Frances Stonor Saunders

Such an important book, so well researched and clear, and so devastating. I thought I was knowledgeable about the CIA's covert activities, but had no idea how it extended into the cultural realms, especially literature, but also music, art, and dance. How bizarre and unsettling to discover that the CIA was funding so many widely read literary magazines around the world, authors, orchestras (the Boston Pops world tours!), musicians, painters, as part of its "Psychological Warfare Division" among other entities, which were part of its cold war efforts.… (more)

Violet Gibson was born into wealth and position, daughter of an influential Anglo-Irish peer, but died incarcerated in an English mental asylum, surviving, perhaps surprisingly, into her eightieth year. On page 285 (of the Faber paperback edition) the reader can see a 1935 photograph of Violet feeding birds in the grounds of the hospital. Her right hand is extended, palm up, with two of the birds eating from it and others on the lawn before her.

At first glimpse, the photo appears sad, an elderly lady in a heavily walled yard who wears a nondescript, full-length coat, finding what? A sense of compassionate value that gives her life meaning? As Frances Stonor Saunders writes, ‘Denied the spiritual comforts of her (adopted) Catholic liturgy… she spent more and more time outside… where she waited patiently for the little birds.’ One is left to wonder if, in her afflicted mind, she was attempting to fulfil some part of the life aspiration of Saint Francis?

The Honourable Violet Gibson underwent a dramatic change in fortune because of her beliefs. Born to Edward Gibson Ashbourne, one-time Lord Chancellor of Ireland and his wife, Lady Frances, her family was staunchly Protestant and republican. Violet suffered physical and mental illness both as a child and a young woman, her temper tantrums a case in point. In her late teens, she is also said to have lost an unnamed fiancee, but the who and the how remain obscure. It was a time in which she studied voraciously, drawing continually closer to Catholic teachings, a faith to which she converted in her mid-twenties.

In so doing, she was unable to garner from Lord Ashbourne the paternal sympathy or understanding she so craved.

Violet moved briefly to France to work for pacifist organisations in Paris, later moving to Italy with the intention of distributing largesse. It was at a time, a century past, when Benito Mussolini was garnering greater influence in Italian society, soon elevated to lead the fascisti into power as their Duce. Mussolini’s style and influence had great bearing on Hitler who planned and followed much the same path in Germany in the two decades ahead.

Violet Gibson carried a revolver. Conflicted by her study of the Scriptures, with Exodus stating clearly it is wrong to murder, yet with the command later given for the Israelites to kill, she had an avowed intent to ‘shoot someone,’ although there’s little to indicate whether the shooting would be for personal protection or for more ulterior reasons. At one time, as a clue, she even told family the Pope should be eliminated because of his indifference to Modernism and Christian socialism.

In the event, the ‘someone’ she shot took the form of Mussolini, and this only months after an attempt to suicide by firing a bullet into her chest! Irreligious himself, the dictator-to-be said that if the Vatican were to renounce its temporal dreams, his Italy would furnish the church with all the material aid at the country's disposal. This dictum, added to a distaste for the man himself, including his policy and political direction, greatly disturbed her.

Violet had the weapon with her one fateful day in April 1926 when, heading for Fascist Party Headquarters in Palazzo del Littorio, she was attracted to a crowd at the Palazzo dei Conservatori. People had thronged there for a glimpse of Mussolini as he left following an address to a congress of surgeons.

Somehow, the slight woman - she stood barely five foot one in the old scale - was able to push her way through the cheering mob, managing to approach within eight feet of the leader. Raising her weapon, she fired twice. The first shot grazed the bridge of Mussolini’s nose, while the second jammed in the elderly firearm. She was quickly brought down and disarmed, but taken away by police before the crowd could do her any serious injury.

The enigmatic Violet Gibson who so nearly assassinated one of history’s most repugnant modern dictators was whisked away to St Andrew’s Hospital, Northampton, with evident complicity between the British and Italian governments. Despite appeals, especially for transfer from a state-run to a Catholic institution, it was to remain her home for the final thirty years of her life.

There are cogent arguments to the effect Violet Gibson was mad. But so too might many of the same arguments be applied to her fellow protagonist…

History boring? Gosh no, especially when so brilliantly researched and written by someone with Stonor Saunders’ storytelling ability, and about such an intriguing chapter in twentieth century history. The Woman Who Shot Mussolini may be a relatively little known story, but is a book that deserves to be read by everyone with an interest in European developments of that time, and since.

Five stars for a captivating read!… (more)