Moseley has a crack journalist's nose for the evocative quotation or the vivid fact that encapsulates a larger truth.
Mussolini
The Last 600 Days of Il Duce
Description
In his last days, Mussolini, the tyrant, was in the grip of anger, shame, and depression. The German armed forces that had sustained his puppet government since its creation in September 1943 were being inexorably driven out of Italy, the frontiers of his Fascist republic were shrinking daily and Mussolini was aware that German military leaders were negotiating with the Allies behind his back in neutral Switzerland. Moseley's well-researched and highly engaging tome throws light on the last twenty months of the despot's life and culminates with the dramatic capture and execution of Mussolini (and his mistress Claretta Petacci) by partisans of the Italian resistance on April 28, 1945.
Reviews
A welcome synthesis of the final months of the facist regime, beginning in 1943. He uncovers the venality, intrigue, corruption, treachery and barbarism of the Facist and Nazi regimes.
Moseley discusses in remarkable detail, but with great readability and a swift narrative pace, the last 15 months of Italy's war.
Has elements of melodrama, of swashbuckling adventure, of tragedy and of comic opera.
