SOURCE: “Who Are the War Criminals?” in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: My Country Right or Left 1940-1943, edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1968, pp. 319-25.

Orwell was an English novelist, essayist, and journalist. In the following review of The Trial of Mussolini, which was originally published in the London Tribune, Orwell argues against both the sense and the effectiveness of a war crimes trial for Mussolini, noting that before the advent of World War II, the dictator received support from other European leaders.

On the face of it, Mussolini's collapse was a story straight out of Victorian melodrama. At long last Righteousness had triumphed, the wicked man was discomfited, the mills of God were doing their stuff. On second thoughts, however, this moral tale is less simple and less edifying. To begin with, what crime, if any, has...