The Guardian newspaper has reported that Italian dictator Benito Mussolini had a brief career as a British secret agent.



In 1917, Mussolini, then working as a journalist, was paid £100-a-week by security service MI5 to campaign for Italy to continue to fight alongside the allies in WWI.

'Britain's least reliable ally in the war at the time was Italy after the revolutionary Russia's pullout from the conflict,' Cambridge historian Peter Martland told the Guardian.

'Mussolini was paid £100-a-week from the autumn of 1917 for at least a year to keep up the pro-war campaigning - equivalent to about £6,000 (€6,440) today,' he added.

Mr Martland made the discovery as he studied papers belonging to Samuel Hoare, MI5's man in Rome at the time, who was in charge of some 100 British intelligence officers in Italy.

As well as publishing pro-war propaganda in his paper, Il Popolo d'Italia, Mussolini also reportedly agreed to send Italian army veterans to beat up peace protestors.

'It was a lot of money to pay a man who was a journalist at the time, but compared to the £4m Britain was spending on the war every day, it was petty cash,' Mr Martland said.

'I have no evidence to prove it, but I suspect that Mussolini, who was a noted womaniser, also spent a good deal of the money on his mistresses.'

The Fascist leader took power in 1922 and cooperated with German leader Adolf Hitler during WWII.

He was killed by Italian partisans in 1945.