Explain something to me, because I don't get it.
In WWII, the Italian people must have at least somewhat looked Mussolini, else he wouldn't have been in power. But it's evident that at the end of his time as leader, he was not very popular.
What happened? What did he do wrong?
>>376903
Enter WWII on the side of germany and fuck up everything he tried, basically.
>>376914
Well then caused him to be put in power?
>>376903
Mussolini had been in power for a long time, he wasn't a new guy recently arrived into power like Hitler. He also was never elected.
Entering the war was a complete mistake, Italy wasn't prepared. This was suffered not only by the men at the front but by the whole country, he basically ruined Italy by following Hitler. Of course a significant part of the population became full of his regime.
>>376914
And the people that disliked him since the beggining had their chance
>>376921
I meant fuck up the war, otherwise he was competent.
>>376903
Hubris was his undoing
"Mussolini's forces were, as he had himself correctly estimated in 1939, too poor in equipment, training and morale for serious warfare. But once the Germans seemed to have destroyed all major opposition, the Italian dictator was keen to pick up what scraps he could - and repair his own self esteem, severely dented by comparisons with Hitlers outrageous triumphs." - History Of the World, John Whitney Hall
>>376903
One must understand that Mussolini's regime was fairly different from the Nazi one:
+ First, Mussolini had still to work with a (mostly ineffectual) king, but the loyalty of most of the army was still with the royal family. Even the common soldier identified more with the Kingdom of Italy than with the Glorious Fascist Empire. This weakened the "ideological" roots of fascism, even if they had 20 years of government to "educate" the population the new "fascist" man failed to develop. We can even argue that it's the peculiar Italian character: when things go well and you .get a comfy State-related job everyone is happy, when things start to rough they evaluate more profitable options.
+ Internal opposition was never crushed efficiently. They tried, it's simply that the internal police was fairly inefficient and the amount of conflicting powers in Italy (the Army, the Church, the Royal family) survived and gave the population a variety of options outside the fading Fascist party.
+ Fascist economy was rather inefficient, both in civilian and in military matters. It could keep up well in peacetime, but the strain of warfare was too much and Italy lacked adequate organizers.
+ Mussolini was a leader working on personal charisma and strength. It is difficult to show such qualities when Africa had been lost, when the Greeks slaughtered the Italian army at every turn until the German attack, when your fleet is defeated, when your Air Force is overwhelmed, when your submarines are a joke, when your expeditionary army in the Soviet Union gets eaten alive by T-34... see a pattern?
+ Plus, he lost control of the internal politics of his own party. Failure in foreign policy and an aggressive dispositiown towards "failures" made a lot of fascist re-evaluate their loyalty.
+ American and British troops on the national soil.
But, after all, those who killed Mussolini were the same ones who, ten or twenty years before, acclaimed him. It's the price of failure.
According to some guys on /int/ he's still fairly popular depending on where you go
I am reading his auto-biography at the moment. It is really inspiring if your looking for some national pride, or maybe what national pride is like. Im not yet onto his years where it begins to fall apart. But the ramp up and his gaining of power is an excellent story. And whether or not he inflates his own story aside, the principle of a lot of his national ideas are great. I find him to be a desirable leader, one you want to follow, one you want to lead the fate of your nation. Wish he never got into bed with the Third Reich, who knows what may have happened to Italy had they not entwined their fate to the doom of Germany. Oh well, let us hope we get a leader in the coming years as stoic and motivational as he.
>>380030
I once took a class trip from France through Switzerland, Italy, and then Greece. Our tour guide was Italian until we got to Greece, and the whole way through Italy it was nothing but "and this bridge, Mussolini he a built this. Before was valley with poor roads, but a Mussolini he a fix that."
Funny how times change.
>>376925
Mussolini never intended to get a lot out of France or other Euros that weren't Greece and Yugoslavia. He literally said that he only needed to lose a few thousand men to sit at the victor's table after Germany did all the work and demand rightful Italian gains.
Dude way overestimated his forces, overestimated Germany's power while underestimated Germany's ambitions {he seems to have invaded Greece only because Germany had wrecked everyone's anus}, and drastically underestimated the total scope of the war.
>>380076
Mussolini was an excellent propaganda man. It's the man you would like to follow, yet not the man that you want to *run* things.
He was a great "communicator", if we can use the term: when the situation required true skill, or even worse, to shut up and leave it to the professionals, he could not. Plus, he did the worst mistake one can do: he started to believe in his own lies.
>>380103
If I remember right, shot by Red partisans and the his body was given to an angry mob. My quote about "the same ones who, ten or twenty years before, acclaimed him" is not mine, it's from a journalist that saw the hanging of the corpses.
