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M ussolini paid well as British agent in WWI

Future fascist dictator reportedly raked in $6,000 a week as a spy

"The last thing Britain wanted were pro-peace

strikes bringing the factories in Milan to a halt.
It was a lot of money to pay a man who was a
journalist at the time, but compared to the 4
million pounds Britain was spending on the
war every day, it was petty cash," The
Guardian quoted Martland as saying.

The salary detail also was in historian

Christopher Andrew's newly published history
of the British intelligence agency MI5, to which
Martland contributed.

AP
Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini stands between Italian Foreign Minster Count In 1917, the future Italian dictator was editor
Galeazzo Ciano and British Prime Minister Sir Neville Chamberlain, right, at the Termini
railway station in Rome in this Jan. 14, 1939 photo. A historian says Mussolini was well
paid as a British agent during World War I.
of the Il Popolo d'Italia newspaper, which
campaigned to keep Italy on the Allied side in
the war.

updated 10/14/2009 6:17:27 PM ET Mussolini became prime minister in 1922 and

led Italy into WorldWarII
LONDON— A historian says Benito Mussolini,
who declared war on Britain at the start of by declaring war on Britain and France in
World War II, was well paid as a British agent June 1940.
during World War I.

The Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday advertisement

that Peter Martland of Cambridge University

discovered that Mussolini was paid 100
pounds a week by Britain in 1917 — equal to
about $9,600 today.

The late Samuel Hoare, in charge of British

agents in Rome at that time, revealed in his
memoirs 55 years go that Mussolini was a paid
agent. Martland found more details in Hoare's
papers, including that Mussolini also sent
Italian army veterans to beat up peace
protesters in Milan, a dry run for his fascist www.PrintGroupon.com/d7e7d1
blackshirt units.
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M ore on: Benito M ussolini

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