Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) was the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 to 1943 (succeeding Luigi Facta and preceding Pietro Badoglio) and Duce of Fascist Italy from 1925 to 1945. A major leader of Fascism, Mussolini was one of the three major leaders of the Axis Powers, alongside Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany and Hideki Tojo of Japan, with whom he fought in World War II. He was killed by his own people in April 1945.
Biography[]
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was born on 29 July 1883 in Predappio, Forli, in the Kingdom of Italy. Mussolini was initially a convinced socialist and member of the Italian Socialist Party, editing the PSI's Avanti! newspaper and being thrice arrested and deported from Switzerland after attempting to flee there rather than complete his required military service. Mussolini later served in the Royal Italian Army during World War I, and - unlike many fellow Socialists - he supported the war, seeing it as an opportunity to overthrow Europe's monarchies and replace them with workers' state. However, the Socialist Party ultimately expelled him from the party due to their pacifist views, causing Mussolini to undergo a political realignment. Mussolini ditched his earlier Marxist views in favor of the "Third Position", a syncretic ideology which combined the Marxist core principles of populism and statism with right-wing principles such as ultranationalism and authoritarianism. Mussolini believed that the best way forwards for Italy was for people of all classes to unite and work together towards advancing their nation's interests, especially with regard to building the Italian Empire. Mussolini's National Fascist Party gained popularity due to its role in suppressing communist discontent in the years following World War I, with his "Blackshirts" engaging in street brawls with Communist Party of Italy members and helping businessmen to suppress strikes. The popular Mussolini took power in 1922 after his Blackshirts' March on Rome, forcing Prime Minister Luigi Facta to resign. King Vittorio Emmanuele III of Italy invited Mussolini to form his own government, and in 1925 he proclaimed himself Il Duce, meaning "The Duke". Mussolini eventually banned the opposition parties of his country and consolidated power in the hands of the "Grand Council of Fascism", with itself at its head. Mussolini was now able to exercise dictatorial powers over Italy, and used his great power to dictate foreign policy. Keen at re-forming the Roman Empire, he participated in a 1935 war with Ethiopia that resulted in its conquest in 1936, conquering much of East Africa for Italy. Mussolini also poisoned the people's minds through propaganda and cracked down on the Sicilian Mafia in southern Italy, as they posed a major threat to his power. Finally, Mussolini made a deal with the Roman Catholic Church, granting independence to the Vatican City in exchange for the Church's nominal support of his dictatorship, which led to the decline of the Christian democratic Popolari party as a moderate right-wing alternative to his PNF.
Il Duce[]
In 1936, Mussolini sent 50,000 Italian troops to intervene in the Spanish Civil War, fighting for the nationalists under Francisco Franco, who was a fellow fascist leader. Mussolini joined the Rome-Berlin Axis that same year in alliance with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany (which also included Austria and Czechoslovakia by 1938), and the Italians and Germans developed close comradeship during the war in Spain. In 1939 Mussolini conquered the Kingdom of Albania, defeating King Zog I of Albania and creating an Italian province in the region. Mussolini also invaded Greece in 1940 with hopes of taking over the country for Italy, but his invasion failed. In June 1940 he entered Italy into another war: World War II. Italian troops occupied southern France during Hitler's invasion, but they suffered many defeats before they could occupy the region. The Italians also fought the United Kingdom in North Africa and East Africa, and he was successful in driving the British back to Kenya in East Africa and Egypt in North Africa for a short time before a British counteroffensive conquered Italian Africa.
Downfall[]
Mussolini's failure in these wars added up when the Allied Powers invaded Italy in July 1943, and on 27 July 1943 Mussolini was arrested by Pietro Badoglio, who became the new Prime Minister. Imprisoned in a hotel in the Apennine Mountains, Mussolini was later freed by German paratroopers under Otto Skorzeny and became the leader of the puppet Salo Republic in northern Italy. Mussolini's Italian Salo forces aided the Wehrmacht in their defense of Italy, but they remained an inexperienced fighting force and much of the Royal Italian Army joined the Co-Belligerent Army of the Allies. Many civilians formed partisan brigades to resist Germany's presence in the Italian countryside and to stop their atrocities, and Mussolini was captured by partisans in April 1945. He was shot dead with his mistress Clara Petacci and the two were hung upside-down in a gas station in Milan. Filth was thrown on their bodies by the people of Italy, who were now free of his tyranny.