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Benito Mussolini



Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was born on July 29, 1883 and died on April 28, 1945. He was an Italian politician, journalist, and leader of the National Fascist Party. He was the Prime Minister from 1922 until he was kicked out of office in 1943 for making such poor political decisions like siding with Hitler and originally joining the Axis Party. Mussolini was the creator of fascism which is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism. His nickname was "Il Duce" meaning "The Leader". His main goal was to create a country and run it much like the Roman Empire. Mussolini knew what Hitler had in store for controlling all of Europe and though he did not agree with all of his ideas, he sided with Hitler in the beginning to avoid a conflict between the two countries because he knew Germany had a much stronger army than Italy. Italy was part of the axis power from the start of WWII till 1943 when Mussolini was kicked out of office. In 1939, Hitler and Mussolini both signed an agreement called the "Pact of Friendship" that was supposed to last 10 years and continue on after that. As Mussolini got to know Hitler better, he realized that his ideas and ways of thinking were uncultured and simplistic. Italy was supposed to help Hitler and his German army conquer Poland together but Germany invaded way before they said they were going to and therefore Italy was not yet ready to support the Axis leader in battle. Although Hitler had no help when invading poland, Mussolini was helped by his allies when he invaded Ethiopia, the only African country not yet occupied by a European country. The fall of Mussolini was on July 25, 1943 when the Grand Council had a meeting of Italy's future and all member decided that Mussolini was driving Italy to the ground. The war was basically over for the Italians and the major question was whether to surrender to the allies or continue to fight with Hitler. Once they had made the decison to surrender to the allies, Italy had Mussolini arrested and put in a jail cell on the island of Ponza outside Italy's border.

Sources:

Wikipedia. "Benito Mussolini." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 23 Feb. 2016. Web. 23 Feb. 2016. .
 * McDougal, Holt. The Americans 2012. 1 of 1 ed. EPub: n.p., 2012. Print. ||