Transcript The Rise of Benito Mussolini

The Rise of
Benito Mussolini
Early Life
• Born in a small town in the Emilia-Romagnia region in 1883.
• Raised in a Catholic household. His father was an active socialist.
• Named Benito after Mexican Socialist President Benito Pablo Juárez
García.
• Expelled from boarding school for violent behavior (throwing rocks at
monks and a wee bit o' stabbing).
• Before being involved in politics, Mussolini was a newspaper editor
(where he learned all his propaganda skills) and elementary school
teacher.
Ideology
•
Mussolini was initially a
member of Italy's socialist
party. However, he was
thrown out because of his
view that Italy should join
• WWI.
He created a new ideology called Fascism out of a
combination of much out of Nationalist and Socialist views.
•
Fascism is a system where one leader has complete power
over a nation, with a goal of making it completely
independent of other nations.
•
Fascism also states that the goals of the nation being more
important than anything else, including citizens. Fascism is
thus an example of a totalitarian ideology.
"All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."
- Benito Mussolini
Rise to Power
•
•
•
In 1922, he took power over Italy by having a large group
of his supporters known as "Black Shirts" march on Rome
and threaten to take over the government.
Kind Vittorio Emanuele III gave in, allowed him to form a
government, and made him prime minister.
In the following five years, he gained power, and in 1927
created the OVRA (Organization for Vigilance and
Repression of Anti-Fascism), his personal secret police
force.
• Using the agency to arrest,
scare, or murder people
against his regime, Mussolini
was dictator of Italy by the end
of 1927.
"War is to man what motherhood is to a woman" - Benito
Mussolini
Reign over Italy
•
Mussolini wanted Italy to become a new Roman Empire.
•
In 1923, he attacked the island of Corfu, and in 1924, he
occupied the city state of Fiume.
•
In 1935, he attacked the African country Abyssinia (now
called Ethiopia). His forces occupied it in 1936.
•
Italy was thrown out of the League of Nations because of
this aggression.
In 1939, he occupied the
country Albania. In 1936,
Mussolini signed an alliance
with Adolf Hitler, the dictator
of Germany.
•
"Peace is absurd: fascism does not believe in it." - Benito Mussolini
World War II
• In 1940, Mussolini sent Italy into the Second World War on
the side of the Axis countries. Mussolini attacked Greece,
but he failed to conquer it.
• In 1943, the Allies landed in Southern Italy. The Fascist
party and King Vittorio Emanuel III deposed Mussolini and
put him in jail, but he was set free by the Germans, who
made him ruler of the Italian Social Republic puppet state.
This man mercilessly slaughtered millions upon millions of
people.
Including that little girl.
Like 5 seconds later.
Downfall and Death
• When the war was almost over, Mussolini tried to escape to
Switzerland with his mistress, Clara Petacci, but he was captured
and shot by partisans.
• Mussolini's dead body was hanged upside-down, together with
some of Mussolini's helpers, on a pole at a gas station in the village
of Mezzegra, which is near the border between Italy and
Switzerland.