tomorrow." In 1917 and 1918, as the war continued, Mussolini and Il Popolo d'Italia received great funding from major arms manufacturers and businessmen in Milan. Historian Denis Mack Smith writes that "possibly this inflow of money from big business in no way affected the politics of his paper," but that Mussolini's enemies asked, "why these firms would support such a small newspaper unless it was for services rendered." In 1919, after the end of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles resulted in Italy obtaining South Tyrol, Trentino, Istria, and Trieste from Austria-Hungary. Italian nationalists also wanted Fiume and the region of Dalmatia on the Adriatic coast; hence they felt treated unfairly and spoke of a "mutilated victory". The Italian special forces from the war, known as the Arditi, were angry about the problems in Italy. Mussolini sympathised with them, claiming he shared their war experiences; hence they joined his movement, eventually becoming the Squadrismo. Mussolini used his newspaper in 1919 to espouse an eclectic mix of "dramatic and eye-catching" proposals inspired by views from across the political spectrum, as he was "far more concerned with tactics than with ideas" and discovered that inconsistency did not bother his readers. Mussolini at this time "appeared successively as champion of the League and then nationalist, as socialist and then conservative, as a monarchist and then republican" and actively wished to keep all his political options open. Foundation of the Fasci The Fasci Italiani di Combattimento was founded by Mussolini and a group of between fifty and two hundred supporters who met in a hall provided by Milanese businessmen in the Piazza San Sepolcro on 23 March 1919. There was a great deal of confusion regarding what the new organisation officially stood for. In general, its stances were radically different from those of later fascism, as the early Fasci proclaimed its opposition to censorship, militarism and dictatorship. Mussolini wrote that "we are libertarians above all, loving liberty for everyone, even for our enemies." On the same occasion, he also said that freedom of thought and speech were among the "highest expressions of human civilization." Mussolini gave two speeches at the meeting on 23 March 1919, which contained a catch-all series of proposals intended to appeal to both the Left and the Right. For the Left, there were proposals to make Italy a republic based on equal suffrage for both sexes (at the time,