Mussolini as war leader. Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) worked as a teacher, then a journalist, and fought in the First World War. In March 1919 he formed the Fasci di Combattimento, the Fascist Party (see fascism), which came into power in October 1922 and enabled him to assume dictatorial powers in Italy three years later.

1. Military policy

As self-styled Duce (leader) and head of Italy's government, Mussolini had direct responsibility for Italian military policy for more than 20 years; he was also minister for all three armed services between 1925 and 1929 and again between 1933 and 1943, and was president of the supreme defence commission, minister of foreign and internal affairs and of the colonies, and commandant of the fascist militia (see Italy, 5(c)) for most of his years of dictatorship. Despite these burdens he never felt the need to equip himself with a personal staff or even a military office which could have provided him with intelligence and advice. Nor did he ever create a proper armed forces general staff: Marshal Badoglio was named chief of the Comando Supremo and served in that office from 1925 until 1940, but without possessing any real authority. With a secretariat of only six officers Badoglio's role was a cosmetic one—so much so that he was able to absent himself from Rome as governor of Libya between 1928 and 1932 and again in 1935–6 as commander-in-chief in East Africa. The three armed services, the colonial troops, and the fascist militia all acted under Mussolini's orders with little or no co-ordination to lessen their traditional rivalry.

Mussolini's role in national military policy, although theoretically unlimited, was in practice restricted to fixing the size of the military budget (which at the beginning of the 1930s took approximately one quarter of total state expenditure and was shared between the army, navy, and air force in proportions of 4:2:1) and periodically replacing ministers, their military under-secretaries, and chiefs of staff. He did this not in order to influence the preparations for war but to cement his own position as irreplaceable and all-powerful leader by rotating his minions around the state administration. The armed forces were thus able to operate with full autonomy under their respective leaders, free from any check by a gagged public opinion or from interference by the Fascist Party. This situation was by no means unusual in the fascist regime, since Mussolini always respected the autonomy of those groups which had brought him to power and kept him there: major industries, agriculture, the Catholic Church, and the main state bureaucracy were never ‘fascistized’ in any depth but instead were given privileges and concessions in exchange for their support.

The armed forces therefore accepted Mussolini with enthusiasm and endorsed his propaganda about the power of the new fascist Italy and his myth of being a great warrior. Membership of the Fascist Party was encouraged by the air force, not encouraged by the army, and discouraged by the navy, but there were no real differences in the degree of their adherence to the regime, although all three armed forces had to submit to the expulsion of Jewish officers in 1938 when previously there had been no discrimination against them. Since Mussolini gave no orders for war preparation and did not enforce any co-ordination between them, the three armed services developed in different directions. The army prepared for a defensive war in the Alps, putting a greater premium on the number of divisions than on their equipment or training. The navy followed its traditional policy of collaboration with the UK, building a large fleet which had some fundamental defects (lack of any naval aviation, inferior guns, and poor performance from a large fleet of submarines). The air force, which lacked any proper industrial base, basked in a sense of superiority which rested on such feats as the transatlantic flight of Italo Balbo (1896–1940) and refused to co-operate with either of the other two services.

2. Power policy

Mussolini's lack of interest in preparations for war, for which, however, he claimed the responsibility and the glory, seems to contrast with the declaration that fascist Italy was now a major power—a claim which was both the main object and the ideological justification of the dictatorship and which was sustained by a noisy and well-organized propaganda campaign. In reality Italy was a medium-rate power, halfway between development and under-development, which could not hope to compete with the great powers of Europe; and Italian industry did not seek imperialist expansion in Europe or Africa but wanted monopoly control of the domestic market and state aid. Mussolini's self-proclaimed policy of power therefore lacked both a solid base and precise objectives. Nor was he really preparing for a European war; what he sought were prestigious coups and the domestic mobilization of the bourgeois and petty bourgeois classes which were the foundations of the regime.

At the military level a genuine power policy would have required much larger sums than those which already weighed heavily on the national budget, together with an energetic initiative by Mussolini to overcome the resistance of the military hierarchies to modernization and co-ordination; but even then there still remained the fact of industrial and technological inferiority. So Mussolini chose a short-term policy. He sought cheap successes which fascist propaganda could then magnify without giving any thought to the growing gap which developed during the 1930s, between an increasingly aggressive and de-stabilizing foreign policy and military preparations which were falling ever further behind those of the great powers.

3. The Abyssinian war

A far-sighted foreign policy would probably have avoided Italy's attack on Abyssinia, which involved very high costs without any economic compensations and meant deploying forces in a distant theatre with vulnerable lines of communication. But Mussolini sought a propaganda coup which would reinforce his domestic popularity at a time of economic difficulty. Therefore, taking advantage of a fluctuating international situation, in which Italy's friendship had become important, he launched in 1935 a campaign the dimensions of which resembled not so much earlier colonial wars as those in French Indo-China and Algeria which were to follow. Almost half a million men, 450 aeroplanes, and unlimited supplies guaranteed the rapid and crushing victory which was required to overcome international opposition and enthuse the Italian masses.

It was Mussolini's ‘finest hour’: a popular war, a demonstration of Italian military efficiency—in reality more because of the improvisation of a large and modern military operation in a hostile environment than because of the defeat of a desperately inferior opponent—and a clear triumph over the League of Nations where Franco-British opposition had been largely a façade. His personal stature emerged greatly enhanced. He alone had decided on war and on its extraordinary dimensions, overcoming the considerable hesitations of his military commanders (a precedent which would weigh heavily in 1940) and imposing a command structure in which everyone and everything was his ultimate responsibility. The resulting conflicts of authority, personal rivalries, errors, and waste were masked by an overwhelming Italian military superiority.

In the moment of triumph it was easy to forget the costs. The war continued after 1936 because Abyssinian resistance could never be completely crushed. This in itself was partly Mussolini's fault since he refused for reasons of prestige to collaborate with his new subjects and instead imposed heavy racial discrimination. The new empire represented a self-inflicted wound in the European war which soon followed, absorbing men and resources with no corresponding strategic benefits. Finally, the heavy cost of its conquest (and of the intervention in the Spanish Civil War which followed) took all the available funds so that nothing was left to match the rearmament of Germany, France, and the UK between 1935 and 1939. In 1935 the armament of the Italian Army was qualitatively equal to that of the French; in 1940 it was still at the same level (new weapons had been introduced but only in token amounts) while the French had made great strides, albeit not enough to resist the German offensive that led to the fall of France in May 1940. This was the result of Mussolini's power policy, which was beyond the nation's strength. The myths surrounding Italian successes in Abyssinia and Spain, which were never the subject of critical revision, would enjoy only a brief life.

4. The alliance with Germany

The attack on Abyssinia and Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War contributed to the upsetting of the European balance of power and the approach of world war. Mussolini feared such a war, despite his bellicose utterances, because Italian power would then meet a real test whereas hitherto it had been based on propaganda and bluff. He tried for as long as possible to avoid taking sides: in January 1935 he promised France nine Italian divisions on the Rhine in the event of a German attack; little more than a year later he announced the creation of the Rome–Berlin Axis (a political understanding and not yet a military alliance); in 1938 he signed an accord with the UK for a common Mediterranean policy; at Munich he played the role of mediator and guarantor of peace in Europe (seeMunich agreement); in April 1939 he seized Albania as a base for a more ambitious policy in the Balkans, and in May he signed the Pact of Steel, a political alliance which bound Italy automatically to enter a war provoked by Germany. Almost immediately Mussolini sought to restrict the scope of this alliance, insisting to Hitler that the ‘inevitable’ offensive against the western democracies must be postponed for several years. The contacts between the Italian and German armed forces did not lead to any strategic co-ordination, to the formation of unified commands, or even to forms of liaison between authorities, either then or later, because Mussolini and Hitler both intended to preserve the maximum freedom of action in relation to their ally despite their written undertakings and the propagandistic claims of the indestructible solidity of the Axis (see also Axis strategy and co-operation).

5. From neutrality to intervention

On the outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939 Mussolini proclaimed Italian neutrality. He had some basis for doing so since Hitler had kept him in ignorance of his plans, but his real reasons were the lack of readiness of the armed forces (which Mussolini and the military leaders now recognized, but without any self-criticism or diminution of their bellicose utterances), the inadequacy of war production, and doubts about whether the fascist regime could succeed in imposing on the population the sacrifices necessary for a long and unwanted war. To quieten public opinion the army, which had been increased to over 1,500,000 men, was largely demobilized between October and November 1939.

There was no way out of the situation: Italy was incapable of waging war at the level of the great powers, but its ‘imperial’ image, built up by propaganda and by Mussolini's diplomatic successes, meant that it could not remain neutral without being exposed to pressure and retaliation from the belligerents and destroying the prestige of the regime. So strong was the latter consideration that Mussolini preferred to talk of Italian ‘non-belligerence’ and not of neutrality, which was considered a sign of weakness. The solution agreed to by the entire ruling group, from the king to the military, the fascist hierarchy, and the industrialists, was to trust in Mussolini who, in his genius, could perhaps save Italy and his own regime as he had done in 1935 (a moment which had in reality been much less dramatic).

Military preparation and strategic planning were therefore relegated to second place. Instead Mussolini decided to wager on German might. Italy would enter the war when Germany had gained the upper hand to share in the victory without taking much of a risk or incurring much expense. The moment came with the great German successes during the fighting which led to the fall of France. On 10 June Mussolini announced Italy's intervention in the war; such were his hopes of rapid victory that he was prepared to sacrifice a third of the Italian merchant fleet, taken by surprise outside the Mediterranean when war broke out.

6. The ‘parallel war’ of 1940

‘I need several thousand dead to be able to take my place at the peace table,’ Mussolini told Badoglio in justifying Italian intervention in the war. The assumptions underlying the ‘parallel war’ which he undertook (the term was his own) were clear: it was Germany's task to end the conflict by invading England (see SEALION)—with the symbolic but worthless participation of a small contingent of the Italian Air Force—while Italy had only to undertake a series of territorial conquests, not necessarily to completion, which at the moment of peace would allow her to create an autonomous area of influence alongside that of the Third Reich. The efficiency of the armed forces was therefore a matter of secondary importance: the improvised offensive into the French Alps in June 1940 was condemned to fail but served to establish Italy's right to territorial concessions from France. In the event Italy obtained almost nothing at the armistice because of Hitler's need for the support of Vichy France.

A High Command was thus superfluous. The head of the armed forces general staff, Badoglio, had general responsibilities for co-ordination but no concrete powers since the three armed forces and the principal theatre commanders continued to be subordinated directly to Mussolini. The direction and co-ordination of the war were entirely in Mussolini's hands, but he did not feel the need to create a general staff to help him; instead he took pains to make himself commander of the armed forces in the field—a vague and useless title since he already possessed the necessary concrete powers, but one which aimed at reducing the role of the king, Victor Emmanuel III, who, according to the Savoyard constitution of 1848, was C-in-C of the armed forces. The organization of the country and of industry for war was no less useless: Mussolini's concern not to alarm public opinion was such that the army was only partially mobilized (in June it amounted to fewer than 1,500,000 men) and then practically demobilized in October when 600,000 of the older reservists were sent on leave.

After the French armistice Italy's war unfolded in four theatres. East Africa was cut off from the homeland and after prolonged fighting was lost (see East African campaign); the considerable military forces there were not even capable of crushing the Abyssinian guerrillas, still less of resisting attack by modern British forces in January 1941. The battle for the Mediterranean was also of little interest to Mussolini: the blockading of maritime traffic was supportable in a short war and precarious Italian control over the central Mediterranean (which was based on aviation that was not prepared for operations at sea) would not have any adverse effects at the peace table.

Much more interesting was Libya where the army, forgetful of its brilliant exploits in the colonial war of the 1920s, had built up divisions of foot soldiers which were in difficulties from the start in the Western Desert campaigns against the numerically smaller but fully mechanized British divisions. Mussolini asked the Italian commander, Marshal Graziani, only to advance into Egypt before the Germans invaded England so that he would be in a position to claim the area up to Suez at the moment of the UK's collapse. Graziani met this request in September with a slow advance to Sidi Barrani where he halted and remained until the British offensive in December broke up his army which was large in size but weak in armaments, training, and organization.

The final theatre on which Mussolini concentrated was the Balkans. The offensive against Yugoslavia had long been prepared, but in August 1940 Hitler had it suspended so as not to disturb his politico-economic penetration into the region. However, Mussolini could not leave the Germans to dominate the whole of the Balkans, and in October 1940 he decided on the spur of the moment to start the Balkan campaign by attacking Greece from Albania in the belief, for which there was no foundation whatsoever, that he would meet no resistance. The military leaders were taken by surprise but did not oppose the idea and the attack was therefore launched in suicidal circumstances, with forces clearly inferior to the Greeks and the army at home simultaneously being demobilized.

The whole of Greece rose in response, despite the unpopularity of the Metaxas regime; high in morale and initially greater in numbers, Greek forces pushed the Italians back and launched a deep counter-attack into Albania. The Italian forces teetered on the edge of collapse, their command structure and logistics in tatters, unable to co-ordinate a flow of improvised reinforcements. However most battalions continued to fight despite harsh conditions; and the Greek offensive, which in its turn began to suffer supply difficulties, was halted in December. The reorganization of the Italian front line in the following months was not enough to alter the fortunes of war: a big offensive in March 1941, at which Mussolini himself was present in the hope of harvesting the laurels, met with no success. In the months that followed, the collapse of an exhausted Greece was the result of the descent of the Wehrmacht in force on the Balkans.

7. The ‘subaltern war’ 1941–3

By the end of 1940 the ‘Parallel war’ was over. A German victory had receded into the future while, in addition to Italian defeats in north Africa and Albania, half the Italian fleet was sunk at Taranto in November by torpedo biplanes from the British carrier Illustrious. To continue the war Italy now depended on German supplies of fuel and raw materials, in exchange for which Germany received Italian foodstuffs and labour; in addition, the Italian defeats made it necessary for the Germans to intervene in the Mediterranean. German abandonment of the attempt to invade England allowed the British to take the offensive in the Mediterranean, their principal theatre of operations in 1941–3 after the vital battle of the Atlantic. But the German–Italian alliance brought neither clear agreements nor true collaboration; Hitler regarded the dispatch of Rommel'sAfrika Korps and Kesselring's air force to North Africa as the price to be paid to prevent Italy's collapse and had no strategic plan for a breathing-space. Mussolini had to accept subordination to Germany's interests to save his regime and defend his position—no longer as Hitler's ally but now as the Third Reich's chief vassal.

Mussolini's weakness was partly the result of Italy's economic and industrial inferiority, but chiefly of the failure of the fascist regime which showed itself to be incapable of mobilizing the nation's energies for war—which had always been its main objective. War production rose only a little above peacetime levels and organizational and technological delays mounted: between 1940 and 1943 some 4,000 armoured vehicles and 11,500 mediocre aeroplanes were manufactured, compared to Germany's 20,000 tanks and 25,000 planes and the USSR's 24,000 tanks and 35,000 planes produced in 1943 alone, almost all of superior performance to Italian machines (see also Italy, 2). Mussolini did not try to impose his will on industry, did not dare to increase taxation very much, did not succeed in organizing the efficient requisition of agricultural production and failed to provide a steady supply of necessities to the Italian citizenry, who were condemned to turn to the black market or starve. Mobilization of the army in 1941 brought 2,500,000 men under arms, more than could be supplied with modern weapons and equipment, so that many of them were employed in worthless tasks. At the same time 960,000 physically fit young men were exempted from service; some on unconvincing grounds which caused public resentment.

Mussolini's intervention in the conduct of operations lessened in comparison to 1940, partly because the new chief of the armed forces general staff, Marshal Cavallero, took on more concrete responsibilities for the direction and co-ordination of the armed forces than Badoglio (who had been sacked as the scapegoat for the Albanian defeat), but chiefly because the strategic picture had become more settled. Some 650,000 men were posted in Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece as occupying forces and were much involved in tough campaigns against partisans. The navy wore itself out defending the convoys which supplied Axis forces in the Western Desert, where continuing Italian support was sub rdinated to Rommel who evaded Italian control. Even when Mussolini went to Libya in the summer of 1942 so as not to miss the triumphant entry into Cairo which appeared to be imminent, he was unable to make Rommel listen to him. The only strategic decision of any importance taken by Mussolini in these years was the dispatch to the Eastern Front of an Italian army corps at the start of the German–Soviet war in June 1941 (see BARBAROSSA) and an army in 1942 (see Italy, 5(b)). The political requirement to defend his position as first vassal of the Reich caused Mussolini to overlook the puzzlement of his military commanders. The decision was a disastrous one because the divisions sent to the Eastern Front could only play a secondary role in a war of such vast dimensions, and in the winter of 1942–3 they were overrun by the great Soviet offensive. The motor vehicles and modern artillery with which they had been equipped might have had a decisive effect in the more restricted theatre of the Libyan desert.

8. Mussolini's fall

The repeated defeats, the Anglo-American intervention in force in the Mediterranean (see North African campaign), and the great strikes in Milan and Turin in March 1943 signalled the end for Mussolini. Italy's surrender became inevitable and Mussolini was not the person who could obtain it. After long hesitation and in some fear King Victor Emmanuel III, with the support of the army High Command and some of the fascist leaders, dismissed Mussolini on 23 July 1943 and had him arrested. The Fascist Party and its organs were dissolved amid popular celebration. But on the day after the proclamation of the armistice on 8 September 1943 Mussolini was freed by the Germans and placed at the head of the Italian Social Republic (see Italy, 3(b)), a puppet regime intended to legitimize the German occupation of Italy and demonstrate the continuity of the Nazi–fascist alliance.

Mussolini, who was by now physically exhausted and incapable even of holding the great rallies at which he had excelled, passively accepted his new role. He was a head of state with neither power nor authority and depended entirely on the Germans, unable either to influence the course of the civil war or to protest when the Reich annexed Italian provinces in the Veneto. He was shot on 28 April 1945, while attempting to flee into Switzerland, by partisans carrying out the death sentence imposed on him and on the main fascist leaders by the Italian authorities. His body was transported to Milan and exhibited in Piazzale Loreto—a savage gesture which set the seal on 20 years of dictatorship for which the Italian people had paid dearly and 20 months of bitter civil war.

Giorgio Rochat ( andTr. John Gooch)

Bibliography

The output of memoirs and historical works on Mussolini as dictator and military chief in the Second World War is immense. See the contributions on the fascist regime and Italy in the Second World War in Il mondo contemporaneo, Vol. I, Storia d'Italia (Florence, 1978); La storiagrafia militare italiana negli ultimi venti anni (Milan, 1985); and the Bibliografia italiana di storia e studi militari 1960–1984 (Milan, 1987). See also Deakin, F. W. , The Brutal Friendship (London, 1962).