First Reported Caught In North Italy

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 99, 28 April 1945, Page 4

First Reported Caught In North Italy

ANOTHER episode in the -varied fortunes which have attended Benito Mussolini since his fall from the Italian dictatorship in 1943, is marked by the news received to-day over the Free Milan Radio, that he has been captured by Italian patriots, who found him in a monastery near Como. Born on July 29, 1883, in the village of Davia, in the Romango, Benito had an uneducated blacksmith for his father and a school mistress for his mother. He was the eldest of the family, and, as a boy, was naughty and troublesome, with a domineering disposition. The scholastic achievements of the youthful Benito were far from being of a spectacular order, and it was not until he was 14 that he could read. The fond ambition of his mother was that he should become a priest, but Benito, a rebel against society, law and order and the clergy, had other views on the subject. Instead, he became a teacher and, in due course, went to Switzerland in quest of something else. While there he was arrested and imprisoned on a charge of vagrancy.

Mussolini returned to Italy and threw himself into the cause of Italian irredentism. He became editor of the Socialist paper Avanti, and fulminated against Austria and the Austrians. Wounded In Great War With the outbreak of the Great War, he clamoured in the first issue of his new paper, II Popolo d'ltalia, for Italy's entry against Austria, Germany, the Socialists, the Communists and all Italy's enemies. He fought in the war as a commissioned officer and was wounded. Journalistically, Mussolini continued to wage war on defeatists and neutralists. He began the organisation of the remarkable youth movement, the Fascisti, and eventually assumed control of the GovernmentThen, after a period which witnessed the murder of the Socialist, Matteotti, and the use of castor oil in dealing with political opponents, he decided, in 1925, that he would be responsible to the King alone and not to Parliament.

The internal programme of Mussolini included the transference of most State undertakings to private enterprises, the suppression of all secret societies, the reform- of communal administration, the elimination of the electorate, cancellation of the civil rights of all anti-Fascists, the abolition of the trade unions, owners' associations and kindred bodies not sanctioned by the State, and the control and censorship of the Press.

The world first gave startled attention to Mussolini at the time of the Corfu episode, which aroused great indignation. Italy's foreign policy was later epitomised by him in the phrase "expand or explode." "Expansion" began in Abyssinia, where, in defiance of the League of Nations, which imposed economic sanctions, he conquered the country. He was given the Military Order of Savoy for having "prepared, led and won the greatest colonial war* in history."

"Stab In The Back" 111 April. 1939. Mussolini continued his scheme of concuest for the promotion of a world of Fascism by invading Albania. Then, on June 10, 1940. when the present war had been in progress some nine months, he threw in his lot with Hitler. This "stab in the back" was a prelude to the collapse of France, b"t it was the prelude also of the collapse of Mussolini's African empire. In the ensuing years the fortunes of the Allied forces waxed and waned, but eventually the Italians were driven from North .Africa. Then, after the invasion of Sicily and the landing on the Italian mainland, came the news on Julv 26, 1943, of the resignation of Mussolini the day before. . . It was agreed that Mussolini should be handed over bv the Badoglio Government to the British and Americans, but this intention was frustrated by German parachutists, men of the Security Service and Armed Storm Troopers, who effected a rescue. Subsequently, there were conflicting reports concerning .Mussolini's health, and one at the end of last year of an attempted suicide by the one-time dictator. Early this month came news that Switzerland had. denied any intention of granting shelter to Mussolini. Thus, with events in Germany dispelling any hope of refuge in that country," Mussolini was forced back to his native land, over which- he had exercised so malevolent an influence, only to fall into the-hands of the Allies he had eluded for nearly two years.