Original subtitles

(bombs exploding) (plane whirring)

(tense music)

(people cheering)

- [Narrator] Long considered a buffoon,

a bumbling brute, an insignificant tyrant.

(water babbling)

(train wheels clanking)

Very much overshadowed by Adolf Hitler,

the man who dragged Italy into World War II

is one of history's most famous dictators.

One of the most derided as well, Mussolini.

(people jeering)

On April 29th, 1945, the day before Hitler's suicide,

his body was displayed in public in a Milan square.

He, his mistress, and other leading fascists

had been executed by Italian partisans.

His corpse was mutilated,

and strung up by its feet for all to see.

And yet, several months earlier, in this very spot,

Mussolini had been worshiped as a living god.

(crowd cheering)

They called him Il Duce, The Leader.

100 years ago in 1922, he seized power in Italy

through violence and deception and invented fascism.

(crowd cheering)

For more than 20 years,

he imposed totalitarianism on his people,

a strategy admired by dictators around the world.

(footsteps thudding)

- [Interpreter 1] He was a genius.

I still make the Roman Salute. - Definitely.

(tense music) (crowd chanting)

- [Interpreter ] It wasn't like this, but like this,

the Roman Salute.

- [Interpreter 3] Those years were years

of pain and suffering.

(soldiers marching) (soldiers chanting)

(Piero speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 1] I'm always struck

by how these charismatic figures managed

to bewitch so many people.

(crowd cheering)

- [Narrator] This is the story

of a power hungry megalomaniac

who wanted to change the soul of Italy

and led his people to disaster.

(film reel rattling)

(birds chirping)

(tense dramatic music)

(water babbling)

(people chattering)

This tragic story begins in the 1920s in beautiful Italy,

the land of Michelangelo, Dante, and Verde.

(waves crashing)

A glorious past, a nation in crisis.

(tense dramatic music) (brakes screeching)

The average income was three times lower

than in France and Great Britain.

(horse trotting)

To escape poverty, millions of Italians chose to immigrate.

(car engine roaring) (crowd chattering)

Score settling, assassinations, riots.

Since Italy's victory

alongside France and Great Britain in 1918,

civil war had undermined democracy.

Farmers everywhere grabbed uncultivated land.

Workers started strikes and lashed out at their bosses.

(crowd chattering)

During the Great War, they had been promised social reforms,

which never materialized.

(crowd chattering)

In Italy, trade unions and leftist parties

united against the bourgeoisie.

(crowd jeering)

Facing them, this dapper man, Benito Mussolini,

the striker's arch enemy.

The man who wanted to transform Italy.

The teacher turned journalist

had recently created a movement, Fascism,

in this Milanese piazza lent to him by local industrialists.

Fascism for fascists, a symbol of power in ancient Rome.

(crowd chattering)

He adopted the Roman salute and made his men wear a uniform.

The black shirt, sometimes with a skull on their helmets.

(crowd chattering)

Their weapons, these clubs, were manganello

that were used to terrorize the left.

Their motto, mene frego,

I don't give a damn.

Mussolini had 300,000 men and the streets were theirs.

Replacing the strikers,

they drove the trams and kept the streets clean.

(crowd chattering)

Most were war veterans, advocates of extreme violence.

They dreamt of revolution,

a revolution of the right to put the country in order

and make Italy a world power.

(crowd chattering)

All over the country they terrorized the Reds

during brutal, punitive expeditions.

(people yelling) (objects thudding)

"I ask for one ferocious man with the energy to break

and attack without hesitating," declared Mussolini.

(wood clanking)

He was convinced he could achieve power

by crushing the Marxists.

(crowd chattering)

His ambition was to rule Italy alone,

no matter what the cost.

(Piero speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 1] He was hugely ambitious.

He was capable of crushing absolutely anyone.

- [Interpreter 2] He was an aggressive man.

The aim of fascism is that violence solves everything.

That was the idea.

(tense music)

- [Narrator] Teresa Vergali,

her family was persecuted by the first fascists.

(Teresa speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 3] My father told me they lured him out

of the cooperatives bar by saying to him, "We need a word."

There were three of them.

Two men held him down, and the third beat him up.

They left him lying there.

- [Narrator] Mussolini used castor oil

as an instrument of torture,

forcing it down his enemy's throats.

(Teresa speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 3] After swallowing castor oil,

the poor victim couldn't control his bowels.

He would soil himself

and have to walk across the village square,

and everyone would stare.

Not everyone could stand it in fact.

(crowd cheering) (slow relaxing music)

- [Narrator] The left Mussolini persecuted

were no strangers to him.

Before the Great War he had been one of them.

(birds chirping)

He was born in this valley

in the village of Predappio in Romagna,

a socialist stronghold two hours from Venice.

He described his childhood as tough

with his pious school teacher mother,

and his anarchist blacksmith father,

considered dangerous by the police.

(clock ticking)

Like his father, Benito Mussolini spent several spells

in prison for revolutionary agitation,

including in 1911 when Italy invaded Libya,

and committed atrocities against its people.

An anti-colonialist,

Mussolini led a riot to block the movement

of troops to Libya.

(slow dramatic music)

His enemies at the time were those of his father,

the army, the bourgeoisie, and the church,

all those who would later support him.

A strange character, he read a lot,

and played the violin alone in the countryside

for hours on end,

an odd mixture of strength and sensitivity.

But he was unable to control his violence.

(birds chirping)

As a teenager, he raped one of his neighbors,

and later wrote about it in a book.

(church bells ringing)

Then he married a local girl, Rachele Guidi.

He proposed to her gun in hand, and threatened to kill her,

her parents, and himself if he was turned down.

Dramatic and impulsive, he was wounded at the front in 1917,

and the hell of the trenches was a life changing experience.

For him, Italy's sacrifices

had not been sufficiently rewarded by the Allies.

600,000 dead, 1 million wounded, and a mutilated victory,

according to the expression of the time.

Now a nationalist, he was an advocate of violence.

The fascists saw war as the great test of nations.

This is his desk.

He ran the newspaper "Il Popolo d'Italia,"

which he founded in Milan

with the help of a group of industrialists.

(printing press whirring)

Three years after the Russian Revolution of 1917,

Italy's business community now saw him

as a bulwark against communism.

In return Mussolini lent them his men

to break strikes and protect their property.

(printing press whirring)

Marta Badoni's father was an industrialist

and member of the Italian Fascist Party.

(Marta speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 4] This is my father with his funny hat.

We lived through violence, that's for sure.

He was kicked out of his factory by the workers.

We were extremely frightened of the Russians.

That was Italy (chuckles).

We were afraid the Russians would eat our children.

- [Interpreter 1] I think my father saw Mussolini

as the man capable of restoring order

in the chaos that was Italy.

(Piero speaking Italian)

(tense music)

- [Narrator] In 1922, Italy was ready to embrace fascism,

(crowd cheering) (horses trotting)

and the parliamentary monarchy did not stand in the way.

In Rome, King Victor Emmanuel III,

nicknamed Pipetto by the Italians due to his small stature,

feared for his crown.

(people chattering)

He was responsible for appointing the prime minister,

and was willing to negotiate to save his position.

Opposite him, a political class alarmed by the fascists,

but incapable of presenting a united front.

This man was the then prime minister, Luigi Facta,

a moderate reformer.

(people chattering)

After months of inaction, he wanted to oppose Mussolini,

but it was a vain wish,

because in October, 1922,

in one of those tragic moments when history speeds up,

Italy changed dramatically.

(tense dramatic music)

The March on Rome,

a lesson in how to stage a coup for budding dictators,

and in particular,

Hitler, who watched attentively from Germany.

In Naples, the great city of the south,

40,000 fascist militants attended

the party's national convention.

(crowd cheering)

Elected as a deputy,

along with 30 or so black shirts 18 months earlier,

Mussolini decided to hasten history

and launch an attack on Rome to take control of the country.

(crowd cheering)

For months his supporters had urged him to go for broke.

(upbeat music) (crowd cheering)

At a mass rally in Naples,

Mussolini launched an ultimatum from the podium,

"Either the government will be given to us

or we will march on Rome."

It was a risky gamble.

If the government sent in the army,

and decided to open fire,

it would be the end for him and prison.

That very evening, playing the respectable politician,

he left his raging supporters in Naples

and returned to Milan.

(people chattering)

Then waited.

The insurrection was planned for October 27th.

(tense dramatic music)

Some made a head start.

Without waiting for the 27th, cities rose up.

Pisa, Cremona.

While in Milan, carrying on as if it was business as usual,

Mussolini went to his newspaper offices,

and attended the opera with his wife.

(car engine roaring)

In fact, he had already given the order

to march on the capital.

The situation could have turned violent at any moment.

(car engine roaring)

Surprisingly, on reaching Rome,

the fascists encountered no resistance.

(car engine roaring) (people chattering)

After three years of civil war, the state was in disarray.

Everything depended on the king.

Prime Minister Facta had asked him to declare

a state of siege and send in the army.

But fearing he would be swept from power and to avoid chaos,

Victor Emmanuel refused to use force.

Five days after the ultimatum,

he offered ministerial posts to Mussolini

and three of his deputies.

(people chattering)

In Milan, Mussolini turned his nose up

at what he considered a miserable plate of lentils.

For him, it was either complete power or chaos.

(crowd cheering)

Italy was on the brink of explosion.

Business leaders voiced their official support for Mussolini

and the king yielded.

He asked Mussolini to form a new government.

(crowd chattering) (brakes screeching)

Here is Mussolini arriving in Rome.

He had waited years for this moment.

Having marched from Naples,

the militants turned out to welcome him.

With Mussolini, their life would soon change for good.

In a top hat, the young thug from Predappio,

the street brawler, far more subtle than he appeared,

was received by the king and appointed as prime minister.

"If father could see me,"

Mussolini whispered to his brother.

(crowd cheering)

His legal coup d'etat was a stroke of political genius.

(tense dramatic music)

- [Interpreter 2] A miracle,

a dream that could become reality, and did become reality.

We immediately saw that things were changing

and order was being restored in Italy.

- [Narrator] With its whippings, beatings,

screaming, and assassinations,

the new Fascist Order was underway.

And beautiful Italy would not resist for long.

In the heart of Rome at the Chigi Palace,

Mussolini could now impose totalitarian rule over Italy

and realize his dream of turning the country

into a fascist society.

(newspaper rustling)

But to achieve this, he needed complete power,

which was not the case.

The king and parliament still had power.

The press was free to say what it liked

and the trade unions to strike.

He was only halfway there.

(car engine roaring) (people chattering)

As head of government,

Mussolini personally took over

the ministries of the interior and foreign affairs.

Taking over the rest would require stealth.

Just this once, he went on a charm offensive.

(birds chirping) (people chattering)

He instantly won over two of his main opponents,

former prime ministers.

He was seen everywhere smiling,

embracing these conservatives he despised,

but whose support he needed to dominate parliament.

His argument, the fear of communist chaos,

and it worked.

The moderates in parliament

granted him full powers for one year.

"Time enough to quash the left," they thought.

(tense dramatic music)

Mussolini used his power to suppress civil liberties.

"He'll calm down," they said.

(soldiers marching)

In 1923 he had a new electoral law passed

and won the general election the following year.

Mussolini had become respectable.

(tense dramatic music)

But he reverted to type,

taking more of a stick than a carrot approach.

Now, the regime's official militia, his gang of thugs,

led an assault on the strongholds of the left

and publicly humiliated politicians.

Such as this deputy, during the conquest of power.

Trade unionists were hunted down.

Some were dragged, their feet tied behind trucks.

The Black Terror reached its height during the elections.

In 1924 several of his cronies

kidnapped the leader of the opposition,

Socialist Deputy, Giacomo Matteotti,

and stabbed him to death in a car.

His corpse was found two months later in the countryside.

A huge scandal, Italy was in shock.

Mussolini almost lost everything.

But he was much wilier than people supposed.

He survived several assassination attempts,

a fact he exploited to the fullest.

(gunshots booming) (crowd screaming)

The bullet nicked his nose.

See how he used this?

"Italy is more threatened than ever," he declared.

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

Under the pretext of defending the state,

he pushed the Leggi Fascistissime,

or fascist legislation, through Parliament.

Drafted earlier and pulled out of the drawer

at the right moment,

they abolished all civil liberties.

All trade unions were banned,

except the official fascist trade union.

No more newspapers except for those friendly to Mussolini.

A single party, his.

A parliament that passed any law it was asked to

and served no purpose.

As for the king, he was reduced to a mere symbol.

(upbeat accordion music)

By the mid-1920s, democracy was dead in Italy.

Long live Il Duce!

- [Crowd] Duce, Duce, Duce, Duce, Duce, Duce!

- [Crowd] Duce, Duce, Duce, Duce, Duce, Duce!

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(crowd cheering)

(train wheels clanking)

- [Narrator] To sweeten the pill,

Mussolini used an old recipe, national pride,

(crowd cheering)

to put an end to the old Italian hangups

and propose a dream.

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(crowd cheering)

(crowd cheering)

(uptempo cheery music)

- [Narrator] To flatter his people,

Mussolini reminded them they were the heirs

of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance.

"Immigration abroad is over," he said.

(children singing in Italian) (soldiers marching)

No more stereotypical images of Italians,

macaroni, mandolin players, late trains.

For 20 years, to make up for lost liberties,

Il Duce offered them symbolic compensation.

(scooter whirring)

(Marta speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 4] I think the fact there was someone

who said, "Hey guys, we're good, strong, numerous.

We're the best," suited us.

We who had always felt like we were the class dancers.

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(crowd cheering)

- [Interpreter 1] Yes, I see myself as a descendant

of the Roman Empire because they loved their country

as much as I do.

(Aldo speaking Italian)

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(crowd cheering)

- [Interpreter 1] For me he was the Italian soldier

because he wanted to expand Italy's territory.

You're too young to remember,

but we were a very poor country.

In some parts people only ate polenta.

(crowd applauding) (people laughing)

- [Narrator] Mussolini, the new Caesar,

one of the world's first populists,

although the term was yet to be coined.

Before his people's astonished eyes,

he promised to make Italy great again.

He launched a series of battles, the battle for grain,

to make Italy self-sufficient in food.

The battle of the lira for national sovereignty.

The battle of race would soon follow.

(tense dramatic music) (car engine roaring)

To win support, he undertook large scale public works,

such as the reclamation of the Pontine Marshes.

A legendary area south of Rome flooded since antiquity

and unsuitable for farming.

By draining the swamp, distributing land,

and building new towns,

Mussolini promised an end to immigration

and a new Italian renaissance.

(crowd applauding)

Even though previous governments

had undertaken similar projects,

everyone applauded the new Superman.

(bells ringing)

Mussolini, the strategist tackled unresolved issues

such as the dispute with the Vatican

that dated back to the unification of Italy,

when the Pope was dispossessed of his states.

Mussolini, the anti-clerical leader,

agreed to reintroduce the crucifix in schools,

establish Catholicism as the state religion,

and recognize the sovereignty of the Vatican.

The Lateran Accords, a miracle for Catholics,

that is a great many people.

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

Well before anyone else, he understood the power of images.

Cameras now followed his every step.

In 1924, as he was toppling democracy,

Mussolini entrusted the Luce Institute

with the task of projecting a positive image of the state,

or rather himself.

(plane engine roaring)

Movie theaters all over the country

screened news reels about Il Duce, which he signed off.

(people chattering)

"Cinematography is the strongest weapon," he declared.

The opportunity as well

to promote the social policies of a regime

that simply dressed up old things as something new

by reorganizing existing systems.

(people chattering)

In reality only industrial workers, or almost,

benefited from its policies.

(Santino speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 2] I consider him a clever man.

Il Duce had no scruples.

He knew how to talk to the people.

He wasn't an aristocrat.

(uptempo dramatic music)

- [Narrator] And to get the party going,

he created the Ministry of Popular Culture.

The Mussolini trap.

(actor speaking Italian)

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(train wheels clanking)

- [Narrator] Italian workers were no longer

allowed to strike,

but they were granted a 70% discount on train fares

for weekends in the country, and at the seaside.

- [Interpreter 1] Our first friends to go to the coast

and see the sea saw it, thanks to the summer camps.

Fascism took children to the sea and to the mountains.

What can I say (laughs)?

- [Narrator] "The multitude, like a woman,

is made to be violated," declared Mussolini in private.

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(crowd shouting)

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(crowd cheering)

- [Narrator] In the early 1930s,

he won over a large part of the population,

including some of his future victims.

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

- [Narrator] Before Mussolini turned on them,

Jews too admired him.

Such as young Silvana Ajo-Cagli in Rome.

(Silvana singing in Italian)

- [Interpreter 3] I sang it too,

it was amusing actually.

What else would you like to know?

It seems incredible after 82 years,

but I was caught up in the enthusiasm too.

We were all happy.

(Silvana speaking Italian)

I didn't know what he was talking about.

Of course, he was fascinating.

He had a real talent.

Like all dictators he was a great talker.

He was talented, that's the way it was.

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(crowd cheering)

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(crowd cheering)

- [Interpreter 1] When we all woke up

I wondered how I had managed not to laugh

when Mussolini made his speeches.

(Piero speaking Italian)

He had this fierce look, which was totally ridiculous.

But at the time,

we all looked at him and thought, "what strength!"

(tense dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Mussolini, the mirror in which many Italians

saw their own reflection.

(slow relaxing music)

If Il Duce had succeeded, the whole country could too.

He lived in one of Rome's grandest houses,

the Villa Torlonia.

(film reel rattling)

He hosted the greats of the world there.

Men such as Gandhi.

Churchill praised him to the skies,

"If I had been Italian,

I am sure I would've been with Mussolini

from the beginning."

In this dream setting,

Il Duce continued to play to the cameras.

(children shouting)

Before any other world leader, he put his family on show,

especially his daughter, Edda.

his "Wild filly," as he called her,

one of the first women in Italy to drive a car

and wear short skirts.

She later married a count.

(camera whirring)

He and his wife, Rachele, had five children,

including Vittorio and Bruno, who became bomber pilots.

The stereotypical Latin man.

His daughter, Edda once said,

"My father thinks women should stay at home,

have children, and wear horns."

(footsteps thudding)

He made little attempt to hide his lovers,

such as the Venetian socialite, Margherita Sarfatti,

with whom he spent 15 years.

An intellectual, she taught him how to behave in society,

introduced him to businessmen and artists,

and wrote his biography, "DVX,"

a bestseller in Europe and the United States.

She was Jewish.

Initially, this was not a problem.

Sooner or later, it would become one.

10 years after seizing power,

Mussolini became increasingly radical.

(car engine roaring)

Fooled by the regime's charm offensive,

many failed to realize he was not the sort of tyrant

Italy had seen so often in the past.

But rather, a modern totalitarian dictator

who would not stop at exercising power.

(soldiers marching)

Il Duce wanted to change his people,

to transform them from within.

Here is the new man he dreamed of.

The jack booted, strutting, knife wielding fascist.

(soldiers shout in Italian)

The new model for the Italians.

(soldiers singing in Italian)

With these ruthless, fanatic, obedient citizen soldiers,

Mussolini thought he would be able

to hold onto power for decades.

(soldiers shouting)

- [Interpreter 3] He said, "Believe, obey, fight.

Believe in what I say and what the party says.

Obey without question when I give you orders.

And fight, because I'm sending you into battle."

He could not have been clearer.

(crowd cheering)

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(crowd speaking Italian)

(Mussolini speaking Italian) (crowd speaking Italian)

(Mussolini speaking Italian) (crowd speaking Italian)

(Mussolini speaking Italian) (crowd speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 1] There was real respect.

I thought, "Careful, we mustn't criticize Mussolini."

(film reel rattling)

- [Narrator] The young Piero Gandini,

10 years old at the time, the budding new man.

Like all his generation,

he was a member of the Balilla,

Mussolini's youth organization.

The regime drummed military values and mythology

into these young warriors from a very early age.

(children murmuring)

- [Interpreter 1] Hail Caesar,

those who are about to die salute you.

What I liked was the military aspect.

Having a gun, playing.

(Piero speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 2] I thought I was somebody,

it made me feel big and strong.

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(slow relaxing music)

- [Narrator] Unlike in the '20s,

his enemies were no longer

just the socialists and communists,

but all those who did not conform,

who thought for themselves,

and refused to kowtow to the dictator.

(crowd cheering)

In this totalitarian society, Il Duce was everywhere.

He controlled everything.

(Antonio speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 1] To get a job in the public sector,

you had to be a party member.

(Teresa speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 3] When we went to vote,

it was like voting in public.

We were down below, and they were above us,

and so they could see what we marked on the slip.

- [Narrator] In every village,

the party as well as the local administration,

was run by the black shirts.

They watched every family.

- [Interpreter 1] They would say,

"the pharmacist in that street is an opponent.

- [Interpreter 2] A subversive.

- [Interpreter 1] "Either we convert him or scare him

so much that he stops spreading his propaganda,"

even if it meant beating him up.

(Teresa speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 3] Either you're with us

and you do what we tell you to do,

or you'll have problems.

You'll lose your job.

You'll lose your benefits.

(Lidia speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 4] Mussolini scared people, that's all.

You could be thrown in jail simply for saying,

"Fascism is a disgrace."

(tense dramatic music)

- [Narrator] To criticize Il Duce was to attack Italy.

Deviant elements were denounced, arrested, and imprisoned.

Such as the philosopher, Gramsci,

one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party

who became the icon of a generation of anti-fascists.

(Mussolini speaking Italian) (crowd cheering)

- [Narrator] To silence the antifascists,

Mussolini set up

the Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State

with the power to impose the death penalty on dissidents

or lock them up for years,

such as here off the coast of Naples.

- [Interpreter 2] The fascists wanted them to stay there,

to keep quiet.

So people would forget about them.

- [Interpreter 1] If they did something

against the regime in power,

it's normal they were sent to prison.

(tense dramatic music)

- [Narrator] "Violence is not immoral," said Mussolini.

"When it is effective in a cancerous situation,

it is moral, sacrosanct, and necessary."

The fascist police sent 15,000 opponents

without trial into confino.

This new repressive system was a cross

between a concentration camp and house arrest.

They were held in huts, or village houses,

isolated, cut off from their families.

They stayed there for years,

some even died in captivity.

(church bells ringing) (seagulls squawking)

A less harsh form of repression than in Nazi Germany,

but equally effective.

(film reel rattling)

To survive, Italians had to play along with the regime,

conceal their opinions, and hold tight.

(Teresa speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 3] When my father was sent to prison

for all those months, how did my mother cope

with my newborn brother and five-year-old me?

What sacrifices did she make?

The poor woman, she alone knows.

(Lidia speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 4] We did what we could.

Escaping the worst, avoiding evil, hiding, fleeing,

hiding other people.

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

I didn't agree.

Even though though this typically Italian habit

of being two-faced

and pretending to agree with him, applauding,

but then going home, and laughing about it all.

- [Narrator] Violent repression few had imagined,

and against which they were now powerless.

(crowd chattering)

In Italy, all political opposition fell silent,

both left and right.

The only Italians to speak out

were those who had chosen self-imposed exile,

mainly in France,

which welcomed 30,000 political refugees

for every 1 million Italian immigrants.

(protestors singing)

In Paris, the capital of anti-fascism,

they made the public aware of the regime's true nature.

And some even met their deaths.

(crowd chattering)

Mussolini did not hesitate to have opponents

such as the Rosselli brothers,

eliminated by the far right militants of the Cagoule.

(crowd jeering)

The world was outraged, but Il Duce did not give a damn.

(people chattering)

(slow relaxing music) (person laughing)

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(plane engine roaring)

- [Narrator] His regime now inspired other dictators.

"Men like Mussolini are born

only once every 1,000 years," raved Hitler,

who had seized power in 1933.

Mussolini was now over 50.

(people chattering)

He ruled from his office at the Palazzo Venezia,

surrounded by sycophants,

such as the Grand Council of Fascism,

whose members he selected among his friends

in the party and the government,

and who never contradicted him.

He still had the support of the business community,

the army, and the church.

He had it all.

But it was not enough.

Mussolini was never satisfied.

He played with his associates more and more,

humiliating them.

(speaker speaking Italian) (phone ringing)

A man with a voracious sexual appetite,

he converted the top floor of the palace for his mistresses.

According to his private secretary,

he had on average one woman a day

selected from letters he received from all over Italy.

Most female admirers had a brief 15-minute encounter

with Il Duce.

(crowd cheering)

He was obsessed with turning Italy

into a nation of fascists.

He communicated with the multitude from his balcony.

(event announcer speaking Italian)

(crowd cheering)

In 1935, he made one of his most important speeches here,

the Declaration of War against the Empire of Ethiopia.

He believed it would be the start of a colonial war

that would test the new man and revitalize his regime.

(crowd cheering)

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(crowd cheering)

(uptempo dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Ethiopia, the war many had been waiting for

and Mussolini had dreamt of for years.

(bomb whistling)

(explosion booming)

Before colonizing Libya in 1911,

Italy had already tried to take over

the Empire of Ethiopia in the 19th century,

attacking from Eritrea and Somalia,

but it failed miserably.

(plane engine roaring)

For the former anti-colonialist,

Italy too had a right to a place in the sun.

(crowd cheering)

(Adriano speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 2] It was his dream

to make Italy a colonial power.

Just as Britain, France,

and others were to a greater extent.

(Antonio speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 1] Italy needed space

where Italians could work rather than immigrating abroad.

(crowd cheering)

(Teresa speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 3] They believed what Mussolini said.

That with the wars we would become rich,

that we were the heirs of the Romans, that we were superior,

with this myth of the superiority of the race.

(speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 2] From the books I read,

I thought it was a backward country

because in the past, they used witch doctors.

(upbeat music) (singer singing in Italian)

- [Narrator] Waged in the name of progress,

but overtly racist,

Mussolini's colonial war was condemned

by the international community.

- [Interpreter 4] There was this song,

"little Black face, beautiful Abyssinian, wait and hope,

the hour is drawing near when we should be near you,

we will give you our Duce and our king,"

and we all cried, "Poor thing!"

- [Narrator] In Ethiopia,

the fascist troops used poison gas,

a weapon of mass destruction,

banned by the treaties that Mussolini himself had signed.

All the characteristics of a genocide.

(bomb whistling)

(explosion booming)

Il Duce gave free reign to his troops,

which included his own children,

19-year-old Vittorio and 17-year-old Bruno.

Bomber pilots presented as prototypes of the new man,

they showered incendiary bombs on Ethiopia.

(bombs whistling)

"It was very enjoyable work," wrote Vittorio

in a book on his return.

(plane engine roaring)

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(film reel rattling)

- [Narrator] At the same moment,

young Piero Gandini accompanied his parents to Ethiopia.

Little did he know that one of their friends, this soldier,

a famous mountaineer, would become a criminal.

(Piero speaking Italian)

- [Interpreter 1] He received the order from Mussolini

to throw poison gas into a cave

where thousands of Ethiopians were sheltering

with their families.

(explosion booming)

Those who managed to escape were shot on the spot.

(slow relaxing music)

- [Narrator] Mussolini was at the height of his popularity.

(people chattering)

To show the world he had the support of his people

he launched a gold campaign, The Day of The Wedding Rings,

also known as the Day of Faith.

100s of 1,000s of couples

in communion with Il Duce handed over their wedding rings

to be melted down.

"God and history today mean 'Mussolini'"

wrote a student leader.

(crowd cheering)

Hungry for recognition, sure of his destiny,

Mussolini did not intend to stop there.

(crowd cheering)

(Mussolini speaking Italian)

(crowd cheering)

- [Narrator] His delusions of grander

would soon lead to his downfall.

(plane engine roaring)