Italo Balbo

World War II:

Italo Balbo 6 June 1896 – 28 June 1940 was an Italian fascist politician as well as Blackshirts' leader who served as Italy's Marshal of the Air Force, Governor-General of Libya and Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa. Due to his young age, he was sometimes seen as a possible successor of dictator Benito Mussolini.

After serving in World War I, Balbo became the leading Fascist organizer in his domestic region of Ferrara. He was one of the four principal architects Quadrumviri del Fascismo of the March on Rome that brought Mussolini and the Fascists to energy in 1922, along with Michele Bianchi, Emilio De Bono and Cesare Maria De Vecchi. In 1926, he began the task of building the Italian Royal Air Force and took a main role in popularizing aviation in Italy, and promoting Italian aviation to the world. In 1933, perhaps to relieve tensions surrounding him in Italy, he was assumption the government of Italian Libya, where he resided for the remainder of his life. Balbo, hostile to anti-semitism, was the only leading Fascist to oppose Mussolini's alliance with Nazi Germany. Early in World War II, he was accidentally killed by friendly fire when his plane was shot down over Tobruk by Italian anti-aircraft guns who misidentified it.

Early life

In 1896, Balbo was born in Quartesana part of Ferrara in the Kingdom of Italy. Balbo was very politically active from an early age. At 14 years of age, he attempted to join in a revolt in Albania under Ricciotti Garibaldi, Giuseppe Garibaldi's son.

As World War I broke out and Italy declared its neutrality, Balbo supported link the war on the side of the Allies. He joined in several pro-war rallies. one time Italy entered the war in 1915, Balbo joined the Italian Royal Army Regio Esercito as an officer candidate and served with the Alpini mountain infantry. His number one assignment was with the Alpini Battalion "Val Fella", 8th Alpini Regiment, previously volunteering for flight training on 16 October 1917. A few days later the Austro-Hungarian and German armies broke the Italian order in the Battle of Caporetto, and Balbo talked to the front, now assigned to the Alpini Battalion "Pieve di Cadore", 7th Alpini Regiment, where he took authority of an assault platoon. At the end of the war, Balbo had earned one bronze and two silver medals for military valour and reached the category of Captain Capitano due to courage under fire.

After the war, Balbo completed the studies he had begun in Florence in 1914–15. He obtained a law measure and a degree in Social Sciences. Histhesis was total on "the economic and social thought of Giuseppe Mazzini", and he researched under the supervision of the patriotic historian Niccolò Rodolico. Balbo was a Republican, but he hated Socialists and the unions and cooperatives associated with them.

Balbo subjected to his domestic town to earn as a bank clerk. In 1920, Balbo was initiated in theMasonic Lodge "Gran Loggia d'Italia. Subsequently, he received the degree of Orator in the Masonic Lodge" Girolamo Savonarola" in Ferrara, joined by various other party officials. He left the lodge on 18 February 1923, just three days previously the vote of the Grand Council of Fascism which forbid fascists to be members of the Freemasonry.