Nelson Evening Mail MONDAY, APRIL 30, 1945 THE END OF MUSSOLINI

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 30 April 1945, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail MONDAY, APRIL 30, 1945 THE END OF MUSSOLINI

HITLER is reported to be very sick and Mussolini is dead. That is a true index of the condition of the NaziFascist system which is now writhing in violent death throes. Among the dramatic events which crowd the news from hour to hour as the European tragedy moves towards its climax the fate of these two villains is of absorbing interest. A veil of mystery still surrounds the Fuhrer but there seems no doubt that the Patriot rising in northern Italy, remi-; niscent of the internecine struggles there a century ago, caught the dethroned and discredited Duce off his guard. Disguise failed to obtain him entry into Switzerland. He was captured by the Partisans, along with his mistress and his Fascist henchmen, and dealt with summarily. After a trial by a people’s tribunal he and 17 others were shot and the bodies hung in Milan Square, to be viewed by thousands. So passes from life’s stage a synthetic Caesar who strutted across it, swaggering and ranting, to win more world notoriety than his merits ever deserved. He came to power in 1922 by bluff, indignantly declining to reach office “through the servants’ entrance” or to be content with a “miserable dish of ministerial lentils.” So artful was his showmanship that, for a time, the Italians believed in him and the world accepted him. As his dictatorship matured, however—putting ideas into the head of a man named Adolf Hitler—it became evident that totalitarian methods were casting an ominous shadow over Europe and that ambition and the lust for power might be rude disturbers of the complacency into which the democratic nations had drifted. Nothing gave Mussolini more pleasure than to make sport of this reputedly effete condition, to contrast it with Fascism rampant and to capitalise it for his own advantage. All the time he was making enemies among those Italians of liberal views who could not stomach Fascism. Any open opposition was punished by death or exile, but these elements bided their time and those who survived are the very ones who have now taken such swift vengeance. Perhaps he has had a better death than he deserved. At least he has made a sudden exit from the miseries which attended him since he mixed with bad company and he has been spared the long-drawn-out agony of a formal trial before the court for war criminals. World opinion had expectantly visualised him appearing in that role and perhaps trying to blus-

ter his way through to a mitigated sentence. Some disappointment will be felt at the anti-climax. The Italians, however, have taken matters into their own hands. History shows they can be very bitter in the hour of retribution and they have exacted the supreme penalty for wrong done. If the world is thereby denied the right of obtaining redress for all the trouble Mussolini caused far beyond the borders of Italy the spectacle in Milan square will act as a warning in the future about what happens to dictators who overreach themselves.