Fascist Italy: Difference between revisions
m
clean up
m (update links) |
m (clean up) |
||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:
Italy from 1922 to 1943/4, under the rule of [[Benito Mussolini]]. Colloquially known as "il ventennio" ("the twenty years") in Italy.
Mussolini came to power after the March on Rome, where a bunch of threatening poorly-equipped [[Black Shirt
''Il Duce'' remained PM throughout his rule - the King was never removed from power - and engaged in some rather bizarre practices. He's one of the few leaders to have been photographed, willingly, [[Shirtless Scene|with his shirt off]] (others include [[Vladimir Putin]], with [[Barack Obama]] [[Paparazzi|papped shirtless]]...and let's not talk about the Czech Prime Minister caught more-than-shirtless at Silvio Berlusconi's party...), trying to make himself out to be a highly virile Italian. He, like [[Adolf Hitler]], encouraged Italian women to have lots of kids and tried to get them to dress modestly, while still liking to see scantily-clad women in movies.
It is Mussolini's legacy that North Korea calls in its policies of 'Juche', economic self-reliance, policies which have their origins in National pride rather than economic common sense. Italy's self-sufficiency in grain, for instance, came at the cost of other crops, vineyards and pasture; bread cost much the same, but the diet of the average Italian became very bland. Mussolini considered economics a zero-sum game and accordingly saw economy as a means to its own end, through warfare: industry equips the armed forces, the military conquers new territory, the new territory provides more raw materials for industry to expand.
The Fascist regime was not as bad as [[Nazi Germany]]: There were anti-Semitic laws, but no deportation of Jews until after the fall of Mussolini. The one exception was the invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935 and 1936, where the Italians used mustard gas on military and civilians alike, with the sole purpose being a colonial land-grab. Albania was also occupied in 1939, though much like the 'occupation' of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary some three decades earlier this was simply the formal recognition of a practical reality - Italy ran Albania in all but name up until that time. Mussolini was never as powerful as Hitler, especially within his own country, and unlike Hitler he actually had to do a lot of politicking to get things done. He also had to deal with far more popular resistance from the Italian people than Hitler did in Germany, and unlike Germany, Italy ''sucked'' at
Italy eventually joined the Axis after some vacillation. (The British even offered Mussolini large tracts of Egypt as a sweetener for him to come in on our side, or at the very least stay neutral. This was not a ridiculous proposition - Italy had been allied to Britain against Germany and Austria in [[WW 1]], and many Italians felt a British alliance was infinitely preferable to the alternative.) However, the prospect of easy land-grabs at the expense of France and Britain caused Italian entry into [[World War II]]. This involved occupation of parts of southern France at the expense of a country already decisively beaten by Germany, and a sizable Italian Air Force contingent was sent north to participate in the Battle of Britain. Mussolini had cause to regret this: first beaten up in humiliation by the Greeks, and then an army ten times the size of the British opposition was comprehensively defeated in North Africa. Thus the world's perception of the Italian army at war was one of endless columns of prisoners going into British captivity. Further humiliation followed: the Italian Navy was caught in its home port of Taranto by British aircraft carriers, and sent to the bottom in an attack that was a precursor of Pearl Harbor (incidentally, Japanese observers took careful notes). This forced him to ask help by Nazi Germany and its Allies. This led the Germans to finally subdue them after the 1943 British and American invasions, first of Sicily and then of mainland Italy (see ''[[Catch-22]]'' as an example of literature set at that time). Mussolini was couped, essentially became the Gauleiter of Lombardy and half the north-east directly annexed by Germany, was forced to flee and was captured by Communist partisans. The Communists then shot him and his mistress and hung their bodies in public. On meat-hooks. Upside down. At a gas station. While a large crowd cheered. This is what later persuaded Hitler to ask his henchmen to burn his body - he did not want to be put on display. Italy more or less functioned as a [[Spanner in the Works]] for the Nazi war effort, particularly given that the Germans were continually forced to rescue the Italians when the latter started fights they couldn't win, siphoning resources that Germany could have used on its own fronts. Erwin Rommel himself said that while the German Army impressed the world, all the Italians could do was impress the Germans.
Line 26:
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Novecento|1900]]'', where they are [[Complete Monster
** Also in ''[[The Conformist]]'', another Bertolucci film.
* ''[[Amarcord]]'' is a semi-autobiographical example by [[Federico Fellini]]. When Mussolini visits the protagonist's town, a woman boasts that 99% of its residents are members of the Fascist Party. Of course, most of the townspeople are regularly portrayed as idiots.
| |||