mussolini was a world war i veteran. >> adolf history letter. >> he actually won the iron cross of firstand second class, an unusual distinction for an enlisted man in the german army. what a lot of these people carry especially on the german side was the fact that they were on the losing side and hitler was much more interested in reversing that, as well as his own expansionist ideas and so on and so forth. certainly wanted to reverse the versailles dictat as it was called in germany, and that sentiment appealed to other places as well. a lot of successor states that arose out of the autro-hungarian empire. germany is the only country that's powerful enough in europe by the time they make the jump in '38 to enable them to achieve that goal. all these people carry with them, you know, the memory of what happened in world war i. to one degree or another. >> michael, what about the politics? we talked about the international scene. we talked about the military tactics. we talked about how the world war ii generation was shaped by the first. but was there an aversion to war that comes out o

make up your mind, mussolini! it's ok, dad. where do you hide the oven mitts?ide them on a hook over the oven. all i see are pink puppets. those are the oven mitts! they're both lefties! have you been sitting there this whole time? uh, yeah. could you go in there and please take care of this? arthur: hey! hey, hey! those are mine!

. >> fascist dictator mussolini sought power and prestige. >> he is radical revolutionary. >> the allianceith hitler ultimately spelled his doom. >> there was great joy for the downfall of fascism. >> that's next on "war stories." >>> may,