A 364818 MUSSOLINI A NEW LIFE Nicholas Farrell Weidenfeld & Nicolson LONDON CONTENTS Acknowledgements xi Illustrations xiii Maps xv Foreword xvii 1 The Land of the Duce 1 2 The Youth of the Duce 8 3 The Duce as Tramp and Teacher 21 4 The Duce as Journalist 34 5 Avanti! 47 6 Trench War in the Alps 66 7 The Birth of Fascism 75 The Crisis of the Italian Liberal State The Fascist Movement Is Founded If d'Annunzio's March on Fiume Was Comic Opera, Mussolini's March on Rome Was Opera Lirica Life at Fiume The 1919 General Election: Fascism Fails The Fascist Phoenix Rises Squadrismo 1921: 'L'Anno Fascista' 8 The March on Rome 110 9 Power: Year One of the Fascist Era 124 10 Dux 161 The Five Souls of Fascism The Battle for the Economy and the Corporate State Marriage and the Man The Conciliation of Church and State, 1929 11 The Fascist Faithful and the Cult of the Duce 214 1932: Year Ten of the Fascist Era Duce! Duce! The Glory Years: I Ragazzi degli Anni Trenta vii Mussolini: A New Life The Wall Street Crash and the Corporate State Getting Across the Fascist Message Starace and Lo Stile Fascista Foreign Policy 1925-35: An Italian Place in the Sun Austria 12 Ethiopia 1935-6: Mad Dogs and Englishmen 252 Galeazzo Ciano: The Son-in-Law the Duce Would Have Shot All Silent at Stresa Appeasing the Dictators A Proletarian Colonial War The Hoare-Laval Pact Victory in Ethiopia Ethiopia: Italian Atrocities and Vanity 13 The Spanish Civil War (1936-9): The Blurring of Good and Evil and the Taking of Sides 281 Chamberlain's Secret Contacts with Mussolini The Goose is a Roman Animal Anschluss Anglo-Italian Talks, 1938 The Clash of the Latin and the Teutonic The Munich Conference The Fascist Class War Against the Jewish Spirit The Pact of Steel 1939: Mussolini, Angel of Peace Ciano and the 'Vita Comoda' at the Nineteenth Hole Mildly Mad Mussolini 14 1940-3: Defeat 330 Mussolini's Parallel War Mussolini's Hundred Hours War 1940-1: Greek Farce Barbarossa 1942: The Turning Point Stalingrad Mussolini and the Jews The Plot Thickens The Popolo Stirs Unconditional Surrender Arrivederci Africa 15 July 1943: The Betrayal of Mussolini and the Death of the Fascist Regime 378 Cloaks and Daggers The King The Two Plots that Counted Feltre The Daggers Are Drawn viii Contents Saturday, 24 July: The Duce's 'Last Supper' Sunday, 25 July 24-25 July: Conclusion 16 September 1943: 'Una Tragedia all'Italiana' 414 The Island of Death Mussolini Escapes: The 600 Days of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana of Salo Mussolini Socialista Mussolini Executes his Son-in-Law Civil War: Dad's Army versus the Duce 17 The End 453 Their Finest Hour So Who Pulled the Trigger? Source notes 478 Index 509 IX.