First, this article was not my idea. My daughter-in-law suggested it to me. I said, “L, give me a couple of article ideas.” He thought like he did all the time and finally said, “You know, I’d like to know about Mussolini.”

The reason she wants to know about El Duce is that she learned little about him in her youth, but he is in the back of her mind. “I would like to know more about him,” she said.

Of course, I know everything that is important to know about Mussolini just as I know everything that is important to know about Tojo and Hitler.

I have read all the best books on Hitler, but they add little to the brain of a “Who was there”.

In 1939, when German troops invaded Poland, I remember walking with my older brother, A, and his friends. It was a warm autumn afternoon and the moon was out and what they said scared me to death. And when I saw a play in the church (our cultural center), the place where stormtroopers stormed a house with small children, threatened them with bayonets, took their books and burned them, I knew that Hitler was a real man. bad. (Books were everything to me. He lived in the library.)

Now let’s see. In 1939, I was seven years old.

I learned about Japan on December 7, 1941. Learning that our navy had been almost completely destroyed at Pearl Harbor, my cousin and I expected to see Japanese planes in the blue sky at any moment. Chilled again!

He was now almost ten years old. That’s when I first heard the name, Tojo. He was in all the cartoons. We sure learned to hate Tojo. We blamed Tojo for everything that happened in the Pacific.

I recently read a book about Tojo and his trial after WWII. I came to the conclusion that we shouldn’t blame him for all the atrocities of that war. Tojo told the court that we should blame the field commanders. Regardless, he was executed when he could have continued to be a great source of historical information. He was the only bad guy left. He was not a threat to anyone and a perfect gentleman. I guess he didn’t fool the court, just me.

Bye bye!

During the war we all knew “El Alce”, “El Duce”, Mussolini. He was the fat guy in the brown uniform who always stuck his mouth out. Like Hitler, he was a corporal during World War I. Hitler greatly admired him and rescued him from partisans, but near the end of World War II he was finally shot and hung to dry in Milan’s public square. (I was there a few years ago. Someone had moved the bodies).

You can get information about Mussolini’s early life at: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWmussolini.htm.

I quote: “Benito Mussolini was born in Forli, Italy in 1883. After briefly working as a schoolteacher, Mussolini fled to Switzerland in 1902 in an effort to evade military service.

“Mussolini returned to Italy in 1904 and for the next ten years worked as a journalist and eventually became editor of “Avanti”. Mussolini was active in the socialist movement but moved to the right in 1914 when the Italian government did not support the Triple Alliance In 1915 Mussolini resigned from the Socialist Party when he advocated supporting the Allies in World War I.

“When Italy entered the war, Mussolini served in the Italian army and eventually rose to the rank of corporal. After being wounded, he returned to Milan to edit the right-wing “Il Popolo d’Italia”. Demands at the Paris Peace Conference” .

(For those of you who like to know such things, the Triple Alliance was a defense pact between Italy, Germany, and Austria-Hungary.)

Benito Mussolini invaded areas throughout Africa. (He used mustard gas on the home guards, the only leader to use gas during the war.) The British stopped him. Despite Germany’s entry into the African campaign, the British, with the help of General Eisenhower, won.

The allies wanted Mussolini completely out of the war so they invaded Sicily. He helped take the pressure off the suffering Soviet armies and provided a base for the invasion of Italy.

Hear! This is what Mussolini said in 1929:

“In the creation of a new authoritarian but not absolutist, hierarchical and organic State – that is, open to the people in all its classes, categories and interests – lies the great revolutionary originality of fascism, and perhaps a lesson for all modernity oscillating between the authority of the State and that of the individual, between the State and the anti-State.Like all other revolutions, the fascist revolution has had a spectacular development, but this alone would not suffice to distinguish it.terror is not a revolution: it is only a necessary instrument in a certain phase of the revolution.”

When we were children, we thought that Mussolini was a clown, a big fat buffoon. We also had a lot of jokes about the Italian army. We didn’t think they were a great fighting force. The Italian partisans thought differently. They knew that Mussolini was an evil tyrant who had brought misery to thousands of people.

They were out to catch him for sure.

Using our original reference, we read about Mussolini’s death. The record is from the “Manchester Guardian:”

“April 30, 1945. Mussolini, with his mistress, Clara Petacci, and twelve members of his cabinet, were executed by guerrillas in a town on Lake Como yesterday afternoon, after being arrested while trying to cross the Swiss border. The bodies were taken to Milan last night, a guerrilla knocked on my door early this morning to give me the news.

“We went by car to the working-class neighborhood of Loreto and there were the bodies piled up with frightening promiscuity in the open square under the same fence against which a year before fifteen guerrillas had been shot by their own compatriots.
“Mussolini’s body lay on Petacci’s. In his dead hand had been placed the bronze insignia of the fascist Arditi. With these fourteen were also the bodies of Farinacci and Starace, two former general secretaries of the fascist party, and Teruzzo, former colonies minister who had been captured elsewhere and executed by partisans.

“Mussolini was captured yesterday at Dongo, Lake Como, driving alone in a car with his uniform covered by a German coat. He was driving in a column of German cars to escape observation, but was recognized by an Italian customs guard.
“The others were trapped in a neighboring town. They include Pavolini, Barracu and other lesser lights in the fascist world whom Mussolini had to call up in later days to become part of his puppet government.

“This is the first conspicuous example of popular justice in liberated Italy. Otherwise, the partisans have been well controlled by their leaders. The opinion expressed this morning by the C.-in-C. guerrilla, General Cadorna, Jr. of the former Field Marshal, was that such incidents in themselves were regrettable. However, in this case he viewed the execution as a good thing, since popular outrage against the fascists demanded some satisfaction. The risk of lengthy trials, such as the that has taken place in Rome, thus it was avoided”.

Mussolini’s beautiful wife said after his death that he had done nothing wrong except eloped with Clara Petacci.

Anyway, the Moose was dead!

Bye bye!

PS I know this will only pique the interest of my dear daughter-in-law. Other good sources are: http://cidc.library.cornell.edu/DOF/italy/italy.htm and, http://www.euronet.nl/users/wilfried/ww2/mussolin.htm,

© John Taylor Jones, PhD 2005