RIOTS IN ITALY

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 52, 2 March 1921, Page 7

RIOTS IN ITALY

SOCIALIST DISTURBANCES

SANGUINARY FIGHTING IN

MANY TOWNS

TROOPS RESTORE ORDER

(UNITED PRESS ASBOCIATION.—COPItIIOUT.)

MILAN, Ist March.

There has been an aggravated renewal of the disturbances in Florence. The Socialists erected barricades, resulting in conflicts with the troops, who stormed the barricades, using machine-guns. They have now posted field-guns in the streets.

There was sanguinary fighting between the Nationalists and Communist factions on Sunday in many towns, especially in Florence, where a bomb was. thrown amidst carabinieri during a patriotic procession. Twenty-six were wounded. The carabinieri slew the driver of a. train for refusing to remove his cap as the wounded were passing. This was the signal for savage excesses, the Na--tionalists looting, wrecking, and igniting Socialists' buildings, and murdering the secretary of the Kailwaymen's Union. The electrical workers plunged the city in darkness. ' Hotels, restaurants, and .places of amusement were closed. Cavalry and armoured-cars patrol the str-eefs. Students at Palermo, from the roofs of the university, rained tiles on the heads of the troops. The. latter ascended a church steeple, and fusillad--ed the students, killing six. (Received March 2, 9 a.m.) ROME, Ist March. The outbreak at Florence has been quelled. Nationalists inarched to the workers' quarter and found the Communists strongly entrenched and barricaded, from where they fired machineguns, rifles, and revolvers. The military surrounded the whole quarter and ! succeeded, after fierce fighting, in which eight were killed, in destroying the barricades. They arrested a hundred men and restored calm. The Nationalists marched in procession through the streets, and the populace everywhere acclaimed'the military, whose.behaviour was exemplary. .;" ' The newspapers point out that the outbreaks are local, not general, but they have reawakened everywhere the National spirit against Communism.