7 The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time 7of the Po Valley and the Puglian plains, rounded up
Socialists, burned down union and party offices, and ter-
rorized the local population. By late 1921, the Fascists
controlled large parts of Italy. As the Fascist movement
built a broad base of support around the powerful ideas of
nationalism and anti-Bolshevism, Mussolini began plan-
ning to seize power at the national level. He did so in 1922,
when he organized the March on Rome to prevent a
socialist-led general strike. Although it was far less orderly
than Fascist propaganda later suggested, it was sufficiently
threatening to bring down the government. The king,
Victor Emmanuel III, was prepared to accept the Fascist
alternative and named Mussolini prime minister, the
youngest in Italian history at 39.
Dictatorship
Mussolini obtained a law to establish the Fascists as the
majority party and then became the dictator, known as Il
Duce (“The Leader”). Many Italians, especially among the
middle class, welcomed his authority. Soon a kind of order
had been restored, and the Fascists inaugurated ambitious
programs of public works. The costs of this order were,
however, enormous. Italy’s fragile democratic system was
abolished.
Mussolini’s dreams of empire led him to seek foreign
conquests. Italy invaded Ethiopia in October 1935. A bru-
tal campaign of colonial conquest followed, in which the
Italians dropped tons of gas bombs upon the Ethiopian
people. Europe expressed its horror but did nothing to
stop Mussolini.
Italy had also found a new ally: Germany. Supported in
his Fascist schemes by Adolf Hitler but wary of German
power, Mussolini agreed to the Rome-Berlin Axis. In 1938,
following the German example, Mussolini’s government