(1883-1945) Italian dictator who joined forces with the Third Reich; Also called: Il Duce.
Italian dictator 1925–43. 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 program combined violent nationalism with demagogic republican and anticapitalist 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 political, legal, and education systems were remodeled 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 Sept 1943 and set up a “Republican Fascist” government in N Italy. In April 1945 he and his mistress, Clara Petacci, were captured by partisans at Lake Como while heading for the Swiss border, and shot. Their bodies were taken to Milan and hung upside down in a public square.