*Includes pictures
*Includes a bibliography for further reading
It's easy to forget how young Italy was when Benito Mussolini was born on July 29, 1883. It is hard to conceive a territory with such a long and ancient history was once young and troubled with constant conflict and instability. Similar to Germany, Italy was unified in 1861, but contrary to its northern cousin, its previous history was one of separation. Italy had no great romantic idea of a "Great Germany," keeping it unified even during the wars between city-states. Benito Mussolini was born and raised in a highly volatile environment where ideas already considered extreme by most contemporary observers, such as Socialism, would undergo a deep and violent transformation.
Mussolini would ride that wave to power, and he would hold it for decades as he opportunistically tried to strengthen Italy's position and empire. That would lead him to foreign interventions in Africa, and eventually an alliance with Nazi Germany's Adolf Hitler, ultimately costing him everything and devastating his country throughout World War II.
Mussolini's final act was an attempt to flee his fate. On April 25, 1945, he was able to move about without German interference as the Allies advanced. He wore a German uniform to hide his identity and tried to march north with retreating troops, thinking he would find a way to freedom from Germany, but an armed force of partisan troops stopped the column on April 27, 1945. Mussolini was immediately identified, captured, and briefly jailed along with his lover, Claretta Petacci. There was no great trial waiting for Mussolini and no last moment under the spotlight. The partisan troops organized a show trial to give the proceedings some sense of legality, and on April 29, 1945, they took Mussolini and Claretta out of jail. The Italian dictator was shot, along with his lover, after which their corpses were brought back to Milan's Loreto square and hung by their feet. The very next day, Hitler would commit suicide in his bunker in Berlin, and the fighting in Europe would finally come to an end a little more than a week later.
Born in the last decade of the 19th century, Francisco Franco was nevertheless synonymous with a number of trends of the 20th. In particular, his life was intertwined with the extremist ideologies of the era, in particular fascism and communism, and later the Cold War between the West and the communist bloc. In essence, however, Franco was a military man. He joined the army as a teenager and made his name as an officer in Spain's wars in Africa. When the country cast off its monarchy and declared a Republic in 1931, Franco - although relatively restrained politically during the period - stood for order and maintaining the army's role in Spanish society. When a group of officers launched a rebellion in July 1936, Franco quickly joined the army's uprising and rapidly rose to the top of the nationalist's chain of command.
After his victory in the Spanish Civil War, Franco used political ideas and ideology as it suited him, though he did seem to advocate conservatism, militarism, Catholicism and monarchism. Franco adeptly steered Spain through the Second World War and the Cold War without really committing the country to any specific engagements, but he still managed to secure support and backing from more powerful allies.
For the people of Spain, however, Franco was far from the benevolent figurehead he portrayed himself to be. Franco's rule was vicious and spiteful, and persecution and oppression were ever present during his dictatorship. Franco's Spain was intolerant of dissent, and by the 1970s, the country appeared to outsiders to be completely under his control and influence. It seemed likely that his successors would continue to rule in his image or, more worryingly, that far left groups would challenge a post-Franco autocrat.