Ch.24 The King and Il Duce
The First King of Egypt
Fascism in Italy
- Mussolini
- Fascists or Blackshirts
- By 1923, Italy was firmly under control of the Fascists.
Mussolini, the prime minister, was nicknamed Il Duce - “The Leader”. He would remain prime minister of Italy for the next twenty-one years.
- Although he held the title prime minister, Mussolini was actually a military dictator. He wanted to build a new Roman Empire by recapturing land all around the Mediterranean Sea. He knew that Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, was supposed to have taken a plow and plowed out the borders of his new city. So, imitating Romulus, Mussolini got on a tractor and drove around the borders of new cities that he hoped to build in his “new Roman Empire”.
