In reality, Mussolini inherited one of Europe's slickest rail networks – largely rebuilt by Italian State Railways general manager Cavaliere Carlo Crova after the ravages of World War I – and if anything made it a bit worse. Today, the wry aside that "at least he made the trains run on time" is used to suggest that some measure of good can come out of something otherwise bad.

But amid the destruction of civil liberties, the list of war crimes, and the torture and murder of political opponents, Mussolini's Italy can't even claim that.

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