Ian Thomson

From ‘divine Caesar’ to Hitler’s lapdog – the rise and fall of Benito Mussolini

Il Duce was always the weaker partner in Nazi-Fascist Pact of Steel, and as the war progressed became increasingly reliant on Germany

Hitler and Mussolini in Berlin in 1941. Credit: Getty Images 
issue 02 May 2020
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  • Mussolini’s War: Fascist Italy from Triumph to Collapse, 1935-1943

    John Gooch

    Penguin, pp. 532, £30

In 1919, an obscure political agitator called Benito Mussolini assembled a ragbag of Blackshirt diehards in the Lombard capital of Milan and launched the movement that was to become, two years later, the National Fascist Party. The party took its name from the classical Roman symbol of authority — an axe bound in rods, or fasces.

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