TIL 9: Feeding the Enemy
Italy entered World War-1 pretty late on the side of the Allied forces.
The year was 1917, and the Italian army was getting straight-up crushed (150,000 casualties in a single month) in the Battle of Isonzo against Austria-Hungary.
The morale in the country wasn’t good, and most citizens wanted the Liberal government at that time to pull out of the war.
But it was important for Britain that Italy keep fighting on the side of allies despite the Italian war effort being infamously unsuccessful.
The reason was that the Italian effort in Isonzo kept a huge chunk of the Allied forces, production, and logistics supply protected.
So Britain decided that in order to keep Italy going, they pay a pro-war newspaper there- ‘Il Popolo d’Italia’, to keep writing and publishing pro-war propaganda.
They paid its Editor a sum of £6,000 per week.
The allies won the war, Italy celebrated, and the newspaper editor, with all that extra cash, decided to start his own political career.
A few years later, he formed his own Fascist political party, and overthrew the Liberal Italian government.
The 34-year-old editor was Benito Mussolini- the Italian dictator who led Italy against Britain in World War 2.
