In March 1896, when Benito Mussolini was just 13 years old, Italy suffered a crushing and humiliating defeat at the Battle of Adwa. This was the capstone battle in the First Abyssinian War (1895-1896).
The War that Inspired The Daily Beast
In 1935, Benito Mussolini wanted to make Italy great again, so he invaded Ethiopia. The war boosted his popularity but also inspired one of the 20th century’s greatest satires.
I love Italy, and Italians, but I must admit that sometimes their relationship with their history can be confusing. Traipsing across that beautiful peninsula, going from battlefield to castle to landing beaches, I kept running across one item that threw me for a loop… busts of Italian dictator-for-life, Axis leader, enemy of America and founder of the Fascist Party, Benito Mussolini.
Yeah, seriously.
It turns out that in some parts of Italy, most noticeably in the general region south of Rome, “Il Duce” (“The Leader”) is still held in some reverence. This is not the time or the place to dive into the social, political and cultural history of Italy in order to fully grok how it is that one of the three government leaders of the Axis is still admired, in public, in the 21st century. It is enough to notice that there are some parts of their history to which the Italians cling, however illogically. Indeed, one could say that the Italian most affected by this tendency was Mussolini himself. It was an inclination that led to the real opening moves of what would become the Second World War. And it was where this news website would get this unique name, albeit indirectly.
In March 1896, when Benito was just 13 years old, Italy suffered a crushing and humiliating defeat at the Battle of Adowa in what is now Ethiopia. In that battle the Italians had approximately 6,000 of their men killed and about 3,000 captured out of a force that numbered around 15,000, though most of those were not actually Italians. This was the capstone battle in the First Abyssinian War (1895-1896).
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