Latest / Generals of WWII: The Art of Command / Mussolini: the rise and fall of Italy's dictator (with Ambrogio Caiani) | Ep 20

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Mussolini: the rise and fall of Italy's dictator (with Ambrogio Caiani) | Ep 20 · Generals of WWII: The Art of Command

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Welcome back to generals of World War 2, the art of command.
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I am your host, John Viscardo, and with me is the great
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Ambrosio Kayani, all the way from Kent, England.
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For those of you not familiar with Ambrosio, he's great
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author, very talented mind. And we're going to talk about
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Beninto Mussolini, who although not a general per SE, was a
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leader and had to figure out the art of command.
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So we're going to dive into that.
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But before we do so, I want to talk to you about your book
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Flirting with Evil. If you could hold that up for
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our audience, there it is, which you can find on Amazon or on the
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publishers website, Bloomsbury. What is that book about?
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So basically it's a book about the Catholic Church in the 20th
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century, but the third and 4th chapters are about the Catholic
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Church and totalitarianism, and chapter 3 is about Mussolini's
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rather snug and cozy relationship with the Catholic
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Church and after his seizure of power.
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And chapter 4 is about the much less easy relationship between
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Hitler and the Catholic Church. They had an ally or somebody who
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helped them with Mussolini, with Hitler.
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They knew they couldn't trust them, and they were right.
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Yeah, and we're going to get into all that and the Holocaust
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and Mussolini's role here in a bit.
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But yeah, again, it's called Flirting with evil.
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So please check out that book for me and buy it if you're so
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inclined. But I was doing a ChatGPT search
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on worst Italians Ever before the call, and Mussolini was #1
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on the flip side of that, he's probably one of the most famous
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Italians of all time. What is your overall thumbnail
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sketch of the man? So I would say probably the most
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important politician in modern Italy, if you exclude Cavour and
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Victor Emmanuel the Second who unified the peninsula, also one
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of the longest serving Italians, head of head of government, You
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know, he's there for 20 years. And longevity for Italian Heads
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of Government is not the tradition since unification.
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It's quite rare for Italian governments to last more than a
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year. Recent governments under
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Berlusconi and Maloney have lasted longer, but they're more
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the exception than the norm. We used to have in the 1970s and
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80s seaside government because they lasted during the seaside
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holidays and then fell after the vacation.
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So political stability is not famous in Italy, but ultimately
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Mussolini's regime is disastrous for Italy because it leads Italy
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into the Second World War, a conflict it could have avoided.
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And Italy is completely defeated and it basically ends in civil
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war. So it's a very tragic story.
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Mussolini makes huge strategic military mistakes and brings
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Italy and its monarchy tumbling down with it.
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You make a great point there, like maybe he could have gone
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the Francisco Franco playbook and just stayed neutral and then
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avoided all this conflict. Completely.
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He didn't, and a large number of his closest collaborators said,
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why are you going to war with Hitler?
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What on earth is it going to do? The Italian people don't
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particularly want war, but Mussolini expected that he would
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join in the campaign against France late in the summer of
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1940 and that he would get easy gains.
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Easy editorial gains in France and Hitler said you've joined
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too late. No you won't.
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So Italy is going to be basically in the war when it
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starts turning and going badly. Yeah, yeah, Johnny, come lately,
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but we'll get into that. Benito Mussolini was born July
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29th, 1883 in Pradapio, Italy to a blacksmith father and school
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teacher mother. What was his upbringing like?
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Bizarrely, it's not the most traditionally of Italian places.
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Emilia Romagna, it's very red, it's very anti Catholic.
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And I don't know if people know this, but Mussolini was named
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after Benito Juarez, the radical reforming Mexican strongman of
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the late 19th century who sort of defeated the French
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expedition in Mexico. His father was very much a
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socialist firebrand, very independent, very anti
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authority. His mother was more pious, more
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sympathetic to the Catholic Church and of all of his
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brothers and sisters. Mussolini was a problem child,
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clearly very intelligent, very impatient, but also loved
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physical fights. And eventually he was sent to
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Silesian, which is the religious order founded by Don Jovani
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Bosco. And it was hoped that in
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boarding school they could straighten him out and his
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teachers there we have his School Report said really
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clever, but a nightmare is eventually expelled because he
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pulled the knife out and another student and stabbed him.
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So not a not a nice kid. Yeah, I was going to ask you
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about the intelligence piece. He worked first jobs as a
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teacher and a journalist in his early years, developing strong
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socialist and revolutionary political views.
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Do you think he was a smart fellow legitimately or did he
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just learn his craft of speech making and influence here?
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He's he basically qualifies as a primary school teacher, but
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doesn't like it very much. He then gets put into prison for
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writing Subversive material. He's dead, amnestied, but he
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flees to Switzerland, where a lot of radicals end up.
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He teaches Italian there, but while he's in Switzerland, he
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gains access to university libraries there.
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And he's an amazing autodidact. He really devours marks.
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Jacques Sorrell on revolutionary syndicalism.
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A lot of French history, a lot of French philosophy.
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He's, he's a radical left winger at this time and he's reading
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some really advanced stuff. He's also interested in what's
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happening in in Russia with the development there of communism
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and other ideas. He's a pretty radical socialist.
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He's got a good mind. He also writes in Italian quite
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stylishly. I think his speeches are master
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classes in the art of persuasion and of heightening
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sensibilities. But he comes from a generation
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that is born at the beginnings of liberal democracy, and
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they're very ungrateful with that.
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They sort of see democracy as being full of problems.
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Nothing ever gets done. If you think about it, it's a
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bit like that generation of Irish revolutionaries who will
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become very important in the 1920s.
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Think of Eamon de Valero or other people like that who are
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rebelling against their parents generation who wanted moderate
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compromise. And he's a he's a young man in a
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hurry. I think that's a excellent
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point. And and it, you know, counter
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revolutionaries do complain as, as do regular citizens.
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Why does democracy take so long? Why is the government so slow to
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do anything? Well, that's the point of it.
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If you make snap decisions without thinking about their
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effect, bad things happen. And I think that's kind of what
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you're pointing to with Mussolini and and that kind of
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generation, they were in a hurry.
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They didn't want to wait around for government to do things.
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Yeah, I mean, the key artistic movement at the time is called
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Futurism, which says that ultimately museums and the past
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should be forgotten, and they should be.
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There's a guy called Tomazo Marinetti, who is a great friend
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and afterwards competitor with Mussolini, who says the
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automobile is the most beautiful artistic thing in the future and
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the combustion engine is what how society should work.
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And perhaps even more terrifyingly, Marinetti, in his
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manifesto of Futurism, which I think is 19 O 9, says that war
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is the hygiene of humanity. We need wars to get rid of the
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worst elements of society, the weak.
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Mussolini fully buys into that. As does a Austrian fellow up in
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Germany. So we'll get to that.
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So yeah, Mussolini becomes a leading member of the Italian
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Socialist Party and edited its newspaper, Avanti.
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Did this allow him to gain influence in the higher echelons
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within Italy? And why did he leave the party
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right before Italy joined World War One?
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Well, he becomes, I think, editor in 1912, and there are
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two wings of the party. There's I guess what we would
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call today's Social Democrats, a bit like the British Labour
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Party or the German Social Democrats who say we don't want
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revolution, we want to use democratic means to create a
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fairer state where the weaker members of society can get
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benefits if they're unemployed or when they become old.
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The sort of social welfare system which I think many of us
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celebrate. Whereas you have the
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revolutionary wing of the party, which is very much what
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Mussolini's on. Ultimately, we can only bring
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socialism with the violent overthrow of the system.
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And Mussolini is a firebrand and he's very persuasive.
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He's very eloquent. He's very committed to the
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creation of socialism. But also he's got one thing that
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most socialists are not. He's nationalistic.
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He believes that Italy is one of the greatest cultures out there
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and that that needs to be brought to fruition.
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Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of a motif.
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He kind of wants to revive the Roman Empire in his later years.
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Yeah. Where did he serve during World
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War One? On the Isonso front, which is
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more or less, I guess, the northern, there's an area of
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Italy called Friuli, which is just the north of Venice, very
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mountainous. And it must have been an
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incredible front because these are ordinary human beings who
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are carrying cannons and heavy artillery up sort of the
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steepest mountain passes and curves you could ever see.
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And they're blowing the tops off of mountains at each other,
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trying to stop the Austro Hungarian army from invading
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Italy. There's a bit of a myth that
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Mussolini barely ever spent any time at the front, but from late
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1915 until early 1917 he's there.
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But he's quite old in terms of the average fighting man.
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He's 32 when he joins the Italian army as a sharpshooter
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at Bersalieri, which is quite an elite unit.
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Yeah, yeah. And I guess he's decorated and
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kind of like Hitler serves his time in the front lines.
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It's, you know, he does see action.
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Yeah, although he's invalided out because I'm trying to, I'm
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trying to remember, but I think you'd call it a mortar.
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And he's doing a practice exercise with his unit on how to
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fire mortars at high altitude. And one of the canisters, rather
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than shooting out of the mortar, explodes within it.
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And he's badly wounded, but five of the people around him
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actually die. And that's where he gets his
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medal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was
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decorated. But yeah, the war ends in 1918.
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How was Italy after World War One?
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It seems like things were pretty bad for most European countries
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after World War One. So yeah, pretty bad.
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When Italy went into World War One, I don't think a majority of
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the population were entirely committed to Italy's war games,
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which was to get back. But they never owned these
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provinces, the Tyrol, Istria, Italian speaking regions, and
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the London Convention of 1915 promised these areas to Italy.
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Now Woodrow Wilson, who is the American president, comes up
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with the quaint notion of asking these people do they want to be
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part of Italy? And a number of areas which were
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promised Italy would rather be part of Yugoslavia.
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And therefore, a very famous Italian poet and another
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firebrand, Gabrielle de Nuncio, dismisses the piece of
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Versailles as a mutilated victory that ultimately Italy
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has not gotten what it deserves. And it's a really unstable time
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because there's an economic crisis across most of the world
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in the early 1920s after the Spanish influenza.
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And also in 1918, Italy brings universal suffrage for males
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over 21 for the first time. So the Italian population is
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much more engaged in politics than it ever has been.
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And this means that two political forces are very active
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early on at this time and they are the Partito Popolare, which
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are Catholic. It's a Catholic party and the
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Socialists. Yeah, in 1919, Mussolini founded
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the Fasci Italiani de Combatamento, the movement that
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evolved into the Fascist Party. What are the goals of this
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party? This seems like the opposite
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side of the spectrum from the Socialists.
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Go completely and it's a very eccentric party because firstly
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Mussolini says we're not a political party, we're a
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movement, we're a movement of veterans and we want to reverse
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the mutilated victory. And also it's very
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revolutionary. It says we want to get rid of
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the Church, we want to get rid of the monarchy and we are
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desperate to change the face of Italy beyond recognition, to
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make it a nationalistic super state with a place with an
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important place in the Mediterranean.
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But it doesn't do terribly well because in the 1919 elections, I
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think they get 3000 votes. That's not a lot.
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Not a lot, and Mussolini's Avanti newspaper makes a rather
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macabre joke that in Milan's canals a floating corpse was
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seen and people think it might be Mussolini.
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Has he done so badly in the elections?
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Nothing he Mussolini's very good at comebacks, as we will see.
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Very, very much so. His starts the black shirt
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parliamentary followers, which used violence and intimidation
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against political opponents in the early 1920s.
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What was the March on Rome? So in some ways, the Italian
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liberal establishment, which had governed Italy, let's say with
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some interruptions since 1870s, finding it hard to stay in
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power, universal suffrage means it doesn't have the majorities.
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It does. And between 1919 and 1920,
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there's a lot of violence in Italy.
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The Socialists, especially the revolutionary branch, which had
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gotten rid of Mussolini, who's now founded his new political
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movement, had their own militias.
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They were using general strikes to bring the government down,
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but they never have the confidence to actually push
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through with their threats. Mussolini sees an opportunity of
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making an alliance between the most unlikely people,
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authoritarian Catholics, extreme right wing monarchists, business
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owners, especially factory owners, and rural peasants.
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And he decides to create a militia which will protect these
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groups from strikes and from socialist agitation.
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That they basically will go in with extreme violence whenever
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there's a strike or whenever there are socialist protests or
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movement. You don't normally see factory
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owners and rural peasants uniting together.
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Yeah, it's a really bizarre constellation.
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And also he drops his anti church stands and his anti
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monarchy stands. He realises he needs to make
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some compromises. And also this is a difficult
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time for Mussolini because certain members of the party
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want to continue the violence whereas Mussolini actually
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thinks let's make a compromise with the socialists and let's
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get into government. But he doesn't win that
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argument. He has to give in to the
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violence. Now, around mid 1922, they say
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that the way we get into government is through something
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they called the March on Rome. Initially it's very nebulous.
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One of the most bizarre moments is in August when 3 of
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Mussolini's top men, Viveki Balbo and the Bono, are on
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holiday near Genoa at Borodigera, and they're invited
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to lunch by the Queen Mother of Italy, Margherita, and
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apparently they discussed the coup with her at that stage.
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It's one of the most bizarre things ever.
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And also Mussolini, in his new newspaper since he was kicked
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out of Avanti El Popolo di Italia, starts talking about a
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March on Rome. And at this point, the Liberal
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establishment starts sort of saying he just wants us to make
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a compromise. He just wants some extra MPs or
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maybe to become minister of the interior.
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Let's keep talking with him. In my mind, I'm thinking like
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Napoleon's March on Paris, where, you know, he comes back
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from Melba and all these people join him and it's a very
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peaceful transition of power because King Louis flees.
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But it's it's a different set up than that.
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Oh, it's a completely different set up because everybody in the
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liberal establishment say this is just a ploy.
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He doesn't want to do it, He's too scared to do it.
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And things come to a head in October at a big rally in
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Naples. He said the March on Rome is
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imminent. Now, during this time, they
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actually have devised the March, a plan, I should say, but it's
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the most vague of plans ever. It talks about general national
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agitation and the seizure of public buildings.
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And then around Rome, especially to the north of Rome, 3 columns
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are going to form of fascist paramilitaries, these black
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shirts, and when they have enough numbers they will begin
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to March on Rome and seize the government.
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Now, I don't know about you, but this is not exactly highly
18:57
proficient military training, especially from veterans of the
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First World War, .4 says. If we don't take Rome, we'll
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fall back and take other big Italian cities.
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That's their contingency planning.
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So it sounds like they want to play chess, but they're playing
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checkers. Like they don't really
19:15
understand what's what's happening here.
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Yeah. And also what immediately
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becomes apparent when on the evening of the 27th of October,
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they start mobilizing. They don't have ammunition and
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provisions to actually carry it out.
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And in some places, the Italian authorities who didn't actually
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believe this would happen, the prefects who are the heads of
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the the representatives of the government in the cities and the
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Garrison commanders do nothing. They just let the fascists take
19:46
over. In Cremona, bizarrely, there are
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about a dozen dead because the army there says stop it and they
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actually do keep them at Bay. If the army had intervened, then
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something could have been done. Entire problem is that the Prime
20:01
Minister. Who is the magnificently
20:04
mustachioed Luigi Factor? And Mussolini said that whenever
20:08
he saw Factor, he wanted to pull his mustache because they were
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so luscious, which gives us an insight into Mussolini's
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psychology. Is is very perplexed by all of
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this. Also, when it comes to the date
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of the March on Rome, Mussolini is in Milan.
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We don't entirely know why he's not with the troops.
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Some people have maliciously said Milan's quite close to
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Switzerland if things go wrong. Yeah.
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And for most of October factors, writing to the king, his Prime
20:34
Minister saying everything's fine, don't worry.
20:37
And the King's saying, well, I'm getting disturbing reports from
20:39
my military attaches and aid the car that Mussolini means it,
20:43
that the fascists are going to mobilize.
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And on the evening of the 27th, Factor sends a rather panicked
20:52
telegram to the to to the king, sort of saying, come quickly to
20:57
Rome, I want to resign because the fascists are going to cause
21:00
mass violence and His Majesty probably needs to sort out the
21:06
government crisis that is about to happen.
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Well, that leads me to my next question.
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Recently comes to power 1922 after the March on Rome, when
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King Victor Emmanuel the Third invites him to form a
21:17
government. So why does the king partner
21:21
with this revolutionary? Is it just to avoid violence or
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does he think he'll actually make a good government?
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It's a real mystery what happens on the night of the 28th of
21:29
October because the king, before he goes to bed, says, prepare a
21:34
decree of a state of siege, which basically is martial law.
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And tomorrow the army, if the fascists try to March in Rome,
21:42
will be mowed down. The military commander of Rome,
21:47
ironically for what will happen later, is a General Pugliese,
21:50
who's actually a Jewish Piedmontese commander.
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And he says, we're ready. All I want is an order that I
21:57
can use a lethal force. And he's waiting and waiting.
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And the king says, yeah, yeah, bring me everything, We'll be
22:03
ready for it. And during the night, he must
22:07
have slept badly because he changes his mind in the morning.
22:10
He sort of says, my government has just resigned and I have to
22:14
choose a new government. We are not empowered to use
22:17
violence. And initially, he says, I'll
22:21
call Salandra, who was the politician who'd actually
22:23
brought Italy into the First World War.
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And Salandra can't form a government.
22:28
Mussolini refuses to play ball. So that evening, Mussolini is
22:32
invited to Rome. And the king says, well, what
22:36
shall we do? Shall we give this Mussolini guy
22:38
a chance? And most of Italy's parties say,
22:41
you know what Jovani Joliti, who's basically the head of the
22:44
liberal movement says. This Mussolini guy's
22:47
inexperienced. He's a journalist.
22:48
He's been a minor corporal in the Italian army.
22:52
We'll run rings around and don't worry, he'll be a figurehead.
22:57
See, that kind of thinking happened in 1799 when all the
23:02
politicians were like, yeah, we'll let Napoleon be first,
23:04
cancel, but he won't know what he's doing.
23:06
He'll be out in six weeks and then you know what happens He he
23:10
does figure out the job and then gets rid of all you guys.
23:12
So I think that's just bad politics by the king and and the
23:17
politicians of Italy at the time.
23:19
It's terrible because in some ways the March on Rome is a
23:21
misnomer because the government capitulated.
23:26
Yeah, before the March on Rome happened.
23:29
Well, Mussolini gradually dismantles democratic
23:32
institutions and established A1 party dictatorship by the mid
23:36
1920s. So is this from the divide and
23:39
conquer playbook? Like he's just like, all right,
23:41
well, you gave me this job. I'm going to get rid of all you
23:43
guys. I think I like divide and rule,
23:46
but I prefer cannibalism in the sense that fascism devours the
23:51
other political parties. It ultimately looks at them and
23:56
says who's going to enter into my movement?
24:00
So right wing liberals like Giovanni Gentila, who's a great
24:04
liberal intellectual, a friend of Benedetto Croce becomes a
24:07
Minister of Education. Devecki, who's a monarchist,
24:11
becomes quite an important player in all of this.
24:14
He basically starts eating up the Italian Popular Party, the
24:18
Catholic Party, the Liberals, the other nationalists out
24:21
there, and basically only the socialists and the communists
24:25
and a certain wing of the liberals stay out of the Fascist
24:29
party. But it Mussolini's eating them
24:30
up and he does something quite clever.
24:34
He changes Italian voting laws that the biggest party gets 2/3
24:40
of the seats. And not only that but the Rege
24:45
Guardia, who are ultimately Italy's police force, are
24:48
replaced by the volunteer militia which are the black
24:51
shirts. He Mussolini actually takes on
24:55
two jobs, foreign Minister and Minister of the Interior, while
24:58
being Prime Minister. Well, like all dictators, he has
25:02
a cult of personality around them.
25:04
So if you're not with us, then you must be against us.
25:07
Yeah, And the one thing we should mention, it's not clear
25:11
what the Army thinks of all of this because these are veterans.
25:16
They fought in the First World War.
25:18
They the Army's patriotic and one of my favorite things, this
25:23
comes from the memoirs of an official in the Ministry of the
25:26
Interior. Apparently during the night of
25:28
the March in Rome, the king calls Armando Diaz, who was the
25:32
field Marshall who won the First World War at Victoria Veneto.
25:35
And he says, Field Marshall, what will the army do in case of
25:41
violence? And Armando Diaz apparently
25:44
replied to, your Majesty, the army will always do its duty.
25:47
But perhaps it might be better not to put it to the test.
25:51
What the hell does that mean? I don't know what that means.
25:55
That's a good vague non answer. People on these military
25:58
officers, who were the highest chain in the command, were very
26:01
good at those. Yeah, very political.
26:05
Mussolini adapted the title Illinois Duche, meaning the
26:08
leader, and promoted intense nationalism and state control.
26:13
And if you watch videos of his speeches now, which you can on
26:16
on YouTube, they seem almost ridiculous with the bravado and
26:19
the posturing. But at the time, did this appeal
26:22
to Italians? Did they want like a strong man
26:24
leading the country? I I think we have to be also
26:28
careful that we think that television or visual media is
26:31
the main way in which this has been received.
26:33
But of course the cinema is still, when newsreels happen,
26:38
quite a luxury product. Most people hear them on the
26:41
radio. It's an audio culture rather
26:45
than a visual one. And if you listen to US or
26:49
British politicians at the same time, they speak in the same
26:51
sort of shouty, charismatic way and it works for them.
26:55
Whereas for us, because we know how it all ends, we don't
26:59
particularly like it. Yeah, you're right.
27:01
I guess, looking at it at the prism of now.
27:03
But even like, you'd see the crowds were all fired up.
27:06
But it might have been his black shirts in the crowds, but they
27:08
all look like, wow, this guy's really saying something
27:11
important. But also, he always begins his
27:14
speeches with something incredibly shocking.
27:18
For instance, when he becomes Prime Minister, he sort of
27:21
starts with the speech. Instead of saying most
27:25
honourable colleagues or most honourable deputies, which is
27:28
the polite form of address that we use today, he says, gentlemen
27:33
or misters, if I'd wished I could have disbanded Parliament.
27:38
But for now it's useful. Let's not forget that this is a
27:41
guy that's got 30 deputies out of 500, and he's really
27:47
intimidating potential opposition.
27:51
One of his deputies actually fires a gun inside the debating
27:55
chamber to scare an opponent. Sounds a little Wild West in
28:00
there right now. Yeah.
28:01
Yeah. His regime launched public works
28:05
projects and propaganda campaigns, but also suppressed
28:08
free speech, unions and opposition parties.
28:11
He famously got Italy's trains to run on time, which is a
28:15
miracle. Yeah, but once in power, what do
28:18
you think his goals were? I don't think he's a full
28:22
opportunist. I think he does actually have a
28:26
belief in the modern state that he wants to bring economic
28:30
prosperity, he wants to modernize Italy, and he wants
28:32
Italians finally to become what the Risorgia mentor had promised
28:37
people that had an allegiance to the state and to the nation that
28:41
was higher than that of their local bell tower, church tower,
28:47
then their locality, then their regional differences.
28:50
He really wanted to actually unite Italy culturally and
28:55
politically in a way that it hadn't been.
28:57
But he does this in the most brutal way possible.
29:01
I mean, to give you one example, some of his thugs kidnap and
29:06
murder one of the most famous socialist deputies, Giacomo
29:09
Matteotti. They bundle him into a car and
29:12
his body is found a few days later in the outskirts of Rome.
29:15
And the opposition say this is a scandal.
29:17
Even the king is considering removing the mandate.
29:20
And Mussolini is erring and owing owing on what to do.
29:23
Even some members of his party want to use this to get rid of
29:26
him and to replace him. And in early 1924, he goes to
29:31
the Italian parliament and he addresses them and says, you
29:34
know, a lot of talk about this murder and all of that, and he
29:38
owns it. He says we did this and we could
29:42
do it again, and that he is not ashamed of fascist violence.
29:49
Yeah, and it only gets worse. 1935 he orders the invasion of
29:53
Ethiopia and Africa to expand Italy's colonial empire.
29:58
Why did he launch this particular invasion?
30:02
Because if you think about it, the 19th century is the century
30:05
of the Scramble for Africa. Even little old Belgium in the
30:09
Congo manages to get a huge successful colony.
30:13
Italy tries in the 19th century, all it's really got to show is
30:17
Eritrea. And in 1896, the Italian attempt
30:22
to conquer Ethiopia goes very badly at the Battle of Adoa,
30:27
where 20,000 modern fully equipped Italians are completely
30:31
annihilated by the Emperor Menelaic the Second.
30:34
And rightly so, it was his home and he and he fought off an
30:37
invader. Italy then conquers Libya from
30:40
the Ottoman Empire. But there's always this sense
30:42
that Italy has been humiliated in its.
30:48
I think it's the only European power that's decisively defeated
30:52
by an African power. And I think this speaks highly
30:57
of the Ethiopian character and their brilliant military
31:01
tactics. But Mussolini basically wants an
31:04
end game here. And Mussolini being Mussolini,
31:08
he creates something called the Wild Wild Distant incident on
31:13
Italy, also in Somalia at this time.
31:15
And basically guys disguised as Ethiopian troops attack.
31:19
Wow, wow. And Mussolini says we're being
31:21
invaded and bizarrely he's got 300,000 troops ready to pans.
31:26
And also he uses poison gas in this campaign.
31:30
Right, which even Hitler didn't do.
31:34
And you mentioned, too, that this drained a lot of Italy's
31:36
resources, this this attack on Ethiopia.
31:39
Yes, because bizarrely, although The Ethiopians are outgunned in
31:46
terms of technology, they can't compete with the Italians.
31:48
They keep them at Bay for the better part of a year.
31:52
Where it starts to become clear that the Italians are in trouble
31:57
is when you realise the amount of horsepower they are.
31:59
I mean literal horsepower, not mechanised horsepower.
32:02
Horses, yeah. Horses, camels, even oxen are
32:06
being used towards the end of the campaign because they don't
32:08
have enough fuel. Yeah, Italy wins, but it's not
32:12
an easy victory. And that's something that will
32:16
plague the Italian Army Navy in War 2.
32:19
They're undersupplied and their stuff is outdated.
32:22
They're not using modern technology like the, you know,
32:25
larger powers like England and France and Germany.
32:28
Yeah, and also Italy sends I think about 60,000 troops to
32:32
help Franco in the Spanish Civil War and there they waste a lot
32:35
of equipment and resources to help El Caudio.
32:39
Yeah, Mussolini at this time also increasingly aligns with
32:43
Hitler and signs the Rome Berlin Axis in 1936.
32:48
Did Mussolini actually like Hitler, or did he just want to
32:51
be on the winning side? It's a very gradual relationship
32:56
because Mussolini rather things Hitler's pathetic in the 1920s
33:01
that he couldn't do what he did. And when Hitler is spouting a
33:05
lot of racist rhetoric, Mussolini's going, you know,
33:09
what did the Germans know about civilization?
33:11
We had the Roman Empire when they were still living in caves.
33:14
And Mussolini's greatest mistress, the one who sort of
33:18
teaches him civilised manners to move in Roman high society.
33:23
She also publishes his first memoir.
33:26
Sarfati is Jewish. So Mussolini's not particularly
33:31
anti-Semitic and he's not particularly enamoured with Nazi
33:34
rhetoric. But the problem is that due to
33:38
the League of Nations, Italy faces economic sanctions after
33:42
the Ethiopian war and Hitler remains a friend to Italy when
33:47
everybody else won't trade with Italy.
33:50
Yeah, I was going to ask you about the anti-Semitic racial
33:54
laws in 1938 that Mussolini installed, which is influenced
33:57
partly by Nazi Germany. So how culpable or involved is
34:02
Mussolini in the Holocaust? Very.
34:06
Now some people exculpate him because he didn't do it out of
34:09
conviction, but he did it for the German alliance but.
34:14
He still did it. He still did it.
34:16
I mean, I think it also speaks incredibly I'll of the king in
34:19
the Italian monarchy that if you think a constitutional monarchy,
34:23
the monarchy is supposed to be the guarantor of individual
34:26
rights and constitutional immunities for citizens.
34:32
You know, if anything's unconstitutional, it's Italy's
34:36
racial laws, and the king still signs them into law.
34:38
So Mussolini and the King are both very responsible for this.
34:43
Which is ironic is in this story alone we've already mentioned a
34:47
few Jewish figures who helped Mussolini along his career and
34:51
and the King. Yeah, the only person who I
34:54
mentioned earlier on was, you know, Marinetti, who was the
34:57
Futurist movement. He's one of the few public
34:59
voices who comes out against the racial laws saying this is
35:02
ridiculous, this is not part of the Italian character and this
35:06
is petty. And the Pope, what was
35:12
Mussolini's relationship with the Pope?
35:14
Because we, we always see, you know, it was Hitler's Pope and
35:17
he really didn't do anything to stop the Holocaust.
35:20
What was his relation with the Catholic Church?
35:22
Unfortunately it's complicated because it's the story of 2
35:25
popes because the Catholic world changes.
35:30
Pope in 1939. There's a lot of this in my
35:32
book. Mussolini gets on with Pius the
35:35
11th who's Milanese and who hated democracy and was quite
35:40
authoritarian. But where the Pope doesn't get
35:43
on with Mussolini are two things.
35:45
Mussolini wants worship of the state and he wants Catholicism
35:50
out of children's education. And there they really almost
35:53
come to blows because there's also something known as Catholic
35:56
Action, which is all about youth movements, university movements,
35:59
and Catholicism wants to remain there.
36:00
The other thing that Mussolini does, which is again is in my
36:04
book is he creates something or the shrine known to the Madonna
36:08
of the Truncheon. Basically he gets a statue of
36:10
the Virgin Mary and puts a truncheon in her hand to make a
36:13
more fascist like that. He says the Madonna also doesn't
36:16
only reward, but she's also can be tough, which is insane.
36:22
But then there's a second Pope. Yeah.
36:25
And that's the one who people think could have done more to
36:29
stop the Holocaust but didn't. Because the Pope beforehand
36:33
actually says we are all Semites and to deny the Semitic origins
36:39
of Christianity is absurd. He also writes an encyclical
36:45
against anti-Semitism, but his successor doesn't publish it,
36:48
which is very, very sad. And Pacelli, I don't think
36:55
Cornwell's description of him as Hitler's Pope is justified.
36:58
He doesn't like Hitler, but he's intimidated by Hitler and he
37:02
believes silence is the best way of ensuring that the Catholic
37:06
Church will prevail against the challenge of Hitler.
37:10
But it's a bit invertebrate. It's not collusion, but it's
37:14
certainly invertebrate. And Catholicism was had a long
37:18
tradition of anti Judaism, so there wasn't a huge amount of
37:22
sympathy wrongly for the plight of the Jews.
37:26
Yeah, well we get into World War 2 now and Italy suffers many
37:32
military defeats, leading to Mussolini's removal and arrest
37:35
in 1943. Why do you think Italy fared so
37:39
poorly in World War 2? A lack of preparation in some
37:45
ways. Mussolini had expended all of
37:49
his resources in his Ethiopian adventure and in supporting
37:53
Franco, and he gambled, he said. Because, you know, in 1939,
37:58
Italy's neutral Italy joins a year later when it thinks, oh,
38:03
Hitler's going to win. And we'll be at the peace table
38:06
and we'll get lots of colonies and things and it'll be easy.
38:11
But of course he doesn't realise that Britain has no intention of
38:16
coming to a negotiated settlement.
38:20
And Mussolini does mad things. He opens another front by
38:24
invading Greece, which causes Hitler no ends of troubles.
38:28
Who knows, if Hitler hadn't had to end up in the Balkans, what
38:32
would have happened to his invasion of Russia?
38:33
He might have had more resources and done it earlier and they
38:36
might have reached Moscow. We actually have to thank
38:39
Mussolini for blunting German military progress.
38:43
Also, the Italian army does really poorly in Libya, so
38:47
Rommel has to be flown in quite literally with the Africa Corps.
38:50
Yep, in some ways the Italians are a drain on German resources.
38:55
Yeah, the Greek fiasco, I mean, they push back I think the all
38:58
the way into Albania, almost into Italy because it went so
39:01
poorly. So yeah, Mussolini's arrested,
39:04
but he's rescued and reinstalled as dictator by Hitler.
39:08
His rescue from prison is almost out of a James Bond movie.
39:12
What happened here? And why does Hitler do this?
39:16
In some ways, talk about Mussolini not knowing the
39:19
writing on the wall. Now, German intelligence was not
39:23
known for being brilliant because the up there for a long
39:25
time was actually trying to get rid of Hitler.
39:27
But it knows that there's a plot against Mussolini that his own
39:31
fascists want to replace him. And Hitler actually meets in
39:35
July with Mussolini on the Italian German border and says
39:40
you best watch out, they're coming for you at home.
39:43
And Mussolini says no, no, don't worry, I know my people.
39:46
And he's entirely bland, blindsided on the 23rd of July
39:49
when at the fascist Grand Czech Council, they vote against him
39:52
and he thinks the king will give him back his mandate.
39:56
But he arrives in his state land chap.
39:58
And then he's seen after about 45 minutes, being bundled into
40:02
an ambulance and sent to this now closed hotel.
40:06
On Gran Sasso in central Italy, up in the mountains in the
40:10
Apennines, which was, AI guess, a resort.
40:13
Yeah. And he's there.
40:15
And the Germans realized that they can't have Italy switching
40:18
sides because the Germans know that replacing Mussolini is a
40:22
prelude to Italy switching sides in the war.
40:26
So Hitler under Field Marshall Kesselring is preparing an
40:30
invasion of Italy, but also Colonel Scorzani who's part of
40:36
the elite commando units of the German army with gliders swoops
40:40
in before the Italian forces realized this and and extracts
40:45
Mussolini from Gran Sasso. Yeah, it's amazing, and it
40:50
allows Hitler to keep somewhat of a front in Italy for the
40:53
remainder of the war. However, in 1945, while trying
40:58
to flee Italy, Mussolini is captured by partisans and
41:02
executed near Lake Como, marking a violent end of his regime.
41:07
Why do you think he was killed by his own countrymen at this
41:10
point? Well, in some ways the Wall, but
41:16
also the puppet regime called the Italian Social Republic.
41:23
We usually call it the Republic of Solo, which is a spa town on
41:26
Lago Majora. A bit like Vichy in France is a
41:30
terrible regime. It's much more repressive and
41:34
violent and it's using the Gestapo and it's actually
41:37
starting to send Jews to concentration camps and the
41:40
Holocaust because in some ways the racial laws in Italy were
41:44
terrible, but at least Mussolini didn't have concentration camps
41:48
and wasn't executing them. But when the solo Republic
41:52
emerges, it's almost more a Nazi regime than a fascist regime,
41:56
and Mussolini is a puppet. He is entirely in Hitler's power
42:02
and is not resisting some of the terrible things that are
42:05
happening. So partisan movements grow
42:09
sporadically, sporadically across Italy and German
42:13
reprisals. I think whenever an s s soldier
42:17
is killed, about 100 Italian hostages are murdered or
42:20
something like that. He's not defending his own
42:22
people, I think is the easy answer for this.
42:27
One of the most bizarre trivia. But do you know Rod Steiger who
42:30
played Napoleon in the film Waterloo?
42:32
I do. He plays Mussolini twice in a
42:35
film about Italian Libya called The Lion of the Desert and in
42:40
another film called The Last Days of Mussolini.
42:44
And he portrays Mussolini being executed with his mistress as
42:47
being terrified and cowardly. But there are contrasting
42:50
accounts. There are some that he actually
42:53
met his end bravely, but very embarrassingly for him, he's
42:58
actually trying to leave Italy with German soldiers and he's
43:02
disguised as a German soldier when he's found, which again, is
43:06
not quite the way you would want to be remembered as a
43:11
nationalist leader in a foreign uniform.
43:15
No. And he's strung up in the town
43:18
square and upside down and people are like desecrating his
43:22
body like it's, it must just what a fall from grace to end up
43:25
like that. Yeah, I mean, it's, he's taken
43:28
to Milan at Petale Loretto, which is one of the key squares
43:32
of Milan. I think he's actually hung up
43:34
over a petrol station. And here again, I never quite
43:37
sure what to make of it. The Archbishop of Milan,
43:39
Cardinal Shuster, says to the partisans, if you don't cut him
43:44
down and give him some dignity, I will come and cut him down
43:47
myself, Which I think shows maybe some residual church
43:52
sympathy because a lot of Nazis and fascist leaders end up being
43:57
protected by the church and allowed to flee to South
43:59
America. Yeah, and, and there's an irony
44:03
there, too. Hitler finds out about this
44:07
ending and he realizes, well, I don't want to end up like that.
44:10
And maybe that influenced him to kill himself in the bunker.
44:14
Although Mussolini is buried in Pradapyu in a rather remarkable
44:18
grave, Pradapyu is a bizarre city where there's a lot of
44:21
fascist memorabilia. You can actually buy Clara
44:26
Petachi wine, which is his mistress.
44:28
It's it's quite a bizarre place because thankfully you can't go
44:33
anywhere to honor pay your respects to Hitler's body, but
44:37
unfortunately you can in Italy. Yeah.
44:40
So I guess that's my final question.
44:42
What is his legacy? The legacy can't be good, right?
44:48
It's not good and I don't think it can be defended, but I think
44:53
Italians have a number of problems with how they remember
44:57
the Second World War. In some ways.
45:01
If you look at Italian school textbooks and newspapers, they
45:04
talk about Italy fighting Nazi fascism, which is not entirely
45:08
untrue, but it's also not the whole truth.
45:10
I think Italy hasn't quite come to terms that a lot of people
45:15
were in favour of fascism, that it wasn't something imposed on
45:19
Italy but came from Italy itself, something else which I
45:23
find scandalous. We celebrate the 25th of April
45:26
as the feast of the Liberation, and that's a moment in which
45:31
Italians celebrate their own liberation at the hands of the
45:34
partisans. But we forget Anglo American
45:38
forces. Only Bologna was actually
45:41
liberated by Italian partisans, every other city by American
45:46
ring or British forces. And I think we need to realize
45:50
we weren't the good guys in World War 2.
45:53
Right. I I mean, yes, at the end,
45:56
definitely we're fighting against the Nazis.
45:58
But for the good majority, yeah, it's, it's a complicated legacy.
46:02
That's a good point. But also on the 2nd of June
46:07
1946, Italians have their first big referendum, universal
46:13
referendum. Even women are voting at this
46:14
stage, thankfully. And it's aside whether Italy
46:17
will become a Republic or the monarchy.
46:20
And I think the monarchy pays the price for having given
46:23
Mussolini his mandate to govern in 1922 and for having signed
46:27
the racial laws in 1938. I think the Savoy dynasty will
46:32
always be tarnished by those two decisions.
46:35
Yeah, just a ruinous end for that dynasty.
46:39
Well, thank you for this, Ambrosia.
46:40
This is very insightful. Again, if you'd like to learn
46:43
more about Ambrosio and his book, please check it out.
46:46
It's called Flirting with Evil, and you can find that on Amazon.
46:49
There it is, and we appreciate your time, good Sir.
46:52
Thank you very much. A pleasure as ever.