Throughout the summer of 1919, D’Annunzio cultivated a network of disgruntled Arditi shock-troops, demobilised officers, futurist artists, and sympathetic financiers. On September 11, he assembled just 186 volunteers at Ronchi di Monfalcone. He carried forged travel orders, commandeered army lorries, and broadcast his plan to every journalist who would listen. As the column advanced, deserters and nationalist units swelled it to roughly 2,500 men. At the outskirts of Fiume, an Italian general half-heartedly ordered the column to halt. D’Annunzio stepped forward, threw open his tunic, and dared the officer to shoot “a chest covered in Italy’s medals.” The general yielded, Allied troops stayed in their barracks, and by afternoon the poet rolled into the main square in a borrowed Fiat. He was greeted by a cheering Italian majority.