To Italians who feared the Socialists, Mussolini offered the solution to this problem. Mussolini’s party, the Fascist party, was staunchly anti-Socialist and resorted to violent methods in order to try to destroy Socialism. For example, Fascists would burn down Socialist offices and beat up trade unionists. They would also occasionally force their enemies to drink litres of potentially lethal castor oil. Local townspeople turned to Fascist groups to help them against the Socialists and since the government was not doing anything against either the Socialists or the Fascists, support for the Fascists grew tremendously. For example, Emilia and Tuscany, both former Socialist strongholds by 1920, had become Fascists strongholds by the spring of 1921 due to the violence which destroyed 80 trade unions, left 200 dead and 800 wounded.
Mussolini was doing what an incumbent Liberal government had not been able to do: stop the Socialist threat. He was gaining widespread support in northern Italy, which was basically what Italy depended on to survive due to the fact that most of its economic activities were located in that region. Then, the south of Italy still did not have much power in national affairs and so, whatever the north did, the south had little choice but to follow. With such a wide powerbase, it only seems natural that Mussolini would eventually become dictator of Italy, especially since his only opponents were an incredibly ineffective and weak government who had lost the support of both the people and even the King.
Another way in which WW1 allowed Mussolini to become dictator of Italy was a change in Italy’s political system which allowed Mussolini to grab power from the weak government. Before WW1, political divisions were already very wide. Due to Italy’s totally democratic system of government, the government was made of a coalition of the Liberals, the Socialists and the Catholics. There was also another party not in the coalition: the Nationalists. This was already dangerous as the Catholics, Socialists and the Nationalists were not supportive of Liberal rule of Italy and wanted to rule Italy their own individual ways. The problems faced by Italy such as the mass migration of Italians which could have been able to contribute to the economy of Italy (5 million in all) and the mass poverty suffered by the majority of Italians did little to boost the other parties’ confidence in the Liberals. Thus, from the beginning, Italy was already not politically strong. However, despite all the problems faced by Italy, it cannot be denied that Italy still was making vast improvements in modernisation. National income had risen from 61 billion lira in 1895 to 92 billion lira in 1915. There was also a six-fold increase in foreign trade in the 50 years up to 1913. Taxes on food had been reduced and infrastructure was being improved.
What WW1 did, however, made all of the other parties lose all confidence in the Liberals. Despite Italy’s victory, the war destroyed Italy economically, resulting in the Socialist threat which I have already explained as a factor which led to Mussolini’s rise to become the dictator of Italy. The Nationalists, on the other hand, were angry with the Liberal government because they felt that the Liberals had failed to defend Italian interests at the peace conference of the war. Italy did not gain the territories which the Nationalists felt that it deserved (for example, when Britain and the USA refused to give Fiume to Italy, the Nationalists were outraged, especially when the Liberals failed to convince Britain and the USA to do otherwise. Also, Italy would not be given a share of German colonies in Africa, which was yet another outrage to the Nationalists). The Nationalists felt that Italy was cheated and had, in their opinion, won only a ‘mutilated victory’. Demobilised soldiers, who were struggling to adjust to civilian life and who could not find work, also saw the peace settlement as a further humiliation. For example, many ex-officers felt that the vibrant, expansionist Italy they had fought for was being undermined by a weak government. They felt that Italy was falling into the hands of Socialist revolutionaries who had opposed the war from the start and had done their best to sabotage the war effort. For them, Liberalism and the parliamentary system were failures and a powerful dynamic Italy would have to be achieved by other methods.
This other method came in the form of Mussolini. He was a charismatic and clever leader, able to persuade many. Furthermore, his new political party, the Fascists, stood for a totally new political system. This helped because many people were exasperated in the current political system which had not been helping Italy ever since the end of the war. The people could have been said to be looking for a new political system which could lead them out of their problems which a government with established forms of governments could not do. Mussolini also had widespread support for his decisive actions against the Socialists. His political party was well organised, seemed to be strong and appeared to have many of the qualities the ruling government at that time did not.
Therefore, it seems natural that when they marched on to Rome in 1922, the Fascists gained the support of even the King, who was the commander-in-chief of the army and could crush the Fascists if he so wished. And so, Mussolini rose to become the dictator of Italy.
However, I also disagree with the statement that Italy’s participation in WW1 led to Mussolini becoming the dictator of Italy because there are also other factors which led to Mussolini becoming the dictator of Italy.
The first factor was Mussolini’s talents and abilities as a leader. Mussolini was a naturally-gifted public speaker with the power of charisma. He was originally an editor for the Italian newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia and was known for being a firebrand and already had influence from his passionate style of writing. Without his charisma, it is difficult to imagine him as the leader of a group which promised to bring Italy out of the problems it was in. Mussolini was also a gifted leader. Local fascist leaders slowly built up their own power in the regions their squads were located in. While Mussolini was not the guiding hand behind the Fascist violence, he soon saw the political opportunities the squadrismo offered. He determined to put himself at the forefront of this squadrismo by reasserting his claim to be the sole and undisputed leader of the movement. While there was reluctance on the part of the Ras (the leaders of the squadrismo) to surrender their independence, Mussolini was able to convince even the most ambitious of them that their success depended on his leadership. He then guided the Fascist movement till the Fascists eventually marched on to Rome and Mussolini became the prime minister of Italy.
Another factor which could have led to Mussolini’s dictatorship without WW1 was the fact that Italy was already suffering from many problems economically, socially and politically before the war. Despite the image of a vastly improving Italy the Liberals tried to put across, the situation was grim.
Economically, Italy was not very modern as a whole. Most economic development had taken place in the north, with the south of Italy being neglected. Although money had been promised to the South for improvement of irrigation and the supply of drinking water, sums were inadequate. Poverty was still a desperate problem where 0.01% of the population owned 50% of the land, leaving a mass of landless peasants. Also, Italians were migrating in large numbers, where from the 1890s onwards Italians were emigrating overseas in numbers of 200,000 per year. In fact, by 1915, five million Italians had left Italy permanently. These emigrants should have been employed to build up the Italian economy and also improve its army.
Socially, Italy was not very strong either. The Catholic Church plays a very big role in this factor. It was a powerful force in Italian society, claiming at least the nominal allegiance of the vast majority of the population and it was resentful of the new kingdom of Italy that had seized the Papal States and Rome from the Church. The resentment between the Church and the government remained a factor in Italian politics up to WW1 and beyond it. This was important because the Church, as stated earlier, had huge influence over the vast majority of the population and could, if it wanted to, force everyone to rebel against the government. Another reason why Italy was not socially strong was because most economic development was centred in the north. It was only natural that those people living in the south of Italy would feel marginalised and would find it hard to consider themselves as Italians if that meant to live in abject poverty under a government which seemingly did not care for their wellbeing.
Politically, Italy was also very weak. As shown earlier in this essay, the democratic structure of Italian politics led to a divided and weak government where decisions were very hard to make and where the differing parties in the coalition government barely trusted each other.
It would be very easy for a person of Mussolini’s abilities to take advantage of such a situation and use the potential chaos in the country to his own advantage, which is exactly what Mussolini did in WW1.
In conclusion, it could be said that Italy’s participation in WW1 did not lead to Mussolini becoming dictator of Italy because Italy was already being faced with so many problems and it would only be a matter of time before the problems would spiral out of control as they did after WW1. Mussolini would then be able to take advantage of the situation to establish himself as dictator of Italy. In other words, WW1 was simply a catalyst for events, which would have happened sooner or later anyway, to happen sooner.
However, I disagree with this view because, in my opinion, Mussolini’s becoming the dictator of Italy owed itself a lot to timing. It can be argued that there was no knowing how long the situation in Italy would hold before things spiralled out of control and that by the time they did, Mussolini would either be too old or would have had his mindset changed by then to become what he became. Furthermore, Mussolini was influenced by events caused by the war to become who he became. The seizure of Fiume by D’Annunzio and the subsequent rule of Fiume for over a year where he drew up fantastical constitutions for the city while his armed supporters strutted through the streets made him become a public hero throughout Italy. His dramatic style, his eye for publicity and his high-volume denunciation of the government made him something of a model for Mussolini, who then drew influences from him.
Also, it is dubious to say that without WW1, Italy would still have ended up in the same situation it did end up in after the war. For the war suddenly brought out many flaws of the Liberal government all at once and created many more problems such as inflation, many deaths and injuries and a ‘mutilated victory’ which infuriated the Nationalists. The Liberal government was hit with all these problems in quick succession after the war, sometimes with several problems at the same time. It can be said that the government simply did not have the resources and power to deal with so many huge problems which plagued Italy as a direct effect of WW1.
And so, due to all these reasons, I would agree with the statement in saying that it was Italy’s participation in WW1 that allowed Mussolini to become dictator of Italy.
