Benito Mussolini

Italian dictator who ruled the country from 1922-1945. Mussolini, "Il Duce," held unlimited power in Italy and curtailed civil liberties, removed the free press and an independent legislature. Foreign nations were impressed with his abilities to establish law and order, repress Communism, and abolish the right to strike among the workers. Mussolini was the son of a militant socialist blacksmith and a teacher. His father named his son "Benito" after the Mexican revolutionary Benito Juarez. He was a quarrelsome and violent child. At nine, he was expelled from a boarding school run by Silesian priests after stabbing a classmate with his penknife. He obtained his teaching certificate and at 18 worked as a schoolmaster. His reputation as a young sexual blade cost him his teaching contract. He disliked the Italian establishment of the Roman Catholic church and Italian monarchy which made him join the Italian Socialist Party. As a rabble-rouser, he moved into the job of editor for the Socialist newspaper "Avanti." Mussolini was drafted into the Bersagliere, a special fighting force when Italy entered WW I in May 1915. He was wounded when one of his own mortars misfired. After the war, Italy suffered from political chaos and disarray. In 1919, Mussolini formed a political group called "I Fasci di Combattimento." This fighting group of black-shirted paramilitary squads terrorized individuals and battled Communists in the streets of Italy. General strikes and political unrest spread all around the country after the fall of the lira in 1920. The Fascist movement gained strength and momentum over the scuttlebutt of a Communist take-over. During a 1922 parliamentary crisis, Mussolini marched on Rome without resistance or bloodshed. King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Mussolini the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history; he was 39. Il Duce's opponents were beaten or murdered as he muzzled the press. He was considered to be the role model of Italian manhood of sexual virility, physically fit and mentally astute. Mussolini had his first sexual experience at 16 with a prostitute. As a young socialist, he chased many women and prostitutes and contracted syphilis. In 1909, he fell in love with Rachele Guidi, a former student and bar maid. They married during WW I. Mussolini bossed and beat his wife. He had no qualms on throwing things at his beloved daughter Edda. He seduced many women petitioners in his office without even taking the trouble to remove his pants and shoes. In 1935, Mussolini met Clara Pettaci, a dark-haired beauty who became his long-term mistress until their death in 1945. He had set her up in a luxurious apartment in Rome to the great unhappiness of his wife Rachele. Mussolini was a superstitious man who feared hunchbacks, cripples and open umbrellas. A shamrock was painted on the hood of his red Alfa-Romeo and he kept a St. Anthony statue in his pocket. He seldom bathed or changed his shirt. He was an avid fan of Wallace Beery, the Keystone Cops and Laurel and Hardy. Mussolini watched their movies at his nightly film screenings. In June 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt was deeply impressed on Mussolini's accomplishments. By 1938, he had imported the German goose step to his military, embarked on foreign conquests of Abyssinia and supported Franco in Spain. During WW II he blamed the "weakness" of the Italian people for their defeats in Libya and Greece. His enormous popularity began to wane after he aligned himself with Hitler, becoming no more than Hitler's political lackey. After France fell in May 1940, Mussolini led Italy into war and suffered humiliating defeats in Libya and Greece. On 23 July 1943, in the face of Allied attacks, the Grand Council met, dissoved the Fascist Party, deposed the dictator, and handed the reins of government to the King and Marshal Badoglio, head of the Army. Mussolini was placed under house arrest in the Appennines. In September 1943, the Germans rescued him set him up in a puppet republic in Gargnano on Lake Garda. Disguised as a German soldier he tried to escape to Switzerland along with his mistress, Clara Pettaci, but they were captured by Communist Partisans inside a truck on 28 April 1945, Dongo, Lake Como, Italy and executed. Their bodies were sent to Milan where they were hanged by the heels from the girders of a garage roof on the Piazzale Loreto. People walked by and spat on his corpse. His body was later recovered and on 1 September 1957 his wife had his body placed in the family vault in the cemetery of San Casciano, 160 miles north of Rome. Link to Wikipedia biography