Benito Amircaré Andrea Mussolini ( 29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945 ) was an Italian politician who was the Grand Imperial Marshal of the Kingdom of Italy from 1925 to 1943 and President of the Council of Ministers ( 40th Prime Minister ) , the founder of fascism and an important figure in World War II. Mussolini obtained the status of prime minister in 1925, and consolidated his position as the head of state, and from the same year until July 25, 1943 he imposed a dictatorship in Italy, and on March 30, 1938 he also received the highest Italian military rank "Supreme Imperial Marshal", Mussolini was arrested by the new Italian government in July 1943, but was immediately rescued by German special forces and became the government prime minister of the Italian Social Republic, a German puppet state.
Mussolini
Mussolini believed in socialism and atheism in his early years, joined the left-wing Italian Socialist Party in 1900, was arrested and served five months in prison in 1911 for opposing the Italian invasion of Ottoman Libya, and in 1912 became a leading member of the Italian Socialist Party and the party newspaper Forward! reporter. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 drastically changed Mussolini's shift from anti-interventionism to war fanaticism, and on November 5, 1914, Mussolini founded the left-wing interventionist newspaper The Italian People in Milan, a change of thought that led to his expulsion from the Italian Socialist Party in 1915.
After Italy joined the Allies in April 1915 and entered the war, Mussolini signed up for the war. Later, fearing that Italy would withdraw from the war after Russia, Britain secretly bought Mussolini for a high salary of 100 pounds a week, so that Mussolini continued to advocate participation in the war in the newspaper he edited. After the end of the First World War, Italy, which suffered huge economic and human losses, was a victorious power, but at the Paris Peace Conference, it was squeezed out by the three giants of the United States, Britain and France, and did not receive the expected "remuneration", which brought further shame to Italy in addition to losing the war. In 1921 Mussolini founded the National Fascist Party, which gained the support of the middle class, landlords, and industrial capitalists in post-war political and economic turmoil in Italy.
On October 28, 1922, Mussolini staged a coup d'état against Rome, and on October 30, he was appointed by King Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy as Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) and formed a cabinet. Concerned about the Civil War and the anti-monarchist character of the socialists, the National Fascist Party gained the support of the king and won a landslide victory in the general elections of 6 April 1924, with a 67% majority of seats. On June 10 of the same year, Mussolini's main political enemy, the Italian socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti, was assassinated. In January 1925, Mussolini declared the National Fascist Party the only legal party in Italy, thus establishing a fascist dictatorship.
In 1935, he began contacts with the German Führer Adolf Hitler and joined the Anti-Comintern pact. Germany and Italy signed the Iron and Steel Treaty on May 22, 1939. On June 10, 1940, Italy officially joined the Axis powers into World War II, and on September 27 of the same year, Italy, Germany, and Japan signed the Triple Alliance Treaty. From 1940 to 1942, the Italian colonial empire under Mussolini reached its peak, and Italy's sphere of influence included Italian Libya, Italian Eritrea, Italian Somaliland, Italian Ethiopia, the Kingdom of Albania, the French territories east of the Rhone River, Corsica, the western part of the Independent State of Croatia, the Montenegrin military government, the Italian-occupied Greeks, Monaco, Italian Tunisia and the Zozecanissos Islands, and the Italian Concession of Tianjin and the Italian Concession of Shanghai.
Into the war
Germany launched the White Plan to invade Poland on September 1, 1939, and on the same day the British and French ambassadors issued an ultimatum to Berlin demanding that Germany withdraw immediately, and without receiving a reply, Britain and France declared war on Germany on September 3, and other countries joined in, and the outbreak of war in Europe in World War II and Italy continued to maintain neutrality.
When the Battle of France broke out on May 10, 1940, Italy remained out of the picture. After seeing the Germans essentially achieve a decisive victory in the Battle of France, Mussolini was convinced that the all-out war would soon be over, and on June 10 Italy declared war on Britain and France, and in the same month, Italy invaded France. On 22 June, the Franco-German armistice agreement Compiègne was signed, and the government of the French Third Republic announced its surrender. On 24 June the Italian-French armistice was signed, and Italy occupied southeastern France and annexed Nice and Corsica ( more French territory in 1942 , until the Kingdom of Italy surrendered to the Allies on 8 September 1943). On September 27, 1940, Italy, Germany and Japan signed the Triple Alliance Treaty.
On October 28, 1940, Italy declared war on the Kingdom of Greece alone, without informing Germany in advance, and the Greco-Italian War began. In 1941 , Italy and Greece reached a strategic stalemate in Albania , and at Italy's request, Germany intervened and went south to punish the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , which had fallen to the British. On April 6 , 1941 , the Germans launched the " Yugoslav Campaign " , together with Axis allies Hungary , Romania , and Bulgaria , launched an offensive in the southern Balkan Peninsula , beginning simultaneously with the Battle of Yugoslavia and the Greek Campaign. The five states quickly surrendered to Lower Yugoslavia, Italy occupied the entire territory of the Rubiana , Montenegro , Kosovo , parts of Macedonia , and recognized the Independent State of Croatia as its protectorate.
On June 22 , 1941 , when the Axis powers of Germany and Italy declared war on the Soviet Union , Mussolini sent an expeditionary force to assist the Germans.
On December 11, 1941, the fourth day after Pearl Harbor, Mussolini delivered a declaration of war speech in Rome's Piazza Venezia, the same day Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, and the United States declared war on Germany and Italy on the same day.
Stepping down and arrest
The war situation in Italy had deteriorated since the summer of 1943, and Mussolini's popularity at home had fallen to rock bottom. On 13 May, the complete defeat of the Axis powers in Tunis caused Italy to completely lose control of North Africa, which was further exacerbated by the Allied landings in Sicily on 9 July. On 19 July, Mussolini held his last meeting in Fürttere with the German Führer Adolf Hitler in his capacity as Prime Minister of Italy, during which Rome was subjected to a heavy Allied bombardment. From the afternoon of July 24 to the early hours of the next day, against the backdrop of an unprecedented political atmosphere, the 187th session of the Great Fascist Parliament was held, during which Mussolini was violently attacked by Dino Grandi and others, Grandi proposed a motion of no confidence in Mussolini, which passed by a large percentage of 19 votes in favor and 7 against, but in fact the result of this vote was not meaningful, because according to the Italian constitution at the time, only the king had the power to remove the prime minister.
On the morning of July 25 , Mussolini was summoned to the post by King Vittorio Emanuele III, who informed him that he had been dismissed and would be replaced by Petro Badoglio, who promised his personal safety. Mussolini, who did not know the king's true intentions, was surrounded by the Italian National Gendarmerie on his departure and taken away in a Red Cross ambulance, which Mussolini was told was for his safety. In fact, in order to save his royal power, the order to arrest Mussolini was personally made by King Emanuele III. Mussolini was initially imprisoned in an Italian National Gendarmerie barracks in Rome, but to avoid detection by the Germans, he was transferred to Ponza on 27 July, to the naval base of La Maddalena on 7 August, and finally to a villa under house arrest on the Imperial Terrace of Mount Grande Sasso on 27 August.
Immediately afterwards, Petro Badoglio declared that "Italy will continue to fight alongside its German allies" in order to avoid any retaliatory action by German forces in Italy. In fact, the fascist government of the Kingdom of Italy was secretly negotiating an armistice with the Allies, which was signed on September 3, and in order to avoid the rapid occupation of the Italian peninsula by Germany, which learned of the armistice, it was not officially announced until September 8, when the Allies launched an avalanche landing in Salerno, the Italian peninsula. However, at the same time as the ceasefire agreement was announced, no orders were given to the Italian army, King Emanuele III and Badoglio fled Rome, resulting in chaos in the Italian army everywhere, Hitler in order to save the Italian fascist regime, ordered the German army to carry out the axis operation to quickly occupy northern Italy territory to control the situation, the same month the German army took control of Rome, a large number of Italian soldiers were killed or captured.
On September 12 , 1943 , the Germans launched Operation Oak 's rescue plan , and SS forces commanded by Otto Skolzny used gliders to parachute into Mussolini's villa under house arrest on the Great Sasso Peak, successfully freed him to German-controlled Rome , and immediately transferred to Vienna. On September 14, Mussolini met with Hitler in the Wolf's Den and was invited by Hitler to form a republic under the protection of Nazi Germany, later the Italian Social Republic. On 18 September, Mussolini announced the re-establishment of a neo-fascist party called the Republican Fascist Party through radio in Munich. After a period of anarchy, the restored Kingdom of Italy finally declared war on Germany on October 13, 1943.
Italian Social Republic
The newly established Italian Social Republic was de facto controlled by Nazi Germany as a puppet regime. In September 1943, Adolf Hitler sent troops to quickly occupy and directly control parts of Italy's northeastern provinces and the area outside the Italian peninsula. In addition, Hitler also controlled the army of the Italian Social Republic. From 23 September to 27 September 1943 the Government of the Italian Social Republic was transferred to Salo, hence the nickname "Republic of Salo".
The first republican-fascist rally in Verona on November 14, 1943, drafted and issued the Verona Declaration. This declaration of the nature of the provisional constitution established the rule of the republican fascist party over the Italian Social Republic and the continued rule of Mussolini as head of state. Mussolini announced that national elections would be delayed until the end of the war, and hinted that a draft constitution for the Italian Social Republic would be drawn up.
Fleeing and being captured
On April 25, 1945, Mussolini decided to leave Milan in order to escape the collapsing Italian Social Republic, hoping to escape to fascist Spain via Switzerland in northern Italy. On 27 April 1945 Mussolini and his lover Claretta Petachi were intercepted by the 52nd Garibaldi Brigade of the Italian Communist Party partisans on their way to Switzerland and identified by a partisan political commissar, Urbano Lacello.
death
Main article: Death of Mussolini
After the decision to execute Mussolini by the Italian Communist guerrillas of the Italian resistance, the execution was carried out on April 28, 1945, and Mussolini and his lover Claretta Petachi were shot at the age of sixty-two in the village of Giulino, in the town of Mezegra, Como province. Fifteen cabinet officials and advisers of the Italian Social Republic were also executed at the same time.