Benito Mussolini
Duce of Fascism | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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In office 23 March 1919 – 28 April 1945 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Movement established | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Movement abolished | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Member of the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 23 March 1939 – 2 August 1943 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Member of the Chamber of Deputies | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 11 June 1921 – 22 March 1939 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini 29 July 1883 Giulino di Mezzegra, Como, Italian Social Republic | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cause of death | Summary execution | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Resting place | San Cassiano cemetery, Predappio, Italy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Political party | PNF (1921–1943) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Relatives | Mussolini family | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Military service | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Allegiance | Kingdom of Italy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Branch/service | Royal Italian Army | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Years of service | 1915–1917 (active) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Unit | 11th Bersaglieri Regiment | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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a. ^ As Head of Government, Prime Minister, Secretary of State from 24 December 1925 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (
Mussolini was originally a socialist politician and a journalist at the
Mussolini's foreign policy was based on the fascist doctrine of "
The wars of the 1930s, although victorious, had cost Italy enormous resources, leaving the country unprepared for the upcoming
In late April 1945, with Allied victory imminent, Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci attempted to flee to Switzerland, but they were captured by Italian communist partisans and summarily executed on 28 April near Lake Como, and their bodies were strung up by the heels outside a service station in Milan.
Early life
Mussolini was born on 29 July 1883 in
Benito Mussolini's father, Alessandro Mussolini, was a blacksmith and a socialist,[1] while his mother, Rosa (née Maltoni), was a devout Catholic schoolteacher.[2] Given his father's political leanings, Mussolini was named Benito after liberal Mexican president Benito Juárez, while his middle names, Andrea and Amilcare, were for Italian socialists Andrea Costa and Amilcare Cipriani.[3] In return the mother obtained that he be baptised at birth.[2] Benito was the eldest of his parents' three children. His siblings Arnaldo and Edvige followed.[4]
As a young boy, Mussolini would spend some time helping his father in his smithy.
Mussolini was sent to a
Emigration to Switzerland and military service
In July 1902, Mussolini
, but was unable to find a permanent job.During this time he studied the ideas of the philosopher
Mussolini became active in the Italian socialist movement in Switzerland, working for the paper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore, organising meetings, giving speeches to workers, and serving as secretary of the Italian workers' union in
In December 1904, Mussolini returned to Italy to take advantage of an amnesty for desertion from the military. He had been convicted for this in absentia.[10] Since a condition for being pardoned was serving in the army, he joined the corps of the Bersaglieri in Forlì on 30 December 1904.[16] After serving for two years in the military (from January 1905 until September 1906), he returned to teaching.[17]
Political journalist, intellectual and socialist
In February 1909,[18] Mussolini again left Italy, this time to take the job as the secretary of the labour party in the Italian-speaking city of Trento, which at the time was part of Austria-Hungary (it is now within Italy). He also did office work for the local Socialist Party, and edited its newspaper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore (The Future of the Worker). Returning to Italy, he spent a brief time in Milan, and in 1910 he returned to his hometown of Forlì, where he edited the weekly Lotta di classe (The Class Struggle).
Mussolini thought of himself as an intellectual and was considered to be well-read. He read avidly; his favourites in European philosophy included Sorel, the Italian Futurist
During this time, he published Il Trentino veduto da un Socialista (Trentino as viewed by a Socialist) in the radical periodical La Voce.[21] He also wrote several essays about German literature, some stories, and one novel: L'amante del Cardinale: Claudia Particella, romanzo storico (The Cardinal's Mistress). This novel he co-wrote with Santi Corvaja, and it was published as a serial book in the Trento newspaper Il Popolo. It was released in instalments from 20 January to 11 May 1910.[22] The novel was bitterly anticlerical, and years later was withdrawn from circulation after Mussolini made a truce with the Vatican.[1]
He had become one of Italy's most prominent socialists. In September 1911, Mussolini participated in a riot, led by socialists, against the Italian war in Libya. He bitterly denounced Italy's "imperialist war", an action that earned him a five-month jail term.[23] After his release, he helped expel Ivanoe Bonomi and Leonida Bissolati from the Socialist Party, as they were two "revisionists" who had supported the war.
In 1912, he became a member of the National Directorate of the
In 1913, he published Giovanni Hus, il veridico (Jan Hus, true prophet), an historical and political biography about the life and mission of the Czech ecclesiastic reformer
Mussolini rejected egalitarianism,[30] a core doctrine of socialism.[30] He was influenced by Nietzsche's anti-Christian ideas and negation of God's existence.[31] Mussolini felt that socialism had faltered, in view of the failures of Marxist determinism and social democratic reformism, and believed that Nietzsche's ideas would strengthen socialism. Mussolini's writings came to reflect an abandonment of Marxism and egalitarianism in favour of Nietzsche's übermensch concept and anti-egalitarianism.[31]
Expulsion from the Italian Socialist Party
When
Mussolini initially held official support for the party's decision and, in an August 1914 article, Mussolini wrote "Down with the War. We remain neutral." He saw the war as an opportunity, both for his own ambitions as well as those of socialists and Italians. He was influenced by
Mussolini further justified his position by denouncing the
As Mussolini's support for the intervention solidified, he came into conflict with socialists who opposed the war. He attacked the opponents of the war and claimed that those proletarians who supported pacifism were out of step with the proletarians who had joined the rising interventionist vanguard that was preparing Italy for a revolutionary war. He began to criticise the Italian Socialist Party and socialism itself for having failed to recognise the national problems that had led to the outbreak of the war.[41] He was expelled from the party for his support of intervention.
The following excerpts are from a police report prepared by the Inspector-General of Public Security in Milan, G. Gasti, that describe his background and his position on the First World War that resulted in his ousting from the Italian Socialist Party. The Inspector General wrote:
Professor Benito Mussolini, ... 38, revolutionary socialist, has a police record; elementary school teacher qualified to teach in secondary schools; former first secretary of the Chambers in Cesena, Forlì, and Ravenna; after 1912 editor of the newspaper Avanti! to which he gave a violent suggestive and intransigent orientation. In October 1914, finding himself in opposition to the directorate of the Italian Socialist party because he advocated a kind of active neutrality on the part of Italy in the War of the Nations against the party's tendency of absolute neutrality, he withdrew on the twentieth of that month from the directorate of Avanti! Then on the fifteenth of November [1914], thereafter, he initiated publication of the newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia, in which he supported—in sharp contrast to Avanti! and amid bitter polemics against that newspaper and its chief backers—the thesis of Italian intervention in the war against the militarism of the Central Empires. For this reason he was accused of moral and political unworthiness and the party thereupon decided to expel him ... Thereafter he ... undertook a very active campaign in behalf of Italian intervention, participating in demonstrations in the piazzas and writing quite violent articles in Popolo d'Italia ...[25]
In his summary, the Inspector also noted:
He was the ideal editor of Avanti! for the Socialists. In that line of work he was greatly esteemed and beloved. Some of his former comrades and admirers still confess that there was no one who understood better how to interpret the spirit of the proletariat and there was no one who did not observe his apostasy with sorrow. This came about not for reasons of self-interest or money. He was a sincere and passionate advocate, first of vigilant and armed neutrality, and later of war; and he did not believe that he was compromising with his personal and political honesty by making use of every means—no matter where they came from or wherever he might obtain them—to pay for his newspaper, his program and his line of action. This was his initial line. It is difficult to say to what extent his socialist convictions (which he never either openly or privately abjure) may have been sacrificed in the course of the indispensable financial deals which were necessary for the continuation of the struggle in which he was engaged ... But assuming these modifications did take place ... he always wanted to give the appearance of still being a socialist, and he fooled himself into thinking that this was the case.[42]
Beginning of Fascism and service in World War I
After being ousted by the Italian Socialist Party for his support of Italian intervention, Mussolini made a radical transformation, ending his support for
On 5 December 1914, Mussolini denounced orthodox socialism for failing to recognise that the war had made national identity and loyalty more significant than class distinction.[41] He fully demonstrated his transformation in a speech that acknowledged the nation as an entity, a notion he had rejected prior to the war, saying:
The nation has not disappeared. We used to believe that the concept was totally without substance. Instead we see the nation arise as a palpitating reality before us! ... Class cannot destroy the nation. Class reveals itself as a collection of interests—but the nation is a history of sentiments, traditions, language, culture, and race. Class can become an integral part of the nation, but the one cannot eclipse the other.[45]
The class struggle is a vain formula, without effect and consequence wherever one finds a people that has not integrated itself into its proper linguistic and racial confines—where the national problem has not been definitely resolved. In such circumstances the class movement finds itself impaired by an inauspicious historic climate.[46]
Mussolini continued to promote the need of a revolutionary vanguard elite to lead society. He no longer advocated a proletarian vanguard, but instead a vanguard led by dynamic and revolutionary people of any social class.[46] Though he denounced orthodox socialism and class conflict, he maintained at the time that he was a nationalist socialist and a supporter of the legacy of nationalist socialists in Italy's history, such as Giuseppe Garibaldi, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Carlo Pisacane. As for the Italian Socialist Party and its support of orthodox socialism, he claimed that his failure as a member of the party to revitalise and transform it to recognise the contemporary reality revealed the hopelessness of orthodox socialism as outdated and a failure.[47] This perception of the failure of orthodox socialism in the light of the outbreak of World War I was not solely held by Mussolini; other pro-interventionist Italian socialists such as Filippo Corridoni and Sergio Panunzio had also denounced classical Marxism in favour of intervention.[48]
These basic political views and principles formed the basis of Mussolini's newly formed political movement, the Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria in 1914, who called themselves Fascisti (Fascists).
Mussolini became an ally with the irredentist politician and journalist Cesare Battisti.[25] When World War I started, Mussolini, like many Italian nationalists, volunteered to fight. He was turned down because of his radical Socialism and told to wait for his reserve call up. He was called up on 31 August and reported for duty with his old unit, the Bersaglieri. After a two-week refresher course he was sent to Isonzo front where he took part in the Second Battle of the Isonzo, September 1915. His unit also took part in the Third Battle of the Isonzo, October 1915.[52]
The Inspector General continued:
He was promoted to the rank of corporal "for merit in war". The promotion was recommended because of his exemplary conduct and fighting quality, his mental calmness and lack of concern for discomfort, his zeal and regularity in carrying out his assignments, where he was always first in every task involving labor and fortitude.[25]
Mussolini's military experience is told in his work Diario di guerra. Overall, he totalled about nine months of active, front-line trench warfare. During this time, he contracted
On 25 December 1915, in Treviglio, he contracted a marriage with his compatriot Rachele Guidi, who had already borne him a daughter, Edda, at Forlì in 1910. In 1915, he had a son with Ida Dalser, a woman born in Sopramonte, a village near Trento.[9][3][54] He legally recognised this son on 11 January 1916.
Rise to power
Formation of the National Fascist Party
By the time he returned from service in the Allied forces of World War I, very little remained of Mussolini the socialist. Indeed, he was now convinced that socialism as a doctrine had largely been a failure. In 1917 Mussolini got his start in politics with the help of a £100 weekly wage (the equivalent of £7100 as of 2020[update]) from the British security service MI5, to keep anti-war protestors at home and to publish pro-war propaganda. This help was authorised by Sir Samuel Hoare, who was posted in Italy at a time when Britain feared the unreliability of that ally in the war, and the possibility of the anti-war movement causing factory strikes.[55] In early 1918 Mussolini called for the emergence of a man "ruthless and energetic enough to make a clean sweep" to revive the Italian nation.[56] Much later Mussolini said he felt by 1919 "Socialism as a doctrine was already dead; it continued to exist only as a grudge".[57] On 23 March 1919 Mussolini re-formed the Milan fascio as the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (Italian Combat Squad), consisting of 200 members.[58]
The ideological basis for fascism came from a number of sources. Mussolini drew from the works of
The idea behind Mussolini's foreign policy was that of
Borrowing the idea first developed by
Though
In the same way, Mussolini argued that Italy was right to follow an
Mussolini and the fascists managed to be simultaneously
March on Rome
In the night between 27 and 28 October 1922, about 30,000 Fascist blackshirts gathered in Rome to demand the resignation of liberal Prime Minister
Appointment as Prime Minister
As Prime Minister, the first years of Mussolini's rule were characterised by a right-wing coalition government composed of Fascists, nationalists, liberals, and two Catholic clerics from the
In 1923, Mussolini sent Italian forces to invade Corfu during the Corfu incident. In the end, the League of Nations proved powerless, and Greece was forced to comply with Italian demands.
Acerbo Law
In June 1923, the government passed the Acerbo Law, which transformed Italy into a single national constituency. It also granted a two-thirds majority of the seats in Parliament to the party or group of parties that received at least 25% of the votes.[77] This law applied in the elections of 6 April 1924. The national alliance, consisting of Fascists, most of the old Liberals and others, won 64% of the vote.
Squadristi violence
The assassination of the socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti, who had requested that the elections be annulled because of the irregularities,[78] provoked a momentary crisis in the Mussolini government. Mussolini ordered a cover-up, but witnesses saw the car that transported Matteotti's body parked outside Matteotti's residence, which linked Amerigo Dumini to the murder.
Mussolini later confessed that a few resolute men could have altered public opinion and started a coup that would have swept fascism away. Dumini was imprisoned for two years. On his release, Dumini allegedly told other people that Mussolini was responsible, for which he served further prison time.
The opposition parties responded weakly or were generally unresponsive. Many of the socialists, liberals, and moderates boycotted Parliament in the Aventine Secession, hoping to force Victor Emmanuel to dismiss Mussolini.
On 31 December 1924,
Fascist Italy
Organizational innovations
German-American historian Konrad Jarausch has argued that Mussolini was responsible for an integrated suite of political innovations that made fascism a powerful force in Europe. First, he went beyond the vague promise of future national renewal, and proved the movement could actually seize power and operate a comprehensive government in a major country along fascist lines. Second, the movement claimed to represent the entire national community, not a fragment such as the working class or the aristocracy. He made a significant effort to include the previously alienated Catholic element. He defined public roles for the main sectors of the business community rather than allowing it to operate backstage. Third, he developed a cult of one-man leadership that focused media attention and national debate on his own personality. As a former journalist, Mussolini proved highly adept at exploiting all forms of mass media, including such new forms as motion pictures and radio. Fourth, he created a mass membership party, with free programs for young men, young women, and various other groups who could therefore be more readily mobilised and monitored. He shut down all alternative political formations and parties (but this step was not an innovation by any means). Like all dictators he made liberal use of the threat of extrajudicial violence, as well as actual violence by his Blackshirts, to frighten his opposition.[81]
Police state
Between 1925 and 1927, Mussolini progressively dismantled virtually all constitutional and conventional restraints on his power and built a
While Italy occupied former
On 7 April 1926, Mussolini survived a first assassination attempt by
All other parties were outlawed following Zamboni's assassination attempt in 1926, though in practice Italy had been a
In accordance with the new electoral law, the general elections took the form of a plebiscite in which voters were presented with a single PNF-dominated list. According to official figures, the list was approved by 98.43% of voters.[91]
The "Pacification of Libya"
In 1919, the Italian state had brought in a series of liberal reforms in Libya that allowed education in Arabic and Berber and allowed for the possibility that the Libyans might become Italian citizens. As for overall strategy, it is necessary to create a significant and clear separation between the controlled population and the rebel formations. I do not hide the significance and seriousness of this measure, which might be the ruin of the subdued population ... But now the course has been set, and we must carry it out to the end, even if the entire population of Cyrenaica must perish.[95] On 3 January 1933, Mussolini told the diplomat Baron Pompei Aloisi that the French in Tunisia had made an "appalling blunder" by permitting sex between the French and the Tunisians, which he predicted would lead to the French degenerating into a nation of "half-castes", and to prevent the same thing happening to the Italians gave orders to Marshal Badoglio that miscegenation be made a crime in Libya.[96]
Economic policy
Corporatism |
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Mussolini launched several public construction programs and government initiatives throughout Italy to combat economic setbacks or unemployment levels. His earliest (and one of the best known) was the
Mussolini also initiated the "Battle for Land", a policy based on land reclamation outlined in 1928. The initiative had a 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 Wheat (small plots of land were inappropriately allocated for large-scale wheat production), and the Pontine Marsh was lost during World War II. Fewer than 10,000 peasants resettled on the redistributed land, and peasant poverty remained high. The Battle for Land initiative was abandoned in 1940.
In 1930, in "
Government control of business was part of Mussolini's policy planning. By 1935, he claimed that three-quarters of Italian businesses were under state control. Later that year, Mussolini issued several edicts to further control the economy, e.g. forcing banks, businesses, and private citizens to surrender all foreign-issued stock and bond holdings to the Bank of Italy. In 1936, he imposed
, instituting high barriers on trade with most countries except Germany.In 1943, Mussolini proposed the theory of economic
Railways
Mussolini was keen to take the credit for major public works in Italy, particularly the railway system.[100] His reported overhauling of the railway network led to the popular saying, "Say what you like about Mussolini, he made the trains run on time."[100] Kenneth Roberts, journalist and novelist, wrote in 1924:
The difference between the Italian railway service in 1919, 1920 and 1921 and that which obtained during the first year of the Mussolini regime was almost beyond belief. The cars were clean, the employees were snappy and courteous, and trains arrived at and left the stations on time — not fifteen minutes late, and not five minutes late; but on the minute.[101]
In fact, the improvement in Italy's dire post-war railway system had begun before Mussolini took power.[100][102] The improvement was also more apparent than real. Bergen Evans wrote in 1954:
The author was employed as a courier by the Franco-Belgique Tours Company in the summer of 1930, the height of Mussolini's heyday, when a fascist guard rode on every train, and is willing to make an affidavit to the effect that most Italian trains on which he travelled were not on schedule—or near it. There must be thousands who can support this attestation. It's a trifle, but it's worth nailing down.[103]
George Seldes wrote in 1936 that although the express trains carrying tourists generally—though not always—ran on schedule, the same was not true for the smaller lines, where delays were frequent,[100] while Ruth Ben-Ghiat has said that "they improved the lines that had a political meaning to them".[103]
Propaganda and cult of personality
Mussolini's foremost priority was the subjugation of the minds of the Italian people through the use of
Mussolini also portrayed himself as a valiant sportsman and a skilled musician. All teachers in schools and universities had to swear an oath to defend the fascist regime. Newspaper editors were all personally chosen by Mussolini, and only those in possession of a certificate of approval from the Fascist Party could practice journalism. These certificates were issued in secret; Mussolini thus skilfully created the illusion of a "free press". The trade unions were also deprived of any independence and were integrated into what was called the
Large sums of money were spent on highly visible public works and on international prestige projects. These included as the Blue Riband ocean liner SS Rex; setting aeronautical records with the world's fastest seaplane, the Macchi M.C.72; and the transatlantic flying boat cruise of Italo Balbo, which was greeted with much fanfare in the United States when it landed in Chicago in 1933.
The principles of the
Culture
This section needs additional citations for verification. (October 2018) |
Nationalists in the years after World War I thought of themselves as combating the liberal and domineering institutions created by
After the March on Rome that brought Mussolini to power, the Fascists started considering ways to politicise Italian society, with an accent on education. Mussolini assigned former
According to Mussolini: "Fascist education is moral, physical, social, and military: it aims to create a complete and harmoniously developed human, a fascist one according to our views". Mussolini structured this process taking in view the emotional side of childhood: "Childhood and adolescence alike ... cannot be fed solely by concerts, theories, and abstract teaching. The truth we aim to teach them should appeal foremost to their fantasy, to their hearts, and only then to their minds".
The "educational value set through action and example" was to replace the established approaches. Fascism opposed its version of idealism to prevalent rationalism, and used the Opera Nazionale Balilla to circumvent educational tradition by imposing the collective and hierarchy, as well as Mussolini's own personality cult.
Another important constituent of the Fascist cultural policy was
The 1929 treaty included a legal provision whereby the Italian government would protect the honour and dignity of the Pope by prosecuting offenders.[108] Mussolini had had his children baptised in 1923 and himself re-baptised by a Catholic priest in 1927.[109] After 1929, Mussolini, with his anti-communist doctrines, convinced many Catholics to actively support him.
Foreign policy
In foreign policy, Mussolini was pragmatic and opportunistic. At the center of his vision lay the dream to forge a new Roman Empire in Africa and the Balkans, vindicating the so-called "mutilated victory" of 1918 imposed by the "plutodemocracies" (Britain and France) that betrayed the Treaty of London and usurped the supposed "natural right" of Italy to achieve supremacy in the Mediterranean basin.[110][111] However, in the 1920s, given Germany's weakness, post-war reconstruction problems and the question of reparations, the situation of Europe was too unfavorable to advocate an openly revisionist approach to the Treaty of Versailles. In the 1920s, Italy's foreign policy was based on the traditional idea of Italy maintaining "equidistant" stance from all the major powers in order to exercise "determinant weight", which by whatever power Italy chose to align with would decisively change the balance of power in Europe, and the price of such an alignment would be support for Italian ambitions in Europe and Africa.[112] In the meantime, since for Mussolini demography was destiny, he carried out relentless natalist policies designed to increase the birthrate; for example, in 1924 making advocating or giving information about contraception a criminal offence, and in 1926 ordering every Italian woman to double the number of children that she was willing to bear.[113] For Mussolini, Italy's current population of 40 million was insufficient to fight a major war, and he needed to increase the population to at least 60 million Italians before he would be ready for war.[114]
In his early years in power, Mussolini operated as a pragmatic statesman, trying to achieve some advantages, but never at the risk of war with Britain and France. An exception was the bombardment and occupation of Corfu in 1923, following an incident in which Italian military personnel charged by the League of Nations to settle a boundary dispute between Greece and Albania were assassinated by bandits; the nationality of the bandits remains unclear. At the time of the Corfu incident, Mussolini was prepared to go to war with Britain, and only desperate pleading by the Italian Navy leadership, who argued that the Italian Navy was no match for the British Royal Navy, persuaded Mussolini to accept a diplomatic solution.[115] In a secret speech to the Italian military leadership in January 1925, Mussolini argued that Italy needed to win spazio vitale, and as such his ultimate goal was to join "the two shores of the Mediterranean and of the Indian Ocean into a single Italian territory".[115] Reflecting his obsession with demography, Mussolini went on to say that Italy did not at the present possess sufficient manpower to win a war against Britain or France, and that the time for war would come sometime in the mid-1930s, when Mussolini calculated the high Italian birth rate would finally give Italy the necessary numbers to win.[115] Subsequently, Mussolini took part in the Locarno Treaties of 1925, that guaranteed the western borders of Germany as drawn in 1919. In 1929, Mussolini ordered his Army General Staff to begin planning for aggression against France and Yugoslavia.[115] In July 1932, Mussolini sent a message to German Defense Minister General Kurt von Schleicher, suggesting an anti-French Italo-German alliance, an offer Schleicher responded to favourably, albeit with the condition that Germany needed to rearm first.[115] In late 1932–early 1933, Mussolini planned to launch a surprise attack against both France and Yugoslavia that was to begin in August 1933.[115] Mussolini's planned war of 1933 was only stopped when he learned that the French Deuxième Bureau had broken the Italian military codes, and that the French, being forewarned of all the Italian plans, were well prepared for the Italian attack.[115]
After
Despite Mussolini's imprisonment for opposing the Italo-Turkish War in Africa as "nationalist delirium tremens" and "a miserable war of conquest",[12] after the Abyssinia Crisis of 1935–1936, in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War Italy invaded Ethiopia following border incidents occasioned by Italian inclusions over the vaguely drawn border between Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland. Historians are still divided about the reasons for the attack on Ethiopia in 1935. Some Italian historians such as Franco Catalano and Giorgio Rochat argue that the invasion was an act of social imperialism, contending that the Great Depression had badly damaged Mussolini's prestige, and that he needed a foreign war to distract public opinion.[116] Other historians such as Pietro Pastorelli have argued that the invasion was launched as part of an expansionist program to make Italy the main power in the Red Sea area and the Middle East.[116] A middle way interpretation was offered by the American historian MacGregor Knox, who argued that the war was started for both foreign and domestic reasons, being both a part of Mussolini's long-range expansionist plans and intended to give Mussolini a foreign policy triumph that would allow him to push the Fascist system in a more radical direction at home.[116] Italy's forces were far superior to the Abyssinian forces, especially in air power, and they were soon victorious. Emperor Haile Selassie was forced to flee the country, with Italy entering the capital city, Addis Ababa to proclaim an empire by May 1936, making Ethiopia part of Italian East Africa.[117]
Confident of having been given
The sanctions against Italy were used by Mussolini as a pretext for an alliance with Germany. In January 1936, Mussolini told the German Ambassador Ulrich von Hassell that: "If Austria were in practice to become a German satellite, he would have no objection".[123] By recognising Austria was within the German sphere of influence, Mussolini had removed the principal problem in Italo-German relations.[123]
On 11 July 1936, an Austro-German treaty was signed under which Austria declared itself to be a "German state" whose foreign policy would always be aligned with Berlin, and allowed for pro-Nazis to enter the Austrian cabinet.
Reflecting the new pro-German foreign policy on 25 October 1936, Mussolini agreed to form a
From 1936 through 1939, Mussolini provided huge amounts of military support to the
Members of TIGR, a Slovene partisan group, plotted to kill Mussolini in Kobarid in 1938, but their attempt was unsuccessful.
World War II
Gathering storm
By the late 1930s, Mussolini's obsession with demography led him to conclude that Britain and France were finished as powers, and that it was Germany and Italy who were destined to rule Europe if for no other reason than their demographic strength.[132] Mussolini stated his belief that declining birth rates in France were "absolutely horrifying" and that the British Empire was doomed because one-quarter of the British population was over 50.[132] As such, Mussolini believed that an alliance with Germany was preferable to an alignment with Britain and France as it was better to be allied with the strong instead of the weak.[133] Mussolini saw international relations as a Social Darwinian struggle between "virile" nations with high birth rates that were destined to destroy "effete" nations with low birth rates. Mussolini believed that France was a "weak and old" nation as the French weekly death rate exceeded the birthrate by 2,000, and he had no interest in an alliance with France.[134]
Such was the extent of Mussolini's belief that it was Italy's destino to rule the Mediterranean because of Italy's high birth rate that he neglected much of the serious planning and preparations necessary for a war with the Western powers. In turn, the Easter Accords were intended by Britain to win Italy away from Germany.
Count Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law and foreign minister, summed up the dictator's foreign policy objectives regarding France in an entry of his diary dated 8 November 1938: Djibouti would have to be ruled in common with France; "Tunisia, with a more or less similar regime; Corsica, Italian and never Frenchified and therefore under our direct control, the border at the river Var."[139] As for Savoy, which was not "historically or geographically Italian", Mussolini claimed that he was not interested in it. On 30 November 1938, Mussolini invited the French ambassador André François-Poncet to attend the opening of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, during which the assembled deputies, at his cue, began to demonstrate loudly against France, shouting that Italy should annex "Tunis, Nice, Corsica, Savoy!", which was followed by the deputies marching into the street carrying signs demanding that France turn over Tunisia, Savoy, and Corsica to Italy.[140] The French premier, Édouard Daladier, promptly rejected the Italian demands for territorial concessions, and for much of the winter of 1938–39, France and Italy were on the verge of war.[141]
In January 1939, the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, visited Rome, during which visit Mussolini learned that though Britain very much wanted better relations with Italy, and was prepared to make concessions, it would not sever all ties with France for the sake of an improved Anglo-Italian relationship.[142] With that, Mussolini grew more interested in the German offer of a military alliance, which had first been made in May 1938.[142] In February 1939, Mussolini gave a speech before the Fascist Grand Council, during which he proclaimed his belief that a state's power is "proportional to its maritime position" and that Italy was a "prisoner in the Mediterranean and the more populous and powerful Italy becomes, the more it will suffer from its imprisonment. The bars of this prison are Corsica, Tunisia, Malta, Cyprus: the sentinels of this prison are Gibraltar and Suez".[143]
The new course was not without its critics. On 21 March 1939 during a meeting of the Fascist Grand Council,
Hitler was intent on invading Poland, though Ciano warned this would likely lead to war with the Allies. Hitler dismissed Ciano's comment, predicting instead that Britain and the other Western countries would back down, and he suggested that Italy should invade
War declared
As World War II began, Ciano and
Convinced that the war would soon be over, with a German victory looking likely at that point, Mussolini decided to enter the war on the Axis side. Accordingly, Italy declared war on Britain and France on 10 June 1940. Mussolini regarded the war against Britain and France as a life-or-death struggle between opposing ideologies—fascism and the "plutocratic and reactionary democracies of the west"—describing the war as "the struggle of the fertile and young people against the sterile people moving to the sunset; it is the struggle between two centuries and two ideas", and as a "logical development of our Revolution".[151]
Italy joined the Germans in the
Path to defeat
In September 1940, the
Events in Africa had changed by early 1941 as
General Mario Robotti, Commander of the Italian 11th division in Slovenia and Croatia, issued an order in line with a directive received from Mussolini in June 1942: "I would not be opposed to all (sic) Slovenes being imprisoned and replaced by Italians. In other words, we should take steps to ensure that political and ethnic frontiers coincide".[159]
Mussolini first learned of Operation Barbarossa after the invasion of the Soviet Union had begun on 22 June 1941, and was not asked by Hitler to involve himself.[160] On 25 June 1941, he inspected the first units at Verona, which served as his launching pad to Russia.[161] Mussolini told the Council of Ministers of 5 July that his only worry was that Germany might defeat the Soviet Union before the Italians arrived.[162] At a meeting with Hitler in August, Mussolini offered and Hitler accepted the commitment of further Italian troops to fight the Soviet Union.[163] The heavy losses suffered by the Italians on the Eastern Front, where service was extremely unpopular owing to the widespread view that this was not Italy's fight, did much to damage Mussolini's prestige with the Italian people.[163] After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he declared war on the United States on 11 December 1941.[164][165] A piece of evidence regarding Mussolini's response to the attack on Pearl Harbor comes from the diary of his Foreign Minister Ciano:
A night telephone call from Ribbentrop. He is overjoyed about the Japanese attack on America. He is so happy about it that I am happy with him, though I am not too sure about the final advantages of what has happened. One thing is now certain, that America will enter the conflict and that the conflict will be so long that she will be able to realize all her potential forces. This morning I told this to the King who had been pleased about the event. He ended by admitting that, in the long run, I may be right. Mussolini was happy, too. For a long time he has favored a definite clarification of relations between America and the Axis.[166]
Following Vichy France's collapse and the Case Anton, Italy occupied the French territories of Corsica and Tunisia. Italian forces had also achieved victories against insurgents in Yugoslavia and in Montenegro, and Italo-German forces had occupied parts of British-held Egypt on their push to El-Alamein after their victory at Gazala.
Although Mussolini was aware that Italy, whose resources were reduced by the campaigns of the 1930s, was not ready for a long war, he opted to remain in the conflict to not abandon the occupied territories and the fascist imperial ambitions.[167]
Dismissal and arrest
By 1943, Italy's military position had become untenable. Axis forces in North Africa were finally defeated in the
Mussolini feared that with Allied victory in North Africa, Allied armies would come across the Mediterranean and attack Italy. In April 1943, as the Allies closed into Tunisia, Mussolini had urged Hitler to make a separate peace with the USSR and send German troops to the west to guard against an expected Allied invasion of Italy. The Allies landed in Sicily on 10 July 1943, and within a few days it was obvious the Italian army was on the brink of collapse. This led Hitler to summon Mussolini to a meeting in Feltre on 19 July 1943. By this time, Mussolini was so shaken from stress that he could no longer stand Hitler's boasting. His mood darkened further when that same day, the Allies bombed Rome—the first time that city had ever been the target of enemy bombing.[171] It was obvious by this time that the war was lost, but Mussolini could not extricate himself from the German alliance.[172] By this point, some prominent members of Mussolini's government had turned against him. Among them were
Despite this sharp rebuke, Mussolini showed up for work the next day as usual. He allegedly viewed the Grand Council as merely an advisory body and did not think the vote would have any substantive effect.
In an effort to conceal his location from the Germans, Mussolini was moved around: first to
Italian Social Republic ("Salò Republic")
Only two months after Mussolini had been dismissed and arrested, he was rescued from his prison at the Hotel Campo Imperatore in the Gran Sasso raid on 12 September 1943 by a special Fallschirmjäger (paratroopers) unit and Waffen-SS commandos led by Major Otto-Harald Mors; Otto Skorzeny was also present.[173] The rescue saved Mussolini from being turned over to the Allies in accordance with the armistice.[175] Hitler had made plans to arrest the king, the Crown Prince Umberto, Badoglio, and the rest of the government and restore Mussolini to power in Rome, but the government's escape south likely foiled those plans.[171]
Three days after his rescue in the Gran Sasso raid, Mussolini was taken to Germany for a meeting with Hitler in
Additionally, German forces occupied the
I am not here to renounce even a square meter of state territory. We will go back to war for this. And we will rebel against anyone for this. Where the Italian flag flew, the Italian flag will return. And where it has not been lowered, now that I am here, no one will have it lowered. I have said these things to the Führer.[179]
For about a year and a half, Mussolini lived in Gargnano on Lake Garda in Lombardy. Although he insisted in public that he was in full control, he knew he was a puppet ruler under the protection of his German liberators—for all intents and purposes, the Gauleiter of Lombardy.[171] Indeed, he lived under what amounted to house arrest by the SS, who restricted his communications and travel. He told one of his colleagues that being sent to a concentration camp would be preferable to this status.[172]
Yielding to pressure from Hitler and the remaining loyal fascists who formed the government of the Republic of Salò, Mussolini helped orchestrate a series of executions of some of the leaders who had betrayed him at the last meeting of the Fascist Grand Council. One of those executed was his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano. As head of state and Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Italian Social Republic, Mussolini used much of his time to write his memoirs. Along with his autobiographical writings of 1928, these writings would be combined and published by Da Capo Press as My Rise and Fall. In an interview in January 1945 by Madeleine Mollier, a few months before he was captured and executed by Italian partisans, he stated flatly: "Seven years ago, I was an interesting person. Now, I am little more than a corpse." He continued:
Yes, madam, I am finished. My star has fallen. I have no fight left in me. I work and I try, yet know that all is but a farce... I await the end of the tragedy and—strangely detached from everything—I do not feel any more an actor. I feel I am the last of spectators.[180]
Death
On 25 April 1945, Allied troops were advancing into northern Italy, and the collapse of the Salò Republic was imminent. Mussolini and his
With the spread of the news of the arrest, several telegrams arrived at the command of the
"Benito Mussolini, his main fascist associates and all persons suspected of having committed crimes of war or similar crimes, whose names are on the lists that will be delivered by the United Nations and which now or in the future are in territory controlled by the allied military command or by the Italian government, will be immediately arrested and handed over to the United Nations forces".[185]
The next day, Mussolini and Petacci were both summarily shot, along with most of the members of their 15-man train, primarily ministers and officials of the
Mussolini's corpse
On 29 April 1945, the bodies of Mussolini, Petacci, and the other executed Fascists were loaded into a van and moved south to Milan. At 3:00 a.m., the corpses were dumped on the ground in the old Piazzale Loreto. The piazza had been renamed "Piazza Quindici Martiri" (Fifteen Martyrs' Square) in honour of fifteen Italian partisans recently executed there.[188]
After being kicked and spat upon, the bodies were hung upside down from the roof of an Esso gas station.[189][190] The bodies were then stoned from below by civilians. This was done both to discourage any Fascists from continuing the fight and as an act of revenge for the hanging of many partisans in the same place by Axis authorities. The corpse of the deposed leader was subject to ridicule and abuse. Fascist loyalist Achille Starace was captured and sentenced to death, then taken to the Piazzale Loreto and shown the body of Mussolini, which he saluted just before being shot. His body was strung up beside Mussolini's.
Personal life
Mussolini's first wife was Ida Dalser, whom he married in Trento in 1914. The couple had a son the following year and named him Benito Albino Mussolini (1915–1942). In December 1915, Mussolini married Rachele Guidi, who had been his mistress since 1910. Due to his upcoming political ascendency, the information about his first marriage was suppressed, and both his first wife and son were later persecuted.[54] With Rachele, Mussolini had two daughters, Edda (1910–1995) and Anna Maria (1929–1968), the latter of whom married Nando Pucci Negri in Ravenna on 11 June 1960; and three sons: Vittorio (1916–1997), Bruno (1918–1941) and Romano (1927–2006). Mussolini had several mistresses, among them Margherita Sarfatti and his final companion, Clara Petacci. Mussolini had many brief sexual encounters with female supporters, as reported by his biographer Nicholas Farrell.[191]
Imprisonment may have been the cause of Mussolini's claustrophobia. He refused to enter the Blue Grotto (a sea cave on the coast of Capri), and preferred large rooms like his 18 by 12 by 12 m (60 by 40 by 40 feet) office at the Palazzo Venezia.[12]
In addition to his native Italian, Mussolini spoke English, French and questionable German (his sense of pride meant he did not use a German interpreter). This was notable at the Munich Conference, as no other national leader spoke anything other than his native language; Mussolini was described as effectively being the "chief interpreter" at the Conference.[192]
Religious views
Atheism and anti-clericalism
Mussolini was raised by a devoutly Catholic mother[193] and an anti-clerical father.[194] His mother Rosa had him baptised into the Roman Catholic Church, and took her children to services every Sunday. His father never attended.[193] Mussolini regarded his time at a religious boarding school as punishment, compared the experience to hell, and "once refused to go to morning Mass and had to be dragged there by force."[195]
Mussolini became anti-clerical like his father. As a young man, he "proclaimed himself to be an
Mussolini was an admirer of Friedrich Nietzsche. According to Denis Mack Smith, "In Nietzsche he found justification for his crusade against the Christian virtues of humility, resignation, charity, and goodness."[197] He valued Nietzsche's concept of the superman, "The supreme egoist who defied both God and the masses, who despised egalitarianism and democracy, who believed in the weakest going to the wall and pushing them if they did not go fast enough."[197] On his 60th birthday, Mussolini received a gift from Hitler of a complete twenty-four volume set of the works of Nietzsche.[198]
Mussolini made vitriolic attacks against Christianity and the Catholic Church, which he accompanied with provocative remarks about the consecrated host, and about a love affair between Christ and Mary Magdalene. He denounced socialists who were tolerant of religion, or who had their children baptised, and called for socialists who accepted religious marriage to be expelled from the party. He denounced the Catholic Church for "its authoritarianism and refusal to allow freedom of thought ..." Mussolini's newspaper, La Lotta di Classe, reportedly had an anti-Christian editorial stance.[199] Mussolini once attended meetings held by a Methodist minister in a Protestant chapel where he debated the existence of God.[200]
Lateran Treaty
Despite making such attacks, Mussolini tried to win popular support by appeasing the Catholic majority in Italy. In 1924, Mussolini saw that three of his children were given
After this conciliation, he claimed the Church was subordinate to the State, and "referred to Catholicism as, in origin, a minor sect that had spread beyond Palestine only because grafted onto the organization of the Roman empire."
Mussolini publicly reconciled with the Pope Pius XI in 1932, but "took care to exclude from the newspapers any photography of himself kneeling or showing deference to the Pope."[202] He wanted to persuade Catholics that "[f]ascism was Catholic and he himself a believer who spent some of each day in prayer ..."[202] The Pope began referring to Mussolini as "a man sent by Providence."[199][202] Despite Mussolini's efforts to appear pious, by order of his party, pronouns referring to him "had to be capitalized like those referring to God ..."[206]
In 1938 Mussolini began reasserting his anti-clericalism. He would sometimes refer to himself as an "outright disbeliever", and once told his cabinet that "Islam was perhaps a more effective religion than Christianity" and that the "papacy was a malignant tumor in the body of Italy and must 'be rooted out once and for all', because there was no room in Rome for both the Pope and himself."[207] He publicly backed down from these anti-clerical statements, but continued making similar statements in private.[citation needed]
After his fall from power in 1943, Mussolini began speaking "more about God and the obligations of conscience", although "he still had little use for the priests and sacraments of the Church".[208] He also began drawing parallels between himself and Jesus Christ.[208] Mussolini's widow, Rachele, stated that her husband had remained "basically irreligious until the later years of his life".[209] Mussolini was given a funeral in 1957 when his remains were placed in the family crypt.[210][211][212]
Mussolini's views on antisemitism and race
Over the span of his career, Mussolini's views and policies regarding Jews and antisemitism were often inconsistent, contradictory, and radically shifted depending on the situation. Most historians have generally labeled him as a political opportunist when it came to the treatment of the Jews rather than following a sincere belief. Mussolini considered Italian Jews to be Italians, but this belief may have been influenced more by his anti-clericalism and the general mood of Italy at the time, which denounced the abusive treatment of the Jews in the Roman Ghetto by the Papal States until the Unification of Italy.[213] Although Mussolini had initially disregarded biological racism, he was a firm believer in national traits and made several generalisations about Jews. Mussolini blamed the Russian Revolution of 1917 on "Jewish vengeance" against Christianity with the remark "Race does not betray race ... Bolshevism is being defended by the international plutocracy. That is the real truth." He also made an assertion that 80% of Soviet leaders were Jewish.[214] Yet, within a few weeks, he contradicted himself with the remark "Bolshevism is not, as people believe, a Jewish phenomenon. The truth is that Bolshevism is leading to the utter ruin of the Jews of Eastern Europe."[215]
In the early 1920s, Mussolini stated that Fascism would never raise a "
The relationship between Mussolini and Adolf Hitler was a contentious one early on. While Hitler cited Mussolini as an influence and privately expressed great admiration for him,
With the assassination of Dollfuss, Mussolini attempted to distance himself from Hitler by rejecting much of the racialism (particularly
When discussing the Nazi decree that the German people must carry a passport with either Aryan or Jewish racial affiliation marked on it, in 1934, Mussolini wondered how they would designate membership in the "Germanic race":
But which race? Does there exist a German race? Has it ever existed? Will it ever exist? Reality, myth, or hoax of the theorists?
Ah well, we respond, a Germanic race does not exist. Various movements. Curiosity. Stupor. We repeat. Does not exist. We don't say so. Scientists say so. Hitler says so.[224]
When German-Jewish journalist Emil Ludwig asked about his views on race in 1933, Mussolini exclaimed:
Race! It is a feeling, not a reality: ninety-five percent, at least, is a feeling. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today. Amusingly enough, not one of those who have proclaimed the "nobility" of the Teutonic race was himself a Teuton. Gobineau was a Frenchman, (Houston Stewart) Chamberlain, an Englishman; Woltmann, a Jew; Lapouge, another Frenchman.[225][226]
In a speech given in Bari in 1934, he reiterated his attitude towards the German ideology of Master race:
Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with supreme pity on certain doctrines which are preached beyond the Alps by the descendants of those who were illiterate when Rome had Caesar, Virgil and Augustus.[227][228]
Though Italian Fascism varied its official positions on race from the 1920s to 1934, ideologically Italian Fascism did not originally discriminate against the Italian-Jewish community: Mussolini recognised that a small contingent had lived there "since the days of the
By mid-1938, the enormous influence Hitler now had over Mussolini became clear with the introduction of the
Even after the introduction of the
Mussolini and the Italian Army in occupied regions openly opposed German efforts to deport Italian Jews to Nazi concentration camps.[241] Italy's refusal to comply with German demands of Jewish persecution influenced other countries.[241]
In September 1943 semi-autonomous militarised squads of Fascist fanatics sprouted up throughout the Republic of Salò. These squads spread terror among Jews and partisans for a year and a half. In the power vacuum that existed during the first three or four months of the occupation, the semi-autonomous bands were virtually uncontrollable. Many were linked to individual high-ranking Fascist politicians.
It has been widely speculated that Mussolini adopted the Manifesto of Race in 1938 for merely tactical reasons, to strengthen Italy's relations with Germany. Mussolini and the Italian military did not consistently apply the laws adopted in the Manifesto of Race.[241] In December 1943, Mussolini made a confession to journalist/politician Bruno Spampanato that seems to indicate that he regretted the Manifesto of Race:
The Racial Manifesto could have been avoided. It dealt with the scientific abstruseness of a few teachers and journalists, a conscientious German essay translated into bad Italian. It is far from what I have said, written and signed on the subject. I suggest that you consult the old issues of Il Popolo d'Italia. For this reason I am far from accepting (Alfred) Rosenberg's myth.[244]
Mussolini also reached out to the Muslims in his empire and in the predominantly Arab countries of the Middle East. In 1937, the Muslims of Libya presented Mussolini with the "Sword of Islam" while Fascist propaganda pronounced him as the "Protector of Islam".[245]
Despite Mussolini's ostensible disbelief in
Legacy
Family
Mussolini was survived by his wife, Rachele Mussolini, two sons, Vittorio and Romano Mussolini, and his daughters Edda (the widow of Count Ciano) and Anna Maria. A third son, Bruno, was killed in an air accident while flying a Piaggio P.108 bomber on a test mission, on 7 August 1941.
Neo-fascism
Mussolini inspired and supported the
Public image
In February 2018, a poll conducted by the Demos & Pi research institute found that out of the total 1,014 people interviewed, 19% of voters across the Italian political spectrum had a "positive or very positive" opinion of Mussolini, 60% saw him negatively and 21% did not have an opinion.[253]
Writings
- Giovanni Hus, il Veridico (Jan Hus, True Prophet), Rome (1913). Published in America as John Hus (New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1929). Republished by the Italian Book Co., NY (1939) as John Hus, the Veracious.
- The Cardinal's Mistress (trans. Hiram Motherwell, New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1928).
- There is an essay on "Enciclopedia Italiana.
- 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).
- Vita di Arnaldo (Life of Arnaldo), Milano, Il Popolo d'Italia, 1932.
- Scritti e discorsi di Benito Mussolini (Writings and Discourses of Mussolini), 12 volumes, Milano, Hoepli, 1934–1940.
- Four Speeches on the Corporate State, Laboremus, Roma, 1935, p. 38
- Parlo con Bruno (Talks with Bruno), Milano, Il Popolo d'Italia, 1941.
- Storia di un anno. Il tempo del bastone e della carota (History of a Year), Milano, Mondadori, 1944.
- From 1951 to 1962, Edoardo and Duilio Susmel worked for the publisher "La Fenice" to produce Opera Omnia (the complete works) of Mussolini in 35 volumes.
See also
- Fascist syndicalism
- List of covers of Time magazine (1920s)
- Mediterraneanism
- Order of the Golden Spur
- Pact of Pacification
- Villa Mussolini
References
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As early as February 1918 he had been pressing for the appointment of a dictator in Italy, 'a man who is ruthless and energetic enough to make a clean sweep'. Three months later, in a widely reported speech at Bologna, he hinted that he ...
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When Italy depreciated the lira in 1936, Mussolini ruled that all prices had to remain as they were. However, in May 1937 he had to increase wages by 15 percent because retail prices had gone up as a result of the rise in the cost of imported commodities. Nature cannot be ordered to renounce her principles.
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"In addition to my ... order of the commander of the Greater German Reich in Italy and the organisation of the occupied Italian area from 10 September 1943 I determine:
The supreme commanders in the Operational Zone Adriatic Coast consisting of the provinces of Friaul, Görz, Triest, Istrien, Fiume, Quarnero, Laibach, and in the Prealpine Operations Zone consisting of the provinces of Bozen, Trient and Belluno receive the fundamental instructions for their activity from me.
Führer's headquarters, 10 September 1943.
The Führer Gen. Adolf Hitler".
See second document at
http://www.karawankengrenze.at/ferenc/document/show/id/317?symfony=ad81b9f2cd1e66a7c973073ed0532df1[permanent dead link] - ISBN 978-88-425-1285-1.
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Ecco come esso è narrato, ancora, da Gian Franco Vené: «La sera del 27 giunsero al comando del Cvl, in via del Carmine, diversi messaggi radio inviati dal Quartier generale alleato di Siena. Ciascuno di questi messaggi passava di tavolo in tavolo: "Al Comando generale and Clnai – stop – fateci sapere esatta situazione Mussolini – stop – invieremo aereo per rilevarlo – stop – Quartier generale alleato"» [...] E ancora: "Per Clnai – stop – Comando alleato desidera immediatamente informazioni su presunta locazione Mussolini dico Mussolini – stop se est stato catturato si ordina egli venga trattenuto per immediata consegna al Comando alleato – stop si richiede che voi portiate queste informazioni at formazioni partigiane che avrebbero effettuato cattura assoluta precedenza" [...] L'ufficio operativo al quartier generale delle forze alleate, aveva inviato istruzioni alle 25 squadre dell'Oss (Office of strategic services) già pronte all'azione nei boschi e nelle montagne: "Conforme agli ordini del Quartier generale alleato, è desiderio degli Alleati di catturare vivo Mussolini. Notitificare a questo quartier generale se è stato catturato, e tenerlo sotto protezione fino all'arrivo delle truppe alleate".
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- Villa Borghese, I could easily compare his profile with that of the Roman busts, and I realised he was one of the Caesars. There's no doubt at all that Mussolini is the heir of the great men of that period." Hitler's Table Talk
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Ovazza started a Jewish fascist newspaper, "La Nostra Bandiera" (Our Flag) in an effort to show that the Jews were among the regime's most loyal followers.
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Arielli, Nir (2010). Fascist Italy and the Middle East, 1933–40. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 92–99. ISBN 978-0-230-23160-3.
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Bibliography
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- Bosworth, R.J.B. (2006). Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Dictatorship 1915–1945. London, Allen Lane.
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- Farrell, Nicholas (2003). Mussolini: A New Life. London: Phoenix Press, ISBN 1-84212-123-5.
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- Hibbert, Christopher. Il Duce.
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- Kroener, Bernhard R.; Muller, Rolf-Dieter; Umbreit, Hans (2003). Germany and the Second World War Organization and Mobilization in the German Sphere of Power. Vol. VII. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. ISBN 978-0-19-820873-0.
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Historiography
- O'Brien, Paul. 2004. Mussolini in the First World War: The Journalist, the Soldier, the Fascist. O'Brien evaluates the biographies in Italian and English in the Introduction.
Further reading
- Hibbert, Christopher. Benito Mussolini, a Biography. (London: Reprint Society, [1962) p., ill. with b&w photos. online
- Kirkpatrick, Ivone, Sir. Mussolini, a study in power (1964) online
- Ridley, Jasper. Mussolini: A Biography (1998) online
External links
- Did Mussolini really make the trains run on time?
- Benito Mussolini Speeches
- Works by or about Benito Mussolini at Internet Archive
- Works by Benito Mussolini at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Il Duce 'sought Hitler ban' September 2003 BBC News
- Authorized translation of Mussolini's The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism (1933)
- Maximilian Schönherr – Archiv Mussolini shaking hands with King George V. of the United Kingdom, 1923, The Illustrated London News, published 25 January 1936.
- Mussolini's Piazza Augusto Imperatore
- "Islam, Duce, and Duke". Time. 5 April 1937. Archived from the original on 2 May 2011. Retrieved 19 August 2009.
- "Death in Milan". Time. 7 May 1945. Archived from the original on 20 July 2010. Retrieved 20 August 2009.
- References to Mussolini in European newspapers – The European Library
- Benito Mussolini at IMDb
- Newspaper clippings about Benito Mussolini in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW