THE PRINCIPAL VICTIMS of the campaign were the people of Italy. If Benito Mussolini had preserved Italian neutrality in 1940, it is possible that he might have sustained his dictatorship for many years in the same fashion as General Franco of Spain, who presided over more mass murders than the Duce, yet was eventually welcomed into membership of NATO. It is unlikely that Hitler would have invaded Italy merely because Mussolini clung to nonbelligerent status; the country had nothing Nazi Germany valued except views. As it was, however, between 1943 and 1945 the catastrophic consequences of
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