Word: duces
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Although the Duce's upper teeth now protruded grotesquely, there was no mistaking his jaw. In death, Mussolini seemed a little man. He wore a Fascist Militia uniform - grey breeches with a narrow black stripe, a green-grey tunic and muddy black riding boots. A bullet had pierced his skull over the left eye and emerged at the back, leaving a hole from which the brains dripped. Mistress Petacci, 2 5 -year-old daughter of an ambitious Roman family, wore a white silk blouse. In her breast were two bullet holes ringed by dark circles of dried blood...
...surged and swayed around the grisly spot. One woman emptied a pistol into the Duce's body. "Five shots!" she screamed. "Five shots for my five murdered sons!" Others cried: "He died too quickly! He should have suffered!" But the hate of many was wordless. They could only spit...
Before the hour expired, the Duce, who in his fustian prime had bellowed to his followers, "If I retreat, kill me!" was in headlong flight. At 9 p.m. he reached Como near the Swiss border. At 2 a.m. Thursday he sent an envoy to ask Swiss authorities to grant asylum to his wife, Donna Rachele, and their children. The Swiss emphatically declined. About 6 a.m. Mussolini sneaked northward presumably in the hope of reaching Germany. According to one report he joined a German truck convoy trying unsuccessfully to disguise himself in a German officer's overcoat. He was spotted...
...partisans gave him short shrift. He was bluntly informed that he had been condemned to death. After a brief "trial," the 16 other Fascists in the Duce's party were also adjudged guilty. The Duce's last words as he faced the firing squad were...
Died. Marshal Enrico Caviglia, 82, onetime Italian Minister of War (1919), Senator, World War I hero, holdout against Fascism (in 1943 he was rumored plotting with Marshal Badoglio to oust Mussolini); after long illness; in Finale Marina, Italy. When Italy teetered toward war in 1940, he gave Il Duce some sound, unheeded advice: "The European political leader conscious of his responsibilities will not launch his country into a war with a great nation unless he has the power of continuing it until the exhaustion of his adversary...