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Chapter XVI: The Death of the Duce, 1958-1962.
And like all good things, the reign of the Duce too must end. Enjoy 
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Like with everyone else, time caught up to Mussolini. In January 1957, the then 73 year-old Duce again started to suffer from abdominal pain but this time it was worse than usual. During surgery doctors discovered a small adhesion linking part of the small intestine with the neck of the gallbladder, indicating a minor gallbladder problem, and they removed the adhesion. Six months later in early 1958 Mussolini’s stomach problems returned with a vengeance in the shape of an ulcer of the duodenum, which was resolved through surgery and antibiotics. During his 75th birthday celebrations, which included daily public appearances across Italy for over a week, he was in fact kept going by prescribed medicinal opium that took away his severe pain and made him euphoric. Opioids, however, had the tendency to cause constipation and his doctors weaned him off them again over the course of 1958, which was made easier by the fact that Il Duce wasn’t prone to addiction.
Il Duce’s amazing health seemingly returned as he was free of any ailments over the course of 1959, being seen showing off his still athletic body on the beach at Riccione. 1960 saw a visit to Italian Eritrea which was home to an Italian community of 110.000 people, about 10% of the population, and about 56.000 of them lived in Asmara, constituting 55% of the capital’s population. The city was very well developed due to urban planning, having more traffic lights than Rome did, and looked very much like an Italian city with its architecture, wide streets, piazzas, coffee bars, pizzerias and ice cream parlours. It was perhaps the most industrialized region on the Horn of Africa: factories produced buttons, cooking oil, pasta, construction materials, packing meat, tobacco, hide and other household commodities; in the area of Asmara, there were in 1940 more than 2.000 small and medium sized industrial companies, which were concentrated in the areas of construction, mechanics, textiles, food processing and electricity. Due to its blossoming industry and highly developed infrastructure its standard of living was considered among the best in Africa, both for Italian settlers and local Eritreans. The Eritrean Ascaris were the best colonial troops in the Italian Empire and the Eritreans in general were very loyal (in part because they, as Muslims, feared an Italian departure would mean a return of Christian Ethiopian rule). At a speech in Asmara, attended by a mixed crowd of Italians and Eritreans, Mussolini stated that the locals were “Italian Moslem Africans” equal to the Italians and he lauded their loyalty. The crowd was enthusiastic.
In spring 1960 Mussolini again fell ill with symptoms like fever, chills, sweating, malaise, weakness, weight loss and flu like feelings. He was diagnosed with infective endocarditis and was treated with penicillin, which cured him but not before he was left with a chronic heart condition. He was told by his doctors to take lots of rest and to avoid physical stress, advice that he routinely ignored until he suffered his first minor heart attack in August 1960. He stayed almost completely aloof from state affairs for six weeks, retreating to his villa on Capri, and he appointed his son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano to act as his deputy. Ciano started to act as an intermediary between the Duce and the rest of his ministers and used that to strengthen his position to take over in case his father-in-law died.
His public appearances decreased in number and duration, although he did meet with the recently elected President Richard Nixon in his birth town of Predappio in 1961 (where he had decided to celebrate his birthday with family only, since he now lacked the energy for lengthy public appearances). The White House under Nixon desired to smooth over the past and improve its relations with Fascist Italy, which had been chilly ever since the Suez Crisis in 1956-’57. The prime reason for mending relations was the coup of 1959 that deposed Khrushchev and replaced him with a neo-Stalinist oligarchy. The new regime – consisting of a tetrarchy of Bulganin, Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich – carried out Khrushchev’s threat, which been a mere bluff at the time. In 1960, the Soviet Union signed a peace treaty with East Germany and left it in control of the routes to the city. East Berlin was signed over to the GDR and officially became its capital. That caused a stir, and besides that the USA was now mired in the Cuban Revolution, which saw the number of American 'advisors' triple in 1961 and triple again in 1962. Due to these setbacks the West needed Fascist Italy firmly on their side once more. Mussolini agreed to sell weapons, ammunitions and fuel to Cuba at favourable rates and to provide two battalions of trainers for military and police purposes. He even agreed to a 50 million dollar loan (equivalent to ~ 400 million dollars in today’s money) to the government in Havana. He would not commit to military intervention, but did agree to send a volunteer division to fight the ongoing communist insurgency faced by Batista's regime.
Over the course of 1961 Mussolini’s health stayed about the same and, while his public appearances became less common, he continued to prolifically write articles. In the early morning of Monday November 5th 1962 he got up fairly early as usual for a light breakfast. But before he could get around to that he had the umpteenth heated argument with his wife concerning Mussolini’s longstanding mistress Clara Petacci, 28 years his junior, and in particular the now 14 year-old bastard son Benito Petacci he had fathered with her in 1948. Not only had he decided to award her a state allowance to maintain her standard of living and raise their son, but he permitted his son to visit him at the Villa Torlonia. Mussolini’s wife Rachele couldn’t tolerate the presence of Petacci’s son and locked herself in her room whenever he visited, cursing Clara who she saw as “the whore who seduced my husband.” After leaving for his office in the Palazzo Venezia later that morning he complained to his aides about chest pains. However, when a fairly new aide asked if he should get a doctor Mussolini responded he’d fine and that was all she wrote because the 19 year-old boy dared not question a living god. Shortly after noon the guards outside the Sala Del Mappamondo, Mussolini’s office in the Palazzo Venezia, heard a thud and groans of pain. Il Duce had gotten up to leave his office in order to meet with Lisbon’s ambassador at the Portuguese embassy to discuss the increasing violence in Angola, but had fallen to the ground before he had even gotten halfway to the door. Doctors were summoned immediately, but they could do nothing to remedy this massive heart attack and at 04:13 PM Mussolini was officially proclaimed dead.
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, the Duce of Italy who had just witnessed the 40th anniversary of his own March on Rome, had died at age 79. When his family was informed they were all devastated, especially his wife Rachele who blamed herself for inducing her husband’s heart attack because she’d argued with him that morning. The rest of the country was informed by a special broadcast on all TV channels and all radio stations at eight o’clock that evening, which announced three days of national mourning. An entire nation was plunged into shock upon learning that the fixture of Italian society for four decades, the Duce, was gone. His body lay in state in Rome for three days and was visited by hundreds of thousands of people during that short time. After that, his body was moved to his birth town of Predappio for his funeral, which was attended by dozens of foreign dignitaries such as President Nixon, French President Charles de Gaulle, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Spanish caudillo Franco and many others. His embalmed body was laid to rest in a fairly modest mausoleum in fascist architecture where it can be seen until today, much like Lenin in Russia. The Villa Torlonia was bought by the Italian state and was turned into a museum about the life and work of Benito Mussolini.
With Il Duce laid to rest after ruling Italy for four decades the question was who was going to fill the gigantic shoes he had left behind. Italo Balbo was a big name, but he had no clout in Rome since he’d been in Libya as its Governor-General for about thirty years, which also applied to Dino Grandi who had served as ambassador in London for very long. That left Alessandro Pavolini and Galeazzo Ciano, bitter opponents, but the latter and not the former was the son-in-law of the deceased political giant. Besides that, Ciano had a lot of experience as Foreign Minister and knew how to act diplomatically and court the right people. Pavolini, who had a reputation of being cruel to opponents of fascism, wasn’t well liked by King Umberto II, and Ciano was therefore appointed Prime Minister. Additionally, Ciano won over Dino Grandi and Italo Balbo by appointing them as Foreign Minister and Minister of Oil respectively, heralding their return to Rome after many years. Pavolini, on the other hand was promoted away to the position of Governor of the Italian Islands of the Aegean (the Dodecanese Islands) where he could do little harm. The now 59 year-old Ciano became the new Duce of Italy and continued the policies of his predecessor. The early and mid 1960s remained uneventful for Ciano and he was fairly popular, though not on the same level as Mussolini, the giant on whose shoulders he stood.
.Chapter XVI: The Death of the Duce, 1958-1962.
Throughout his life Benito Mussolini had been exceptionally healthy except for a recurring constipation problem that particularly plagued him during moments of stress, causing him great pain. Apart from that, the Duce had never suffered from any serious ailments and had always had a healthy, even Spartan, lifestyle: he rarely drank alcohol, he didn’t eat in excess and he was very sporty (fencing, horse riding and tennis were among his hobbies and in propaganda movies he was seen doing physical labour like harvesting grain). He remained very sexually active despite advanced age, regularly engaging in intercourse with his mistress Clara Petacci who was 28 years his junior, while also continuing his long string of brief liaisons with female admirers (producing at least five illegitimate children). All of that nicely coincided with his personality cult, which depicted him as a super virile, extremely healthy Herculean demigod and which never entertained the thought that Mussolini would also die one day.
Like with everyone else, time caught up to Mussolini. In January 1957, the then 73 year-old Duce again started to suffer from abdominal pain but this time it was worse than usual. During surgery doctors discovered a small adhesion linking part of the small intestine with the neck of the gallbladder, indicating a minor gallbladder problem, and they removed the adhesion. Six months later in early 1958 Mussolini’s stomach problems returned with a vengeance in the shape of an ulcer of the duodenum, which was resolved through surgery and antibiotics. During his 75th birthday celebrations, which included daily public appearances across Italy for over a week, he was in fact kept going by prescribed medicinal opium that took away his severe pain and made him euphoric. Opioids, however, had the tendency to cause constipation and his doctors weaned him off them again over the course of 1958, which was made easier by the fact that Il Duce wasn’t prone to addiction.
Il Duce’s amazing health seemingly returned as he was free of any ailments over the course of 1959, being seen showing off his still athletic body on the beach at Riccione. 1960 saw a visit to Italian Eritrea which was home to an Italian community of 110.000 people, about 10% of the population, and about 56.000 of them lived in Asmara, constituting 55% of the capital’s population. The city was very well developed due to urban planning, having more traffic lights than Rome did, and looked very much like an Italian city with its architecture, wide streets, piazzas, coffee bars, pizzerias and ice cream parlours. It was perhaps the most industrialized region on the Horn of Africa: factories produced buttons, cooking oil, pasta, construction materials, packing meat, tobacco, hide and other household commodities; in the area of Asmara, there were in 1940 more than 2.000 small and medium sized industrial companies, which were concentrated in the areas of construction, mechanics, textiles, food processing and electricity. Due to its blossoming industry and highly developed infrastructure its standard of living was considered among the best in Africa, both for Italian settlers and local Eritreans. The Eritrean Ascaris were the best colonial troops in the Italian Empire and the Eritreans in general were very loyal (in part because they, as Muslims, feared an Italian departure would mean a return of Christian Ethiopian rule). At a speech in Asmara, attended by a mixed crowd of Italians and Eritreans, Mussolini stated that the locals were “Italian Moslem Africans” equal to the Italians and he lauded their loyalty. The crowd was enthusiastic.
In spring 1960 Mussolini again fell ill with symptoms like fever, chills, sweating, malaise, weakness, weight loss and flu like feelings. He was diagnosed with infective endocarditis and was treated with penicillin, which cured him but not before he was left with a chronic heart condition. He was told by his doctors to take lots of rest and to avoid physical stress, advice that he routinely ignored until he suffered his first minor heart attack in August 1960. He stayed almost completely aloof from state affairs for six weeks, retreating to his villa on Capri, and he appointed his son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano to act as his deputy. Ciano started to act as an intermediary between the Duce and the rest of his ministers and used that to strengthen his position to take over in case his father-in-law died.
His public appearances decreased in number and duration, although he did meet with the recently elected President Richard Nixon in his birth town of Predappio in 1961 (where he had decided to celebrate his birthday with family only, since he now lacked the energy for lengthy public appearances). The White House under Nixon desired to smooth over the past and improve its relations with Fascist Italy, which had been chilly ever since the Suez Crisis in 1956-’57. The prime reason for mending relations was the coup of 1959 that deposed Khrushchev and replaced him with a neo-Stalinist oligarchy. The new regime – consisting of a tetrarchy of Bulganin, Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich – carried out Khrushchev’s threat, which been a mere bluff at the time. In 1960, the Soviet Union signed a peace treaty with East Germany and left it in control of the routes to the city. East Berlin was signed over to the GDR and officially became its capital. That caused a stir, and besides that the USA was now mired in the Cuban Revolution, which saw the number of American 'advisors' triple in 1961 and triple again in 1962. Due to these setbacks the West needed Fascist Italy firmly on their side once more. Mussolini agreed to sell weapons, ammunitions and fuel to Cuba at favourable rates and to provide two battalions of trainers for military and police purposes. He even agreed to a 50 million dollar loan (equivalent to ~ 400 million dollars in today’s money) to the government in Havana. He would not commit to military intervention, but did agree to send a volunteer division to fight the ongoing communist insurgency faced by Batista's regime.
Over the course of 1961 Mussolini’s health stayed about the same and, while his public appearances became less common, he continued to prolifically write articles. In the early morning of Monday November 5th 1962 he got up fairly early as usual for a light breakfast. But before he could get around to that he had the umpteenth heated argument with his wife concerning Mussolini’s longstanding mistress Clara Petacci, 28 years his junior, and in particular the now 14 year-old bastard son Benito Petacci he had fathered with her in 1948. Not only had he decided to award her a state allowance to maintain her standard of living and raise their son, but he permitted his son to visit him at the Villa Torlonia. Mussolini’s wife Rachele couldn’t tolerate the presence of Petacci’s son and locked herself in her room whenever he visited, cursing Clara who she saw as “the whore who seduced my husband.” After leaving for his office in the Palazzo Venezia later that morning he complained to his aides about chest pains. However, when a fairly new aide asked if he should get a doctor Mussolini responded he’d fine and that was all she wrote because the 19 year-old boy dared not question a living god. Shortly after noon the guards outside the Sala Del Mappamondo, Mussolini’s office in the Palazzo Venezia, heard a thud and groans of pain. Il Duce had gotten up to leave his office in order to meet with Lisbon’s ambassador at the Portuguese embassy to discuss the increasing violence in Angola, but had fallen to the ground before he had even gotten halfway to the door. Doctors were summoned immediately, but they could do nothing to remedy this massive heart attack and at 04:13 PM Mussolini was officially proclaimed dead.
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, the Duce of Italy who had just witnessed the 40th anniversary of his own March on Rome, had died at age 79. When his family was informed they were all devastated, especially his wife Rachele who blamed herself for inducing her husband’s heart attack because she’d argued with him that morning. The rest of the country was informed by a special broadcast on all TV channels and all radio stations at eight o’clock that evening, which announced three days of national mourning. An entire nation was plunged into shock upon learning that the fixture of Italian society for four decades, the Duce, was gone. His body lay in state in Rome for three days and was visited by hundreds of thousands of people during that short time. After that, his body was moved to his birth town of Predappio for his funeral, which was attended by dozens of foreign dignitaries such as President Nixon, French President Charles de Gaulle, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Spanish caudillo Franco and many others. His embalmed body was laid to rest in a fairly modest mausoleum in fascist architecture where it can be seen until today, much like Lenin in Russia. The Villa Torlonia was bought by the Italian state and was turned into a museum about the life and work of Benito Mussolini.
With Il Duce laid to rest after ruling Italy for four decades the question was who was going to fill the gigantic shoes he had left behind. Italo Balbo was a big name, but he had no clout in Rome since he’d been in Libya as its Governor-General for about thirty years, which also applied to Dino Grandi who had served as ambassador in London for very long. That left Alessandro Pavolini and Galeazzo Ciano, bitter opponents, but the latter and not the former was the son-in-law of the deceased political giant. Besides that, Ciano had a lot of experience as Foreign Minister and knew how to act diplomatically and court the right people. Pavolini, who had a reputation of being cruel to opponents of fascism, wasn’t well liked by King Umberto II, and Ciano was therefore appointed Prime Minister. Additionally, Ciano won over Dino Grandi and Italo Balbo by appointing them as Foreign Minister and Minister of Oil respectively, heralding their return to Rome after many years. Pavolini, on the other hand was promoted away to the position of Governor of the Italian Islands of the Aegean (the Dodecanese Islands) where he could do little harm. The now 59 year-old Ciano became the new Duce of Italy and continued the policies of his predecessor. The early and mid 1960s remained uneventful for Ciano and he was fairly popular, though not on the same level as Mussolini, the giant on whose shoulders he stood.
- Onkel Willie
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