in 1940 Stephen Lee identifies three major themes in Mussolini's foreign policy. The first was a continuation of the foreign-policy objectives of the preceding Liberal regime. Liberal Italy had allied itself with Germany and Austria and had great ambitions in the Balkans and North Africa. It had been badly defeated in
Ethiopia in 1896, when there was a strong demand for seizing that country. Second was a profound disillusionment after the heavy losses of the First World War. In the eyes of many Italians the small territorial gains from Austria-Hungary were not enough to compensate for the war's terrible costs, especially since countries, such as Poland and Yugoslavia, who contributed far less to the allied victory but received much more. Third was Mussolini's promise to restore the pride and glory of the old Roman Empire. Mussolini promised to revive Italy's status as a
Great Power in Europe, carving out a "New Roman Empire". Mussolini promised that Italy would dominate the
Mediterranean Sea. In propaganda, the Fascist government used the originally ancient Roman term (Latin for "Our Sea") to refer to the Mediterranean Sea. The Fascist regime increased funding and attention to military projects and began plans to create an
Italian Empire in Northern and Eastern Africa and reclaim dominance in the Mediterranean Sea and
Adriatic Sea. The Fascists launched wars to conquer
Dalmazia, Albania and Greece for the Italian Empire.
Africa in Italian Cyrenaica Throughout the Fascist period Italian colonial attitudes were characterised by a pettiness of attitude that came to be ridiculed internationally, and combined with Italy’s characteristic combination of limp-wristed beggaring of Great Britain and France for purely symbolic colonial concessions like
Jubaland or the
Aouzou Strip as bribes for good behaviour or ointment for a general sense of national inferiority, alongside a bombastic braggadocio that culminated in violent incursions into borderlands, racial hiérarchisation (after 1938 or so), and nihilistic atrocities inflicted upon indigenous people like the massacre after an assassination attempt on
Rodolfo Graziani of
Yekatit 12, Italian colonial rule may be cited as easily the least responsible of all the colonial powers, and symbolic of the wider culture of a nationalistic, peculiarly Italian petulant self-inflicted victimhood over having been wronged supposedly by Great Britain and France at the
Paris Peace Conference and in not having gathered sufficient colonial “
spazio vitale”. Colonial efforts in Africa began in the 1920s, as civil war plagued
Italian North Africa (, or ASI) and the Arab population there refused to accept Italian colonial government. Mussolini sent Marshal
Rodolfo Graziani to lead a
punitive pacification campaign against the Arab nationalists.
Omar al-Mukhtar led the Arab resistance movement. After a much-disputed truce on 3 January 1928, the Fascist policy in Libya increased in brutality. A
barbed wire fence was built from the Mediterranean Sea to the oasis of
Jaghbub to sever lines critical to the resistance. Soon afterwards, the colonial administration began the wholesale deportation of the people of the
Jebel Akhdar to deny the rebels the support of the local population. The forced migration of more than 100,000 people ended in concentration camps in
Suluq and
El Agheila where tens of thousands died in squalid conditions. It is estimated that the number of Libyans who died – killed either through combat or starvation and disease – was at least 80,000, including up to half of the Cyrenaican population. After resistance leader
Omar Al-Mukhtar was captured on 15 September 1931 and executed in Benghazi, the resistance petered out. Limited resistance to the Italian occupation crystallized around
Sheik Idris, the Emir of Cyrenaica. Negotiations on expanding the borders of the colony of Libya took place with the British government following similarly derisible concessions from the French Maghreb possessions in 1919 as a compensation for the unsatisfactory gains ofItaly in Europe following the
Paris Peace Conference.Similar concessions had already been made by the British
Colonial Office with Jubaland, formerly part of
British East Africa being attached to Italian Somaliland in 1924. Further negotiations began in 1925 to define the border between Libya and British-held
Egypt. These negotiations resulted in Italy gaining previously undefined territory in a chicanery of dubious value. In 1934, once again the Italian government requested more territory for Libya from British-held
Sudan. The United Kingdom allowed Italy to gain some territory from Sudan to add to Libya. However Italian East Africa was poorly defended and quickly overrun by
British Commonwealth,
Free French and Ethiopian resistance forces in May 1941 during the East African Campaign, restoring
Haile Selassie to the throne.
Racial laws on 11 November 1938: "Le leggi per la difesa della razza approvate dal Consiglio dei ministri''" (). Until 1938, Mussolini had denied any antisemitism within Fascist Italy and dismissed the
racial policies of Nazi Germany. However, by mid-1938 Hitler's influence over Mussolini had persuaded him to make a specific agenda on race, the Fascist regime moved away from its previous promotion of colonialism based on the spread of Italian culture to a directly race-oriented colonial agenda. In 1938, Fascist Italy passed the
Manifesto of Race which stripped Jews of their Italian citizenship and prohibited them from any professional position. The
Racial Laws declared that Italians were of the
Aryan race and forbid sexual relations and marriages between Italians and Jews or Africans. The final decision about the Racial Laws was made during the meeting of the
Gran Consiglio del Fascismo, which took place on the night between 6 and 7 of October 1938 in
Rome,
Palazzo Venezia. Not all Italian Fascists supported discrimination: while the pro-German, anti-Jewish
Roberto Farinacci and
Giovanni Preziosi strongly pushed for them,
Italo Balbo strongly opposed the Racial Laws. Balbo, in particular, regarded antisemitism as having nothing to do with fascism and staunchly opposed the antisemitic laws. The Fascist regime declared that it would promote mass Italian settlements in the colonies that would—in the Fascist government's terms—"create in the heart of the African continent a powerful and homogeneous nucleus of whites strong enough to draw those populations within our economic orbit and our Roman and Fascist civilization". Fascist rule in its Italian colonies differed from region to region. Rule in
Italian East Africa (, or AOI), a colony including Ethiopia, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, was harsh for the native peoples as Fascist policy sought to destroy native culture. In February 1937,
Rodolfo Graziani ordered Italian soldiers to pillage native settlements in
Addis Ababa, which resulted in hundreds of
Ethiopians being killed and their homes being burned to the ground. After the occupation of
Ethiopia, the Fascist government endorsed
racial segregation to reduce the number of mixed offspring in Italian colonies, which they claimed would "pollute" the Italian race. Marital and sexual relationships between Italians and Africans in its colonies were made a criminal offense when the Fascist regime implemented decree-law No. 880 19 April 1937 which gave sentences of one to five years imprisonment to Italians caught in such relationships. Fascist Italy embraced the "Manifesto of the Racial Scientists" which embraced biological racism and it declared that Italy was a country populated by people of Aryan origin, Jews did not belong to the Italian race and that it was necessary to distinguish between Europeans and Jews, Africans and other non-Europeans. The manifesto encouraged Italians to openly declare themselves as racists, both publicly and politically. Fascist Italy often published material that showed caricatures of Jews and Africans. In
Italian Libya, Mussolini downplayed racist policies as he attempted to earn the trust of Arab leaders there. Individual freedom, inviolability of home and property, right to join the military or civil administrations and the right to freely pursue a career or employment were guaranteed to
Libyans by December 1934. In 1939, laws were passed that allowed Muslims to be permitted to join the National Fascist Party and in particular the
Muslim Association of the Lictor () for Islamic Libya and the 1939 reforms allowed the creation of Libyan military units within the Italian Army.
Foreign policy The Fascist regime also engaged in an
interventionist foreign policy in Europe. In 1923, Italian soldiers captured the Greek island of
Corfu as part of the Fascists' plan to eventually take over
Greece. Corfu was later returned to Greece and war between Greece and Italy was avoided. In 1925, Italy forced Albania to become a
de facto protectorate which helped Italy's stand against Greek sovereignty. Corfu was important to Italian imperialism and nationalism due to its presence in the former
Republic of Venice which left behind significant Italian cultural monuments and influence, though the Greek population there (especially youth) heavily protested the Italian occupation. Relations with France were mixed: the Fascist regime consistently had the intention to eventually wage war on France to regain Italian-populated areas of France, but with the rise of Hitler the Fascists immediately became more concerned of Austria's independence and the potential threat of Germany to Italy, if it demanded the German-populated areas of
Tyrol. Due to concerns of German expansionism, Italy joined the
Stresa Front with France and Britain against Germany which existed from 1935 to 1936. This followed a previous treaty with the Soviet Union aimed against Germany: the
Italo-Soviet Pact. The Fascist regime held negative relations with Yugoslavia, as they long wanted the implosion of Yugoslavia in order to territorially expand and increase Italy's power. Italy pursued
espionage in Yugoslavia, as Yugoslav authorities on multiple occasions discovered spy rings in the Italian Embassy in Yugoslavia, such as in 1930. After Germany annexed
Czechoslovakia, Mussolini turned his attention to Albania. On 7 April 1939,
Italy invaded the country and after a short campaign, Albania was occupied, turned into a
protectorate and its parliament crowned Victor Emmanuel III
King of Albania. The historical justification for the annexation of Albania laid in the ancient history of the
Roman Empire in which the region of Albania had been an early conquest for the Romans, even before Northern Italy had been taken by Roman forces. However, by the time of annexation little connection to Italy remained amongst
Albanians. Albania was very closely tied to Italy even before the Italian invasion. Italy had built up heavy influence over Albania through the
Treaties of Tirana, which gave Italy concessions over the Albanian economy and army. The occupation was not appreciated by King Emmanuel III, who feared that it had isolated Italy even further than its war against Ethiopia.
Spain manning a
10 cm howitzer at
Guadalajara, 1937 As the conquest of Ethiopia in the
Second Italo-Ethiopian War made the Italian government confident in its military power, Mussolini joined the war to secure Fascist control of the
Mediterranean, supporting the Nationalists to a greater extent than Nazi Germany did. The
Royal Italian Navy () played a substantial role in the Mediterranean blockade, and ultimately Italy supplied machine guns, artillery, aircraft,
tankettes, the
Aviazione Legionaria, and the
Corpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV) to the Nationalist cause. The Italian CTV would, at its peak, supply the Nationalists with 50,000 men. In addition, the Italian air force made air raids of some note, targeting mainly cities and civilian targets. These Italian commitments were heavily propagandised in Italy proper, and became a point of fascist pride. Italian military for war and improve relations with the Catholic Church. It was a success that secured Italy's naval access in and out of the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean and its ability to pursue its policy of without fear of opposition by Spain. The other major foreign contributor to the Spanish Civil War was Germany. This was the first time that Italian and German forces fought together since the Franco-Prussian War in the 1870s. During the 1930s, Italy built many large battleships and other warships to solidify Italy's hold on the Mediterranean Sea.
Germany When the Nazi Party attained power in Germany in 1933, Mussolini and the Fascist regime in public showed approval of Hitler's regime, with Mussolini saying: "The victory of Hitler is our victory". The Fascist regime also spoke of creating an alliance with the new regime in Germany. In private, Mussolini and the Italian Fascists showed disapproval of the Nazi government and Mussolini had a disapproving view of Hitler despite ideological similarities. The Fascists distrusted Hitler's
Pan-German ideas which they saw as a threat to territories in Italy that previously had been part of the
Austrian Empire. Although other Nazis disapproved of Mussolini and Fascist Italy, Hitler had long idolized Mussolini's oratorical and visual persona and adopted much of the symbolism of the Fascists into the Nazi Party, such as the Roman, straight-armed salute, dramatic oratory, the use of uniformed paramilitaries for political violence and the use of mass rallies to demonstrate the power of the movement. In 1922, Hitler tried to ask for Mussolini's guidance on how to organize his own version of the "
March on Rome" which would be a "March on Berlin" (which came into being as the failed
Beer Hall Putsch in 1923). Mussolini did not respond to Hitler's requests as he did not have much interest in Hitler's movement and regarded Hitler to be somewhat crazy. Mussolini did attempt to read
Mein Kampf to find out what Hitler's
Nazi movement was, but was immediately disappointed, saying that
Mein Kampf was "a boring tome that I have never been able to read" and remarked that Hitler's beliefs were "little more than commonplace clichés". On 28 October 1937, Mussolini declared Italy's support of Germany regaining its colonies lost in
World War I, declaring: "A great people such as the German people must regain the place which is due to it, and which it used to have beneath the sun of Africa". With no significant opposition from Italy, Hitler proceeded with the , the annexation of Austria in 1938. Germany later claimed the
Sudetenland, a province of
Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by
Germans. Mussolini felt he had little choice but to help Germany to avoid isolation. With the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, the Fascist regime began to be concerned about the majority ethnic German population in
South Tyrol and whether they would want to join a
Greater Germany. The Fascists were also concerned about whether Italy should follow Nazi antisemitic policies in order to gain favor from those Nazis who had mixed feelings about Italy as an ally. In 1938, Mussolini pressured fellow Fascist members to support the enacting of antisemitic policies, but this was not well taken as a number of Fascists were Jewish and antisemitism was not an active political concept in Italy. Nevertheless, Mussolini forced through antisemitic legislation even while his own son-in-law and prominent Fascist
Count Galeazzo Ciano personally condemned such laws. In turn for enacting the extremely unpopular antisemitic laws, Mussolini and the Fascist government demanded a concession from Hitler and the Nazis. In 1939, the Fascists demanded from Hitler that his government willingly accept the Italian government's plan to have all Germans in South Tyrol either leave Italy or be forced to accept Italianization. Hitler agreed and thus the threat to Italy from the South Tyrol Germans was neutralized. As war approached in 1939, the Fascist regime stepped up an aggressive press campaign against France claiming that Italian people were suffering in France. This was important to the alliance as both regimes mutually had claims on France, Germany on German-populated
Alsace–Lorraine and Italy on Italian-populated
Corsica,
Nice and
Savoy. In May 1939, a formal alliance was organized. The alliance was known as the
Pact of Steel, which obliged Italy to fight alongside Germany if war broke out against Germany. Mussolini felt obliged to sign the pact in spite of his own concerns that Italy could not fight a war in the near future. This obligation grew from his promises to Italians that he would build an empire for them and from his personal desire to not allow Hitler to become the dominant leader in Europe. Mussolini was displeased with Germany's
invasion of Poland as he wanted to mediate the crisis, but decided to remain officially silent.
World War II Italy's military and logistical resources were stretched by successful pre-WWII military interventions in
Spain,
Ethiopia,
Libya, and
Albania and were not ready for a long conflict. Nevertheless, Mussolini went to war to further the
imperial ambitions of the Fascist regime, which aspired to restore the
Roman Empire in the Mediterranean (the ). Italy joined the war as one of the
Axis powers in 1940, entering after it appeared France was likely to lose to Germany. The
Italian invasion of France was brief and achieved modest gains only as the
French Third Republic surrendered shortly afterward. Italy readied to fight against the
British Empire in Africa and the Middle East, known as the "parallel war", while expecting a similar collapse of British forces in the
European theatre. The Italians
bombed Mandatory Palestine,
invaded Egypt and
occupied British Somaliland with initial success. The Italian military machine showed weakness during the 1940
Greco-Italian War, a war of aggression Italy launched unprovoked, but where the Italian army found little progress. German intervention during the
Battle of Greece would eventually bail the Italians out, and their grander ambitions were partially met by late 1942 with Italian influence extended throughout the Mediterranean. Most of Greece was occupied by Italy; Italians administered the French territories of
Corsica and
Tunisia following
Vichy France's collapse and
occupation by German forces; and a
puppet regime was installed in Croatia following the German-Italian
Invasion of Yugoslavia.
Albania,
Ljubljana,
coastal Dalmatia (for the presence of
Dalmatian Italians), and
Montenegro had been directly annexed by the Italian state. Italo-German forces had also achieved victories suppressing the partisans in Yugoslavia and had occupied parts of British-held Egypt on their push to
El Alamein after their victory at
Gazala. However, Italy's conquests were always heavily contested, both by various insurgencies (most prominently the
Greek resistance and
Yugoslav partisans) and Allied military forces, which waged the
Battle of the Mediterranean throughout and beyond Italy's participation. German and Japanese actions in 1941 led to the entry of the Soviet Union and United States, respectively, into the war, thus ruining the Italian plan of forcing Britain to agree to a negotiated peace settlement. Ultimately the Italian Empire collapsed after disastrous defeats in the
Eastern European and
North African campaigns. In July 1943, following the
Allied invasion of Sicily,
Mussolini was arrested by orders of King Victor Emmanuel III, and Badoglio became the new prime minister and formed a new government. Badoglio began to dismantle all Fascist organizations throughout Italy and the
National Fascist Party was disbanded. Italy's military outside of the Italian peninsula collapsed, its occupied and annexed territories falling under
German control. Italy
signed the armistice to the Allies on 3 September 1943. And on 29 September, Italy signed the
longer version of the armistice at Malta. Following Italy's surrender to the Allies, the
Italian Civil War began. The northern half of the country was occupied by the Germans with the cooperation of Italian fascists and became the
Italian Social Republic, a collaborationist puppet state still led by Mussolini that recruited more than 500,000 soldiers for the Axis cause. The south was officially controlled by monarchist forces, which fought for the Allied cause as the
Italian Co-belligerent Army (at its height numbering more than 50,000 men), as well as around 350,000
Italian resistance movement partisans (mostly former Royal Italian Army soldiers) of disparate political ideologies that operated all over Italy. On 28 April 1945, Mussolini was
executed by Italian partisans, two days before
Hitler's suicide. ==Anti-fascism during Mussolini's rule==