Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini was born in Forli, Italy, in 1883. He later told a journalist: "I come of peasant stock. My father was a blacksmith - he gave me strength. And my mother, she was sweet and sensitive - a school teacher - a lover of poetry - she feared my tempestuous nature, but she loved me - and I loved her."

After working briefly as a schoolteacher, Mussolini fled to Switzerland in 1902 in an effort to evade military service. Mussolini returned to Italy in 1904 and over the next ten years worked as a journalist and eventually became editor of Avanti. Mussolini was active in the socialist movement but moved to right in 1914 when the Italian government failed to support the Triple Alliance. In 1915 Mussolini resigned from the Socialist Party when it advocated support for the Allies in the First World War.

When Italy entered the war Mussolini served in the Italian Army and eventually reached the rank of corporal. After being wounded he returned to Milan to edit the right-wing Il Popolo d'Italia. The journal demanded that the Allies fully supported Italy's demands at the Paris Peace Conference.

After the war Mussolini attacked Vittorio Orlando for failing to achieve Italy's objectives at the Versailles Peace Treaty and helped to organize the various right-wing groups in Italy into the Fascist Party. After a series of riots in 1922 King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Mussolini in an attempt to prevent a communist revolution in Italy. Mussolini headed a coalition of fascists and nationalists.

Mussolini was interviewed by the British journalist, Clare Sheridan, soon after he gained power. Sheridan had recently interviewed Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Gregory Zinoviev, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Alexandra Kollontai, Maxim Litvinov, Angelica Balabanov and Clara Zetkin and his first words to Sheridan was "I know all about you and your connections with the Russians". She responded with: "What do you think of their efforts? I want to write about your attitudes to the working classes." Mussolini reponded: "The working classes are studid, dirty, lazy and only need the cinema. They must be taken care of and learn to obey." Realising his mistake Mussolini told Sheridan: ""I forbid you to publish anything I have told you. I have treated you as a friend not as a journalist-I have spoken openly-said too much. If you ever write anything about me I shall know it. I have agents all over the world and you will suffer. There is not a country where my Fascist police cannot penetrate."

Parliamentary government continued in Italy until the murder of the socialist leader, Giacomo Matteotti in 1924. Left-wing parties were suppressed and in 1929 Italy became a one-party state. Mussolini also carried out an extensive public-works programme and the fall in unemployment made him a popular figure in Italy.

John Heartfield, Face of Fascism (1928)

In 1928 John Heartfield created The Face of Fascism, a montage that dealt with the rule of Benito Mussolini which spread all over Europe with tremendous force. "A skull-like face of Mussolini is eloquently surrounded by his corrupt backers and his dead victims".

Italy controlled Eritrea and Somalia in Africa but had failed several times to colonize neighbouring Ethiopia. When Mussolini came to power he was determined to show the strength of his regime by occupying the country. In October 1935 Mussolini sent in General Pietro Badoglio and the Italian Army into Ethiopia.



Adolf Hitler had been inspired by Mussolini's achievements and once he gained power in Germany he sought a close relationship with Italy. In October 1936 the two men signed a non-military alliance.

In 1939 Italy invaded Albania and soon afterwards Mussolini signed a full defensive alliance with Nazi Germany (the Pact of Steel). However, Mussolini did not declare war on Britain and France until 10th June 1940.

Mussolini already had over a million men in the Italian Army based in Libya. In neighbouring Egypt the British Army had only 36,000 men guarding the Suez Canal and the Arabian oilfields. On 13th September, 1940, Marshall Rodolfo Graziani and five Italian divisions began a rapid advance into Egypt but halted in front of the main British defences at Mersa Matruh.

In October 1940, Mussolini declared war on Greece. Attempts by the Italian Army to invade Greece ended in failure. The war was also going badly in North Africa. Although outnumbered, General Archibald Wavell ordered a British counter-offensive on 9th December, 1940. The Italians suffered heavy casualties and were pushed back more than 800km (500 miles). British troops moved along the coast and on 22nd January, 1941, they captured the port of Tobruk in Libya from the Italians.

By the end of 1941 Italy was totally dependent on Nazi Germany. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Galaezzo Ciano, became increasingly dissatisfied with the way Mussolini was running the country. After a series of heated arguments with Mussolini, Ciano resigned in February, 1943.

At the Casablanca Conference Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt discussed ways of taking Italy out of the war. It was eventually decided to launch an invasion of Sicily, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, south-west of Italy. It was hoped that if the island was taken Benito Mussolini would be ousted from power. It was also argued that a successful invasion would force Adolf Hitler to send troops from the Eastern Front and help to relieve pressure on the Red Army in the Soviet Union.





The loss of Sicily created serious problems for Mussolini. It was now clear that the Allies would use the island as a base for invading Italy. A meeting of the Fascist Grand Council is held on 24th July and Galaezzo Ciano gets support for his idea that Italy should sign a separate peace with the Allies. The following day Victor Emmanuel III told Mussolini he was dismissed from office. His successor, Pietro Badoglio, declared martial law and placed Mussolini under arrest.


On 29th July 1943, Adolf Hitler had a meeting with Otto Skorzeny about the possibility of rescuing Benito Mussolini, imprisoned high in the Abruzzi Apennines. Skorzeny agreed and on 13th September he led an airbourne force of commandos to the hotel where he was being held. Mussolini was soon freed and Skorzeny flew him to safety.

Mussolini now set up the Salo Republic, a fascist regime in German-occupied northern Italy. His first was the arrest and execution of five of those who had voted against him on the Fascist Grand Council, including his son-in-law, Galaezzo Ciano.

On 18th May, 1944, Allied troops led by General Wladyslaw Anders (Polish Corps) and General Alphonse Juin (French Corps) captured Monte Cassino. This opened a corridor for Allied troops and they reached Anzio on 24th May. The German defence now began to disintegrate and General Harold Alexander ordered General Mark Clarkto trap and destroy the retreating 10th Army. Clark ignored this order and instead headed for Rome and liberated the city on the 4th June.

After the capture of RomePietro Badoglio resigned and Invanoe Bonomi formed a new government. In an attempt to bring the country together Bonomi's government included left-wing figures such as Benedetto Croce and Palmiro Togliatti.

Benito Mussolini
Becco Giallo, underground newspaper (1924)

The Allied armies now pursued the German 10th Army and took Grosseto (16th June), Assisi (18th June), Perugia (20th June), Florence (12th August), Rimini (21st September), Lorenzo (11th October) until being held on the Gothic Line in the northern Apennines. The arrival of winter weather meant that a renewed offensive did not begin until 9th April, 1945.

On 23rd April the 8th Army began to cross the River Po at Mantua. German resistance now began to collapse and Parma and Verona were taken and partisan uprisings began in Milan and Genoa.

With Allied troops approaching, Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, attempted to escape to Switzerland. They were captured at Lake Como by Italian partisans on 27th April, 1945. The following day they were shot and their bodies displayed in public in Milan.

Primary Sources

(1) Benito Mussolini, speech (1929)

In the creation of a new State which is authoritarian but not absolutist, hierarchical and organic - namely, open to the people in all its classes, categories and interests - lies the great revolutionary originality of Fascism, and a teaching perhaps for the whole modern world oscillating between the authority of the State and that of the individual, between the State and the anti-State. Like all other revolutions, the Fascist revolution has had a dramatic development but this in itself would not suffice to distinguish it. The reign of terror is not a revolution: it is only a necessary instrument in a determined phase of the revolution.

(2) Anita Leslie, Clare Sheridan (1976)

That night he (Benito Mussolini) sent a messenger for her (Clare Sheridan) at l0 o'clock. Memy, her sister-in-law, urged caution. "You must not play about with that man."

"But he's promised I shall do his bust. I'm going to start by making sketches and I have the clay. He likes my work," she insisted.

On arrival in Mussolini's room she found that a dust sheet had been laid around the model stand and her clay and tools lay ready. With her air of excitement and absolute guilelessness, Clare did not realize how provocative she was. She would never record on paper what occurred on this final visit, but I think she rather enjoyed indignantly recalling the details to me.

The Fascist guards and detectives were accustomed to her now. They bowed her to the landing. That evening she swarmed in, swathed as always in floating veils, and set to work on the first sketches. Mussolini sat staring through her - or so she thought. Her pencil drew the basic lines - it was difficult not to create a caricature for his face was in itself an exaggeration of feature and expression. How contented she felt at getting him to pose at last. What did she care about his politics? It was the power of that mask she must catch. Luckily she did not have to sketch his feet-they were large feet encased in spats and when he stamped about on them she could hardly keep her face straight.

Then suddenly she looked up and saw him advancing - in her own words, "nostrils flaring-head down like an angry bull."

"Vous etes une femme pour qui on pourrait avoir une grande passion," he said breathlessly and seized hold of her.
Confronted with this blonde tigress he thought, of course, that she wished to seduce him. And that would never do. He must seduce her. Sketch-book and clay flew to the ceiling, slaps, punches, wrestling, gasping cries of amazement (on both sides) filled the room. Clare couldn't believe it true. Neither could Mussolini - she was taller than he, but he was stronger.

"You will not leave till dawn, and then you will be broken in," were his exact words. He blocked the way to the main door, but grabbing her handbag she made for the side exit. He got there before her and there was, according to her own account, a veritable hand-to-hand struggle for the key. Clare managed to snatch it and open the door. It took a long time, she said. But eventually she managed to wedge it open with her foot. Mussolini threw his whole heavy weight against the door to close it and caught her elbow in the process. Her screams of pain halted him. Purple in the face he stood back for a moment and she was able to wrench herself from his grasp. Then the telephone rang and he glanced towards it. Only a very important call would have been put through.

"Don't gol" he commanded. Then snatching up the receiver,

"Hello-yes-in Greece is it? All the ministers murdered!" Clare escaped. The Fascist guards gaped as she hurried
through them dishevelled and crying with rage.

Memy comforted her not at all. "Did you get his likeness?" "Send for a doctor. My arm is broken," moaned Clare. She
was extremely badly bruised.

"Get out of Italy while you can," advised Memy. Clare boarded the next train for Switzerland. She seethed with resentment. Beloved Italy had been spoiled by this hateful man.

(3) Francesco Nitti, speech (1929)

The ignoble phenomenon of a dictatorship is a shameful blot on European civilization. Reactionary minds, which are indignant at red dictatorships, have only sympathy with 'white' dictatorships, which are equally, if not more bloodthirsty, no less brutal and unjustified by any ideal, even a false one.

The Fascist government abolished in Italy every safeguard of the individual and every liberty. No free man can live in Italy, and an immoral law prevents Italians from going to a foreign country on pain of punishment. Italy is a prison where life has become intolerable. Everything is artificial - artificial finance - artificial exchange - artificial public economy - artificial order - artificial calm.

Without a free parliament, a free press, a free opinion and a true democracy, there will never be peace.

(4) George Seldes wrote about Benito Mussolini in his book You Can't Print That! (1929)

He began coldly, in a voice northern and unimpassioned. I had never heard an Italian orator so restrained. Then he changed, became soft and warm, added gestures, and flames in his eyes. The audience moved with him. He held them. Suddenly he lowered his voice to a heavy whisper and the silence among the listeners became more intense. The whisper sank lower and the listeners strained breathlessly to hear. Then Mussolini exploded with thunder and fire, and the mob - for it was no more than a mob now - rose to its feet and shouted. Immediately Mussolini became cold and nordic and restrained again and swept his mob into its seats exhausted. An actor. Actor extraordinary, with a country for a stage, a great powerful histrionic ego, swaying an audience of millions, confounding the world by his theatrical cleverness.

(5) Benito Mussolini, message to the British Ambassador to Italy (7th July, 1939)

Tell Chamberlain that if England is ready to fight in defence of Poland, Italy will take up arms with her ally, Germany.

(6) Benito Mussolini, letter to Adolf Hitler (August, 1939)

If Germany attacks Poland and the conflict is localised, Italy will give Germany every form of political and economic aid which may be required.

If Germany attacks Poland and the allies of the latter counter-attack Germany, I must emphasize to you that I cannot assume the initiative of warlike operations, given the actual conditions of Italian military preparations which have been repeatedly and in timely fashion pointed out to you.

(7) Benito Mussolini, speech declaring war on the Allies (10th June, 1940)

Fighters of the land, the sea and the air, Blackshirts of the revolutions and of the legions, men and women of Italy, of the Empire, and of the kingdom of Albania.

Listen - the hour marked out by destiny is sounding in the sky of our country. This is the hour of irrevocable decision. The declaration of war has already been handed to the Ambassadors of Britain and France.

We are going to war against the plutocratic and reactionary democracies of the West, who have hindered the advance and often threatened the existence even of the Italian people.

The events of quite recent history can be summarized in these words - half-promises, constant threats, Blackmail and finally as the crown of this ignoble edifice the League siege of the 52 States. This reference was to sanctions.

Our conscience is absolutely tranquil. With you the whole world is witness that the Italy of the lictor has done what was humanly possible to avoid the hurricane which is overwhelming Europe, but all was in vain.

It would have been enough to revise the treaties to adapt them to the vital demands of the life of nations, and not to regard them as infrangible throughout eternity.

It would have been enough not to have persisted in the policy of guarantees which have shown themselves to have been above all fatal for those who accepted them. It would have been enough not to have rejected the proposal which the Fuhrer made last October when the Polish campaign came to an end.

But all that belongs to the past. We are to-day decided to face all the risks and sacrifices of war. A nation is not really great if it does not regard its undertakings as sacred, and if it recoils them those supreme trials which decide the course of history.

We are taking up arms after having solved the problem of our land frontiers." he went on. We want to break off the territorial and military chains which are strangling us in our sea for a people of 45.000.000 inhabitants is not truly free if it has no free passage over the ocean.

The gigantic struggle is only a phase of the logical development of our revolution. It is the struggle of peoples poor, but rich in workers against the exploiters who fiercely hold on to all the wealth and all the gold of the earth. It is the struggle of the fruitful and young peoples against the sterile peoples on the threshold of their decline. It is the struggle between two centuries and two ideas.

Now that the die is east and we have our own will burned the bridges behind us. I solemnly declare that Italy does not intend to drag into the conflict other peoples who are her neighbours by sea and land. Let Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Egypt, and Greece take note of these words of mine, for it will depend entirely on them whether they are fully confirmed or not.

At a memorable meeting that in Berlin - I said that according to the law of Fascist morality when one has a friend one stands by him to the end.

We have done that and we shall do it with Germany, with her people, and her victorious armed forces. On the eve of this event of historic importance we address our thoughts to his Majesty the King emperor and we salute equally the head of a allied Greater Germany.

(8) William Joyce, Germany Calling (29th July, 1943)

And, for the personal point of view, if that be allowed to me, I can only say that when I joined the first Fascist movement in Britain on 6th December 1923 I saw that night in Battersea the mob violence, the Red Flags, the broken heads and the broken bodies, the typical evidence of the disruption which Communism can bring into a nation; and while I heard the dismal wail of the 'Red Flag' intoned by the sub-men out for blood, I thought of Mussolini and of what he had been able to do for Italy. I was not pro-Italian, I was merely pro-human; there were many millions of people throughout the world at about that time who had the same thoughts; and when I look back upon these 20 years I can only say that Mussolini has, in that period, become one of the greatest figures in history. The shades of the great Romans up to the time of Augustus, and unborn generations of Italian people, can pay homage to this great leader whose stature time can only increase.

(9) The Manchester Guardian (30th April, 1945)

Mussolini, with mistress, Clara Petacci, and twelve members of his Cabinet, were executed by partisans in a village on Lake Como yesterday afternoon, after being arrested in an attempt to cross the Swiss frontier. The bodies were brought to Milan last night. A partisan knocked at my door early this morning to tell me the news.

We drove out to the working-class quarter of Loreto and there were the bodies heaped together with ghastly promiscuity in the open square under the same fence against which one year ago fifteen partisans had been shot by their own countrymen.

Mussolini's body lay across that of Petacci. In his dead hand had been placed the brass ensign of the Fascist Arditi. With these fourteen were also the bodies of Farinacci and Starace, two former general secretaries of the Fascist party, and Teruzzo, formerly Minister of Colonies who had been caught elsewhere and executed by partisans.

Mussolini was caught yesterday at Dongo, Lake Como, driving by himself in a car with his uniform covered by a German greatcoat. He was driving in a column of German cars to escape observation but was recognised by an Italian Customs guard.

The others were caught in a neighbouring village. They include Pavolini, Barracu, and other lesser lights in Fascist world on whom Mussolini had to call in later days to staff his puppet Government.

This is the first conspicuous example of mob justice in liberated Italy. Otherwise the partisans have been kept well under control by their leaders. The opinion expressed this morning by the partisan C.-in-C., General Cadorna, son of the former field marshal, was that such incidents in themselves were regrettable. Nevertheless, in this case he considered the execution a good thing, since popular indignation against the Fascists demanded some satisfaction. The risk of protracted trials, such as has been taking place in Rome, was thus avoid.

(10) Ann Stringer, United Press (12th June, 1945)

"I was never close to him when he was high: I was always near him when he was down." With that weeping epitaph, Benito Mussolini's gray-haired widow summed up her life with the flamboyant Duce who left her for a younger, prettier mistress at the height of his Fascist power.

Pouring out her words between choking sobs, Donna Rachele revealed in an exclusive interview that she spoke to the doomed Duce by telephone only six hours before he was slain by a band of Italian partisans near Milan last April.

We spoke informally in the six-room apartment in an abandoned synthetic rubber factory where she and her two youngest children are being held in British protective custody. Throughout the interview, Donna Rachele defended her dead husband against every accusation - except his final infidelity with Clara Petacci, who shared his death and humiliation in the bloody public square in Milan.

For the red-haired Clara, Mrs. Mussolini had nothing but hatred and a fierce satisfaction that Benito's mistress was dead. Her eyes literally flashed when Clara's name was mentioned. She pushed herself far back in her chair, sat up straight and spat out: "They've done well to hang her. She was the only one around Mussolini who had anything really to do with the Germans."

Then speaking even more furiously and pounding the table before her she almost shouted: "Mussolini (she always referred to him that way) never had anything to do with women. He never let them have any influence over him. That was propaganda just to ruin him."

She trembled with anger and emotion as she spoke, but the frail widow, still attractive in spite of her 50 years, maintained her dignity, presenting a far different picture from the hulking, peasant-type woman I have been led to expect.