Benito Mussolini :: essays research papers

Benito Mussolini was born on July 29, 1883 in Predappio. The son of a blacksmith he was largely self-educated. He became a schoolteacher and a socialist journalist in northern Italy. In 1910 he married Rachele Guidi who bore his five children. Mussolini was jailed in 1911 for his opposite to Italys war in Libya.Soon after his release in 1912 he became editor of the socialist newspaper in Milan, "Avanti". When WWI began in 1914 Mussolini advocated Italys adit into the war on the allied side and was expelled from the socialist party. He then started his own newspaper in Milan, Il Popolo dItalia (The People of Italy) which later became the line of products of the fascist Movement. In 1916 Mussolini enlisted in the military. After his promotion to sergeant he was wounded and in 1917 he returned to his paper.During the Chaos that Gripped Italy after the war Mussolinis regulate grew swiftly. Mussolini and other war veterans founded Fasci di Combattimento in March of 1919. Thi s Nationalistic antisocialist movement attracted much of the lower middle class and took its name from the Fasces, an ancient symbol of Roman discipline. The Fascist movement grew rapidly in the 1920s, spreading through the countryside where its Black Shirt Militia won support of the land owners and attacked peasant leagues of collectivist Supporters. To mint advantage of the opportunity Fascism shed its initial Republicanism gaining the support of the King and Army. On October 28, 1922 Mussolini led his Fascist March on Rome. Mussolini was immediately invited to form the Italian Government by King Victor Emmanuel III. Although Mussolini was given extraordinary powers to return order to Italy he governed constitutionally until 1924 after the violence of the 1924 elections resulting in the death of Socialist party deputy Giacomo Mattoetti. Mussolini moved to suspend constitutional government and establish a totalitarian regime. He proceeded in stages to establish a dictatorship by forbidding the parliament to initiate legislation, making him responsible to the king alone. By 1926 he had passed decrees issuing him the force of law, establishing total censorship of the press and suppressing all enemy parties. In 1929 Mussolini made one of his greatest diplomatic triumphs when he concluded the Lateran Treaty between Italy and the Holy See. This settled the 60-year controversy concerning the power of the Pope inwardly the Italian State. In 1933 Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany and was