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A group of his "friends," appalled by such weakness, staged a second March on Rome and cornered their cowering, unshaven chief in his palace. "What do you expect me to do with a corpse under my feet?" Mussolini wailed. "A fine head of a revolution, if you're afraid of a corpse!" bellowed an angry follower.
Life of a Balloon. More afraid of his friends than of his enemies, Mussolini began to do his utmost to appease the friends. As Biographer Monelli sees it. he was terrified into terrorizing Italy. In 1925, "the Fascist regime became a regime of force," all opposition was suppressed, total censorship clamped on the newspapers. His followers made sure that the Duce's balloon of a phony identity was not punctured by public scorn. They kept him surrounded by "policemen in various disguises" playing the equally phony role of "fanatical admirers." These cops, known as "the Presidential Division," became so expert at exaltation that sometimes even Mussolini suspected they were not on the level.
His tougher followers drove him half-crazy simply by knowing that he was incapable of being the man he pretended to be. When the Duce tried to conduct the Ethiopian war from his office chair, Marshal Badoglio only growled: "What fool in Rome is telegraphing this rubbish to me?" and curtly cabled back: "Leave me alone."
Historians who believe that great decisions are the result of historical necessity rather than of the acts of individuals will find in Monelli's account of Mussolini's life a stiff argument to the contrary. Personal vanity, swollen to monstrous proportions, made Italy Germany's ally in World War II. Mussolini detested Hitler, but, as he said frankly: "It's too late to drop him. I don't want them to say abroad that Italy's cowardly." Of all Mussolini's millions of spouted words, none has a greater ring of sincerity than his cry-from-the-heart against his Nazi rival: "I am tired of acting as his rear light!"
Death of a Lover. As the war advanced, the Duce became more and more of a rear light. He spent hours doodling at his great table or concocting headlines for the morning papers. According to Monelli. he even began to lose interest in one of his chief pleasures—that of "receiving" a woman in his office every afternoon. If she was unattractive, the Duce talked to her; if she was pretty, he hurled her onto the carpet ("You can't refuse a man of that importance," said one such lady), and then went straight back to his desk while an attendant picked up the hairpins. A few privileged ladies were rewarded by hearing the great dictator play them a violin sonata, but they received money (out of state funds) only if they frankly asked for it.