Fascist regime and World War II
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The socialist agitations that followed the devastation of the Great War, inspired by the Russian Revolution, led to counter-revolution and repression throughout Italy. The liberal establishment, fearing a Soviet-style revolution, started to endorse the small National Fascist Party, led by Mussolini. In October 1922, the Blackshirts of the National Fascist Party organised a mass demonstration and the "March on Rome" coup. King Victor Emmanuel III appointed Mussolini as prime minister, transferring power to the fascists without armed conflict.[89] Mussolini banned political parties and curtailed personal liberties, establishing a dictatorship. These actions attracted international attention and inspired similar dictatorships in Nazi Germany and Francoist Spain.
Fascism was based upon Italian nationalism and imperialism, seeking to expand Italian possessions via irredentist claims based on the legacy of the Roman and Venetian empires.[90] For this reason the fascists engaged in interventionist foreign policy. In 1935, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia and founded Italian East Africa, resulting in international isolation and leading to Italy's withdrawal from the League of Nations. Italy then allied with Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan, and strongly supported Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. In 1939, Italy annexed Albania.
Italy entered World War II on 10 June 1940. At different times, Italians advanced in British Somaliland, Egypt, the Balkans, and eastern fronts. They were, however, defeated on the Eastern Front as well as in the East African and North African campaigns, losing their territories in Africa and the Balkans. Italian war crimes included extrajudicial killings and ethnic cleansing[91] by deportation of about 25,000 people—mainly Yugoslavs—to Italian concentration camps and elsewhere. Yugoslav Partisans perpetrated their own crimes against the ethnic Italian population during and after the war, including the foibe massacres. An Allied invasion of Sicily began in July 1943, leading to the collapse of the Fascist regime on 25 July. Mussolini was deposed and arrested by order of King Victor Emmanuel III. On 8 September, Italy signed the Armistice of Cassibile, ending its war with the Allies. The Germans, with the assistance of Italian fascists, succeeded in taking control of north and central Italy. The country remained a battlefield, with the Allies moving up from the south.
In the north, the Germans set up the Italian Social Republic (RSI), a Nazi puppet state and collaborationist regime with Mussolini installed as leader after he was rescued by German paratroopers. What remained of the Italian troops was organised into the Italian Co-belligerent Army, which fought alongside the Allies, while other Italian forces, loyal to Mussolini, opted to fight alongside the Germans in the National Republican Army. German troops, with RSI collaboration, committed massacres and deported thousands of Jews to death camps. The post-armistice period saw the emergence of the Italian Resistance, who fought a guerrilla war against the Nazi German occupiers and collaborators.[92] This has been described as an Italian civil war due to fighting between partisans and fascist RSI forces.[93][94] In April 1945, with defeat looming, Mussolini attempted to escape north,[95] but was captured and summarily executed by partisans.[96]
Hostilities ended on 29 April 1945, when the German forces in Italy surrendered. Nearly half a million Italians died in the conflict,[97] society was divided, and the economy all but destroyed—per capita income in 1944 was at its lowest point since 1900.[98] The aftermath left Italy angry with the monarchy for its endorsement of the Fascist regime, contributing to a revival of Italian republicanism.[99]