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I read Italian fairly well.
So it was easy enough to look up, in Italian.
The author of the line was Ignazio Pisciotta, an officer of Bersaglieri, serving as a staff officer at the Piave in 1918. He wrote the original grafitti. So on its face its Mussolini’s only at second hand.
However its not that simple. Mussolini, a veteran, led what amounted to a veterans movement, filled with, especially, ex-elite soldiers like the Arditi. A lot of the Great War military culture made its way into the fascist movement, including much of the wartime propaganda, and for that matter Italian fascism wasn’t much more than 19th century fanatical Italian nationalism-irredentism on steroids and out of patience.
This was a very common slogan of the regime, in fact it became a popular Italian saying. So its hard to say that there isn’t a fascist connection.
Of course the really silly thing is that people think anything of it. They quote Napoleon all the time, and he was a much nastier man than Mussolini.

People forget Mussolini was on the side of the Allies before he switched to Hitler. Mussolini was one of the “negotiators” who agreed to the Munich Accords right along with Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain and F. Daladier of France. I wonder if we would still hear all this noise about Mussolini if he hadn’t been bought off by Hitler.
Politics makes strange bedfellows. Stalin was only on the side of the Allies AFTER he was betrayed by Hitler in Operation Barbarossa.....Hitler’s invasion of Russia.

Um...did I say it was simple? Did I say there wasn’t a Fascist connection? I am saying the opposite. It didn’t start life as a Fascist quote, and it isn’t hanging in the shrine to this day as a Fascist quote.

My point is that there WAS a Fascist connection, just one based on common patriotism and not any of the Fascist distinctives.

By the way, I think your characterization of Fascism not being “much more than” 19th century patriotism on steroids completely misses the socialism/statism aspect.