A vital factor in fascist success in Tuscany was its ability to attract mass support not only in the countryside but also in the towns. Just as in the provinces, however, so too in the cities the initial appeal of fascism was very limited. Until late 1920, when the socialist assumption of power in local government directly menaced vested interests and the economic crisis began to bite, Mussolini's movement had little impact in the urban centres of the region. The first urban fascists were those who were earliest affected by the postwar social and economic dislocations and who were most deeply opposed to the defeatism and lack of patriotic fervour of the socialist party — young demobilized junior officers and students. Especially for the veterans, the fasci seemed a welcome contrast to a home front that was apathetic or hostile. The state made virtually no provision for the men it discharged from the army, while in the postwar economic retrenchment there were few jobs for the returning veterans and almost none that offered the status and responsibility of a war-time command. Demobilization proved a traumatic experience as the return home ended in disillusionment, hardship, and unemployment.

This experience had a subversive impact upon the rank and file of the army, upon the peasants and workers who had been conscripted into the trenches.