Italian Government National Fascist Party The March on Rome (Italian: Marcia su Roma) was an organized mass demonstration in October 1922 which resulted in Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF) ascending to power in the Kingdom of Italy.

After a few weeks, Mussolini withdrew his support for Giolitti and his Italian Liberal Party (Partito Liberale Italiano, PLI) and attempted to work out a temporary truce with the Socialists by signing the so-called "Pact of Pacification" in the summer of 1921.

[12] From their new power base in Milan, the Fascists gathered the financial support of large companies who were determined to fight against "strikes, bolshevism and nationalization".

When Mussolini learned that Prime Minister Luigi Facta had given Gabriele D'Annunzio the mission to organize a large demonstration on 4 November 1922 to celebrate the national victory during the war, he decided to immediately implement the March.

[19] On the morning of 28 October, in Milan, Mussolini received a delegation of supportive industrialists at the Il Popolo d'Italia headquarters who urgently requested him to find a compromise with Antonio Salandra.

[20][21] Following an analysis of the footage of the time with the facial recognition technique, the presence alongside Mussolini of Raoul Vittorio Palermi, Grand Master of the Gran Loggia d'Italia, was also ascertained.

[24] The march itself was composed of fewer than 30,000 men, but the King in part feared a civil war since the squadristi had already taken control of the Po plain and most of the country, while Fascism was no longer seen as a threat to the establishment.

Many business and financial leaders believed it would be possible to manipulate Mussolini, whose early speeches and policies emphasized free market and laissez faire economics.

[26] This proved overly optimistic, as the Great Depression struck Italy along with the rest of the world in 1929, and Mussolini responded to it by increasing the role of the state in the economy to avoid a banking crisis.

[28] Back in 1922, in the aftermath of the March on Rome, Mussolini pretended to be willing to take a junior ministry in a Giolitti or Salandra cabinet, but then demanded the presidency of the Council of Ministers.

[29] Fearing a conflict with the fascists, the ruling class thus handed power to Mussolini, who went on to install the dictatorship after the 10 June 1924 assassination of Giacomo Matteotti – who had finished writing The Fascisti Exposed: A Year of Fascist Domination – executed by Amerigo Dumini, accused of being the leader of the "Italian Ceka", though there is no evidence for such an organization existing.

In a series of royal decrees between 1926 and 1938, the Kingdom of Italy expanded eligibility for the medal until by mid-1938 all members of the Blackshirts and the Italian Armed Forces were authorized to wear it.