The fall of Mussolini in 1943
From his coming to power in 1922 Mussolini had one clear policy that would play amajor part in how he ruled Italy for the next twenty one years. His vision was toraise Italy's prestige in the eyes of the world and attempt to re -create an empire torival that of Ancient Rome. To achieve this, various policies were introduced torevolutionise and influence most parts of Italian Industry and society, in an eventualattempt to transform Italy into a self -sufficient nation, from this basis point Mussolinicould then follow his colonial and imperial ambitions for enlarging the Italianempire. However, "opportunities" such as the World War Two soon showed Italy wasunable to maintain a modern war machine, and this under -preparation clearly hadit's foundations in various failed economic and social policies that had been When Mussolini came to power in 1922 the Italian economy was backwardcompared with the rest of Western Europe, and it's industries, though steadilygrowing, needed development and were centralised in the northern part of thecountry. Indeed half the population still made it's living by farming and agricultureand even this was flawed by the fact land was not available
They did not want anyoneto interfere in Spain and were also worried about Italy playing an active part in theMediterranean area, which they regarded as under their jurisdiction. However,Mussolini had little knowledge or interest in the economy as a whole and adoptedpolicies that were relatively short -term and aimed at making Italy self -sufficient inthe event of war. However, this action soonbrought him into conflict with Britain and France again. Mussolini had always been jealous of Britain and France's empires and believed thata new "Roman empire" could solve Italy's economic problems and increase his ownpersonal popularity. Theeconomy had also run into major difficulties and had raised taxes and borrowed tomeet its expenditures because of re -Armament and "adventures" in Spain andEthiopia during the 30's. Indeed by 1941, a year after entering war, Italy was relyingon it's German ally for raw materials equipment to continue the war. However, he faced opposition from Britain andFrance which pushed him, possibly inevitably, towards the Nazi German camp. The evidence suggests that the Corporate State also failed to have anypositive effect socially. With industry and commerce Mussolini simply gave a free reign to "bigbusiness" and launched his favourite economic idea; the creation of the "CorporateState". The depression that began in 1929 also cost the Corporate state and FascistGovernment heavily as it had to increasingly intervene to prevent the collapse of anumber of industries. In an economic sense none of Mussolini's"battles" were actually won, and many just provided publicity stunts for the Duceshowing him "practising what he preached". By 1943, with Scilly being invaded andRome bombed, the public demand for a separate peace became intense. On the whole Italy's basic agriculturalproblems remained unsolved. Mussolini believed that further glory could be achieved in Spain and itwould also distract from his failures in home policy.
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