From the 1920s Benito Mussolini was the dictator of Fascist Italy.
He alligned himself with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany to form the Axis Powers.
The Axis Powers fought in the Second World War against the Allies and were defeated.
Hitler committed suicide in his bunker at the end of April 1945.
Mussolini would eventually be killed but did you know that Mussolini actually fell from power
in 1943?
How that all happened
you will learn in this video where I'm gonna talk about how Mussolini lost his position in 1943. Keep watching.
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After the First World War there was much unrest in Italy.
There were many war dead, great scarcity and social upheaval.
In this context, Benito Mussolini founded the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (1919).
Out of this movement arose in 1921 a party, the National Fascist Party (PNF), with Mussolini as “Il Duce”, the supreme leader.
In October 1922, the so-called March on Rome took place where the fascists seized power.
Benito Mussolini officially established the fascist dictatorship in 1925, when he proclaimed
himself dictator.
Italy subsequently developed into a police state, in which terror and exclusion of dissenters
occured widespread.
Mussolini dreamed of a rebirth of a Roman Empire and wanted to avenge the Italian humiliation they had suffered
at the hands of the Abyssinians (Ethiopians) at the end of the previous century. In the mid 1930s
Italy invaded Abyssinia again and
this time they proclaimed victory.
In the summer of 1936 the Spanish Civil War broke out: a conflict between the nationalists
and republicans.
Mussolini supported the nationalist cause as he hoped as the nationalists would proclaim victory Spain would become an Italian client state
The nationalists did proclaim victory but Spain never became a vassal state of Italy.
On paper Italy had a large army.
When Italy entered WW2, with its declaration of war to the Allies on 10 June 1940 invading
France (when the German invasion was already well on its way).
Italy's army would count for 1,630,000 men and later would rise to a number of around
2.5 million men.
Before the outbreak of WW2 the Italian military had seen action in Ethiopia (Abyssinia), Spain and Albania.
After Italy entered WW2 it would find its fronts in different parts of Europe: Greece,
Yugoslavia and the USSR. They also fought in North Africa.
All these different battlefields were too much for Italy's resources.
The Italian army in WW2 performed very poorly and only achieved success due to German support.
With a few exceptions here and there.
Mid-May 1943 the North African campaign was lost and a few months later the Allies landed on
Sicily.
Also Rome was bombed.
The morale of the Italian civilians was at an all time
low as John Pollard puts it:
“Three years of virtually continuous military defeats, the failure of the regime to organise
the ‘home front’ properly, including inadequate air-raid precautions, serious food shortages
and the bombing of Italian cities had all taken their toll.”
For nearly eight years, since the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, Italy was at war.
Factories in the north of Italy was plagued by strikes in the March and April 1943.
Which largely went
unpunished as the Fascist unions nor the Italian police could do anything.
And this proved that the regime was not only ineffective at military affairs but also
in establishing an effective totalitarian state. Yes Italy was on paper a totalitarian state however if you
compare it with Nazi Germany, that state was far more effective in its totalitarianism.
The Italian industrialists for example weren't all on board with Mussolini's fascism and by
1943 had lost their faith in the ideology and its leader.
An important factor in their alienation was the almost total German takeover and economic
penetration of the Balkans with a resulting loss of Italian markets.
The Italian King was looking for a way to end the war for his people and country.
Mussolini needed to go.
Also the Vatican supported this idea.
The king however was too timid to step up against Mussolini.
Anti-fascist parties were too diorganised and many were also abroad so they weren't able to get support and
against the regime and overthrow it.
The only faction that could end Mussolini's rule was the Fascist Party itself.
Members of this party was also war weary:
“[A]ll the existing evidence suggests that these groups must have been as demoralised
and disillusioned as the rest of the population,
and that their continued loyalty and obedience to the regime was now largely a matter of
conformism and habit.
[…] At the top of the party hierarchy bitter resentment against the Germans and
total disillusionment with the Duce’s military leadership were the dominant sentiments.”
In January 1943 Mussolini had reshuffled his cabinet sacking some prominent members among which
Galeazzo Ciano, but these people who were sacked now became opposition members which strengthened the opposition.
At the end of July a group of leading Fascists among which Ciano came together and were convinced that the only way to save Italy
was to put Mussolini from power.
The overthrown of Mussolini was essentially a ‘palace revolution’ were initiative
from the ordinary Italian civilians didn't play any role.
However anti-Fascist forces did exist in Italy since the beginning of Mussolini's reign they
contributed next to nothing to Mussolini's downfall.
The prime mover was Dino Grandi, minister of justice, who requested a meeting of the
Grand Council on the night of 24 July.
A vote of ‘no confidence’ was proposed where Mussolini was demanded to hand back
his powers to the king.
Grandi's motion attracted a substantial majority of the vote.
Mussolini was arrested.
The next day the king appointed a new cabinet with Italian Marshal Badoglio as prime minister.
The new government abolished most of the institutions of the Fascist regime.
“The total failure of the regime, at any level, to offer even a minimum of resistance
demonstrates the extent to which Fascism had crumbled from within, eaten away by corruption,
cynicism, disillusionment and despair.”
A popular rejoicing occured and images and symbols of the regime were ceremonially destroyed
in the streets of Italy.
The events show that the fascist regime had always been dependent on various components.
When these fell away the regime was destined to go.
This didn't mean the end of the war for Italy. It also didn't mean the end of the Italo-German
Pact of Steel.
Badoglio assured the Nazis that Italy would remain on the side of the Germans to fight against the Allies.
However, in secret he started to negotiate with the Allies.
On 8 September an agreement was reached.
However, as feared, the Germans stepped in and executed a contingency plan prepared
by German generals. Germany took over Italy.
On September 12, 1943, they also liberated Mussolini and Hitler tried to bring Mussolini
back into a position of power in Italy.
Mussolini proclaimed the Italian Social Republic.
However, the real power lay with Nazi Germany and Mussolini no longer actually ruled.
Meanwhile the Allies advanced across the Italian peninsula.
On April 28, 1945, Mussolini, along with his mistress, was executed near Lake Como by Italian
partisans, after which the bodies were put on display in Milan to an angry mob.
The Allies were now in the middle of Italy.