Mussolini and Fascist
Italy
3rd Year Junior cert history
Early career
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Socialist teacher.
Wounded in WW1.
Founded Fascio di
Combattimento
(blackshirts)
Fasces symbol.
Why Fascism became popular.
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Weak governments.
1 million dead.
Disappointed with Paris
Peace deal.
Inflation and
Unemployment.
Fear of Communism
Blackshirt violence.
March on Rome.
Victor Emmanuel III
hands Mussolini power
Becoming a Dictator
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1923 biggest party
gets 2/3 of seats
Opposition walked
when Matteotti was
murdered
Rule by decree
OVRA secret police
Il Duce. Cult of the
Personality
Brainwashing, Balila.
Propaganda
Successes at home
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Autostada and
railways
Latern Treaty
Draining of Pontine
Marshes
Employment
increased.
‘Battle for Grain’
‘Battle for Births’
Foreign Policy
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Aims: to recreate the Roman
Empire and to make the Med
an Italian lake.
Took Libya, Abyssinia and
Somalia.
Friendship developed with
Hitler = 1936 Rome-Berlin Axis
(allowed anchluss if Italy kept
South Tyrol)
1939 Pact of Steel (full military
alliance)
Italy did not join WW2 (army
not ready) until Germany
seemed to be winning in 1940.
Hitler had to send Rommel to
help Italy in North Africa.
The End
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Allies invaded
Mussolini arrested
on king’s orders.
Nazis released him.
Puppet government
set up.
Partisans killed him