Benito Mussolini, the dictator who wanted to revive the Roman empire

Benito Mussolini, who styled himself Il Duce, came to power in a 1922 coup when he led his followers in a march on Rome. 

He allied himself with other European Fascist leaders including Adolf Hitler and Spain's General Francisco Franco, sending troops to fight in the Spanish Civil War that overthrew the 2nd Republic.

Mussolini dreamed of refounding the Roman Empire, and luanched a series of conquests in Africa, including that of Ethipia, then uncolonised and ruled by King Haile Sellasie.

The fascist air forces used chemical wepaons in both Libya and Ethiopia.

Mussolini held off a joining the Axis side in World War II until after the Nazi conquest of France. 

His attempted conquest of Greece was a disaster, forcing Germany to send troops to turn the tide to prevent Britain gaining an allied base in southern Europe.

Mussolini's bid to seize Egypt from Britain suffered a similar fate, drawing Germany into a costly two-and-a-half-year campaign.

When the allies invaded Italy from North Africa in 1943, Mussolini was quickly ousted the way he came in, by a coup, with the new govenment promptly switching sides in the war.

He was imprisoned in the Campo Imperatore Hotel on the Gran Sasso massif in the Central Italian mountains, but was freed in a raid by Italian paratroopers ordered by Hitler himself.

Meanwhile German troops had invaded northern Italy and Italian Jews, previously spared from the Holocaust, were deported to the Nazi death camps.

Mussolini met his end in the closing days of the war when he was captured by communist partisans while trying to flee to neutral Switzerland with his his mistress Clara Petacci.

The two were taken to the city of Milan and executed on April 25. Citizens spat on and mutilated their bodies before they were hung upside down from lamposts.

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