The stalemate of trench warfare in World War I only deepened his respect for flying. As a soldier, he marveled at the freedom and heroism of pilots, in particular Italy’s own Gabriele d’Annunzio, who made a dramatic bombing raid on Austria’s capital, Vienna. After the war, Mussolini took great delight in hobnobbing with military pilots, taking airplane rides, and promoting the advance of Italian aviation.
By 1920, Mussolini was ready to take flying lessons. R.J.B. Bosworth’s Mussolini recounts that he trained at the Arcore airfield, north of Milan, and greatly enjoyed flying, quickly learning rudimentary aerobatics. Soon after completing 18 solo flights, he survived a crash, walking away from the wrecked airplane with only minor scratches on his face and a twisted knee.
The mishap did not slow Mussolini’s rise in Italian politics. His stump speeches—delivered in a strutting, highly animated style—attracted a mass following. His muscular physique, truculent jutting jaw, and dark piercing eyes set him apart from other politicians. In 1922, Mussolini gained political control of Italy when his followers, the Blackshirts, made their highly theatrical March on Rome.
Mussolini quickly moved aviation to the forefront of his authoritarian regime. He advocated the building of a modern air force, the Regia Aeronautica, promoted airshows and record-breaking flights, and called for the design of advanced military aircraft. Winning the Schneider Trophy race in 1926 became an early benchmark for Mussolini’s air-minded regime. His Minister of Air, Italo Balbo, catapulted Italian aviation to worldwide prominence in 1933 when he led a flotilla of 25 Savoia-Marchetti SM-55 flying boats on a transatlantic flight to New York and Chicago.
Mussolini’s stylized reputation as an aviation pioneer meshed well with his larger persona as Il Duce, the dynamic leader of Italian Fascism. He appeared in various guises in official propaganda photographs—a sort of Superman at the helm of state, speaking to the masses, playing the violin, singing arias, winning at chess, and, as a man of the people, working shirtless with the peasants at harvest time. Dubbed the First Sportsman of Italy, Mussolini appeared as an avid swimmer, race car driver, equestrian, fencer, and skier. He inspired his countrymen to believe that Italy was on the cusp of greatness—a modern incarnation of the Roman Empire.
The momentum of Mussolini’s rise eventually led to military adventures: first the conquest of Ethiopia in 1935 and then intervention in the Spanish Civil War in 1937 to 1939 to support the Nationalists under General Francisco Franco. In the Spanish war, Mussolini’s son, Bruno, a pilot, flew 27 combat sorties, and the Italian press lionized him and his fellow airmen as exemplars of Italian aviation under Fascism.
Mussolini cast his lot with Nazi Germany in World War II, committing the Italian military, including the Regia Aeronautica, to a long, ruinous war. Italy now had to contend with the armed forces of Great Britain and the United States, both intent on neutralizing Italian military power in the Mediterranean and seeking unconditional surrender. The stakes could not have been higher: An Allied victory would mean the destruction of Mussolini’s regime.
Mussolini’s pre-war stress on aerial spectaculars had evoked an image of Italy as a modern air power. In reality, Italy pursued records at the expense of establishing an industrial base for aviation, and the Regia Aeronautica entered the war with few operational aircraft and minimal capacity for reinforcement. When fully mobilized, Italian aviation plants could manufacture only 200 aircraft of various types each month. Great Britain out-produced Italy by more than eight to one; the United States by at least 30 to one.
Source: Despots Aloft
By Von Hardesty
Air & Space Magazine, May 01, 2005
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