19th July – 10th August 1942 – A Death in Rome – Part I – The Poisoned Chalice
Garrison
Donor
19th July – 10th August 1942 – A Death in Rome – Part I – The Poisoned Chalice
At around 3:00pm on the afternoon of the 19th of July Mussolini was departing from his office engaged in an animated conversation with the small entourage accompanying him. As he walked down a hallway a man dressed in a Blackshirt uniform stepped forward and offered a fascist salute. While Mussolini and his entourage were distracted by this the man produced a knife and stabbed Mussolini four times. In the ensuing struggle the attacker grabbed a pistol and was shot six times before he could fire off a single round. Mussolini was rushed to hospital but pronounced dead upon arrival. The man who killed him was identified as Vito Agnelli, who was indeed a member of the Blackshirts who had become embittered after the death of his son during the fighting in North Africa.
The above doubtless seems a remarkably sparse description of such a momentous event and yet even what should be simple facts presented in those few sentences above remain in dispute decades later. Since the assailant was dead and there was, officially, no mystery about the cause of Mussolini’s death no post-mortem was conducted, being deemed an ‘unnecessary indignity’ by the authorities. This meant that claims that the fatal wound might have been inflicted by a shot intended for Agnelli, either from someone firing wildly or a ricochet, cannot be entirely dismissed. As for ‘Vito Agnelli’ himself there is little trace of him in any historical records beyond the brief account of his life in the files on the assassination held in the Italian archives. The details in that account, amounting to a single sheet of A4 paper, are either contradictory or impossible to verify. Details in the archives relating to Agnelli’s membership in the Blackshirts do seem to match up, however there is a strong case to be made that these documents were altered after the assassination and that the man listed in the files had died sometime in 1941 [1].
With so much uncertainty a cottage industry of conspiracy theories has grown up around the assassination and have been embraced by various neo-fascist groups over the years, and even one allegedly mainstream Italian political party embraced them. If one could fill a bookshelf with volumes about the crash at Hendon, then you could stock a book shop with those written about the death of Mussolini. Fortunately, while the how, why, and who of Mussolini’s murder are open to debate the consequences of his death are far better documented and while motivations may be questioned the events themselves are not [2].
In Rome there was certainly shock and anxiety in the aftermath of the assassination, though grief was in short supply and in private some even expressed a sense of relief. The political tensions between Mussolini and King Victor Emmanuel were running high in the face of the imminent Allied invasion of Sicily and few had taken Mussolini’s insistence that the island would be held, with the Anglo-American forces driven into the sea, seriously. The Regia Marina was a shadow of its pre-war self and more worried about the threat of another Operation Judgment style attack than conducting offensive operations. The Regia Aeronautica was not quite as badly off, which wasn’t saying much. Its best crews had been lost in combat and many of its operational aircraft were hopelessly obsolete. There were promising designs for far more modern and effective aircraft, the issue was how to produce them in the numbers needed for the defence of Italy? The army had much the same issue. Italian tanks are generally regarded as appalling, with many unsuited to service in the war even 1940 let alone 1942. Again, there were better designs available, with some even being produced in limited numbers. The problem was that tankettes were still being produced in far larger numbers than any of the modern designs because of the limitations on Italian resources, which had only become worse with the loss of so much manpower in Africa and the Mediterranean [3].
Mussolini may still have been hoping that Italy could somehow reverse the situation and achieve a victory, the king and many others however were thinking in terms of Italian survival, and now the considerations about how to achieve that had been brought into even sharper focus. This begged the question, who could be appointed in Mussolini’s place, even if only as a figurehead for a new emergency government? A decision would have to be made swiftly to avoid the threat of civil unrest as different factions threw around accusations as to who was really responsible for the assassination.
The declining reputation of the Fascist movement and the military leadership meant that many potential candidates had been removed from consideration, either being in disgrace even before Mussolini’s death or having fallen at the hands of the Allies, the shooting down of Italo Balbo’s transport aircraft during the last days of the fighting in Libya and his resulting death was a particular shock. Even if Balbo had lived to return to Rome the man who had once been seen as a likely successor to Mussolini was already being attacked as a failure and even a coward for abandoning his troops by his opponents in the General Staff. Even if he had been willing to moderate his Fascist beliefs to accommodate the increasingly sceptical king he would not have been seen as a viable candidate [4].
As if the situation wasn’t complicated enough those looking to appoint a new leader had to consider the potential German reaction to any suggestion that Italy might be wavering in its commitment to the Axis, or even looking for a way to exit the war altogether. This was especially important as some were indeed hoping to achieve some negotiated peace with the Allies. To pacify the Germans the new figurehead would have to at least present a reassuring face, even if he was not necessarily privy to all the machination going on behind the scenes. This suggested someone with diplomatic skills who was known in Berlin and had contacts in neutral countries that would be useful if the opportunity to negotiate an Italian exit from the war without attracting German reprisals did arise. There seemed to be only one man who fit the bill, however much he insisted he did not want the job. Nonetheless having been persuaded that this was the best choice the King was adamant, Count Ciano, son-in-law of Benito Mussolini and Italy’s foreign minister must accept the role of Head of Government [5].
Ciano’s diaries make no bones as to his horror when the idea was proposed. He was convinced that that if he accepted the job then he would be the next to be knifed to death by the Blackshirts. He even apparently considered a ‘diplomatic visit’ to Switzerland, with no intention of returning home. In the end he appears to have worn down by pleas about what might happen to Italy if he refused and possibly also by being presented with an account of the assassination at odds with that made public, though again details of this account are frustratingly absent from Ciano’s diaries. With little choice in the matter Count Ciano was announced as the new interim head of government on the 22nd of July, to little pomp or fanfare, with the much of the populace of Rome and the other major cities still deeply unsettled by Mussolini’s death, regardless of whether they had been supporters or opponents.
Ciano’s first major challenge would be Mussolini’s funeral and how to handle the German dignitaries in attendance. They would be coming to Rome to do far more than simply show respect, they would be looking for reassurances and if they weren’t satisfied Italy could be reduced to just another puppet state and Ciano feared that if that happened his funeral would swiftly follow his father-in-law’s [6].
[1] So we are into the realms of pure invention obviously and I am deliberately leaving some ambiguity about what really happened in Rome that day.
[2] Was it someone eager to take his post? The Germans? The Allies? Italian Communists? Or just the ‘lone knifeman’ that is the simplest and most sensible explanation?
[3] The Italians did have some decent modern designs for aircraft and tanks, they just never saw service in the numbers that might have made a difference and they probably never would have regardless of the course of the war.
[4] Balbo dies in much the same way as OTL, just at a different time.
[5] On the list of terrible Axis jobs Mussolini’s successor is quite high on the list.
[6] The German response will be covered in the next update. Obviously we are into serious butterfly territory here, but by this point things have shifted so much from OTL it seemed one of the Axis leaders should experience a radically different fate.
Last edited:
The major OTL inspiration for the event was the OTL assassination of Huey Long.