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When Germany took the Rhineland Mussolini had an attack of ulcers. When Hitler conducted his blood purge Mussolini began losing his hair (and he has grown bald since then). When Hitler grabbed Austria, Mussolini had a heart attack. When Germany and Russia signed their Non-Aggression Pact, Mussolini was fitted for glasses (and he does wear glasses now). When Germany invaded Poland, Mussolini couldn't sleep.
Whether or not these reports were true, certain it is that no official explanation has ever been given his abrupt withdrawal from Italy's Army maneuvers in August 1939. During the weeks of crisis that followed, Mussolini espoused a strange new policy: silence. He has broken silence publicly only nine times since then, and those speeches were short, bitter. Last month he failed to make his habitual appearance on the Palazzo Venezia on the anniversary of the birth of Fascism.
Last April Correspondent John T. Whitaker reported that in the spring of 1939 Mussolini suffered a stroke. He was confined to his bed for five weeks, his face partially paralyzed and his left eye affected. Since then, said trustworthy Correspondent Whitaker's trustworthy sources, the Duce has suffered from paranoia. Paranoia is often characterized by delusions of grandeur.
No Friends. Last week Benito Mussolini purged the last of his Big Black Shirts: Achille Starace, who had been Chief of Staff of the Fascist Militia since 1939 and for seven years before that was Secretary General of the Fascist Party. By removing him from his post (nothing was said about what had become of him) Benito Mussolini got rid of one more power which might threaten the power of the Duce. Before Starace, many an old-time Fascist had been relegated to oblivion or death: Hero Italo Balbo to the Governor Generalship of Libya and then to mysterious death in his airplane; Soldiers Pietro Badoglio and Rodolfo Graziani to retirement; Loudmouthpiece Roberto Farinacci to an unknown fate in Albania. Each of these men possessed great influence over some segment of the Italian people, from royalty to hoi polloi. With the purging of Starace, Benito Mussolini had cut himself even more adrift from connection with the 43,500,000 Italian people.
As he smiled unctiously at Adolf Hitler at Brennero he must have remembered the day, almost seven years ago, when he rushed an Army into the Brenner Pass and frightened Young Dictator Hitler out of grabbing Austria. In those seven years the ridiculous little man whom Mussolini belittled had become the conqueror of Europe. Yet even victorious Dictator Hitler was a prisoner of his conquests: he must conquer new worlds to be safe in the world he has conquered. And his prisoner, Aging Dictator Mussolini, must help him to conquer them.
Last week, in the hour of Axis victory, the two dictators, with their Pooh-Bahs and generals, doubtless talked of new worlds to conquer: the Near East and Africa lay before them. With the fall of Crete and the alignment of France with Germany, the Mediterranean had become no longer safe for Great Britain. But it was a hollow hour for Benito Mussolini. His archenemy Britain had been driven from Mare Nostrum at last. Now Mare Nostrum was German.