In Rome the Grand Council of Fascism held its final meeting on 24 July 1943. Tunis had fallen. There were clear indications that Anglo-American forces, fresh from their African desert victory and already advancing across Sicily, were preparing to invade mainland Italy from the south. The Grand Council meeting in Rome was a crisis meeting, which ran through the night, and culminated in an overwhelming vote of no confidence in the leader. In the morning the king met the leader and informed him that Marshal Badoglio would take over as leader of the government. Mussolini's arrest followed, as he left the meeting. The fall of fascism was followed by a rapid further transformation in Duccio Galimberti's approach. On the morning of 26 July 1943 he appeared on the first floor balcony of his studio-office, which overlooked the main in Cuneo and addressed a crowd made jubilant by news of the dictator's fall. His balcony appearance recalled the many balcony speeches delivered from the Palazzo Venezia balcony in Rome's "Piazza Venezia" by the fallen leader between 1929 and 1943, but there was nothing of the fallen fascist leader about Galimberti's message for his fellow townsfolk: