Benito Mussolini

:For other people called Mussolini, see Mussolini (disambiguation).

World War II

As World War II (WWII) approached, Mussolini announced his intention of annexing Malta, Corsica, and Tunis. He spoke of creating a "New Roman Empire" that would stretch east to Palestine and south through Libya and Egypt to Kenya. In April 1939, after a brief war, he annexed Albania, a campaign which strained his military. His armed forces are generally considered to have been unprepared for combat when the German invasion of Poland led to World War II. Mussolini thus decided to remain 'non-belligerent' until he was quite certain which side would win.

Related Topics:
World War II - Malta - Corsica - Tunis - Palestine - Libya - Egypt - Kenya - April - 1939 - Albania - Poland

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On June 10, 1940, as the Germans under General Guderian reached the English Channel, Mussolini declared war on Britain and France. In October, Italy attacked Greece and lost in result 1/3 of Albania, until Germany attacked Greece as well. In June 1941, he declared war on the Soviet Union and in December he declared war on the United States.

Related Topics:
June 10 - 1940 - General Guderian - English Channel - Soviet Union - United States

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Following Italian defeats on all fronts and the Anglo-American landing in Sicily in 1943, most of Mussolini's colleagues (Count Galeazzo Ciano, the foreign minister and also Mussolini's son-in-law, included) turned against him at a meeting of the Fascist Grand Council on July 25, 1943. King Vittorio Emanuele III called Mussolini to his palace and stripped the dictator of his power. Upon leaving the palace, Mussolini was swiftly arrested. He was then sent to Gran Sasso, a mountain recovery in central Italy (Abruzzo), in complete isolation.

Related Topics:
Anglo-American landing in Sicily - 1943 - Galeazzo Ciano - July 25 - Vittorio Emanuele III - Gran Sasso - Abruzzo

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Mussolini was replaced by the Maresciallo d'Italia Gen. Pietro Badoglio, who immediately declared in a famous speech "La guerra continua a fianco dell'alleato germanico" ("The war continues at the side of our Germanic allies"), but was instead working to negotiate a surrender; in a few days (September the 8th) Badoglio would sign an armistice with Allied troops.

Related Topics:
Pietro Badoglio - September the 8th

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Rescued by the Germans several months later in a spectacular raid led by General Kurt Student, Mussolini set up the Italian Social Republic, a Republican Fascist state (RSI, Repubblica Sociale Italiana) in northern Italy with him living in Gargnano. But he was little more than a puppet under the protection of the German Army. In this "Republic of Salò", Mussolini returned to his earlier ideas of socialism and collectivization. He also executed some of the Fascist leaders who had abandoned him, including his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano. During this period he wrote his memoirs entitled My Rise and Fall.

Related Topics:
Kurt Student - Italian Social Republic - Puppet - Galeazzo Ciano - Memoir

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On April 27, 1945, in the afternoon, near the village of Dongo (Como Lake), just before the Allied armies reached Milan, Mussolini, along with his mistress Claretta Petacci, was caught by the Italian partisans as he headed for Chiavenna to board a plane for escape to Switzerland. The day after, April 28, they were both executed along with their sixteen-man train, mostly ministers and officials of the Italian Social Republic. The next day their bodies were hung, upside down, in Piazzale Loreto (Milan) along with those of other fascists, to be abused by the crowds. Mussolini's body was then buried in an unmarked grave in a Milan cemetery until the 1950s, when his body was moved back to Predappio. It was actually stolen briefly in the late '50s, then again returned to Predappio. Here he was buried in a crypt (the only posthumous honor granted to Mussolini; his tomb is flanked by marble fasces and a large idealized marble bust of himself sits above the tomb.)

Related Topics:
April 27 - 1945 - Milan - Claretta Petacci - Italian partisans - Fasces

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It is generally believed that Mussolini and Petacci were killed in the afternoon of April 28, in the village of Giulino di Mezzegra, by "Colonnello Valerio", the partisan commander charged by the CLN (National Liberation Committee) with the task of executing the death sentence issued against Mussolini.

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A report aired on August 2004 by the Italian national TV network Rai Tre, however, alleged that Mussolini was killed on April 28, 1945 in the morning, by some British secret agents on their attempt to take possession of the Churchill-Mussolini exchange of letters. These documents might have been awkward to Churchill, given that some speculate the two statesmen were discussing an anti-Soviet separate peace, despite the agreements previously stipulated between the Allies. Among the journalists who made the report was the American Peter Tomkins, an OSS agent in Milano (Italy) during WW II. This version is backed by Bruno Giovanni Lonati, an Italian communist partisan member of the "Brigate Garibaldi" in Milan at the time. http://www.larchivio.org/xoom/bonzanigo.htm

Related Topics:
Rai Tre - Partisan

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The Duce was survived by his wife, Donna Rachele Mussolini, by two sons, Vittorio and Romano Mussolini, and his daughters Edda, the widow of Count Ciano and Anna Maria. A third son, Bruno, had been killed in an air accident while testing a military plane. Mussolini's granddaughter Alessandra, daughter of Romano Mussolini, is currently a deputy in the Republican Chamber and Member of the European Parliament for the right party Alternativa Sociale.

Related Topics:
Donna Rachele Mussolini - Romano Mussolini - Count Ciano - Alessandra - European Parliament

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Mussolini was the inspiration for the character of Benzino Napaloni in Charlie Chaplin's movie The Great Dictator.

Related Topics:
Charlie Chaplin - The Great Dictator

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