In October 1920 King Vittorio Emanuele III asked Benito Mussolini to form a government. Mussolini's Black Shirts, the "direct action" arm of the Fascist Party (Partito Fascisti) had just staged a protest March on Rome in reaction to the repeated breakdowns of the parliamentary government. The political spectrum of post-World War I Italy was very diverse, and extremely fractious. Coalition governments were the only ones that could be formed. And they did not last long before one of the factions in the coalition found cause to leave the government and dissolve the coalition. The government that had been in office just before the Black Shirt march had lasted only a matter of days. The various parties in parliament were so adamant in their demands for special considerations that the country was without a functioning government for a time. In this vacuum Mussolini launched his march. The King's thinking might have been, "If you think you can form a government, go ahead and try." Mussolini became leader of Italy legally, if not electorally.

Mario Pazzaglia was six years old at this time. The region he grew up in supported Mussolini, though some parts of it were strongly Socialist.

Mussolini and the Fascisti did much to help Italy through the post-World War I upheavals that affected Europe and the rest of the world. Italy was not struck down by the world stock market crash of 1929 and the following depression. The Fascisti weren't the only reason, but they were in a position to claim all the credit, as any party in power would.

One of Mussolini's desires for Italy was for it to regain the greatness it had during the Roman Empire. In pursuit of these roots his government funded many archeological excavations, restorations of ancient buildings and new construction in the pseudo-classical style. Mussolini also strove to build a colonial empire in Africa. Italy invaded Ethiopia.

Italy's Ethiopian war was not simply a fascist pursuit of a New Roman Empire. It was, mainly, Mussolini following the accepted European path to being a world power by embracing imperialism with a passion. If Mussolini had been around fifty years earlier, in the 1880s, and invaded Ethiopia, Italy would only have been accused of imitating what France and Britain were up to. At that time, these two countries had almost gone to war over a land-grab quarrel at Fashoda, Sudan. By the 1930s the Good Old Boys of the Imperialist Club, prodded by the humanist idealists in advanced countries, had changed the rules. The atrocities that Mussolini's army was accused of committing in occupied Ethiopia are paralleled by the British in India in the Nineteenth Century. France was every bit as brutal in its colonies, even as late as the mid-Twentieth Century in Algeria and Indochina. Comparisons can go on.

On October 3, 1935 Mussolini invaded Ethiopia with three army corps, around 100,000 men. By October 11 the League of Nations invoked sanctions against Italy. The sanctions unified the Italian people against the League.

The Italian advance in Ethiopia bogged down in November; Mussolini replaced the commanding general. On January 12, 1936 a new Italian offensive was launched. Four months late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, the Lion of Judah, fled his country. The capital, Adis Ababa, was captured on May 5, 1936. That same day Mussolini declared the annexation of Ethiopia and the assumption by the King of Italy of the title of Emperor of Ethiopia.

After the attack on Ethiopia, Western Europe turned unfriendly to Italy. In their intelligence reports and their public media the Western great powers began linking Mussolini to Hitler.

Over the years Hitler had written to Mussolini, saying how the Italian politician had inspired him. Mussolini had fought against the Germans in the First World War. Mussolini did not trust German imperialism. One thing his foreign policy had continually worked for was a treaty with France, and if possible Britain, to guarantee Austrian independence from Germany. When France broke with Italy over Ethiopia, Mussolini had to find another way to protect Italy from Germany. He opened a dialogue with the Nazis. Mussolini's first meeting with Hitler was a reluctant one Hitler staged a triumphal welcome for his hero. Mussolini was very impressed. He still didn't like Hitler, though this changed a bit over the years to come. Mussolini knew he had to make his own deals for the good of his country. The Axis treaty was signed in November 1937.

On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland. Poland's Western allies, France and Britain, declared war on Germany and moved troops into position along the western front. Poland fell quickly to the German blitzkrieg, but the war in the west was so quiet that it was called the "Sitskrieg". It was not until June 1940 that Germany attacked in the west. The Allied French and British armies were rolled back and the Germans advanced on Paris. Mussolini did not enter the war until late in the Battle of France. By his orders the Italian troops attacked in the Alps, trying to invade France from the south. Though there was serious fighting the meager Italian gains were dwarfed by German victories in the north.

Italy's army had been a modern army when compared to the Ethiopian army of 1935. It had machine guns, trucks, airplanes and some tracked vehicles. Italy lagged behind the military technology of France, Britain and Germany. By 1940 the Italian army's weapons were downright obsolete. There had been no significant improvements in its material since before the Ethiopian War.

The British tanks, which the Germans had little trouble defeating, outclassed the armored vehicles of the Italian army. In the North African desert mechanized armies ruled. But the Italian army did not even have motorized transport for all its men. When a major breakthrough happened the men on foot got captured, it didn't matter what their nationality was. It happened in 1940 and it happened again after El Alamein. Motorized vehicles enabled the Germans to retreat faster and farther than shoe leather got the Italian soldiers who were overtaken and captured.

Along with its obsolete equipment, including 1890s rifles, the Italian army was not as good an instrument as the Fascisti dreamed it would be. The army was drawn from an Italy that was never solidly united under the Fascisti. Many of the soldiers were dissidents who had been drafted to get them out of the way back home. This tactic probably did not really help at home, and it only hurt in the field. The army was known for its lack of discipline, and it had been politicized. If you take an army of such an independent minded and disparate a people as the Italians, give them obsolete equipment and poor supplies, stick them across the water from home and try to get them to toe a political line they do not believe in, you are going to have a disaster.

Mussolini's forces were already involved in North Africa when he began thinking of invading Greece and Yugoslavia. Despite these plans of widening Italian involvement in the war, half of the Italian army was demobilized. This might have been one of the times that Mario got home to Pavia. He had received his commission between the fall of Ethiopia and the invasion of France.

Mussolini's invasion of the Balkan Peninsula began in October 1940. It did not go well. In the beginning of December 1940 the Italian commander notified Mussolini that he was defeated. In that same month the British launched a devastating attack in North Africa. By February 1941 the British had rolled the Italian army back all the way from the Egyptian border to El Agheila west of Tobruk. Over 100,000 Italian soldiers were captured in the course of the British offensive. Mussolini asked Hitler for help. In exchange for German made war supplies millions of Italian workers were sent to Germany.

In mid February 1941 German General Erwin Rommel arrived in Tripoli with what was to grow into the Afrika Korps. In March Rommel began an offensive against the British with his army of German and Italian units. By the second week in April they had reached Tobruk, which was isolated as the Axis troops continued on to the Egyptian border. The fighting went on into December when Rommel's supplies and equipment became too depleted to remain so far from his supply base in Tunisia. The Axis army withdrew back to El Agheila. As a result of this strategic withdrawal the siege of Tobruk, which had been going on throughout the year, was discontinued in December. Mario Pazzaglia had taken part in the actions against the British in Tobruk and was awarded the German Iron Cross, Second Class, for his gallantry.

Manco il fortuno, Non il valore. We were short on luck, Not on bravery.

So reads the inscription on the Italian memorial at the El Alamein battlefield. It has been said that the Italian army was short on more than luck. Never the less these words certainly apply to Mario Pazzaglia. His bravery is attested to in this website. His luck ran out on January 1, 1942 when he encountered the British mine that mortally wounded him. His bravery continued as he wrote his family assuring them that his wounds were more embarrassing than serious. He died on January 12, 1942. His son was born in August 1941.

By the end of December the German-Italian army ceased its withdrawal and was receiving new supplies with which Rommel would renew his attacks on the Allies. It was during this phase of operations that Mario Pazzaglia was mortally wounded by a mine.