Italian prime minister who led the country to victory after Caporetto but failed to win its territorial claims at the peace conference
Born in Palermo, he became a renowned law professor and from 1897 sat in the Chamber of Deputies as a Liberal. When the government fell after the defeat at Caporetto in October 1917 he became prime minister, dismissed Cadorna and rebuilt the army, and the victory of Vittorio Veneto in 1918 earned him the name “Premier of Victory”. At the peace conference he demanded Dalmatia, promised by the Treaty of London, and Fiume, obtained neither, walked out in April 1919 and resigned in June. The “mutilated victory” helped Mussolini’s rise. He at first supported Mussolini but broke with him after the murder of Matteotti in 1924. He died in Rome in 1952.
Career timeline
1897–1925Deputy for Partinico
1907–1909Minister of Justice
1916Minister of the Interior
1917–1919Prime minister of Italy
1919One of the Big Four at the Paris Peace Conference
A Fascist power broker who helped bring down Mussolini
At 2 a.m. on 25 July 1943, the Grandi motion passed 19–8 and shattered Mussolini’s grip on power.
Dino Grandi was a leading Italian Fascist and diplomat who exercised power at the centre of the regime. As foreign minister and ambassador in London, he pursued a cautious diplomatic line toward war, but he also bore responsibility for administering the Fascist state and its policies. After the Allied invasion of Sicily, he drafted and organized the vote on the July 1943 motion calling on the king to resume constitutional command of the armed forces, helping bring about Benito Mussolini’s removal. He went into exile and was later sentenced to death in absentia by the Italian Social Republic’s Fascist tribunal.
Career timeline
1915–1919Served in World War I, studied law and economics, and began legal practice
1920–1922Leader in the Bologna Fascist movement and the National Fascist Party leadership
1924–1929Undersecretary of the Interior and Foreign Affairs
1929–1932Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs
1932–1939Italian ambassador to the United Kingdom
1939–1943Minister of Justice and president of the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations
1943Drafted and organized the Grand Council motion that removed Mussolini
1944Sentenced to death in absentia by the Italian Social Republic tribunal
A Fascist diplomat who became a witness to the regime's internal collapse
On 25 July 1943, Ciano voted for Grandi's motion, the act that helped bring down his father-in-law Mussolini.
Galeazzo Ciano was Mussolini's son-in-law and a leading diplomat of Fascist Italy who helped drive the regime's expansion and dependence on Germany before turning against a war he saw ending in catastrophe. He supported the Ethiopian war, the invasion of Albania, and the attack on Greece, while keeping diaries and diplomatic papers during his years as foreign minister. In July 1943 he voted for Dino Grandi's motion at the Fascist Grand Council, helping remove Mussolini, but miscalculated that his privileged position would survive the regime's change. After fleeing to Germany and being handed to the Italian Social Republic, he was executed after the Verona trial; his diaries remain a major record of Fascist responsibility and internal collapse.
Career timeline
1925After earning a law degree, entered the diplomatic service
1935–1936Minister of Press and Propaganda; served as a bomber pilot in the Ethiopian War
1936–1943Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Italy
1939Participated in signing the Pact of Steel with Germany
1943.02–07Ambassador to the Holy See
1943.07Voted for Grandi's motion at the Fascist Grand Council
1944.01Executed by firing squad after the Verona trial
Italian delegate at the Cominform founding who witnessed Stalin's telephone line, later turning from communist to anti-communist critic
"Stalin was its absolute master, without even condescending to put in an appearance. We were made conscious of this fact in the course of our debates by the existence of a direct telephone line between our Szklarska Poręba castle and the Kremlin." (1966 memoir)
An Italian communist politician and physician, he served as Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs in the postwar governments and as ambassador to Poland. As an Italian delegate to the 1947 Szklarska Poręba conference that founded the Cominform, his 1966 memoir became the most detailed eyewitness account of the proceedings, documenting Stalin's unseen control through a direct telephone line to the Kremlin and Zhdanov's pre-arranged attacks on the French and Italian parties for failing to seize power. He broke with the PCI in 1956 over the Soviet invasion of Hungary and spent his later decades as an anti-communist critic, founding the journal Corrispondenza Socialista.
Career timeline
1926Joined the Italian Communist Party (PCI)
1932Sentenced to 10 years by the Fascist Special Tribunal
1937–1939Editor of La Voce degli Italiani in Paris
1944–1947Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Bonomi, Parri, and De Gasperi governments
1945–1947Italian Ambassador to Poland
1947.09Italian delegate to the Szklarska Poręba conference that founded the Cominform
1948–1953Senator of the Italian Republic
1957Expelled from the PCI; co-founded Corrispondenza Socialista
