Benito Mussolini was the fascist dictator of Italy for nearly 20 years. Benito was born at Dovia, a suburb of Predappio, in the northcentral part of Italy. His father, Alessando, was a blacksmith. And his mother, Rosa, was a schoolteacher. As a young man, Mussolini was a Socialist with revolutionary tendencies. He was expelled from 2 schools and later was in trouble with the authorities several times. In 1912 he became editor of the Socialist newspaper Avanti, and in 1914 he started his own Socialist newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia. At this time he wrote a novel, then translated into English as the Cardinal's Mistress. During World War I he served for nearly 2 years as private in the infantry.
After the war there was much poverty and industrial unrest in Italy. Mussolini's political views were changing during this time. The de
When the Fascists marched on Rome in 1922, King Victor Emmanuel III decided to hand over the government to them. Mussolini was selected Prime Minister. For three years he was head of a coalition government, but in 1925 he took the powers of government into his own hands. He forbade all political opposition and all criticism in the press, and Mussolini ruled Italy as dictator.
His fatal mistake was his alliance with Germany's Adolf Hitler in 1939. During World War II his armies were swept from Ethiopia and North Africa; and when the Allies invaded Italy in 1943, Mussolini was thrown out by the Fascist Grand Council and imprisoned in the Abruzzi Mountains. Rescued by the Germans several months later, Mussolini set up a Republican Fascist state in northern Italy. But he was little more than a puppet under the protection of the German Army. In this "Republic of
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