Galeazzo Ciano - Foreign Minister

Foreign Minister

Ciano took part in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935–36) as a bomber squadron commander (his unit, 15ª squadriglia da bombardamento, was dubbed "La Disperata") where his future opponent Alessandro Pavolini served as lieutenant. Upon his highly-trumpeted comeback as a "hero" he became Foreign Minister in 1936, replacing Mussolini. The following year he was allegedly involved in organizing the murder of the brothers Carlo Rosselli and Nello Rosselli, two exiled anti-fascist major activists killed in the French spa town of Bagnoles-de-l'Orne on 9 June 1937. In 1937, prior to the Italian annexation, Count Gian Galeazzo Ciano was Honorary Citizen of Tirana, Albania.

Ciano was skeptical of Mussolini's war plans and knew that Italy's armed forces were ill-prepared for a major war. When Mussolini formally declared war on France, he wrote in his diary "I am sad, very sad. The adventure begins. May God help Italy!" After 1939, Ciano became increasingly disenchanted with Nazi Germany and the course of World War II, although when the Italian regime embarked on the ill-advised "parallel war" alongside Germany, he went along fairly convinced, even through the terribly-devised Italian invasion of Greece and its subsequent setbacks. Prior to the German campaign in France in 1940 Count Ciano leaked a warning of imminent invasion to neutral Belgium. In the spring of 1943 following the Axis defeat in North Africa, other major setbacks on the Eastern Front, and the Anglo-American assault on Sicily looming on the horizon, Ciano turned against prosecution of the doomed war and actively pushed for Italy's exit from the conflict. He was silenced by being removed from his post and reassigned as ambassador to the Holy See. In this role he could remain in Rome, to be watched closely by Mussolini. The Regime's position had become even more shaky with the coming summer, however, and court circles were already probing the Allies commands for agreements of some sort.

On the night of 24 July 1943, Mussolini summoned the Fascist Grand Council to its first meeting since 1939. At that meeting, Mussolini announced that the Germans were thinking of evacuating the south. This led Count Dino Grandi to launch a blistering attack on his longtime comrade. Grandi put on the table a resolution asking the king to resume his full constitutional powers—in effect, a vote leading to Mussolini's total ousting from leadership. The motion won by an unexpectedly large margin, 19-7, with Ciano voting in favor.

Mussolini did not think the vote had any substantive value, and showed up at work the next morning like any other day. That afternoon, Victor Emmanuel III, the King, summoned him to the palace and dismissed him from office. Upon leaving the palace, Mussolini was arrested. For the next two months he was moved from place to place to hide him and prevent his rescue by the Germans.

Ultimately Mussolini was sent to Gran Sasso, a mountain resort in central Italy (Abruzzo). He was kept there in complete isolation until rescued by the Germans. Mussolini then set up a puppet government in the area of northern Italy still under German occupation called the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (R.S.I.).