From Etruscans and Romans to Modern Times - The Wise World Traveler: Becoming a Part of All that You Meet - page 72

Figure 5.12. Benito Mussolini
Invited by the king to form a government in 1922, Mussolini devised a non-parlia-
mentary system of government in which each of the major economic and social groups was
given representation in the Parliament—which was characterized by a system of control:
informers, secret police, arrests, and torture. And Mussolini ruled as dictator.
Mussolini fanned a virulent nationalism inspired by dreams of a modern Roman Em-
pire. After a brutal war in which tons of gas bombs were dropped on civilians, Italy
conquered Ethiopia in 1935-36 and fought in Spain on the side of General Franco
(1936-39). Mussolini's admiration for Adolph Hitler joined Italy to Germany in a Pact of
Steel (The Rome-Berlin Axis). Linked to the Nazis, Italy promulgated its own program of
anti-Semitism. [71] Italian armies fought alongside Germany in Russia, Albania, Greece, and
North Africa, always disastrously, always being bailed out by the Germans.
When the Allies invaded Italy, the king dismissed Mussolini as head of government.
The Germans installed him in a puppet regime in the north. But in 1945 partisan fighters
killed him and hung him upside down alongside his mistress in Milan, as jubilant crowds
cheered and jeered.