Real Dictators - Benito Mussolini Part 3: Murder in Broad Daylight

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

World leaders line up to hail the new Italian strongman. But the fascists are already silencing dissenting voices. An epochal discovery in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings unleashes a curse, or so Mussolini believes. Il Duce gets his top off in the wheat fields - making sure to be caught on camera. He comes to an arrangement with the Pope and meets the woman who will ultimately die by his side. Meanwhile, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat prepares to make an astonishing attempt on Mussolini’s life… A Noiser production, written by Jeff Dawson. Many thanks to Giulia Albanese, Joshua Arthurs, John Foot, Nicholas O’Shaughnessy, Lisa Pine, Helen Roche. This is Part 3 of 7. Get every episode of Real Dictators a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. It's June the 10th, 1924. We're in the centre of Rome. At 4.40pm the day is still hot, stifling. Along the embankment of the Tiber River walks a slim, elegant man.

He's dressed in a suit and bow tie. His name is Giacomo Matteotti, and he's a deputy, a member of the Italian Parliament. A lawyer by training, Matteotti is the leading voice on the Italian left, an impressive speaker, a thoughtful writer. A man of conscience, he objected to Italy's involvement in the Great War. He was imprisoned for his pains. Aged 39, Matteotti has a wife and three young children. And for the sake of them, and for all that he holds dear, he can no longer stand by. He cannot be an onlooker while democracy in Italy is being trashed, pulled to pieces by Mussolini's fascist regime.

Eleven days ago, at great personal risk, he stood in the chamber and made an impassioned speech. He denounced the recent national elections. They had been manipulated to ensure a fascist majority, he protested. With violence and intimidation at the polling stations, no way could the vote be described as free and fair. The result should be annulled. As he strolls, preoccupied, Matteotti doesn't notice the Lancia Cappa

that has been crawling along the curb behind him, nor the five men inside. With a sudden burst, the car screeches forward. The doors are flung open. Matteotti is stunned with a punch to the face and bundled into the back. He puts up a fight. He even kicks out a window. One of the assailants is still clambering back in as the car slaloms up the street. But the victim is soon overwhelmed. Held down, a hand is slapped over his mouth.

There is the glint of a blade, a short, sharp carpenter's knife. It plunges again and again and again. Two months later, after an extensive police manhunt, Matteotti's decomposing corpse will be discovered in woods 15 miles north of the city. A cautionary tale to anyone who dares oppose the regime. From the Noiser Network, this is part three of the Mussolini story. And this is Real Dictators. When we left off in the last episode, Benito Mussolini had just been appointed Prime Minister of Italy. On October 30, 1922,

the King invited him to form a cabinet. With legions of blackshirts converging on Rome, Victor Emmanuel III has taken the path of least resistance. He has acceded to Mussolini's demand to have the country placed in his hands. Regardless of the circumstances, this means Mussolini can always claim one thing. As a sitting deputy, responding to a royal summons, the transition is entirely constitutional. The parliamentary greybeards tap their noses conspiratorially. At least there is a saving grace.

Italian politics is a revolving door of cobbled together coalitions and hapless administrations. Il Duce will surely be out on his ear within six months. Right off the bat, Mussolini gets celebrity endorsement. The great opera composer Puccini is among the household names who believe Il Duce is the perfect new broom, the very thing to sweep Italy clean. Big business, meanwhile, queues up to shake the new PM's strike-breaking, commie-bashing hand. Mussolini's brother Arnaldo is now filling Benito's boots as the new editor of Il Popolo newspaper. He will ratchet up the propaganda. Professor Giulia Albanese.

During the 1920s and 30s, before the Second World War, in that moment there was an image of Mussolini as an acceptable leader and not too violent one, somebody who was able to bring Italy to modernity somehow and good-natured man. At 39, he's the world's youngest national leader. Vigorous, dynamic. Thomas Edison calls him the greatest figure of the 20th century. J.P. Morgan, George Bernard Shaw, Mahatma Gandhi are all early members of the international fan club. Professor Helen Roche. Churchill in the early 20s actually says, oh, Mussolini is the greatest living legislator, which is kind of a crazy thing to think of Churchill saying. And you get a lot of these sort of salon fascists. Lady Houston is one example. She had this little lapdog that she called Benito because she loved the way that

Mussolini dosed the socialists and communists with castor oil. She wrote him this letter saying, oh, I hope you come over and treat the English weds in the same fashion. And even, you know, the Times was praising Mussolini's achievements. So there was a lot of goodwill towards fascism. And I think that's partly due to this propaganda machine that was beginning to become established. In Britain, none other than the Manchester Guardian, forerunner of today's Guardian newspaper, thinks that this Mussolini fellow is a good egg. I mean what's not to like? Italy was a basket case. At last, there is stability. He's an exceptional type, a born leader, froths the New York Tribune,

granted an audience with Il Duce on the day of his appointment. He has, quote, brown skin and a jaw that asserts dogged determination. Built like an ox, he could go several rounds with Jack Dempsey. Yes, he's a shoot-first-ask-questions-later kind of guy, but otherwise this soldier-cum-philosopher seems charm itself. If you doubt his popularity, we'll take a listen to those ecstatic crowds outside the window. And violence? Well, hasn't Europe just been slaughtering itself by the millions? Within just seven hours of his appointment, Mussolini names his first cabinet.

Amid sighs of relief, it's not a full-on fascist one. Instead, it's a mishmash of liberals, Instead, it's a mishmash of liberals, nationalists and conservatives. He even has a socialist on board. Though it is, of course, just window dressing. In this emergency period pending new elections, Mussolini is not just prime minister. He appoints himself both foreign minister and minister of the Interior as well. And this Parliament he's indulging? In private he refers to it as a gathering of old fossils. Out there on the streets it's business as usual.

The beatings continue. Then in summer 1923 there is a scandal. A French newspaper publishes a copy of a telegram sent from Mussolini to the prefect of Turin. In it, orders are given for life, quote, to be made impossible for the anti-fascist activist there, a man named Pietro Gobbi. Gobbi is beaten up badly, sustaining broken ribs and a punctured lung. According to other sources,

fascist headquarters in Florence, Pisa, Milan and Monza are also given direct instructions from the boss to implement violence against Catholic associations. The Squadristi now have got pain down to a fine art, and they operate with impunity outside the jurisdiction of the state, pulling Union officials from their homes and dragging them by their feet behind trucks. The Squadristi are now adopting the skull and crossbones as their emblem. This period in Italy will be known as the Black Terror. Mussolini gets away with it because he can cow any dissenter. For fascism to survive, he whispers, its enemies

must be made to live in fear. But Il Duce is still not in absolute control. It's a peculiar anomaly for a dictator. But Mussolini will never, throughout his rule, be head of state. That will always be the king. Professor Joshua Arthas The king's role, fundamentally, within the regime is to provide a reassurance to conservatives,

to the establishment, to the bourgeoisie, that for all of their radical posturing, the fascists were still patriots, that they were part of the continuity of Italian nationalism, that they were not dangerous revolutionaries like the left. So it's very reassuring to have the king giving his blessing to Mussolini's efforts. Mussolini's strategy is never to attack democracy head on. It is to eat it away from the inside. Professor John Foote. Liberal democracy is seen as corrupt, old, decadent, but Mussolini

is willing, and this is a very clever part of also what Hitler does, use democracy to destroy it. Occupy democracy, use the institutions of liberal democracy to kill it from within, like a virus, like a parasite. You know, we'll take parliament over, we'll get elected, a few of us and then more of us, and we'll destroy it. After just eight weeks, Mussolini establishes a new body, the Fascist Grand Council, an unelected committee stuffed with hand-picked appointees. Officially, it's a conduit between the fascist party and the Chamber of Deputies, but it will soon assume supremacy. Right away, the Council has its sights set on the restructuring of the democratic process.

It will begin with the introduction of something called the Acerbo Law, the introduction of something called the Acerbo Law, named after its proposer, Baron Giacomo Acerbo. It is fundamentally a gerrymandering of the voting system, a unique twist on the concept of proportional representation. Dr. Lisa Pine. So a key moment in the consolidation of fascist power was the Acerbo Law of November 1923. And this stated that the party that had the largest share of the votes, provided that that was at least 25%, gained two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. So, of course, the purpose of this was to give Mussolini's party, the fascist party, a majority of parliamentary decadies. On April 6th, 1924, the country will go to the polls

for the one and only time under Achebo's remit. When these elections in April 1924 came, the fascists used this law, which was already a corruption of democracy, together with violence and intimidation, essentially to gain control of Parliament. I mean, the 21 election is already very marked by violence. And you could say it was illegitimate, although the socialists still do quite well there. But people are actually killed on their way to polling stations.

Candidates are killed, stuff like that. Deputies are killed by the fascists. By 24, which is a proper fascist election. And why do fascists have elections? It's always an interesting one. Because it gives them legitimacy, doesn't it? You know, why do dictators hold elections? They can say, you know, we are the people. As it happens, the new mechanism makes little difference to the end result. Standing as part of a right-wing coalition called the National List, the fascists storm to a landslide victory, aided, of course, by the usual dark arts.

The fascist-led bloc will be awarded 374 of the 574 parliamentary seats, a representation of 65%. Despite the dice being loaded against them, leftist parties still win a quarter of the popular vote. But, riven by infighting, they're tearing themselves apart. But, riven by infighting, they're tearing themselves apart. Giacomo Matteotti, frustrated, has formed his own breakaway group, the Unitary Socialist Party. He is still the most prominent voice in opposition, writing articles damning Mussolini, even penning a critical book.

And he's been investigating shady links to an American conglomerate, Sinclair Oil, which has allegedly been lining Il Duce's pockets. On May 30th, Matteotti takes to his feet in the chamber and catalogues the fascist infractions. The dodgy new electoral system, the corruption, the thuggery. Amid howls of abuse and threats to have him slung out, he stands his ground. The presiding Mussolini sits there stony-faced, glowering at him throughout. Resuming his place on the bench, Matteotti quips to a colleague, And now you'd better prepare my funeral oration. Eleven days later, as we know from the opening to this episode, he will wind up dead.

It leaves Italy rocked, shocked. In the first public challenge to Mussolini's rule, his principal opponent has been seemingly eliminated, rubbed out. To cap it all, there's a smoking gun. Mussolini had issued a warning right there in the pages of Il Popolo. If Matteotti gets his head broken, he will have himself and his obstinacy to thank. Shock soon turns to outrage. There are calls for the king to intervene. Every day outside Parliament, crowds gather to give Mussolini the silent treatment. In further protests, 123 opposition deputies remove themselves from the chamber.

opposition deputies remove themselves from the chamber. Their action, known as the Aventine Secession, is intended to force a royal judgment. But King Victor Emmanuel, as is becoming a habit, will remain silent. Influential politicians, including Orlando Salandra, advised the king to keep Mussolini as prime minister and they continued to attend parliament. That kind of scuppered any attempt that the secession had tried to achieve in terms of protest. Mussolini meanwhile, shedding crocodile tears by the bucket load, has been swift to distance himself from the abduction. He fires General de Bono, his loyal chief of police. He even goes to console Matteotti's distraught wife. On August the 16th, Matteotti's body is discovered in the Quattarella forest, a half-hour drive north of Rome. It had been stripped and buried in a hurry.

The murderers used a tyre lever or something similar to scrape a shallow grave. One of them even stole the victim's wedding ring. Professor Nicholas of Shaughnessy Mattiotti's murder is terribly important, and quite a few of the early fascists resigned. They saw the light. Mussolini denied the murder of Mattiotti. Everyone knew he'd done it. Once you accept that, you know that your government is mafiosi. It really is the ethos of the mafia, of murder opposition. Exactly the same with Germany with the Night of the Long Knives, which happens

slightly later. A lot of Italians swallow the fact that Mattiotti has just been murdered. So really they have blood on their hands almost from the beginning. Everyone kind of knows this, and they just look the other way. To spare Mussolini, the murder is blamed by the fascist hierarchy on a rogue hit squad operating outside official jurisdiction. The five men are duly arrested, along with 20 alleged associates. The abductors have little defence for their actions. There were multiple witnesses to the kidnapping, which occurred in broad daylight just minutes from Matteotti's home.

There had been ample time to note the car's number plate. It was so brazen that one onlooker assumed the scuffle must be a stunt staged for a movie. The ringleader, Amerigo Domini, not the brightest of individuals, had even returned the blood-soaked vehicle and parked it outside the interior ministry. The trial, through the spring of 1926, is a farce. Effectively a fascist tribunal, it lets most of the accused walk free. Domeni laughably claims Matteotti died of tuberculosis. Dubbed the Sicario del Duce, the Duce's assassin, he will be sentenced to five years in prison. As will two accomplices, Albino Volpi and Amleto Poveromo. But the three will be released within weeks, beneficiaries of a royal pardon.

Back in the Chamber of Deputies, the socialist boycott backfires. The secessionists will be expelled from Parliament for non-attendance. Socialism as a doctrine is already dead, says Mussolini. It exists only as a grudge. As we know, he's never one to miss an opportunity. On the 8th of July 1924, while the search for Matteotti's body was still ongoing, he had issued a decree condemning the unpatriotic antics of all those who've challenged his rule. All newspapers deemed anti-fascist were to be suspended, including Corriere della Sera and La Stampa.

On January 3rd, 1925, he follows it up with a landmark speech to the chamber. It's presented as a mea culpa, in which he shakes his head with disappointment over the violence that has been sullying fascism's good name. Crucially, however, he makes no specific reference to Matteotti's murder. I declare before all Italy that I assume full responsibility for what has happened. Italy wants peace and quiet, and to get on with its work. I shall give it all these if possible in love, but if necessary by force. In the 48 hours after my speech, the whole situation will be changed. From now on all opposition is dissolved.

Free elections are to come to an end. It is effectively the founding date of the totalitarian state. So what we get by the beginning of 1925 is Mussolini saying he's had enough with kind of making do with the liberal state system or kind of making compromises with democracy. He doesn't have truck with any of that anymore. And he implements his system of total rule. There will be no free elections in Italy until 1946. He does offer an olive branch.

The era of the squadristi is over, he claims. But the squads won't formally be abolished until 1927. They are simply folded into the official armed forces. It's another clever move, for there are those within the fascist movement who think that Mussolini is neither going fast enough, nor is sufficiently revolutionary. revolutionary. Well, when it comes to the fascist movement itself, as the kids say today, they're frenemies. They're allies and rivals at the same time. People like Farinacci and Dino Grandi and other party bosses who have squads, their own legions, and don't really want to see their power encroached upon in the name of some kind of national movement. And many of these local bosses resented that centralized control.

Matteotti's demise will reverberate through the next century of Italian political life. But to Mussolini, on the path to dictatorship, it was just a bump in the road. The Matteotti murder showed that the opposition were very feeble in their capacity of reacting to Mussolini and fascism. And they were feeble because of the violence used against them. But also because two major forces of the country, the monarchy but also the church, had already decided where they stand, and they stand for Mussolini. Outfront, Mussolini seems more popular than ever. He comes across as the man of action with the common touch, thanks in no small part

to his manipulation of the media. Even his opponents agree that as a speaker he is mesmerising. He errates from balconies, projecting to the back row with wild gestures and exaggerated facial expressions. Refusing to wear his glasses, he will scrunch his face in concentration, then give demonic wide-eyed stares. He's often presented as a kind of buffoonish joke, and I think part of that comes from the Chaplin film Great Dictator, but it also becomes sort of stereotypes about Italians using their hands and things. He was a very good speaker, very charismatic speaker.

Harnessing the power of technology, he will bellow into banks of microphones that will echo around the vast piazzas of his adoring thousands. His addresses will be broadcast live via the radio, a growing addition to every household. We have to understand what politics looked like at that time, that speaking from a balcony was how you address the masses, and that Mussolini really was a novel figure, was really the first mass leader of the 20th century. And the gestures and the glare and the theater were a new brand of politics at that time. And he was one of the first

to take advantage of new media. He was one of the first politicians to be filmed and photographed on a regular basis, to be on the radio, and so he might look ridiculous to us from a 21st century vantage point, but at the time this was at the cutting edge of modern politics. Gone are the civilian suits he wore when he was playing at Being Mr. Reasonable. He's now costumed in black shirt attire, replete with signature hat, a tasseled crepe fez emblazoned with a Roman eagle. And then there is that hair. Mussolini has been balding for some years. On a whim, he decides to shave his head. It only goes to enhance his

image of masculine virility. As he will boast, the multitude, like a woman, is made to be violated. Mussolini has professed to be an atheist. For a lot of Italians, it's always been a black mark against him. This is still a deeply Catholic country. In his childhood, the junior Benito resented being dragged to mass and disciplined by monks. It's said the mere whiff of incense can turn his stomach. It's said the mere whiff of incense can turn his stomach On his rise to power on stage Mussolini would even taunt God to strike him dead

But for all that, in private, he is deeply superstitious It's November the 26th, 1922 We're in Egypt, the Valley of the Kings, and we're in the company of an archaeologist named Howard Carter. Carter's team is excavating an ancient site under the patronage of their benefactor, Lord Carnarvon. And they've made what looks to be an intriguing find. An ancient stone door, embedded down a shaft deep within the rocks.

By candlelight, Carter slots his testing rod into the intact seal. He is about to make the greatest archaeological find of the age. For there, within, is the undisturbed burial chamber of the boy-king Tutankhamun, who ruled Egypt over three thousand years ago. A treasure trove of riches, complete with a solid gold sarcophagus. It will become a global sensation. But the discovery comes at a tremendous cost, or so it seems.

Soon after, Carnarvon and others in Carter's party die suddenly. This fuels rumours that the disturbance of the crypt has unleashed a curse. In a glass case within the Palazzo Chigi, where Mussolini doubles as foreign minister, sits an Egyptian mummy. It had been presented to the Italian government as a gift some years before. Mussolini is so freaked out by the thought of an ancient hex, he calls up museum authorities in the middle of the night. They are to go to the Palazzo this instant and have the mummy removed. He calls up museum authorities in the middle of the night. They are to go to the palazzo this instant and have the mummy removed.

Mussolini, according to his official biography, also has a fear of moonlight falling on his face. As a boy, he confesses, he fell under the influence of a strange old countrywoman who dabbled in the occult. She placed great store in dreams and omens. He remains a man of primal instinct. I must listen to my blood. I am like the animals. I feel when things are going to happen, some instinct warns me, and I am obliged to follow. are going to happen, some instinct warns me, and I am obliged to follow.

When it comes to the Catholic Church, Mussolini's issue has always been with the institution getting in his way, rather than anything theological. On becoming a deputy in 1921, he'd softened his anti-religious stance. In 1924, he goes further when he makes a public show of his three youngest children receiving communion. The following year, he has a priest perform a ceremony to sanctify his ten-year-old civil marriage with Rekele. In 1929 will come the most significant move of all. On February the 11th, he will sign an agreement with the Pope, Pius XI, the Lateran Accords. Mussolini will recognize Catholicism as Italy's state religion. In return, compensated for lands lost, the papacy formally recognizes the Italian state, with Rome as its capital.

And the Vatican pledges neutrality in international affairs. And this was important because this reconciliation was the first one that had been achieved since Italian unification at the end of the 19th century. So for the first time, the Pope is recognizing the Italian state and vice versa. A lot of Catholics and the Vatican itself had this hope. They saw him as, you know, bringing the divine and the national together. He was the great son of Italy. And then you had priests who would then be able to collaborate with fascism, preach fascist sermons from the pulpit. And of course that relationship was very uneasy, but it was enough of a sop, if you like, for people to take it as a good thing.

In private, Mussolini will go back to bashing Catholicism as much as he ever did. The papacy is a malignant tumour in the body of Italy and must be rooted out once and for all, he says. To cut the Vatican out of Italian affairs, the Holy See will be sanctified with independent statehood. Pope Pius is in raptures. Italy has been given back to God, he pronounces, and God to Italy. The truth is, the Pope is now out of Mussolini's hair, proverbially speaking. And ultimately, the church is going to become very critical of what it sees as fascist, paganism, state-olatry as they call it,

this fetishizing the state and power at the expense of religious faith. Whatever his prior indiscretions, by many Mussolini seems largely forgiven. Italy's economic fortunes are enjoying a huge upturn, or so the figures are presented. This shall be the century of Italian might, the century in which Italy will be for the third time the beacon of mankind, Il Duce proclaims. He introduced a lot of new economic policies, including corporativism, but also including autarky, which means economic self-sufficiency. So the idea that Italy would be self-sufficient and not reliant on any imports at all. And the product for which this was most well-known was wheat,

so that Italy should be self-sufficient in grain. And he kind of, again, had this big propaganda campaign, the battle for wheat. Italy was going to be able to sustain herself. It will kick off with the creation of 5,000 new farms. He will refer to farmers as if they were soldiers fighting on the front line. A famous newsreel of the day captures Il Duce out there whipping his shirt off to help scythe armfuls of corn. Mussolini's program increases grain production by 50%.

Heroic farmers are awarded medals. In addition there are huge public works programs. Mussolini literally drains a swamp, reclaiming Rome's Pontine marshes. There will be a new road built to Rome's Pontine marshes. There will be a new road built to the Tyrrhenian Sea. Here and across Italy, workers are encouraged to enjoy the beaches and countryside. They may be forbidden from striking.

Unions have now been abolished, but they can get 70% discount on public transport. Mussolini was determined to make his regime as popular as possible. He introduced the ONB and this was the youth group. Similar to the Hitler Youth, this idea that Italian youth should all belong to the party's movement and that they should train young Italian boys eventually to become soldiers. But of course, the youth are very excited. They want to put on a uniform. They want to take part, especially at the beginning, because it's about going camping and marching and hiking and all of those things.

So that was the ONB. The other one was the OND. Now, this was the After Work Organization. And this was important because it was a leisure organization for adults. So it had clubs with bars and billiard tables, libraries, different activities. It put on plays and concerts and it subsidized holidays and days away at the seaside, which began to bring mass leisure to the people in a way that hadn't been the case before. So Mussolini keeps this attitude and control

over his relationship to the Italian people all over the 20 years of his rule. It does so through rigid control of the press and of the ways in which his image is represented. He always checks on the photographs that are issued, the ways in which he looks like, and he tries to build an image of a young man, of a man capable of physical acts. He not only governs from the palace, but also doing things, cultivating the grain or whatever. A light is always open in Palazzo Venezia during the night so that the Italian

can believe when they pass through Piazza Venezia that Mussolini is there and is working. I strive all day long, from dawn until dusk, working without counting my hours, to give as much work as possible to all Italian workers, he says. Pointedly Mussolini doesn't take his government's salary. He lives instead off his income from il popolo, plus privately assorted anonymous donors. As part of the national sacrifice, he introduces something called Gold for the Fatherland, in which Italians are invited to donate jewellery to bolster the Italian economy. His wife Rachele even gives up her wedding ring.

It is a programme entirely for show and with little material worth, but it helps foster a communal spirit. Nonetheless, within two years of coming to power, Italy's economic fortunes have been turned around. The Wall Street crash of 1929 will put a dent in the economic revival. But, generally speaking, Italy is faring reasonably well. And the happier the people are, knows Mussolini, the easier it is to take advantage of them. On assuming power, Mussolini has been obliged to relocate from Milan to Rome. He governs now from the Palazzo Venezia, a large Renaissance building just north of the Capitoline Hill. On the first floor, he makes the grand Sala de Mappamondo, the world map room, his personal office.

world map room, his personal office. The cavernous marble chamber is furnished with a huge oak desk, a leather armchair and a massive globe. Nothing else. Officially it projects both power and a Spartan aesthetic, though some say Il Duce likes the space because his years in prison have made him claustrophobic. From it, he can step right out onto what will become the favorite of all his speaking balconies. The Mussolini's themselves now reside in a sprawling neoclassical house, the Villa Tolonia, set amid sumptuous gardens.

It's owned by Prince Giovanni of the Tolonia banking dynasty For the token rent of one lira per year It's been gifted to Il Duce indefinitely Rachele doesn't like it She doesn't feel comfortable here Just like she hated the move to Milan from Predapio She's a country girl at heart She will continue to do the family laundry herself, washing Il Duce's smalls in the ornamental fountain in the courtyard,

something which will surprise visiting dignitaries. As for Il Duce, every morning it is said he will get up to perform vigorous exercises. Due to a stomach ulcer, he's given up drinking and smoking. Instead, it's a life of sparse meals, spaghetti, bread and vegetables, and fruit. He's rarely without a glass of milk to hand. The all-new abstemious Mussolini takes up fencing. He has boxing lessons. He swims. He plays tennis. He likes riding horses. He would sometimes have himself photographed walking into cages of lions. And this circus director actually gave him this lion cub, which he called Italia. And he kept the lion cub at home

for a while, so almost more Joe Exotic than Dictator. And then he gave her to a zoo, but he would come back and visit her. And there was one photo, he decided to have a photo taken of him on skis, but with a bare chest and the hilarious thing about that was that he couldn't actually ski but he just thought this would be a good image to put out there and if he was feeling ill there's an anecdote that he was worried again that journalists would write about him not being well and that would be taken as a sign of weakness and infirmity. So he brought a load of journalists to the courtyard of the house

and started doing equestrian exercises in front of them and then said, right, go and write that I'm ill now. He zips around town in a red Alfa Romeo. At night, he likes to kick back with a Laurel and Hardy movie. And he obtains his pilot's license, indulging in the new luxury pastime

of the rich and powerful, flying. The abstemiousness, unfortunately, does not extend to matters carnal. Above his office in the Palazzo Venezia is a boudoir reserved for his daily liaison with whichever lucky lady his lackeys have procured for him. Female journalists, wives of colleagues, maids, actresses, fans selected at rallies. Don Araceli was a constant in his life, Fans selected at rallies.

Don Araceli was a constant in his life, but then he would have at least one or two long-term mistresses. Margarita Salfati is one of the most famous, and with her biography of him really sort of publicised him to the world. But then he would have, you know, at least 10 other women potentially on the go. And then when he got into power, he would have some of his henchmen seeking out women, whether at rallies or people who'd written to him, getting them to be brought to his offices.

And even though he had this reputation for working non-stop, he was also probably taking two, three hours a day just ministering to his sex life, having that virility, that power, just being able to use women and abuse them in terrible ways. And often the people that he brought to have sex with, they would then be monitored very carefully by the secret police if they had children or they would often pay for abortions or pay to shut them up, essentially. But one estimate is that he probably had, you know,

maybe ranging into three figures of illegitimate children based on just the number of affairs that he had. It's really insane. The dalliances are very quick, apparently. Mussolini can't be bothered to remove his trousers, even his shoes. Though this may be a practical matter, the all-conquering Duce was never very handy when it came to tying a bow. He will eventually shift to elasticated laces.

Mussolini likes women to smell of their own scent, not some fancy perfume. And he doesn't care much for washing himself, content merely to dab himself with a bit of cologne after his morning workout. To counter the macho image, there is the sensitive soul. Mussolini likes to retreat into the bushes to play the violin. Both at home and abroad, this human marvel continues to be very well received. Aided no end by the international bestseller written by his mistress Sarfatti, The Life of Benito Mussolini. Across Europe and South America, copycat movements are forming.

In Germany, the new National Socialist Party and its brown-shirted squads have even attempted a recreation of the March on Rome, the failed Beer Hall Putsch. Its leader, an irritable Austrian named Adolf Hitler, a one-man Mussolini tribute act, has ended up in jail. It's April the 7th, 1926. We're in Rome, in the Piazza del Campidoglio. Mussolini is doing one of his walkabouts. The fascist crowd is giving him the usual crazed reception,

surging forward, saluting like mad things. Among the throng is a middle-aged woman. Dublin-born, of Anglo-Irish stock, she's the daughter of Lord Ashbourne. In her younger days she was presented as a debutante to Queen Victoria. Her name is Violet Gibson, and, wrapped in the folds of her shawl is a revolver. As Il Duce passes, Gibson steps forward and fires a shot at Mussolini's head from point-blank range. It takes a second for her to register that somehow she's missed. She tries again. The gun jams. The black shirts are upon her before she can try a third time.

Mussolini is hustled away by his security detail. Due to his turning his head as she pulled the trigger, he has been spared death by a fraction of an inch, the bullet grazing the bridge of his nose. Mussolini will make great play about his survival. It was a mere trifle, he will joke. He will appear soon after on his balcony with an exaggerated white bandage strapped across his nose. Gibson, meanwhile, is lucky to avoid being strung up from the nearest lamppost.

She will only talk about her attempt on Mussolini as being a means to glorify God, how an angel had been sent to keep her arm steady. Deemed insane, as a British passport holder, she is repatriated to the UK. I mean, she missed him by literally centimetres, millimetres. She was arrested, beaten up, and it was a diplomatic incident because it was embarrassing that Mussolini had been shot by an Irish woman. You know, in some ways good propaganda because he survived and therefore he's immortal, but it wasn't good for the Italian state or for the police and so on. So the solution that was struck upon there

was she would be locked in an asylum for the rest of her life and it's a terribly sad story. The asylum is in Northampton, England. She will be confined there for the rest of her days. Violet Gibson's attempted assassination is not in isolation. A former socialist deputy tries to take Mussolini out with a sniper rifle. An anarchist hurls a bomb at the leader's limousine as it passes. It explodes ineffectually.

And then, on October 31st 1926, in Bologna, a shot is loosed off at Il Duce's open car. The alleged perpetrator is a 15-year-old boy and Teo Zamboni. Patience is wearing thin. The teenager is lynched on the spot by blackshirts, even though the testimony of key bystanders, even of Mussolini himself, would suggest a case of mistaken identity. These attempts on his life will bolster Mussolini's popularity and give him the excuse to clamp down on freedoms even further. On November 25th, 1926, he will introduce the law for the defense of the state. 5th 1926, he will introduce the law for the defense of the state. It enables him to dissolve all political parties and organizations that are deemed to be anti-fascist.

Anti-fascism, whatever that is exactly, is now a crime, punishable by imprisonment. You can be arrested on suspicion alone. To oversee the policy will be a new body, OVRA. The meaning of the initials is unclear. Generally taken to stand for the Organisation for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism, it is essentially Mussolini's secret police. One of the things about Italian fascism which kind of bucks many stereotypes, police. One of the things about Italian fascism, which kind of bucks many stereotypes,

it had a very efficient secret police machine, which had its eyes everywhere. You know, people can get put in jail for saying damn with Mussolini or insulting his wife in a pub five years, or get beaten up or have your job taken away. It's a very powerful repressive system that's put in place over four years and prefigures Nazism, prefigures Spain, prefigures Portugal. It's copied by them. You had networks of informants, both paid ones and just civilians spying on their neighbors. And the cultivation of an atmosphere of paranoia, the secret police acronym OVRA.

No one knew what it actually stood for, and this was part of the mystery. This all-powerful, all-seeing organization, we don't even know what its name really is. In May 1928, Mussolini will centralize things further. He simply abolishes parliamentary elections altogether. Instead, the fascist Grand Council will select a single list of candidates to be approved by a national plebiscite. If the voters reject anyone, a new list will be provided, and they will keep on voting until they deliver the correct result. and they will keep on voting until they deliver the correct result.

In the so-called general election of March 1929, the fascist list is approved by 98.43% of voters. Having turned Italy into a single constituency, it is now a one-party state. It takes really four years for the full dictatorship to be in place, for democracy to be completely destroyed. The opposition basically has already been defeated in 1922, largely, and what remains are either murdered, forced into exile, or put in prison. And so the emptiness is still on Mussolini himself. So by 1926, you've got a dictatorship, and you start to get the very strong cult of personality around Mussolini, a fascist state which has never happened before,

being experimented with. The threats to Mussolini's life, meanwhile, prompt sackfuls of sympathetic mail. After the near miss by Violet Gibson, he receives a letter from a 14-year-old fan, outraged that anyone could have tried such a dastardly thing. Her name is Clara Patacci. Six years later, a 20-year-old Patacci will be standing at the roadside when Mussolini's Alfa Romeo goes cruising past. He will be captivated enough to ask his driver to screech into a U-turn and pull over. Patachi, pretty with dark curly hair, is with her mother.

She is also said to be married. But no matter what Il Duce wants, Il Duce gets. The young, trembling Clara, smitten with her glorious leader, will become ultimately the woman to die at his side. For the moment, she will remain a plaything. Of the women in Mussolini's life, the one who's getting the most attention these days is his daughter, Edda. Mussolini likes to promote his sons, Bruno and Vittorio, but it's Edda who makes the headlines. A dazzling young woman, she's known for her short skirts and her crazy driving. young woman. She's known for her short skirts and her crazy driving. She's into champagne,

jazz, inappropriate dancing, and unsuitable men. She is a girl, as they say, who likes to party. In 1929, age 19, Edda is at a Rome soiree when she's introduced to a dashing young man in a tuxedo. He is Count Galeazzo Ciano, the son of an admiral. Aged 27, he's had some life experience, as one might put it. As a diplomat, the fascist regime's man in Rio, he comes with a reputation as an international playboy. Oblivious to the warnings, Eda falls head over heels. Unusually for Ciano, he reciprocates. Mussolini does not approve of the match, not at first.

Though when Ciano asks Il Duce's permission for his daughter's hand in marriage, Mussolini consents. What Italy needs, Mussolini figures, is a big, flash wedding. A hello moment. On April 24th, 1930, the whirlwind romance will culminate in Rome's gaudiest ceremony since the days of Nero, complete with thousands of adorable fascist saluting children marching past the happy couple. While the reception is in full swing, two men approach Mussolini with a briefcase. They are from the Foreign Office. They have important information.

In a back office, Mussolini shuts the door. The men produce an envelope. It contains a stack of photographs of events unfolding in Italian North Africa, Libya. The Prime Minister likes what he sees. Hundreds of Bedouin tribesmen being publicly hung, dangling from scaffolds in villages from Tripoli to Benghazi. There is a dirty war going on there that few yet know about. It is, for Il Duce, the icing on the cake. The big wedding puts Italy in a celebratory mood.

But it will bring no solace to poor Velia Matteotti, Giacomo's brokenhearted widow. Cruelly, ever since her husband's murder, she's been kept under house arrest. She will be confined for a full eight years, an unusual punishment for an innocent person. A deterioration in her health will eventually see her released. She will die in 1938. There are some who still deny Mussolini's part in the killing. I would say that this is a non-real debate.

All the proof goes against Mussolini, and in any case, the climate he created and the very presence of the squadristi and the way in which he worked with them demonstrate that he was perfectly in favor of killing Matteotti, who was the most powerful opposition leader that he could have, so he couldn't silence Matteotti. He had attempted to menace and corrupt him in many ways, but Matteotti was not the kind of man who would stop, and this is why he needed to be killed. Among those rounded up by the police was Mussolini's press officer, Cesare Rossi. Under interrogation, he had sung

like a canary, pinning the whole thing on his boss. Telling the truth, or saving his own skin, it's never determined. To avoid prosecution, Rossi flees to France. There is a monument today on the site where Matteotti was murdered, an abstract statue cast in bronze. The inscription reads, Although you can kill me, the idea within me can never be killed. The site is covered in graffiti and occasionally vandalised. Attempts to mount a commemorative plaque on Mattiotti's old apartment block have been rejected by the residents. In the next episode...

Fascist Italy is shaped in Mussolini's image. But a restless Duce grows bored of the domestic scene. Alongside German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, he intends to shake up the international order By crushing Libya and invading Ethiopia, he will build a new Roman Empire That's next time