Duce

by Robert Collier

life and death

Genres: Biography, History, Military History, Italy, World History, World War II, Nonfiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Robert Collier was an American author of self-help, and New Thought metaphysical books in the 20th century. He was the nephew of Peter Fenelon Collier, founder of Collier's Weekly. He was involved in writing, editing, and research for most of his life. His book The Secret of the Ages (1926) sold over 300,000 copies during his life. Collier wrote about the practical psychology of abundance, desire, faith, visualization, confident action, and personal development.

Reviews

[Jill H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up at the library sale and hit pay dirt! I had read the author's The War in the Desert years ago and was thrilled to find this biography of Mussolini. It may be one of the best book about Il Duce ever written and while I only have one small complaint (see below), it was hard to put down. The research and sources are impeccable and the afterward even contains copies of several letters from Mussolini to his mistress, Claretta Petacci.

The author doesn't waste many words on the Duce's childhood....only those things which formed his personality.....and moves straight into the creation of the Fascist party and how Mussolini gained control of Italy. We all have seen the films of him glowering from the balcony, hands on hips and chin thrust out, looking, frankly, like a buffoon. But he wasn't quite what he appeared and created some stability in Italy for a number of years. Then he met Hitler and it spelled his doom.

In the beginning, Hitler was in awe of the Duce and wanted to build his own career in emulation. But as Nazi Germany grew, the tables turned and Mussolini began letting Hitler make decisions for him and draw him into the Pact of Steel (the Axis) and WWII. Italy did not have the manpower, matérial, or economy to fight a war except for the shameful takeover of Abyssinia against men on horses with swords. Italy's armed forces were poorly trained and had outdated weapons but Mussolini didn't have the nerve to back down from Hitler's demands.

The author takes us through the deterioration of Mussolini and his dictatorship up to his ignominious end and holds the reader's attention throughout. Highly recommended.

Oh, I almost forgot my one complaint......no maps. It is hard to visualize battles and pockets of resistance without a map to reference. In a book of this quality, I feel silly having any complaints........it is that good.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

As far as Duce's go he was one of the best. Collier's biography of Fascism's first son is empathetic and insightful. Of course he had his thuggish side but he didn't seem to have the same murderous party purging tendencies as his contemporaries Hitler and Stalin. His was a tragic end: shot by a firing squad, dragged through the streets of Milan, urinated upon and then hung upside down outside of a bombed out gas station along with his girlfriend (I think I got those all in the correct order.) It's strange how a man can go from being practically worshiped as a living god and then meet such an ignoble end... there's something in this story so Shakespearean? Biblical? I really don't know. But its effective. I remember in Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors" he uses imagery of Mussolini during a montage at the end where a philosophy professor off-screen explains that we are the sum of our choices. I thought it interesting that Allen would use an image of Mussolini during this bit of dialogue but it is utterly appropriate. He was the savior of Italy. He cleansed it of organized crime, corruption, needless beaurocrcy and famously made the trains run on time (if you believe the hype.) He was adored by women and had the honor of calling the Italian king "cousin." And yet, his choice to ally with an ambitious Austrian in a futile goal of dominating the planet lead to his inglorious fate. It is a fate that Fascists perhaps deserve but then again, he was a man, a father, a husband, a lover, a soldier, a teacher and so much more than a black shirt and a shrill voice.

[David Warner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very much a book of two parts, the first a biographical sketch of Mussolini up to 1943, the second a fast-moving narrative of his sudden fall, his brief imprisonment under the post-Fascist regime, his rescue by German commandos, followed by his installation as puppet ruler of the Ruritanian Italian Social Republic, and final defeat and execution, and it is this part which is much the better.
Richard Collier was a journalist, and his style is very much that of a newspaperman in search of a story, which works well when describing the March on Rome, which he uses by way of introduction, and particularly the details of the 1943 revolt by the Fascist Grand Council, Skorzeny's rescue, and the tangled events that led to Mussolini's death, along with Carlotta Petacci, at the hands of Communist partisans, where the prose reads much like a thriller, and where Collier's use of oral testimony is most useful.
However, as a study of Musslini, his ideas, his politics, and his government, this work is less successful, being sketchy and episodic, with no systematic analysis of Mussolini's ideology or his administration of Italy. Domestic affairs do not interest Collier very much, besides a well researched chapter on the 1924 murder of Matteotti, but he does provide a cogent exposition of the reckless imperial and military policies pursued by Mussolini in the 1930s, and the disastrous foreign policy which led Italy into subservient alliance with Nazi Germany, and ultimately to defeat, humiliation, occupation, and the defeat of Fascism.
Collier draws vivid portraits of the main supporting characters, from Mussolini's long suffering wife Rachele, passionate daughter Edda, obssessed mistress Carlotta, and ambitious son-in-law turned Foreign Minister Chiano to the weak and passive Victor Emmanuel III and the fatally charismatic and dominating Hitler, but his picture of Mussolini, the psychologically weak, woman-hating womaniser, obsessed with appearance over reality and driven by ego and conflict, is somewhat opaque, and sometimes verges on the traditional English image of the Duce as quasi-comic strutting popinjay, but such may not be surprising in a book written in 1971 before detailed study of Mussolini's Itajy had begun and which was designed for a popular readership. And it is as a popular and vivid telling of Mussilini's rise, but mostly fall, that this entertaining biography succeeds.

[Dragan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another miss when it comes to biographies. I enjoyed reading this book I really did, but my biggest pet peeve when reading is, words missing or poor spelling. Numerous times I had encountered words being spelled wrong. It ruined a book which end of the day wasn’t amazing but was enjoyable for what it was.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very detailed account of the rise and fall of Benito Mussolini. One interesting point made by the author is that Mussolini’s ill-conceived attack of Greece and the necessity of Germany to commit troops and resources to bail them out forced a delay of a few months of Operation Barbarossa which prevented Germany from defeating Russia before the onset of winter.

[Олексій · Rating 4 out of 5]

Коротко, пізнавально, цікаво.

[Miles Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have no idea why this book ever went out of print: in addition to being a helluva a read, it was clearly also the basis for the George C. Scott "Mussolini" miniseries back in the 80s. I have never read a Mussolini biography before, and this is a great place to start, because Robert Collier knows how to tell a story. I use "story" specifically, because this biopic is not your normal scholarly history. It is written in a slam-bang, narrative prose style similar to John Kobler, David Irving, or Charles Whiting, which gives it the feel of historical fiction rather than dry history. Collier is a superb writer who I hope penned some fiction in his life, because he knows how to make history come alive. He depicts Mussolini as a man so humiliated by childhood poverty that he embraced Socialism not because it would benefit the masses, but as a form of revenge against the rich and privileged. He shows the Duce as a man whose resulting inferiority complex manifested in a cartoonish "alpha male" persona, a sort of hypermasculinity around which he eventually built the political ideology known as Fascism: a curious blend of Socialism, imperialism, ultra-nationalism, militarism and state-guided capitalism. Mussolini, in Collier's eyes, is a man who achieved a great deal against terrific odds, raising Italy to at least the appearance of a great European and colonial power, but at the height of his success was tempted into a curious love-hate relationship with Adolf Hitler that led to the Pact of Steel, the Axis, and Italy's fatal plunge into WW2. Mussolini himself is a curious tyrant, unopposed to mass violence against foreigners but never willing to take Italy as far as Hitler took Germany, either politically or in terms of repression and cruelty toward its own people, and thus a victim of scruples that he should have either fully embraced or crushed altogether. He shows us a divided Duce: an outwardly strong man, a physically brave man, a visionary man with great charisma and huge ambitions, but one tormented by numerous inner weaknesses that drove him alternatively into parylizing periods of indecision or else sudden, decisive, completely idiotic miscalculations. A man whose grandeur was always part bluff -- a genius trait -- but who eventually forgot the difference between bluffing with a straight face and believing your own lies. Mussolini began his career as Hitler's (extremely) reluctant mentor, and ended up his prisoner and slave, inferior to his former pupil in every way, including the manner in which he left the world. When Eisenhower heard of Mussolini's grisly fate at the hands of his own people in 1945, he said, "My God! What an ignoble end." Indeed, seldom has a man risen from dirt poverty to more dizzying heights, only to fall even more completely into disgrace and ruin at the end, like an idol toppled off its plinth that makes a crater in the earth. Modern day Mussolinis like Putin would be well advised to study his history carefully lest they embrace the same doom.

My main gripe against the book is that it skips rather casually over large periods of the Duce's life, while hyperfocusing on individual incidents like the dramatic rescue of Mussolini by German commandos from his Gran Sasso prison in 1943, or the intrigue surrounding his eventual execution. Not being a scholarly history I can look the other way on this, however, and highly recommend this stupidly out of print work.

[Tim Vos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, realistic history of Mussolini, though the time has caught up on several parts. Clearly shows the personal turmoil Mussolini was in and overall, it made for a very clear and crisp read.

[Paola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Letta l'edizione italiana, tanti anni fa

[Fred Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very easy to read and interesting biography of a man I knew little about. I assume that there are bios with more up to date information, but this was what I was looking for. The book became more confusing toward the end, as the cast of characters seemed to increase exponentially, with people seeking to depose, protect, capture, or kill Mussolini. The book could have used a glossary of the people mentioned and maps.

[Marko]

I have the german edition.