Benito Mussolini
Uploaded by Jeremy W on Jan 08, 2002
Who was Benito Mussolini? Benito Mussolini was the Fascist dictator of Italy. He was dictator from 1922 to 1943. Benito was five foot six inches, with black hair and eyes. He centralized all of the power of Italy in himself and on one else as the leader of the Fascist party and tried but failed to create an Italian Empire. Italy would eventually be in an alliance with the all powerful Germany.
Mussolini was born in Predappio, near Forli, in Romagna, a poverty stricken district of central Italy. He was born on July 9, 1883. His father was a blacksmith who’s name was Alessandro. His twenty five year old mother, Rosa was a school teacher. He slept on a straw mat with his younger brother, Arnaldo in a cubbyhole in the kitchen. Every Sunday he and his mother went to church in San Cassiano. When he was eight years old he spoke out in mass and was banned from the congregation. In revenge he climbed up a tree and throw rocks at the congregation’s windows.
His mother enrolled him in a school conducted by Salesian Fathers in Faenza. He was beaten because of his non belief in God. He resented the system that divided the class into groups according to wealth, which he was at the bottom. These were the worst years of his life. After he threw a inkpot at a teacher, the father decided to expel him, but his mother convince them not too. In the summer of 1894 he stabbed another student with his pocket knife, and was kicked out of the school for good.
When he returned his father greeted his eleven year old son as a hero for what he had done. His mother enrolled him a Forli Seculas School, Forlimpopoli Secondary Modern Collage. He was in a brutal fist fight in which he was asked to leave.
In 1901, he qualified as an elementary school teacher. In 1902, he emigrated to Switzerland. He was unable to find a permanent job and he was arrested for vagrancy, he was expelled and returned to Italy to do military service. He joined a newspaper in the Austrian town of Trent in 1908 to 1909. At this time he wrote a novel, subsequently translated into English as The Cardinal’s Mistress.
Expelled by the Austrians, he became the editor at Foil of a socialist newspaper, La Lotta Di Classe. In 1910,...