ABSTRACT
Political and social unrest haunted Europe long before the onset of the Great Depression. A good example of this unrest can be seen in postwar Italy. Italy had fought on the side of the victors. Its contributions had been negligible yet its losses were severe, owing in large part to grossly incompetent field commanders. Compounding the misery was the nation’s anger at being insufficiently rewarded at the peace conference with adequate spoils of war in terms of territorial gains. The Italian economy, weak even before 1914, had quickly slipped into a serious economic depression at the war’s conclusion. The heavy war debt, high levels of taxation, rampant inflation, surging unemployment, and food shortages brought Italy to the precipice of revolution. Workers went on strike and attacked factories, the unemployed rioted in the streets, and peasants seized large estates and destroyed property. Meanwhile, Italy’s parliamentary politicians bickered and dithered while the nation moved closer to anarchy. Into this miasma of disorder stepped Benito Mussolini.
