Summary 6: The Rise of Mussolini

This summary episode revisits the rise of Italian fascism and Benito Mussolini's path to power during the tumultuous early 1920s. Born from Italy's sense of betrayal after World War I—when promised territorial gains in the Mediterranean never materialized—the fascist movement gained momentum as a bulwark against the growing Communist threat. Led by military veterans discharged into a war-ravaged economy, fascist squads found support among industrialists and political elites who saw them as the only force capable of matching Communist passion and violence. Mussolini's dramatic March on Rome in October 1922 proved to be a strategic masterstroke that, despite bein...