The Mussolini Connection - The Order of Bath

Just as in 1904 George VI's grandfather Edward VII took the Foreign Policy decision to bring England into a close Foreign Policy alliance with France following the Royal Visit of 1904 and the "Entente Cordiale" ( a deal which brought with it secret military arrangements for the Defence of France and the inevitable involvement into a Miltary Alliance with a Repressive and Reactionary Imperial Russia) so too did George VI's father George V enter into a close Anglo-Italian Friendship which lasted despite the arrival of Mussolini in 1922 after the Fascist March on Rome was recognised by George V's friend King Victor Emanuelle III.

 June 1924 saw the Murder of Socialist MP Giacomo Matteotti under Mussolini's conivance at the hands of Fascist Assassins.

British Intelligence in the form of MI6 Officer, member of the Anti-Socialist Union and Conservative MP Samuel Hoare had been from 1917 bankrolling the rise of Benito Mussolini's and the Italian Fascists with MI5 Money  £6,000 per week (in today's money) and now in May 1923 King George and Queen Mary arrived by Special Train in Rome, to greet the Italian Dictator Musssolini and the Italian King. To top that they presented Mussolini with the Royal Cross of the Order of Bath and the following year the Italian King arrived in London to be greeted by King George V and his sons (Prince of Wales and Duke of York) with an Honour guard of British and Italian Fascists in Blackshirts. A wreath was placed on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Cenotaph and the Italian King and Royals were entertained at a Hospital Ball given by Mrs Ronnie Grenville,attended by the newly married Yorks, followed by a Buckingham Palace State Dinner and tour of the British Empire Exhibition. As the Yorks dined Mussolini was giving orders for the beating and Kidnap of his opponents culminating in the kidnap and  murder of Socialist MP Giacomo Matteotti, which parallels the disappearance of British Socialist MP Victor Grayson in 1920. This was the second time Mussolini had targeted Matteotti who had exposed the corruption and intrigues of the Fascists, Matteotti had been kidnapped in 1921 by Fascists and then released.

While Trade Unionists and Labour Politicians protested the murder, the reaction in Rome led to an opposition boycott of the Italian Parliament, a cover-up and the paving of the way for total dictatorship. Conservative Politicians courted Mussolini including Neville Chamberlain's half-brother Austen, and in 1926 King George V sent a letter of regret at the attempted assasination of Mussolini. In 1927 George V awarded Fascist Airman Commander Di Pinedo a Royal Air Force Cross, and in 1930 came the Visit of The Duke of York to meet Mussolini himself.