The Greek Islands (2011)
“To the Duce, when he arrived on the scene with all his addle-pated notions about Italy’s supremacy in the Mediterranean, the island of roses was especially important because of its strategic position. It is, after all, the third largest Greek island in area after Crete and Euboea. Not only that. The Black-shirts, in the first burst of auto-intoxication, drunk on the new folklore, believed that they were in some sense the inheritors of all the martial traditions of the Ancient Order of the Knights of Jerusalem. This order had once reigned supreme here, withstanding the full weight of the Turks for more than two hundred years; and when at long last they were forced to yield and evacuate the island, the six hundred knights of the order had repulsed the attacks of an army numbering one hundred thousand for more than six months. This was a story of heroism and devotion which naturally appealed to the Fascists, who wanted to enshrine the exploits of the knights in some visible way. The Rhod...es of that epoch, they decided, must be reconstructed as accurately as possible so that no one would forget such a heroic period in the island’s long history.MoreLess
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