Benito Mussolini :: essays research papers

Benito MussoliniBenito Mussolini was the founder of Italian Fascism and premier ofItaly ruling as a authoritarian from about 1925 until his dismissal in 1943.Mussolini was born to a socialist blacksmith. As a child he was unruly andundisciplined. He shared his fathers views picking up other ideas from authorsof the time. Mussolini became a schoolteacher and journalist. He spent severalyears in Switzerland and took Rachele Guidi as is wife, they had five children.In 1913 Mussolini became editor of the Milan collectivistic newspaper AvantiWhen creation War 1 began in 1914 he first opposed Italys involvement, until hechanged his mind, saying that Italy should take a stand with the Allies. Thisgot him expelled from the socialist party. He soon founded his cause paper, Ilpopolo ditalia, which became the backbone of his Fascist movement. He thenserved in the Army until he was wounded in 1917.In 1919 Mussolini and some other state of war veterans founded a nationalisticrevolutionary gr oup called the Fasci di Combattimento. His movement turned intopowerful radicalism, obtaining support from landowners in the Po valley,industrialists, and many army officers. Fascist blackshirt squads carried oncivil war with Socialists, Communists, Catholics, and Liberals.In October 1922 Mussolini secured permission from King Victor Emmanuellll to form a coalition government. In 1925-26, after a lengthy crisis with theparliament following the killing of the Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti, heimposed a Totalarian Dictatorship. His Corperative State came to terms withItalian Capitalism but abolished the free trade unions. In 1929 he ended involution with the church through the Lateran Treaty of 1929.In the 1930s Mussolini turned to an aggressive foreign policy,conquering Ethiopia(1935-36) and helping General Francisco Franco in the SpanishCivil War. In 1936 he joined with Hitlers Germany and soon formed a militaryalliance(1939). In 1939 Mussolini ordered his armies to occupy Alban ia. Howeverhe kept out of World War ll until 1940, when the blow over of France was imminent andthe Germans seemed to be winning the war.After a series of Italian military disasters in Greece and NorthAfrica, the leaders of his party abandoned him. The king fired him on July25,1943 and had him arrested. On September 12 the Germans rescued him, makinghim puppet head of a government in northern Italy. In April 1945 Mussolini and