A fitting end to a wretched life, the New York Times declared, and there were few, either inside or outside of Italy, who disagreed. [20], In any event, Longo instructed a communist partisan of the General Command, Walter Audisio, to go immediately to Dongo to carry out the order. Fairly or unfairly, the Italian military has come to be synonymous with wartime ineptitude. The treaty that Hitler hated even more than the Treaty of Versailles and one of the most important treaties you have probably never heard of. Surrendered Italy would experience twenty more months of high intensity combata war that devastated countryside, cities, and civilian population alike. As that adventure ground to a halt, in October 1940, the Italian army invaded Greece from the Italian colony of Albania. WebBenito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was born on 29 July 1883 in Predappio in northern central Italy. Modern mechanized armies need a robust logistics chain to provide fuel, ammunition, and other sinews of war to sustain combat operations. Order was restored to Italian economic life, and old days of strikes and factory occupations were ended. He rattled sabers against his neighbors constantly, but he also did more than talk, greatly expanding the army, building up a gigantic fleet (the Regia Marina), and equipping a powerful air force (the Regia Aeronautica), hugely expensive projects for a land like Italy, which was almost totally devoid of the necessary raw materials. As an adult, Benito Mussolini would have two wives and many mistresses. His father was a blacksmith who wrote part-time as a socialist journalist, and his mother was a staunchly Catholic schoolteacher. She added, it was as if he had turned to stone. [5], On 18 April 1945, Mussolini left Gargnano, a village near Sal where he had been residing, and moved, with his entire government, to Milan and based himself in the city's prefecture. However, to reflect this lack of governmental or judicial authority, sources on the subject have used the term with quotation marks. Rather than Fascism, its probably better to think of Italy in those days as being under the rule of mussolinismo: Mussolini-ism.. [63] In accordance with Hitler's prior instructions, his body was immediately burned with petrol, leaving virtually no remains.[64]. In another eight months, the people of Milan would get their revenge on Mussolini in an act that was equally as savage. Lets take a look at the circumstances that led to his demise. On Oct. 29, 1922, King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Mussolini prime minister. Mussolini returned triumphantly and kept suppressing his opposition. During World War I, he renounced socialism and adopted fascism. The death of Benito Mussolini, the deposed Italian fascist dictator, occurred on 28 April 1945, in the final days of World War II in Europe, when he was summarily executed by an Italian partisan in the small village of Giulino di Mezzegra in northern Italy. He resigned from Avanti!