150-707: Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (in Switzerland known as Benedetto Mussolini ; 29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) was an Italian dictator who founded and led the National Fascist Party (PNF). He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922, until his deposition in 1943, as well as Duce of Italian fascism from the establishment of the Italian Fasces of Combat in 1919, until his summary execution in 1945 . As
300-460: A dictatorship is often associated with brutality and oppression. As a result, it is often also used as a term of abuse against political opponents. The term has also come to be associated with megalomania . Many dictators create a cult of personality around themselves and they have also come to grant themselves increasingly grandiloquent titles and honours. For instance, Idi Amin Dada , who had been
450-552: A totalitarian state. In 1929, Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty to establish Vatican City . Mussolini's foreign policy was based on the fascist doctrine of " Spazio vitale " ("living space"), which aimed to expand Italian possessions. In the 1920s, he ordered the Pacification of Libya , the bombing of Corfu over an incident with Greece , and annexed Fiume , after a treaty with Yugoslavia . In 1936, Ethiopia
600-462: A transition to genuine democracy during or after their term. The label has been applied to leaders such as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk of Turkey (1923–38), Josip Broz Tito of SFR Yugoslavia (1953–80), and Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore (1959–90). The association between a dictator and the military is a common one. Many dictators take great pains to emphasize their connections with the military and they often wear military uniforms. In some cases, this
750-699: A British army lieutenant prior to Uganda 's independence from Britain in October 1962, subsequently styled himself " His Excellency , President for Life , Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO , MC , Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular ". In the movie The Great Dictator (1940), Charlie Chaplin satirized not only Adolf Hitler but
900-560: A September 1920 speech: When dealing with such a race as Slavic—inferior and barbarian—we must not pursue the carrot, but the stick policy ... We should not be afraid of new victims ... The Italian border should run across the Brenner Pass , Monte Nevoso and the Dinaric Alps ... I would say we can easily sacrifice 500,000 barbaric Slavs for 50,000 Italians ... In the same way, Mussolini argued that Italy
1050-481: A Socialist ) in the radical periodical La Voce . He also wrote several essays about German literature, some stories, and one novel: L'amante del Cardinale: Claudia Particella, romanzo storico ( The Cardinal's Mistress ). This novel he co-wrote with Santi Corvaja, and it was published as a serial book in the Trento newspaper Il Popolo from 20 January to 11 May 1910. The novel was bitterly anticlerical, and years later
1200-517: A classmate with a penknife and was severely punished. After joining a new non-religious school in Forlimpopoli , Mussolini achieved good grades, was appreciated by his teachers despite his violent character, and qualified as an elementary schoolmaster in July 1901. In July 1902, Mussolini emigrated to Switzerland, partly to avoid compulsory military service. He worked briefly as a stonemason but
1350-627: A condition for being pardoned was serving in the army, he joined the corps of the Bersaglieri in Forlì on 30 December 1904. After serving for two years in the military (from January 1905 until September 1906), he returned to teaching. In February 1909, Mussolini again left Italy, this time to take the job as the secretary of the labour party in the Italian-speaking city of Trento , then part of Austria-Hungary . He also did office work for
1500-471: A considerable threat to the Allied invasion fleet. Eisenhower called a meeting for 2 May with Montgomery, Cunningham and Tedder, in which Montgomery made new proposals to concentrate the Allied effort on the southeast corner of Sicily, discarding the intended landings close to Palermo and using the south-eastern ports. After Alexander joined the meeting on 3 May, Montgomery's proposals were finally accepted on
1650-510: A daughter, Edda, at Forlì in 1910. In 1915, he had a son with Ida Dalser , a woman born in Sopramonte, a village near Trento. He legally recognised this son on 11 January 1916. By the time he returned from service in the Allied forces of World War I, Mussolini was convinced that socialism as a doctrine had largely been a failure. In the autumn of 1917, he was recruited as a MI5 agent with
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#17327647955351800-677: A dictator and founder of fascism , Mussolini inspired the international spread of fascist movements during the interwar period . Mussolini was originally a socialist politician and journalist at the Avanti! newspaper . In 1912, he became a member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), but was expelled for advocating military intervention in World War I . In 1914, Mussolini founded
1950-590: A historical and political biography about the life and mission of the Czech ecclesiastic reformer Jan Hus and his militant followers, the Hussites . During this socialist period of his life, Mussolini sometimes used the pen name "Vero Eretico" ("sincere heretic"). Mussolini rejected egalitarianism , a core doctrine of socialism. He was influenced by Nietzsche's anti-Christian ideas and negation of God's existence . Mussolini felt that socialism had faltered, in view of
2100-405: A historical basis—belonged to Italy anyway. In Mussolini's thinking, demography was destiny; nations with rising populations were nations destined to conquer; and nations with falling populations were decaying powers that deserved to die. Hence, the importance of natalism to Mussolini, since only by increasing the birth rate could Italy ensure its future as a great power. By Mussolini's reckoning,
2250-573: A longer history for political-military figures in both Latin America and Spain. Franco also used the phrase " By the Grace of God " on coinage or other material displaying him as Caudillo , whereas Hitler and Mussolini rarely used such language or imagery. Over time, dictators have been known to use tactics that violate human rights. For example, under the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, government policy
2400-606: A message that was articulated by the Fascist newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia , which was now edited by Mussolini's brother, Arnaldo . To that end, Mussolini obtained from the legislature dictatorial powers for one year (legal under the Italian constitution of the time). He favoured the complete restoration of state authority, with the integration of the Italian Fasces of Combat into the armed forces (the foundation in January 1923 of
2550-586: A naval bombardment and seaborne landing by the British 1st Infantry Division ( Operation Corkscrew ) the island garrison surrendered. The Pelagie Islands of Lampedusa and Linosa , some 140 km (90 mi) west of Malta, followed in short order on 12 June. The Allies used a network of tunnels and chambers located below the Lascaris Battery in Valletta , Malta (the "Lascaris War Rooms"), for
2700-517: A newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia , and served in the Royal Italian Army until he was wounded and discharged in 1917. Mussolini eventually denounced the PSI, his views now centering on Italian nationalism , and founded the fascist movement which opposed egalitarianism and class conflict , instead advocating " revolutionary nationalism " transcending class lines . In October 1922, following
2850-401: A non-titular term for oppressive rule. In modern usage the term dictator is generally used to describe a leader who holds or abuses an extraordinary amount of personal power. Dictatorships are often characterised by some of the following: suspension of elections and civil liberties ; proclamation of a state of emergency ; rule by decree ; repression of political opponents ; not abiding by
3000-429: A number of ideas that fascism promoted, such as rule by an elite promoting the state as the ultimate end, opposition to democracy, protecting the class system and promoting class collaboration, rejection of egalitarianism, promoting the militarisation of a nation by creating a class of warriors, demanding that citizens perform civic duties in the interest of the state, and utilising state intervention in education to promote
3150-476: A population of 7 million) during his four-year dictatorship. As a result, Pol Pot is sometimes described as "the Hitler of Cambodia" and "a genocidal tyrant". Because of its negative and pejorative connotations, modern authoritarian leaders very rarely (if ever) use the term dictator in their formal titles, instead they most often simply have title of president . In the 19th century, however, its official usage
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#17327647955353300-476: A similar title, "El Caudillo " ("the Head", 'the chieftain') and for Stalin his adopted name, meaning "Man of Steel", became synonymous with his role as the absolute leader. For Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco, the use of modest, non-traditional titles displayed their absolute power even stronger as they did not need any, not even a historic legitimacy either. However, in the case of Franco, the title "Caudillo" did have
3450-484: A speech that acknowledged the nation as an entity, a notion he had rejected prior to the war, saying: The nation has not disappeared. We used to believe that the concept was totally without substance. Instead we see the nation arise as a palpitating reality before us! ... Class cannot destroy the nation. Class reveals itself as a collection of interests—but the nation is a history of sentiments, traditions, language, culture, and race. Class can become an integral part of
3600-624: A threat to the "white race". Mussolini believed that the United States was doomed as the American blacks had a higher birthrate than whites, making it inevitable that the blacks would take over the United States to drag it down to their level. The fact that Italy was suffering from overpopulation was seen as proving the cultural and spiritual vitality of the Italians, who were thus justified in seeking to colonise lands that Mussolini argued—on
3750-471: A unified region that had belonged to Italy from the times of the ancient Roman province of Italia , and was claimed as Italy's exclusive sphere of influence. The right to colonise the neighbouring Slovene ethnic areas and the Mediterranean, being inhabited by what were alleged to be less developed peoples, was justified on the grounds that Italy was allegedly suffering from overpopulation. Borrowing
3900-593: A £100 weekly wage by Sir Samuel Hoare , the agency's representative in Rome , in return for which he promised not only to keep up pro-war propaganda in Il Popolo but also to send army veterans in to break up any pro-peace strikes in Milan factories . In early 1918 he called for the emergence of a man "ruthless and energetic enough to make a clean sweep" to revive the Italian nation. On 23 March 1919 Mussolini re-formed
4050-606: Is perfectly legitimate; for instance, Francisco Franco was a general in the Spanish Army before he became Chief of State of Spain, and Manuel Noriega was officially commander of the Panamanian Defense Forces . In other cases, the association is mere pretense. Some dictators have been masters of crowd manipulation , such as Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. Others were more prosaic speakers, such as Joseph Stalin and Francisco Franco . Typically,
4200-702: The 1st Canadian Infantry Division ). The Western Task Force (Task Force 343) was commanded by Lieutenant General George S. Patton and consisted of the American Seventh Army . The two task force commanders reported to Alexander as commander of the 15th Army Group. The U.S. Seventh Army consisted initially of three infantry divisions, organized under II Corps , commanded by Lieutenant General Omar Bradley . The 1st and 3rd Infantry Divisions , commanded by Major Generals Terry Allen and Lucian Truscott respectively, sailed from ports in Tunisia , while
4350-820: The 231st Independent Infantry Brigade Group from Suez. The 1st Canadian Infantry Division was included in Operation Husky at the insistence of the Canadian Prime Minister , William Mackenzie King , and the Canadian Military Headquarters in the United Kingdom. This request was granted by the British, displacing the veteran British 3rd Infantry Division . The change was not finalized until 27 April 1943, when Lieutenant-General Andrew McNaughton , then commanding
4500-862: The 45th Infantry Division , under Major General Troy H. Middleton , sailed from the United States via Oran in Algeria . The 2nd Armored Division , under Major General Hugh Joseph Gaffey , also sailing from Oran, was to be a floating reserve and be fed into combat as required. On 15 July, Patton reorganized his command into two corps by creating a new Provisional Corps headquarters, commanded by his deputy army commander, Major General Geoffrey Keyes . The British Eighth Army had four infantry divisions and an independent infantry brigade organized under XIII Corps , commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey , and XXX Corps , commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver Leese . The two divisions of XIII Corps,
4650-554: The 5th and 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Divisions , commanded by Major-Generals Horatio Berney-Ficklin and Sidney Kirkman , sailed from Suez in Egypt . The formations of XXX Corps sailed from more diverse ports: the 1st Canadian Infantry Division, under Major-General Guy Simonds , sailed from the United Kingdom , the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division , under Major-General Douglas Wimberley , from Tunisia and Malta , and
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4800-628: The Battle of Sicily and Operation Husky , was a major campaign of World War II in which the Allied forces invaded the island of Sicily in July 1943 and took it from the Axis powers ( Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany ). It began with a large amphibious and airborne operation , followed by a six-week land campaign, and initiated the Italian campaign . To divert some of the Axis forces to other areas,
4950-553: The Canadian First Army in the United Kingdom, deemed Operation Husky to be a viable military undertaking and agreed to the detachment of both the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and the 1st Canadian Tank Brigade . The "Red Patch Division" was added to Leese's XXX Corps to become part of the British Eighth Army. In addition to the amphibious landings, airborne troops were to be flown in to support both
5100-577: The Expedition of the Thousand in 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi officially assumed the title of "dictator" (see Dictatorship of Garibaldi ). Shortly afterwards, during the 1863 January uprising in Poland, "Dictator" was also the official title of four leaders, the first being Ludwik Mierosławski . Past that time, however, the term dictator assumed an invariably negative connotation. In popular usage,
5250-652: The Italian Social Republic , which served as a collaborationist regime of the Germans. With Allied victory imminent, Mussolini and mistress Clara Petacci attempted to flee to Switzerland, but were captured by communist partisans and executed on 28 April 1945. Mussolini was born on 29 July 1883 in Dovia di Predappio , a small town in the province of Forlì in Romagna . During the Fascist era, Predappio
5400-582: The Latin word dictātor , agent noun from dictare (say repeatedly, assert, order). A dictator was a Roman magistrate given sole power for a limited duration. Originally an emergency legal appointment in the Roman Republic and the Etruscan culture , the term dictator did not have the negative meaning it has now. It started to get its modern negative meaning with Cornelius Sulla 's ascension to
5550-407: The March on Rome , Mussolini was appointed prime minister by King Victor Emmanuel III . After removing opposition through his secret police and outlawing labour strikes , Mussolini and his followers consolidated power through laws that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship . Within five years, Mussolini established dictatorial authority by legal and illegal means and aspired to create
5700-586: The National Fascist Party at a congress in Rome. In 1921 , Mussolini won election to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time. In the meantime, from about 1911 until 1938, Mussolini had various affairs with the Jewish author and academic Margherita Sarfatti , called the "Jewish Mother of Fascism" at the time. In the night between 27 and 28 October 1922, about 30,000 Fascist blackshirts gathered in Rome to demand
5850-489: The Panzer Division Hermann Göring and the 15th Panzergrenadier Division . The Panzer division had 99 tanks in two battalions but was short of infantry (with only three battalions), while the 15th Panzergrenadier Division had three grenadier regiments and a tank battalion with 60 tanks. About half of the Italian troops were formed into four front-line infantry divisions and headquarters troops;
6000-847: The People's Republic of China during China's Cultural Revolution , where Mao set out to purge dissidents, primarily through the use of youth groups strongly committed to his cult of personality , and during Augusto Pinochet 's junta in Chile . Some dictators have been associated with genocide on certain races or groups; the most notable and wide-reaching example is the Holocaust , Adolf Hitler 's genocide of eleven million people, of whom six million were Jews. Later on in Democratic Kampuchea , General Secretary Pol Pot and his policies killed an estimated 1.7 million people (out of
6150-517: The University of Lausanne 's Department of Social Science on 7 May 1904, attending the lectures of Vilfredo Pareto. In 1937, when he was prime minister of Italy, the University of Lausanne awarded Mussolini an honorary doctorate . In December 1904, Mussolini returned to Italy to take advantage of an amnesty for desertion from the military. He had been convicted for this in absentia . Since
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6300-562: The Voluntary Militia for National Security ) and the progressive identification of the party with the state. In political and social economy, he passed legislation that favoured the wealthy industrial and agrarian classes (privatisations, liberalisations of rent laws and dismantlement of the unions). In 1923, Mussolini sent Italian forces to invade Corfu during the Corfu incident . The League of Nations proved powerless, and Greece
6450-569: The general strike , and the use of neo-Machiavellian appeals to emotion, impressed Mussolini deeply. Mussolini became active in the Italian socialist movement in Switzerland, working for the paper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore , organising meetings, giving speeches to workers, and serving as secretary of the Italian workers' union in Lausanne . Angelica Balabanov reportedly introduced him to Vladimir Lenin , who later criticised Italian socialists for having lost Mussolini from their cause. In 1903, he
6600-510: The "Niscemi" Armoured Combat Group and Livorno Division infantry nearly reached the Allied position at Gela, but gunfire from the destroyer USS Shubrick and the light cruiser USS Boise destroyed several tanks and dispersed the attacking infantry battalion. The 3rd Battalion, 34th Regiment, "Livorno" Infantry Division, composed mainly of conscripts, made a daylight attack on the Gela beachhead two days later, with infantry and armor of
6750-413: The 429th Coastal Battalion (under Major Marco Rubellino ), tasked with defending Gela and its beachhead, had lost 45 percent of its men, while the attacking U.S. Army Ranger Battalion lost several men to mines and machine-gun and cannon fire. Gruppo Tattico Carmito (under Lieutenant-Colonel Francesco Tropea), tasked with defending Malati Bridge, defeated a Royal Marines Commando Battalion on 13 July with
6900-468: The 505th Parachute Regimental Combat Team with the addition of the 3rd Battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment , along with the 456th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion , Company 'B' of the 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion and other supporting units) of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, making their first combat drop. The British landings were preceded by pathfinders of the 21st Independent Parachute Company, who were to mark landing zones for
7050-540: The Allied Expeditionary Force, General Alexander as Deputy C-in-C with responsibility for detailed planning and execution of the operation, Admiral Cunningham as Naval Commander, and Air Chief Marshal Tedder as Air Commander. The outline plan given to Eisenhower by the Chiefs of Staff involved dispersed landings by brigade and division-sized formations in the south-east, south and north-west areas of
7200-519: The Allies engaged in several deception operations, the most famous and successful of which was Operation Mincemeat . Husky began on the night of 9–10 July 1943 and ended on 17 August. Strategically, Husky achieved the goals set out for it by Allied planners: the Allies drove Axis air, land and naval forces from the island, and the Mediterranean sea lanes were opened for Allied merchant ships for
7350-578: The Axis. High-level planning for the operation lacked direction because the three mainland commanders, Alexander, Montgomery, and Patton, were fully occupied in operations in Tunisia. Effort was wasted in presenting plans that Montgomery, in particular, disliked because of the dispersion of forces involved. He was finally able to articulate his objections and put forward alternative proposals on 24 April. Tedder and Cunningham opposed Montgomery's plan because it would leave 13 landing grounds in Axis hands, posing
7500-574: The British Royal Air Force (RAF) that provided the primary air support for the operation. Other groups from the 9th Air Force under Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton operating from Tunisia and Egypt, and Air H.Q. Malta under Air Vice-Marshal Sir Keith Park operating from the island of Malta, also provided important air support. The U.S. Army Air Force 9th Air Force's medium bombers and P-40 fighters that were detached to NAAF's Northwest African Tactical Air Force under
7650-526: The British 1st Airlanding Brigade, landed on target, captured Ponte Grande and repulsed counterattacks. Additional paratroops rallied to the sound of shooting and by 08:30 89 men were holding the bridge. By 11:30, a battalion of the Italian 75th Infantry Regiment (Colonel Francesco Ronco) from the 54th Infantry Division "Napoli" arrived with some artillery. The British force held out until about 15:30 hours, when, low on ammunition and by now reduced to 18 men, they were forced to surrender, 45 minutes before
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#17327647955357800-758: The First World War that resulted in his ousting from the Italian Socialist Party: Professor Benito Mussolini, ... 38, revolutionary socialist, has a police record; elementary school teacher qualified to teach in secondary schools; former first secretary of the Chambers in Cesena, Forlì, and Ravenna; after 1912 editor of the newspaper Avanti! to which he gave a violent suggestive and intransigent orientation. In October 1914, finding himself in opposition to
7950-496: The German liaison officer attached to the 6th Army HQ, Generalleutnant Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin who was subordinate to Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring , the German C-in-C Army Command South ( OB Süd ). Von Senger had arrived in Sicily in late June as part of a German plan to gain greater operational control of its units. Guzzoni agreed from 16 July to delegate to Hube control of all sectors where there were German units involved, and from 2 August, he commanded
8100-453: The Greek coast. They also moved three panzer divisions to Greece, one from France and two from the Eastern Front which reduced German combat strength in the Kursk salient . Two American and two British attacks by airborne troops were carried out just after midnight on the night of 9–10 July, as part of the invasion. The American paratroopers consisted largely of Colonel James M. Gavin 's 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (expanded into
8250-486: The Hermann Göring Panzer Division, but was repulsed. By the morning of 10 July, the Joint Task Force Operations Support System Force captured the port of Licata, at the cost of nearly 100 killed and wounded in the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, and the division beat back a counter-attack from the 538th Coastal Defence Battalion. By 11:30, Licata was firmly in American hands and the U.S. 3rd Division had lost fewer than one hundred men. Salvage parties had already partially cleared
8400-493: The Indian hospital ship Talamba with heavy loss of life, and in the following days Axis aircraft damaged or sank several more warships, transport vessels and landing craft starting with the Allied troopship USS Barnett hit and damaged by an Italian bomber formation on the morning of 11 July. Italian Stukas (named Picchiatello in Italian service) and Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 torpedo-bombers coordinated their attacks with German Stuka and Ju 88 bomber units. As part of
8550-417: The Italian Futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti , French Socialist Gustave Hervé , Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta , and German philosophers Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx , the founders of Marxism . Mussolini had taught himself French and German and translated excerpts from Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Kant . During this time, he published Il Trentino veduto da un Socialista ( Trentino as viewed by
8700-607: The Italian Socialist Party and its support of orthodox socialism, he claimed that his failure as a member of the party to revitalise and transform it to recognise the contemporary reality revealed the hopelessness of orthodox socialism as outdated and a failure. This perception of the failure of orthodox socialism in the light of the outbreak of World War I was not solely held by Mussolini; other pro-interventionist Italian socialists such as Filippo Corridoni and Sergio Panunzio had also denounced classical Marxism in favour of intervention. These basic political views and principles formed
8850-546: The Italian population had to reach 60 million to enable Italy to fight a major war—hence his relentless demands for Italian women to have more children. Mussolini and the fascists managed to be simultaneously revolutionary and traditionalist ; because this was vastly different from anything else in the political climate of the time, it is sometimes described as "The Third Way". The Fascisti, led by one of Mussolini's close confidants, Dino Grandi , formed armed squads of war veterans called blackshirts (or squadristi ) with
9000-527: The Italians in Italy and to a lesser extent the Balkans , resulting in one-fifth of the entire German army being diverted from the east to southern Europe, a proportion that would remain until near the end of the war. The plan for Operation Husky called for the amphibious assault of Sicily by two Allied armies , one landing on the south-eastern and one on the central southern coast. The amphibious assaults were to be supported by naval gunfire, as well as tactical bombing, interdiction and close air support by
9150-488: The Middle East) was increased. From 3 July, bombing concentrated on Sicilian airfields and Axis communications with Italy, although beach defences were left alone, to preserve surprise as to where the landings would occur. By 10 July, only two airfields in Sicily remained fully operational and over half the Axis aircraft had been forced to leave the island. Between mid-May and the invasion, Allied airmen flew 42,227 sorties and destroyed 323 German and 105 Italian aircraft, for
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#17327647955359300-402: The Milan fascio as the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (Italian Combat Squad), consisting of 200 members. The ideological basis for fascism came from a number of sources. Mussolini drew from the works of Plato , Georges Sorel , Nietzsche , and the economic ideas of Vilfredo Pareto . Mussolini admired Plato's The Republic , which he often read for inspiration. The Republic expounded
9450-418: The Sicilian front. At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943, with the end of the North African Campaign in sight, the political leaders and the military Chiefs of Staff of the United States and Britain met to discuss future strategy. The British Chiefs of Staff were in favour of an invasion of Sicily or Sardinia , arguing that it would force Germany to disperse its forces and might knock Italy out of
9600-413: The Socialist Party, as they were two " revisionists " who had supported the war. In 1912, he became a member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). He was rewarded with the editorship of the Socialist Party newspaper Avanti! Under his leadership, its circulation soon rose from 20,000 to 100,000. John Gunther in 1940 called him "one of the best journalists alive"; Mussolini
9750-466: The Western and Eastern Task Forces. To the east, the British 1st Airborne Division , commanded by Major-General George F. Hopkinson , was to seize vital bridges and high ground in support of the British Eighth Army. The initial plan dictated that the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division , commanded by Major General Matthew Ridgway , was to be held as a tactical reserve in Tunisia. Allied naval forces were also grouped into two task forces to transport and support
9900-438: The advance headquarters of the invasion of Sicily. In July 1943, General Eisenhower, Admiral Cunningham, General Montgomery, and Air Marshal Tedder occupied the war rooms. Earlier, the war rooms had served as the British headquarters for the defence of Malta. To distract the Axis, and if possible divert some of their forces to other areas, the Allies engaged in several deception operations. The most famous and successful of these
10050-462: The anti-interventionist orthodox socialists resulted in violence between the Fascists and socialists. These early hostilities between the Fascists and the revolutionary socialists shaped Mussolini's conception of the nature of Fascism in its support of political violence. Mussolini became an ally with the irredentist politician and journalist Cesare Battisti . When World War I started, Mussolini, like many Italian nationalists, volunteered to fight. He
10200-403: The armies by landing supplies across the beaches proved easier than expected, partly because of the successful introduction of large numbers of the new amphibious DUKW vehicle. Alexander was later to write "It is not too much to say that the DUKW revolutionised the problem of beach maintenance." On 17 May, Alexander issued his Operation Instruction No. 1 setting out his broad plan and defining
10350-421: The basis of Mussolini's newly formed political movement, the Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria in 1914, who called themselves Fascisti (Fascists). At this time, the Fascists did not have an integrated set of policies and the movement was small, ineffective in its attempts to hold mass meetings, and was regularly harassed by government authorities and orthodox socialists. Antagonism between the interventionists versus
10500-413: The basis that it was better to take an administrative risk (having to support troops by landing supplies across beaches) than an operational one (dispersion of effort). Not for the last time, Montgomery had argued a sound course of action, yet done so in a conceited manner, which suggested to others, particularly his American allies, that he was preoccupied with his own interests. In the event, maintaining
10650-435: The combined air forces. As such, the operation required a complex command structure, incorporating land, naval and air forces. The overall commander was American General Dwight D. Eisenhower , as Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of all the Allied forces in North Africa. British General Sir Harold Alexander acted as his second-in-command and as the 15th Army Group commander. The American Major General Walter Bedell Smith
10800-543: The command of Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham moved to southern airfields on Sicily as soon they were secured. At the time, the 9th Air Force was a sub-command of RAF Middle East Command under Air Chief Marshal Sir Sholto Douglas . Middle East Command, like NAAF and Air H.Q. Malta were sub-commands of MAC under Tedder who reported to Eisenhower for NAAF operations and to the British Chiefs of Staff for Air H.Q. Malta and Middle East Command operations. The island
10950-464: The common people of Italy to be participating members in what would be Italy's first national war. Thus he claimed that the vast social changes that the war could offer meant that it should be supported as a revolutionary war. As Mussolini's support for the intervention solidified, he came into conflict with socialists who opposed the war. He attacked the opponents of the war and claimed that those proletarians who supported pacifism were out of step with
11100-549: The continuation of the struggle in which he was engaged ... But assuming these modifications did take place ... he always wanted to give the appearance of still being a socialist, and he fooled himself into thinking that this was the case. After being ousted by the Italian Socialist Party, Mussolini made a radical transformation, ending his support for class conflict and joining in support of revolutionary nationalism transcending class lines. He formed
11250-437: The danger of a totalitarian evolution. As Prime Minister, the first years of Mussolini's rule were characterised by a right-wing coalition government of Fascists, nationalists, liberals, and two Catholic clerics from the People's Party . The Fascists made up a small minority in his original governments. Mussolini's domestic goal was the eventual establishment of a totalitarian state with himself as supreme leader ( Il Duce ),
11400-459: The defenders had assumed that no one would attempt a landing in such poor conditions. Landings were made in the early hours of 10 July from 2:45am on 26 main beaches spread along 170 kilometres (105 mi) of the southern and eastern coasts of the island between the town of Licata where the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, under the command of Major General Lucian Truscott, landed at Torre di Gaffe, red beach, and Mollarella and Poliscia, green beaches in
11550-594: The democratic powers as tensions grew in the League of Nations , which he left in 1937. Now hostile to France and Britain, Italy formed the Axis alliance with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan . The wars of the 1930s cost Italy enormous resources, leaving it unprepared for the Second World War; Mussolini initially declared Italy's non-belligerence. However, in June 1940, believing Allied defeat imminent, he joined
11700-551: The development of warriors and future rulers of the state. The idea behind Mussolini's foreign policy was that of spazio vitale (vital space), a concept in Italian Fascism that was analogous to Lebensraum in German National Socialism. The concept of spazio vitale was first announced in 1919, when the entire Mediterranean , especially so-called Julian March , was redefined to make it appear
11850-463: The dictator's people seize control of all media, censor or destroy the opposition, and give strong doses of propaganda daily, often built around a cult of personality . Mussolini and Hitler used similar, modest titles referring to them as "the Leader". Mussolini used "Il Duce " and Hitler was generally referred to as "der Führer ", both meaning 'Leader' in Italian and German respectively. Franco used
12000-491: The dictatorship following Sulla's civil war , making himself the first Dictator in Rome in more than a century (during which the office was ostensibly abolished) as well as de facto eliminating the time limit and need of senatorial acclamation. He avoided a major constitutional crisis by resigning the office after about one year, dying a few years later. Julius Caesar followed Sulla's example in 49 BC and in February 44 BC
12150-723: The directorate of the Italian Socialist party because he advocated a kind of active neutrality on the part of Italy in the War of the Nations against the party's tendency of absolute neutrality, he withdrew on the twentieth of that month from the directorate of Avanti! Then on the fifteenth of November [1914], thereafter, he initiated publication of the newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia , in which he supported—in sharp contrast to Avanti! and amid bitter polemics against that newspaper and its chief backers—the thesis of Italian intervention in
12300-504: The failures of Marxist determinism and social democratic reformism , and believed that Nietzsche's ideas would strengthen socialism. Mussolini's writings came to reflect an abandonment of Marxism and egalitarianism in favour of Nietzsche's übermensch concept and anti-egalitarianism. When World War I began in August 1914, many socialist parties worldwide followed the rising nationalist current and supported their country's intervention in
12450-502: The fall of Hohenzollern and Habsburg monarchies and the repression of "reactionary" Turkey would create conditions beneficial for the working class, and that the mobilisation required for the war would undermine Russia's reactionary authoritarianism and bring Russia to social revolution. He said that for Italy the war would complete the process of Risorgimento by uniting the Italians in Austria-Hungary into Italy and by allowing
12600-563: The first time since 1941. These events led to the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini , being toppled from power in Italy on 25 July, and to the Allied invasion of Italy on 3 September. The German leader, Adolf Hitler , "canceled a major offensive at Kursk after only a week, in part to divert forces to Italy," resulting in a reduction of German strength on the Eastern Front . The collapse of Italy necessitated German troops replacing
12750-472: The goal of restoring order to the streets of Italy with a strong hand. The blackshirts clashed with communists, socialists, and anarchists at parades and demonstrations; all of these factions were also involved in clashes against each other. The Italian government rarely interfered with the blackshirts' actions, owing in part to a looming threat and widespread fear of a communist revolution. The Fascisti grew rapidly; within two years they transformed themselves into
12900-508: The harbor, and shortly after noon Truscott and his staff came ashore and set up headquarters at Palazzo La Lumia. About that time, the 538th Coastal Defense Battalion, which had been deployed as a tactical reserve, launched a counter-attack. By the evening of 10 July, the seven Allied assault divisions—three American, three British and one Canadian—were well established ashore, the port of Syracuse had been captured, and fears of an Axis air onslaught had proved unfounded. The preparatory bombing of
13050-633: The help of the local middle-age reservists. The Italian 4th Self-Propelled Artillery Battalion attacked the Commandos with the help of the 372nd Coastal Defence Battalion, 553rd (under Captain Giovanni Sartor) and 554th (under Captain Fausto Clementi) Motorcycle Companies, and three Panzer IV medium tanks. The 246th Coastal Battalion (under Major Rollo Franco ) defeated British attempts to capture Augusta on
13200-467: The idea first developed by Enrico Corradini before 1914 of the natural conflict between " plutocratic " nations like Britain and "proletarian" nations like Italy, Mussolini claimed that Italy's principal problem was that "plutocratic" countries like Britain were blocking Italy from achieving the necessary spazio vitale that would let the Italian economy grow. Mussolini equated a nation's potential for economic growth with territorial size, thus in his view
13350-556: The institution of dictatorship itself. A benevolent dictatorship refers to a government in which an authoritarian leader exercises absolute political power over the state but is perceived to do so with regard for the benefit of the population as a whole, standing in contrast to the decidedly malevolent stereotype of a dictator. A benevolent dictator may allow for some civil liberties or democratic decision-making to exist, such as through public referendums or elected representatives with limited power, and often makes preparations for
13500-509: The interventionist newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia and the Fascio Rivoluzionario d'Azione Internazionalista ("Revolutionary Fasces of International Action") in October 1914. His nationalist support of intervention enabled him to raise funds from Ansaldo (an armaments firm) and other companies to create Il Popolo d'Italia to convince socialists and revolutionaries to support the war. Further funding for Il Popolo during
13650-629: The invading armies. The Eastern Naval Task Force was formed from the British Mediterranean Fleet and was commanded by Admiral Bertram Ramsay . The Western Naval Task Force was formed around the U.S. Eighth Fleet , commanded by Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt . The two naval task force commanders reported to Admiral Cunningham as overall Naval Forces Commander. Two sloops of the Royal Indian Navy – HMIS Sutlej and HMIS Jumna – also participated. At
13800-575: The island and from 6 June, Allied attacks increased. From 8 May to 11 June 5,285 bombing sorties were flown by fighter-bombers, medium and heavy bombers, dropping a total of 6,202 tons of bombs on the island. The Italian gun positions were reduced to 47% effectiveness by the intense ten-day air bombardment. Out of 112 guns bombed, 2 had suffered from direct hits, 17 were near misses and 34 were damaged by debris and splinters (10 beyond repair). All control communications were destroyed, along with many gun emplacements and ammunition stores. On 11 June, after
13950-568: The island in two and cut his enemy's east–west communications. The Seventh Army was assigned to land in the Gulf of Gela , in south-central Sicily, with the 3rd Infantry Division and 2nd Armored Division to the west at Licata Mollarella beach, 1st Division in the center at Gela, and 45th Division to the east at Scoglitti . The 82nd Airborne Division was assigned to drop behind the defences at Gela and Scoglitti. The Seventh Army's beach-front stretched over 50 kilometers (30 mi). The British Eighth Army
14100-424: The island. The logic behind the plan was that it would result in the rapid capture of key Axis airfields that posed a threat to the beachheads and the invasion fleet lying off them. It would also see the rapid capture of all the main ports on the island, except for Messina , including Catania , Palermo , Syracuse , Licata and Augusta . This would facilitate a rapid Allied build-up, as well as denying their use to
14250-399: The leading elements of the British 5th Division arrived from the south. Despite these mishaps, the widespread landing of airborne troops, both American and British, had a positive effect as small isolated units, acting on their initiative, attacked vital points and created confusion. The strong wind also made matters difficult for the amphibious landings but also ensured surprise as many of
14400-547: The local Socialist Party, and edited its newspaper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore ( The Future of the Worker ). Returning to Italy, he spent a brief time in Milan , and in 1910 he returned to his hometown of Forlì, where he edited the weekly Lotta di classe ( The Class Struggle ). Mussolini thought of himself as an intellectual and was considered to be well-read. He read avidly; his favourites in European philosophy included Sorel,
14550-453: The loss of 250 aircraft, mostly to anti-aircraft fire over Sicily. Operations began in May against the small island of Pantelleria , some 110 km (70 mi) southwest of Sicily and 240 km (150 mi) northwest of Malta, to prevent the airfield there being used in support of Axis troops attempting to withdraw from North Africa. On 13 and 31 May the cruiser HMS Orion bombarded
14700-479: The military authoritarianism of Garibaldi, and the nationalism of Mazzini. In 1902, at the anniversary of Garibaldi's death, Mussolini made a public speech in praise of the republican nationalist. Mussolini was sent to a boarding school in Faenza run by Salesians . Despite being shy, he often clashed with teachers and fellow boarders due to his proud, grumpy, and violent behaviour. During an argument, he injured
14850-419: The nation, but the one cannot eclipse the other. The class struggle is a vain formula, without effect and consequence wherever one finds a people that has not integrated itself into its proper linguistic and racial confines—where the national problem has not been definitely resolved. In such circumstances the class movement finds itself impaired by an inauspicious historic climate. Mussolini continued to promote
15000-466: The need of a revolutionary vanguard elite to lead society. He no longer advocated a proletarian vanguard, but instead a vanguard led by dynamic and revolutionary people of any social class. Though he denounced orthodox socialism and class conflict, he maintained at the time that he was a nationalist socialist and a supporter of the legacy of nationalist socialists in Italy's history, such as Giuseppe Garibaldi , Giuseppe Mazzini , and Carlo Pisacane . As for
15150-522: The night of 11–12 July. In Major General Terry Allen's U.S. 1st Infantry Division sector at Gela, there was an Italian division-sized counterattack where the dispersed 505th Parachute Regimental Combat Team was supposed to have been. Tiger tanks of the Hermann Göring Panzer Division, which had been due to advance with the 4th Infantry Division "Livorno" , were late. On highways 115 and 117 during 10 July, Italian tanks of
15300-628: The number of German troops to around 70,000. Until the arrival of the corps headquarters, the two German divisions were nominally under Italian tactical control. The panzer division, with a reinforced infantry regiment from the panzergrenadier division to compensate for its lack of infantry, was under Italian XVI Corps and the rest of the panzergrenadier division under the Italian XII Corps . The German commanders in Sicily were contemptuous of their allies and German units took their orders from
15450-495: The old Liberals and others, won 64% of the vote. Dictator A dictator is a political leader who possesses absolute power . A dictatorship is a state ruled by one dictator or by a polity . The word originated as the title of a Roman dictator elected by the Roman Senate to rule the republic in times of emergency . Like the terms " tyrant " and " autocrat ", dictator came to be used almost exclusively as
15600-431: The previous weeks had greatly weakened the Axis air capability and the heavy Allied presence of aircraft operating from Malta, Gozo, and Pantelleria kept most of the Axis attempts at air attack at bay. Some attacks on the first day of the invasion got through, and German aircraft sank the landing ship LST-313 and minesweeper USS Sentinel . Italian Stukas sank the destroyer USS Maddox and Re.2002s sunk
15750-507: The principal airfields of Sardinia, Sicily and southern Italy, industrial targets in southern Italy and the ports of Naples , Messina, Palermo and Cagliari (in Sardinia). The attacks were spread to maintain uncertainty as to the next Allied move, and to pin down Axis aircraft and keep them away from Sicily. Bombing of northern Italy (by aircraft based in the UK) and Greece (by aircraft based in
15900-518: The problem of poverty in Italy could only be solved by winning the necessary spazio vitale . Though biological racism was less prominent in Italian Fascism than in National Socialism , right from the start the spazio vitale concept had a strong racist undercurrent. Mussolini asserted there was a "natural law" for stronger peoples to subject and dominate "inferior" peoples such as the "barbaric" Slavic peoples of Yugoslavia. He stated in
16050-402: The procedures of the rule of law ; and the existence of a cult of personality centered on the leader. Dictatorships are often one-party or dominant-party states. A wide variety of leaders coming to power in different kinds of regimes, such as one-party or dominant-party states and civilian governments under a personal rule, have been described as dictators. The word dictator comes from
16200-604: The proletarians who had joined the rising interventionist vanguard that was preparing Italy for a revolutionary war. He began to criticise the Italian Socialist Party and socialism itself for having failed to recognise the national problems that had led to the outbreak of the war. He was expelled from the party for his support of intervention. A police report prepared by the Inspector-General of Public Security in Milan, G. Gasti, describes his background and his position on
16350-662: The remainder were support troops or inferior coastal divisions and coastal brigades. Guzzoni's defence plan was for the coastal formations to form a screen to receive the invasion and allow time for the field divisions further back to intervene. By late July, the German units had been reinforced, principally by elements of the 1st Parachute Division , 29th Panzergrenadier Division and the XIV Panzer Corps headquarters ( General der Panzertruppe Hans-Valentin Hube ), bringing
16500-487: The resignation of liberal Prime Minister Luigi Facta and the appointment of a new Fascist government. On the morning of 28 October, King Victor Emmanuel III , who according to the Albertine Statute held the supreme military power, refused the government request to declare martial law , which led to Facta's resignation. The King then handed over power to Mussolini (who stayed in his headquarters in Milan during
16650-477: The sea, with over 200 men drowning. Among those who landed in the sea were Major General George F. Hopkinson, commander of the British 1st Airborne Division, who, after several hours spent clutching a piece of wreckage, was eventually rescued by the landing ship HMS Keren . The scattered airborne troops attacked patrols and created confusion wherever possible. A platoon of the 2nd Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment , under Lieutenant Louis Withers , part of
16800-481: The second half of the 19th century, the term dictator had occasional positive implications. For example, during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 , the national leader Lajos Kossuth was often referred to as dictator, without any negative connotations, by his supporters and detractors alike, although his official title was that of regent-president. When creating a provisional executive in Sicily during
16950-502: The side of the Allies and utilised the Società Dante Alighieri to promote Italian nationalism. Italian socialists were divided on whether to support the war. Prior to Mussolini taking a position on the war, a number of revolutionary syndicalists had announced their support of intervention, including Alceste De Ambris , Filippo Corridoni , and Angelo Oliviero Olivetti . The Italian Socialist Party decided to oppose
17100-473: The talks) by asking him to form a new government. The King's controversial decision has been explained by historians as a combination of delusions and fears; Mussolini enjoyed wide support in the military and among the industrial and agrarian elites, while the King and the conservative establishment were afraid of a possible civil war and thought they could use Mussolini to restore law and order, but failed to foresee
17250-415: The tasks of the two armies. Broadly speaking, he intended to establish his armies along a line from Catania to Licata preparatory to a final operation to reduce the island. He later wrote that at that stage it was not practicable to plan further ahead but that his intentions were clear in his own mind what the next step would be: he would drive north ultimately to Santo Stefano on the northern coast to split
17400-408: The term applied to them much more liberally. Allied invasion of Sicily Allied victory Peak strength : Asia-Pacific Mediterranean and Middle East Other campaigns Coups 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 Invasion of Italy Winter Line Gothic Line 1945 Spring Offensive Invasion Inland The Allied invasion of Sicily , also known as
17550-670: The time of Operation Husky, the Allied air forces in North Africa and the Mediterranean were organized into the Mediterranean Air Command (MAC) under Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder . The major sub-command of MAC was the Northwest African Air Forces (NAAF) under the command of Lieutenant General Carl Spaatz with headquarters in Tunisia. NAAF consisted primarily of groups from the United States 12th Air Force , 9th Air Force , and
17700-401: The troop-carrying aircraft off course and the American force was scattered widely over south-east Sicily between Gela and Syracuse. By 14 July, about two-thirds of the 505th had managed to concentrate, and half the U.S. paratroopers failed to reach their rallying points. The British air-landing troops fared little better, with only 12 of the 147 gliders landing on target and 69 crashing into
17850-594: The troops who were intending to seize the Ponte Grande, the bridge over the River Anape just south of Syracuse, and hold it until the British 5th Infantry Division arrived from the beaches at Cassibile, some eleven kilometres (7 mi) to the south. Glider infantry from the British 1st Airborne Division's 1st Airlanding Brigade , commanded by Brigadier Philip Hicks , were to seize landing zones inland. Strong winds of up to 70 km/h (45 mph) blew
18000-453: The war after anti-militarist protestors had been killed, resulting in a general strike called Red Week . Mussolini initially held official support for the party's decision and, in an August 1914 article, Mussolini wrote "Down with the War. We remain neutral." He saw the war as an opportunity, both for his own ambitions as well as those of socialists and Italians. He was influenced by anti-Austrian Italian nationalist sentiments, believing that
18150-599: The war against the militarism of the Central Empires. For this reason he was accused of moral and political unworthiness and the party thereupon decided to expel him ... Thereafter he ... undertook a very active campaign in behalf of Italian intervention, participating in demonstrations in the piazzas and writing quite violent articles in Popolo d'Italia ... In his summary, the Inspector also noted: He
18300-472: The war and move Turkey to join the Allies. At first, the Americans opposed the plan as opportunistic and irrelevant, but were persuaded to agree to a Sicilian invasion on the grounds of the great savings to Allied shipping that would result from the opening of the Mediterranean by the removal of Axis air and naval forces from the island. The Combined Chiefs of Staff appointed General Eisenhower as C-in-C of
18450-441: The war came from French sources, beginning in May 1915, in part from French socialists who wanted Italian intervention on France's side. Britain, and possibly Russia and the United States, also subsidized the paper. On 5 December 1914, Mussolini denounced orthodox socialism for failing to recognise that the war had made national identity and loyalty more significant than class distinction. He fully demonstrated his transformation in
18600-895: The war offered Italians in Austria-Hungary the chance to liberate themselves from rule of the Habsburgs . He eventually decided to declare support for the war by appealing to the need for socialists to overthrow the Hohenzollern and Habsburg monarchies in Germany and Austria-Hungary who he said had consistently repressed socialism. Mussolini further justified his position by denouncing the Central Powers for being reactionary powers; for pursuing imperialist designs against Belgium and Serbia as well as historically against Denmark, France, and against Italians, since hundreds of thousands of Italians were under Habsburg rule. He argued that
18750-618: The war on Germany's side, to share the spoils. After the tide turned, and the Allied invasion of Sicily , King Victor Emmanuel III dismissed Mussolini as head of government and placed him in custody in July 1943. After the king agreed to an armistice with the Allies, in September 1943, Mussolini was rescued in the Gran Sasso raid by Germany. Hitler made Mussolini the figurehead of a puppet state in German-occupied north Italy,
18900-444: The war. In Italy, the outbreak of the war created a surge of Italian nationalism and intervention was supported by a variety of political factions. One of the most prominent and popular Italian nationalist supporters of the war was Gabriele d'Annunzio who promoted Italian irredentism and helped sway the Italian public to support intervention. The Italian Liberal Party under the leadership of Paolo Boselli promoted intervention on
19050-429: The west, and Cassibile in the east, with British and Canadian forces in the east and Americans toward the west. This constituted the largest amphibious operation of World War II in terms of size of the landing zone and the number of divisions put ashore on the first day. The Italian defensive plan did not contemplate a pitched battle on the beaches and so the landings themselves were somewhat anticlimactic. More trouble
19200-456: Was Operation Mincemeat , conceived by Naval intelligence officer Ewen Montagu and RAF Squadron Leader Charles Cholmondeley. The British allowed a corpse , disguised as a British Royal Marines officer, to drift ashore in Spain carrying a briefcase containing fake secret documents. The documents purported to reveal that the Allies were planning "Operation Brimstone" and that an "Operation Husky"
19350-654: Was a working reporter while preparing for the March on Rome, and wrote for the Hearst News Service until 1935. Mussolini was so familiar with Marxist literature that in his writings he would not only quote from well-known Marxist works but also from the relatively obscure works. During this period Mussolini considered himself an "authoritarian communist " and a Marxist and he described Karl Marx as "the greatest of all theorists of socialism." In 1913, he published Giovanni Hus, il veridico ( Jan Hus, true prophet ),
19500-560: Was an invasion of Greece. German intelligence accepted the authenticity of the documents and the Germans diverted much of their defensive effort from Sicily to Greece until the occupation of Pantelleria on 11 June, which concentrated German and Italian attention on the western Mediterranean. Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel was sent to Greece to assume command. The Germans transferred a group of " R boats " (German minesweepers and minelayers) from Sicily and laid three additional minefields off
19650-573: Was appointed as Eisenhower's Chief of Staff . The overall Naval Force Commander was the British Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham . The Allied land forces were from the American, British and Canadian armies, and were structured as two task forces. The Eastern Task Force (also known as Task Force 545) was led by General Sir Bernard Montgomery and consisted of the British Eighth Army (which included
19800-706: Was arrested by Bernese police because of his advocacy of a violent general strike, spent two weeks in jail, and was handed over to Italian police in Chiasso . After he was released in Italy, he returned to Switzerland. He was arrested again in Geneva, in April 1904, for falsifying his passport expiration date, and was expelled from the canton of Geneva . He was released in Bellinzona following protests from Genevan socialists. Mussolini then returned to Lausanne, where he entered
19950-445: Was assigned to land in south-eastern Sicily. XXX Corps would land on either side of Cape Passero , while XIII Corps would land in the Gulf of Noto , around Avola , off to the north. The Eighth Army's beach front also stretched 40 kilometers (25 mi), and there was a gap of some 40 kilometers (25 mi) between the two armies. Once the Axis forces had been defeated in Tunisia, the Allied strategic bomber force commenced attacks on
20100-454: Was compromising with his personal and political honesty by making use of every means—no matter where they came from or wherever he might obtain them—to pay for his newspaper, his program and his line of action. This was his initial line. It is difficult to say to what extent his socialist convictions (which he never either openly or privately abjure) may have been sacrificed in the course of the indispensable financial deals which were necessary for
20250-613: Was conquered following the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and merged into Italian East Africa (AOI) with Eritrea and Somalia . In 1939, Italian forces annexed Albania . Between 1936 and 1939, Mussolini ordered an intervention in Spain in favour of Francisco Franco , during the Spanish Civil War . Mussolini took part in the Treaty of Lausanne , Four-Power Pact and Stresa Front . However, he alienated
20400-456: Was defended by the two corps of the Italian 6th Army under General Alfredo Guzzoni , although specially designated Fortress Areas around the main ports ( Piazze Militari Marittime ), were commanded by admirals subordinate to Naval Headquarters and independent of the 6th Army. In early July, the total Axis force in Sicily was about 200,000 Italian troops, 32,000 German troops and 30,000 Luftwaffe ground staff. The main German formations were
20550-600: Was dubbed "Duce's town" and Forlì was called "Duce's city", with pilgrims going to Predappio and Forlì to see the birthplace of Mussolini. Benito Mussolini's father, Alessandro Mussolini , was a blacksmith and a socialist, while his mother, Rosa (née Maltoni), was a devout Catholic schoolteacher. Given his father's political leanings, Mussolini was named Benito after liberal Mexican president Benito Juárez , while his middle names, Andrea and Amilcare, were for Italian socialists Andrea Costa and Amilcare Cipriani . In return his mother required that he be baptised at birth. Benito
20700-636: Was enforced by secret police and the Gulag system of prison labour camps. Most Gulag inmates were not political prisoners, although significant numbers of political prisoners could be found in the camps at any one time. Data collected from Soviet archives gives the death toll from Gulags as 1,053,829. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudan 's military dictator Omar al-Bashir over alleged war crimes in Darfur . Similar crimes were committed during Chairman Mao Zedong 's rule over
20850-412: Was experienced from the difficult weather conditions (especially on the southern beaches) and unexpected hidden offshore sandbars than from the coastal divisions. Some troops landed in the wrong place, in the wrong order and as much as six hours behind schedule, but the weakness of the defensive response allowed the Allied force to make up lost time. Nevertheless, several Italian coastal units fought well;
21000-458: Was followed by his siblings Arnaldo and Edvige . As a young boy, Mussolini helped his father in his smithy. Mussolini's early political views were strongly influenced by his father, who idolised 19th-century Italian nationalist figures with humanist tendencies such as Carlo Pisacane , Giuseppe Mazzini , and Giuseppe Garibaldi . His father's political outlook combined views of anarchist figures such as Carlo Cafiero and Mikhail Bakunin ,
21150-525: Was forced to comply with Italian demands. In June 1923, the government passed the Acerbo Law , which transformed Italy into a single national constituency. It also granted a two-thirds majority of the seats in Parliament to the party or group of parties that received at least 25% of the votes. This law applied in the elections of 6 April 1924 . The national alliance , consisting of Fascists, most of
21300-558: Was more common: The usage of the term dictator in western media has been criticized by the left-leaning organization Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting as "Code for Government We Don't Like". According to them, leaders that would generally be considered authoritarian but are allied with the United States such as Paul Biya or Nursultan Nazarbayev are rarely referred to as "dictators", while leaders of countries opposed to U.S. policy such as Nicolás Maduro or Bashar al-Assad have
21450-420: Was proclaimed Dictator perpetuo , "Dictator in perpetuity", officially doing away with any limitations on his power, which he kept until his assassination the following month. Following Caesar's assassination, his heir Augustus was offered the title of dictator, but he declined it. Later successors also declined the title of dictator, and usage of the title soon diminished among Roman rulers. As late as
21600-572: Was promoted to the rank of corporal "for merit in war". The promotion was recommended because of his exemplary conduct and fighting quality, his mental calmness and lack of concern for discomfort, his zeal and regularity in carrying out his assignments, where he was always first in every task involving labor and fortitude. Mussolini's military experience is told in his work Diario di guerra . He totalled about nine months of active, front-line trench warfare. During this time, he contracted paratyphoid fever . His military exploits ended in February 1917 when he
21750-425: Was right to follow an imperialist policy in Africa because he saw all black people as "inferior" to whites. Mussolini claimed that the world was divided into a hierarchy of races (though this was justified more on cultural than on biological grounds), and that history was nothing more than a Darwinian struggle for power and territory between various "racial masses". Mussolini saw high birthrates in Africa and Asia as
21900-573: Was the ideal editor of Avanti! for the Socialists. In that line of work he was greatly esteemed and beloved. Some of his former comrades and admirers still confess that there was no one who understood better how to interpret the spirit of the proletariat and there was no one who did not observe his apostasy with sorrow. This came about not for reasons of self-interest or money. He was a sincere and passionate advocate, first of vigilant and armed neutrality, and later of war; and he did not believe that he
22050-603: Was turned down because of his radical Socialism and told to wait for his reserve call up. He was called up on 31 August and reported for duty with his old unit, the Bersaglieri . After a two-week refresher course he was sent to Isonzo front where he took part in the Second Battle of the Isonzo, September 1915. His unit also took part in the Third Battle of the Isonzo, October 1915. The Inspector General continued: He
22200-409: Was unable to find a permanent job. During this time he studied the ideas of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche , the sociologist Vilfredo Pareto , and the syndicalist Georges Sorel . Mussolini also later credited Charles Péguy and Hubert Lagardelle as influences. Sorel's emphasis on the need for overthrowing decadent liberal democracy and capitalism by the use of violence, direct action ,
22350-529: Was withdrawn from circulation after Mussolini made a truce with the Vatican. He had become one of Italy's most prominent socialists. In September 1911, Mussolini participated in a riot, led by socialists, against the Italian war in Libya . He bitterly denounced Italy's "imperialist war," an action that earned him a five-month jail term. After his release, he helped expel Ivanoe Bonomi and Leonida Bissolati from
22500-464: Was wounded accidentally by the explosion of a mortar bomb in his trench. He was left with at least 40 shards of metal in his body and had to be evacuated from the front. He was discharged from the hospital in August 1917 and resumed his editor-in-chief position at his new paper, Il Popolo d'Italia . On 25 December 1915, in Treviglio , he married his compatriot Rachele Guidi, who had already borne him
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