157 Facts About Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician and journalist who was the Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his overthrow in 1943.

Benito Mussolini was of Italian fascism from the establishment of the Italian Fasces of Combat in 1919, until his summary execution in 1945.

Benito Mussolini founded and led the National Fascist Party.

In 1912, he became a member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party, but was expelled for advocating military intervention in World War I In 1914, Mussolini founded a newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia, and served in the Royal Italian Army until he was wounded and discharged in 1917.

Benito Mussolini eventually denounced the PSI, his views now centering on Italian nationalism, and founded the fascist movement which opposed egalitarianism and class conflict, instead advocating "revolutionary nationalism" transcending class lines.

Between 1936 and 1939, Benito Mussolini ordered an intervention in Spain in favour of Francisco Franco, during the Spanish Civil War.

Benito Mussolini took part in the Treaty of Lausanne, Four-Power Pact and Stresa Front.

The wars of the 1930s cost Italy enormous resources, leaving it unprepared for the Second World War; Benito Mussolini initially declared Italy's non-belligerence.

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was born on 29 July 1883 in Dovia di Predappio, a small town in the province of Forli in Romagna.

Benito Mussolini's father, Alessandro Mussolini, was a blacksmith and a socialist, while his mother, Rosa, was a devout Catholic schoolteacher.

In 1902, at the anniversary of Garibaldi's death, Benito Mussolini made a public speech in praise of the republican nationalist.

Benito Mussolini was sent to a boarding school in Faenza run by Salesians.

In July 1902, Benito Mussolini emigrated to Switzerland, partly to avoid compulsory military service.

Benito Mussolini worked briefly as a stonemason but was unable to find a permanent job.

Benito Mussolini later credited Charles Peguy and Hubert Lagardelle as influences.

Benito Mussolini became active in the Italian socialist movement in Switzerland, working for the paper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore, organising meetings, giving speeches to workers, and serving as secretary of the Italian workers' union in Lausanne.

Benito Mussolini was arrested again in Geneva, in April 1904, for falsifying his passport expiration date, and was expelled from the canton of Geneva.

Benito Mussolini was released in Bellinzona following protests from Genevan socialists.

Benito Mussolini then returned to Lausanne, where he entered the University of Lausanne's Department of Social Science on 7 May 1904, attending the lectures of Vilfredo Pareto.

In December 1904, Benito Mussolini returned to Italy to take advantage of an amnesty for desertion from the military.

In February 1909, Benito Mussolini again left Italy, this time to take the job as the secretary of the labour party in the Italian-speaking city of Trento, then part of Austria-Hungary.

Benito Mussolini did office work for the local Socialist Party, and edited its newspaper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore.

Benito Mussolini thought of himself as an intellectual and was considered to be well-read.

Benito Mussolini read avidly; his favourites in European philosophy included Sorel, the Italian Futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, French Socialist Gustave Herve, Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta, and German philosophers Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, the founders of Marxism.

Benito Mussolini had taught himself French and German and translated excerpts from Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Kant.

Benito Mussolini wrote several essays about German literature, some stories, and one novel: L'amante del Cardinale: Claudia Particella, romanzo storico.

The novel was bitterly anticlerical, and years later was withdrawn from circulation after Benito Mussolini made a truce with the Vatican.

Benito Mussolini had become one of Italy's most prominent socialists.

In September 1911, Benito Mussolini participated in a riot, led by socialists, against the Italian war in Libya.

Benito Mussolini bitterly denounced Italy's "imperialist war," an action that earned him a five-month jail term.

John Gunther in 1940 called him "one of the best journalists alive"; Benito Mussolini was a working reporter while preparing for the March on Rome, and wrote for the Hearst News Service until 1935.

Benito Mussolini was so familiar with Marxist literature that in his writings he would not only quote from well-known Marxist works but from the relatively obscure works.

Benito Mussolini was influenced by Nietzsche's anti-Christian ideas and negation of God's existence.

Benito Mussolini felt that socialism had faltered, in view of the failures of Marxist determinism and social democratic reformism, and believed that Nietzsche's ideas would strengthen socialism.

Benito Mussolini's writings came to reflect an abandonment of Marxism and egalitarianism in favour of Nietzsche's ubermensch concept and anti-egalitarianism.

Benito Mussolini was influenced by anti-Austrian Italian nationalist sentiments, believing that the war offered Italians in Austria-Hungary the chance to liberate themselves from rule of the Habsburgs.

Benito Mussolini eventually decided to declare support for the war by appealing to the need for socialists to overthrow the Hohenzollern and Habsburg monarchies in Germany and Austria-Hungary who he said had consistently repressed socialism.

Benito Mussolini further justified his position by denouncing the Central Powers for being reactionary powers; for pursuing imperialist designs against Belgium and Serbia as well as historically against Denmark, France, and against Italians, since hundreds of thousands of Italians were under Habsburg rule.

Benito Mussolini argued that the fall of Hohenzollern and Habsburg monarchies and the repression of "reactionary" Turkey would create conditions beneficial for the working class, and that the mobilisation required for the war would undermine Russia's reactionary authoritarianism and bring Russia to social revolution.

Benito Mussolini said that for Italy the war would complete the process of Risorgimento by uniting the Italians in Austria-Hungary into Italy and by allowing the common people of Italy to be participating members in what would be Italy's first national war.

Benito Mussolini attacked the opponents of the war and claimed that those proletarians who supported pacifism were out of step with the proletarians who had joined the rising interventionist vanguard that was preparing Italy for a revolutionary war.

Benito Mussolini began to criticise the Italian Socialist Party and socialism itself for having failed to recognise the national problems that had led to the outbreak of the war.

Benito Mussolini was expelled from the party for his support of intervention.

Benito Mussolini formed the interventionist newspaper and the in October 1914.

On 5 December 1914, Benito Mussolini denounced orthodox socialism for failing to recognise that the war had made national identity and loyalty more significant than class distinction.

Benito Mussolini fully demonstrated his transformation in a speech that acknowledged the nation as an entity, a notion he had rejected prior to the war, saying:.

Benito Mussolini continued to promote the need of a revolutionary vanguard elite to lead society.

Benito Mussolini became an ally with the irredentist politician and journalist Cesare Battisti.

Benito Mussolini was turned down because of his radical Socialism and told to wait for his reserve call up.

Benito Mussolini's unit took part in the Third Battle of the Isonzo, October 1915.

Benito Mussolini was promoted to the rank of corporal "for merit in war".

Benito Mussolini totalled about nine months of active, front-line trench warfare.

Benito Mussolini was left with at least 40 shards of metal in his body and had to be evacuated from the front.

Benito Mussolini was discharged from the hospital in August 1917 and resumed his editor-in-chief position at his new paper, Il Popolo d'Italia.

Benito Mussolini legally recognised this son on 11 January 1916.

On 23 March 1919 Benito Mussolini re-formed the Milan fascio as the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, consisting of 200 members.

Benito Mussolini drew from the works of Plato, Georges Sorel, Nietzsche, and the economic ideas of Vilfredo Pareto.

Benito Mussolini admired Plato's The Republic, which he often read for inspiration.

Benito Mussolini equated a nation's potential for economic growth with territorial size, thus in his view the problem of poverty in Italy could only be solved by winning the necessary spazio vitale.

Benito Mussolini claimed that the world was divided into a hierarchy of races, and that history was nothing more than a Darwinian struggle for power and territory between various "racial masses".

Benito Mussolini saw high birthrates in Africa and Asia as a threat to the "white race".

Benito Mussolini believed that the United States was doomed as the American blacks had a higher birthrate than whites, making it inevitable that the blacks would take over the United States to drag it down to their level.

In Benito Mussolini's thinking, demography was destiny; nations with rising populations were nations destined to conquer; and nations with falling populations were decaying powers that deserved to die.

In 1921, Benito Mussolini won election to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time.

The King then handed over power to Benito Mussolini by asking him to form a new government.

Benito Mussolini favoured the complete restoration of state authority, with the integration of the Italian Fasces of Combat into the armed forces and the progressive identification of the party with the state.

In 1923, Benito Mussolini sent Italian forces to invade Corfu during the Corfu incident.

Benito Mussolini ordered a cover-up, but witnesses saw the car that transported Matteotti's body parked outside Matteotti's residence, which linked Amerigo Dumini to the murder.

Benito Mussolini later confessed that a few resolute men could have altered public opinion and started a coup that would have swept fascism away.

On his release, Dumini allegedly told other people that Benito Mussolini was responsible, for which he served further prison time.

On 31 December 1924, MVSN consuls met with Benito Mussolini and gave him an ultimatum: crush the opposition or they would do so without him.

On 3 January 1925, Benito Mussolini made a truculent speech before the Chamber in which he took responsibility for squadristi violence.

Benito Mussolini did not abolish the squadristi until 1927, however.

German-American historian Konrad Jarausch has argued that Benito Mussolini was responsible for an integrated suite of political innovations that made fascism a powerful force in Europe.

Benito Mussolini made a significant effort to include the previously alienated Catholic element.

Benito Mussolini defined public roles for the main sectors of the business community rather than allowing it to operate backstage.

Between 1925 and 1927, Benito Mussolini progressively dismantled virtually all constitutional and conventional restraints on his power and built a police state.

Benito Mussolini was no longer responsible to Parliament and could be removed only by the King.

On 7 April 1926, Benito Mussolini survived a first assassination attempt by Violet Gibson.

Benito Mussolini survived a failed assassination attempt in Rome by anarchist Gino Lucetti, and a planned attempt by the Italian anarchist Michele Schirru, which ended with Schirru's capture and execution.

Benito Mussolini nominated Mori as a senator, and fascist propaganda claimed that the Mafia had been defeated.

Giuseppe Volpi, who had been appointed governor in 1921, was retained by Benito Mussolini, and withdrew all of the measures offering equality to the Libyans.

Benito Mussolini launched several public construction programs and government initiatives throughout Italy to combat economic setbacks or unemployment levels.

Benito Mussolini's earliest was the Battle for Wheat, by which 5,000 new farms were established and five new agricultural towns on land reclaimed by draining the Pontine Marshes.

Benito Mussolini initiated the "Battle for Land", a policy based on land reclamation outlined in 1928.

Benito Mussolini attempted to turn Italy into a self-sufficient autarky, instituting high barriers on trade with most countries except Germany.

Benito Mussolini was keen to take the credit for major public works in Italy, particularly the railway system.

The difference between the Italian railway service in 1919,1920 and 1921 and that which obtained during the first year of the Benito Mussolini regime was almost beyond belief.

Benito Mussolini pretended to incarnate the new fascist Ubermensch, promoting an aesthetic of exasperated Machismo that attributed to him quasi-divine capacities.

At various times after 1922, Benito Mussolini personally took over the ministries of the interior, foreign affairs, colonies, corporations, defence, and public works.

Benito Mussolini was head of the all-powerful Fascist Party and the armed local fascist militia, the MVSN or "Blackshirts", who terrorised incipient resistance in the cities and provinces.

Benito Mussolini always portrayed himself as an intellectual, and some historians agree.

Benito Mussolini assigned former ardito and deputy-secretary for Education Renato Ricci the task of "reorganizing the youth from a moral and physical point of view".

Benito Mussolini had had his children baptised in 1923 and himself re-baptised by a Catholic priest in 1927.

Benito Mussolini's vision centered on forging a new Roman Empire in Africa and the Balkans, vindicating the so-called "mutilated victory" of 1918 imposed by Britain and France, which betrayed the Treaty of London and denied Italy its "natural right" to supremacy in the Mediterranean.

Benito Mussolini believed that Italy's population, then at 40 million, was insufficient for a major war, and sought to increase it to at least 60 million through relentless natalist policies, including making advocacy of contraception a criminal offense in 1924.

An exception was the 1923 Corfu incident, where Benito Mussolini was prepared for war with Britain over the assassination of Italian military personnel, but was persuaded to accept a diplomatic solution by the Italian Navy's leadership.

In 1925, Benito Mussolini secretly told Italian military leaders that Italy needed to win spazio vitale, aiming to unite the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean under Italian control, though he acknowledged that Italy lacked sufficient manpower for war until the mid-1930s.

Benito Mussolini participated in the Locarno Treaties of 1925, which guaranteed Germany's western borders.

Confident of French support due to his opposition to Hitler, Benito Mussolini dismissed the League of Nations' sanctions imposed over the Ethiopian invasion.

Benito Mussolini viewed the sanctions as hypocritical attempts by older imperial powers to block Italy's expansion.

Benito Mussolini ordered systematic terror against Ethiopian rebels, targeting both combatants and civilians.

Benito Mussolini ordered the execution of the entire adult male population in a town and in one district ordered that "the prisoners, their accomplices and the uncertain will have to be executed" as part of the "gradual liquidation" of the population.

Benito Mussolini favoured a policy of brutality partly because he believed the Ethiopians were not a nation because black people were too stupid to have a sense of nationality.

The other reason was because Benito Mussolini was planning on bringing millions of Italians into Ethiopia and wanted to kill off much of the population to make room.

However, in 1936, Benito Mussolini agreed to the Rome-Berlin Axis with Germany, and in 1939 signed the Pact of Steel, binding Italy and Germany in a full military alliance.

Benito Mussolini had underestimated the cost of the invasion, which proved far higher than expected, and the ongoing occupation further strained Italy's economy.

From 1936 to 1939, Benito Mussolini provided substantial military support to Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, further distancing Italy from France and Britain.

At the Munich Conference in 1938, Benito Mussolini posed as a peacemaker while supporting Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland.

Benito Mussolini believed that the declining birth rates in France were "absolutely horrifying" and that the British Empire was doomed because one-quarter of the British population was over 50.

Benito Mussolini preferred an alliance with Germany over Britain and France, viewing it as better to be allied with the strong instead of the weak.

Benito Mussolini saw international relations as a Social Darwinian struggle between "virile" nations with high birth rates destined to destroy "effete" nations with low birth rates.

Benito Mussolini had no interest in an alliance with France, which he considered a "weak and old" nation due to its declining birthrate.

Benito Mussolini was held back from full alignment with Berlin by Italy's economic and military unpreparedness and his desire to use the Easter Accords of April 1938 to split Britain from France.

The Easter Accords were intended by Benito Mussolini to allow Italy to take on France alone, with the hope that improved Anglo-Italian relations would keep Britain neutral in a Franco-Italian war.

Benito Mussolini learned that while Britain wanted better relations with Italy, it would not sever ties with France.

In February 1939, Benito Mussolini declared that a state's power is "proportional to its maritime position," asserting that Italy was a "prisoner in the Mediterranean," surrounded by British-controlled territories.

On 21 March 1939, during a meeting of the Fascist Grand Council, Italo Balbo accused Benito Mussolini of "licking Hitler's boots" and criticized the pro-German policy as leading Italy to disaster.

In May 1939, Benito Mussolini signed the Pact of Steel, a full military alliance with Germany, after securing a promise from Hitler that there would be no war for three years.

However, when the Germans arrested 183 professors from Jagiellonian University in Krakow in November 1939, Benito Mussolini intervened personally, resulting in the release of 101 Poles.

In September 1939, France swung to the opposite extreme, offering to discuss issues with Italy, but as the French were unwilling to discuss Corsica, Nice and Savoy, Benito Mussolini did not answer.

Benito Mussolini planned to concentrate Italian forces on a major offensive against the British Empire in Africa and the Middle East, known as the "parallel war", while expecting the collapse of the UK in the European theatre.

On 24 October 1940, Benito Mussolini sent the Italian Air Corps to Belgium, where it took part in the Blitz until January 1941.

Benito Mussolini first learned of Operation Barbarossa after the invasion of the Soviet Union had begun on 22 June 1941, and was not asked by Hitler to involve himself.

Benito Mussolini is overjoyed about the Japanese attack on America.

Benito Mussolini is so happy about it that I am happy with him, though I am not too sure about the final advantages of what has happened.

Benito Mussolini feared that with Allied victory in North Africa, Allied armies would come across the Mediterranean and attack Italy.

Several of his colleagues were close to revolt, and Benito Mussolini was forced to summon the Grand Council on 24 July 1943.

Benito Mussolini showed little visible reaction, even though this effectively authorised the king to sack him.

Benito Mussolini did ask Grandi to consider the possibility that this motion would spell the end of Fascism.

Benito Mussolini allegedly viewed the Grand Council as merely an advisory body and did not think the vote would have any substantive effect.

Benito Mussolini was unaware of these moves by the king and tried to tell him about the Grand Council meeting.

People rejoiced because they believed that the end of Benito Mussolini meant the end of the war.

Only two months after Benito Mussolini had been dismissed and arrested, he was rescued from his prison at the Hotel Campo Imperatore in the Gran Sasso raid on 12 September 1943 by a special Fallschirmjager unit and Waffen-SS commandos led by Major Otto-Harald Mors; Otto Skorzeny was present.

The rescue saved Benito Mussolini from being turned over to the Allies in accordance with the armistice.

Three days after his rescue in the Gran Sasso raid, Benito Mussolini was taken to Germany for a meeting with Hitler in Rastenburg at his East Prussian headquarters.

Benito Mussolini opposed any territorial reductions of the Italian state and told his associates:.

Benito Mussolini told one of his colleagues that being sent to a concentration camp would be preferable.

In December 1915, Benito Mussolini married Rachele Guidi, who had been his mistress since 1910.

Benito Mussolini had several mistresses, among them Margherita Sarfatti and his final companion, Clara Petacci.

Benito Mussolini was raised by a devoutly Catholic mother and an anti-clerical father.

Benito Mussolini considered religion a disease of the psyche, and accused Christianity of promoting resignation and cowardice.

Benito Mussolini is claimed to be superstitious, because after hearing of the curse of the Pharaohs, he ordered the immediate removal of an Egyptian mummy that he had been gifted from the Palazzo Chigi.

Benito Mussolini made vitriolic attacks against Christianity and the Catholic Church, which he accompanied with provocative remarks about the consecrated host, and about a love affair between Christ and Mary Magdalene.

Benito Mussolini denounced socialists who were tolerant of religion, or who had their children baptised, and called for socialists who accepted religious marriage to be expelled from the party.

In 1924, Benito Mussolini saw to it that three of his children were given communion.

Benito Mussolini began drawing parallels between himself and Jesus Christ.

Benito Mussolini was given a funeral in 1957 when his remains were placed in the family crypt.

In 1934, Benito Mussolini supported the establishment of the Betar Naval Academy in Civitavecchia to train Zionist cadets, arguing that a Jewish state would be in Italy's interest.

Until 1938 Benito Mussolini had denied any antisemitism within the Fascist Party.

The relationship between Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler was a contentious one early on.

Benito Mussolini declared that the ideas of eugenics and the racially charged concept of an Aryan nation were not possible.

Benito Mussolini dismissed the idea of a master race as "arrant nonsense, stupid and idiotic".

When discussing the Nazi decree that the German people must carry a passport with either Aryan or Jewish racial affiliation marked on it, in 1934, Benito Mussolini wondered how they would designate membership in the "Germanic race":.

Benito Mussolini reached out to the Muslims in his empire and in the predominantly Arab countries of the Middle East.

Benito Mussolini has been a member of the European Parliament for the far-right Social Alternative movement, a deputy in the Italian lower chamber and served in the Senate as a member of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party.

Benito Mussolini inspired and supported the international spread of fascist movements during the inter-war period.