Benito_Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was born on July 29, 1883 in Dovia di Predappio a small town in Italy. During the Fascism era, Predappio was known as "Duce's town". People would go out of their way just to see his birthplace. Mussolini was born to Italian parents Alessandro Mussolini and Rosa Mussolini. Benito’s father was a blacksmith and an Anarchist activist. He was a socialist and a republican, but also had some nationalistic views. On the other hand his mother was a school teacher and a very devoted catholic. He was the eldest out his two other brothers, Arnaldo and Edvige Mussolini. Because his father was so into politics he was named Benito after Mexican reformist Benito Juarez. His middle names Andrea and Amilcare were from Italian socialists Andrea Costa and Amilcare Cipriani. As a boy Benito used to help his father with his blacksmith. It is here where he picked up his political beliefs. He was not baptized at birth like most Italians usually are. His parents had many conflicts over religion at that time. On behalf of his mother Mussolini went to a boarding school that was run by Salesian monks. It wasn’t long until he got expelled from there. He was defiant at that school but once kicked out he ended up getting good grades. During 1902 Mussolini had some tough times. He moved to Switzerland in hopes of avoiding military service. Here he became a stone mason and studied a whole lot. He studied on people like sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, syndicalist Georges Sorel, Charles Peguy, and Hubert Lagardelle. He later on had a hard time holding onto a job and was arrested for being a homeless. Although he wasn’t having much luck here he did pick up on how to speak French and some German. He then became involved in the socialist movement but this caused him to get deported back to Italy. Once there he decided to volunteer into the military. He served in World War 1 and there became an ally with Cesare Battisto, he was also a politician and journalist. Mussolini served nine months in war and he talks about his time there in his Diario Di Guerra. His time there ended in 1917 when he was hurt by an explosion of a mortar bomb in his trench. He had about 40 shards of metal in his body. Once he was released from the hospital he went back to his editor-in-chief position at the newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia. Benito was also a political journalist and socialist. He did a lot of office work and edited the newspaper L’Avvenire del Lavorate for the local socialist party. He then joined the Marxian Socialist movement in Trento city where he served as secretary of the local chamber of labor. Here he wrote The Cardinal's Mistress. It was so anticlerical that it was later stopped when he made a truce with the Vatican. In 1910 Mussolini was in a riot in Forli by Socialists. For this he edited the weekly Lotta di classe. He soon became one of the most well known Socialist in Italy. He served five months in jail for publicly saying that that the “imperialist war” in Lybia should gain control in Tripoli. After he was out he helped get rid of Socialist party revisionists Ivanhoe Bonimi and Leonida Bissolati who supported the war. For this he became the editor of their newspaper Avanti! Which was soon a hit rising from 20,000 to 100,000. He was soon starting to be known all over. In 1919 he formed the Fascist Party. When he returned from war he had decided that socialism just wasn’t working out for him. He knew that his Italian nation was calling for a new form of doctrine. He got most of his ideas off of Plato’s work The Republic. Although Plato was an idealist and Mussolini a realist he still inspired him to do many of the things he did the way he did. Like having the rich rule, opposing democracy and more. They also had their differences, realism wasn’t for aggressive war and fascism promoted communist views on property. During this time the fascist party had a lot of power that the government hardly ever told them to do differently. Dino Grandi, one of Mussolini’s close friend then formed the Blackshirts. They were squads of veterans that aimed to set the nation straight. On October through October 29 Mussolini held his March on Rome, which later led him to to become Prime Minister if Italy. He had support from the military, the bussiness class, and the liberal right-wing but not from King Victor Emmanuel III so he had no other choice but to hand him over his power. Once in power his goal was to eventually establish a totalitarian state. He preferred wealthy industrial and agrarian classes. At this time his power only grew stronger. In 1923 he passed a new law called Acerbo Law, this changed Italy into a single national constituency. People who tried to go against him or his laws faced the unfair consequences. For example deputy Giacomo Matteotti wanted to protest against his new law and he was murdered not to long afterwards. Italy was part of the Axis power along with Germany and Japan. They were on a row, reason why mussolini joined the war. He saw thought that Germany had victory at the palm of its hand. The axis were a huge succusses for awhile they kept fighting until they started to lose support. They were short on supplies and things seemed to get more critical. His army soon started to collapse and his people turned against him. He then had to give up the Grand Council of Fascism. He was voted out but refused to believe so until Victor Emmanuel III got him arrested and told him he was being replaced by Marshal Pietro Badoglio. Short after Mussolinni was rescued from prison. Hitler had made up his mind, he wanted to arrest anybody who got in his way of putting Mussolini back into power. He wanted to retire because he was very ill by this time but Hitler didn’t allow this. He treatend to attack and destroy Milan, Genoa and Turin. So he agreed and set up the new regime the Italian Social Republic. Mussolini and his wife Clara Petacci were soon killed after several atempts of escaping. Because they couldn’t be taken to Como they were taken to Mazzegra. The next day they were both shot to death. This was led by Colonel Valerio a communist partisan commander following the orders of the National Liberation Committee. Mussolini believed that the colonel was there to rescue him but he was backstabbed instead. After they were dead Claras and his body were taken back to Milan hung upside down from a gas station as other people trew stuff at their corpse. His bodie was treated badly but with some of his faithful fascist still saw him as God.