Italian Expansion 1933 1940 REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND

Italian Expansion 1933 -1940

• REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION It was not just Germany over which there was a change in alignments in Interwar Europe. Italy, too, was the center of alignment changes in Europe at the time. Italy had been on the winning side in WWI, but with little progress in the war on Italy’s part (but not without much loss of life), Italy did not get very much to show for her efforts at the Treaty of Versailles, and that caused wide-spread resentment amongst the Italians. Benito Mussolini was able to exploit this in Italy in much the same way that Hitler exploited it in Germany.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION Mussolini became Italian Prime Minister in 1922 and he had dreams if Italy becoming a great power in Europe once again. Italy had been the birthplace of the Roman Empire over 1000 years before, and Mussolini wanted to return Italy to such a status.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION Italy was anything but a great power in 1922. She had been given what have been described as the “crumbs from under the table” at the Treaty of Versailles.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION Mussolini had signed the Four Power Pact in 1933 which gave Italy, Germany, Britain and France equal standing amongst each other in Europe, at the same time as diminishing the standing of other European countries (and was regarded as the USSR as an anti-Soviet alliance).

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION It gave Mussolini’s Italy some recognition as a valid European power. Mussolini claimed from this to have given Europe leadership and a sense of growing power for Italy as the other countries came to

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION Mussolini also wanted extra territory, and he got it in Abyssinia (modernday Ethiopia). He invaded Abyssinia in 1935 and took it over in a very onesided conflict in which Abyssinian forces with pre -WWI weapons were no

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND The League of Nations condemned this AGGRESSION action and imposed sanctions –including oil. Britain and France took no further actions themselves however as they feared, in an over-estimation of Italy’s navy, Italian reprisals, and Britain even kept the Suez Canal open for Italy. Britain and France also agreed, in an attempt to end the fighting in Abyssinia, to give two large areas in Abyssinia to Italy and a gap in the middle of the country –the ‘corridor of camels’ -to Abyssinia.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND This plan, known as the Hoar-Laval AGGRESSION Plan (named after Britain and France’s Foreign Ministers failed and the fighting continued in Abyssinia. Two member nations of the League of Nations had negotiated with an aggressing nation forcing its will on a weaker nation, and the League of Nations’ sanctions had failed. Mussolini had gone against his fellow Europeans but he had got away with it.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND Despite the failure of the. AGGRESSION League of Nations’ sanctions, Mussolini brought Italy out of the League of Nations in 1937, and over time grew closer to Hitler and Nazi Germany. This was out of fear, as when Hitler became German Chancellor in 1933, Mussolini saw him as a threat – given He had publicly stated his desire for a reunion –or Anschluss with Austria –with which Italy had a common border.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION If Hitler became an enemy this could spell bad news for Italy. Mussolini and Hitler were further brought together by similar foreign policy aims e. g. territorial gains. They both supported Franco in the Spanish Civil War for which they both sent their own ‘volunteers’ to fight on his side.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION A formal alliance was signed between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany on 21 st October 1936. This became known as the Rome-Berlin Axis. They were now bound to both follow a common foreign policy. In September 1937 Mussolini visited Hitler in Berlin, during which Hitler gave Mussolini a fine military display, by which he was greatly impressed.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION Hitler had gone up in Mussolini’s ratings by a long way from the ‘silly little monkey’ as which Mussolini had dismissed him in 1933. Mussolini had become convinced that Nazi Germany was the country to side with and not Britain or France. Hitler had originally

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION By 1937 however the shoe was on the other foot! Nazi Germany was the dominant power in Europe now and Mussolini knew it! Mussolini therefore aimed to side with Nazi Germany to bolster Italy’s own

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION In 1938 Hitler took Austria (the Anschluss) without warning Mussolini was powerless to do anything. It was clear that Fascist Italy was the junior partner in the Hitler. Mussolini partnership.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION In the summer of 1938 Europe was faced with war over the Sudetenland crises (the Sudetenland was the territory taken off Germany by the Treaty of Versailles that was given to Czechoslovakia). It was Mussolini who, against

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND This meeting ended in the AGGRESSION Munich Agreement which British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain prematurely claimed brought “peace in our time”. Mussolini got the credit for this and it put him at the peak of his popularity. In the eyes of many it made him Europe’s savior, which in turn Mussolini assumed made him Europe’s premier statesman.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND When Hitler violated. AGGRESSION the terms of the Munich Agreement and invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 Mussolini was angered. Hitler was clearly carving an empire for himself when Mussolini was not! Mussolini made up for this by taking Albania on Good

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND To Mussolini this was. AGGRESSION a sign of Italy’s expanding power in Europe, although this was not much a triumph considering that Albania had been under Italian influence for years before then. Mussolini also let it be known to Hitler that he wanted a sphere of influence in the Adriatic.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION Hitler and Mussolini’s alliance was cemented by the Pact of Steel in May 1939.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION Both countries were hereby committed to support each other if one or the other went to war. The Italian Foreign Minister, Galleazo Ciano (who was also Mussolini’s son-in-law) saw that this pact was potentially highly damaging for Italy but Mussolini was more interested in the prestige of allying with Europe’s most dominant power rather than the politics of it.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND He felt very committed. AGGRESSION to the pact and as such, he felt that the Nazi- Soviet Non-Aggression Pact applied just as much to him as to Hitler – even though Italy did not sign it! Hitler and Mussolini sign the Pact of Steel in May 1939.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION Mussolini was very fickle in his alignments. He wanted to be on the side that would enable him to realize his goal of a great Italy. He first sided with Britain, France, and Germany in the Four Power Pact, having got little from them at Versailles in 1919.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION He then sided specifically with Germany out of fear following Germany’s Anschluss with Austria in 1938, and also out of realization that Nazi Germany was the big European power by 193839.

REALIGNMENT BY IDEOLOGY AND AGGRESSION Despite this, Mussolini did not bring Italy into WWII until June 1940 when it looked like Nazi Germany would indeed win and she had taken all of Western Europe. Mussolini was clearly out for himself and he would change alliances as many times as it took to get Italy where he wanted her in the world.