HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/anarchy/essays/schoolsucks/benito.txt

Text File | 1996-04-27 | 13KB | 202 lines

History

            Benito MussoliniÆs Rise and Fall to Power

    Benito Mussolini had a large impact on World War II. He wasnÆt always a
powerful dictator though. At first he was a school teacher and a
socialist journalist. He later married Rachele Guide and had 5 children.
He was the editor of the Avanti, which was a socialist party newspaper
in Milan.
    Benito Mussolini founded the Fasci di Combattimento on March of 1919.
ôThis was a nationalistic, anti liberal, and anti socialist movement.
This movement attracted mainly the lower middle class.ö1  Fascism was
spreading across Europe. Mussolini was winning sympathy from King Victor
Emmanuel III. Mussolini then threatened to march on Rome. This persuaded
King Victor Emmanuel III to invite Mussolini to join a coalition, which
strongly helped him gain more power.
    Benito Mussolini brought Austria on Germany's side by a formal
alliance. ôIn 1937, he accepted a German alliance. The name of this
alliance was the Anti Comntern Pact. On April 13, 1937 Benito Mussolini
annexed Albania. He then told the British ambassador that not even the
bribe of France and North Africa would keep him neutral.ö2  The British
ambassador was appalled and dismayed.
    On May 28, 1937,  Mussolini strongly gave thought to declaring
war. He then attacked the Riviera across the Maritime. ôOn September 13,
1937 he opened an offensive into British-garrisoned Egypt from Libya.ö3
    On October 4, 1937, while the offensive still seemed to promise
success,  Benito Mussolini met Adolf Hitler at the Brenner Pass, on
their joint frontier. ôThe two of them discussed how the war in the
Mediterranean, BritainÆs principal foothold outside its island base,
might be turned to her decisive disadvantage. Hitler suggested to
Mussolini that Spain might be coaxed on the axis side, thus giving
Germany free use of the British Rock of Gibraltar, by offering Franco
part of French North Africa, and that France might be persuaded to
accept that concession by compensation with parts of British West
Africaö.4
    Mussolini seemed enthusiastic and very understandable why this was the
case, since this scheme included the gaining of Tunis, Corsica, and Nice
(annexed by Napoleon III in 1860) from France. Hitler then hurried home
to his house in Berlin to arrange visits to Franco and Petan.  ôBack in
the capital Hitler created a letter to Stalin inviting Molotov, the
Soviet Foreign Minister, to visit early, when Germany and the U.S.S.R.
might then agree among themselves how to profit from Britain not having
a defense.
    A week later, on October 20, he left in his command train, Amerika, to
meet Petan and Franco. The meeting with Franco took place on October 23
at Hendaye on the Franco-Spanish frontier.ö5  It had become quite famous
in the history of World War Two for Hitlers furious parting shot that he
would ôrather have three or four teeth extracted from than go through
that again.ö Franco, who was greatly supported by his Prime Minister,
Serrano Suner, stonewalled throughout the hours towards negotiation with
Franco. When his train left at two in the morning, Hitler had not
advanced an inch towards co-belligerency with Franco.
    Petan met Hitler on October 24, and proved to be equally unresponsive.
Petan convinced Hitler that they had a meeting of minds. Petan had only
agreed to a promise to consult his government, Hitler decided to make a
bigger deal out of it and believed that they were united in a productive
hostility to Britain.
    Hitler now had the outlines, despite Francos struggle, of a larger

coalition war to present to Molotov at his next visit. ôWhen Hitler was

waiting for the Soviet Foreign minister to come, he was distracted by
the weird behavior of Mussolini, who then chose to mount an attack from
Albania (occupied by the Italian army in April 1939) into Greece.ö6
Mussolini said that he was motivated by the fear that the British would
establish positions in Greece if he did not. ôHe had good strategic
reasons for wishing to deny them naval and air bases any closer to his
own along the Adriatic that those who already possessed in Egypt and
Malta. He attacked Greece in October, 1937.ö7
    Mussolini's participation in the Battle of France aroused the derision
of neutrals and enemies. He was determined to win in Greece his share of
the laurels which had fallen in a not proportionate number to the
Wehrmacht.
    The failure of Mussolini's invasion of Greece greatly upset Hitler as
he waited MolotovÆs arrival. This not only messed up his scheme to
change the Balkans into a satellite zone by peaceful diplomacy; it was
also upsetting the Soviet Union. ôOn October 31, Britain occupied Crete
and the Aegean Island of Lemnos with troops sent from Egypt. In the next
few days they transferred air units to southern Greece, putting
RomaniaÆs Ploesti oil fields, his main source of supply, in danger of
bombing attack.ö8
    The Panzer units Mussolini wanted would instead be used for
communicating in Greece from positions inside Bulgaria, GermanyÆs First
World War aly, which Hitler was now trying to coax into the tripartie
Pact, while MussoliniÆs army was left to manage its desert campaign
against British as best it could.  On June 24, 1938 Petain signed terms
with Mussolini.
    Benito Mussolini was ItalyÆs dictator for 21 years. He had gone through
a lot with the people of Italy. All in all they did not like Mussolini.
During the mid summer of 1943 many many supporters turned on him with a
great passion. Sicily was being overrun by Allied armies. Italys'
economy went straight downhill from here.
     The Grand Council of Fascist party, a rubber-stamp assembly that had
not met for 3 and a half years, met to decide MussoliniÆs fate. With
unexpected anger, Dino Grandi, a much respected council member shouted:
ôIn this war, we already have a hundred thousand dead, and we have a
hundred thousand mothers who cry: æMussolini has assassinated my
son!Æ...You have imposed a dictatorship on Italy that is historically
immoral.ö After hours of heated debate, the party leaders in the early
hours of July 25 voted 19-7 for a motion of no confidence in the aging
dictator.  On this very same day King Victor Emmanuel III diverted
Mussolini of his powers and then later arrested him.
    ôAfter his arrest, Mussolini was taken to a ski lodge on Gran Sasso
dÆItalia in the Apennine mountains about 75 miles north-west of Rome.
The lodge was accessible only by a railroad and had been built so
recently that it was not marked on military maps or on mountain climbers
charts. But German intelligence agents under the direction of SS Captain
Otto Skorzeny had learned of MussoliniÆs whereabouts, and at HitlerÆs
direction a rescue mission was organized.
    To determine how safe the landing will be, Skorzeny flew over the Gran
Sasso at 15,000 feet in a Heinkel-111. Leaning out the window in a
numbing 200-mile-an-hour wind, he took pictures while his friend held
tightly to his legs. These pictures showed a spot where they could land
their planes.
    When Skorzeny and his 90 men swept silently down on the lodge in 12
gliders, they discovered to their great dismay that the meadow had a
rapid drop-off at its end. ôIt was much like the platform for a ski
jump,ö Skorzeny later said. He ordered his pilot to make a ôvertical
landingö which tore open his flimsy glider but brought it to a halt in
less than 30 yards.
    Jumping from the plane, Skorzeny and his men swept past shocked guards
and without firing a shot made their way to Mussolini. ôI knew that my
friend Adolf Hitler would not desert me,ö the old dictator said.
    Soon a small plane came into the meadow. When Skorzeny and Mussolini
climbed in it, the pilot was shocked. With both men in it the plane
would probably crash. Yet Skorzeny insisted that they go ahead.
    The plane bounced along the meadow, brushed off a rock and staggered
over the edge of the plateau. It dropped through the thin air, but made
itÆs way to Rome.ö9
    From Rome, Mussolini was flown to Vienna and finally to WolfÆs lair,
HitlerÆs headquarters at Rastenburg in East Prussia. Hitler very much
wanted to restore MussoliniÆs power.
    Yet Duce thought they should retire from the public life so as to avoid
having Italy in the Civil War. Hitler was quite upset. He argued that
only a strong fascist government in northern Italy could save the
Italian people, and that Mussolini could lead such a regiment. Hitler
was really upset because Mussolini showed no enthusiasm to wreak
retaliation on the members of the Grand Council who had betrayed
him-presumably because one of the traitors was his son-in-law, Count
Galeazzo Ciano.
    After the meeting Hitler told his Minister of Propaganda, Joseph
Goebels, of his frustration with Mussolini saying that the Duce, whom he
had once greatly admired, seemed a far smaller man than before.
    Hitler and Mussolini discussed for three days, and the Fuhrer finally
had his way. On September 15, Mussolini approached him and said, ôI have
come for my instructions.ö The instructions were very harsh: A new
Fascist republic would be established in Northern Italy under Mussolini,
but the Germans would assume control of its foreign policy and many of
its economic resources and would govern part of the country.
    Also, all the members of the Grand Council that had voted against
Mussolini would be tried and executed. On September 27, the Duce flew to
Gargnano, north of Salo, to establish the headquarters of his new
republic in German-occupied northern Italy.
    As HitlerÆs puppet, Mussolini came to be called ôthe prisoner of
Gargnano.ö German guards tapped his phone lines and watched his every
move. ôThey are always there, like the spots of the leopard,ö Mussolini
once said. His key appointments had to be approved by the Germans, and
each Italian official was assigned a German adviser.
    Mussolini tried to revitalize the army and to swell the ranks of his
new social fascist party by promising better working and living
conditions. But his time was running out: the people had deserted him,
the Allies were penetrating deeper into Italy, and he was growing
physically and mentally weaker.
     ôThe people turning on him, and the king arresting him and taking away
his powers destroyed Mussolini leading him to a morphine addiction.ö 10
This caused him to become too weak to work long hours, although  he kept
a light on at night in his empty office for show. His moods changed
daily between outbursts of anger and periods of deep despair. He
compared himself to Jesus and Napoleon, and blamed his failure on
others-especially the Italian people. He proclaimed that the people of
Italy were a ômediocre race of good-for-nothings only capable of singing
and eating ice cream,ö and he expressed sickly happiness when Naples was
bombed by the Allies.
    He lived for almost two years after his arrest. He participated in a
series of bizarre and humiliating experiences before finally coming to a
gruesome end.
    Mussolini died on a clear spring day in April 1945. Allies had moved
into the northern part of Italy during the same month. Mussolini
attempted to flee to Austria. Near the town of Dongo his truck convoy
was ambushed by partisans. The Duce was dressed as a German soldier, in
a greatcoat and steel helmet, but his expensive leather boots gave him
away. The partisans took him to a farmhouse.  He was then joined by his
mistress, Claretta Petacci. Claretta had begged to be reunited with
Mussolini.
    The next day the communist partisan drove both Claretta Petacci and
Benito Mussolini to a nearby villa. He ordered the both of them out of
the car and stuck a machine gun in their guilty as sin faces. This gun
jammed but he got another one and quickly shot at Claretta Petacci and
killed her instantly. Mussolini holding back the lapels of his jacket,
said ôShoot me in the chest.ö The partisan shot him twice in the chest
and Mussolini was dead.
    The morning after Mussolini and his mistress were slain, the partisans
dumped their bodies in front of a garage in MilanÆs Puzzle Laureate. A
crowd gathered around; some people shouted foul language, others just
stood there and laughed. One woman fired a pistol at Mussolini five
times to ôavenge her five dead sons.ö Eventually, the two mutilated
bodies were strung upside down for everyone to see. For hours the crowd
laughed and spit at MussoliniÆs body. On the following day he was buried
in the family tomb in Predappo.

    by Susie