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Encyclopedia of Invasions & Conquests, Fourth Edition

Mussolini, Benito

The man who would lead Italy into World War II was certainly a product of his time. Born in 1883, Benito Mussolini was raised by a socialist father and a schoolteacher mother in a time when Italy was virtually stagnant while the rest of Europe was progressing. While Britain, France, and Germany built or expanded empires and also enjoyed industrial growth, Italy remained a poor agricultural community with few resources. It also had little luck in trying to gain resources in futile expeditions against African nations like Ethiopia. Class struggles within Italy did nothing to promote progress, and a frustrated nation looked for answers.

Mussolini followed in both his parents’ footsteps, becoming an elementary schoolteacher and a socialist. He spoke and wrote forcefully about Italy’s needs, but could not do much himself until World War I started. Although officially allied to Germany, Italy remained neutral at the war’s outset. Indeed, Italy’s main quarrel was with Germany’s chief ally, Austria-Hungary. Italy had long desired the cities of Trento and Trieste at the head of the Adriatic Sea and, as Austria was busy fighting a war with Serbia, it seemed an opportune time to grab some land. Mussolini loudly argued for Italian involvement in the war on the Allied side, and it alienated his socialist comrades. He was fired from his job of editing the socialist newspaper Avanti, so he started his own paper and pushed for Italian expansion. When the Allies convinced Italy to unite with them in 1915, Mussolini joined the army and fought until 1917, when he was wounded.

Benito Mussolini.

GHInv4e_p502_0001.jpg

Photo via Wikimedia Commons. [Public domain.]

Although the war brought Italy territorial concessions, it also brought a huge loss of life and continued political controversy. In March 1919, Mussolini started the Fascist party, blending conservative nationalist desires with socialistic government control of the economy. The Fascists promised all things to all people: a tradition of greatness, a change from disordered politics, yet protection from the radical change of communism, opportunity for the poor, wealth for the nation, justice for the oppressed, and, above all, order. His party grew rapidly until, in October 1922, his supporters marched on Rome and demanded control of the government. While this march may not have been the reason for the change, King Victor Emmanuel asked Mussolini to organize a new government.

Calling himself “II Duce” (the Leader), Mussolini used a growing military to maintain himself in power and crush opposition. He seemed to the outside world to be good for Italy. The economy improved and unemployment was low, but at a cost of freedom. The law and order he promised appeared, as did the decline in political corruption, since there was only one political party. He was recognized in the United States by Time magazine as Man of the Year and will forever be remembered for the tribute: “He made the trains run on time.” He also urged Italian women to have more children, for he needed soldiers to rebuild the Roman Empire.

Empire-building lay at the heart of his dream to bring about Italian greatness, and he focused on the Mediterranean area as his bailiwick. In 1935, he flaunted international condemnation by invading Ethiopia, a fellow member of the League of Nations. The only supporter for this expedition was Adolf Hitler in Germany, and the two concluded an alliance in November 1936, after which Mussolini stated that from that time forward, “the world would revolve around a Rome-Berlin axis” (hence, the Axis powers of World War II). The two countries cooperated in aiding Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War, and Mussolini stood by while Hitler occupied Austria and Czechoslovakia. He did, however, feel that Italy was losing some of the limelight, so he invaded Albania to remind the world that Italy was not to be ignored, and to try to influence Balkan politics.

It was Italy’s role in World War II, and Mussolini’s continuing attempts to gain territory for his empire, that brought about his downfall. Mussolini ordered the invasion of Greece and Egypt, but had to beg Hitler for assistance when his armies were defeated in both arenas. Mussolini, the senior dictator, became the alliance’s junior partner once the war started. He watched his troops do little more than support German armies in North Africa and then in Sicily. When the Allied forces captured Sicily in August 1943, Mussolini’s days were numbered. The British invasion of the toe of Italy in early September brought about Mussolini’s forced abdication, then imprisonment. Hitler ordered Otto Skorzeny, his commando leader, to rescue his Italian partner from prison, then set him up in a puppet government in the north of Italy until the war’s end. In the spring of 1945 Mussolini fled for Switzerland, but did not reach the border before he was captured by Italian resistance fighters, who assassinated him and his mistress, then took the bodies to Milan for public display.

Mussolini was somewhat of an aberration in Italian politics, a ruthless strongman who dominated a nation that seems to revel in provincial differences and rivalries. No one before or since has exercised such power in Italy, but neither has anyone brought about such shame and despair. The Italian countryside and economy were badly damaged by World War II, and Mussolini was the man who took Italy into that war. Unlike Hitler, he had no racial policies to condemn him, but like his German partner, he left behind a legacy that some in Italy to this day would like to see restored.

See also: Albania, Italian Conquest of; Hitler, Adolf.

References:

1 

Collier, Richard, Duce! (New York: Viking, 1971); Dabrowski, Roman, Mussolini: Twilight and Fall (New York: Roy Publishers, 1956); Gallo, Max, Mussolini’s Italy, trans. Charles Markmann (New York: Macmillan, 1973).

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MLA 9th
, . "Mussolini, Benito." Encyclopedia of Invasions & Conquests, Fourth Edition, edited by Paul K. Davis, Salem Press, 2023. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GHInv4e_0232.
APA 7th
, . (2023). Mussolini, Benito. In P. K. Davis (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Invasions & Conquests, Fourth Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
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