Leading up to World War I Italy had formed an alliance with the Central Powers, with the German Empire and the Empire of Austria-Hungary, in the Triple Alliance. Italy would’ve fought on the side of the Central Powers when the war broke out in August 1914, but instead declared neutrality. Italy realized that its alliance with Central Powers will not help gain territories she wanted as they were Austrian possessions. Over the course of few months, Italy realized that its’ in her best interest to enter the war and signed the secret Treaty of London - joining forces with the Triple Entente. After the War ended, at the Paris Peace Conference that led to the Treaty of Versailles, the Italian government struggled against other Allied leaders (Britain, USA and France) to gain what they believed had been promised to them. Although they did receive control of most of the European requests, they failed to gain their colonial ambitions and felt that they had been cheated. This engendered resentment towards the Allied countries, especially as Italians felt that they had paid a heavy price, in terms men and money, in order to fight on the side of the Allies.
Italy’s involvement in the World War is often side-lined but for them it caused significant loss and human suffering. It joined the war in 1915 and by the end it had lost over 600,000 Italians in combat and millions were wounded and crippled. The war debt, food shortage, bad harvests and significant inflationary increases caused Italy to go bankrupt, with an estimated half a million civilians dying. These situational factors and resentment helped drive Benito Mussolini and his Fascist movement- four years after the war Mussolini and his Blackshirts gained power.
About Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcar Andrea Mussolini was born on 29 July 1883 in Predappio in northern central Italy. He belonged to a poor family, his father was a blacksmith who spent most of his time discussing politics in taverns and money on his mistress. Mussolini claimed to be the ‘man of the people’ and prided himself in his humble background but it wasn’t as humble as he claimed- his father was a part-time socialist journalist as well as a blacksmith and his mother was a school teacher. Mussolini himself was a troublesome child and was expelled thrice from different institutions on account of bullying and injuring his fellow students. At the age of 19, a short, pale but determined and intelligent Mussolini set out for Switzerland with a nickel medallion of Karl Marx in his empty pockets. He read extensively and voraciously- taking from different philosophies what appealed to him and discarding the rest, forming no coherent political belief of his own yet impressing his companions as a potential revolutionary of uncommon personality and striking presence. While earning a reputation as a political journalist and public speaker, he produced propaganda for a trade union, proposing a strike and advocating violence as a means of enforcing demands. Repeatedly, he called for a day of vengeance. More than once he was arrested and imprisoned. When he returned to Italy in 1904, even the Roman newspapers had started to mention his name. by 1909, Mussolini was being recognized as one of the most dangerous and gifted socialists; after writing in a wide variety of socialist newspapers he started his own called ‘La Lotti di Classe’ (‘The Class Struggles’) - this initiative was such a success that he was appointed as the editor of the newspaper ‘Avanti!’ (‘Forward’), whose circulation he soon doubled. Being an antimilitarist, antinationalist and anti-imperialist editor, he expressed his dissent on the involvement of Italy in World War I. However, soon he started writing articles fervently supporting the war - he resigned from ‘Avanti!’ and was expelled from the Socialist Party. He assumed the editorship of ‘Il Popolo d’Italia’ (‘The People of Italy’), in which he unequivocally stated his new philosophy: “From today onward we are all Italians and nothing but Italians. Now that steel has met steel, one single cry comes from our hearts – ‘Viva l’Italia!’”. It was the birth cry of fascism. Mussolini went to fight in the war.
Rise to Power
Mussolini, after returning from the war as an antisocialist, advocated the emergence of a dictator and hinted that he could prove to be the man who would free Italy from the grips of economic and political crisis. To put this to effect, 200 assorted republicans, anarchists, syndicalists, discontented socialists convened and discussed the establishment of a new force in Italian Politics. Mussolini called this force the ‘fasci di combattimento’ (‘fighting bands’), so fascism was created and its symbol devised.
Mussolini was highly dramatic, his facts and figures were often wrong, his attacks were often deceptive and misdirected but he had such a remarkable physique and personality, his oratory skills were so striking, and his vigorous and repetitive gestures were so beguiling that he rarely failed to impose his mood. The Fascist Party started rounding up socialists in and around Italy, burning down trade unions and threatening the locals. And as the Fascist movement built a broad base of support around the powerful ideas of nationalism, Mussolini began planning to seize power at a national level. In the summer of 1912, Mussolini was presented his opportunity in the form of General Strike organized by the trade union; Mussolini and his party came forward and crushed the strike thus, advancing the fascists' claim to power.
The people of Italy began seeing Mussolini as the man who could restore peace amidst chaos, however, this order was restored at an enormous cost- Italy’s democratic system was crushed in order to establish one-party rule. Free speech was crushed. A network of spies and secret policemen watched over the population. Propaganda made it seem like Mussolini had reinvigorated Italy - bringing about social and political reforms without losing the support of the industrialists and the landowners- but the truth of the matter was less rosy than it appeared because he failed to address the deep-rooted structural issues with Italy’s economy and problems of social divisions which remained enormous.
Role in World War II
Italy found a new ally and opened way for the Pact of Steel – the Rome-Berlin Axis and a brutal alliance between Hitler and Mussolini that was to ruin them both. In 1938, following the German example, Mussolini’s government passed anti-Semitic laws in Italy that discriminated against Jews in all sectors of public and private life and prepared the way for the deportation of some 20 percent of Italy’s Jews to German death camps during the war.
While Mussolini understood that peace was essential for Italy’s well-being, he was concerned that interfering on their part would mean that Italy will lose out on its share. So, he watched Hitler progress with bitterness and anxiety, growing bitter with every German victory and hoping for the Germans to slow down so that Italy could relax a little. When Germany advanced westward, however, and France seemed on the verge of collapse, Mussolini felt he could delay no longer. So, on June 10, 1940, the fateful declaration of war was made.
Italy’s opportunistic hopes were crushed and the beginning of the war proved fatal. When France surrendered even before Italy had the opportunity to token its victory, Mussolini realized that he was only a consultative head in the Axis alliance. Since Germans kept most of their militaristic plans concealed, they made moves like invasion of Soviet Russia without any prior notice to Mussolini, who got so tired of Hitler’s antics that he decided to ‘pay him back’ and attacked Greece though Albania in 1940 without notifying the Germans - it was a humiliating defeat for Italy and Germans had to march in to extricate them from the consequences. Mussolini had also grossly exaggerated the extent of public support for the war and his regime - so when the Western Allies successfully invaded Sicily in July 1943, it was clear that his collapse is imminent.
Fascists and the non-fascists alike had been plotting for the dismissal of Mussolini from the office, however, Mussolini showed up to the office as usual disregarding the votes against him and refusing to believe that his followers would harm him. He was arrested and imprisoned. As German defenses in Italy collapsed and the Allies advanced rapidly northward, the Italian Communists of the partisan leadership decided to execute Mussolini. Rejecting the advice of various advisers, including the elder of his two surviving sons—his second son had been killed in the war—Mussolini refused to consider flying out of the country, and he made for the Valtellina, intending perhaps to make a final stand in the mountains; but only a handful of men could be found to follow him. He tried to cross the frontier disguised as a German soldier in a convoy of trucks retreating toward Innsbruck, in Austria. But he was recognized and, together with his mistress, Claretta Petacci, who had insisted on remaining with him to the end, he was shot and killed on April 28, 1945. Their bodies were hung, head downward, in the Piazza Loreto in Milan. Huge jubilant crowds celebrated the fall of the dictator and the end of the war.
Conclusion
Although Mussolini wasn’t as grisly as his contemporary dictator Adolf Hitler, he was still like him, totalitarian in nature- state controls the life of the individual, who is subordinate and exists only to serve the State that is an end in itself. He had imperialistic goals and wanted to establish Italy as a superior state but he had no manifesto or set principles because he believed that “rule is action based not talk”. Overall, World War II saw rise of fascist dictators in two war-stricken zones - Italy and Germany - and both of these men borrowed from the same ideologies which were anti-democratic, anti-intellectualism and glorified wars for the victory of state and the individual, in this process, was completely neglected.