Mussolini pursued an aggressive foreign policy in the 1920s and 1930s driven by his egotism and desire to distract Italians from fascism's failures domestically. He had some early successes like occupying Corfu and Fiume that boosted his popularity. However, his invasion of Abyssinia damaged Italy's reputation and his involvement in the Spanish Civil War and alliance with Hitler led to humiliation and defeat. Ultimately, Mussolini's overconfidence in Italy's power led his foreign policy to fail and breed animosity among Italians.

1. HISTORY CAMBRIDGE AS (PAPER 2)
PRESENTATION 1 - EXAM ANSWER
1933-1939 MODULE

2. • Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Mussolini followed an inconsistent
political path in his early years. Initially more influenced by his
father (a blacksmith with revolutionary socialist views) than by his
mother (a school teacher and a devout Catholic), Mussolini
drifted into socialist politics and journalism.
• Between 1904 and 1910, he developed a reputation as a militant
as a result of articles in which he expressed traditional socialist
views. The First World War led him to make a dramatic switch to
extreme nationalism – which resulted in his expulsion from the
Socialist Party – and then to fascism. Mussolini became Italy’s first
dictator, ruling from 1922 until 1943.

3. • In October 1922, Benito Mussolini became prime minister of
Italy. In 1925, with the backing of his Fascist Party, he made
himself dictator and ruled Italy (or, from 1943 to 1945, just the
northern part of it) for the next 20 years.
• Yet just 75 years earlier, the newly unified state of Italy had
been created amidst hopes of building a modernised and
liberal nation. Ironically, it was arguably the liberals’ decisions
and methods of rule that – either unconsciously or consciously
– did much to make the rise of Mussolini’s Fascist Party
possible.

4. • Mussolini and his fascist state are important, historically and
politically, for a number of reasons. Mussolini claimed to have
invented fascism, and was the first ruler of a single-party fascist
state during the period between the two World Wars.
• In addition, his early ideas and political programmes, and his
party organisation and methods, were all influences on Adolf
Hitler who, in the early years of the formation of his Nazi Party
in Germany, was one of Mussolini’s strongest admirers.

5. • Acquire territory rich in resources: colonies (this gives
Mussolini more cash and power). Especially needed iron ore
and oil
• Prestige for Italy
• Dominate the Mediterranean – “Mare Nostrum” – our sea
• Acquire new lands for cultivation – grow grain, make bread
• Increase military spending – make Italy a strong global power
• Expand the Empire! Take Abyssinia – restore pride after Italy
was beaten in Adowa in 1886.
• Autarky – major point – make Italy self-sufficient: Mussolini
wanted Italy to be “free from the slavery of foreign bread”

6. • 1923 - Bombardment & Invasion of Corfu (Greece) after
assassination of Italian officials. LoN intervenes and Italy
withdraws – results in significant boost to Mussolini’s prestige
and Italy’s international reputation.
• 1924 - ‘Pact of Rome’ – Italy retakes control of disputed town of
Fiume from Yugoslavia – significant boost to Mussolini’s
internal prestige.
• 1925 - Locarno Pacts – dismantling some of the negative
outcomes of the ToV – portrayed inside Italy as another
significant international achievement.
• 1926-27- Albania – Mussolini installs a puppet regime in
Albania across the Adriatic.

7. • 1934 - Mussolini stands up to Hitler’s attempted invasion of
Austria to protect Italian Territory. Hitler back’s down.
• 1935 - Italy invades Abyssinia – Britain & LoN fail to intervene.
Italy takes control of country, but at considerable cost and not
much economic gain.
• 1936 - Spanish Civil War – Mussolini supports Franco with
troops and equipment, as does Hitler. The two dictators come
closer together.

8. • 1937 - Anti-Comintern Pact – Allies Germany, Italy & Japan
against Communist threats
• 1938 - Anschluss – Germany & Austria are joined. Mussolini does
not object
• 1939 - Pact of Steel – Formal military and strategic alliance
between Italy & Germany
• 1940 - Italy enters the war and suffers heavy defeats in North
Africa

10. • Mussolini's foreign policy from when he came into power after
the March on Rome 1922 until the beginning of World War Two
in September 1939 was motivated by three main aspects.
• The first was his egotistical attitude and unattainable aims for
foreign expansion after easy victories in 1934 and 1936. He
refused to accept that Italy did not have the power for excessive
foreign expansion and refused to believe that Italy was a third
rate European power.

11. • The second was his obsessive need to surpass Nazi Germany as
he could not allow himself to be overshadowed by a new fascist
power lest it reflect badly on him.
• The third was that Mussolini needed to distract the Italian people
from the failures of fascism. A 'short, sharp war' was needed to
convince the Italian people that Fascism was a success.
Throughout the 1920s and 30s until the start of World War Two,
this is what motivated the achievements and failures in his
foreign policy.

12. • In August 1923, four Italian diplomats were killed in Greece.
Mussolini demanded a public apology from the Greek
government and fifty million lire in compensation for the deaths.
• The Greek government refused to give in to his demands and
Mussolini sent troops to occupy the Greek island of Corfu in
retaliation.
• The League of Nations stepped in and demanded that the
Italians vacate Corfu immediately but also insisted that Greece
had to pay the money to the Italians.

13. • The actual occupation of Corfu cost the Italian economy thirty
million lire more than the compensation they were owed but the
Italian people were satisfied that Mussolini had stood his ground.
• They saw it as a great achievement for Italy internationally as
they believed Italy was always seen as a pushover nation.
• Mussolini promoted the event as a step towards Italy gaining the
respect he believed it deserved again.
• He gained immense popularity among his own people due to
this which encouraged him to expand his foreign policy further.

14. • Italy had also been promised the city of Fiume, which bordered
Yugoslavia, after World War One in the Treaty of London if they
agreed to switch sides during the war. Even though they did this, Italy
did not gain the territories it was promised and instead Fiume became
a League of Nations city instead. Many Italians were bitter about this
as it felt like they had been double crossed by the other Allied Forces.
• However, in 1923, Mussolini sent military officials to occupy Fiume
and claimed he was restoring order in the city and could not allow a
city so close to Italy to be chaotic as he claimed Fiume was. Yugoslavia
objected to this but could do little about it since France, Yugoslavia's
ally, was occupying the Ruhr Valley at the time. Nothing was done to
stop Mussolini. Fiume became an Italian city in 1924. After this victory,
he gained even more confidence in his handling of Italy's foreign
policy.

15. • Mussolini felt that, to be a strong European power, Italy must be
involved in as many multinational conferences and allegiances as
possible.
• He became a signatory to the Locarno Pact of 1925 and the
Kellog-Briand pact of 1928 which encouraged European powers
to discuss ways to solve future disputes peacefully without
resorting to violence.
• However, Mussolini was more concerned about the rapid growth
of Nazi Germany in the early 1930s when Hitler gained power.

16. • He strongly opposed any attempt by Hitler to unify with their
mutual neighbour, Austria as he felt threatened by the idea of
Germany sharing a much larger border with Italy in case of future
aggression.
• When the Austrian chancellor, Dollfuss, was assassinated by
Nazis in 1934, he sent troops up to the border with Austria as a
warning to Hitler not to use it as an opportunity to invade.
• After this, Mussolini set up the Stresa Front with Britain and
France to oppose German rearmament and expansion.

17. • In 1935, Mussolini decided to invade the African country of
Abyssinia. He was eager for a colonial conquest because Italians
were becoming more disillusioned with fascism’s corporate state.
• Abyssinia was primely located between two other Italian
colonies, Somaliland and Eritrea. It was also seen as revenge for
the humiliating Italian defeat against Abyssinia in 1896.
• Even though the Abyssinian army was primitive, the weak Italian
army still struggled to defeat them and eventually resorted to
brutality. The army infamously used poison gas on the civilian
population as well as the army.

18. • The League of Nations imposed sanctions on Italy because of
this but they were not severe enough to make much of an impact
and many countries simply didn't enforce them anyway.
• 400,000 troops with tanks and airplanes eventually succeeded in
conquering Abyssinia but it was at a great cost. Hitler supported
Mussolini with this as it distracted the League from his military
occupation of the Rhineland.
• As a result of this war however, Italy's international reputation
was severely damaged and the Stresa Front fell apart. Mussolini
withdrew Italy from the League of Nations in 1937.

19. • Mussolini also decided to involve Italy in the Spanish Civil War,
which lasted from 1936 to 1939.
• He wanted to both support the fascist dictator, Franco, and use
Spain as a testing ground for the Italian army.
• He met with the Spanish generals prior to the war to offer his aid
and it was accepted.
• Hitler and Stalin has similar ideas and all major communist and
fascist powers used Spain as a testing ground to test out their
own

20. • Mussolini sent 800,000 troops into the war. He hoped a fascist
victory would improve his prestige at home and internationally
and that it would increase domestic morale.
• However, the opposite was true. Italian troops were poorly
equipped and Franco held them in contempt and ultimately
blamed them for some of the major losses of fascism during the
war.
• Hitler too began to see serious problems with Mussolini's
bravado and came to view him as a second class fascist dictator,
holding him in disdain. Ultimately, Italy faced international
humiliation.

21. • After 1936, Mussolini became more dependent on Nazi Germany
for support. In October 1936, Count Ciano, Italian foreign
minister, signed the Rome-Berlin Axis.
• This was a statement of common German and Italian interests,
around which was presumed Europe would soon heed to. It was
presumed that all power in Europe would revolve around an axis
connecting Italy and Germany.
• Mussolini also signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan and
Germany in 1937 to vouch to fight against the spread of
communism.

22. • In 1939, the German-Italian alliance was strengthened to one of
military allegiance also.
• It was called the Pact of Steel and meant if one country went to
war, the other would also declare war on the opposing country.
• However when Hitler invaded Poland on the 1st of September,
1939, Mussolini did not honour this alliance.
• He refused to aid Germany in the war until German victory
seemed inevitable which made him look like a coward.

23. • Mussolini's foreign policy continued to breed humiliation for
Italy well into the war. Italy's involvement in World War Two was a
series of failures and defeats which caused not only Hitler's
contempt for him to increase but it also bred animosity among
his own people.
• In 1943, the Italian population overthrew him but he managed to
escape retribution until his execution in 1945.
• Ultimately, although Mussolini had some minor successes with
his foreign policy, his overconfident management of Italy
internationally was overall a large failure in his regime.

24. • Mussolini's foreign policy continued to breed humiliation for
Italy well into the war. Italy's involvement in World War Two was a
series of failures and defeats which caused not only Hitler's
contempt for him to increase but it also bred animosity among
his own people.
• In 1943, the Italian population overthrew him but he managed to
escape retribution until his execution in 1945.
• Ultimately, although Mussolini had some minor successes with
his foreign policy, his overconfident management of Italy
internationally was overall a large failure in his regime.