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The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
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Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
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Mussolini,_Benito
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1883-1945. Italian dictator from 1925 to
1943. As founder of the Fascist Movement (see
fascism) 1919 and prime minister from 1922,
he became known as Il Duce (`the leader'). He
invaded Ethiopia 1935-36, intervened in the
Spanish Civil War 1936-39 in support of
Franco, and conquered Albania 1939. In June
1940 Italy entered World War II supporting
Hitler. Forced by military and domestic
setbacks to resign 1943, Mussolini
established a breakaway government in N Italy
1944-45, but was killed trying to flee the
country. Mussolini was born in the Romagna,
the son of a blacksmith, and worked in early
life as a teacher and journalist. He became
active in the socialist movement, from which
he was expelled 1914 for advocating Italian
intervention in World War I. In 1919 he
founded the Fascist Movement, whose programme
combined violent nationalism with demagogic
republican and anti-capitalist slogans, and
launched a campaign of terrorism against the
socialists. This movement was backed by many
landowners and industrialists, and by the
heads of the army and police, and in Oct 1922
Mussolini was in power as prime minister at
the head of a coalition government. In 1925
he assumed dictatorial powers, and in 1926
all opposition parties were banned. During
the years that followed, the entire
political, legal, and education system was
remodelled on Fascist lines. Mussolini's
Blackshirt followers were the forerunners of
Hitler's Brownshirts, and his career of
conquest drew him into close cooperation with
Nazi Germany. Italy and Germany formed the
Axis alliance 1936. During World War II,
Italian defeats in N Africa and Greece, the
Allied invasion of Sicily, and discontent at
home destroyed Mussolini's prestige, and in
July 1943 he was compelled to resign by his
own Fascist Grand Council. He was released
from prison by German parachutists in Sept
1943, and set up a `Republican Fascist'
government in N Italy. In Apr 1945 he and his
mistress, Clara Petacci, were captured by
partisans at Lake Como while heading for the
border, and shot. Their bodies were hung
upside down and exposed to the execration of
the mob in Milan.