Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (UK: /ˌmʊsəˈliːni, ˌmʌs-/, US: /ˌmuːs-/, Italian: [beˈniːto aˈmilkare anˈdrɛːa mussoˈliːni]; 29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) was an Italian dictator who founded and led the National Fascist Party (PNF). He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 1943, as well as Duce of Italian fascism from the establishment of the Italian Fasces of Combat in 1919 until his summary execution in 1945 by Italian partisans. As dictator of Italy and principal founder of fascism, Mussolini inspired and supported the international spread of fascist movements during the inter-war period.
"Mussolini" redirects here. For other people named Mussolini, see Mussolini family.
Benito Mussolini
Office established
Office abolished
Movement established
Movement abolished
Himself
Himself
Himself
Galeazzo Ciano
Himself
Dino Grandi
Himself
Himself
Alessandro Lessona
Himself
Emilio De Bono
Himself
Himself
Pietro Gazzera
Himself
Himself
Luigi Federzoni
Himself
Luigi Federzoni
28 April 1945 (aged 61)
Giulino di Mezzegra, Como, Italian Social Republic
San Cassiano cemetery, Predappio, Italy
PNF (1921–1943)
- PSI (1901–1914)
- Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria (1914–1919)
- Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (1919–1921)
- PFR (1943–1945)
- Margherita Sarfatti (1911–1931)
- Clara Petacci (1933–1945)
- Edda
- Vittorio
- Bruno
- Romano
- Anna Maria
- Benito Albino (unrecognised)
1915–1917 (active)
Mussolini was originally a socialist politician and a journalist at the Avanti! newspaper. In 1912, he became a member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), but he was expelled from the PSI for advocating military intervention in World War I, in opposition to the party's stance on neutrality. In 1914, Mussolini founded a newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia, and served in the Royal Italian Army during the war until he was wounded and discharged in 1917. Mussolini denounced the PSI, his views now centering on Italian nationalism instead of socialism, and later founded the fascist movement which came to oppose egalitarianism and class conflict, instead advocating "revolutionary nationalism" transcending class lines. On 31 October 1922, following the March on Rome (28–30 October), Mussolini was appointed prime minister by King Victor Emmanuel III, becoming the youngest individual to hold the office up to that time. After removing all political opposition through his secret police and outlawing labour strikes, Mussolini and his followers consolidated power through a series of laws that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship. Within five years, Mussolini established dictatorial authority by both legal and illegal means and aspired to create a totalitarian state. In 1929, Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty with the Holy See to establish Vatican City.
Mussolini's foreign policy was based on the fascist doctrine of "Spazio vitale" (trans: "living space"); which aimed to expand Italian possessions and the fascist sphere of influence. In 1923, Mussolini ordered the bombing of Corfu over an incident with Greece. That same year, Mussolini launched the Second Italo-Senussi war which lasted until 1932 and culminated in the Libyan genocide. He also annexed the city of Fiume into Italy after the Treaty of Rome in 1924 with Yugoslavia. Through the Tirana treaties, Mussolini turned Albania into an Italian protectorate. In 1936, Ethiopia was conquered following the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and merged into Italian East Africa (AOI) with Eritrea and Somalia. In 1939, Italian forces annexed Albania. Between 1936 and 1939, Mussolini ordered an intervention in Spain in favour of Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. At the same time, Mussolini initially tried to retain much of the Versailles status quo by sending troops to the Brenner Pass to delay Hitler's Anschluss, and taking part in the Treaty of Lausanne, the Lytton Report, the Four-Power Pact and the Stresa Front. However, he ultimately alienated the democratic powers as tensions grew in the League of Nations, which he left in 1937. Now hostile to France and Britain, Italy formed the Axis alliance with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
The wars of the 1930s, although victorious, had cost Italy enormous resources, leaving the country unprepared for the upcoming Second World War. Therefore, when Poland was invaded on 1 September 1939, Mussolini declared Italy's non-belligerence. However, on 10 June 1940, believing that Allied defeat was imminent, he decided to join the war on the side of Germany to share the potential spoils of victory. But after three more years of world war, the tide of the conflict turned in favour of the Allies. Following the invasion of Sicily and a motion of no confidence by the Grand Council of Fascism, King Victor Emmanuel III dismissed Mussolini as head of government and placed him in custody (25 July 1943). After the king agreed to an armistice with the Allies, on 12 September 1943 Mussolini was rescued from captivity in the Gran Sasso raid by German paratroopers and Waffen-SS commandos. After meeting with his fallen ally, Hitler made Mussolini the figurehead of a puppet state in German-occupied northern Italy, the Italian Social Republic (Salò Republic), which served as a collaborationist regime of the Germans in their fight against the Allies, now including the Kingdom of Italy, and the Italian resistance.
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.
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 atheist[196] and several times tried to shock an audience by calling on God to strike him dead."[194] He believed that science had proven there was no god, and that the historical Jesus was ignorant and mad. He considered religion a disease of the psyche, and accused Christianity of promoting resignation and cowardice.[194] Mussolini was superstitious; after hearing of the curse of the Pharaohs, he ordered the immediate removal of an Egyptian mummy that he had been gifted from the Palazzo Chigi.[12]
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]
