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Benito Mussolini

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Political People; World
War II

   Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini
   Benito Mussolini
     __________________________________________________________________

   Prime Minister of Italy
   In office
   31 October 1922 –  25 July 1943
   Preceded by Luigi Facta
   Succeeded by Pietro Badoglio (Provisional Military Government)
     __________________________________________________________________

   Head of the Italian Social Republic
   In office
   September 23, 1943 –  26 April 1945
   Preceded by none
   Succeeded by none
     __________________________________________________________________

   Born July 29, 1883
   Predappio, Forlì, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
   Died 28 April 1945
   Giulino di Mezzegra, Italy
   Political party National Fascist Party
   Spouse Rachele Mussolini
   Profession journalist
   Religion Probably atheist,

   but nevertheless baptized Roman Catholic in 1927

   Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini ( July 29, 1883 – April 28, 1945) was
   the prime minister and dictator of Italy from 1922 until 1943, when he
   was overthrown from power. He established a repressive fascist regime
   that valued nationalism, militarism, and anti-communism combined with
   strict censorship and state propaganda. Mussolini became a close ally
   of German dictator Adolf Hitler, whom he influenced. Mussolini entered
   World War II in June, 1940 on the side of Nazi Germany. Three years
   later, the Allies invaded Italy. In April 1945 Mussolini attempted to
   escape to German-controlled Austria, only to be captured and executed
   near Lake Como by Communist Resistance units.

Early years

   Mussolini was born in the village of Dovia di Predappio in the province
   of Forlì, in Emilia-Romagna on July 29, 1883 to Rosa and Alessandro
   Mussolini. He was named Benito after Mexican reformist President Benito
   Juárez; the names Andrea and Amilcare were for Italian socialists
   Andrea Costa and Amilcare Cipriani. His mother, Rosa Maltoni, was a
   teacher. His father, Alessandro, was a blacksmith who often encouraged
   Benito to disobey authority (other than his own). He adored his father,
   but his love was never reciprocated. Like his father, who was a member
   of the first Socialist International, Benito became a socialist. He was
   not baptized as a child.

   By age eight, he was banned from his mother's church for pinching
   people in the pews and throwing stones at them outside after church. He
   was sent to boarding school later that year and at age 11 was expelled
   for stabbing a fellow student in the hand, throwing an inkpot at a
   teacher, and using a stick to poke out his classmate's eyes. He did,
   however, receive good grades, and qualified as an elementary
   schoolmaster in 1901.

   In 1902 he emigrated to Switzerland to escape military service. During
   a period when he was unable to find a permanent job there, he was
   arrested for vagrancy and jailed for one night. Later, after becoming
   involved in the socialist movement, he was deported and returned to
   Italy to do his military service. He returned to Switzerland
   immediately, and a second attempt to deport him was halted when Swiss
   socialist parliamentarians held an emergency debate to discuss his
   treatment.

   Subsequently, a job was found for him in the city of Trento, which was
   ethnically Italian but then under the control of Austria-Hungary, in
   February 1909. There, he did office work for the local socialist party
   and edited its newspaper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore ("The future of the
   worker"). It did not take him long to make contact with irredentist,
   socialist politician and journalist Cesare Battisti, and to agree to
   write for and edit the latter's newspaper Il Popolo ("The People") in
   addition to the work he did for the party. For Battisti's publication
   he wrote a novel, Claudia Particella, l'amante del cardinale, which was
   published serially in 1910. He was later to dismiss it as written
   merely to smear the religious authorities. The novel was subsequently
   translated into English as The Cardinal's Mistress. In 1915 he had a
   son from Ida Dalser, a woman born in Sopramonte, a village near Trento.

   By the time his novel hit the pages of Il Popolo, Mussolini was already
   back in Italy. His polemic style and growing defiance of Royal
   authority and, as hinted, anti-clericalism put him in trouble with the
   authorities until he was finally deported at the end of September.
   After his return to Italy (prompted by his mother's illness and death)
   he joined the staff of the "Central Organ of the Socialist Party",
   Avanti! ("Forward!"). Mussolini's brother, Arnaldo, would later become
   the editor of Il Popolo d'Italia, the official newspaper of Benito
   Mussolini's Fascist Party (November 1922).

Birth of Fascism

   The term Fascism derives from the word " Fascio" which had existed in
   Italian politics for some time. A section of revolutionary syndicalists
   broke with the Socialists over the issue of Italy's entry into the
   First World War. The ambitious Mussolini quickly sided with them in
   1914, when the war broke out. These syndicalists formed a group called
   Fasci d'azione rivoluzionaria internazionalista in October 1914.
   Massimo Rocca and Tulio Masotti asked Mussolini to settle the
   contradiction of his support for interventionism and still being the
   editor of Avanti! and an official party functionary in the Socialist
   Party. Two weeks later, he joined the Milan fascio. Mussolini claimed
   that it would help strengthen a relatively new nation (which had been
   united only in the 1860s in the Risorgimento), although some would say
   that he wished for a collapse of society that would bring him to power.
   Italy was a member of the Triple Alliance, thereby allied with Imperial
   Germany and Austria-Hungary. It did not join the war in 1914 but did in
   1915 — as Mussolini wished — on the side of Britain and France.

   Called up for military service, Mussolini served at the front between
   September 1915 and February 1917. During that period he kept a war
   diary in which he prefigured himself as a charismatic hero leader of a
   socially conservative national warrior community. In reality, however,
   he spent most of the war in quiet sectors and saw very little action .
   It has always been thought that he was seriously wounded in grenade
   practice in 1917 and that this accounts for his return to Milan to the
   editorship of his paper. But recent research has shown that he in fact
   used what were only very minor injuries to cover the more serious
   affliction of neurosyphilis . Fascism became an organized political
   movement following a meeting in Milan on March 23, 1919 (Mussolini
   founded the Fasci di Combattimento on February 23, however). After
   failing in the 1919 elections, Mussolini at last entered parliament in
   1921. The Fascisti formed armed squads of war veterans called
   squadristi to terrorize anarchists, socialists and communists. The
   government rarely interfered. In return for the support of a group of
   industrialists and agrarians, Mussolini gave his approval (often
   active) to strikebreaking, and he abandoned revolutionary agitation.
   When the liberal governments of Giovanni Giolitti, Ivanoe Bonomi, and
   Luigi Facta failed to stop the spread of chaos, and after Fascists had
   organized the demonstrative and threatening Marcia su Roma (" March on
   Rome") ( October 28, 1922), Mussolini was invited by Vittorio Emanuele
   III to form a new government. At the age of 39, he became the youngest
   Premier in the history of Italy on October 31, 1922.

   Contrary to a common misconception, Mussolini did not become prime
   minister because of the March on Rome. King Victor Emmanuel III knew
   that if he did not choose a government under either the Fascist or
   Socialist party, Italy would soon be involved in a civil war.
   Accordingly, he asked Mussolini to become Prime Minister, obviating the
   need for the March on Rome. However, because fascists were already
   arriving from all around Italy, he decided to continue. In effect, the
   threatened seizure of power became nothing more than a victory parade.
   Mussolini and Gabriele D'Annunzio.
   Enlarge
   Mussolini and Gabriele D'Annunzio.

   Mussolini's fascist state, established nearly a decade before Adolf
   Hitler's rise to power, would provide a model for Hitler's later
   economic and political policies. Both a movement and a historical
   phenomenon, Italian Fascism was, in many respects, an adverse reaction
   to both the perceived failure of laissez-faire economics and fear of
   international Bolshevism (a short-lived Soviet influence was
   established in Bavaria just about this time), although trends in
   intellectual history, such as the breakdown of positivism and the
   general fatalism of postwar Europe were also factors. Fascism was a
   product of a general feeling of anxiety and fear among the middle-class
   of postwar Italy, arising out of a convergence of interrelated
   economic, political, and cultural pressures. Italy had no long-term
   tradition of parliamentary compromise, and public discourse took on an
   inflammatory tone on all sides.

   Under the banner of this authoritarian and nationalist ideology,
   Mussolini was able to exploit fears in an era in which postwar
   depression, the rise of a more militant left, and a feeling of national
   shame and humiliation stemming from its 'mutilated victory' at the
   hands of the World War I peace treaties seemed to converge. Italian
   influence in the Aegean and abroad seemed impotent and disregarded by
   the greater powers, and Italy lacked colonies. Such unfulfilled
   nationalistic aspirations tainted the reputation of liberalism and
   constitutionalism among many sectors of the Italian population. In
   addition, such democratic institutions had never grown to become firmly
   rooted in the young nation-state. And as the same postwar depression
   heightened the allure of Marxism among an urban proletariat even more
   disenfranchised than their continental counterparts, fear regarding the
   growing strength of trade unionism, communism, and socialism
   proliferated among the elite and the middle class.

   In this fluid situation, Mussolini took advantage of the opportunity
   and, rapidly abandoning his early socialist and republican program, put
   himself at the service of the antisocialist cause. The fascist
   militias, supported by the wealthy classes and by a large part of the
   state apparatus which saw in him the restorer of order, launched a
   violent offensive against the syndicalists and all political parties of
   a socialist or Catholic inspiration, particularly in the north of Italy
   ( Emilia Romagna, Toscana, etc.), causing numerous victims though the
   substantial indifference of the forces of order. These acts of violence
   were, in large part, provoked by fascist squadristi who were
   increasingly and openly supported by Dino Grandi, the only real
   competitor to Mussolini for the leadership of the fascist party until
   the Congress of Rome in 1921.

   The violence increased considerably from 1920 to 1922 until the March
   on Rome. Confronted by these badly armed and badly organized fascist
   militias attacking the Capital, King Victor Emmanuel III, preferring to
   avoid any spilling of blood, decided to appoint Mussolini, who at that
   moment had the support of about 22 deputies in Parliament, President of
   the Council. Victor Emmanuel continued to maintain control of the armed
   forces: if he had wanted to, he would have had no difficulties in
   booting Mussolini and the completely inferior fascist forces out of
   Rome. Therefore, it is not appropriate to refer to Mussolini's rise as
   a "coup d'état" since he obtained his post legally with the blessing of
   the monarch.

   As Prime Minister, the first years of Mussolini's reign were
   characterized by a coalition government composed of nationalists,
   liberals and populists and did not assume dictatorial connotations
   until the assassination of Matteotti. With the silencing of political
   dissent as the result of Matteotti's assassination, the function of
   Mussolini's government became comparable to that of authoritarian
   dictatorships. In domestic politics, Mussolini favoured the complete
   restoration of State authority, with the integration of the Fasci di
   Combattimento into the armed forces (the foundation in January 1923 of
   the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale) and the progressive
   identification of the Party with the State. In political and social
   economy, he produced legislation that favoured the wealthy industrial
   and agrarian classes (privatizations, liberalizations of rent laws and
   dismantlement of the unions).

   In June of 1923, a new majoritarian electoral law was approved which
   assigned two thirds of the seats in Parliament to the coalition which
   had obtained at least 25% of the votes. This law was punctually applied
   in the elections of April 6, 1924, in which the fascist "listone"
   obtained an extraordinary success, aided by the use of shenanigans,
   violence and intimidatory tactics against opponents.

   The assassination of the socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti, who had
   requested the annulment of the elections because of the irregularities
   committed, provoked a momentary crisis of the Mussolini government. The
   response of the opposition was weak and generally unresponsive (the
   secession of the Aventine), incapable of transforming their posturing
   into a mass antifascist action, was not sufficient to distance the
   ruling classes and the Monarchy from Mussolini who, on 3 January 1925,
   broke open the floodgates and, in a famous discourse in which he took
   upon himself all of the responsibility for the squadrist violence
   (though he did not mention the assassination of Matteotti), proclaimed
   a de facto dictatorship, suppressing every residual liberty and
   completing the identification of the Fascist Party with the State.

   From 1925 until the middle of the 1930s, fascism experienced little and
   isolated opposition, although that which it experienced was memorable,
   consisting in large part of communists such as Antonio Gramsci,
   socialists such as Pietro Nenni and liberals such as Piero Gobetti and
   Giovanni Amendola.

   While failing to outline a coherent program, fascism evolved into a new
   political and economic system that combined totalitarianism,
   nationalism, anti-communism and anti-liberalism in a state designed to
   bind all classes together under a corporatist system (The "Third Way").
   This was a new system in which the state seized control of the
   organization of vital industries. Under the banners of nationalism and
   state power, Fascism seemed to synthesize the glorious Roman past with
   a futuristic utopia.

   Despite the themes of social and economic reform in the initial Fascist
   manifesto of June 1919, the movement came to be supported by sections
   of the middle class fearful of socialism and communism. Industrialists
   and landowners supported the movement as a defense against labour
   militancy. Under threat of a fascist March on Rome in October 1922,
   Mussolini assumed the premiership of a right-wing coalition Cabinet
   initially including members of the pro-church Partito Popolare
   (People's Party).

Fascist dictatorship

   In the beginning Mussolini was given support from all political
   spectrums in Italy, from liberals to conservatives. Unbeknownst to
   them, he was dismantling parliament democratically with legislation
   that they had approved. By 1926 he had complete control over the
   Italian government and people.

Police state

   Skillfully using his secret but absolute control over the press, he
   gradually built up the legend of Il Duce. In 1925, he introduced the
   press laws which stated that all journalists must be registered
   fascists. However, not all newspapers were taken into public ownership
   and Corriere della Sera sold on average 10 times as many copies as the
   leading fascist newspaper 'Il Popolo D'Italia'.

   Nevertheless, Italy was soon a police state. The assassination of the
   prominent internationalist socialist Giacomo Matteotti in 1924, began a
   prolonged political crisis in Italy, which did not end until the
   beginning of 1925 when Mussolini asserted his personal authority over
   both country and party to establish a personal dictatorship.
   Mussolini's skill in propaganda was such that he had surprisingly
   little opposition to suppress. Nonetheless, he was "slightly wounded in
   the nose" when he was shot on 7 April 1926 by Violet Gibson, an Irish
   woman and sister of Baron Ashbourne. He also survived a failed
   assassination attempt in Rome by anarchist Gino Lucetti, and a planned
   attempt by American anarchist Michael Schirru, which ended with his
   capture and execution.

   At various times after 1922, Mussolini personally took over the
   ministries of the interior, of foreign affairs, of the colonies, of the
   corporations, of the armed services, and of public works. Sometimes he
   held as many as seven departments simultaneously, as well as the
   premiership. He was also head of the all-powerful Fascist Party (formed
   in 1921) and the armed local fascist militia, the MVSN, or
   "Blackshirts", that terrorized incipient resistances in the cities and
   provinces. He would later form an institutionalised militia that
   carried official state support, the OVRA. In this way he succeeded in
   keeping power in his own hands and preventing the emergence of any
   rival.

Economic projects

   During his 21-year rule, Mussolini launched several public construction
   programs and government initiatives throughout Italy to combat economic
   setbacks or unemployment levels. His earliest was Italy's equivalent of
   the Green Revolution, known as the "Battle of the Grain", which saw the
   foundation of 5,000 new farms and five new agricultural towns on land
   reclaimed by draining the Pontine Marshes. This plan effectively
   increased Italy's agricultural output by more than 50% and solved a
   national food shortage through a wide-scale cultivation of grain.
   Mussolini also initiated the "Battle for Land", a policy based on land
   reclamation outlined in 1928. The initiative experienced mixed success
   - while projects such as the draining of the Pontine Marsh in 1935 for
   agriculture were good for propaganda purposes, provided work for the
   unemployed and allowed for great land owners to control subsidies -
   other areas in the Battle for Land were not very successful. This
   program was inconsistent with the Battle for Grain (small plots of land
   were inappropriately allocated for large-scale wheat production) and
   the Pontine Marsh was even lost during World War II. Fewer than 10,000
   peasants resettled on the redistributed land and peasant poverty was
   still rife. In 1940, for instance, 90% of all Italian farmers owned 13%
   of farmland. The Battle for Land initiative was abandoned in 1940.

   He also combated an economic recession by introducing the "Gold for the
   Fatherland" initiative, by encouraging the public to voluntarily donate
   gold jewellery such as necklaces and wedding rings to government
   officials in exchange for steel armbands bearing the words "Gold for
   the Fatherland". The collected gold was then melted down and turned
   into gold bars, which were then distributed to the national banks.

   Efforts such as these gradually earned him the support and allegiance
   of people throughout Italy. Furthermore, he rebuilt the wealth and
   morale of the people, improved the national living standard, and gave
   Italy a highly-regarded diplomatic front in the courts of Europe.

Government by propaganda

   As dictator of Italy, Mussolini's foremost priority was the subjugation
   of the minds of the Italian people and using propaganda to do so;
   whether at home or abroad, and here his training as a journalist was
   invaluable. Press, radio, education, films — all were carefully
   supervised to manufacture the illusion that fascism was the doctrine of
   the 20th century, replacing liberalism and democracy. The principles of
   this doctrine were laid down in the article on fascism, written by
   Giovanni Gentile and signed by Mussolini that appeared in 1932 in the
   Enciclopedia Italiana. In 1929, a concordat with the Vatican was
   signed, the Lateran treaties, by which the Italian state was at last
   recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, and the independence of
   Vatican City was recognized by the Italian state. In 1927 Mussolini had
   himself baptized by a Roman Catholic priest in order to take away
   certain opposition from the side of Italy's Catholics, who were then
   still very critical of the modern Italian State, which had taken away
   papal property and virtually blackmailed several popes inside the
   Vatican. However, Mussolini never became known to be a practicing
   Catholic. Nevertheless, since 1927, and more even after 1929,
   Mussolini, with his anti-Communist doctrines, convinced many Catholics
   to actively support him.

   Under the dictatorship, the effectiveness of the parliamentary system
   was virtually abolished, though its forms were publicly preserved. The
   law codes were rewritten. All teachers in schools and universities had
   to swear an oath to defend the Fascist regime. Newspaper editors were
   all personally chosen by Mussolini himself, and no one who did not
   possess a certificate of approval from the Fascist party could practice
   journalism. These certificates were issued in secret, so the public had
   no idea of this ever occurring, thus skillfully creating the illusion
   of a "free press". The trade unions were also deprived of any
   independence and were integrated into what was called the "corporative"
   system. The aim (never completely achieved), inspired by medieval
   guilds, was to place all Italians in various professional organizations
   or "corporations", all of them under clandestine governmental control.
   Furthermore, that all schools, newspapers, etc. had to not write, for
   example, "the 13th of June 1933" but instead had to write "the 13th of
   June of the 11th year of Mussolini's power".

   Mussolini played up to his financial backers at first by transferring a
   number of industries from public to private ownership. But by the 1930s
   he had begun moving back to the opposite extreme of rigid governmental
   control of industry. A great deal of money was spent on highly visible
   public works, and on international prestige projects such as the SS Rex
   Blue Riband ocean liner and aeronautical achievements such as the
   world's fastest seaplane the Macchi M.C.72 and the transatlantic flying
   boat cruise of Italo Balbo, who was greeted with much fanfare in the
   United States when he landed in Chicago. Those projects earned respect
   from some countries, but the economy suffered from Mussolini's
   strenuous efforts to make Italy self-sufficient. A concentration on
   heavy industry proved problematic, perhaps because Italy lacked the
   basic resources.

Foreign policy

   In foreign policy, Mussolini soon shifted from the pacifist
   anti-imperialism of his lead-up to power, to an extreme form of
   aggressive nationalism. An early example of this was his bombardment of
   Corfu in 1923. Soon after this he succeeded in setting up a puppet
   regime in Albania and in ruthlessly consolidating Italian power in
   Libya, which was loosely a colony since 1912. It was his dream to make
   the Mediterranean mare nostrum ("our sea" in Latin), and established a
   large naval base on the Greek Island of Leros to enforce a strategic
   hold on the Eastern Mediterranean. In 1935, at the Stresa Conference,
   he helped create an anti-Hitler front in order to defend the
   independence of Austria. But his successful war against Abyssinia
   (Ethiopia) in 1935 and 1936 was opposed by the League of Nations and
   this eventually led to Hitler seeking an alliance with Fascist Italy.

Conquest of Ethiopia

   The invasion of Ethiopia was accomplished rapidly (the proclamation of
   Empire took place in May of 1936) and involved several atrocities such
   as the use of chemical weapons, ( mustard gas and phosgene) and the
   indiscriminate slaughter of much of the local population to prevent
   opposition.

   The armed forces disposed of a vast arsenal of grenades and bombs
   loaded with mustard gas which were dropped from airplanes. This
   substance was also sprayed directly from above like an "insecticide" on
   to enemy combatants and villages. It was Mussolini himself who
   authorized the use of the weapons: "Rome, 27 October '35. A.S.E.
   Graziani. The use of gas as an ultima ratio to overwhelm enemy
   resistance and in case of counterattack is authorized. Mussolini."
   "Rome, 28 December '35. A.S.E. Badoglio. Given the enemy system I have
   authorized V.E. the use even on a vast scale of any gas and
   flamethrowers. Mussolini." Mussolini and his generals sought to cloak
   the operations of chemical warfare in the utmost secrecy, but the
   crimes of the fascist army were revealed to the world through the
   denunciations of the International Red Cross and of many foreign
   observers. The Italian reaction to these revelations consisted in the
   "erroneous" bombardment (at least 19 times) of Red Cross tents posted
   in the areas of military encampment of the Ethiopian resistance. The
   orders imparted by Mussolini, with respect to the Ethiopian population,
   were very clear: "Rome, 5 June 1936. A.S.E. Graziani. All rebels taken
   prisoner must be killed. Mussolini." "Rome, 8 July 1936. A.S.E.
   Graziani. I have authorized once again V.E. to begin and systematically
   conduct a politics of terror and extermination of the rebels and the
   complicit population. Without the legge taglionis one cannot cure the
   infection in time. Await confirmation. Mussolini." The predominant part
   of the work of repression was carried out by Italians who, besides the
   bombs laced with mustard gas, instituted forced labor camps, installed
   public gallows, killed hostages, and mutilated the corpses of their
   enemies.Graziani ordered the elimination of captured guerrillas by way
   of throwing them out of airplanes in mid-flight. Many Italian troops
   had themselves photographed next to cadavers hanging from the gallows
   or hanging around chests full of decapitated heads. One episode in the
   Italian occupation of Ethiopia was the slaughter of Addis Ababa of
   February, 1937 which followed upon an attempt to assassinate Graziani.
   In the course of an official ceremony a bomb exploded next to the
   general. The response was immediate and cruel. The thirty or so
   Ethiopians present at the ceremony were impaled, and immediately after,
   the black shirts of the fascist Militias poured out into the streets of
   Addis Ababa where they tortured and killed all of the men, women and
   children that they encountered on their path. They also set fire to
   homes in order to prevent the inhabitants from leaving and organized
   the mass executions of groups of 50-100 people.
   Despite appearances, Hitler and Mussolini did not get along well
   personally
   Enlarge
   Despite appearances, Hitler and Mussolini did not get along well
   personally

Spanish Civil War

   His active intervention in 1936 - 1939 on the side of Franco in the
   Spanish Civil War ended any possibility of reconciliation with France
   and Britain. As a result, he had to accept the German annexation of
   Austria in 1938 and the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1939. At the
   Munich Conference in September 1938 he posed as a moderate working for
   European peace. But his "axis" with Germany was confirmed when he made
   the " Pact of Steel" with Hitler in May 1939. Members of TIGR, a
   Slovene anti-fascist group, plotted to kill Mussolini in Kobarid in
   1938, but their attempt was unsuccessful.

The Axis of Blood and Steel

   The term " Axis Powers" was coined by Mussolini, in November 1936, when
   he spoke of a Rome-Berlin axis in reference to the treaty of friendship
   signed between Italy and Germany on October 25, 1936. His "Axis" with
   Germany was confirmed when he made another treaty with Germany in May
   1939. Mussolini described the relationship with Germany as a "Pact of
   Steel", something he had earlier referred to as a "Pact of Blood".

   Clearly the subordinate partner, Mussolini followed the Nazis and
   adopted racial policies that led to persecution of the Jews and the
   creation of apartheid in the Italian empire. Before this, Jews were not
   specifically persecuted by Mussolini's government, and were permitted
   to be high members of the fascist party.

   Mussolini did not approve of all of Hitler's policies. In fact, most
   historians believe Mussolini's Race Laws, enacted in 1938 and often
   left unenforced, were more a move to appease Hitler than anything else.
   Like many Italians, who were known for their cosmopolitan culture,
   tolerance and "easy-goingness", Mussolini seemed mostly indifferent to
   race, believing that anyone could be a good Italian if they did what
   they were told. In fact, he once jokingly remarked that if Hitler's
   racial theories were to be taken seriously, then the "... eskimos
   should be considered the highest form of life on Earth....".

   In April, 1938, Mussolini privately suggested that the Vatican consider
   excommunicating Adolf Hitler. To this day, it is unknown whether the
   Catholic Church considered excommunicating Hitler a plausible decision.

World War II

   Mussolini and Hitler.
   Enlarge
   Mussolini and Hitler.

   As World War II (WWII) approached, Mussolini announced his intention of
   annexing Malta, Corsica, and Tunis. He spoke of creating a " New Roman
   Empire" that would stretch east to Palestine and south through Libya
   and Egypt to Kenya. In April 1939, after a brief war, he annexed
   Albania. Mussolini decided to remain 'non-belligerent' in the larger
   conflict until he was quite certain which side would win.

   On June 10, 1940 Mussolini finally declared war on Britain and France.
   On October 28, 1940, Mussolini attacked Greece. But after initial
   success, the Italians were repelled by a relentless Greek counterattack
   which resulted in the loss of ¼ of Albania, until Hitler was forced to
   assist him by attacking Greece as well. In June 1941, Mussolini
   declared war on the Soviet Union and in December also declared war on
   the United States.

   In 1943, following the Axis defeat in North Africa, setbacks on the
   Eastern Front and the Anglo-American landing in Sicily, most of
   Mussolini's colleagues (including Count Galeazzo Ciano, the foreign
   minister and Mussolini's son-in-law) turned against him at a meeting of
   the Fascist Grand Council on July 25, 1943. King Vittorio Emanuele III
   called Mussolini to his palace and stripped the dictator of his power.
   Upon leaving the palace, Mussolini was swiftly arrested. He was then
   sent to Gran Sasso, a mountain resort in central Italy ( Abruzzo), in
   complete isolation.
   Hitler and Mussolini parade through the streets of Vienna after the
   successful Anschluss of Austria.
   Enlarge
   Hitler and Mussolini parade through the streets of Vienna after the
   successful Anschluss of Austria.

   Mussolini was replaced by the Maresciallo d'Italia Pietro Badoglio, who
   immediately declared in a famous speech "La guerra continua a fianco
   dell'alleato germanico" ("The war continues at the side of our Germanic
   allies"), but was instead working to negotiate a surrender; 45 days
   later ( September 8) Badoglio would sign an armistice with Allied
   troops. Badoglio and the King, fearing the German retaliation, fled
   from Rome, leaving the entire Italian Army without orders. Many units
   simply disbanded, some reached the Allied-controlled zone and
   surrendered, a few decided to start a partisan war against the Nazis,
   and a few rejected the switch of sides and remained allied with the
   Germans.

   Rescued a few days later in a spectacular raid planned by General Kurt
   Student and carried out by Otto Skorzeny, Mussolini set up the Italian
   Social Republic, a fascist state (RSI, Repubblica Sociale Italiana) in
   northern Italy. He lived in Gargnano during this period, but was little
   more than a puppet under the protection of his liberators. In this "
   Republic of Salò", Mussolini returned to his earlier ideas of socialism
   and collectivization. He also executed some of the fascist leaders who
   had abandoned him, including his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano. During
   this period he wrote his memoirs, and along with his autobiographical
   writings of 1928, would be combined and published by Da Capo Press as
   My Rise and Fall.

Death

   On April 27, 1945, in the afternoon, near the village of Dongo ( Lake
   Como), just before the Allied armies reached Milan, as they headed for
   Chiavenna to board a plane to escape to Austria, Mussolini and his
   mistress Clara Petacci were caught by Italian communist partisans.
   After several unsuccessful attempts to take them to Como they were
   brought to Mezzegra. They spent their last night in the house of the De
   Maria family.

   The day after, April 28, Mussolini and his mistress were both shot,
   along with their fifteen-man train, mostly ministers and officials of
   the Italian Social Republic. The executions took place in the small
   village of Giulino di Mezzegra, and, at least according to the official
   version of events, were conducted by "Colonnello Valerio" (Walter
   Audisio), the communist partisan commander after being given the order
   to kill Mussolini, by the National Liberation Committee. However, a
   witness, Bruno Giovanni Lonati - another partisan in the
   Socialist-Communist Garibaldi brigades though not a Communist -
   abruptly confessed in the 1990s to have killed Mussolini and Claretta
   with an Italian-English officer from the British secret services,
   called 'John'. Lonati's version has never been confirmed, but neither
   has it been debunked; a polygraph test on Lonati proved inconclusive.
   Cross marking the place in Mezzegra where Mussolini was shot.
   Enlarge
   Cross marking the place in Mezzegra where Mussolini was shot.

   On April 29 the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress were found hung
   upside down on meat hooks in Piazzale Loreto (Milan), along with those
   of other fascists, to show the population the dictator was dead. This
   was both to discourage any fascists to continue the fight and an act of
   revenge for the hanging of many partisans in the same place by Axis
   authorities. The corpse of the deposed leader became subject to
   ridicule and abuse by many who felt oppressed by the former dictator's
   policies.

   Mussolini's body was eventually taken down and later buried in an
   unmarked grave in a Milan cemetery until the 1950s, when his body was
   moved back to Predappio. It was stolen briefly in the late 1950s by
   neo-fascists, then again returned to Predappio. Here he was buried in a
   crypt (the only posthumous honour granted to Mussolini; his tomb is
   flanked by marble fasces and a large idealized marble bust of himself
   sits above the tomb.)

Legacy

   Mussolini was survived by his wife, Donna Rachele Mussolini, by two
   sons, Vittorio and Romano Mussolini, and his daughters Edda, the widow
   of Count Ciano and Anna Maria. A third son, Bruno, had been killed in
   an air accident while flying a P108 bomber on a test mission, on 7
   August 1941. Mussolini's granddaughter Alessandra Mussolini, daughter
   of Romano Mussolini, is currently a member of the European Parliament
   for the neo-fascist party Alternativa Sociale; other relatives of Edda
   (Castrianni) moved to England after the Second World War.

   The fascist ideology Mussolini espoused in his lifetime is still
   popular in some quarters in modern-day Italy.

Mussolini in popular culture

   Mussolini was a major character in Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry
   Pournelle, where he acted as guide to the protagonist during his
   journey through Hell.

   The last few days of Mussolini's life have been depicted in Carlo
   Lizzani's movie Mussolini: Ultimo atto (Mussolini: The last act, 1974).

   On a popular animation website Newgrounds, a video included Mussolini
   as a villain in a flash animation entitled Ultimate Showdown which
   gained a massive cult following in late 2005.

   Mussolini is spoofed in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator where he
   is named Benzino Napaloni, dictator of Bacteria and is portrayed by
   Jack Oakie.

Writings of Mussolini

     * Giovanni Hus ( Jan Hus), il veridico Rome (1913) Published in
       America under John Hus (New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1929)
       Republished by the Italian Book Co., NY (1939) under John Hus, the
       Veracious.
     * The Cardinal's Mistress (trans. Hiram Motherwell, New York: Albert
       and Charles Boni, 1928)
     * There is an essay on "The Doctrine of Fascism" credited to Benito
       Mussolini but ghost written by Giovanni Gentile that appeared in
       the 1932 edition of the Enciclopedia Italiana, and excerpts can be
       read at Doctrine of Fascism. There are also links to the complete
       text.
     * La Mia Vita ("My Life"), Mussolini's autobiography written upon
       request of the American Ambassador in Rome (Child). Mussolini, at
       first not interested, decided to dictate the story of his life to
       Arnaldo Mussolini, his brother. The story covers the period up to
       1929, includes Mussolini's personal thoughts on Italian Politics
       and the reasons that motivated his new revolutionary idea. It
       covers the march on Rome and the beginning of the dictatorship and
       includes some of his most famous speeches in the Italian Parliament
       (Oct 1924, Jan 1925).

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