Mussolini, The Last 10 Days, A New Investigation

by Malcolm Tudor

Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini fled his villa on Lake Garda together with his German bodyguards and leading supporters on the 18th of April 1945 in an attempt to escape the advancing Allied armies. He was captured by Italian partisans in a small town on Lake Como on the 27th and shot next day together with his young lover Claretta Petacci. The Communists claimed that a mysterious partisan known as Colonel Valerio had pulled the trigger. But many alternative theories state that secret agents from the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) or the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) were responsible. Using secret wartime reports from the United Kingdom and the United States, Italian records, and first-hand accounts, Malcolm Tudor reveals what really happened, solving one of the greatest mysteries of the Second World War.

275 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 29, 2022

About the author

I am the author of nine military history books on Italy during the Second World War and also of an e-book on creative writing.
I came to write my books as the result of my family's experience of war. My British father was a soldier with the 8th Army in Italy and my Italian mother and grandparents lived in the Fascist north and helped escaped many Allied prisoners of war.
I grew up with stories of war and decided to find out more. After meeting some of the comrades of the escapers my family had sheltered, I carried out research in Italy and at the UK National Archives. And so my first book: 'Prisoners of War in Italy: Paths to Freedom' was born, to be followed by eight more, covering SAS, SOE, POWs, air supply, the Resistance, and much more.
My books are available from www.emiliapublishing.com, www.amazon.co.uk, other internet booksellers and UK bookshops.

Reviews

[James Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an interesting attempt to shed light on the killing of one of the Axis leaders, Benito Mussolini. The first half deals with the events leading to the execution of Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci. The second half is less satisfactory, dealing with the wider events in Italy in the final months of the war as different factions competed to decide Mussolini’s fate.

The second part of the book is largely an anti-climax which covers much of the ground covered in the first half, albeit from differing perspectives. This material could have been - with judicious editing - worked into the first half, improving the text and presenting the reader with a compelling picture of the cross-cutting actions of the different factions operating in Italy in early 1945.