A riveting and fascinating biography of Benito Mussolini’s eldest daughter and favourite child, Edda.

The subtitle declares Edda to have been “The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe” and it’s worth pondering that for a moment. It’s a phrase that the author quotes from a newspaper, not her own opinion. Fascist ideology came with a conservative social mindset that wanted women to obey men, just as men should obey the state, and in the end everything and everyone served the Duce. As daughter of the dictator and wife of foreign minister Ciano, Edda was in the same position as the Roman ladies of old — she wielded influence, not power. Edda didn’t attempt to lead any political organisation. Caroline Moorehead describes how the dictator’s wife Rachele followed the lead of many second-tier fascists and ran her own network of spies and informers; not so Edda. There isn’t any suggestion that Edda set out to build a serious political network, or that she tried to read the official papers that her husband may or not have brought home. Edda did her best to safeguard Ciano’s professional diaries, and used them to secure her survival and make money, but Moorehead doesn’t mention Edda actually reading them, or what she thought of them. Edda was a social go-between, and when she travelled the distance between Hitler and Mussolini, she was important as such. But the evidence, to my mind, backs up her own claim that she was politically naive.

Her life played out as a tragedy in four acts.

First Act: A rather unhappy childhood in an at least initially poor family. Edda was the unwilling witness of the quarrels between her parents, as Benito Mussolini was a bad husband and father, serially adulterous and often absent, and the practically minded Rachele wasn’t inclined to back down. Moorehead’s sketch of the times gives more insight in the world of her parents, than that of the child, but this is inevitable.

Second Act: The zenith of Italian fascism, in which Benito covered the streets in monuments to and statues of himself, the new elites shamelessly enriched themselves through corruption, dissidents were thrown in jail, and the Duce decreed that there should be no mention in the press of his age and birthdays, outbreaks of disease, unhappiness, bad weather, or women in trousers. Edda accordingly lived a rich and privileged life, but Moorehead’s description doesn’t render it as a particularly happy life. As a husband, Galeazzo Ciano became a disappointment, and Edda would have divorced him if her father had not decided that adultery wasn’t grounds for divorce. (Of course he would have looked ridiculous if he had.) At least Ciano didn’t seem to mind Edda’s numerous affairs either, which suggests that he was less attached to double standards than most Italian men of his time. The son-in-law’s obsequiousness to the whims of the Duce annoyed his wife, who was far more independently minded. But she did play out her diplomatic role as she was sent out to improve relations with Berlin. The main story that is told in this book is one of decadence, nouveau riches mixing with impoverished aristocrats, heavy gambling, and malign gossip.

Third Act: Italy’s participation in WWII, which demonstrated the folly of spending all your money on marble and foreign adventures, instead of on building your (war) industry. Here Edda is presented as more naive than her husband, and a true believer in the victory of the Axis, while Ciano understood early on that this adventure was going to end very badly. In these chapters of the book, it must be said, it is clear that Moorehead is no military historian. The author adopts a dismissive attitude to the Italian war effort that has been corrected by the efforts of more recent historians who have documented that the Italians, though poorly equipped and badly led, often fought bravely and contributed more to the successes of the Axis than they usually get credit for. There are also some blunders in detail. But there is no denying that the writing was on the wall early on, and Edda seems to have respected the determination of Ciano to find a way out, which contributed to Mussolini’s fall in 1943. And which of course, eventually cost Ciano his life, as he was shot on 7 January 1944.

Fourth Act: Edda’s life on the run, initially as a rather unwelcome guest of the Swiss, but arguably continuing even after she was allowed to return to Italy, and soon enough allowed to freely choose her place of residence again. This is the part of her life in which Edda needed to fend for herself and her three children, as her husband was dead and her father soon would be. It’s true cloak-and-dagger stuff, full of narrow escapes and bizarre negotiations. Edda tried to use Ciano’s diaries as leverage, offering them in turn to the SS and the OSS. It is an enticing story but this account of so many illicit manoeuvres can be a bit confusing, and as a reader you have to wonder whether it is really all true, or some of it is part of the many myths and legends of the period. But Edda survived, if not without difficulty. She didn’t spend that much time in detention and much of it was fairly gentle: In hotels, in convents, in a luxury mental hospital, on an island. It was hardship for someone who had gotten accustomed to money and comfort, but a better life than many Italians had in a bombed-out, shot-up and impoverished country. And until her death in 1995, she lived out her life in peace.

“Illusion is perhaps the only reality in life,” Moorehead quotes a young Benito Mussolini at the end of the book. The years of fascism were years of mutual illusion, during which the people thought that they had a strong and wise leader, and the leader thought that he had obedient and martial people. In this biography, it is laid out in detail Edda’s relationships with the two most important men in her life were likewise founded on illusions. But somehow her bonds with her husband grew deeper and stronger in times of danger and hardship, while those with her father were shattered beyond repair. Nevertheless Edda never stopped believing in the myth of her father. Her personal tragedy didn’t mirror that of her nation, as she had a too strong personality for that, but Moorehead’s biography of Edda nevertheless reads like rich and illuminating account of the times. ( )

On 17 June 1934, Benito Mussolini’s daughter, Edda, presided over a fascist parade at Edgware Stadium in north London, flanked by the radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi and the Italian ambassador Dino Grandi. She was 23. Over 1,000 Italian children dressed up in the uniforms of the fascist youth groups Opera Nazionale Balilla and Avanguardisti and marched past the platform. The aim – as outlined in 1922 – was to ‘create in effect a new Italian empire’ using the ten million Italians abroad, those ‘in London in particular’. On that day, Edda Mussolini could not have foreseen that her host, Grandi, would play an instrumental role in bringing down her father. Nor that many of the children parading before her would cry over the loss of their fathers following Italy’s declaration of war on the United Kingdom in June 1940. Thousands of Italian civilians were interned as potential ‘dangerous characters’ and 470 were drowned when their passenger ship, the Arandora Star, was sunk by a German U-2 while en route to Canada in July 1940.

Edda was in London on a diplomatic mission. Mussolini wanted to be certain of Britain’s position before launching an attack against Ethiopia which would involve sending troops through the Suez Canal. She was to let the British government know about Italy’s ambitions and report back. In Caroline Moorehead’s gripping new book, we learn how she extracted a chilly green light from the prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald. Mussolini had reasons to be thankful to the glamorous emissary he had trained with a mixture of love and brutality since she was a child. She was his favourite. Even in her old age, Edda remembered how, when she was just three or four, her father put a frog in her hands. She had to squeeze it to keep it prisoner. She was told never to cry.

Moorehead’s meticulous research describes another of Edda’s diplomatic missions, this time to Germany, charged with establishing useful contacts. While there, she became an enthusiastic Nazi. An unbridgeable contrast ensued with her anglo-francophile husband, Galeazzo Ciano, who as Foreign Minister could not stop Mussolini from siding with Adolf Hitler. Edda wanted war at all costs.

Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.

Alfio Bernabei is the author of The Summer before Tomorrow (Castelvecchi, 2022).

I very much enjoyed this biography of Edda Mussolini -- Benito Mussolini's eldest, and most loved, child. The book describes her life, her relationship with her father, and the role she played as a "ambassador of fascism". The author examines how much influence Edda had over her father and events, and how much she was perceived to have. It looks at public attitudes toward her as Italy's defeat in WWII became evident and fascism was overturned. It is written in an engaging, accessible style. It provides context about Italy's domestic economy and politics and well as the broader geopolitical situation leading up to WWII. Recommended. ( )