Summary
September 1943, and German troops have just landed in gliders to rescue Benito Mussolini from the mountain resort where he was being held. “I knew my friend Adolf Hitler would not desert me,” he said later. But Mussolini died before the end of the war, shot and then strung up with his mistress in Milan.
Who was this man, and is he still relevant today? Nominating him is Professor Margaret MacMillan, not as her hero but as someone she says must not be dismissed as a buffoon. Mussolini founded and led the fascists in Italy, was a brilliant propagandist, and would have probably died in his bed but for the war. Winston Churchill, speaking in 1927, told him his fascist movement "has rendered a service to the entire world."
Only later did he dub him the Italian Miscalculator. Mussolini declared war on Britain just as France was poised to fall.
As well as archive of Mussolini, Churchill, and the Italian journalist Luigi Barzini, the programme features Professor John Foot of Bristol University. Margaret MacMillan is the author of Peacemakers and a former BBC Reith lecturer. The programme is presented by Matthew Parris.
Future great lives in this series include Frida Kahlo, Donna Summer, Hendrick Witbooi and Kenneth Williams of Carry On fame.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan |
| 0:05.2 | I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy |
| 0:10.2 | podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really. |
| 0:13.0 | Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh, |
| 0:18.0 | making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things. |
| 0:22.0 | But you know I also know that comedy is really |
| 0:24.4 | subjective and everyone has different tastes so we've got a huge range of comedy on offer |
| 0:29.6 | from satire to silly shocking to soothing profound to just general pratting about. So if you |
| 0:36.2 | fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:41.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:45.0 | Sometimes I think we don't in coronavirus broadcasting put our listeners properly in the picture as to the mechanics of it all, so here's the picture. I'm in a sort of screened off area of my bedroom surrounded by carpets to muffle the sound so I look as though I'm in a Moroccan soup waiting for my |
| 1:04.7 | Turkish coffee. My producer is elsewhere, our studio manager is somewhere else again, |
| 1:09.6 | it's all being channeled via Broadcasting House in London and the BBC in Bristol. |
| 1:14.8 | And my guest this week, well for a moment, let's make it a mystery voice and ask her to describe |
| 1:19.8 | where she is. |
| 1:21.0 | I'm sitting in my dining room looking at my laptop which is on a cushion. |
| 1:25.8 | It all looks very odd. I have my phone to my ear because I'm also recording myself hoping |
| 1:32.3 | that I can pay attention to all the very good instructions I've been |
| 1:34.9 | having so let's see. |
| 1:35.9 | Thank you. A distance anyway does not detract from my pleasure at being back and my excitement |
| 1:42.2 | about today's great life. |
| 1:44.0 | The date, September 1943, just at the moment our great life was holed up in a hotel in the mountains of Italy, and German soldiers had been ordered in on a rescue attempt. |
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