Rodolfo Graziani

Rodolfo Graziani rose through the Royal Army as a dedicated fascist, consolidating Italian colonial control across North Africa in the 1920s and 1930s. In Libya he earned the nickname "the butcher of Fezzan" for methods that included hanging resistance leader Omar Mukhtar; in Ethiopia he ordered the Yekatit 12 massacre after surviving an assassination attempt in Addis Ababa in February 1937, a reprisal that killed thousands. His command of Italian North Africa ended in catastrophe during the 1940-41 British offensive, forcing his resignation. When Mussolini's regime fell in 1943, Graziani was the only Italian marshal who remained loyal, serving as Minister of Defence for the Italian Social Republic until the war's end. Ethiopia's attempts to prosecute him for war crimes were blocked; an Italian court gave him 19 years in 1950 for Nazi collaboration, but he served four months. He joined the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement in his final years, becoming its Honorary President in 1953.