Evening star., 1945-04-30
The End of MussoIini

lhe Itallan people. BE bold as
lions!" Believed Obey! Fight"
The slogans, the florid oratory, the
straight-arm salute, the great pa
rades, the strutting jut-jawed figure,
all seemed good to Italy for many a
long year. Here was a man who
brought order and discipline to the
nation. Here was an organizing
genius who cleaned out the marshes
and made the trains run on time.
Here was new Caesar destined to
restore the ancient glories of en-
pire and transform his people into
a martial race lording it over the
entire Mediterranean world.
He gave his country Fascism, and
Fascism got things done. One had
to admit that, even though the
doing involved castor oil treatments
at first, and Black Shirt gangster-
ism, and then outright murder and
the loss of all the basic liberties
that endoW men with dignity and
self-respect. But most Italians did
not greatly mind the price they had
to pay for his order" and "disci-
pllne" so long as it brought them
jobs and bread and promise of en-
pire. They did not begin to mind
until they began to sense how his
power fed and fattened on itself
and was leading them to defeat in
war. First, Ethiopia. Then Albania.
Then the Axis pact with Hitler.
Then the jackal-like attack on the
PROSTATE body of France. Then
the struggle with Britain. Then
Greece. Then war with America.
Live dangerously!' BE bold as
lions!" Believe! Obey! Fight"
The Italian people had at last got
ten something they had not bar
gained for, and the day now was
coming when their land would be
defeated and laid waste.
Now Benito Mussolini is no more.
His egotism, his recklessness, his
bloody adventures long since made
him the worlds most spectacular
example of personal power collaps-
ing into personal ruin. The form of
his passing-his execution by his
own people and his sordid bier in
the muck of a Milan gutter-merely
adds the final touch of shame to a
career that came to a mean end the
moment it became clear that his
navy, his air force and his 5000. 900
bayonets" had behind them-in the
Italians themSelves-no real will to
fight for his ambitiously sordid OBJ
jectives. Himself corrupt, corruption
was the hallmark of his regime, and
this, combined with the non -warlike
traits of his people, crowned all his
efforts with disaster when the great
test of battle was met-his own
private disaster and disaster for
Italy. After the worst had happened,
he probably clung for a while to the
desperate hope that Hitler could
somehow save him from the kind of
fate that has now overtaken him.
But in his last weeks and days, see
ing Nazidom itself being pounded
and cut to pieces, he must have
realized that his doom was sealed.
The violence of Mussolinis end
seems somehow in keeping with the
violence marking these last days of
war in Europe-violence returning to
the makers of it, to the Fuehrer and
all the topmost Nazis, no less than
to the Duce and his Fascist partners
in crime. But the moral of the
Italian dictator's story is not merely
that men, when they abuse power,
start marching on the road to per-
sonal catastrophe. The moral also is
that when a nation accepts and
cheers such rulers, surrendering it's
freedom, it is we'll on the way to
digging it's own grave.