46 Facts About Italo Balbo

Italo Balbo was an Italian fascist politician and Blackshirts' leader who served as Italy's Marshal of the Air Force, Governor-General of Italian Libya and Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa.

Italo Balbo was one of the Quadrumvirs, the four principal architects of the March on Rome that brought Mussolini and the Fascists to power in 1922, along with Michele Bianchi, Emilio De Bono and Cesare Maria De Vecchi.

In 1896, Italo Balbo was born in Quartesana in the Kingdom of Italy.

Once Italy entered the war in 1915, Italo Balbo joined the Italian Royal Army as an officer candidate and served with the Alpini mountain infantry.

Italo Balbo obtained a law degree and a degree in Social Sciences.

Italo Balbo was a Republican, but he hated Socialists and the unions and cooperatives associated with them.

Italo Balbo returned to his home town to work as a bank clerk.

In 1920, Italo Balbo was initiated in the regular Masonic Lodge "Giovanni Bovio", affiliated to the Gran Loggia d'Italia.

Italo Balbo left the lodge on 18 February 1923, just three days before the vote of the Grand Council of Fascism which forbade fascists to be members of the Freemasonry.

In 1921, Italo Balbo joined the newly created National Fascist Party and soon became a secretary of the Ferrara Fascist organization.

Italo Balbo began to organize Fascist gangs and formed his own group nicknamed Celibano, after their favorite drink.

Italo Balbo had become one of the Ras, adopted from an Ethiopian title somewhat equivalent to a duke, of the Fascist hierarchy by 1922, establishing his local leadership in the party.

In 1923, as one of the Quadrumvirs, Italo Balbo became a founding member of the Grand Council of Fascism.

Italo Balbo fled to Rome and in 1924 became General Commander of the Fascist militia and undersecretary for National Economy in 1925.

On 6 November 1926, though he had only a little experience in aviation, Italo Balbo was appointed Secretary of State for Air.

Italo Balbo went through an intensive course of flying instruction and began building the Italian Royal Air Force.

Chicago renamed the former 7th Street "Italo Balbo Drive" and staged a great parade in his honour.

Italo Balbo received a warm welcome in the United States, especially from the large Italian-American populations in Chicago and New York City.

On 12 August 1933, Italo Balbo's formation departed Clarenville for the Azores, Lisbon, and Rome.

Italo Balbo advocated that the army be reduced to twenty divisions, of which there would be ten motorised, five Alpine and five armoured, all well-equipped, trained and prepared for amphibious warfare, while the navy would have three marine divisions.

On 7 November 1933, Italo Balbo was appointed Governor-General of the Italian colony of Libya.

Italo Balbo's task was to assert Italy's rights in the indeterminate zones leading to Lake Chad from Tummo in the west and from Kufra in the east towards the Sudan.

At that stage, Italo Balbo had apparently caused bad blood in the party, possibly because of jealousy and individualist behaviour.

Italo Balbo was still well known in the United States for his visit to the Century of Progress exhibition.

Italo Balbo commissioned the Marble Arch to mark the border between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.

In 1935, as the "Abyssinia Crisis" worsened, Italo Balbo began preparing plans to attack Egypt and Sudan.

Italo Balbo reasoned that, should Britain choose to close the Suez Canal, Italian troop transports would be prevented from reaching Eritrea and Somalia.

Italo Balbo calculated that such a gesture would make him a national hero and restore him to the centre of the political stage.

In 1938 and 1939, Italo Balbo himself made a number of flights from Libya across the Sudan to Italian East Africa.

Italo Balbo even flew along the border between AOI and British East Africa.

In January 1939, Italo Balbo was accompanied on one of his flights by German Colonel-General Ernst Udet.

Italo Balbo began road construction projects such as the Via Balbia in an attempt to attract Italian immigrants to Libya.

Italo Balbo made efforts to draw Muslims into the Fascist cause.

In 1938, Italo Balbo was the only member of the Fascist regime who strongly opposed the new legislation against the Jews, the Italian "Racial Laws".

In 1939, after the German invasion of Poland, Italo Balbo visited Rome to express his displeasure at Mussolini's support for German dictator Adolf Hitler.

Italo Balbo was the only Fascist of rank to publicly criticize this aspect of Mussolini's foreign policy.

Italo Balbo argued that Italy should side with the United Kingdom, but he attracted little following to his argument.

At the time of the Italian declaration of war on 10 June 1940, Italo Balbo was the Governor-General of Libya and Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa.

Italo Balbo became responsible for planning an invasion of Egypt.

On 28 June 1940, Italo Balbo was a passenger on a Savoia-Marchetti SM.

Eyewitness General Felice Porro reported that the cruiser San Giorgio, serving as a floating anti-aircraft battery, began firing on Italo Balbo's aircraft, followed by the airfield's anti-aircraft guns.

Rumours that Italo Balbo was assassinated on Mussolini's orders have been conclusively debunked.

Italo Balbo's remains were buried outside Tripoli on 4 July 1940.

In 1970, Italo Balbo's remains were brought back to Italy and buried in Orbetello by Italo Balbo's family after Muammar Gaddafi threatened to disinter the Italian cemeteries in Tripoli.

Italo Balbo Drive is a well-known street in the heart of downtown.

In post-fascist Italy, most monuments and streets named after Balbo during the Fascist Regime reverted to their pre-fascist names, such as in Palermo, liberated by the Allies in July 1943, where Piazza Italo Balbo reverted to its former name, Piazza Bologna, or were named after anti-fascist partisans, such as in Sanremo, where "Via Italo Balbo" was renamed after partisan Luigi Nuvoloni.