions of years ago as vast machines intended to cast a forcefield around the whole of the galaxy for unknown purposes; less than half of those remain at the time of "Matter", many having been destroyed by a departed species known as the Iln. The species that developed this technology, known as the Veil or the Involucra, are now lost, and many of the remaining shellworlds have become inhabited, often by many different species throughout their varying levels. Many still hold deadly secret defence mechanisms, often leading to great danger for their new inhabitants, giving them one of their other nicknames: Slaughter Worlds.


title: The Culture

text: Ships in the Culture are intelligent individuals, often of very large size, controlled by one or more Minds. The ship is considered by the Culture generally and the Mind itself to be the Mind's body (compare avatars). Some ships (GSVs, for example) are tens or even hundreds of kilometres in length and may have millions or even billions of residents who live on them full-time; together with Orbitals, such ships represent the main form of habitat for the Culture. Such large ships may temporarily contain smaller ships with their own populations, and/or manufacture such ships themselves.


title: The Culture

text: In "Use of Weapons", the protagonist Zakalwe is allowed to acclimatise himself to the Culture by wandering for days through the habitable levels of a ship (the GSV "Size Isn't Everything", which is described as over long), eating and sleeping at the many locations which provide food and accommodation throughout the structure and enjoying the various forms of contact possible with the friendly and accommodating inhabitants.


title: The Culture

text: Dyson spheres also exist in the Culture universe but receive only passing mention as "Spheres". Three spheres are recorded as having been destroyed in the Idiran-Culture war.


title: The Culture

text: The Culture, living mostly on massive spaceships and in artificial habitats, and also feeling no need for conquest in the typical sense of the word, possesses no borders. Its sphere of influence is better defined by the (current) concentration of Culture ships and habitats as well as the measure of effect its example and its interventions have already had on the "local" population of any galactic sector. As the Culture is also a very graduated and constantly evolving society, its societal boundaries are also constantly in flux (though they tend to be continually expanding during the novels), peacefully "absorbing" societies and individuals.


title: The Culture

text: While the Culture is one of the most advanced and most powerful of all galactic civilisations, it is still but one of the "high-level Involved" (called "Optimae" by some less advanced civilisations), the most powerful non-sublimed civilisations which mentor or control the others.


title: The Culture

text: An Involved society is a highly advanced group that has achieved galaxy-wide involvement with other cultures or societies. There are a few dozen Involved societies and hundreds or thousands of well-developed (interstellar) but insufficiently influential societies or cultures; there are also well-developed societies known as "galactically mature" which do not take a dynamic role in the galaxy as a whole. In the novels, the Culture might be considered the premier Involved society, or at least the most dynamic and energetic, especially given that the Culture itself is a growing multicultural fusion of Involved societies. The Involved are contrasted with the Sublimed, groups that have reached a high level of technical development and galactic influence but subsequently abandoned physical reality, ceasing to take serious interventionist interest in galactic civilisation. They are also contrasted with what some Culture people loosely refer to as "barbarians", societies of intelligent beings which lack the technical capacity to know about or take a serious role in their interstellar neighbourhood. There are also the elder civilisations, which are civilisations that reached the required level of technology for sublimation, but chose not to, and have retreated from the larger galactic meta-civilisation.


title: The Culture

text: The Involved are also contrasted with hegemonising swarms (a term used in several of Banks' Culture novels). These are entities that exist to convert as much of the universe as possible into more of themselves; most typically these are technological in nature, resembling more sophisticated forms of grey goo, but the term can be applied to cultures that are sufficiently single-minded in their devotion to mass conquest, control, and colonisation. Both the Culture and the author (in his "Notes on the Culture") find this behaviour quixotic and ridiculous. Most often, societies categorised as hegemonising swarms consist of species or groups newly arrived in the galactic community with highly expansionary and exploitative goals. The usage of the term "hegemonising swarm" in this context is considered derisive in the Culture and among other Involved and is used to indicate their low regard for those with these ambitions by comparing their behaviour to that of mindless self-replicating technology. The Culture's central moral dilemma regarding intervention in other societies can be construed as a conflict between the desire to help others and the desire to avoid becoming a hegemonising swarm themselves.


title: The Culture

text: Although they lead a comfortable life within the Culture, many of its citizens feel a need to be useful and to belong to a society that does not merely exist for their own sake but that also helps improve the lot of sentient beings throughout the galaxy. For that reason the Culture carries out "good works", covertly or overtly interfering in the development of lesser civilisations, with the main aim to gradually guide them towards less damaging paths. As Culture citizens see it these good works provide the Culture with a "moral right to exist".


title: The Culture

text: A group within the Culture, known as Contact, is responsible for its interactions (diplomatic or otherwise) with other civilisations. Non-Contact citizens are apparently not prevented from travelling or interacting with other civilisations, though the effort and potential danger involved in doing so alone makes it much more commonly the case for Culture people simply to join Contact if they long to "see the world". Further within Contact, an intelligence organisation named Special Circumstances exists to deal with interventions which require more covert behaviour; the interventionist approach that the Culture takes to advancing other societies may often create resentment in the affected civilisations and thus requires a rather delicate touch (see: "Look to Windward").


title: The Culture

text: In "Matter", it is described that there are a number of other galactic civilisations that come close to or potentially even surpass the Culture in power and sophistication. The Culture is very careful and considerate of these groupings, and while still trying to convince them of the Culture ideal, will be much less likely to openly interfere in their activities.


title: The Culture

text: In "Surface Detail", three more branches of Contact are described: Quietus, the Quietudinal Service, whose purview is dealing with those entities who have retired from biological existence into digital form and/or those who have died and been resurrected; Numina, which is described as having the charge of contact with races that have sublimed; and Restoria, a subset of Contact which focuses on containing and negating the threat of swarms of self-replicating creatures ("hegswarms").


title: The Culture

text: While the Culture is normally pacifist, Contact historically acts as its military arm in times of war and Special Circumstances can be considered its secret service and its military intelligence. During war, most of the strategic and tactical decisions are taken by the Minds, with apparently only a small number of especially gifted humans, the "Referrers", being involved in the top-level decisions, though they are not shown outside "Consider Phlebas". It is shown in "Consider Phlebas" that actual decisions to go to war (as opposed to purely defensive actions) are based on a vote of all Culture citizens, presumably after vigorous discussion within the whole society.


title: The Culture

text: It is described in various novels that the Culture is extremely reluctant to go to war, though it may start to prepare for it long before its actual commencement. In the Idiran-Culture War (possibly one of the most hard-fought wars for the normally extremely superior Culture forces), various star systems, stellar regions and many orbital habitats were overrun by the Idirans before the Culture had converted enough of its forces to military footing. The Culture Minds had had enough foresight to evacuate almost all its affected citizens (apparently numbering in the many billions) in time before actual hostilities reached them. As shown in "Player of Games", this is a standard Culture tactic, with its strong emphasis on protecting its citizens rather than sacrificing some of them for short-term goals.


title: The Culture

text: War within the Culture is mostly fought by the Culture's sentient warships, the most powerful of these being war-converted GSVs, which are described as powerful enough to oppose whole enemy fleets. The Culture has little use for conventional ground forces (as it rarely occupies enemy territory); combat drones equipped with knife missiles do appear in "Descendant" and "terror weapons" (basically intelligent, nano-form assassins) are mentioned in "Look to Windward", while infantry combat suits of great power (also usable as capable combat drones when without living occupants) are used in "Matter".


title: The Culture

text: The inner workings of The Culture are not especially described in detail though it is shown that the society is populated by an empowered, educated and augmented citizenry in a direct democracy or highly democratic and transparent system of self-governance. In comparisons to the real world, intended or not, the Culture could resemble various posited egalitarian societies including in the writings of Karl Marx, the end condition of communism after a withering away of the state, the anarchism of Bakunin and Fourier et al., libertarian socialism, council communism and anarcho-communism. Other characteristics of The Culture that are recognisable in real world politics include pacifism, post-capitalism, and transhumanism. Banks deliberately portrayed an imperfect utopia whose imperfection or weakness is related to its interaction with the 'other', that is, exterior civilisations and species that are sometimes variously warred with or mishandled through the Culture's Contact section which cannot always control its intrigues and the individuals it either 'employs' or interacts with. This 'dark side' of The Culture also alludes to or echoes mistakes and tragedies in 20th century Marxist–Leninist countries, although the Culture is generally portrayed as far more 'humane' and just.


title: The Culture

text: Comparisons are often made between the Culture and twentieth and twenty first century Western civilisation and nation-states, particularly their interventions in less-developed societies. These are often confused with regard to the author's assumed politics.


title: The Culture

text: Ben Collier has said that the Culture is a utopia carrying significantly greater moral legitimacy than the West's, by comparison, proto-democracies. While Culture interventions can seem similar at first to Western interventions, especially when considered with their democratising rhetoric, the argument is that the Culture operates completely without material need, and therefore without the possibility of baser motives. This is not to say that the Culture's motives are purely altruistic; a peaceful, enlightened universe full of good neighbours lacking ethnic, religious, and sexual chauvinisms is in the Culture's interest as well. Furthermore, the Culture's ideals, in many ways similar to those of the liberal perspective today, are to a much larger extent realised internally in comparison to the West.


title: The Culture

text: Examples are the use of mercenaries to perform the work that the Culture does not want to get their hands dirty with, and even outright threats of invasion (the Culture has issued ultimatums to other civilisations before). Some commentators have also argued that those Special Circumstances agents tasked with civilising foreign cultures (and thus potentially also changing them into a blander, more Culture-like state) are also those most likely to regret these changes, with parallels drawn to real-world special forces trained to operate within the cultural mindsets of foreign nations.


title: The Culture

text: The events of "Use of Weapons" are an example of just how dirty Special Circumstances will play in order to get their way and the conspiracy at the heart of the plot of "Excession" demonstrates how at least some Minds are prepared to risk killing sentient beings when they conclude that these actions are beneficial for the long term good. Special Circumstances represents a very small fraction of Contact, which itself is only a small fraction of the entire Culture, making it comparable again to size and influence of modern intelligence agencies.


title: The Culture

text: The Culture stories are largely about problems and paradoxes that confront liberal societies. The Culture itself is an "ideal-typical" liberal society; that is, as pure an example as one can reasonably imagine. It is highly egalitarian; the liberty of the individual is its most important value; and all actions and decisions are expected to be determined according to a standard of reasonability and sociability inculcated into all people through a progressive system of education. It is a society so beyond material scarcity that for almost all practical purposes its people can have and do what they want. If they do not like the behaviour or opinions of others, they can easily move to a more congenial Culture population centre (or Culture subgroup), and hence there is little need to enforce codes of behaviour.


title: The Culture

text: Even the Culture has to compromise its ideals where diplomacy and its own security are concerned. Contact, the group that handles these issues, and Special Circumstances, its secret service division, can employ only those on whose talents and emotional stability it can rely, and may even reject self-aware drones built for its purposes that fail to meet its requirements. Hence these divisions are regarded as the Culture's elite and membership is widely regarded as a prize; yet also something that can be shameful as it contradicts many of the Culture's moral codes.


title: The Culture

text: Within Contact and Special Circumstances, there are also inner circles that can take control in crises, somewhat contradictory to the ideal notions of democratic and open process the Culture espouses. Contact and Special Circumstances may suppress or delay the release of information, for example to avoid creating public pressure for actions they consider imprudent or to prevent other civilisations from exploiting certain situations.


title: The Culture

text: In dealing with less powerful regressive civilisations, the Culture usually intervenes discreetly, for example by protecting and discreetly supporting the more liberal elements, or subverting illiberal institutions. For instance, in "Use of Weapons", the Culture operates within a less advanced illiberal society through control of a business cartel which is known for its humanitarian and social development investments, as well as generic good Samaritanism. In "Excession", a sub-group of Minds conspires to provoke a war with the extremely sadistic Affront, although the conspiracy is foiled by a GSV that is a deep cover Special Circumstances agent. Only one story, "Consider Phlebas", pits the Culture against a highly illiberal society of approximately equal power: the aggressive, theocratic Idirans. Though they posed no immediate, direct threat to the Culture, the Culture declared war because it would have felt useless if it allowed the Idirans' ruthless expansion to continue. The Culture's decision was a value-judgement rather than a utilitarian calculation, and the "Peace Faction" within the Culture seceded. Later in the timeline of the Culture's universe, the Culture has reached a technological level at which most past civilisations have Sublimed, in other words disengaged from Galactic politics and from most physical interaction with other civilisations. The Culture continues to behave "like an idealistic adolescent".


title: The Culture

text: As of 2008, three stories force the Culture to consider its approach to more powerful civilisations. In one incident during the Culture-Idiran War, they strive to avoid offending a civilisation so advanced that it has disengaged from Galactic politics, and note that this hyper-advanced society is not a threat to either the welfare or the values of the Culture. In "Excession", an overwhelmingly more powerful individual from an extremely advanced civilisation is simply passing through on its way from one plane of the physical Reality to another, and there is no real interaction. In the third case it sets up teams to study a civilisation that is not threatening but is thought to have eliminated aggressors in the past.


title: The Culture

text: When asked in "Wired" magazine (June 1996) whether mankind's fate depends on having intelligent machines running things, as in the Culture, Banks replied:


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: The fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, also known in Italy as 25 Luglio (, ; "25 July"), came as a result of parallel plots led respectively by Count Dino Grandi and King Victor Emmanuel III during the spring and summer of 1943, culminating with a successful vote of no confidence against the Prime Minister Benito Mussolini at the meeting of the Grand Council of Fascism on 24–25 July 1943. As a result, a new government was established, putting an end to the 21 years of Fascist rule in the Kingdom of Italy, and Mussolini was placed under arrest.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: At the beginning of 1943, Italy was facing defeat. The collapse of the African front on 4 November 1942 and the Allied landings in North Africa on 8–12 November exposed Italy to an invasion of the Allied forces. The defeat of the Italian expeditionary force (ARMIR) in Russia, the heavy bombings of the cities, and the lack of food and fuel demoralized the population, the majority of whom wanted to end the war and denounce the alliance with Germany. Italy needed German aid in order to maintain control of Tunisia, the last stronghold of the Axis powers in Africa. Italy's Duce, Benito Mussolini, was persuaded that the war could be decided in the Mediterranean theater. On 29 April 1943, at the meeting in Klessheim, Hitler rejected Mussolini's proposition to seek a separate peace with Russia and move the bulk of the German Army south. The request for reinforcements to defend the bridgehead in Tunisia was refused by the Wehrmacht, which no longer trusted the Italian will to maintain resistance. Mussolini's health was another main factor of uncertainty. He was depressed and sick after being diagnosed with gastritis and duodenitis of a nervous origin. Because of his illness, the Duce was often forced to stay at home, depriving Italy of effective government.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: In this situation, several groups belonging to four different circles (the Royal Court, the anti-Fascist parties, the Fascists and the General Staff) began to look for a way out. Aristocrats, such as Crown Princess Marie-José, members of the upper class, and politicians belonging to the pre-Fascist elite independently started plots to establish contact with the Allies. Following the declaration of Casablanca, the Allies would only accept unconditional surrender. Despite the Crown Princess' involvement, the Anglo-Americans expected a move from higher-placed personalities, like the King, and disregarded contact with these groups.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: The anti-Fascist parties, weakened by 20 years of dictatorship, were still in an embryonic state. All except the communists and the republicans of the "Partito d’Azione" waited for a signal from King Victor Emmanuel III, whose inaction was prompted by his character, his fears and constitutional scruples, and the fact that the monarchy was likely finished regardless of how the war turned out. The King had considerable contempt towards the pre-Fascist politicians, whom he ironically called "revenants" ("ghosts" in French). He was also distrustful of those who claimed that the Anglo-Americans would not seek revenge on Italy.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: Victor Emmanuel III did retain his trust in Mussolini, and he hoped that the Duce could save the situation. The King kept his own counsel and isolated himself from anyone who tried to learn his intentions. Among them was the new Chief of the General Staff, General Vittorio Ambrosio, who was devoted to the King and hostile to the Germans. Ambrosio was persuaded that the war was lost for Italy, but he never took personal initiative to change the situation without first consulting the King. Ambrosio, with the help of Giuseppe Castellano and Giacomo Carboni (both of whom would play an important part in the events leading to the armistice of 8 September 1943), slowly proceeded to occupy several key positions in the armed forces with officials devoted to the King. He also tried to bring back as many of Italy's abroad forces as possible, but it was difficult to do so without raising suspicion from Germany.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: On 6 February 1943, Mussolini carried out the most wide-ranging government reshuffle in 21 years of Fascist power. Almost all of the ministers were changed, including the Duce's son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano, and Dino Grandi, Giuseppe Bottai, Guido Buffarini Guidi and Alessandro Pavolini. The situation was compromised, and the primary goal of the operation to placate public opinion about the Fascist Party failed. Among the new appointments, the new Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs (the Duce took over the department himself) Giuseppe Bastianini, was aware of the seriousness of the situation. Bastianini's strategy was twofold: like Mussolini, he tried to argue in favor of a peace between Germany and the USSR. He also aimed to create a block of Balkan countries (the junior Axis partners Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria) led by Italy who could act as a counterbalance to the excessive power of the German Reich in Europe. On 14 April, the Duce substituted the chief of police, Carmine Senise (a man of the King), with Lorenzo Chierici. Five days later he replaced the young and inexperienced secretary of the Party, Aldo Vidussoni, with Carlo Scorza. Mussolini wanted to galvanize the Party with the appointment of Scorza.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: The fall of Tunis on 13 May 1943 radically changed the strategic situation. It was important for Germany to control Italy, which had turned into an external stronghold of the Reich, because they were susceptible to invasion. The Germans developed plans for operations "Alarich" and "Konstantin", devoted respectively to the occupation of Italy and to the Balkan areas occupied by the Italian Army, in order to take control of Italy and disarm the Italian forces after their expected armistice with the Allies. In preparation, the Germans wanted to increase land forces in Italy. Ambrosio and Mussolini refused and asked only for more airplanes because they wanted to preserve Italian independence. On 11 June 1943, the Allies captured the island of Pantelleria, the first part of Italy to be lost. Pantelleria had been turned into a citadel by Mussolini, but – unlike Malta – it fell to the Allies without much resistance after a week-long heavy bombardment. It was now apparent that the next Allied move would be the invasion of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica or Greece.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: In mid-May, the King started to consider exiting the war after being persuaded by Duke Pietro d'Acquarone, Minister of the Royal House, who was worried about the future of the monarchy. Italian public opinion was starting to turn against the monarchy after the King's inaction. At the end of May, two high-ranking politicians of the pre-Fascist age, Ivanoe Bonomi and Marcello Soleri, were received by d'Acquarone and the King's "aide-de-camp", Gen. Puntoni. On 2 and 8 June, they were received in audience by the King where they pressed for the arrest of Mussolini and the nomination of a military government, but they were left frustrated by the monarchical inaction. On 30 June, Bonomi met Crown Prince Umberto and proposed three generals (Ambrosio, Marshal Pietro Badoglio and Enrico Caviglia) as Mussolini's potential successors. On 4 July, Badoglio was received by Umberto, who implied that the Crown was no longer opposed to a change in government. The following day, Ambrosio proposed that the King appoint Badoglio or Caviglia to head any government that replaced Mussolini. Caviglia, a high-ranking freemason, was considered too old for such a difficult task despite his anti-fascist stance. Badoglio, who had resigned as Chief of the General Staff after the Greece debacle in 1941, had become a bitter enemy of Mussolini and wanted revenge. He was a personal friend of Duke d'Acquarone, who had been his "aide-de-camp", and both – like Caviglia – were freemasons. A collaboration between the two Marshals was inconceivable because Caviglia hated Badoglio.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: On 4 June, the King received Dino Grandi, who was still president of the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations, despite being dropped from the cabinet. Grandi was one of the Fascist Party's top leaders, the "gerarchi." Despite being a close colleague of Mussolini for over 20 years, he was more of a right-wing conservative than a Fascist. He viewed Fascism as an ephemeral phenomenon confined to the lifespan of Mussolini. Grandi had often been considered the most likely successor to the Duce because of his diplomatic experience as the former foreign minister and ambassador in the UK and his position as a staunch enemy of Germany with a large friend circle in the British establishment. Regardless of his personal devotion to Mussolini, Grandi believed that the most effective way to serve him was to occasionally counteract his orders and give him the credit of any success. On 25 March 1943, Victor Emmanuel awarded him the highest royal honor, the "collare dell'Annunziata", which gave him unrestricted access to the Royal House. During his last meeting with the King before 25 July, Grandi described his bold plan to eliminate Mussolini and attack the Germans. Grandi compared Victor Emmanuel to the 18th-century Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus II, who switched from the French to the imperial alliance, rescuing the dynasty. All that the King needed was another Pietro Micca (the Savoyard soldier who became a national hero for his sacrifice in the defense of Turin in 1706 against the French), and Grandi proposed himself for this role. Victor Emmanuel countered that he was a constitutional monarch, so he could only move after a vote of the parliament or the Grand Council of Fascism. The King was opposed to making a sudden move that could be considered betrayal. The King asked Grandi to ease his action by activating the parliament and the Grand Council and keeping his trust in him. Grandi returned to his hometown, Bologna, to await new development with knowledge that the King was finally aware of the situation, while also anticipating his potential inaction.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: On 19 June 1943, the last cabinet meeting of the Fascist age took place. The Minister of Communication, Senator Vittorio Cini, a powerful Italian industrialist, confronted Mussolini about finding a time and way to exit the war. Cini resigned after the meeting which signaled the falter in Mussolini's charisma even among his own entourage. People devoted to him, including OVRA agents and the Germans, consistently told him that several plots were going on. The Duce never reacted, telling each one that they were reading too many crime novels or were affected by persecution mania. On 24 June, Mussolini gave his last important speech as prime minister, known as the "boot topping" () speech. The Duce promised that the only part of Italy that the Anglo-Americans would be able to occupy was the shore-line. He was misspoken in his effort to say they would only occupy Italy as corpses, and he used incorrect vocabulary. For many Italians, his confused and incoherent speech was the final proof that something was wrong with Mussolini.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: On the night of 10 July the Allies landed in Sicily. Despite expecting the invasion, the Italian forces were overwhelmed after initial resistance, and similar to Augusta (the island's most fortified stronghold), they collapsed without fighting. Within days, it became apparent that Sicily was going to be lost. On 16 July, Bastianini went to Palazzo Venezia (the Duce's seat) to show Mussolini a telegram to be sent to Hitler where he reproached the Germans for not sending reinforcements. After the Duce's approval, the undersecretary asked for authorization to establish contacts with the Allies. Mussolini agreed, under the condition of not being directly involved. The secret emissary was the Vatican banker, Giovanni Fummi, who was supposed to reach London via Madrid or Lisbon. On the same evening, Bastianini crossed the Tiber to meet Cardinal Maglione, Vatican Secretary of State, who received a document explaining the Italian position about a possible unilateral exit from the war.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: After the fall of Tunis and Pantelleria, the majority of Italy believed that the war had been lost. The landing in Sicily accelerated the crisis, and the lack of resistance shocked the Fascists, who questioned why the Duce was not reacting. Those who looked to the King or Mussolini were at a standstill, and it was time for Italy to find an institution that was suitable to take political action.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: Among the four existing state institutions, the Party, the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations, the Senate and the Grand Council, only the last two were suitable for action: the Senate because there were still quite a few anti- or pre-Fascist members, and the Grand Council since several members were against the Duce. A motion by 61 senators, on 22 July, asking to convene the Senate was blocked by Mussolini, and only Mussolini had the power to summon the Grand Council and determine its agenda. The only "gerarca" (except Roberto Farinacci, who started from opposite premises) with a clear plan to exit from the impasse was Dino Grandi. His idea was to depose Mussolini, let the King make a government without Fascists, and at the same time attack the German army in Italy. This could provide a chance that the declaration of Casablanca could be mitigated in the case of Italy. The new Party Secretary, Carlo Scorza, also developed his own plan. Like Farinacci, he thought the only solution was the political "embalming" of Mussolini and the pursuit of a total war. Farinacci acted in close cooperation with the Germans, but Scorza thought that the power should be assumed directly by the Party, which had been largely discredited in the previous few years. On 13 and 16 July, several Fascists led by Farinacci met in the main seat of the Party in Piazza Colonna and decided to go to Mussolini in Palazzo Venezia to ask for the convocation of the Grand Council. At the end of the meeting, Mussolini consented to convoke the supreme assembly of Fascism.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: The group was divided: Farinacci and Scorza were for a totalitarian solution together with Germany, the others were in favor of giving the emergency war powers back to the King. Farinacci was isolated, and none of the moderate "gerarchi" had sufficient political clout to take the lead in such a situation. On 15 July, the King met Badoglio – who had declared to friends that he would organize a "putsch" with or without the King – and informed him that he would be the new head of government. Victor Emmanuel said that he was against a political government, and Badoglio should not seek an armistice in the first phase.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: The fall of Sicily occurred in a matter of days, and the armed forces appeared incapable of resisting an invasion of mainland Italy without massive German help. Mussolini wrote to Hitler to request a meeting to discuss the situation in Italy, but the letter was never sent since the Führer – who got daily reports on Italy from his ambassador to the Vatican and Himmler agent, Eugen Dollmann, and was worried about the apathy of the Duce and the ongoing Italian military catastrophe – asked him to meet as soon as possible.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: The meeting took place on 19 July in the villa of Senator Achille Gaggia in Feltre. Mussolini, Bastianini and Ambrosio met with Hitler and the generals of the OKW to discuss the situation and the possible countermeasures. The German delegation included several generals, but neither Göring nor Ribbentrop were present because the Germans were focusing on the military aspects of the situation. Ambrosio carefully prepared for the meeting, telling Mussolini that his duty was to exit the war in the next 15 days. The Germans had lost faith in the Italians and were only interested in occupying northern and central Italy, leaving the Italian army alone to defend the country from the Allies. They also proposed that the Axis supreme command in the peninsula be taken over by a German general, such as Erwin Rommel. Hitler began the meeting by blaming the Italians for their weak military performance and asking for draconian measures. The meeting was interrupted by an Italian aide telling Mussolini that the Allies were currently heavily bombing Rome for the first time. Ambrosio and Bastianini pressed the Duce to tell Hitler that a political solution to the war was necessary for Italy, but Mussolini said that he had been tormented for months by the dilemma of leaving the alliance or continuing the war. Mussolini struggled to overcome the sense of inferiority he felt in the presence of Hitler and to speak frankly with his German colleague. Eventually, the Duce interrupted the meeting, which was scheduled to last 3 days, to Hitler's chagrin. The delegations returned to Belluno via train and after greeting Hitler in the afternoon, Mussolini returned to Rome flying his personal aircraft where he could see the eastern quarters of the city still burning.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: Grandi decided to move as a result of the inaction. In that same evening of 19 July, he left Bologna with a first draft of his Order of the Day ("Ordine del Giorno", OdG) to be presented to the Grand Council. He was able to reach Rome only one day later, and on the morning of the 21st he met Scorza, who told him that Mussolini had decided to convoke the Grand Council. It was finally the ""gioco grosso"", the great game, which Grandi had been waiting for.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: After the failure of the Feltre meeting and the first bombing of Rome, the crisis accelerated. The day after Feltre, 20 July, Mussolini met Ambrosio twice. During the second meeting, the Duce told him that he had decided to write to Hitler, confessing the need for Italy to abandon the alliance. Ambrosio was still angry about the missed opportunity to do this in Feltre and offered his resignation to the Duce, who rejected it. Mussolini was now useless for Ambrosio. Therefore, Ambrosio decided to set the "putsch" in motion.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: At the same time, Grandi and Luigi Federzoni, his close ally and Italian nationalist leader, were trying to estimate how many among the 27 members of the Grand Council would vote for his document. They concluded that of the 27 members, 4 were for it, 7 against and 16 undecided. Grandi could not reveal to his colleagues the real consequences of the approval of his OdG: the dismissal of Mussolini, the end of the Fascist Party, and war against Germany. Only a couple of "gerarchi" had the necessary political intelligence to understand it. The rest were still hopeful that the Duce, who had made their decisions for the last 21 years, could once again produce a miracle. Consequently, Grandi decided to write his OdG in a vague form and leave it open to interpretation. The OdG was divided into three parts. It began with a long, rhetorical appeal to the nation and the armed forces, praising them for their resistance to the invaders. In the second part, the document asked for the restoration of the pre-Fascist institutions and laws. The end of the document was an appeal to the King; he should assume supreme civil and military power according to Article 5 of the constitution of the kingdom. Grandi believed that the approval of the OdG would be the signal that the King was waiting for. On 21 July, Mussolini ordered Scorza to convoke the Grand Council, and he sent the invitation one day later. Grandi went to Scorza and explained his OdG on the same day, who agreed to support it. Scorza asked Grandi for a copy of his document, and he met Mussolini and showed him the OdG the next day. The Duce called it a "not admissible and cowardly" document. Afterwards, Scorza secretly prepared another OdG, similar to that of Grandi, but which asked for the concentration of power in the Fascist Party.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: On 22 July, the King met with Mussolini, who wanted to report the outcome of Feltre. According to Badoglio, Mussolini promised the King that he would disengage Italy from the war by September 15. The two-month delay can be explained by the fact that Bastianini had begun contact with the Allies which would need time to proceed, and Mussolini needed time to justify himself and Italy before the world for his betrayal. According to Badoglio, the King agreed with Mussolini, which is why the Duce was not worried about the outcome of the Grand Council meeting. A coup d'état was destined to fail without the aid of the King. At the end of the meeting, Mussolini was convinced that the King would stand by his side, and Victor Emmanuel was disappointed after telling him in vain that he should resign. The King was forced now to consider the "putsch" seriously, as he knew that Bastianini was trying to contact the Allies while Farinacci, the fascist hardliner, was organizing a "putsch" to depose him and Mussolini and bring Italy under direct German control. The real decision was made after knowing that the Grand Council had approved Grandi's OdG.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: At 17:30 on the same day, Grandi went to Palazzo Venezia under the official reason of presenting a new book about the Italian participation in the non-intervention committee in Spain to Mussolini. The meeting was scheduled to last 15 minutes, but it was prolonged until 18:45. The Chief of Police and the German "Feldmarschall" Kesselring were waiting to be received by the Duce. Mussolini later denied that he spoke with Grandi about the OdG, but it is apparent that Grandi, who loved the Duce, explained to him the consequences of his OdG and gave him a chance to save face and resign before the vote. In that case, the Grand Council's meeting would have been superfluous. Mussolini listened while Grandi was explaining the necessity of resigning to avoid a catastrophe, but at the end rebuked him saying that his conclusions were wrong since Germany was about to produce a decisive secret weapon. After that, Mussolini met Kesselring and the Chief of Police, Chierici, whom he confided in that it would have been easy to bring Grandi, Bottai and Ciano back to the fold as they were eager to be persuaded by him. On 23 July, Mussolini accepted the resignation of Cini, which was supposed to be a signal to his opponents. At the same time, Grandi, Federzoni, de Marsico (one of the best jurists in Italy), Bottai and Ciano modified the OdG by removing the interpretative introduction which explained the functions of the Grand Council. This demonstrated that the assembly had the constitutional power to remove Mussolini. According to the constitutionalists, the ""Leggi Fascistissime"" of December 1925 bent the Constitution, but did not break it. Because of these laws, the Duce ruled the country on behalf of the King, who always remained the source of executive power. If the Grand Council, which was the "trait d'union" between Fascism and the state, passed a vote of no confidence on the dictator, the King would have been entitled to remove him and nominate his successor. Ciano was acquainted with the OdG by Bottai, and Grandi was reluctant to accept him since he was the son-in-law of Mussolini and known for his superficial and inconstant character. However, Ciano insisted, unaware that this decision would provoke his death six months later in Verona. After that, Grandi had Farinacci visit his office in the parliament to show him his OdG. Farinacci told Grandi that he accepted the first part of the document, but that he did not agree with the rest: the military powers had to be given to the Germans, and Italy should start to fight the war by getting rid of Mussolini and the generals. Farinacci asked him for a copy of his OdG, and like Scorza, he used it to produce another OdG of his own. In the time left before the meeting, Grandi contacted other participants asking them to join his action.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: At 17:00 on 24 July 1943, the 28 members of the Grand Council met in the parrot room (the anteroom of the globe saloon, the office of Mussolini) in Palazzo Venezia. For the first time in the history of the Grand Council, neither the bodyguard of Mussolini, known as the Moschettieri del Duce, nor a detachment of the "M" battalions were present in the Renaissance palace. Fully armed blackshirts occupied the yard, the escalade and the antechamber. Mussolini did not want a stenographer, so no minutes of the meeting were taken.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: Grandi brought two hidden Breda hand grenades with him, in addition to revising his will and going to confession before the meeting, because he was under the impression that he may not leave the palace alive. Mussolini began the meeting by summarizing the history of the supreme command, trying to show that the attribution to him had been sponsored by Badoglio. He summarized the war events in the previous months, saying that he was ready to move the government to the Po valley. He concluded by asking the participants to give their personal opinion about what he called ""il dilemma"": the choice between war or peace. The Duce knew that, except for the three or four men against him, the "swamp" was undecided. He hoped that he could convince them to vote for the OdG Scorza, which gave only the military powers back to the King. After the Duce's introduction, De Bono (one of the two remaining living quadrumvirs) spoke, followed by Farinacci and De Vecchi (the other quadrumvir).


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: Grandi then read out and explained his document, concluding his speech with Mussolini's citation: "Let perish all the factions, so that the Nation can live". Next, Farinacci explained that his criticism ran opposite to Grandi's. While Grandi contended that Mussolini had betrayed the constitution, the real victim of betrayal was Fascism. Farinacci said that in order to win the war it was necessary to wipe out the democrats and liberals still nested in the Party, as well as the generals. He wanted to give the supreme command of the armed forces back to the King and unify the war direction with Germany, all of which would strengthen the Party. At the end of his speech he read his proposed OdG, which summarized all of these points. After some minor interventions, Bottai, the Fascist intellectual, made a purely political speech defending the OdG. This was followed by Ciano summarizing the history of the alliance with the Germans, and declaring that the Italians were not the traitors, but the betrayed. At 23:30, the Duce announced that, due to the length of the meeting, some comrades had asked for a postponement to the next day. At this point, Grandi called for a vote on his OdG, saying that it was shameful to go to sleep when Italian soldiers were dying for their fatherland. Never before in the 20-year history of the assembly had anyone asked for a vote. Since fascism was strongly anti-parliamentary, in all previous meetings only discussions summarized by the Duce had taken place. Mussolini unwillingly agreed, and at midnight the meeting was suspended for 10 minutes. In the meantime, Grandi collected the signatures to his OdG.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: After other interventions for and against the OdG, Mussolini told the participants to reflect on their decision since the approval of Grandi's OdG would imply the end of Fascism. He also cautioned against the illusion that the Anglo-Americans would be content with that, whereas what they really wanted was the end of Italy, which under his rule had become too strong. He said this was not about him, but he was sure that the war could be won. He had a "key" to accomplish that which he could not disclose, and he was not willing to let his throat be cut by the King. If the King would re-confirm his trust in him, the consequences for the supporters of Grandi's OdG would be dire. At the end of his speech, many of the "gerarchi" were visibly shaken. Grandi said that the Duce was blackmailing all of them, and if one must choose between fidelity to him and loyalty to the homeland, the choice was clear. At this point, Scorza caught everyone by surprise by presenting his own OdG. This proposed the nomination of the three war and interior ministers, all under Mussolini, and the concentration of power in the hands of the Fascist Party.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: His speech hurt the Duce's hopes of defeating Grandi since the Party was discredited among almost all the high-ranking Fascists. At the end of Scorza's intervention, Suardo announced that he was withdrawing his signature from the OdG Grandi and proposed to unify the three documents. Ciano asked Farinacci to withdraw his OdG and to ask Grandi to unify their two documents, but Farinacci refused. Bottai said that voting for Grandi had become a matter of honor. After other interventions and nine hours of discussion, Mussolini declared the meeting closed at two o'clock in the morning and ordered Scorza to proceed with the vote. They voted on the OdG Grandi first since it had the most proponents. Scorza was the first to vote, saying "no". After him, Marshal de Bono said "yes" and towed the undecided with him. In the end, the OdG Grandi obtained 19 votes for, with 8 against. Mussolini declared the document approved and asked who should bring the result to the King. Grandi answered: "You". The Duce concluded: "You provoked the regime crisis". After that, Scorza tried to call the ""saluto al duce"", but Mussolini stopped him.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: While all the other gerarchi left the palace, Mussolini remained with Scorza to discuss the legal value of the OdG. They concluded that it was just a "recommendation" to the King. Scorza suggested that Mussolini accept the OdG Grandi, but he refused since he would have found himself against his allies in the Grand Council. After that, before reaching his wife in Villa Torlonia, Mussolini telephoned his mistress, Claretta Petacci. During his conversation, which was bugged, he told her in desperation: "We arrived to the epilogue, the greatest watershed in history"; "The star darkened"; "It's all over now". Afterwards, Scorza accompanied the Duce to Villa Torlonia at 3:00 am on Sunday 25 July 1943.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: Grandi met with Pietro d'Acquarone until 06:00 after the Grand Council meeting to give him one of the two copies of the OdG. At 07:00, d'Acquarone informed the King. The King called Badoglio and told him that he would be the successor to Mussolini. The operation was due to start on 29 July. Mussolini went to work and found a letter on his desk from Tullio Cianetti, withdrawing his vote for the OdG Grandi. He ordered a search for Grandi from his office at Montecitorio, but he replied that he was not in Rome, potentially in an effort to give him the task of making contact with the Allies to prepare an armistice. Mussolini contacted the royal household in order to request an audience with the King to report on the previous night's meeting. This call unsettled the King, who had decided to arrest the Duce on that same day. The arrest occurred at 17:00 at Villa Savoia.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: General Castellano contacted the Commander-General of the Carabinieri, General Angelo Cerica, who organized the arrest. Lieutenant Colonel Giovanni Frignani oversaw the arrest of Mussolini by order of the king. Captain Paolo Vigneri of the Carabinieri was commissioned to carry out the arrest. He was summoned by telephone with his colleague Captain Raffaele Aversa around 14:00 on 25 July by Lieutenant Colonel Frignani, who explored their method of carrying out the order of arrest issued against the Duce. Vigneri was told to deliver Mussolini and complete the mission at any cost; he was provided with three non-commissioned officers of the Carabinieri (Bertuzzi, Gianfriglia and Zenon), who were allowed to use weapons if needed.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: In the meantime, Mussolini met the Japanese ambassador, Shinrokuro Hidaka, who had been waiting three weeks for a courtesy hearing. Hidaka heard Mussolini request that the Japanese Prime Minister, General Tojo, contact Hitler and convince him to reach an agreement with Stalin. Otherwise, Italy would be forced to abandon the alliance. In the afternoon, Mussolini visited the San Lorenzo quarter to observe the damage from the bombing. Back at Villa Torlonia, his wife, Donna Rachele, told him not to go to the appointment with the King since Victor Emmanuel could not be trusted. She told him: "You won’t be back", but he said that the King was his best friend.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: At 17:00, Mussolini, escorted by agents of the ""presidenziale"", arrived at the Villa Savoia where the King was waiting for him. He brought a copy of the law of the Grand Council, the OdG Grandi, and the letter of Cianetti. The Duce tried to convince Victor Emmanuel that the OdG had no legal value and that many of its supporters had changed their minds. The King told him that the country was broken, and the situation required him to quit his post; the new President of the Council of Ministers would be Marshal Badoglio. Mussolini feared for his future, but the King assured him that he would personally take care of his security and that of his family. Victor Emmanuel accompanied him to the door where he met Captain Vigneri. The Duce went to his car, but Captain Vigneri told him to go to a nearby ambulance for his security. Mussolini said there was no need for that, but followed him to the ambulance where the policemen were waiting. The ambulance left the park and rushed through Rome until reaching the "Podgora" army barracks in Trastevere before ultimately being moved to the "Legnano" Carabinieri barracks in Prati. The Duce received a kind letter from Badoglio the same night, explaining the necessity of his custody and asking him where he wanted to be brought. Mussolini asked to go to his summer residence, the Rocca delle Caminate, in Romagna, and he wrote to Badoglio that he was gladly willing to help him and his government. A transfer to his summer residence was not an option, and two days later he was accompanied to Gaeta, where the corvette "Persefone" brought him to the island of Ponza. He was transferred to the island of La Maddalena, and finally to Campo Imperatore, where he remained until 12 September 1943 when a German commando unit led by Otto Skorzeny freed him.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: In the meantime, all the telephone centrals were blocked. The new Chief of the Police, Senise, who was appointed at 17:30 by Duke d’Acquarone, ordered the "questore" of Rome to arrest all the "gerarchi" present in the capital. The EIAR, linked with the headquarters of the MVSN (the Blackshirts), was also isolated. The King had his first meeting with Badoglio. At 18:00, the Secretary of the Party, Scorza, was waiting to meet Mussolini and seeing that he did not come, he went to the headquarters of the Carabinieri. There he was arrested by Cerica, but released on his word after promising that both he and the Fascist party would be faithful to the new government. The same fate befell the MVSN: its Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Enzo Galbiati, advised Mussolini to arrest the 19 "gerarchi" who voted for the OdG Grandi, but he refused. After knowing about the arrest of Mussolini, he observed that the MVSN headquarters in Viale Romania had been surrounded by army units. Galbiati then ordered his men not to provoke incidents. Although the majority of his officers wanted to react, he called the Undersecretary to the Interior, Umberto Albini, after consulting with four generals and declaring that the MVSN would have "remained faithful to its principles, that is to serve the fatherland through its pair, Duce and King". Since the war against the Allies was continuing, the duty of each Blackshirt was to continue the fight. Badoglio had nothing to fear from the Blackshirts. Immediately, Galbiati was replaced by Quirino Armellini, an Army general, and arrested a few days later. The MVSN was then integrated into the "Regio Esercito" and disbanded.


title: Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy

text: At 22:45 on 25 July 1943, Titta Arista (nicknamed the ""voce littoria"") announced that Mussolini had resigned and that Badoglio was the new premier. The communique finished with the words: ""La guerra continua. L'Italia tiene fede alla parola data"" ("The war goes on. Italy will be true to its word"). After the end of the transmission, the population slowly understood what was going on. Thus Paolo Monelli, writer and journalist, describes what happened in the capital: All over Italy, men and women went outside and chiseled away the Fascist emblems and removed propaganda posters from the buildings. In Rome, the government locked up high-ranking Fascists in Forte Boccea, Rome's military jail at the time. The lack of violence was remarkable; the people's revenge was mostly limited to tearing off the "bug", the Fascist pin, from the jackets of the Fascists or forcing them to toast to Badoglio.