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Benito Mussolini: Wars
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Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini ( July 29, 1883 – April 28, 1945) was the prime minister and dictator of Italy from 1922 until 1943, when he was overthrown from power. He established a repressive fascist regime that valued nationalism, militarism, and anti-communism combined with strict censorship and state propaganda. Mussolini became a close ally of German dictator Adolf Hitler, whom he influenced. Mussolini entered World War II in June, 1940 on the side of Nazi Germany. Three years later, the Allies invaded Italy. In April 1945 Mussolini attempted to escape to German-controlled Austria, only to be captured and executed near Lake Como by Communist Resistance units.
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Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was born on 29 July 1883 in Predappio in northern central Italy. His father was a blacksmith. Employment prospects in the area were poor so in 1902 Mussolini moved to Switzerland, where he became involved in socialist politics. He returned to Italy in 1904, and worked as a journalist in the socialist press but his support for Italy's entry into World War One led to his break from socialism. He was drafted into the Italian army in September 1915.
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Benito Andrea Amilcare Mussolini was a journalist and politician from Italy. Self-proclaimed "socialist heretic", he was nominated prime minister by Vittorio Emanuele III di Savoia, King of Italy, in the time of World War II. He was head of one of the strong forms of government seen in Europe in this time. He created the political structure Fasci Italiani di Combatimento, which is what later would be known as Fascism, a term which was later used to describe the merging of government and corporation. He was responsible for several war crimes in Ethiopia and Yugoslavia.
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On October 28, 1940, Mussolini sent Italian forces gathered in Albania and commanded by General Sebastiano Visconti Prasca into Greece. This started the Greco-Italian War. But, after a brief period of success, the Italian offensive which had been poorly coordinated, mainly due to Mussolini's personal involvement in its planning, were repelled by a relentless Greek counterattack. This resulted in the loss of one-quarter of Italian-controlled Albania. The Italian forces in Albania were stalled, and Mussolini asked Germany for assistance. Hitler soon committed forces to the Balkans in opposition to the Allies who hurried to defend Greece.
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Mussolini broke with the Socialists over the issue of Italy's entry into the First World War. In November, 1914, he founded a new newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia, (The Italian People) and the prowar group Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria. He coined the term fascism from the fasces carried by Roman magistrates. These were bundles of branches which when bound together were stronger than when they were apart � reflecting the intellectual debt that fascism owed to socialism. Mussolini claimed that it would help strengthen a relatively new nation (which had been united only in the 1860s in the Risorgimento), although some would say that, like Lenin, he wished for a collapse of society that would bring him to power. Italy was a member of the Triple Alliance, thereby allied with Imperial Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
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After the war, Mussolini became very influenced by Gabriele D’Annunzio; an Italian nationalist who felt Italy should have got more out of the Versailles Treaty. During the war, D’Annunzio had made daring flying raids over Austria and showered some cities there with pamphlets explaining Italy’s rights to territory in the Adriatic. He became a national hero. In particular, D’Annunzio believed that Italy had a right to Fiume. After World War One, this port was given to the newly created Yugoslavia but many Italians lived there. D’Annunzio tried to take the port using force.
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