Italian Foreign Policy in The Interwar Period 1918-1940

ITALIAN FOREIGN POLICY
IN THE
INTERWAR PERIOD
ITALIAN FOREIGN POLICY
IN THE
INTERWAR PERIOD
19181940
H. James Burgwyn
Praeger Studies of Foreign Policies of the Great Powers
B.J.C. McKercher and Keith Neilson, Series Editors
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burgwyn, H. James, 1936
Italian foreign policy in the interwar period 19181940 / H. James
Burgwyn.
p. cm. (Praeger studies of foreign policies of the great
powers, ISSN 10908226)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0275948773 (alk. paper)
1. ItalyForeign relations19141945. I. Title. II. Series.
DG568.5.B87 1997
327.45dc20 9643874
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright 1997 by H. James Burgwyn
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 9643874
ISBN: 0275948773
ISSN: 10908226
First published in 1997
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
TM
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.481984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Phil Cannistraro,
to my son Ted, second baseman,
and to baseball coach and friend, Barclay Reynolds
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
Abbreviations xix
1. Italy at the Paris Peace Conference 1
2. Mussolini in Power 17
3. Italian Revisionism 35
4. The Grandi Era 57
5. 1933: Annus Diabolicus 71
6. Mussolinis Danubian Strategy 87
7. Italys Imperialist Adventure 101
8. The Italian Empire: A Hollow Triumph 125
9. The Dictators Converge 145
viii Contents
10. Consolidation of the Axis 173
11. War 199
Conclusion 221
Bibliography 231
Index 237
Acknowledgments
My book rests on both original sources and secondary works. I could never
have written this study without the insights and analytical power of the
true masters of Italian diplomatic history, most notably Renzo De Felice,
Denis Mack Smith, Alan Cassels, Jens Petersen, Ennio Di Nolfo, and
George Baer. I also owe incalculable gratitude to a number of people who
kindly read drafts of my manuscript. Philip V. Cannistraro was not only
indefatigable in readingand rereadingchapters but allowed his phone
to hum endlessly with talk on the intricacies of Benito Mussolinis foreign
policy and his puzzling character. Carole Fink saved me from embarrassing
mistakes in fact and interpretation by her meticulous reading; Diana Burg-
wyn purged the text of its worst grammatical errors and awkward phra-
seology; and Alex De Grand lent helpful suggestions on how to make better
linkages and achieve a clearer interpretation of Mussolinis diplomacy. Fi-
nally, I want to thank Brian McKercher and Keith Neilson, the editors of
this series on Great Power diplomacy between the wars, for asking me to
write the contribution on Italy. Needless to say, I take full responsibility
for whatever errors and shortcomings remain.
Introduction
This book will review Italian diplomacy from the Paris Peace Conference
of 1919 to Italys entrance into the war on the side of Nazi Germany on
10 June 1940. From the cataclysm of the Great War, Italy passed through
a rancorous peace conference tangled in controversies with its wartime al-
lies, Britain, France, and the United States. Although it had beneted im-
mensely from the dissolution of the Habsburg empire, its hereditary enemy,
Italy faced the peace unhappily. Its other longtime enemy, France, strength-
ened by victory over Germany, now seemed poised to bar Italy from its
rightful spheres of inuence in the Balkans, along the Danube, and in Af-
rica. Italian nationalists emerged from the Paris Peace Conference with the
feeling that ungrateful allies had denied their valorous nation its rewards.
Such nationalists articulated these feelings of resentment in terms of Italys
mutilated victory, and they prepared to seek revenge against these erst-
while allies. The wartime alliance was in tatters, the coalition partners af-
icted by clashing interests and different perspectives. In the immediate
postwar era, Italy inclined toward a policy of equidistance among the Great
Powers.
The resentful mood gripping Italy after 1919 deeply affected the psyche
of Benito Mussolini. When the Duce of Italian Fascism came to power in
1922, he challenged the status quo established by the Paris Peace Confer-
ence, which he saw as a French hegemony, and oriented his country toward
the defeated powers of the war. Mussolini aimed to restore Italys pride
and prestige in two major ways: rst, by carving out spheres of inuence
in the Balkans and along the Danube under the guise of treaty revision and,
xii Introduction
second, by founding an empire in Africa. There was nothing particularly
Fascist about these ambitions, for liberal statesmen in earlier eras, such as
Francesco Crispi and Sidney Sonnino, had pursued similar imperialist ob-
jectives. Moreover, many of Mussolinis ideas regarding behavior among
states were not invented by himself or by Fascist theoreticians but were
instead appropriated from the nationalists creed. In a world of struggle
dominated by the law of the jungle, Italy must be among the ttest in the
wars that were bound to be fought over the worlds diminishing resources.
As an up-and-coming proletarian nation, Italy must assert its rights to a
fairer distribution of territory and resources with the plutocratic Western
Powers. Demography provided Mussolini with a potent argument for ex-
pansion. Virile and prolic Italy, in search of overseas colonies to
absorb its surplus population, would prevail over the democratic dying
nations. Permanent struggle among imperialists and war as the supreme
test of the national will to power were inescapable characteristics of the
Social Darwinist notion that a nation must either expand or die. The
desire to generate a warlike spirit in order to raise the morale of a people
dishonored for centuries lay behind the evocation, widely heard during the
Risorgimento, of the military glory of the ancient Romans. Mussolini was
certainly not the rst to preach that Italians should be the teachers of war
to the world. Impressed by the brutal Realpolitik of Otto von Bismarck,
leading Italian statesmen of the liberal era summoned the nobler passions
as a remedy for the moral diseases produced by centuries of servitude and
a recent past of shameful military defeats, such as those at Custoza and
Lissa, inicted on the newly forged nation by a vengeful Austria in 1866.
Nonetheless, fragility and persistent regionalism haunted those who aspired
to greatness. Many conservative Italian statesmen were gripped by the fear
that Italy would never survive, let alone be fused into a nation, and that
the prestige of authority would never truly be grounded on a solid basis,
except by means of a victorious and heroic war. This was a visible thread
that ran through Italian diplomacy from the Risorgimento to Fascisms nal
overthrow.
1
To this legacy of Italian nationalism Mussolini applied his own idiosyn-
cratic personality. He strutted, bluffed, and constantly talked of war and
conquest. But, unlike Adolf Hitler, who single-mindedly pursued his uto-
pian vision of Lebensraum and Blood and Soil (the conquest of territory
cleansed of inferior peoples), Mussolini wrote no handbook like Mein
Kampf as his blueprint for action. Italy was simply too weak and the Duce
too much a believer in action based on expediency and day-to-day interests
for any preordained doctrine or xed program to dictate his diplomacy.
Mussolinis foreign policy was not driven by ideology. Rather, now and
then, depending on circumstances and the particular issue (i.e., Austria),
ideological predispositions inuenced his decisions. Instead of being guided
by a Hitler-like Weltanschauung, the Duce would write his own chapters
Introduction xiii
on revisionism and imperialism as he went along. Fascist foreign policy was
never static but underwent changes over time as Mussolinis personality
and the nature of the regime evolved. Now and then, Mussolini abided by
the customary canons of the balance of power and pursued national inter-
ests within the limits of Italian power: traditional Realpolitik. But this was
a static concept that the Duce ultimately rejected in favor of a dynamic
policy. If Mussolini lacked a clearly dened strategy, he did have expan-
sionist goals that remained constant and were never forgotten. Time and
circumstances would inform him when to headline and pursue themor
when to back off. He might even avoid war in the hope that intimidation
would sufce to cause territorial gain to fall into his lap.
During the 1920s, the major theme in Mussolinis foreign policy was
revisionism. By resorting to covert operations and to support of selective
treaty revision for the benet of the defeated powersand he regarded Italy
in their campthe Duce hoped to shake up the status quo in Southeastern
Europe for the expansion of Italian power and inuence. But various con-
straints caused Mussolinis revisionism to be halting and relatively innoc-
uous: his newness on the job, preoccupation with domestic concerns,
reliance on the international economy for the stability of the lira, and a
lack of military power to supplant France as the predominant force in the
Balkans and along the Danube. In fact, thanks to Mussolinis anti-
Bolshevism, many European conservative circles during the 1920s viewed
him as a good European rather than as a saboteur of the existing order.
After a short interlude between 1929 and 1932, when Dino Grandi pre-
sided over the Italian foreign ministry, during which time Italy ostensibly
practiced a peace policy, Mussolini broke new ground. Straying from the
canons of Realpolitik, he launched a crusade against Austrian Social De-
mocracy, which marked the rst instance when ideology began to harm
national interests. Undoubtedly, Mussolini was a stalwart opponent of An-
schluss, the prevention of which was key to Italys security in Europe. Yet,
since his policy was highly biased in favor of authoritarian government in
Vienna, he eventually undermined Austrias ability to escape the magnet of
Pan-Germanism and Nazi Germanys relentless Anschluss pressure by co-
operating with rightist forces in the country to destroy the Social Demo-
cratic party, a strong pillar supporting Austrian independence after the rise
of Hitler. Meanwhile, imperialism lay hidden under the cover of European
cooperation within the framework of a Four Power Pact and disarmament.
In December 1934, Mussolini sensed that the timing was right for Italy to
begin full mobilization for a massive strike in Africa.
When Mussolini launched the invasion of Ethiopia in October 1935, the
Western Powers censured him for violating the territorial integrity of a
fellow member of the League of Nations, but they did nothing to halt
Italian aggression except to apply meaningless sanctions. With foreign oil
freely owing to replenish Italys reserve stocks and the British navy steer-
xiv Introduction
ing clear of Italian supply lines, Mussolini was able to mount a crushing
victory over the hapless forces of Emperor Haile Selassie. Braggadocio had
been followed by solid achievement. Mussolini prided himself on having
successfully deed the West but felt insulted when his newly established
Roman empire did not receive immediate recognition from London and
Paris. Instead of affording him respect, the Western Powers dismissed the
Duce as an irresponsible warmonger who was picking on a defenseless
people and neglecting his duty as sentinel of the Brenner Pass against a
Nazi-orchestrated Anschluss. Here the morality becomes blurred, with con-
servative statesmen portraying Mussolinis aggression against Ethiopia as
setting a dangerous precedent for Hitler while overlooking their own im-
perialist conquests in earlier centuries. Did not Italy have a right to an
empire? And what were the Western Powers doing to help Mussolini defend
Austria? The Duce did not overlook such double standards, and neither
did the Italian people.
After the creation of the Italian empire in May 1936, Mussolini stood at
the crossroads. He could choose an anti-German front with the Western
Powers, an alliance with the Third Reich, or the role of balancer between
them. The latter had long been Mussolinis preferencehis much-vaunted
decisive weight (peso determinante) strategyby which he would
threaten alignment with Berlin in order to extract colonial concessions from
the Western Powers. To be successful in pursuing this strategy, however,
Mussolini needed maneuverability and power. He never really had either,
but, by 1936, ironically at the peak of his domestic popularity and military
success, his maneuverability was severely cramped when the Third Reich
took a giant step toward Anschluss by signing a Gentlemans Agreement
with Austria on 11 July. Mussolinis acquiescence in Hitlers deed marked
the beginning of Italian appeasement of Germany. Morever, after Mussolini
launched the invasion of Ethiopia, certain themes that can be described as
quintessentially Fascist began to affect his diplomacy: a hatred of de-
mocracy, Free Masonry, Marxism, and the growing belief that the Western
Powersthe plutocratic imperialistswere fatally aficted by corrup-
tion and falling populations. When fused with the earlier resentments about
Italys mutilated victory, these Fascist themes distorted and perverted Mus-
solinis understanding of Italian national interest and undermined his own
policy of equidistance.
During the latter part of July 1936, Mussolini undertook an ill-advised
intervention on the side of the insurgent general, Francisco Franco, against
the Republican government in Madrid. Instead of the expected speedy cam-
paign, Italy got bogged down in the quicksand of civil war. Rather than
assume a low prole and buy time for Italy to recuperate from the long
and exhausting campaigns in Ethiopia and Spain, the Duce grew ever more
belligerent. Condent that he was marching from victory to victory, he fell
victim to his own propaganda that the Western Powers, having become
Introduction xv
decadent and supine, would not be able to stand up to the totalitarian
powers. While Mussolini contemplated further aggressive moves in the
Mediterranean in February 1938, Hitler marched unopposed into Austria
the following month. What else could Mussolini do but put the best face
on Hitlers daring fait accompli? From that point on, Italy was trapped in
Germanys military iron cage. This reality was concealed from view when
Mussolini postured as an impartial mediator who was saving the peace
by chairing the Munich Conference in September 1938, which allowed Hit-
ler to annex the Sudetenland at the expense of the ill-fated Czechoslovaks,
left in the lurch by their ally France and by appeasement-minded Britain.
Thanks to the Italian aggression in Ethiopia and Spain, London and Paris
became ever more estranged from Fascist Italy. Mussolini attempted to
recapture a balancing role in Europe and parity with Germany by signing
the Pact of Steel with Hitler on 22 May 1939. But parity in the Axis was
the Duces own peculiar myth. What had been a strictly tactical gambit to
restrain Hitler and achieve Italys decisive weight went completely awry
when France refused to be intimidated into yielding him concessions in the
colonial realm.
When Hitler launched World War II in September 1939 by marching
into Poland without prior consultation with Rome, Mussolini had to face
the bitter truth that Italy was in no position to ght. The best he could do
was to eschew neutrality in favor of nonbelligerency, a formula devised to
convince Hitler that Italy, though standing on the sidelines, had not broken
with the Axis. But there was opportunism too. Mussolini intended to bide
his time in order to see who would win or, in the event of a stalemate (in
his mind, the best of all worlds), to step in as a mediator. The exhaustion
of the combatants would leave Italy as the real peso determinante, posi-
tioned to demand large territory as a reward for negotiating a cessation of
hostilities. Only after the Germans unexpectedly mauled the French armies
in May 1940 did Mussolini, nally convinced that the Fu hrer was well on
his way to victory, descend into war on 10 June on the side of the Third
Reich. Rather than being ideologically attracted to Nazi Germany, Mus-
solini threw in his lot with Hitler out of lust for glory and a determination
not to be cut out of the spoils of victory. Haunted by the distasteful mem-
ory of 1914, when Italy betrayed its Triple Alliance partners by declaring
neutrality, Mussolini would honor his word to the Fu hrer while escaping
German retribution.
Once having intervened, the Duce undertook a parallel war in the
Balkans and Mediterranean to counter Germanys domination of Europe,
a strategy destined to fail given Italys glaring military weakness. Indeed,
throughout the Fascist era, the Duce played over his head; his will to ex-
pand and wage war caused him to overlook the reality that Italys industrial
base was far too narrow and technologically decient to produce modern
armaments on the mass scale needed for warfare against any other Euro-
xvi Introduction
pean Great Power. Furthermore, Mussolini was unable to overcome the
power voids with clever diplomacy. Instead, he turned a blind eye toward
Germany, indulged in an illusory peso determinante strategy, and unreal-
istically carried out a parallel war to preserve a separate identity from Hit-
ler.
A spirited historical debate still rages among leading scholars over the
nature of Mussolinis foreign policy. Among his severest critics is Mac-
Gregor Knox, who has described an aggressively ideological Duce, bent on
imperialism and war against the Western Powers as a prelude to a Fascist
revolution at home by the elimination of the monarchy, Church, and Italys
traditional elites.
2
Along the lines originally delineated by Gaetano Salve-
mini,
3
Knox has argued that the particular character of Fascism imparted
an aggressive dynamism to Mussolinis foreign policy that in the long run
created a qualitative difference between the foreign policies of Fascist Italy
and the Western Powers. Unlike the Realpolitik of Britain and France, Mus-
solinis Italy, especially after Hitler came to power, proceeded along a pre-
determined course toward imperialist goals and eventually war, propelled
by the rigorous and inexorable logic of the Fascist creed. Along these same
lines, Denis Mack Smith has ascribed to Mussolini a preponderant role in
Italian foreign policy and dismissed him as a buffoon, a reckless adventurer
playing out of his league.
4
As opposed to Knoxs essentially deterministic
view of Fascist foreign policy, Renzo De Felice has argued that Mussolini
was essentially a pragmatist and that therefore Italys choice of allies and
enemies was still open as late as the spring of 1940.
5
There is perhaps middle ground between these two radically different
schools of thought. Mussolini was indeed bent on imperialism, but he was
galvanized not so much by clearly dened ideological precepts as by am-
bition. When he popped off about waging war, this action reected less
missionary faith than a desire to intimidate or impress. Mussolinis ability
to win the admiration of people like Winston Churchill and Austen Cham-
berlain attests to his adroit posturing rather than buffoonery and downright
silliness. De Felice, who has written perhaps the most nuanced and bal-
anced, if sometimes contradictory, study of Mussolini, has gone too far in
the other direction by emphasizing Mussolinis ultimate intention of gaining
redress of Italys historic grievances by dragooning Britain and France to
the negotiating table for an across-the-board and binding settlement, par-
ticularly in the years leading up to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Fur-
thermore, De Felices interpretation that Mussolini kept his options open
by practicing a shrewd decisive weight and equidistance strategy is
questionable. This interpretation has been carried to an extreme by one of
his students, who has argued that the Duce was thwarted in his balancing
act by Perdious Albion, which, in refusing to cut an equitable deal with
Fascist Italy, bears joint responsibility for pushing Mussolini into Hitlers
camp.
6
Introduction xvii
The view presented here is somewhat different. Rather than being
grounded on cleverly implemented Realpolitik, Mussolinis endeavor to act
as the decisive weight in Europe was at once beyond Italys means and
carried out by a third-rate Machiavellian. Moreover, Mussolinis equidis-
tance was never even-handed and impartial. The Duce was capable of
intimate ties with Nazi Germany but never of rapprochement with the
Western Powers. Drawn toward authoritarian regimes, he was repelled by
democratic states. In this broader sense, Knox had a point, although he
overstated his case: Ideological prejudice did affect the conduct of Mus-
solinis diplomacy, although not as consistently as he would have us believe.
De Felice had it right when he questioned whether Mussolini was driven
by an ideological imperative to wage war against the Western Powers. If
Fascist ideology had always been the master over Realpolitikor the in-
competent diplomacy that stood for itthe Duce might well have taken
the eld against Britain and France alone after his conquest of Ethiopia or
against them on the side of Nazi Germany in September 1939. Although
never ceasing to bear old grudges against the Western Powers or relinquish-
ing his contempt for their democratic systems, the Duce descended into the
conict on 10 June 1940 not out of ideological motives but because he had
been overtaken by events. Mussolinis Fascist ideology in the realm of
foreign policy was anything but a tightly dened catechism; it was rather
a loose and shifting combination of biases and historical resentments that
were exacerbated by his volcanic and contradictory personality. His ex-
pansionist foreign policy objectives were originally set not by Fascists but
by nationalists. Mussolini, to be sure, applied his own tono fascista and
couched his imperialism in Fascist terms. Within these fuzzy parameters of
ideological inuence, Mussolinis foreign policy often revealed decided in-
consistency and improvisation. He was given to oscillation between a re-
alistic assessment of the balance of forces and gusts of passion triggered by
ambition and fear. Sometimes he believed his own propagandaor ideol-
ogyand sometimes he was stricken by doubts. Much depended on the
behavior and reactions of other governments toward Italy. De Felice, in his
seven weighty volumes of biography, has made a major contribution by
telling us what made Mussolini tick. Minutely dissecting the Duces mind
and policies, De Felice has described a decision maker who was often in-
secure. Behind a veil of imperturbability, Mussolini constantly backslid,
temporized, or swaggeredbehavior hardly dictated by fundamental ide-
ological principles, beyond the desire to achieve glory through war.
Ultimately, Mussolini found himself painted into the same uncomfortable
corner as Hitler, thanks to an ideological predisposition informed by his-
torical resentments and prompted to activism by a megalomaniacal drive
to be the modern-day Caesar. What follows is a description of the tortuous
Italian odyssey from disgruntled victor in the Great War to reluctant ally
of Hitlers Germany in World War II. During that odyssey, Mus-
xviii Introduction
solinis diplomacy was punctuated by opportunism, occasionally astute cal-
culation, contradiction, overblown aims, impetuosity, and a growing ight
from reality caused by the habit of viewing problems through the distorting
lens of ideological stereotypes.
NOTES
1. For a brilliant discussion of this theme, see Federico Chabod, Italian Foreign
Policy: The Statecraft of the Founders (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1966).
2. MacGregor Knox, Conquest, Foreign and Domestic, in Fascist Italy and Nazi
Germany, Journal of Modern History 56 (1984): 157; MacGregor Knox, For-
eign Policy and its Wars: An Anti-Anti-Fascist Orthodoxy? Contemporary Eu-
ropean History 4: 1 (1995): 34765; MacGregor Knox, Il fascismo e la politica
estera italiana, in Richard Bosworth and Sergio Romano, eds., La politica estera
italiana (18601985) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1991): 29399; MacGregor Knox, Mus-
solini Unleashed 19391941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
3. Gaetano Salvemini, Mussolini diplomatico, 19221932 (Bari: Laterza, 1952);
Gaetano Salvemini, Prelude to World War II (London: Victor Gollancz, 1953).
4. Denis Mack Smith, Mussolinis Roman Empire (London and New York:
Longman, 1976).
5. Renzo De Felice, Mussolini il duce, vol. 1, Gli anni del consenso 19291936
(Turin: Einaudi, 1974). Renzo De Felice, Mussolini il duce, vol. 2, Lo Stato total-
itario 19361940 (Turin: Einaudi, 1981).
6. Rosaria Quartararo, Roma tra Londra e Berlino: La politica estera fascista
dal 1930 al 1940 (Rome: Bonacci, 1980).
Abbreviations
ADAP Akten zur Deutschen Auswa rtigen Politik, 19181945,
followed by series, volume, and document number
AMAE Archives du Ministe`re des Affaires E
trange`res, Serie Europe

19181929, Paris. Unpublished documents from various
subseries identied by name of country.
AMAE FN France, Archives du Ministe`re des Affaires E
trange`res.
Fonds Nominatifs. Unpublished private papers.
ARR Archives repatriees de Rome, located in the Archives du
Ministe`re des Affaires E
trange`res, Paris
ASMAE Archivio Storico del Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Italy,
followed by the le AA (Ambasciata Austriaca), by the le
AP:A (Affari Politici), or by the microlm le FL (Fondo
Lacellotti), Rome
DBFP Documents on British Foreign Policy, 19191939, followed
by series, volume, and document number
DDF Documents diplomatiques francais, followed by series,
volume, and document number
DDI Documenti Diplomatici Italiani, followed by series, volume,
and document number
DGFP Documents on German Foreign Policy, 19181945,
followed by series, volume, and document number
FO Foreign Ofce, Public Records Ofce, London
xx Abbreviations
FRUS Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United
States
GD Grandi Diary, 19291932, on microlm, Georgetown
University
GFM German Documents, World War II collection of seized
enemy records, T120, National Archives, Washington,
D.C.
KU
M Hungarian National Archives

NPA Neues Politisches Archiv (Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv),
Vienna
OO Opera Omnia di Benito Mussolini, Edoardo and Duilio
Susmel, eds., 37 vols. (Florence: La Fenice, 1952).
WW The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Arthur S. Link, ed., 63
vols., ongoing (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press).
CHAPTER 1
Italy at the Paris Peace Conference
THE END OF THE WAR
When the Great War broke out in 1914, only a few foresaw that Europe
had launched itself into a catastrophe. Most of the participants had antic-
ipated a brief war and a quickly negotiated peace. Instead, stalemate and
a war of attrition ensued. As casualties mounted, the nations of Europe
blamed their suffering on the inherent evil of their adversaries. The old
cabinet diplomacy with its concepts of limited war aims gave way to pa-
triotic zealotry. Compromise could bring no real peace; the enemy now had
to be crushed. No thought was given to the consequences of a war fought
to utter exhaustion.
At the outset of the war, Italy, formally a member of the Triple Alliance,
declared its neutrality. Fragmented from within and torn by the conicting
aims of irredentism and overseas empire, Italy was sure of only one im-
perative. Because of the vulnerability of its extensive coastline, the country
should never descend into a war against Britain. Hence, Italys decision was
either to remain neutral or enter the war on the side of the Entente. After
prolonged negotiations with both sides, Italy signed the Pact of London on
26 April 1915, bringing the country into the war on the side of the Triple
Entente.
By adroitly playing the Entente and their erstwhile Alliance partners off
against one another, the Italians secured the fulllment of their irredentist
demands, including Trentino, Trieste, Gorizia, Pola, Zara, and Italian-
populated towns along the central Dalmatian coast. Beyond Italia
2 Italian Foreign Policy in the Interwar Period
irredenta, the Italians were promised the Brenner frontier, the eastern Is-
trian peninsula, the central Dalmatian coastal lands and hinterland, control
over the Albanian nucleus, sovereignty over Valona, and the Dodecanese
Islands, which Italy had occupied since 1911. Approximately 230,000
German-speaking peoples and over 600,000 Slavs would thus be incorpo-
rated into the expanded homeland in order to secure its strategic frontiers
and to turn the Adriatic into an Italian lake. If the European provisions
were clear-cut, however, ambiguities abounded in the colonial provisions.
Determined to reserve the Middle East as their own imperialist preserve,
the Western Powers wished to direct Italys attention to Anatolia, where
Rome would be able to claim territory adjacent to Adalia should the Ot-
toman Empire collapse. As a bonus, Italy would gain the right to claim
some equitable compensation if the Western Powers increased their colonial
territories in Africa at the expense of Germany, France, Britain, and Russia.
Britain and France were unhappy over paying such a high price for Italian
military assistance, while Russia, having its own aims in the Adriatic,
strongly resisted ceding so many Slav areas, particularly along the Dal-
matian coast, to its unwanted Italian ally. But, since the Western Powers
were convinced that the Italians would be able to end the debilitating stale-
mate on the Western Front by tilting the military advantage in their favor,
as well as to cause a slide of the remaining Balkan neutrals into their camp,
they overcame Russian opposition by holding out the bait of Constanti-
nople.
Despite Italian expectations of a short conict, its initial offensives z-
zled, and the country was almost knocked out of the war in October 1917
by the crushing defeat at Caporetto. But the Italian armies made a mirac-
ulous recovery. After a disorganized retreat to the Piave, they held the line.
A year later, on the anniversary of Caporetto, the Italian troops leapt from
their trenches and charged the enemy. After a few days of hard ghting,
the Austrian lines crumbled, and Italy had its conquest at Vittorio Veneto.
Nevertheless, the cost was fearful: a battered economy, social turmoil,
and more than 600,000 dead. Italy thus arrived at the Paris Peace Confer-
ence determined to claim all the booty promised by the Pact of London.
Neither praise nor full satisfaction of the Pact of London was forthcoming.
After much acrimony and bungling, Italy left the peace table resentful, be-
lieving that its role in the victory had been mutilated by its ungrateful
and grasping allies.
Critics of the Italian position have argued that the mutilated victory was
pure myth invented by frustrated nationalists who, deprived of imperialist
gain, refused to acknowledge the real gains in Italian security resulting from
the defeat and collapse of the Habsburg Empire. Why should the Italians
have found fault with the nal peace settlement? It was the French who
were left with a united, revanchist, and potentially powerful Germany,
while Italy faced an array of newly forged and weak states that had risen
Italy at the Paris Peace Conference 3
from the Habsburg ruins and offered no military threat. The blowup at
Paris between Italy and its allies has been attributed to a conict between
Italian Realpolitik and American idealism. On closer examination, how-
ever, the notion of a mutilated victory appears to have been a half-truth
that grew out of the stresses and strains of Italys wartime diplomacy. The
story behind the falling out of Italy and the Allies at the Paris Peace Con-
ference cannot be reduced solely to differences between Italy and America.
Italys troubles in the postwar era had their origin in the countrys wartime
disputes with Britain and France.
1
For any sound comprehension of the mutilated victory, three related
themes must be kept in mind. First, once Italy entered the conict, the
Entente suffered from rancorous controversy, for Italys war aims were
quite different from those of France, Britain, and especially Russia. For the
Western Powers, Germany was the principal enemy; they had no serious
quarrel with the Dual Monarchy (Austria-Hungary). Conversely, Italy had
no basic conict with Germany; Romes enemy was the Austrian part of
the Habsburg Empire, in which lay the irredentist lands and the challenge
to Adriatic hegemony. Thus Italys motive for joining the Entente was op-
portunistic, though surely no more so than the Ententes motives for invit-
ing Rome to its side. The bargaining and subsequent terms of the Pact of
London make this clear. The second theme of the mutilated victory re-
ects the conict of interests between Italy and the Allies over the Balkans.
Italy aimed to establish a protectorate in Albania and felt threatened by
Allied support for the expansionist politicians in Greece. The third theme
derives from the clash between President Woodrow Wilson of the United
States and Italy over the Pact of London. The end result was a paradox.
Italy emerged from the war triumphant but ostracized from the community
of victors at the Paris Peace Conference. Out of these events developed the
notion in Italy that a war had been won but a peace lost.
For those who view the postwar era from a Wilsonian perspective, Sidney
Sonnino, who served as Italian foreign minister from October 1914 until
late in June 1919, is the archvillain in the piece for being the principal
architect of the imperialistic Pact of London, for ghting a self-serving war,
and for being out of sync with the democratic spirit exemplied by the
American president. In deance of Wilsonian precepts, he clung to an out-
moded sacred treaty and attempted to impose a draconian peace at the
expense of a newly forged Yugoslavia, which, supposedly, had come into
existence on the strength of the principle of national self-determination.
Sonninos tenure was so marred by miscalculation and narrowness of
vision that one is tempted to agree with the judgment that he was Italys
worst-ever Foreign Minister.
2
Yet his record was not one of unbroken
failures and defeats. During the rst years of the war, Sonnino succeeded
in defending Italys treaty rights and in maintaining a rough parity in the
alliance. Sonninos contribution to the Allied causehis rm stand for war
to the bitter end against the temptations of defeatism, peace talks, and
exhaustioncannot be questioned. But after the staggering military defeat
at Caporetto in 1917, Sonnino refused to revise his objectives to t the
reality of Italys loss of power. His former Realpolitik gave way to impe-
rialistic delusions, and he failed to adapt to the new diplomacy and the
looming reality of emancipated peoples. Ironically, the change in the power
balances in Eastern Europe, produced by the Italian victory at Vittorio
Veneto, upset his strategy to preserve a reduced Habsburg patrimony as a
bulwark against Pan-Slavism. Sonnino fought the war not so much for
Italian irredentism as to assure Italys predominance in the Balkans and the
Adriatic. As things worked out, Italian irredentism was satised, but Son-
ninos pursuit of strategic objectives in Dalmatia, as dened in the Pact of
London, involved him in a serious contradiction. The London Pact rested
on the premise that the Habsburg Empire would survive its amputations,
but Vittorio Veneto precipitated its breakup. Italys security seemed to have
been achieved, while the Allies faced a still formidable Germany.
CONTROVERSIES WITH THE ALLIES
President Wilson stepped into Europes seething controversies at the end
of the war armed with the tools of self-determination, democracy, and
internationalism. A League of Nations was to usher in a new era. No longer
would states be embroiled in power politics, rivalry, and arms races; in-
stead, they would resolve their differences by discussion in a spirit of equal-
ity. The old balance of power and the global law of the jungle would give
way to collective security and international law as the only civilized means
to safeguard frontiers and discourage aggression. But after arriving in Eu-
rope, Wilson began to back away from his own principles. The maxim that
there would be no difference in treatment between victors and vanquished,
if the latter substituted democracy for autocracy, was increasingly brushed
aside. No matter that Germanys Kaiser William II had been chased into
exile and a republic set up in Berlin two days before the armistice; the
president came to accept the Allied view that Germans were warlike and
should be punished. Wilson endorsed a punitive peace not to weaken Ger-
many permanently but to serve as an example for would-be aggressors. The
American president applied comprehensively neither his principles, to as-
sure justice for Germany, nor his Fourteen Points, to deny Britain and
France what they considered to be their deserved rewards for a victorious
and costly war. At the same time, he held fast to Point IX, which stood to
deprive Italy of what it considered its just deserts: A readjustment of the
frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of na-
tionality. In theory, Point IX was an equitable guideline, but, when tted
to the Adriatic, there were problems. The Italians insisted that they de-
served preferential treatment in the business of making frontiers for the
new state, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Sloveneseventually called
Yugoslaviafor having been a major comrade-in-arms of the victors and
on the strength of the London Pact. Why, they asked, should Slovenes and
Croatians, ferocious enemies of Italy who had fought tenaciously against
them in the Habsburg armies, be accorded territorial benets at Italys ex-
pense?
These differing American and Italian perspectives on the ultimate dis-
position of the Habsburg Empire came out in the open just before the end
of the war. Should Italy sign an armistice with Austria-Hungary based on
the Fourteen Points, or should the Pact of London be the guiding principle?
The Italian prime minister, Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, explained to Col-
onel Edward House, Wilsons condante, that the line of the Pact of Lon-
don should dene the Allied (mainly Italian) military occupation of
Austria-Hungary. Since the amiable American representative made no ob-
jection, the Italian prime minister was left with the impression that the
Fourteen Points could be disregarded insofar as Austria-Hungary was con-
cerned. Accuracy was thrown to the winds when House informed Wilson
that the Italians were four-square behind his principles. Since the president
acted under the assumption that Orlando would sign an armistice with
Austria-Hungary based on the Fourteen Points, he neither protested nor
opposed what had transpired in Paris. Not surprisingly, after the armistice
of Villa Giusti between Italy and Austria-Hungary was signed on 3 No-
vember without explicit mention of the Pact of London, Sonnino took Wil-
sons silence to mean American acquiescence to Italys sacred treaty. It
was not Italian machination but Houses misrepresentation of the Italian
position that was responsible for this misunderstanding, a fact acknowl-
edged by Wilson when he admitted the following April that Italy was not
bound by the Fourteen Points in making peace with Austria.
Italy reacted rashly to Americas misstep. To gain political capital in his
country, Orlando abruptly informed the Allied Supreme Council on 15
November that the city of Fiume, which the Pact of London had assigned
to Croatia, was more Italian than Rome. A cry went up in Italy for
immediate annexation. Shocked by this assertion, the Allies observed the
Italians ensnared in a hopeless contradiction of claiming the Istrian Pen-
insula and Central Dalmatia on strategic grounds and Fiume on the na-
tionality principle while simultaneously denying the Yugoslavs the benet
of either consideration.
The Italians did not rely solely on rhetoric. Following the armistice of
Villa Giusti, the Supreme Command, hardly pausing to celebrate its heroic
victory, rushed troops into Dalmatia to occupy territory inhabited mainly
by South Slavs. Working hand-in-glove with the military, the Italian gov-
ernment instituted an economic blockade to crush the edgling Yugoslav
economy and fostered separatism by supporting the deposed King Nicholas
of Montenegro. Both Sonnino and Orlando seemed indifferent to the con-
sequences of these measures, which placed Italy on a collision course with
Wilson. Echoing the Supreme Commands bellicosity, Sonnino pursued his
old-school diplomacy rather than Wilsons New Morality: Italy would base
its military security on geographical imperatives rather than on abstract
principle. He dismissed a guaranty of protection by the League of Nations
as utopian nonsense. The most persuasive deterrent to aggression was de-
fensible frontiers, not collective security. The amour propre of great powers
rested on self-reliance, not on questionable help from the world community.
In Sonninos Hobbesian world, Italy was surrounded by enemies. It had
no natural friends, neither its wartime allies nor its former enemies. France,
a longtime colonial rival and serious Balkan contestant during the war, was
bound to be Italys most tenacious adversary once peace had been re-
stored. The French plan to cripple Germany did not clash with Italys im-
mediate interests. Nonetheless, when the French moved to arrest the spread
of Bolshevism and to contain any future Drang nach Osten by building up
a system of alliances with the newly formed states of Eastern Europe, the
cordon sanitaire, they immediately aroused the suspicion of Italy, whose
chief war aim was to secure its own primacy in the Balkans, the Adriatic,
and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Would the two Latin Sisters be able to compose their rivalries for the
higher purpose of forging a common front to contain a resurgent Germany?
The difculty lay in their different perspectives. The Italians were most
concerned with the Adriatic problem, which was magnied by their insis-
tence on the slogan, Pact of London plus Fiume. The French placed a
settlement with Germany ahead of the crumbled empires of Austria-
Hungary and Turkey, thereby subordinating the fulllment of Italys claims
until Allied interests had rst been served. In an agenda drawn up by the
Quai dOrsay (the French foreign ministry) for the upcoming conference,
which was presented to the Italians on 28 November 1918, the French
emphasized Wilsons Point IX; Italys treaty rights were not mentioned.
Moreover, German and Ottoman colonies would be divided up between
Britain and France, leaving Italy out in the cold. The plan called for a
selective suspension of previous Allied wartime treaties, particularly those
to which Italy was a signatory, in favor of a comprehensive review at the
peace conference. France seemed determined to treat Italy as a second-rate
power.
Resenting their unequal treatment in Paris, the Italians decided to play
their own hand. Given Italys ambiguous attitude toward Germany, it re-
mained a provisionary ally, pursuing its own ends. However much
French policy in the Balkans and along the Danube was dictated by military
necessity on the hard-pressed Salonika front, which the Western Powers
had opened up in 1915, Italy considered any maneuvers in its key areas of
interest as groundwork for French hegemony in Southeastern Europe. So
long as the French Orient Army ranged from Budapest to Constantinople
as agents of France, rather than of an Allied force faithfully carrying out
jointly agreed-upon Allied policy, the prospects for a Franco-Italian meeting
of minds would not be bright.
Italys dealings with Great Britain were less rancorous than those with
France. Still, while the British did speak eloquently of the need for cordial
Anglo-Italian relations, their actions belied their words. Ever since Italys
entry into the war, the Foreign Ofce had been determined to revise the
Pact of London. The Italian delay in declaring war against Germany and
Turkey, its lateral war in Albania, and its seeming indifference to the
fate of Allied armies everywhere else convinced the Foreign Ofce that
Italys aspirations did not deserve to be realized. Since Italy had violated
its own sacred treaty by refusing to renounce Fiume, the British no longer
felt morally bound to honor all their wartime treaty obligations toward
Italy; they would do so only selectively.
On the eve of the peace conference, London made efforts to squirm free
of Italys claims under the London Pact where these impinged on British
interests or embarrassed Britain before the maxims of the New Diplo-
macy. To divert Wilsons attention from British ambitions, Britains for-
eign secretary, Arthur James Balfour, agreed with the presidents critique
that the Pact of London violated the principle of self-determination, thus
incurring Italian suspicion. Balfour repeatedly assured Italy that Britain
would stand by the London Pact and warned that Wilson would dispute
Romes claims. Italy retorted with a reminder that, for the better part of
four years, the Allies had fought to teach Germany that scraps of paper
could not be torn up with impunity. Reluctantly, the British agreedbut
only for the record.
Like Italy and France, Britain had xed objectives at the Paris Peace
Conference: the acquisition of former German colonies and Ottoman ter-
ritories and the elimination of the German eet as a threat to British
supremacy on the high seas. Would the British nd room to accommodate
Italys claims at the Conference? Britain remained largely passive in the
Adriatic conict, letting Wilson act as a brake on Italian claims. But, in
spite of the many treaty obligations to Italy, Britain stoutly resisted Romes
colonial ambitions in Asia Minor and Africa. The British were determined
to arrange Ottoman affairs to suit their own interests. In a note sent to
Rome in November 1918, after reiterating the validity of the Pact of Lon-
don, Whitehall declared null and void the Saint Jean de Maurienne agree-
ment of April 1917, which had granted Italy the city of Smyrna, as well as
the clarication of the following August (which had incorporated Italys
claims to large coastal sections of Asia Minor, including the port city of
Smyrna), by pointing out the lack of Russian consent. The French needed
no persuasion to take up the same position. The technical argument of
Russian non-compliance was contrived by the British to keep the Italians
from poaching on Britains Middle Eastern spheres of inuence.
SONNINO AND ORLANDO AT CROSS-PURPOSES
During the Paris Peace Conference, Orlando repeatedly admitted that the
Pact of London was a diplomatic liability, a double-edged weapon which
we cannot use without wounding ourselves.
3
In holding out for Fiume
and feigning cooperation with Wilson, he created a breach between himself
and Sonnino. Orlando made Fiume a question of Italian honor over the
strongest objections of his foreign minister who, correctly anticipating Al-
lied anger over a claim that clearly lay outside the Pact of London, cared
not a whit for the citys widely publicized italianita` . Sonninos punctilious
attention to the letter of Italys treaty rights, however, got lost in the pas-
sione adriatica stoked up by Orlandos claim to Fiume. While Orlando
spoke too much in condence to too many people, Sonnino hurt his cause
through excessive reticence. Rather than promote compromise in the ple-
nary sessions of the Italian delegation, Sonnino clung to the London Pact
and ignored Fiume, despite the fact that his compatriots believed the city
to be of critical importance. Moreover, Orlando was willing to make con-
cessions in Dalmatia, except for Zara, Sebenico, and several nearby islands,
but Sonnino was not. The deadlock was complete. Instead of resolving
differences and hammering out a viable set of proposals, the delegation
merely combined the programs of Orlando and Sonnino, which resulted,
according to French premier Georges Clemenceau, in shooting for the
moonthe Pact of London plus Fiume. While Orlando was bargaining
to save his own political skin without a program, Sonnino resorted to ir-
responsible journalism to save his countrys honor. But such press polemics
made Orlandos task more complicated by heightening expectations in It-
aly, which set the government up for defeat over the failure to cash in on
front-page demands.
RIVALRIES ALONG THE DANUBE
According to the terms of the Armistice of Villa Giusti, which brought
the war to a close on the Italian front, the major responsibility for the
occupation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was vested in the Italian Su-
preme Command. The Italian military, however, had not the strength either
to do the job alone or to stop the French Army of the Orient from making
its presence felt in many former Habsburg territories. To keep France and
Italy out of each others way, Sonnino proposed that the Italians occupy
Austria and the French Hungary. By controlling Vienna, the hub of the old
Habsburg transportation system, Italy could obtain a stranglehold over
Danubian commerce. Unfortunately for his plans, Sonninos neat delinea-
tion of spheres broke down over the French determination to treat the
former empire as a common Allied concern. In no position to compete on
an equal footing with the French, Italy, which had neither a strong military
force to send across the Pact of London line into the Danubian area nor
the nancial means to woo friends in Vienna, Prague, or Budapest, was
thrown on the defensive. A sense of powerlessness in Rome gave rise to
dark suspicions of a French plan to dominate the Danube by establishing
a Slav corridor linking Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, cutting Hungary
off from Austria and barring Italy from the Danube.
Austria did indeed pose hard questions for the peacemakers. Could it
survive the loss of empire? Signicant numbers of people in both Austria
and Germany did not think so and demanded union between them as an
indispensable economic solution. Pan-Germanism was certainly not a so-
lution for the French, who were appalled by the notion that the Reich could
pick up in Austria what it had just been deprived of by the war. To preclude
any Grossdeutsch solution, the French were determined to include a pro-
hibition against Anschluss in the peace treaties, notwithstanding the Wil-
sonian principle of national self-determination. A starving Vienna would
be saved instead through economic cooperation with the successor states.
Of the victorious powers, Italy was most directly concerned over the
ultimate fate of Austria. The gateway to Italian inuence in the Danube
region, Austria also formed the linchpin to Italian security in Europe. If
Germany were to annex the little rump state, an enlarged Reich would be
able to exercise an inexorable irredentist pressure on the South Tyrol and
unleash a drive toward Trieste and the Adriatic. Italy would be confronted
by a Teutonic Colossus on its northern border instead of two weak buffer
states in Switzerland and Austria.
The alternative, which was bruited about in Paris and which haunted
Rome, was a Danubian Confederation. Led by the famous Milanese
newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera, many Italians preferred Anschluss to a
French-inspired Danubian confederation grafted onto the successor states
of the Habsburg Empire. But not Sonnino, who avoided francophobia and
held rmly to Realpolitik, knowing that if Germany were allowed to swal-
low Austria, it would become Italys new nemesis in the Adriatic. On 18
May, 1919, Sonnino prevailed when the Italian cabinet formally came out
in opposition to an Anschluss. This stand, however, was hedged with the
provision that the Big Three, France, Britain, and the United States, honor
Italys claims to both the South Tyrol and Fiume.
Without the military resources to establish an unassailable presence in
Vienna, Budapest, or Bucharest, the Italians had been checked on the Dan-
ube. Whatever territorial gains it achieved, Italy had failed to establish its
mastery over the region.
ITALYS FIXATION ON THE ADRIATIC
Speed the peace treaty and lift the Adriatic blockadethese were the
pressures bearing down on Italy as the Allies became ever more impatient
to settle up with Germany. Having failed to move Wilson, who now had
come out in the open against Italian annexation of Fiume, the Italians
brought their case before the Council of Four on 19 April. In an impas-
sioned session, they demanded the Brenner frontier with Austria, as well
as Fiume, Dalmatia, and the Adriatic islands. Orlando defended the claim
to Fiume, while Sonnino reected that the abandonment of Dalmatia would
result in the ruin of my country.
4
The Allies refused to budge. Disagree-
ment remained three-sided: Italy demanded more than the Pact of London
had promised it; Britain and France were prepared to go only as far as they
were bound by that treaty; and Wilson was not prepared to accept the
validity of either position.
Stung by Italian journalists, who blamed the United States for the dead-
lock in the Adriatic, Wilson released to the press his famous manifesto of
24 April. Eloquently phrased and high-minded, the manifesto was an ex-
planation of Wilsons principles, not a recrimination. In making the appeal
to the Italian peoples sense of justice over the heads of their government,
however, the president misjudged the temper of Italian nationalism, which
had been aroused by Orlando and Sonnino on the issues of Fiume and the
Adriatic. While the president appealed to reason in impassioned times, the
Italians rested their case on the argument of national honor.
Provoked by Wilsons manifesto, Orlando left Paris on 24 April in a
dramatic, if somewhat prearranged, display of indignation. Sonnino fol-
lowed the next day. The Italian peace delegates received a victors welcome
in Rome and a solid parliamentary vote of condence. But instead of re-
turning to Paris at once to negotiate with a strengthened diplomatic hand,
Orlando waited in Rome for the Peace Conference to extend him an olive
branch. It was a vain hope. On his return to Paris on 7 May, after the
Germans had arrived, Orlando and Sonnino received an icy reception at
the Council of Four, which indicated that their absence had accomplished
nothing. Once again refusing to take the initiative, they languished in self-
pity, unwilling to recognize how dependent they were on the Allies.
Although Germany held center-stage, the peacemakers could not neglect
the Danube, for there were new states to be carved out of the former Habs-
burg Empire. Orlando and Sonnino had a particular interest in delineating
the boundaries between Italy, Austria, and Yugoslavia. Which criterion
should be decisive: the ethnic principle, economic necessity, or the strategic
axiom? For the Italians, strategic issues were paramount, especially the
question of railroad access from the Danubian plain to Trieste with a line
running outside Yugoslav territory. Sonnino, in clear violation of the na-
tionality principle, aimed to extend Austrias frontier over the mountains
into Yugoslavia but was thwarted by the Big Three.
Italys withdrawal from the Peace Conference in April also left its claims
in Asia Minor wide open to assault. Sonnino did not help his cause by
ordering a landing at Smyrna on 2 May to forestall a Greek move; other
sites on the Anatolian coast were occupied three days later. In general, the
Allies took seriously reports of Italian misdeeds at Smyrna, and the British
prime minister, David Lloyd George, took steps to remove Italian troops
by advocating a Greek landing at the seaport. Wilson quickly fell in behind
Lloyd Georges determination to bar a people as turbulent as the Italians
from Asia Minor; moreover, he favored a Greek landing at Smyrna in spite
of the contrary advice proffered by his own consular and military repre-
sentatives. Turkish rights of self-determination did not cross the mind of
anyone on the Council of Three; what mattered to them was the establish-
ment of a greater Greece. Only Clemenceau betrayed a icker of doubt.
When the Greek leader Eleutherios Venizelos initiated a landing at Smyrna
on 16 May to restore law and order, Sonnino retaliated by sending
troops to a neighboring port, without consulting the other powers or any-
one else in the Italian delegation. The Big Three were scandalized. A clash
between the Greeks and Italians now loomed as a distinct possibility. If the
Big Three were given to frequent changes over the ultimate disposition of
the Ottoman Empire, they at least were agreed on the twin propositions
that Greece have a zone around Smyrna and that Italy be kept completely
out of Asia Minor. Undoubtedly, these sentiments were directly connected
to their annoyance over Italys claims in the Adriatic.
Italian imperialism also suffered a sharp setback in Africa when Britain
and France, in the absence of the Italian delegates, helped themselves to
mandates over the former German colonies. Their action constituted a vi-
olation of Article XIII of the Pact of London, which promised Italy equi-
table compensation if the Western Powers assumed title to any German
colonies. The Italians did not challenge the Allied claim to the former
German colonies by right of conquest, but they did hold that their country
should be compensated in East Africa. The Italian minister of colonies,
Gaspare Colosimo, who feared that the application of Wilsons mandates
might deprive Italy of its rights of colonial compensation under the London
Pact, went on record as demanding Giarabub in Cyrenaica, Kassala, Dji-
bouti, British Somaliland, and Jubalandplus recognition of Italys sole
inuence in Ethiopia. He received no support from Orlando, however,
whose gaze was xed on the Adriatic.
5
Orlandos indifference was perhaps fortunate, for the British and French
argued that Italys colonial demands went far beyond the frontier recti-
cations envisaged in the Pact of London. The British would agree to cede
only Giarabub and Jubaland, and the French offered only minute adjust-
ments of the Libyan-Tunisian frontier; nothing would be given away in
East Africa. Since France refused to give up the port of Djibouti, the Italians
were deprived of the only viable outlet for Ethiopia, their chief African
claim. Embroiled in the Fiume controversy, they were in no position to
apply pressure on the Allies in the colonial sphere, nor could they count
on American support for a program patently antithetical to Wilsons prin-
ciples. The best that could be done was to stall for time. On 6 June, after
acknowledging the divergent views of the member states, the Committee
for the Application of Article XIII suspended its debates, leaving Italys
African claims unfullled.
While the Big Three were casting Italy as the odd man out in Asia Minor
and Africa, Colonel House and Andre Tardieu, a member of the French
peace delegation, made last-ditch efforts in mid-May to resolve the Adriatic
question. To force the Italians to negotiate, House came up with the bizarre
procedure of closeting Orlando in a salon and Ante Trumbic, a leader of
the Yugoslav delegation, in a reception room, while House himself passed
back and forth negotiating between them. The upshot of this ambulatory
diplomacy was that both the Italians and Yugoslavs came to accept the
principle of an independent Fiume under some form of League control
provided that ultimate sovereignty would not be assigned to the opposing
party. The other sensitive issue was the boundary of eastern Istria. The
Italians insisted on a land link between Fiume and Italy; the Wilson line in
Istria would therefore have to be shifted to the east. Unwilling to hear of
an Italian Fiume, Clemenceau implored Orlando to make fresh proposals.
On 28 May, Orlando declared that he would accept the following, which
came to be called the Tardieu plan, as a basis for discussion: Fiume would
be declared an independent state under the League pending a plebiscite to
be held by communes; Italy would gain the Valosca line and be allowed to
annex Zara, Sebenico, and all but one of the islands. These proposals,
however, did not sit well with Sonnino, who felt that Orlando had yielded
too much in Dalmatia under the illusion of coming to an agreement with
the Yugoslavs. But, since the latter had nally, grudgingly, yielded their
claims to Gorizia, Trieste, western Istria, and parts of Carniola, as well as
conceding the loss of Fiumeprovided it did not go to Italya compro-
mise seemed possible.
When Wilson saw Orlando the next day, the president embraced him for
his conciliatory mood. He agreed, in the Austrian peace treaty, to give Italy
not only the Brenner frontier but also a wedge of Slovene-inhabited terri-
tory around Tarvisio, beyond the Pact of London line, which gave Italy
control of one of the main railways from Trieste to the Austrian frontier.
But on the Dalmatian provisions of the Tardieu plan, Wilson dashed Italian
hopes. Convinced that Orlando had misunderstood his position on Fiume,
he sent a note on 6 June, which reiterated his conviction that the principle
of self-determination would be violated by establishing a separate city of
Fiume; he further denied Italy anything in Dalmatia as well as the Valosca
line. The Allies were not more helpful. Lloyd George limited himself to
offering free-city status to Zara and Sebenico, while Clemenceau would
cede only Zara to Italy. With the Tardieu plan thus amended, the Italians
lost interest in further negotiations. Whatever hope the Allies held in meet-
ing the Italians halfway was squelched by Wilson, who simply would not
compromise. Ray Stannard Baker, a condante of Wilson, wrote: He [Wil-
son] will agree to no arrangement which gives any people to Italy without
their consent.
6
Many have concluded that Orlando and Sonnino were ready all along
for a bargain based on one of two alternatives: rst, trading various treaty
rights in Dalmatia for Fiume or, failing this, forswearing annexation of
Fiume in favor of free city status, provided they got the whole of eastern
Istria. But apart from the question of what Sonnino was actually prepared
to give up in Dalmatia, it was clear that the United States and the Allies
were determined to frame a compromise assuring that Fiume would even-
tually go to Yugoslavia, and this was unacceptable to Orlando; nor would
Wilson give way on his line in Istria. Under the best of circumstances,
Wilson might not have proved amenable to any compromise, but Sonnino
worsened the presidents image of Italy by his outspoken aversion to Wil-
sonian principles and an uncompromising negotiating position that made
him appear anti-American. By June, it was too late to repair the damage
of countless inconsistencies. Italy ended up with a bungled peace.
Unable to sway Wilson, Orlando returned to Rome to deal with a pro-
longed political crisis. Faced with a rebellious parliament and burdened by
their apparent failures in Paris, Orlando and Sonnino resigned on 19 June.
The fall of the cabinet removed them from the peace conference less than
ten days before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany.
At the Paris Peace Conference, the Allies concealed their own imperial-
istic ambitions under the cover of indignation that Italy had violated the
U.S. presidents principles. Underlying this hypocrisy was contempt, based
on their low valuation of their allys military performance and the odd
blend of opportunism and chauvinistic posturing that they perceived in
Italian diplomacy. Overlooking the fact that they had bribed Italy into the
war, the Western Powers met the demand for the promised payoff with ill-
disguised scorn. Still, Allied promises to honor their treaty obligations to-
ward Italy were genuine; they certainly did not want to emulate the
Germans by tearing up treaties with impunity. But they would not consider
Italy as a member of the Council of Four holding equal rank.
Italys asco at Versailles was the result of Sonninos inexibility, Or-
landos opportunism, and the inability of the two to work out a common
program. Forgotten in the humiliation that Italy suffered for being treated
as an adolescent nation that was addicted to egoistic, petty intrigue were
the nations substantial gains. Its hereditary enemy had been destroyed,
Italia irredenta was completely fullled, and predominance, if not outright
hegemony, had advanced in the Adriatic region. Italy had also secured a
share of German reparations and a permanent seat on the Council of the
League of Nations. The future prime minister, Francesco Nitti, was one
who recognized Italys strengthened position: No European nation, not
even France, has today such security of frontiers as Italy. Let us not forget
. . . that after many centuries Italy has gained the boundary that renders
her secure from German invasions.
7
Many Socialists, more than a handful
of Democrats, and inuential conservative Catholics agreed with this view.
The bulk of the Italian middle classes, however, resented the Allied refusal
to recognize Italy as a heroic war victor and a Great Power of equal rank.
Had the Italian delegation not overreached itself at the Paris Peace Con-
ference, Italys sacrices and notable military contributions might not have
been so caustically belittled; and had Sonnino and Orlando taken on a full
share of responsibility in the German question instead of pursuing a peace
settlement in the spirit of Italys war, the Italian claim to equality in the
alliance might not have encountered such derision. This lack of Allied re-
spect exacerbated the disparity in Italian minds between what had been
promised and what was gained. Denied gratitude and huge rewards for its
considerable economic sacrices and the heavy loss of life sustained in a
long and bloody war, the country as a whole surrendered to the legend of
the mutilated victory.
TYING UP LOOSE ENDS
When Sonnino and Orlando left ofce on 19 June 1919, many provisions
of the London Pact remained unfullled. The prospects for expansion in
Africa were at an end. Thanks to Italian military weakness, the Allies had
been able to thwart a frankly imperialist Italian policy. Matters in Asia
Minor remained unresolved until, faced by the nationalist fury of Mustapha
Kemal, the Italians were forced to withdraw their last troops in June 1921.
The Danube was left in disarray. The aim of bringing about a rapproche-
ment between Romania and Hungary under Italian auspices remained a
chimera, as did Sonninos plan of using this tripartite bloc to pry Croatia
and Slovenia loose from Yugoslavia. Romania was the principal spoiler
with its protracted occupation of Budapest.
The statesmen who replaced the Orlando cabinet did better in the art of
peacemaking. They were neither the Triplists raised by Allied-inspired
polemics nor the weak-kneed Adriatic renouncers of nationalist hyperbole.
The new cabinet, headed by Nitti with Tommaso Tittoni as his foreign
minister, faced the daunting task of economic reconstruction. In order to
infuse new life in the beleaguered Italian economy, Nitti wanted to resume
negotiations with the United States for new credits and favorable trade
agreements that had been stalled by the diplomatic deadlock over the Adri-
atic. When measured against the threat of economic disaster, Fiume mat-
tered little. But Tittonis efforts to assume a more moderate demeanor in
Paris were stymied by the seizure of Fiume on 11 September 1919 by Italys
poet laureate, Gabriele DAnnunzio, which set off wild enthusiasm among
nationalists throughout Italy and heightened a mutinous spirit in the army.
Tittoni had only limited success in convincing the Peace Conference that
the government, rendered helpless by a rising crescendo of nationalist
frenzy and faced by persistent examples of military insubordination, was
able to do little either to discipline DAnnunzio or to resolve the Adriatic
dispute with Yugoslavia. He was more successful in bringing Sonninos
protracted quarrel with Greece to a temporary end in the Tittoni-Venizelos
Agreement of 20 July 1919, whereby the Dodecanese Islands, with the
exception of Rhodes, were given to Greece, Smyrna was recognized as
Greek, and Italian inuence was conned to the coastal strip from Scalan-
uova to Mersina. In return, Italy accepted the partition of Albania as rec-
ognized in the 1915 Pact of London, which left Northern Epirus in Greek
hands. Greece reciprocated by supporting an Italian mandate for central
Albania. Likewise, Nitti was prepared to come to an accommodation with
the revolutionary Kemalist dictatorship in Turkey. Renouncing political an-
nexation and permanent military occupation of Anatolia, Nitti acquiesced
in Italys eventual military evacuation of all claimed territories. But in the
colonial realm, it was a different matter. The Allies continued to reject
Italys interpretation of the equitable compensations promised in the
Pact of London. Confronted by the Socialists refusal to collaborate and
the mounting subversion on the right, encouraged by Mussolini and
DAnnunzio, Nitti was forced to resign on 9 June 1920.
Giovanni Giolitti, Nittis old rival among the traditional liberals, formed
a new cabinet. Carlo Sforza headed the Consulta, which guaranteed that
the democratic program would become the basis of Italian foreign policy.
Sforza hoped to forge a friendship with Yugoslavia, to give Italy inuence
in the Balkans, and with the new Turkey, to do the same in the eastern
Mediterranean. Albania was a rst order of business. Faced with mutiny
on the part of Italian troops in Valona and the soaring costs of occupation,
Giolitti and Sforza decided to abandon the claim to a mandate and to
preserve Italian inuence by the acceptance of an independent Albania
rather than by occupation or partition. On 22 July, Sforza renounced the
Tittoni-Venizelos Agreement, and, on 2 August, he authorized an agree-
ment in Tirana with the Albanian provisional government, which guaran-
teed Albanias independence within the 1913 frontiers. Since Sforza was
also prepared to sacrice DalmatiaItalian claims there had severely
cramped Italys diplomatic maneuverabilityhe succeeded in gaining Brit-
ish and French support in pressuring Yugoslavia to make concessions on
Istria. Abandoned by the Western Powers, the Yugoslavs could no longer
count on Wilson alone, which forced them to bilateral negotiations with
Italy. On 12 November 1920, the Treaty of Rapallo was signed. Italy ob-
tained a strategic frontier at the Monte Nevoso line, territorial contiguity
with a small free state of Fiume, four islands, and sovereignty over Zara.
Later in the year, Albania was given its independence, free from encroach-
ments by either Greece or Yugoslavia. This cut the ground from under
DAnnunzio, who skulked away from Fiume on 18 January castigating the
Italian people for their failure to throw out the renouncers in Rome.
Reconciliation in the Danube region and friendship with the small and
weak emergent successor states of the Habsburg Empire did not escape
Sforzas attention either, for he tolerated the formation of the Little En-
tentean alignment consisting of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Ro-
mania, sponsored by Franceand signed a commercial treaty with
Czechoslovakia in February 1921. When the former emperor Charles
landed in Hungary to carry out a Habsburg restoration, Sforza joined the
Western Powers in having him ejected from Budapest.
NOTES
1. For an expanded discussion of the themes of this chapter and the documen-
tation therein, see H. James Burgwyn, The Legend of the Mutilated Victory: Italy,
the Great War, and the Paris Peace Conference 19151919 (Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1993).
2. Richard Bosworth, Italy and the Approach of the First World War (New
York: St. Martins Press, 1983), 134.
3. Olindo Malagodi, Conversazioni della guerra, 19141919, 2 vols. (Milan:
Riccardo Ricciardi, 1960), 2: 54041.
4. Rene Albrecht-Carrie, Italy at the Paris Peace Conference (Hamden, Conn.:
Archon Books, 1966), Document 41, Luigi Aldrovandis Diary, 466.
5. DDI, 6, II, 206, 2 February 1919.
6. WW, 59, From the Diary of Ray Stannard Baker, 27 May 1919.
7. Cited in R. W. Seton-Watson, ed., The New Europe 12 (1919): 9294.
CHAPTER 2
Mussolini in Power
THE NOVICE DIPLOMAT
Mussolini came to power on 28 October 1922 promising to make Italy a
respected nation and to institute a Fascist revolution. As Duce of the Fascist
movement, Mussolini imagined, and wanted Italians to believe, that destiny
bestowed on him the unique opportunity to articulate the innnermost long-
ings of his people and to bring about a new order and a revitalized and
expanded empire. He was to be the quintessentially populist leader. But
throughout the Fascist era, Mussolini did not walk a straight line toward
these radical goals; instead, he zig-zagged, reversed himself, and applied
half-measures. He ignored the radical Fascist promise of a clean sweep in
favor of the cooptation of the monarchy, the army, the Church, and big
business into his own personal dictatorship. Rather than totalitarian party
rule, Mussolinianismo. The squadristi were neutralized as a revolutionary
force by their enrollment into a militia, while the radical Fascist writers
were permitted to propound their utopian theories in journals and books
far from the streets and citadels of power. While it was not outright ter-
rorism, Mussolinis rule was nonetheless arbitrary, oppressive, and intol-
erant of dissenting and democratic views. For the people at large, authority
was wielded by the same old familiar institutionsthe changeless and ar-
rogant bureaucracy, the national police, and a team of loyal and obedient
prefects, many of whom were carryovers from the liberal era. The Italian
people were trapped in an atmosphere of intimidation that was non-
threatening so long as they minded their own business and stayed out of
politics. When they woke up on the morning of 29 October, nothing much
seemed to have changed; after the disorderly and bungled march on Rome,
the Duce donned tails and a stiff white collar to accept his portfolio as
prime minister from the king. But that faithful adherence to ritual did not
stop the Blackshirts, who had formerly been considered criminal outlaws,
from freely roaming the streets and byways of the country settling old
scores and randomly beating up leftist enemies under the benign eye of the
sympathetic police. To many perceptive Italian observers, a new era had
begun.
In the eld of foreign policy, Mussolini liked to portray Fascist Italy as
new and dynamic. But he encountered a perennial dilemma. How could
Italy become a great power when it lacked the raw materials and industrial
base essential for modernized and mass-produced military armaments? A
prudent diplomacy, as practiced by Carlo Sforza, was in order; it behooved
Italy to lower its sights. The Duce, however, was not prudent. In allying
himself with the Italian nationalists, he took over their whole repertoire of
hyperbolic claims and carefully nurtured grievances, which imparted a rest-
lessness and provocation to his diplomacy. Whereas Sonnino had placed
limits on Italian expansion, as dened by the Pact of London, Mussolini
had no set program, only boundless ambition decoded as revisionism and
imperialism. Unencumbered by any standard of diplomatic behavior, he
had an unfettered imagination in pursuing Italian interests. Mussolini was
a master in the techniques of propaganda, and he knew how to identify
and exploit the weaknesses of others.
National grandeur, for Mussolini, rested on two mare nostrumsthe
Adriatic and the Mediterranean. Here he differed not at all from the ob-
jectives of Sonnino, Orlando, and the conservative liberals and nationalists
of the Italian foreign ministry. But Mussolini, bearing a wholly new world
view, introduced novel methods and an inimitable style. Prior to the Fascist
era, Italys foreign policy had been rooted in the European diplomatic tra-
dition and conducted through traditional channels. Although prior to the
Great War, the Lesser of the Great Powers was constantly faulted for
opportunism and for straddling the fence between the alliance camps, lib-
eral Italy pursued limited expansion within the framework of the European
balance of power and generally played according to its rules. Mussolini,
on the other hand, substituting the cult of war and dynamism for Re-
alpolitik, willfully deed the constraints imposed by superior force and
Great Power comity. In artfully composed phrases of a violent tone, he
articulated the resentments of his nation. Like Sonnino and Orlando, Mus-
solini played on the mutilated victory theme to justify Italys grudge against
the Allies for their failure to honor all the provisions of the London Pact.
But Mussolini added his own variations. Italy, he maintained, had been
cheated out of its just rewards because of timid diplomacy at the Paris Peace
Conference, a consequence of Italys domestic feebleness and weakling lib-
Mussolini in Power 19
eral governments. In keeping with the vitalism then fashionable in nation-
alist circles, Mussolini fostered hatred against the so-called leftist war
saboteurs and liberal rinunciatari (renouncers). Borrowing the language of
the Italian nationalist Enrico Corradini, he attempted to overcome an un-
mistakable national inferiority complex by making invidious comparisons
between the decadent nancial capitalism of the avaricious Western
Powers and Italys proletarian movement of workers and farmers who
were destined to carry civilization into dark Africa and the Middle East.
Mussolini attempted to reduce Italys dependency on France and Britain.
His conception of intransigent autonomy for Italy was characterized by
a highly opportunistic style. Cramped by the Paris Peace Conference set-
tlement, Fascist Italy demanded a revision of the peace treaties, especially
when such changes would diminish French power. Mussolinis revisionism
was highly selective; there would be no tampering with the peace treaty
clauses that granted Italy the South Tyrol and major portions of the Istrian
peninsula, nor with the provisions that guaranteed the independence of
Austria. Mussolini did, however, aim to redeem sacred Fiume and Dal-
matia and to fulll the colonial clauses of the Pact of London that the
British and French had denied Italy at the Paris Peace Conference. As leader
of a dissatised power, Mussolini was an extreme chauvinist who had
no compunction about upsetting the status quo to achieve his aims.
Although Italy had been weakened and exhausted by war, Mussolini had
room to maneuver in the 1920s. The world of postwar Europe was rich in
unrealized opportunities for a restless and opportunistic foreign policy. The
fall of the monarchical order in 1918 produced a score of fragile successor
states in Eastern Europe that simmered with ethnic discontent and revanch-
ism. Their volatility, when fused with their inherent feebleness, made for
power voids and political uidities that inevitably drew the attention, eager
or grudging, of the Great Powers.
Political vacuums in power politics invite intervention, for passivity on
the part of one nation merely encourages others to act without fear of
retaliation. At the end of the Great War, the collapse of four empiresthe
Dual Monarchy, Germany, Russia, and the Ottoman Empirecreated an
extraordinary power vacuum in Eastern Europe that gave rise to a situation
bristling with danger and mutual fear. Of the four, the Habsburg Empire
had disintegrated, Germany had been temporarily reduced to impotence by
military disarmament, Russia had withdrawn into diplomatic isolation in
the wake of its domestic revolution, and Turkey, shorn of its Middle East-
ern possessions, waited to be carved up by the victors. The pendulum of
power had clearly swung westward.
As a result, the enforcement of the peace treaties fell to the Atlantic
Powers. In principle, the victorious allies maintained that Germany should
never again be allowed to renew expansion, and all, save Italy, strove in
the 1920s to implement more or less coherent policies toward that end.
But Allied consensus by no means reected equal degrees of commitment.
By 1921, the U.S. Congress had repudiated Wilsons European promises
by rejecting his treaties and refusing to join the League of Nations. Only a
little less hurriedly, the British reverted to their classic policy of hovering
on the periphery, freely dispensing advice on the balance of power while
shunning rm obligations where imperial interests were not at stake. By
default, responsibility for the maintenance of the peace fell to France.
If the treaties, as applied to the Continent, represented compromises
among France, Britain, and the United States, the French army, in the last
resort, would have to uphold them. No doubt, this was a heavy burden,
for this army had suffered shattering losses during the war. True, when
compared to a militarily prostrate Germany, France did appear formidable
in the immediate postwar period, but its position would be increasingly
undermined by the hesitation of the other victorious powers regarding the
Paris Peace settlement. Not everyone agreed with France that a stringent
application of the peace treaties would deter German aggression most suc-
cessfully. Almost as soon as the ink was dry, revisionist sentiment appeared
in all the allied countries, as well as among the neutrals, bolstered by
German and Soviet propaganda. Paris was practically alone in equating
French security with European peace. Fascist Italy, for one, interpreted this
Gallic reasoning as sophistry intended to divert attention from what it per-
ceived to be an unmistakable French hegemony on the European continent.
Nowhere was the peace settlement so fragile as in the Danubian-Balkan
region. Two refashioned states, Hungary and Bulgaria, remained unrecon-
ciled to their recent territorial amputations, while Czechoslovakia and
Yugoslavia suffered from increasing ethnic tensions that seemed likely to
dissolve their newly forged unity. A hugely enlarged Romania was ringed
by states eager to whittle down its size by half, while the economic survival
of Austria and Albania remained dubious. Beyond these specic consider-
ations, there remained the virulent rivalries and fears that characterized the
European system of sovereign states. These had been in no wise mitigated
by the horrors of war, the establishment of the League, or the newly insti-
tuted Wilsonian democracies. On the contrary, under the inuence of
vitalist postwar movements like Fascism and Bolshevism, power politics
emerged more nakedly than before while being less inhibited by traditional
restraints.
At the conclusion of the war, Great Britain, no less than France, seemed
committed to the network of peace treaties designed to preserve the Allied
victory by perpetuating German weakness. This determination soon wa-
vered, however. The narrowness of the Allied victory, the disaffection of
the United States, the Bolshevik threat, and the monetary and nancial
fragility of the Allies combined to persuade Britain, in particular, that the
punitive measures in the treaties were retarding the revival of international
trade that was so essential to British, and European, economic recovery.
After 1924, with the coming of the Cartel des gauches, the French followed
suit. Economic opportunism was soon reinforced by moral rectitude: In
removing the patent injustices inicted by the victorious allies, treaty revi-
sions would make for a more just, and thus more lasting, peace.
This type of revisionist sentiment, with its inchoate undercurrent of ap-
peasement, bore only a supercial resemblance to Mussolinis revisionismo,
which was aggressive, saturated with grievance, and hungry for conict. In
this view, a healthy organism (the state) marched from strength to strength.
In this system, justice was an illusion and lasting peace a pipe dream.
Notwithstanding the Fascist boast that it had no like or equal, however,
Mussolinis new stile fascista remained merely a posture during the rst
years, save for the Corfu incident of 1923, which many contemporaries
dismissed as an aberration in Italian policy. The secretary general at the
foreign ministry, Salvatore Contarini, applied a steady hand by pursuing
Italian interests along the traditional lines of the prefascist eraa moderate,
nationalist policy aiming at spheres of inuence in the Balkans and Danube
region and a careful expansion into the Eastern Mediterranean, Middle
East, and Africa. Italy would enhance its prestige, dignity, and autonomy
with the other Great Powers by a gradualist approach, and Mussolini
would thus remain on acceptable terms with the Allies. Strings were at-
tached, however: parity for Italy in the alliance, redress of the inequitable
distribution of colonial mandates, and Italys full share of reparations.
Given the countrys military weakness, Mussolini could at the outset do no
more than plead and cajole. Much homework had to be done before war,
or the threat of war, could be seriously contemplated, not only as a means
of redressing past grievances but also of opening up new avenues of ex-
pansion. Italy had rst to be transformed through the creation of a new
generation physically toughened and morally steeled by Fascist discipline
before the nation could achieve the totalitarian unity and iron will that
would enable Mussolini to pass from words to territorial acquisition.
THE OUTSIDER
On taking ofce, Mussolini encountered a number of interrelated issues:
Italys right to a mandate in the Middle East, its claim to African Jubaland,
and legal title to the Dodecanese Islands, all of which rested on unfullled
clauses of existing treaty rights. Under Article VIII of the London Pact,
Italy claimed the British colony of Jubaland, a stretch of land sandwiched
between Italian Somaliland and Kenya. Italy was also a signatory to the
Treaty of Se`vres of 1920, which transformed the more remote regions of
the Turkish empire into either independent Arab states or British and
French mandates; a Tripartite Agreement signed the same year delineated
areas in Anatolia as spheres of French and Italian economic inuence under
the blessing of Great Britain. Turkeys resurgence under Mustapha Kemal,
however, made a shambles of these imperialist deals with regard to Ana-
tolia. By abandoning the Middle Eastern territories of the old Ottoman
Empire, Kemal enabled Britain and France to keep their mandates in the
Middle East, but Italy lost its spheres of inuence when Kemal restored full
Turkish sovereignty in Anatolia.
To make up for the lapsed Tripartite Agreement, Mussolini cast his eye
on the British mandate over Iraq and demanded a share of the economic
privileges in both the French and British spheres throughout the Middle
East. Since Italy was left with nothing but its unfullled claims under the
Pact of London, Mussolini further demanded that Britain cede Jubaland to
Italy. On that basis, he was also ready to negotiate the cession of the Do-
decanese Islands to Greece, which the British strongly urged out of loyalty
to ancient Athens. But the British were determined to force Italy to turn
over the Dodecanese in return for Jubaland alone. Britains treaty obliga-
tions toward Italy would thus be fully discharged. Mussolini was totally
dissatised with this solution.
A conference at Lausanne was convened in 1922 to provide a new set-
tlement in the Middle East. Mustafa Kemals sovereignty over Anatolia was
recognized, and the British and French kept their mandates in the Middle
East. Mussolini emerged with a half-victory. The British gave him short
shrift on an Iraq mandate, but eventual Italian title to the Dodecanese
Islands was assured. Jubaland remained in abeyance, since the British con-
tinued using that portion of British Africa as a lever to force Italy to cede
at least some of the Dodecanese Islands to Greece. Only after Ramsay
MacDonald came to power at the head of a Labor government in Britain
the following year was Jubaland handed over to Italy.
While Mussolini presented a bold front on Asia Minor, he appeared
hesitant and uncertain in the tangled reparations question. During the inter-
Allied conference on that matter in December 1922, the Duce presented a
comprehensive proposal stressing the connection between reparations and
inter-Allied debts. But he was stepping into a tenacious feud. Britain, to
revive its own economy, wanted to reincorporate Germany into Europes
economic revival by revising reparations downward, while France wanted
to punish German noncompliance with its Versailles Treaty obligations by
a military occupation of the Ruhr.
Initially, Mussolini supported the French position on reparations. Ger-
man payment to France in full meant that Italy would receive its full share
too. This was a risky stance to take because Italy needed German coal.
Berlin was in a position to retaliate by withdrawing German funds from
Italian banks, a move that could have caused severe nancial hardship for
Italy. When the French prime minister, Raymond Poincare, ordered French
troops into the Ruhr, Mussolini disassociated himself from Frances mili-
tary action and put himself forward as an arbitrator. The French, however,
wanted not compromise but punishment, and the British would have no
part of Italian mediation. Rejected on all sides, the Duce lost interest. Even-
tually, having incurred British and American displeasure, France chose to
evacuate the Ruhr, but Mussolini was rewarded with an assurance of his
countrys quota of German reparations. Since Mussolini had sent none of
his soldiers into the Ruhr, he kept on Britains good side, which meant that
there would be no letup in much-needed British coal shipments to Italy.
1
Italys invasion of Corfu in 1923 proved to be Mussolinis most aggres-
sive move of the 1920s. This crisis grew out of the long-standing Italo-
Greek quarrel over Albania. The Conference of Ambassadors of 1921,
composed of Britain, France, and Italy, had the task of delineating Alba-
nias boundaries. Under the directive of the Boundary Commission, an or-
gan of the inter-Allied Ambassadors Conference, Italian General Enrico
Tellini and four companions were sent out to draw up the Greek-Albanian
frontier. While discharging their duty, they were murdered on 27 August
1923 near Janina in Greece. Leaping to the conclusion that the Greeks were
responsible, Mussolini rst requested that Britain and France join Italy in
expressing outrage and called for reparations from Greece. Britain held
back while France expressed sympathy. In spite of French support, Mus-
solini decided to act unilaterally by demanding of the Greeks an apology,
a funeral service for the victims, naval salutes for the Italian ag, a 50
million lire penalty, and a strict inquiry, to be carried out quickly with the
assistance of the Italian military attache. Greece accepted all but the last
two parts of the ultimatum, which appeared to violate its national sover-
eignty. Since nothing short of capitulation would satisfy the Duce, his re-
sponse was to bombard and occupy the Greek island of Corfu. By acting
with complete disdain for diplomatic convention and the League of
Nations, Mussolini gave the world his rst blatantly aggressive move. There
is some question regarding his ulterior motive. Did Mussolini undertake
the occupation to strengthen Italys demands for compensation from
Greece? Or did the Duce use General Tellinis murder as a convenient pre-
text to occupy permanently the strategic island guarding the south entrance
of the Adriatic?
Since the British had expressed horror when, in November 1922, the
constitutional authorities in Athens were assassinated by a military junta
bent on seizing power, Mussolini expected, if not active support, at least
acquiescence in his aggressive move. But here he was let down. Britain
favored referring the Corfu matter to the League of Nations. The French,
on the other hand, opposed such a course of action, fearing that it would
provide a precedent for the League to become involved in the French oc-
cupation of the Ruhr. France much preferred that the adjudication of the
Corfu matter rest with the Conference of Ambassadors, where British op-
position could be neutralized by the French and Italian delegates. Mussolini
strengthened this French resolve by threatening to walk out of Geneva
should the Corfu incident be placed on the League agenda. Deprived of
French support, the British dropped their demand that Italy be hauled be-
fore the League. A compromise was worked out. The Italian demands for
reparations and an inquiry were now to be extended and conducted on
behalf of the Conference. Italys prestige was safeguarded, and the French
were relieved from any embarrassing linkage between Corfu and the Ruhr
at the League of Nations. Nonetheless, Mussolini refused to evacuate
Corfu, where his occupation began to take on an appearance of perma-
nency, but after the Italian navy presented him with the information that
it was no match for the British eet, Mussolini capitulated. On 27 Septem-
ber, the Italians pulled out of Corfu.
2
Greece paid reparations, and the
League was successfully deed. Mussolini had created an atmosphere of
deance that offered good arguments to those, especially in France and
Britain, who tended to see relations with Italy not so much as an old-
fashioned power struggle among states but as a confrontation between Fas-
cism and democracy. Improvised and incoherent, Mussolinis gunboat
diplomacy failed to add Corfu to Italys possessions, but it did successfully
fulll demagogic and propagandistic aims within the country.
SWORDPLAY IN THE BALKANS
Ever since unication, Italy had been deeply involved in the thicket of
Balkan politics and rivalries. With the demise or retreat of the four Eastern
European empires, Mussolini saw a great opportunity to advance Italian
inuence and prestige in the resultant void in the Balkans at the expense
of the newly created small and vulnerable states there. The ceding of areas
that had previously been granted to Italy in the Pact of London to the new
state of Yugoslavia made Belgrade into an enemy of Fascist Italy. Aligning
Italy with Bulgaria, a defeated power in the Great War and an inveterate
foe of Yugoslavia, would facilitate Mussolinis task of encircling Belgrade.
To gain a foothold in the lower Balkans for further expansion, Mussolini
aimed to turn Albania into an Italian protectorate, which, coincidentally,
would also enable Italy to control access into the Adriatic. But Albania
constantly strove to elude Italian tutelage, and the French thrust themselves
forward as protectors of Yugoslavia. Faced with these obstacles and unable
to challenge French inuence in Belgrade by means of war, Mussolini re-
sorted to subversion and the use of the carrot and the stick in dealing with
Belgrade and Tirana. These schemes constantly involved him in contradic-
tion and inconsistency.
When Mussolini rst came to power, he gave his blessing to Sforzas
Rapallo Treaty of 1920, which established Fiume as a free state. But soon
the Duce reversed himself by taking up the nationalist viewpoint that Ra-
pallo was a treaty of renunciation. In 1923, he proposed to the Yugoslavs
that they accept Italys annexation of Fiume in exchange for the Delta
region of that city and Port Baros. The government of Nikola Pasic in Bel-
grade was slow to respond. Although amenable to a bargainthe Yugoslav
foreign minister Momcilo Nincic admitted in July that the independence of
Fiume was not an immutable principle
3
the Yugoslavs hoped to extract
far-reaching concessions for allowing the Duce undivided proprietorship
over the city. Impatient over Yugoslav hesitation, the Duce abruptly pre-
cipitated a decision on 16 September 1923 by appointing General Gaetano
Giardino military governor of Fiume. In a single day, the Italian com-
mander had the city under rm control with hardly a whimper from the
Yugoslavs, who were too weak to challenge the Italian coup. Disappointed
over the lack of French diplomatic support, the Yugoslavs, on 5 January,
signaled their readiness to accept the Duces terms on Fiume.
4
On 27 January 1924, Mussolini concluded the Pact of Rome with Yu-
goslavia. Long in gestation but short in life, this pact included neutrality
and friendship clauses: The two signatories would collaborate on the main-
tenance of the peace treaties, remain neutral in case of unprovoked ag-
gression against either one, and consult and give diplomatic support if their
interests or security should be threatened by a third power. The Yugoslavs
were pleased that Italy had nally closed the books on the Adriatic statutes
of the 1915 Pact of London; the signs seemed propitious for an era of
friendlier relations between Rome and Belgrade.
During 1925 and 1926, diplomatic relations among Italy, Yugoslavia,
and France revealed important discrepancies in Italys policies in the Bal-
kans and on the Danube between the Duce and his secretary general at the
foreign ministry. Whereas Contarini was hopeful that the Rome treaty with
Yugoslavia would stabilize the Adriatic and open the way to good relations
with Czechoslovakia and Romania, the Duces purpose was rather to shat-
ter the Little Ententes unity. Since Contarini sought to thwart French he-
gemony in Eastern Europe, he intended to restore equilibrium by making
Italy responsible for a judicious reconciliation between vanquished and suc-
cessor states. Central to this vision were rapprochement with Yugoslavia
and an understanding with Belgrade over Albania. The Duce had other
ideas, born from a different set of assumptions. Catering to the rabid anti-
Slavism of his party following, he toyed with revisionist strategies to project
Italian expansion beyond the outer limits of irredentism through Yugosla-
via to points undeneda natural concomitant of the ruthless Fascist it-
alianization of Slovenes and Croatians inhabiting the acquired provinces in
the Julian Alps. The Duce and his minister shared a fundamental concor-
dance of views only with regard to France. Both desired the reduction of
French inuence in Eastern Europe, but while Contarini recognized that
Czech foreign minister Eduard Benes valued a certain independence from
Paris and therefore courted Little Entente friendship, Mussolini supposed
that Paris and Prague were conspiring to keep Italy out of the Danube
region. As the Duce moved to alienate Yugoslavia from Benes, he looked
forward to a changed Danubian atmosphere and to placing the Czech
leader in impotent isolation.
5
Albania was at the heart of the many failed efforts for Italo-Yugoslav
rapprochement. Strategically located at the mouth of the Adriatic, Albania
was plainly a long-standing bone of contention among the powers claiming
supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean. Paralyzed by disparate, feuding
clans that resisted integration into the body politic, the country lacked the
internal cohesion to ward off outside interference. Its two major factions
were headed by Fan Noli, an Orthodox priest, and Ahmed Zogu, a leader
of the Muslim landowners party. From 1920 to 1924, Zogu held power,
establishing a tenuous stability, but then Fan Noli staged a successful coup
detat. Zogu sought refuge in Yugoslavia to regroup for a comeback. With
the connivance of the Yugoslav military, he swept back into power, chasing
Fan Noli into exile. Once ensconced in Tirana, Zogu threw over his Yugo-
slav confederates and asked Italy for protection against the revenge of his
erstwhile benefactors.
In view of a nonintervention agreement toward Albania that Mussolini
and Yugoslav King Alexander signed on 9 June 1924, it was not surprising
that the Duce resented Belgrades abetment of Zogus coup detat. From
December 1924 onward, Mussolini brushed aside every Yugoslav effort to
reopen a dialogue over Albaniaeven the suggestion to partition the coun-
tryciting Yugoslav perdy. Yet he did not want to burn all his bridges
to Belgrade. On 20 July 1925, he rekindled the spirit of the Pact of Rome
by signing the Nettuno Conventions with Yugoslavia, which regulated the
rights of Italians living in Dalmatia.
In August 1925, the Duce seemed to chart a new course by concluding
a series of agreements with Zogu. At the same time, he embarked on a
grand scale of aid and investment in Albania. Droves of agents descended
upon Tirana aiming to mortgage the entire Albanian economy and bind
Zogu to Italy through loans bailing him out of personal bankruptcy. Dis-
mayed by this frenetic Italian activity, Yugoslavia underwent an important
internal transformation. The notoriously anti-Italian Croatians managed to
break into the upper crust of Serb-dominated government with the appoint-
ment to the cabinet of their outstanding leader, Stepan Radic, in the au-
tumn of 1925. Yugoslav foreign minister Nincic tried to arrest the gathering
momentum toward a breach with Italy generated by Croat inuence. Al-
though partially successful in preventing Croat encroachment on foreign
policy, he was unable to stem the rising Yugoslav criticism of Italys pen-
etration into Albania. As the year ended, Mussolini seemed to be anxiously
looking for an opportunity to turn Albania into an Italian satellite. There
was nothing new in this, for Italy had had designs on Albania ever since
that nations founding in 1912, though pressure from the Western Powers
had persuaded Mussolinis predecessors to exercise caution. Could he break
free from the old dependencies and fulll Italys destiny in the Balkans?
The battle lines were being drawn; Sforzas Adriatic reconciliation hung by
a thread.
MUSSOLINI AND LOCARNO
In the period following the Corfu incident, the June 1924 murder of the
Socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti by Fascist thugs helped shape an un-
attering image of Fascism abroad and rekindled the distrust that arose
over Corfu. The Matteotti outrage further polarized opinion between dem-
ocratic leaders in Paris and Prague, who denigrated Fascism as inherently
destabilizing, and conservative Realpolitikers, who welcomed Fascism as a
bulwark against Communism. On the diplomatic front in 1924, in spite of
the swordplay in the Balkans, Mussolini behaved prudently. He signed a
friendship pact with Czechoslovakia, and, in a move that surprised political
pundits who believed that Fascism would never come to terms with a Com-
munist state, the Duce recognized the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, he sur-
reptitiously stirred troubled waters in Germany. Through many contacts
with Germanys para-military right, especially in Bavaria, as well as with
military gures outside normal channels, he encouraged extreme national-
ism as well as the secret rearmament of the Reichswehr.
6
On 20 January 1925, the German foreign minister, Gustav Stresemann,
launched a trial balloon in London. In return for the voluntary renunciation
of Alsace-Lorraine, Germany would accede to a multilateral regional se-
curity pact in the Rhineland area, whereby ve powersBritain, Italy,
France, Belgium, and Germanywould guarantee the existing borders of
the latter three against aggression. The British and French initially re-
sponded to Stresemanns proposal with reserve and suspicion, but gradually
whiffs of optimism blew through the council rooms where the open di-
plomacy of three men (British foreign secretary Austen Chamberlain,
French foreign minister Aristide Briand, and Stresemann), created an atmo-
sphere of reconciliation.
A major aw in these preliminary exchanges quickly became manifest:
the exclusion of Eastern Europe from the scope of mutual guarantees. Ger-
many atly refused to be bound to any regional pacts in the east or to sign
nonaggression pacts with Poland and Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain, his
hands tied by the British Dominions and a tradition of insularity in his own
country, was unable to engage Britain in commitments beyond the Rhine.
Mussolinis reaction to the German proposal for a Rhineland pact was
governed by the Anschluss question and his mixed feelings about the Ger-
mans. If German nationalism turned on France, so much the better for
Italy; but if pacication on the Rhine should enable Germany to focus on
Austria and the South Tyrol, then Italys security would be imperiled. Mus-
solini was therefore stoutly opposed to Anschluss and would tolerate no
Teutonic criticism over his brutal italianization program of the German-
speaking population in the South Tyrol. But instead of negotiating new
safeguards, he rested Italian security on the existing peace treaty system.
Whatever the ambiguities introduced into the Austrian situation by the
Rhineland discussions, the French position remained clear: Anschluss
would signify the complete disorganization and disequilibrium of Central
Europe.
7
But when the French made discreet inquiries on the lacunae
of the German note, Stresemann tartly refused to admit Austria as a t
subject of diplomatic parley. This left the French no other choice but to
thrash out the Anschluss problem directly with the Italians.
The time was not auspicious for serious negotiations. France and Italy
had already arrived at a stalemate in the ongoing negotiations over colo-
nies. Some of the areas of contention, such as Tunis, were left over from
prewar diplomacy; the rest arose from differing interpretations over the
London Pact of April 1915, which had outlined the terms of Italys entry
into the war. Mussolini presented a large bill to France that included con-
cessions in Tunis, Tangier, Libya, and Ethiopia. The French replied with
platitudes. Ideological antagonism fueled the prevailing tension. Having ad-
vanced Fascism as a durable and timely replacement for outmoded lib-
eralism, Mussolini took umbrage at the slightest phrase in the French press
against his regime or country. The Italian anti-Fascist refugees (fuorusciti)
residing in France in particular annoyed the Duce, who stridently de-
manded that the Quai dOrsay curb their diatribes.
Despite Frances inability to establish a fruitful interchange with the Ital-
ians on colonial matters, President Gaston Doumergue, worried over Stre-
semanns loopholes, passed on a direct proposal to Italy in March that
would regard the line running from the Rhine to the Adriatic as a single
frontier.
8
Buoyed by Contarinis reection that an Anschluss would be a
disaster for Italy,
9
the French proposed constructive programs to reha-
bilitate Austrias tottering economy, lest Vienna seek a union with Germany
as the only promising economic bailout. But this provoked the usual train
of Italian objections: Austrias resentment of outside supervision and the
hobgoblin of Danubian confederation that continued to haunt Italy.
10
While French plans for Austria were reduced to a simple inquiry to be
conducted by private individualsa watered-down solution favored in
Rome, insofar as Italys voice was not in the ascendantthe Italians were
deciding how best to ambush the Rhineland pact talks. In eschewing close
consultation with France and Austria, however, Mussolini had reduced
himself to dependency on Chamberlain. This was, alas, a weak reed, for
Italy had already been told that Britain could only participate in a treaty
limited to the Rhine.
The word Anschluss caused different reactions in Mussolini depending
on the circumstances. If Paris sought concerted action with Rome to pre-
vent a merger of Germany and Austria, Italy replied either evasively, or
with an African agenda, or with the specious argument that an Anschluss
represented a greater threat to France than to Italy. But when Stresemann
uttered the forbidden word, Rome froze. In an interview with Alessandro
De Bosdari, the Italian ambassador in Berlin, on 8 May, Stresemann re-
ected on the developing groundswell of German opinion that favored
union with Austria. Not all the other powers shared Italys intransigent
position opposing union, he added, a menacing observation scarcely miti-
gated by his recognition of the difculties of implementation. It seemed to
Italy that Stresemann had seriously begun to consider Anschluss and to
substitute Germany for Austria as the spokesman for minority rights in the
South Tyrol.
On 14 May, Mussolini lashed back by informing Berlin that he would
consider the war lost and the victory totally annulled the day in which
Germany were allowed to realize her annexationist program.
11
Before the
Italian Senate on 20 May, he repeated his determination to prevent An-
schluss and declared the Brenner frontier to be inviolate by the key phrase,
not only must the Rhine frontier be guaranteed, but that of the Brenner
also.
12
In spite of this are-up, Mussolini was mollied by Stresemanns disa-
vowals of Anschluss following the Senate outbursts. An uneasy standoff
ensued. Stresemann in the future would refrain from broaching union with
Austria for fear that Mussolini would counter with a call for an additional
treaty endorsement of both Italys Brenner frontier and of possession of the
Alto Adige. But Mussolini hesitated to push for this additional guarantee
lest it provide a signal to Germany that, once existing frontiers had received
an international guarantee, Italy would worry less about a future An-
schluss. Moreover, Mussolini sought no help from the Little Entente on the
Brenner and Anschluss questions. No less than Stresemann, Mussolini was
determined to deny Benes guarantee privileges and treaty advantages that
might accrue from any extension of Rhineland security to Eastern Europe.
Implicit in the Duces view was his desire to prevent stabilization in the
Danube.
Mussolini was upset with the French for allowing themselves to be drawn
into the Rhineland talks after Whitehall had clearly stated that Britain
would guarantee neither Austrias independence nor the Brenner frontier.
France, Mussolini pointed out, was destroying the indivisibility of the peace
by separating its security problems from those of Eastern Europe. He added
an ominous warning to this sensible critique. Italy, he stated, was not vitally
concerned with the fate of the Rhine. If the plan for mutual security should
pass without commensurate safeguards for Austria, he would ponder a
strictly Italian specic arrangement for the Brenner, the defense of which,
he blithely argued, posed much less of a military problem for Italy than the
Rhine did for France.
13
Plainly, Mussolini hoped that the Rhineland talks
would fail so that Pan-German attention would stay riveted on Alsace-
Lorraine rather than shift to Austria and the South Tyrol.
14
Since Mussolini
refused to cooperate with France to safeguard Austrias independence and
was unwilling to follow Contarinis advice to attenuate his ruthless dena-
tionalization programs in the South Tyrol, Italys German policy amounted
to periodic tongue lashings to lay the ghost of Anschluss. Only so long as
Germany remained weak could such bombast sufce as a surrogate for
diplomacy.
Concerned over agging Italian interest, Chamberlain wanted to mitigate
Mussolinis intransigence that there would be no solution without Italy,
and above all no solution against Italy by convincing him that Britain,
too, would stand against Anschluss.
15
Though unable to engage in com-
mitments beyond the Rhine, Chamberlain hoped to win Mussolinis ad-
herence to the Rhineland negotiations by offering Italy a special authority
in the Balkan affairs.
16
This offer vouchsafed in Italy the authority to act
in the Balkans on behalf of the Entente.
Briand was quickly won over to Chamberlains idea, in spite of the Quai
dOrsays consternation over the abandonment of vital French interests in
the Balkans. He sent Mussolini a letter on 8 June, suggesting reciprocal
security of respective frontiers and promising to regard any Anschluss
attempt as a casus belli. Mussolini was not responsive. He regarded a uni-
lateral French guarantee as a dubious antidote to the two different cate-
gories of treaty and denied having received Chamberlains communique
of Italys special authority in the Balkan affairs.
17
While Briand continued to emphasize alternative possibilities, he was
receiving unsettling information. Based on a series of articles on Austria
published in Italy, the Quai dOrsay detected a mood of incipient appease-
ment toward Germany and vacillation regarding various anti-Anschluss
proposals. If not a bilateral agreement with Berlin, then perhaps Italy would
cooperate with Vienna to short-circuit French Danubian confederation
schemes designed to brace up the Austrian economy. In spite of Mussolinis
cold shoulder, Briand once again in September urged him to join with
France to ll the voids in the Rhineland security talks. But the Duce was
determined to pursue his own course, which, in turn, did not persuade the
French to soften their uncompromising position on Tunisia and Tangier
the touchstones to rapprochement in Italian eyes. The Italians wanted the
French to give their African demands a respectful and judicious review
before committing themselves to a bilateral accord on the Brenner and
Austria, while the French continued to avoid substantive talks regarding
Italys colonial claims.
Although Mussolini saw little value in a Rhine security pact, particularly
one lacking a Brenner guarantee, he nally decided to join up on 18 Sep-
tember. Italy could not be absent from a pact that promised to include
France, Britain, and Germany. Once Italian signature was assured, Briand
drifted into even vaguer promises in the colonial sphere and a polite offer
to exchange declarations on Austria.
Italy played only an insignicant role in the nal drafting of the Locarno
agreements, despite Mussolinis dramatic entry at the nal ceremony. Trav-
eling by special train to Milan, he drove a racing car at breakneck speed
to Stresa and then took the wheel of his speedboat for the nal dash across
Lake Maggiore to Locarno in Switzerland. Shoulders square, chin deant,
the Duce drove into the quay, splashing astonished onlookers, to the hi-
larity of his company of boisterous Blackshirts. But the experience was not
a happy one. Anti-Fascists greeted him with hisses and catcalls and he was
snubbed at diplomatic parties. Frustrated over his inability to silence de-
monstrative critics on foreign soil, Mussolini left Locarno vowing never
again to appear abroad at an international conference.
The Rhineland agreements signed on 16 October 1925 brought the war-
time coalition to an end. By eliminating the distinction between victors and
vanquished, Locarno modied the structure of European politics. Germany
was no longer a pariah but a member of the European Concert in good
standing. Although left out of the Locarno meetings, the Soviet Union, too,
had emerged from isolation by having signed the secret Pact of Rapallo
with Germany in 1922; furthermore, Italy and Britain had afforded the
Leninist regime diplomatic recognition in 1924. France had satised its own
immediate security preoccupations by receiving a voluntary German renun-
ciation of Alsace-Lorraine and a nonaggression pact, backed up by Britain
and Italy, that safeguarded its northern frontiers.
From the Italian standpoint, the diplomatic accomplishment was ambig-
uous. Unwilling to be involved in the Locarno agreement because of its
failure to cover the Brenner and Austria, Mussolini did not want to be
excluded either, because of the advantages in acting as an arbitrator be-
tween France and Germany on the Rhine. In addition, he grudgingly went
along in order to keep in step with Britain. As a guarantor of the frontiers
along the Rhine, which had never before been identied with Italian na-
tional security, Mussolini nally achieved parity and recognition as a Great
Power.
Franco-Italian relations, however, remained in a state of chronic tension
and distrust. Although Mussolini recognized the Anschluss threat and the
need of French cooperation, he preferred to avoid a bilateral Franco-Italian
guarantee for Austria separate from Rhineland mutual security. Unless he
gained all of his colonial satisfactions in advance, he would reject Frances
offer of a guarantee on the Brenner in exchange for an Italian guarantee
on the Rhine. The French did not help matters. Briand played Mussolini
along until his signature on the Rhineland treaty was assured but then lost
interest in Italys colonial claims. The opportunity of clinching an agree-
ment over common interestsreinforcement of both the Rhineland and
Austrian independencewas thereby lost because of French stinginess, Fas-
cist pride, and Mussolinis indecision.
Moreover, the Rhineland agreements threw into doubt Mussolinis as-
sumption of an enduring Franco-German hostility. Lessened pressure on
the Rhine enabled France to improve relations with Berlin and to shore up
the Balkans and the Danube region against Italian revisionism. In spite of
Fascist presuppositions, it did not much matter whether Italy was faced by
a France of the conservative Poincare or one led by the Cartel des Gauches
under the leadership of Briand. The former used punitive measures and the
latter sweet words, but their goal was the same: to impede German resur-
gence and uphold the status quo in Eastern Europe. This was unacceptable
to Mussolini. If Briands Franco-German rapprochement held, revisionismo
would be denied maneuverability and Italy would be condemned to be a
second-class power.
Likewise Italys position toward Germany deteriorated when the latter
entered the League of Nations and ceased being a pariah nation. This
dashed Mussolinis hope that a rightist regime in Berlin would join with
him in snubbing the League and hatching revisionist projects in Eastern
Europe. In a typical example of Italys intransigent autonomy, Mussolini
played off France against Germany in the expectation that the Locarno
talks would die. He ended up the victim of his own tortured maneuvers
while Stresemann emerged as the main beneciary; the postwar treaties
designed to protect Austrian independence and the inviolability of the Bren-
ner were reduced to second rank below the Rhineland guarantees. If few
in Italy realized that Briand had imperiled French security by weakening
Eastern European defenses, it was obvious to Mussolini that guarantees
conned to the Rhineland had further exposed Austria to Anschluss pres-
sures.
NOTES
1. Sally Marks, Mussolini and the Ruhr Crisis, International History Review
8, no. 1 (February 1986): 60.
2. The major work on the Corfu incident is James Barros, The Corfu Incident
of 1923 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965).
3. DDI, 7, II, 126, 11 July 1923.
4. Francois Charles-Roux, Souvenirs diplomatiques: Une grande ambassade a`
Rome (Paris: Fayard, 1961), 25759; DDI, 7, II, 446, 457, and 554, 23 October
and 11 January 1924.
5. Charles-Roux, Une grande ambassade, 25663; Giampiero Carocci, La pol-
itica estera dellItalia fascista (Bari: Laterza, 1969), 4950; Dennison I. Rusinow,
Italys Austrian Heritage 19191946 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 179.
6. Professor Alan Cassels is the rst historian to shed light on Mussolinis con-
nections with the German far Right during the 1920s. See Alan Cassels, Mussolini
and German Nationalism 19221925, Journal of Modern History 35, no. 2 (June
1963): 13757, and Alan Cassels, Mussolinis Early Diplomacy (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1970), 14674. See also Renzo De Felice, Mussolini e
Hitler: I rapporti segreti, 19221933 (Florence: Le Monnier, 1975), 1124.
7. AMAE, Serie Europe 19181929, Gran Bretagna, 74, 16 March 1925.
8. DDI, 7, III, 743, 4 March 1925.
9. AMAE, Serie Europe 19181929, Autriche, 74, 7 March 1925, and Italie,
8384, 8 April 1925.
10. For a further discussion of Frances proposals for Austrias economic reha-
bilitation and supporting documentation, see H. James Burgwyn, Il revisionismo
fascista. La sda di Mussolini alle grandi potenze nei Balcani e sul Danubio 1925
1933 (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1979), 4849.
11. Quoted in Mario Toscano, Storia diplomatica della questione dellAlto Adige
(Bari: Laterza, 1967), 9798.
12. OO, XXI: 31920.
13. DDI, 7, IV, 21, 8 June 1925.
14. DDI, 7, IV, 21 and 24, 8 and 9 June 1925.
15. FO, C 6680/241/3, 15 May 1925, Chamberlain minute.
16. FO, C 7815/251/62, 10 June 1925.
17. AMAE, Serie Europe 19181929, Grande Bretagne, 77 and 80, 19 June and
23 July 1925.
CHAPTER 3
Italian Revisionism
RIVALRIES IN THE BALKANS AND DANUBE REGION
After signing the Locarno Pact, Mussolini opened up a new phase in his
foreign policy by seeking to revise the peace treaties to the advantage of
Italy. To accomplish this end, he never ruled out the use of force. In the
inevitable European war to come, he was wont to say, Italy would place
itself at Germanys side in order to crush France jointly; if not a war against
France, then perhaps he would settle accounts with Yugoslavia.
1
Both im-
pulsive and frustrated, Mussolini frequently expressed such violent feelings
to conservative generals and gures in the foreign service. He took pleasure
in hearing his own sweet martial music and relished the shock experienced
by the staid minions surrounding him when they were challenged by Fascist
boldness. There was warning too. Fascisms supporters must shed their
uptight bourgeois lifestyle in favor of Mussolinis own speed and dash as
the futurist man of action. Then back to the everyday business of govern-
ment. But if none of Mussolinis war talk in the 1920s was followed up by
ne-tuned operational plans and military mobilization, one can still per-
ceive a decided aggressiveness in his revisionism: a predilection for Ger-
many, an enduring hostility toward France, and a determination to tear up
those portions of the peace treaties that limited Italys room to maneuver
in the Danube and Balkan regions. Lacking the military and economic
wherewithal, he would resort to nesse and subversion. Mussolinis re-
straint from war in Europe was not, however, observed in Italys colony in
North Africa, Libya, where Fascist Italy revealed its barbaric side by a
ruthless suppression of native opposition that was nally concluded in
1931. In the meantime, greatly dependent on Londons nancial markets
for the stabilization of the lira, Mussolini made sure to remain on good
terms with Great Britain.
That congenial attitude played nicely with the British foreign minister,
Austen Chamberlain. Immensely pleased over Mussolinis adherence to the
Locarno pact, he developed a friendship with the Duce that endured until
the end of his own tenure in 1929. Hoping that Mussolini would cooperate
in the extension of the Locarno principles to Eastern Europe, Chamberlain
showed understanding over Italian ambitions in Albania and in the colonial
sphere. At the end of 1925, Chamberlain ceded Jarabub to Italy on the
border between Libya and Egypt in 1929 and revived the Anglo-Franco-
Italian agreement of 1906 on Ethiopia. Since this treaty dened the spheres
of inuence of the three powers in Ethiopia, its revival laid the basis for
Italys future pretensions over the central nucleus of Ethiopia, the Amharic-
dominated kingdom. Mussolini was glad to have Chamberlains support to
avoid the isolation implicit in a forward policy in the Balkans and Danube
region that was bound to bring Italy into conict with France. Moreover,
Mussolini was aware that the assistance of the Anglo-American nancial
world was indispensable for the consolidation of the economic and nan-
cial foundations of his regime. Such collaboration was needed to facilitate
the stabilization of the Italian economy by a policy of deation and a return
of the lira to the gold standard. Otherwise, there was no hope that Italy
would gain relief from its immense wartime debt and chronic balance of
payments decits. But the bond between Mussolini and Chamberlain,
though solidied by numerous personal encounters, was strained by the
Italian dictators unpredictability. Mussolinis envy of the British empire
was hardly mitigated by his warm response to Chamberlain and to Con-
servative praise of his regime; moreover, British tolerance over the long run
was to be placed under severe strain by Mussolinis support of Hungarian
revisionism, his incursions into the Balkans beyond Albania, and his con-
tinued interest in mandates and spheres of inuence in the Near East and
Africa.
Emerging from the Locarno talks with an Anglo-Italian entente, Mus-
solini contrived a Quadruplice that would link Italy with Romania, Hun-
gary, and Bulgarianations he deemed to be either dissatised or led by
authoritarians sympathetic to Italian Fascism. The ultimate objective was
nothing less than to unhinge the Little Entente and to encircle and possibly
break up Yugoslavia.
Bulgaria, with its deep resentment of Yugoslavia, seemed a likely can-
didate to form the southern link of Mussolinis Quadruplice chain. Cer-
tainly that nation, since its founding as an independent state in 1878, had
suffered catastrophic losses resulting from ill-advised aggression against its
neighbors during the Balkan wars and from its choice to join the Central
Italian Revisionism 37
Powers in the Great War. Having lost large portions of Macedonia to Ser-
bia as a result of the treaty of Bucharest in 1913, the Bulgarians were
further exasperated by the treaty of Neuilly of 1919, which delivered Bul-
garian-inhabited areas of the north in the Dobrudja to Romania as the price
of defeat.
Mussolini posed as Bulgarias only steadfast ally. To facilitate coherency
in the Quadruplice, he hoped to expedite a solution for Bulgarias squabble
with Romania over the Dobrudja region. The Duce echoed Bulgarian out-
rage over alleged Serbian mistreatment of its Macedonian population,
which Soa claimed to be ethnically Bulgarian. He funneled money to a
Macedonian terrorist group called the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary
Organization (IMRO), which had close ties to the Soa government, and
he demanded the removal of the Control Commission set up by the Allies
in Soa to administer the disarmament and reparations clauses of Neuilly.
For Mussolini, alignment with the government of the Pan-Bulgar Andrei
Liapcev held out the prospect of collaboration with an authoritarian regime
and the separation of Macedonia from Yugoslavia. But if the Bulgarians
were ever to be won over, they would have to be convinced that Mussolini
would move beyond sympathy to a redress of the countrys grievances.
Mussolini, however, was not able to prevent changes in British policy in
Soa over IMRO outrages committed in Yugoslav Macedonia; the Bulgar-
ians resolutely refused to give up their demand for the retrocession of the
Dobrudja region. This spelt nis to the Duces essay in reconciliation be-
tween Soa and Bucharest.
2
If Bulgaria was on the periphery of the Quadruplice, Romania was the
linchpin. Romania represented an odd candidate for Mussolinis revisionist
front precisely because it was a thoroughly satised power and therefore
a natural ally of France; further, as a member of the Little Entente, it was
a defender of the status quo in Eastern Europe. Indeed, it was mainly
thanks to France that Romania, issuing from the war only questionably as
a victor, was able to annex large tracts of land crowded with hostile
ethnic minorities. Nonetheless, when General Alexander Averescuwho
was reputed to be pro-Italian and a Fascist sympathizerformed a gov-
ernment in Bucharest in early April 1926, the Duce saw an opportunity to
woo Romania. His hopes of gaining an ideological satellite in Averescu
were, however, quickly shaken when he learned that on 10 June Romania
had signed a friendship treaty with France. Despite this and many addi-
tional obstacles (the principal ones being Transylvania and the Dobrudja),
Mussolini persisted with his courtship of the would-be Romanian dictator.
There is no doubt that Averescu wished to explore ties with Mussolini
despite his countrys dependency on France. Though Averescu had no in-
terest in the Duce as an ideological mentor, he saw value in an Italian
ratication of the Bessarabian protocol of 1920, by which Romania had
secured that province from Soviet Russia. Lacking an Italian signature, the
legal nature of the protocol remained in question. This posed problems for
Mussolini, who did not happily contemplate a rupture with Moscow over
Bessarabia. But balanced against this was the Duces desire to associate
Italy and Romania with Hungary and Bulgaria. The Duce was confronted
with a choice: either alienate the Soviet Union by ratifying the Bessarabian
protocol in favor of the Quadruplice or preserve a workable relationship
with Moscow and the Little Entente. Mussolini favored the former, while
the Palazzo Chigi continued to stand by Contarinis old caveat to keep on
good terms with the Soviet Union as a counter to the German threat.
3
Additional obstacles blocked Mussolinis path to Bucharest. Before the
Quadruplice could move from vagueness to reality, Romania would have
to return Magyar-dominated portions of Transylvania to the Hungarian
homeland, as well as to compensate those Magyars whose homes and prop-
erty had been expropriated and who had opted to move to Hungary after
the war. By interposing Italy in these tangled Hungarian-Romanian dis-
putes, Mussolini was inviting such heavy criticism from both sides that he
was persuaded to defer decision on Bessarabia.
Negotiations on other subjects were continued, however, culminating in
the signing of the Italo-Romanian pact on 16 September 1926. This ap-
peared to be yet another innocuous friendship treaty that would be rele-
gated to obscurity, the same fate that had befallen the Italo-Czech treaty
of 1924. But here appearances were deceiving, for its platonic character
concealed a secret passage containing reciprocal guarantees of assistance in
case of unprovoked aggression against either signatorya clause that,
however, became a dead letter after Averescus fall. It is apparent that at
rst neither Mussolini nor Averescu was clear over the advantages accruing
from this treaty. The Duce, for the moment, left Romania in a weakened
relationship with its Entente allies while he commenced negotiations with
Albania; Averescu was content with having established credit on his Italian
account, which he hoped to put to future use over Bessarabia. Mussolini
proposed to ratify the Bessarabian protocolpointing out the inevitable
sacrice of Soviet friendshipon condition that Averescu join his Quad-
ruplice by reaching agreements with Bulgaria and Hungary on their claims
against his country.
4
Averescu, however, quickly engendered widespread domestic discontent
and his own kings disgust over his vibrant relationship with Italy; they
would tolerate no loosening of ties with France. Mussolini moved to ease
Averescus plight. Dropping membership in the Quadruplice as a precon-
dition, he ratied the Bessarabian protocol on 7 March 1927. The Duces
generosity was prompted by the delicate nature of the negotiations he was
preparing to conduct with Hungary. Before he could succeed in bringing
Budapest and Bucharest together within the Quadruplice framework, he
had to oversee a settlement of their outstanding differencesa daunting
task given the undying enmity that divided Magyar from Romanian.
5
Mussolini persisted as a self-styled mediator in this hopeless endeavor
out of ambition and na vete. If Italy should succeed in brokering a new
Eastern European bloc pivoted on a Hungarian-Romanian axis, the exis-
tence of the Little Entente and the presence of France in the Danube region
would be consigned to memory, and Britain would be won over to an
Italian Danubian hegemony by the implicit anti-Slavism of such an axis.
6
Mussolini was, however, brought back to earth when Averescu placated
the French by his conspicuous participation at the Little Ententes Jachimov
conference on 1215 May 1927. That gesture was too belated to save Av-
erescus political career, and the next month he was driven from the gov-
ernment. Mussolinis major aspiration of weaning Romania from France
and the Little Entente therefore miscarried. He had overestimated Aver-
escus Fascist proclivities and his ability to establish a dictatorship in Bu-
charest.
Of all the countries that Mussolini courted, Hungary was the one des-
tined to become Italys staunchest revisionist ally. That the Magyars has-
tened to grasp Mussolinis proffered revisionist hand can be explained by
the sorry state in which they found themselves at the end of World War I.
The Treaty of Trianon had inicted devastating losses on Hungary in ter-
ritory, resources, and population. Shorn of approximately seventy percent
of its territory and large numbers of Magyars, Hungary was also divested
of extensive areas of forestry and essential industries. The cruel and un-
just treaty, in which Hungary was not invited to participate, united all
Magyars in outright hatred of the countries of the Little EntenteCzecho-
slovakia, Romania, and Yugoslaviawhich, by means of the peace treaties,
had been able to help themselves to large tracts of Magyar-inhabited ter-
ritory.
The Hungarian premier, Istva n Bethlen, wishing to explore Italys will-
ingness to strike out against the Little Entente, met with Mussolini in Rome
in early April 1927. Mussolinis task was a ticklish one. Basic to the Quad-
ruplice was the participation of both Hungary and Romania, but he was
discovering that friendship proffered to one would automatically trigger
suspicion on the part of the other. Nothing concrete was therefore put to
paper on the resolution of Hungarian-Romanian differences, but the talks
were not devoid of results on the ideological front. Both leaders heartily
agreed that authoritarian regimes were far preferable to democratically
slanted social-agrarian governments in protecting Eastern Europe from the
Bolshevik menace; more to the point, they xed wholesale treaty revision
in the Danube region as a common diplomatic objective. As far as the rest
of Europe was concerned, the meeting had an innocuous outcome in the
form of a treaty of amity, conciliation, and arbitration between the two
countries, signed on 5 April 1927. Concealed from public view and in
violation of the Trianon treaty was a secret agreement on the delivery of
Italian weapons to Hungary.
7
Bethlen, who before his arrival in Rome the
previous April had been characterized by Mussolini as feudal, had turned
into a cultivated, polished, prudent, precise and sincere friend of Italy and
of the regime.
8
Mussolini had little to show for his tortured diplomatic perambulations.
The Quadruplice represented an unsuccessful foray back across the Great
Wars sharply delineated line separating victor from vanquished. What
Mussolini had originally envisaged as a Schlieffen plan, to envelop Yu-
goslavia with an end-run around the tip of Albania, past Greece, through
Bulgaria, and thence to Romania and Hungary, had failed because of in-
surmountable obstacles. The key country, Romania, refused to be pulled
over to the side of the revisionists. As had been the case with Yugoslavia,
Italy lacked sufcient strength and credibility to prevail on Romania to
sever its ties with Paris and the Little Entente. Compounding this failure
was Mussolinis inability to mediate the Bulgarian-Romanian dispute over
the Dobrudja, to keep Greece in tow, or to untangle Italo-Hungarian re-
visionist aims scrambled by the problem of Germany. Stripped of Bulgaria
and Romania, the Quadruplice collapsed into a bilateral relationship be-
tween Italy and Hungary, whose major focus moved from encirclement of
Yugoslavia to a revamped revisionist front in the Danube region which, if
the Magyars had their way, would include Germany in an effort to break
up the Little Entente.
Mussolini had not forgotten Albania. Chamberlain had given him a
strong card to play by granting Italy the authority to act as the Leagues
agent at Tirana, as outlined by the Conference of Ambassadors in 1921.
Could the Duce respect Chamberlains exhortation that he formally respect
Albanias independence in a way satisfactory to the Yugoslavs? Under
Chamberlains umbrella, Mussolini weighed two diplomatic alternatives in
1925: a tripartite agreement with France and Yugoslavia and a bilateral
agreement with Belgrade that would exclude Paris.
To escape from complete dependency on Italy, Albanias king Ahmed
Zogu tried to use Britain as a countervailing inuence,
9
yet he would accept
no arrangement that would subordinate Albania to the Leagues jurisdic-
tion. Since Zogu himself needed assistance not only to remain in power but
also to fulll certain expansionist objectives, he was ready to turn to the
Italians, but only on the condition that they provide him substantial aid
and support for Albanias irredentist claims on the Kosovo region in south-
ern Yugoslavia. Zogu was condent that he could weave his way through
the more outspoken Italian imperialists, his own domestic opposition, and
Yugoslav intrigue, while minimizing his dependency on Mussolini.
As Zogu blew hot and cold over the advisability of associating with the
Italians, Mussolinis advisers were waging a spirited debate over what to
do in Albania. Many professionals of the Contarinian school opposed any
mutually exclusive treaty with Zogu in order to placate the Yugoslavs;
others, of a more expansionist bent, wanted an outright Italian colony ir-
respective of regime. Mussolini adopted a middle position; he would work
with Zogu. By enticing him with money and hints, Mussolini promised to
regard as operative the secret Italo-Albanian military agreement of August
1925.
10
He adopted a compromise position that on the surface recognized
parity between Albania and Italy but left him an opening for further ad-
vances. A treaty of Tirana was drawn up and signed in November 1926.
The key provision reads, Italy and Albania recognize that any disturbance
directed against the political, juridical, and territorial status quo of Albania
is contrary to their reciprocal political interests.
11
This vagueness left Italy ample room to assert a right of interference in
Albanian domestic affairs on the pretext of protecting Zogu. Conversely,
the treaty conferred on the Albanian chieftain the option of inviting Italian
intervention in support of his irredentist claims on Kosovo. The elastic
phraseology even provided Zogu leverage to ask Mussolinis help in putting
down domestic uprisings against his own regime. Defeating hopes of Italo-
Yugoslav reconciliation, which had been engendered by the Rome accords
of 1924, the Tirana pact inaugurated a period of growing contentiousness
in the Balkans.
Stepping up the pressure, Mussolini railed against France as the most
militaristic nation in the world and stimulated a crisis by inammatory
charges that accused Yugoslavia of stirring insurgency against the Zogu
regime. Capitalizing on Chamberlains reluctance to serve as the Balkan
Honest Broker, Mussolini pursued an Albanian policy with an ever more
pronounced anti-Yugoslav slant. Receiving only moral support from the
Little Entente, the Yugoslavs pressed the French to activate their dormant
treaty to deter Italy from further intrigues in Albania.
12
For a while, the French brushed aside the Yugoslav request out of fear
of annoying the British. Moreover, since Briand held Italian power in no
high esteem, he initially did not think that Yugoslavia needed a treaty with
France to offset the Tirana pact or as military security against bellicose
Italian behavior in Albania, which he dismissed as bluff. Like the Italians,
Briand was worried about Yugoslav militarism and the Serb armys hubris.
The Yugoslav press never ceased denigrating Italys military performance
during the Great War, which invariably provoked retaliatory insults about
uncouth Slavs in the Italian press. Paris and Belgrade had different per-
spectives. Briand intended to include Yugoslavia as part of his cordon san-
itaire to contain both the Soviet Union and Germany, whereas Yugoslavia
wanted an alliance with France to deter Italian aggression in Albania, where
no direct French interests were at stake. Like the Italians, the French were
worried about Yugoslav rashness and diplomatic immaturity. But Briand
nally succumbed to Belgrades pressure and, on 11 November 1927,
signed a treaty with Yugoslavia. The French intended to use the treaty as
much to control Yugoslav impetuosity as to deter Italian aggression.
13
By
incorporating an arbitration provision, the French wanted to prevent em-
broilment in obscure Balkan quarrels and to promote peace between Italy
and Yugoslavia.
14
The Italians decried this treaty as a provocation, a foil to their legitimate
expansionist aspirations, and as proof of the Quai dOrsays unshakable
determination to reinforce French hegemony in Europe. Normality had re-
turned: estrangement between the Latin Sisters. The Italians proceeded
to sign another pact with Albania on 22 November 1927. In contrast with
the rst Tirana pact of 27 November 1926, which had conferred on Italy
unilateral responsibility to sustain the Zogu regime in power against both
domestic foes and external threats, the second one was a defensive military
alliance. It contained reciprocal obligations between the two states to afford
one another armed assistance in the event of attack by a third party. Since
the two treaties with Zogu succeeded in reinforcing Italys hold over Al-
bania, they antagonized both France and Britain for their provocation of
Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav parliament answered by refusing to ratify the
Conventions of Nettuno, signed on 20 July 1925, which guaranteed the
rights of Italians living in Dalmatia. Mussolini angrily observed that the
situation between Italy and Yugoslavia was irreconcilable.
While lambasting the Franco-Yugoslav treaty, Mussolini made overtures
to Greece and Turkey in order to chip away at Yugoslavia from the south.
This stratagem faltered over Italys inability to resolve the interminable
Greco-Turk feud exacerbated by the forced postwar population transfers
between the two countries. Soviet pressure on Turkey to eschew alignments
with anti-Bolshevik connotations also stymied the Duce. Nonetheless, Mus-
solini was able to lay two corners of the triangle through separate treaties
with Turkey and Greece, dated August and September 1928 respectively,
but the indispensable line connecting Athens and Ankara had not been
gained.
By 1928, the escalation of tension between Italy and Yugoslavia con-
vinced Chamberlain that Mussolini was quite uninterested in stability. Like-
wise, he was not pleased by the Duces support of Hungarian revisionism
by word and weapon. The drifting apart of the two men was accentuated
over Albania when the Duce stage-managed the proclamation of Zogu as
king of all Albanians in late summer of 1928. A brazen boost to Albanias
irredentist claims on Kosovo, this ceremony symbolized an affront to
Chamberlains Balkan mediation.
15
More than a concrete gain, Mussolinis Balkan policy was conceived out
of fear and aggressiveness. Behind the Duces unremitting hostility to Yu-
goslavia and his predisposition to exaggerate Serb militarism was an abid-
ing insecurity over Zogus loyalty and staying power. When the Yugoslavs
expressed their concern over Italys inroads in Albania, Mussolini perceived
an ulterior motive to supplant Italian inuence in Tirana with their own.
And when Belgrade, in a spasm of unwonted friendliness, professed a desire
for a return to the spirit of the Rome treaty of 1924, Mussolini perceived
weaknessa conrmation of the efcacy of strong-armed diplomacy.
A not entirely misplaced suspicion gripped Mussolini that the Serb army
was preparing for assaults against both Albania and Bulgaria, further proof
that the Yugoslav regime was inimical to Italy. In his mind, the French
were the abettors who manipulated Belgrade like a puppet. As was his
habit, the Duce overlooked an essentially defensive Franco-Yugoslav alli-
ance by describing it as a masonic-democratic conspiracy to strangle
Fascism and thwart Italian aspirations in the Balkans. In a t of rage, he
ordered General Pietro Badoglio on 2 October 1926 to mobilize twenty
divisions to assault Yugoslavia, a country overowing with enemies of Italy
and the Fascist regime.
16
The Duces irrational responses and excessive bel-
ligerency revealed a man who suspected in others his own aggressiveness.
Mussolinis proclivity to misjudge was exaggerated by subjective reports
on Yugoslavia from Italys representatives in the eld. Fascist language and
anti-Slav prejudices crept into the writing not only of Mussolinis personal
emissaries but also the old-guard diplomats. Peppering their reports were
such phrases as the atavistic impulses of Serbs, the social-democratic,
masonic, Jewish internationalist plot underlying the Franco-Yugoslav
pact, and the occult inuence of Grand Orient masonry and its funds
stimulating Serbias italophobia.
17
Still, Mussolini was neither goaded into
activism by radical Fascists nor restrained by careerists; nor was his Al-
banian policy galvanized by capitalists urging imperialist expansion. Italian
foreign policy in the Balkans and the Danube region bore his unique stamp.
Regardless of Belgrades motives, Mussolini aimed to dominate Albania
and either to neutralize or break up Yugoslavia. He succeeded only in tight-
ening a certain measure of control over the slippery King Zogu.
Armed with the Franco-Yugoslav treaty, Briand informed Rome that he
was ready to open negotiations aiming at Italian support for the French
security system in Europe. Mussolini responded by listing Italys objectives
in Africa: the continuation of the 1896 convention on Tunis for another
ve years; the delineation of the southern and western boundaries of Libya;
and the recognition by France that Italy had a prior claim on mandates. In
March 1928, negotiations were commenced by the French ambassador in
Rome, Maurice Beaumarchais.
18
But Mussolini confused the talks on co-
lonial issues, where he appeared to be less intractable, insisting that France
acquiesce in his Balkan schemes and grant Italy a free hand in the Danube
region by means of a friendship pact. Since the French were not prepared
to make such concessions, the negotiations petered out in 1929.
19
It is difcult to ascertain whether Mussolini misunderstood or willfully
misconstrued the French alliance system. Having no sympathy for Frances
chief concern over the containment of Germany, he mocked the French
preoccupation with security. Mussolini supposed that France was using the
Versailles treaty system as much to thwart Italy as to shackle Germany. In
truth, the rst was only the consequence of the second. In the view of the
Quai dOrsay, Italy could not replace France as the stabilizing factor in the
Balkan-Danubian region for two reasons: Italy was simply not strong
enough, and Italian revisionism plainly implied a disruption of the Eastern
European alliance system. Germany would be free to advance down the
Danube and into the Balkansareas fragmented and weakened by Italy.
Indeed, Mussolinis emphasis on dynamism and action was difcult to rec-
oncile with Frances interest in stability.
A corrosive ambivalence also left its mark. Ideology beguiled Mussolini
into overestimating Italian capabilities. According to Fascist dogma, a virile
and disciplined Italy was destined to replace a hostile France that was de-
bilitated by liberalism and a falling birthrate. When the French acted to
restrain Serb bellicosity, Mussolini perceived weakness. Still, he often be-
haved as if he believed that French power on the Continent would be un-
assailable for decades. Failing to take into account that France had emerged
from the Great War a fragile victor and that, after Locarno, French policy
was increasingly reactive and defensive, Mussolini thundered against the
evangelistic dedication with which the Quai dOrsay was supposedly de-
ploying the Little Entente and Frances Mediterranean eet to stie Italys
legitimate expansion. The Duces habit of ascribing mean and uncon-
scionable motives to French policy not only resulted in oversimplication
but detracted from his credibility. The spuriousness of the professed Italian
desire to sort out colonial claims with the French is conrmed by the Duces
open admission to the German ambassador in Italy, Constantin von Neu-
rath, that he had made unreasonable demands.
20
The French continued to
see in Fascist Italy an expansionist force determined to exact fulllment of
its variegated program at their expense and in neglect of the German prob-
lem. Mussolini, on the other hand, viewed France as a socialistic country
bent on extinguishing Fascism by means fair or foul. To think that effective
diplomatic dialogue between Rome and Paris could ensue against this back-
ground of irreconcilable perceptions presupposes the existence of an im-
mediate and overwhelming threat to them both. But the disarmed Germany
of Stresemann was not yet the Nazi dynamo of Hitler.
TERRORIST CONNECTIONS
In June 1927, Mussolini wrote a memorandum that called for Italian
support of rightist revolutionary movements in the Balkans and the Danube
region whose major aim was the breakup of Yugoslavia. But he was careful
to admonish that precipitous action be avoided, lest it result in quick and
bloody suppression and expose Italys embarrassing connivance. Only after
local insurrectionary forces had laid the groundwork on their own and
given proof of their elan would Italy contribute arms and money. Orches-
trated with a diplomatic offensive, Mussolinis abetment of terrorism was
intended to propel putschist authoritarian movements into power and to
pull their Fascist-oriented regimes into the Italian orbit.
A group of troublemakers in the Balkans that caught Mussolinis eye
was the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). Sup-
ported by key gures in the Bulgarian government, the IMRO carried on
insurrectionary activities in Yugoslav Macedonia and was therefore a prize
candidate for recruitment into the Italian fold. In 1924, the IMRO issued
a federalist manifesto calling for the liberation and unication of Mace-
donia. Against this group stood pro-Bulgarian supremacists. After a grue-
some bloodbath in which many federalists and Communist sympathizers
fell victim, an uneasy truce commenced among the emergent three chiefs
of the IMRO commandAlexandu r Protogerov, Ivan Mihailov, and
Georgi pop Christov. Whereas Protogerov continued to explore peaceful
avenues for a federalist solution and was said to have approached the
Yugoslav government, the organization as a whole became increasingly an
aggregate of unprincipled and vicious personalities addicted to violence and
devoid of any real commitment to the idea of a Macedonian nation.
During the summer of 1927, Protogerov journeyed to Rome in search of
Italian gold. This placed the Duce on the spot. Chamberlains exhortation
that Mussolini join him in urging Soa to put an end to IMRO terrorism
arrived at the moment when he was about to sign the second Tirana pact.
Mussolinis choice was either to estrange the Bulgarian prime minister Liap-
cev or to anger Chamberlain. Since sustaining Zogu had become funda-
mental to Italys Balkan policy, he dared not unnecessarily irritate
Chamberlain, and thus he fell in with the British request. This was a hold-
ing action to stay Chamberlains hand until he had concluded the treaty
with Albania. There was therefore a need for quiet in Macedonia. But the
IMROs fresh outrages in December 1927 upset Mussolinis delicate bal-
ancing act. Like everyone else, the Italians were hapless witnesses to the
brutality of the IMROs fratricidal quarrels, which were often fought out
in both Yugoslav Macedonia and Albania.
Despite continuing terrorism that he could not restrain, Mussolini was
determined to keep in touch with the IMRO, though he could not decide
whether to support the Protogerovist or Mihailovist faction. Sometimes the
Italians underwrote both simultaneously, and sometimes they shelved the
IMRO in an attempt to buffer Liapcev from Chamberlains representations.
Mussolini created unnecessary confusion by acting through secret agents
and regular diplomatic channels that often worked at cross-purposes;
breakdowns of communication were commonplace. All along, Mussolini
was subjected to conicting advice. Which faction should be supported,
and against whom? Was terrorism weakening the Yugoslav state or cre-
ating problems between Italian proteges in Soa and Mussolinis trusted
friend Chamberlain? The Duce was unable to make the right choices. After
a year of relative quiet, in 1929 he once again took up the IMRO cause,
but he placed his bets on the faction that lost out in an internal power
struggle. That the IMRO as a whole was a dying movement escaped his
notice.
A major Italian defeat was signaled on 14 February 1930 when Bulgaria
signed with Yugoslavia the heretofore hotly disputed Pirot protocols, pre-
scribing measures for the maintenance of security along the frontier. With
the help of France, Yugoslavia had scored a signicant victory. The sane
political gures in the Bulgarian government were free at last to stamp out
the IMRO as an effective guerrilla force, a task eased after a vicious settling
of accounts had decimated its ranks. In an unfamiliar mood of reconcilia-
tion, Yugoslavia and Greece resolved their differences over the Salonika
railroad on 27 March 1929. Then Greece settled its outstanding differences
with Turkey over population transfers in a convention signed during the
spring of 1930, laying the foundation for a future Balkan federation. The
whole point of Italys subsidization of the IMROkeeping Bulgaria and
Greece out of the Yugoslav orbit and the Balkans in turmoilhad therefore
gone amiss. Italys irtation with Liapcev nally came to an inglorious and
inconclusive end with the latters political eclipse in June 1931. The IMRO
expired in 1934.
21
In the game of political speculation in the Balkans, the wheel of fortune
had turned against the Duce. Acquiescent in Mussolinis penetration of
Albania, Chamberlain drew the line at Italian abetment of IMRO terrorism.
The Englishmans remonstrances in Soa ultimately coerced Liapcev into
preventing the organized brigandage in his country from regularly spilling
over into Yugoslavia; Mussolinis subsidization of the IMRO, on the other
hand, hurt his friends in Soa, deepened Bulgarias internal ssures, and
needlessly complicated its diplomacy all around. Strained feelings between
Mussolini and Chamberlain, embittered relations between Italy and Bul-
garia, and a strengthened Yugoslavia were the net results.
In his campaign to disrupt the Yugoslav state by means of subversion,
Mussolini exercised visibly more restraint toward the Croatian separatists
than he did toward the IMRO. This approach derived from an Italian in-
clination to contrast Croatian timidity, born of an unfamiliarity with sub-
version, unfavorably with Macedonian audacity and proven expertise with
the weapons of terrorism. Because of their revolutionary immaturity, the
Croatians during the 1920s were deemed poorly prepared to force funda-
mental changes in the structure of the Yugoslav state. Mussolinis half-
hearted connivance in Croatian separatism revealed many of the same
shortcomings that dogged his undercover Balkan operations: a confusing
overlap between agents and diplomats and insuperable diplomatic obsta-
cles.
What made Mussolinis support for Croatian separatism utterly self-
defeating were Italian irredentist claims on Croatian-populated Dalmatia.
The Roman Catholic Croatians, having cultivated a strong sense of self-
identity, considered themselves more civilized and advanced than the
primitive Greek Orthodox Serbs and were dissatised with the Serb-
dominated regime in Belgrade. Some sought autonomy, while others
dreamed of independence. Overall, the Croatians were badly split. It was
the obstreperous separatist current, which also contained many quarreling
factions, that Mussolini hoped to enroll in his campaign to break up Yu-
goslavia.
Since only a handful of Croatians were disposed to cast their lot with
Italy, Mussolinis task was a formidable one. Even the matter of coordi-
nation was taxing, for the disparate factions were widely scattered in and
around Croatia. Dr. Ivo Frank, who had been living in exile in Hungary
since 1922, maintained contacts with the Magyars; the celebrated Fascist
sympathizer Ante Pavelic presided over covert operations in Zagreb; and
General von Lovcen Stjepan Sarkotic, another rightist with pronounced
monarchist leanings, preached independence from his home in Vienna. The
most successful among the disaffected Croatians was Pavelic, who, with
the help of Italian agents, was able to forge links with the IMRO and
receive the bulk of Italian money. To consolidate these anti-Serb terrorists,
the Italians brought them together with agents of the Albanian Committee
of Kosovo.
On the whole, Mussolini kept aloof from the Croatians and urged both
his agents and diplomats to be discreet while culling information on Cro-
atian affairs and personalities. But even this restricted task of observation
was made difcult by the Duces changing and contradictory commands.
In 1925, the agent Vittorio Mazzotti was assigned to coordinate all contacts
with the expatriate Croatians; later he was supplanted by the newspaper-
man Italo Zingarelli. Yet Colonel Carlo Vecchiarelli, the military attache
in Vienna, and Eugeneo Morreale, a correspondent for Il Popolo dItalia,
continued to receive various Croatian representatives with no apparent dis-
approval from the Palazzo Chigi. Vladko Macek, who played a leading
Hungarian role in the drama, simultaneously was beseeching the Duce to
receive one of his men. Mussolini bought him off with pocket money and
placed him under the supervision of Ubaldo Rochira, the Italian consul in
Zagreb.
Within Croatia, Mussolini moved to bring order by giving Rochira sole
responsibility for conferring with Croatian dissidents. Zingarelli would
have been a wiser choice, but he was shunted off to Austria on another
assignment. The less level-headed Rochira took to harping on the immi-
nence of civil war in Yugoslavia, the reliability of Pavelic, and the rebellious
potential of Croatian soldiers, should Italy intervene militarily. Rochiras
monopoly on Croatian affairs was contested by the Italian minister in Bel-
grade, Carlo Galli, who felt that he should be the one to coordinate the
ow of information in Croatia. Rochira was not Gallis only headache; he
found himself surrounded by Fascist panderers and agents operating on
their own, a dispersion of authority bound to reduce his effectiveness.
How much did Mussolinis embroilment in internal Yugoslav affairs ad-
vance or impair Italian interests? On the surface, it would seem that the
droves of newspapermen, undercover agents, military attaches, and diplo-
mats who fanned out in Eastern Europe searching for Croatian separatists
had no impact other than to irritate Belgrade. There were only a handful
of separatist terrorists to work with, and Italy lacked the funds to bankroll
a more broadly based movement. The long-range consequences, however,
were more far-reaching. France was afforded yet additional proof of Italian
perdy with which to justify its alliance with Yugoslavia. Even from the
Italian standpoint, Mussolini was pursuing a self-defeating policy. His com-
manding objective, the promotion of Yugoslavias internal disintegration
with the help of friendly Croatians, suffered from a widening discrepancy
between the activity of his agents and the Fascist press. While his personal
emissaries sought to enlist Croatians in the terrorist ranks, the press per-
sisted in lumping together all of Yugoslavias ethnic groups as Italys im-
placable enemies. The Duce also was unable to resist adorning his news
columns with strident irredentist claims on Dalmatia, an area populated
mainly by Croatians. It is small wonder that these assaults, coupled with
Mussolinis ruthless italianization of the Istrian peninsula, should have
failed to seduce many of the Croatians beyond Pavelics sparse cohort.
Following King Alexanders imposition of a military dictatorship in 1929,
further dissidence was squelched in Zagreb. Mussolinis only recourse was
to provide terrorist camps on Italian soil for training and waiting. Pavelic
was given run of a villa located near Pesaro, and his henchman Gustav
Percec received money for recruitment and armaments procurement.
22
The Austrian Heimwehr was another beneciary of Mussolinis largess;
support for this grew out of the cordial relations that Italy had established
with Hungary in 1927. Mussolini was driven by a missionary zeal to de-
stroy the Austrian Socialist party and to overturn the Austrian constitution
as a prelude to the installation of a rightist, Heimwehr-dominated govern-
ment in Vienna. Such a regime, presumably, would tilt toward Rome and
tailor its needs to suit Italian national interests. Wedded to the same au-
thoritarian principles, Italy and especially Hungary would supposedly at-
tract revanchist Germany, induce the formation of a rightist regime in
Berlin and together proceed toward the inevitable showdown with France
and the Little Entente for supremacy in Eastern Europe.
What was this Heimwehr of which the Italians and Hungarians expected
great deeds? Like the Fascist movement in Italy, the Austrian Heimwehr
surfaced in the postwar atmosphere of disillusionment and economic crisis.
To protect their lands from the so-called menace of Reds, Slavs, and Ital-
ians, demobilized soldiers ocked into voluntary home guards. These
formed the core of the Heimwehr movement. But in spite of a certain elan,
during the 1920s, the Heimwehr was destined to remain on the periphery
of Austrian politics, its Fascism stillborn. Although inspired by the author-
itarian idea, the Heimwehr was never able to forge the inner unity required
to evolve into a full-edged movement capable of seizing power. Instead,
it remained a collection of provincial military leagues with strong regional
loyalty whose only cohesiveness lay in a community of trenches spirit, a
hatred of Austrian Socialists, and nostalgic memories of the Habsburg mon-
archy. Moreover, since Austrias government was clerical-conservative
during the 1920s, the Heimwehrs appeal among rightist circles and re-
spectable people was attenuated. Insofar as the Heimwehr nourished Pan-
Germanism and South Tyrolean irredentism, it would actually represent a
specic danger to Italys national interests. Yet this provincial, unwieldy,
and potentially anti-Italian movement became Mussolinis collaborator in
the art of subversion.
Mussolinis hatred of Austrian Marxism derived from his identity as a
Socialist renegade. Especially infuriating to him was the biting criticism of
his erstwhile Austrian comrades over the Matteotti incident and the com-
fort they gave to the Italian fuorusciti. Moreover, in 1927, the Austrian
Socialist party still strongly advocated Anschluss. Mussolini not only
equated the Austrian Marxists with Bolshevism but also regarded the Aus-
trian Socialists as agents of France and the Little Entente. To offset what
he feared to be an impending Socialist seizure of power in Vienna, Mus-
solini intended to support a Heimwehr coup detat.
Given Mussolinis ideological proclivities, the Hungarian premier, Istva n
Bethlen, was able to persuade him in April 1928 to contribute a million
lire to the Heimwehr war chest. After subduing proletarian agitation, the
Heimwehr planned to seize power. Mussolini left most of the practical
arrangements to the Hungarians. A mass rally in Wiener Neustadt was
planned for 7 October 1928, and Rome hoped that this action would at
once prove that the Socialists no longer had a monopoly on the streets and
would trigger a march on Vienna. But the clever Prelate Ignaz Seipel
defused the putsch and thus prevented the Heimwehr from charting its way
to power through insurrection.
In 1929, more money passed from Rome into the Heimwehrs coffers.
In a change of strategy, the Heimwehr pondered legal methods to attain
their main goals of debilitating the Socialist party and strengthening the
authority of the state. Mussolini and Bethlen agreed to substituting this
strategy for armed intervention. With great fanfare, the Heimwehr prepared
for the leap to power by scheduling a mass demonstration for 29 Septem-
ber. Ironically, just when it appeared that the movement was peaking in
popularity, it began to lose the condence of the Austrian bourgeoisie and
the rank and le of the Christian Social party. The air laden with violence,
the Heimwehrs bourgeois paymasters lost their desire to settle accounts
with Marxism, preferring instead to employ the movement as a shield
against their feared leftist rivals. Deprived of popular support, the Heim-
wehr lost its nerve, and the great demonstration zzled out.
After Seipels resignation in April 1929, the Christian Social party pinned
its hopes on Johannes Schober, a man of law and order. In his capacity as
Viennas police chief, had he not smashed the Socialist uprising in July
1927? Since Schober was known to have close Heimwehr connections and
was unimpeachably anti-Marxist, the Italians decided to switch their alle-
giance from the discredited Heimwehr to the newly formed government in
the belief that Schober intended to strengthen the executive.
Schober proceeded to outfox both the Italians and the Heimwehr. He
made a visit to Rome and signed a treaty of friendship and arbitration with
Mussolini on 6 February 1930. The Duce promised to end his resistance
to an international loan to Austria and supported Schobers decision to
disarm both the Heimwehr and the Schutzbund. But Schober refused to
budge from a strictly dened neutrality by associating with any Danubian
alignment sponsored by Italy. The man who has often been described as
mediocre, a colorless, pedantic, if hard-working policeman of provincial
mentality, had proved himself more than equal to Mussolini. Schober had
induced a change in Italian policy: the abandonment of Heimwehr subver-
sion in favor of a legally waged war on Socialism through support for his
legitimate government, despite his former assurances to Rome that he
would direct an arbitrary police/Heimwehr clean-up of Austrian Marxism.
In July 1930, Count Ernest Ru diger Starhemberg, a man of aristocratic
lineage and wealth but an undisciplined Freikorps lifestyle, visited Musso-
lini in Rome. The Duce urged him to seize leadership of the badly frag-
mented Heimwehr. This he did. In accordance with Italian wishes,
Starhemberg set aside Fascism for the moment as a model for Austria in
favor of participation in Schobers government; the hope was that he would
give that government a decidedly authoritarian, anti-Socialist slant. But
Starhemberg failed to live up to Italian expectations either by infusing his
somnolent organization with vigor or by establishing his sway over
Schober. And Schober more than measured up to Italian guile. Keeping
Starhemberg at arms length, Schober also turned his back on his defense
minister, Karl Vaugoin (whom the Italians had gured as the essential link
between the army and Heimwehr), traveled to France, and struck up a
dialogue with the Austrian Socialists. Offended by Schobers ideological
apostasy, the Italians urged Vaugoin to plot an army-Heimwehr show of
force with Starhemberg to take place before the elections, hoping that
Schober would be dragged along. But, alas, the fall elections in 1930 went
off without incident; nobody lifted a nger against the Socialists, who
emerged as the strongest party. Consternation reigned in Rome.
Although Starhemberg bragged in his memoirs, I frankly admit that I
entered the cabinet with the object of bringing about a coup detat,
23
this
edgling protege of Mussolini, left in the lurch by his friend Vaugoin, pro-
ceeded to invest in respectability through the formation of a political party,
the Heimatbloc. Starhembergs transition from movement to party alien-
ated the revolutionary fanatics, and Schobers able intrigue, during the time
he was in ofce, contributed to the fracturing of Heimwehr unity.
In spite of the questionable wisdom of trafcking with Heimwehr gures,
Mussolini, in contrast with his closest advisers, held out hopes for a Heim-
wehr march on Vienna. The evidence against the movement was conclusive
and should have prompted him to break off completely. Eugenio Morreale,
the Duces agent in Vienna, criticized the Heimwehr for its unreliability,
and the Italian minister in Vienna, Giacinto Auriti, cited a divisiveness that
sapped the Heimwehrs will and the failure of any strong leader to over-
come this. Giulio Ricciardi, the Italian consul at Innsbruck, pointed out the
obvious: A movement whose cradle was located in the Tyrolean capital
could not help but have strong irredentist aims on the South Tyrol.
Notwithstanding these assessments, Mussolini persisted in the belief that
he could use the Heimwehr to crush the particularly virulent form of An-
schluss that he perceived to have reached epidemic proportions in the Aus-
trian Socialist party. He took no notice of (or placed little faith in) the
Socialists drift from their anti-Anschluss position of the 1920s after Hitlers
rst stunning electoral success in 1930. Mussolinis chronic hatred of So-
cialism obscured his awareness of the no less virulent Pan-Germanism per-
meating Heimwehr ranks, as well as the movements nanciers and moral
supporters on the far right.
Although it is clear that Mussolinis own emissaries and the Palazzo
Chigis representatives at home and in Austria were wary of the Heimwehr,
it was because of its Pan-German bent and its lack of will to crush Austro-
Marxism by means of a coup detat. On the other hand, having no scruples
against illegal or underhanded actions, they were at one with the Duce in
working actively to install an authoritarian regime in Austria. When the
Heimwehr fell short of their expectations, they plotted with those party
gures of high standing who, sympathetic toward Fascism, would, aided
by the Heimwehr, usurp power, impose dictatorship, and declareeven
tongue in cheeka disinterest in the South Tyrol.
24
Between 1927 and 1930, the Duce did not noticeably compromise his
countrys security by his dalliance with the Heimwehr. But rather than learn
from his errors, he continued in the same vein with far more harmful re-
sults. Mussolini could get away with plotting with the Heimwehr as long
as German foreign policy remained in the hands of Stresemann and his
successors; after Hitler came to power, the Italian-Heimwehr saga would
have a far different outcome.
REVISIONIST AMBIGUITIES
On 21 March 1928, the powerful British press mogul Lord Rothermere
published a sensational interview with Mussolini on Hungary and the
Treaty of Trianon in the Daily Mail. He quoted the Duce as saying:
The sanctity of treaties must be preserved but that principle does not prevent the
modication of the details of a treaty, where that is found, after careful examina-
tion, to be desirable. A treaty is not a tomb. In all history there has never been one
that was eternal. . . . Unlike Italy . . . Hungary cannot have a geographic frontier,
but she could, and should, have a racial frontier.
25
This interview scandalized Europe. Mussolini seemed to be breaking new
ground with his public support of a comprehensive revision of peace trea-
ties in behalf of a country other than Italy. But Mussolini only made explicit
what had been a strong undercurrent in Italian diplomacy ever since he
came to power, especially as regarded Germany.
Single-mindedly, Mussolini had sought to puzzle out with the Wilhelms-
trasse a compromise between Pan-Germanism and revisionismo that would
satisfy both Gleichschaltung (political coordination between Austria and
Germany) and Italian security. His persistence in exhorting Germany to
engage in secret parley with Italy did have credibility insofar as he intended
to prevent any Franco-German rapprochement and to scare France into
making concessions to Italy. But this strategy was too lled with resentment
to prosper. Convinced that in 1919 Italy had won the war and lost the
peace, the Duce threatened to upset the delicate balances involved in ma-
nipulating a power potentially stronger than Italy. Driven by unsatised
nationalist aspiration into a risky and gambling diplomacy, Mussolini be-
lieved that Italy would be in a far better position to claim fulllment of the
1915 London Pact if the Versailles bonds pinning Germany to the status
quo were dissolved. Hence, Mussolinis support for the German demand
for equality. Italian policy during the 1920s, therefore, tended to take on
a German orientation, implying that Italy felt a stronger kinship with its
former adversaries than with its ungrateful allies. Italy and Germany, two
countries that had been similarly ill-treated, would stand shoulder to shoul-
der against the iniquitous Allies by sponsoring treaty revision and a rea-
lignment of power on the European continent. This, however, produced
contradictions and conicts of purpose. While the Duce advocated general
treaty revision, he denied any thought of a retrocession to Austria of the
German-speaking South Tyrol by declaring the nality in the Brenner fron-
tier. Moreover, Mussolinis determination to uphold Austrias indepen-
dence and Stresemanns obvious wish to undermine it stymied his efforts
at Italo-German collaboration in treaty revision.
During the 1920s, the Realpolitiker in Mussolini enabled him to fathom
Italys inability to sustain forceful expansion. Often he backed down at the
penultimate moment when vulnerable key areas in Italys defense had been
carelessly neglected and were dangerously exposed by risky revisionist
probes. But Mussolinis natural disposition to make enemies of the coun-
tries that had emerged from World War I on the victorious side and that
had beneted from the Allied-dictated treaties impaired his realism; con-
versely, the Duce preferred to recruit allies from among the injured, in-
sulted, and vanquished. Within these latter countries, he befriended
outraged nationalists and terrorists who were gaining increasing attention
in societies buffeted by social conict and the Bolshevik menace. Antago-
nistic to liberal democracy and the stringent application of discriminatory
peace treaties by the Western Powers, these, surmised the Duce, were nat-
ural clients of Italy that would identify with Fascism and look to Rome for
their cues.
Mussolinis attempts to encircle Yugoslavia and his penetration of Al-
bania were based on the premise that the satisfaction of Italys demands
could be achieved only in a shake-up of existing power alignments and
territorial changesItalys revisionismo. Only in Albania did he reap ben-
ets. He was, however, unable to use this little imperial dependent terri-
toryan unearned benet of his friendship with Chamberlainas a
springboard for further penetration due to the alignment that sprang up to
oppose him. Mussolini had either to admit failure and meekly acquiesce in
the Locarno system or escalate his revisionism with attacks on the Trianon
and Neuilly treaties in deance of the Western Powers.
In choosing the latter course, Mussolini invited many perils. In challeng-
ing the Eastern European peace settlement, he would be hard pressed to
gain Western support for preferential treatment of the Paris Peace Confer-
ence treaties dealing with Austria. Either the treaties were indivisible, or
they were not. For Mussolini to insist that he could arbitrarily decide on
exceptions while holding everybody else accountable for the rest was to
invite Germany to make similarly expedient distinctions. If the Duce had
restricted Italys demands to the fulllment of irredentist claims, he might
have called on Britain and France to discharge their treaty obligations to
uphold Austrias independence in return for strong Italian support on the
Rhine. Instead, he took up the cause of Magyar irredentism, which made
a shambles of his former critique that Locarno had established two distinct
and unequal categories of treaties, West and East. Furthermore, he had
exposed himself to the charge of inconsistency in denying the South Tyrol
self-determination while elevating irredentism to high principle in the case
of Hungary. Such behavior provides prime examples of the Duces essen-
tially incoherent diplomacy. Although he would, as always, vacillate and
draw back whenever he accidentally tripped over the Anschluss question,
he introduced a new recklessness in Italian policy by public support of
Hungarys revisionism.
Since Mussolini refrained from military aggressionout of military
weakness rather than by choiceItalys standing in Europe did not seem
to suffer appreciably from what was tantamount to melodramatic and
harmless gestures. Furthermore, by signing the Lateran Treaty with the
Vatican in February 1929, Mussolini enhanced his reputation in conser-
vative Catholic circles as a Fascist of the golden twenties. But if Mus-
solini acted supercially like a responsible European or if his policy often
seemed aimless and improvised, his biases slowly crept into Italian policy,
creating habits and patterns that hampered a steady and unprejudiced pur-
suit of Realpolitik. We are not talking here of any uniquely Fascist intrusion
into Italian foreign policy. Mussolinis revisionism was no Fascist invention,
and it was not so much Fascist as it was the Duces own inimitable spin
on the vittoria mutilata theme. This sentiment was fully shared by most
careerists in the Italian foreign ministry during the 1920s who, incidentally,
like the Fascists, had no high esteem for democracy and certainly none for
the new nations of Eastern Europe. Similarly, Mussolini did not undertake
any systematic fascistization of the foreign ministrys personnel. During the
1920s, with the notable exception of Sforzas tenure, there was no marked
departure from a conventional Italian diplomacy. Italy under Sonnino had
characteristically pursued expansion and employed decidedly underhanded
methods; he had promoted subversion and the breakup of Yugoslavia just
as assiduously as Mussolini.
Aside from the temperamental differences that divided the upstart Fascist
plebeians from the aristocratic old guard, the Duce found many devoted
followers among careerists as well as his own personal emissaries. Linked
together by their support of Mussolinis program for national aggrandize-
ment, both groups performed their tasks loyally, if sometimes incompe-
tently, be these the execution of traditional diplomacy, the promotion of
subversion, or the recruitment of terrorists. Whatever shake-ups took place
in the foreign ministry did not have the primary purpose of purging mod-
erates and replacing the hidebound old-guard with activist Fascists.
Rather, they were intended to concentrate power in the hands of the Duce
so as to facilitate the implementation of his own diplomatic priorities. If
the Balkans held center stage in 1929, a further reorganization in 1932
enabled Mussolini to focus on Africa. Sometimes the careerists would try
to temper both the volatility in Mussolinis foreign policy and his crass
diplomatic manners; some even resigned in despair over the recklessness in
Italian diplomacy introduced by the inexperienced Duce. Yet, while pur-
suing a revisionist policy whose specic aim was to challenge the French
legalistic interpretation of the Versailles Treaty, Mussolini adhered to a very
prudent and conservative economic policy. Having revalued the lira in
19261927, a measure undertaken as part of a European currency and
economic stabilization funded by the American and British governments
and banks, he could not escape dependency in an international economy
dominated by Anglo-American nance and capital. It was a Fascist of the
rst hour, Dino Grandi, who would faithfully obey the old Italian diplo-
matic axiom of entente with Britain and goodwill toward the United States.
Moreover, the Duces pinprick revisionism did not loosen Italy from an
essential continuity with the diplomacy of the liberal regimes that preceded
the Fascists in power.
Although there was an unmistakable tono fascista introduced by the
Duce, this was originally a question of style rather than substance. The
style, however, especially when manifested in boastful propaganda, even-
tually affected the substance by creating a Fascist aura around Italian for-
eign policy. This aura informed the statesmen in Europe that Mussolini
preferred collaboration with authoritarian states and intimacy with dicta-
tors over coexistence with democracies. And, in breaking new ground by
his public support for Hungarian revisionism, Mussolini unleashed a
change of power alignments in the Danube region that during the 1930s
took a far different turn from the one originally anticipated in a Europe
still blessedly free of Adolf Hitler.
NOTES
1. Mussolini abruptly ordered mobilization of twenty divisions in October
1926, but there seems to have been no follow up. DDI, 7, IV, 446, 2 October 1926.
2. DDI, 7, IV, 425, 15 September 1926; V, 40 and 86, 3 and 21 March 1927,
135 and 165, 11 and 27 April 1927; FO C 9552/1402/7 and C 7022/42/7, 25
November and 1 October 1928.
3. DDI, 7, V, 54, between 23 February and 7 March 1927; Carocci, La di-
plomatica estera dellItalia fascista, 37.
4. DDI, 7, IV, 378, 401, 412, and 580, 20 July, 31 August, 8 September 1926,
and 16 January 1927.
5. For the difculties that Mussolini was encountering from Hungary, see
GFM, 2809/5594H/E44182831 and E44186971, 29 May 1928 and 10 June
1928.
6. ADAP, B, V, 59, 5 April 1927, n. 6; GFM, K350/K113750, 9 March 1927;
ibid., 2826/6037H/E4494349, 2 May 1928.
7. DDI, 7, IV, 579, 582, and 584, 16, 17, and 20 January 1927; ADAP, B, IV,
71, 27 June 1927; Magda A
da m, Gyula Juha sz, and Lajos Kerekes, Allianz Hitler-

Horthy-Mussolini: Dokumente zur Ungarischen Aussenpolitik 19331934 (Buda-
pest: Akademiai Kiado , 1966), 15, n. 3; Carocci, La politica estera dellItalia
fascista, 8283.
8. DDI, 7, V, 123, 4 April 1927, 321 and 333; ibid., 11 and 21 July 1927;
GFM, 2829/6057H/E446712, 21 July 1927; ibid., 1388/2784/D53885051, 9 No-
vember 1927.
9. DBFP, 1A, II, 157, 18 August 1926.
10. DDI, 7, IV, 70, 13 July 1926.
11. FO, C 3891/474/90, 15 June 1931.
12. DDI, 7, IV, 535, 11 December 1926; ibid., V, 82, 19 March 1927, 192;
ibid., 9 May 1927; AMAE, Serie Europe, Yougoslavie, 80, 3 May 1927; GFM,
2803/5972/E438907, 28 February 1927.
13. AMAE, Serie Europe 19181929, 80, 21 May 1927; DBFP, 1A, III, 156, 19
April 1927, IV, 5, 12 September 1927.
14. Nicole Jordan, The Popular Front and Central Europe: The Dilemmas of
French Impotence, 19181914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 15.
15. DDI, 7, VI, 41, 22 January 1928; DBFP, 1A, V, 295, 18 December 1928.
16. DDI, 7, IV, 446, 2 October 1926.
17. DDI, 7, V, 27 and 535, 20 February and 12 November 1927; ibid., VII, 3,
111, 129, 285, 349, 25 September, 14 and 27 December 1928, 26 February and 2
April 1929.
18. DDI, 7, VI, 167, 19 March 1928; FO, C 2214/8/22, 19 March 1928.
19. DDI, 7, VI, 6, 208; Raffaele Guariglia, Ricordi 19221946 (Naples: Edizioni
Scientiche Italiane, 1950), 14463.
20. GFM, 2342/4575H/E17117380, 11 April 1929.
21. The major work on the IMRO and its connections with Italian agents is
Stefan Troebst, Mussolini, Macedonien und die Ma chte 19221930 (Cologne and
Vienna: Bo hlau Verlag, 1987). A brief survey of the same subject and supporting
documentation can be found in Burgwyn, Il revisionismo fascista, 16884.
22. The leading study on Italy and the Croatian separatists is James J. Sadkovich,
Italian Support for Croatian Separatism (New York: Garland, 1987). Supporting
evidence and commentary can be found in Burgwyn, Il revisionismo fascista, 184
91.
23. Ernst Ru diger Starhemberg, Between Hitler and Mussolini (London: Hodder
and Stoughton, 1942), 2127.
24. For an expanded discussion and supporting documentation on Italys con-
nections with the Heimwehr, see Burgwyn, Il revisionismo fascista, 191207.
25. FO, C2520/182/21, 29 March 1928.
CHAPTER 4
The Grandi Era
THE PEACE OFFENSIVE
Frustrated by the bankruptcy of his revisionist policies, Mussolini in May
1929 handed over the portfolio of foreign minister to his undersecretary,
Dino Grandi, who would have the task of giving Fascist Italy a more tem-
perate image. Aware of Italys glaring military weakness, Grandi shifted
into a peace mode to gain the same objectives that Mussolini had failed to
achieve by truculence and insurrection.
At rst, however, the choice of Grandi seemed to indicate a new Fascist
militancy in Italian foreign policy. As the party leader of Bologna and a
participant in the March on Rome, Grandi had established a reputation for
toughnessa Fascist of the rst wave. But here appearances were deceiv-
ing. Contarini had appointed Grandi undersecretary in 1925 in the belief
that he was malleable, a man whose rough edges could be smoothed by an
education in the sophisticated ways of high diplomacy. This turned out to
be an adroit calculation, for Grandi was an eager and apt student who
became uent in English and French, penetrated the mysteries of the Pal-
azzo Chigi, and developed into a worldly gure who participated easily in
cocktail party banter and diplomatic repartee. He cultivated the reputation
of a hard-headed realist and an astute practitioner of the balance of power.
What Italy was unable to do because of a lack of nances and armaments,
the new foreign minister hoped to achieve through diplomacy and guile.
By pursuing Realpolitik free of Fascist hyperbole, Grandi hoped to open
up new diplomatic vistas. Unfettered by alliances and ideological allies,
Italy would be able to pursue a policy of the decisive weight (peso deter-
minante) as Europes ultimate arbiter of war and diplomacy. Italy would
be tied to no countrys apron strings. Rather, it would be the pendulum in
the European balance, a policy described by De Felice as having a ma-
chiavellian lack of scruple and. . . . realism.
1
Grandis highest priority was
to force or cajole France to pay off the imperialist debts that it had carried
over from the war. But since Italy was too weak by itself to accomplish
this feat, Grandi intended to use Britain and eventually the United States
as leverage by posing as a peacemaker.
When Grandi took ofce, his hopes for fruitful Anglo-Italian cooperation
were not great, for, in his view, the arrival in ofce of Ramsay MacDon-
alds Labor government in Great Britain had set in motion a powerful anti-
Fascist backlash on the European left.
2
How could a supposedly stalwart
Fascist ever establish a meaningful dialogue with a government dedicated
to peace, collective security, and international conciliation? Nevertheless,
the many years served as an apprentice in the Palazzo Chigi had freed
Grandi from the limited ideological horizons of the squadristi. Now more
pragmatic and diplomatically supple, Grandi shrewdly realized that the rise
of a Labor government in Britain would enable him publicly to pose as a
pacist, a supporter of the League, in full measure.
3
Such a pose was
necessitated by the need to make cuts in the Italian budget and to ease
military expenditures during the depression years. Grandi revealed to Mus-
solini his true intention of exploiting the ssure in the Entente Cordiale by
applying pressure on the Quai dOrsay to concede to Italy parity in military
armaments as well as colonial concessions.
To sell his peace program at home, Grandi delivered a glowing tribute
to the League and its principles before the Chamber of Deputies in May
1930. In this speech, he called for the removal of the most onerous and
burdensome legacy of the war: the peace treaties that maintained the in-
equitable division between victors and vanquished. Reafrming the Duces
axiom that treaties are not eternal, Grandi exhorted that they be adapted
to new needs and changing times. To reduce tensions and avoid war, Italy
would willingly disarm to any gure whatever, even the lowest, provided
it was not surpassed by any other European power.
4
Mussolinis outlook
was simpler still: parity or death.
5
While propagating parity, naval dis-
armament, and peace, Grandi made the invidious comparison between
French militarism, disguised as security mania, and Italys readiness to dis-
arm. This message was warmly received in Londonand in the United
States.
While playing the peace card, Grandi downplayed Fascist ideology in
foreign policy. The propensity of the British Labor government to take his
lip-service to world peace and harmony as gospel prompted Grandi to co-
operate with Socialist governments. That the British foreign secretary,
Arthur Henderson, who one year earlier had branded Mussolini as an as-
The Grandi Era 59
sassin, would travel to the Duces citadel in Rome in early March 1931 to
pay his respects showed Grandi that European Social Democracy was nei-
ther cohesive nor an inveterate foe of Fascism. In his view, Socialist-tinged
governments, as well as the Italian Fascist regime, answered to supreme
national interests rather than to transcendent ideology.
6
But Grandi made little headway at Genevaor with Mussolini. Impa-
tient over the interminable debates on disarmament, the Duce threatened
to throw Italy, armed to the teeth and aroused to fever pitch, against
the rest of the world.
7
To offset Grandis mawkish imitation of the British
Labourites, Mussolini shouted to the Blackshirts of Florence on 17 May
1930: Words are beautiful things, but ries, guns, ships, and airplanes are
more beautiful still. . . . When tomorrow dawns, the world will be witness
to the spectacle of our armed forces which will reveal the calm and warlike
countenance of Fascist Italy.
8
France was the main obstacle to peace, Mussolini told the British am-
bassador Sir Ronald Graham; unless the French disarmed, another Euro-
pean war would be unavoidable.
9
Italys disarmament policy thus
uctuated between the Duces condemnations of France and the peace
offensive of Grandi, between a strident bellicosity toward liberal Europe
and a reasoned advocacy of treaty readjustment in accordance with the
liberal credo of abstract justice and international morality. Supported by
Italian high nance and capitalist enterprise, Grandi became a stalwart sup-
porter of the classical economic remedies advanced by the nancial circles
in the Anglo-American world to restore nancial stability and capitalist
enterprise in a Europe engulfed in economic depression.
10
AMBIVALENCE OVER FRANCE
Mussolinis brinkmanship, Grandi knew, was a dangerous strategy for a
country that lacked military credibility. Scarcely less harmful, the Duces
provocative speeches enabled the militarists in France who were anxious
for a preventive war against Italy to gain the upper hand over Briand and
his socialist following. No doubt about it, Grandi admitted, we have
pushed our polemical campaign too hard.
11
To avoid war against France
and Yugoslavia, Grandi hastened to reopen a dialogue with Paris.
A naval accord with France that recognized Italys parity on the high
seas took precedence over other areas of Franco-Italian dispute: Tunisia,
boundary adjustments in Libya, Ethiopia, and Yugoslavia and the Balkans.
Mussolini agreed, so long as such an accord did not include the word
friendship, which stuck in his throat like a bone: These people have
forgotten too quickly that perhaps without me in 1915 the Germans would
have been in Paris. And I did that disinterestedly. Within me stirs a pro-
found rancor for their ingratitude.
12
Grandi himself battened on franco-
phobia throughout 1930 and yearned to settle old scores. We must make
war, and on France, but we must prepare it in diplomacy, in weaponry, in
the spirit.
13
Thanks to mutual Franco-Italian intransigence, the naval negotiations
quickly stalled. Grandi therefore contemplated playing the Yugoslav card,
but this required a reversal of gears. On 5 February 1929, Grandi delivered
a speech before the Fascist Grand Council, dwelling on the Yugoslav yearn-
ing for a war of revenge against Italy. To neutralize the Yugoslav threat,
Grandi promised to block Belgrade from obtaining an outlet on the
Otranto Canal. Italy must remain master in the Adriatic to safeguard the
Latin race against Slav expansionism. Coexisting with insecurity was over-
weening ambition. Grandi conceived the Illyrian mountains to be the out-
posts of Romes security. Caesars Balkan domain would be resurrected by
a forced breakup of the Yugoslav state.
14
Posturing as a warmonger,
Grandi wrote to the Duce on 8 January 1930 that war with Yugoslavia
is inevitable, but, in the next breath, he suggested that glory should be
deferred until Italy rearmed and Fascisms enemies were immobilized.
15
When gripped by fear of imminent war, Grandi frequently employed the
term chloroform as a ruse to trick the French, or the Yugoslavs, into
believing that Italy had a sincere interest in an enduring rapprochement.
Grandi claimedand recent writers have maintainedthat his ultimate
objective was agreement with France and Yugoslavia by means of gradu-
ated pressure and threats to obtain satisfaction of long-standing Italian
grievances on Italian terms.
16
But whenever the French showed a disposi-
tion to make concessions, Grandi was inclined to pass beyond the standard
claims by demanding Nice, Savoy, Tunisia, Dalmatia, Valona, and Ethio-
pia.
17
In short, Grandis moderation was a hoax.
Unquestionably, Grandi measured his words to suit his audience. His
diary contains verbatim records of his talks with Mussolini that are lled
with sharp repartee, and his own almost daily reections are frequently
incisive and revealing. His letters to Mussolini, however, are quite a dif-
ferent matter; they are marked by ingratiating attery and a tendency to
express what he thought the Duce wanted to hear. To conceal his own
independent action, Grandi frequently couched his conciliatory policy in
tough language to satisfy Mussolinis preference for the mailed st. Rather
than diplomacys tortuous compromises and stuffy atmosphere, the Duce
preferred shouting down his enemies before mass audiences anked by obe-
dient Fascist sycophants.
While Italys talks with the Yugoslavs sputtered on inconclusively, ne-
gotiations with France suddenly reached a breakthrough when the two
countries signed Bases of Agreement on 1 March 1931. Under British
prodding, the French seemed to grant Italy theoretical parity in ship con-
struction, while the Italians agreed that France could retain its actual mar-
gin of superiority. Grandi boasted to Mussolini: with the naval accord,
we have caused French militarism to retreat. Now that France was fe-
The Grandi Era 61
verishly trying to reach an agreement with us . . . we can be harder and
more intransigent in the essential matters.
18
The Germans were also ral-
lying to Italy. Inspired by Fascist boldness, Grandi told the Duce, they were
nally daring to challenge France on disarmament issues at the League
of Nations.
19
Grandis employment of his country as the peso determinante
appeared to result in a solid diplomatic triumph: naval parity with France.
But the triumph turned out to be short-lived.
THE CUSTOMS UNION CRISIS
Two shocking developments occurred to mar Grandis handiwork:
Frances unilateral changes on 19 March of key clauses of the Bases of
Agreement, which seemed to negate even the appearance of naval parity
with Italy, and a customs union agreement concluded secretly by Germany
and Austria that was announced two days later. An ominous prelude to
Anschluss, the customs union project posed a serious threat to Italys se-
curity in Europe. The unexpected eruption of the ongoing dispute with
France on naval parity, however, provoked Grandis embarrassment and
gallophobia, which contributed to the incoherence in Italys response to the
Austro-German move:
After my declarations before the Senate, after the address by Briand and the one
by Hendersonas well as the telegrams exchanged between Paris, London, and
Romewhat will happen if the [naval] agreement should suddenly fall through?
Europe is passing through such a period of madness that I would not be surprised
if this happens. France, France, the most brilliant and dangerous nation of Europe!
. . . The French have one hope: that the Germans are worse than they are. The
former are hysterically insane, the latter are elephants who crush and break every-
thing. War has taught them nothing. They are, as before, uncouth, devoid of every
sense of timeliness, wisdom, ability, and balance.
20
On 28 March, Grandi told the Duce: we must not tolerate French black-
mail.
21
Ironically, it was the Duce who cautioned Grandi to refrain from
retaliation. Involved in a risky nancial transaction with the French, Mus-
solini wanted diplomatic peacefor the moment.
22
Although tempted to
kick both [France and Germany] in the shins,
23
Grandi in a calmer mo-
ment let Paris know that he was prepared to offer Italian support on the
customs union issue in return for French compliance with the Bases of
Agreement of 1 March.
24
Meanwhile, a number of Italians, interested in
promoting trade, explored the possibility of a Franco-Italian customs
union, which they favored over similar ties with Germany.
25
The Quai
dOrsay was, however, only lukewarm to this idea. Rather than bilateral
ties with Italy, it preferred Franco-Italian sponsorship of a Danubian align-
ment as the most effective rejoinder to the Austro-German initiative.
26
Since
for Grandi such a proposal smacked of the old Danubian Confederation,
he let the idea of better economic relations with France drop.
Mussolinis original reaction to the customs union project was ambigu-
ous. Instead of sensing the immediate peril of Anschluss, he was anxious
to explore the economic feasibility of associating Italy with the Austro-
German plan.
27
The Duce seemed not to notice that German competition
would ruin the fragile munitions enterprises necessary to Italys armaments
program.
Grandi, on the other hand, was well aware that Italys munitions industry
could hardly survive a ood of German-made products and that the cus-
toms union project represented a major step toward Anschluss. Instead of
immediately telling the Germans to renounce the customs union project,
however, he only expressed regret over the bad timing and the failure to
consult Italy beforehand.
28
The Wilhelmstrasse wishfully concluded that
Grandi, like Mussolini, aimed to extort economic advantages as Italys
price for acquiescence in the customs union.
29
Still, the Germans expected
the Italians to come to them; running to Rome to save the project was
something that no German still burning from Italys apostasy in the Great
War would deign to contemplate. Grandi did not openly chastise the Aus-
trians either. But privately, he wrote: These Austrians have been falsiers.
One must say it. They have toyed with us.
30
Grandi did not follow the
French as they attacked the weaker customs union conspirator because he
had his own plan: the inclusion of Austria in a Vienna-Budapest-Rome
triangle aimed at thwarting both Germany and France.
31
Though thor-
oughly disabused of the Pan-German Schober (he is a swine),
32
Grandi
refrained from intrigues to bring him down in favor of the preferred Italian
candidate, the shrewd but distrusted leader of the Austrian Christian Social
party, prelate Ignaz Seipel.
33
While Grandi was exercising caution toward both Germany and Austria,
as well as keeping his distance from Paris, Mussolini unleashed a particu-
larly savage diatribe against the French: The Italo-French problem will
not be resolved by a naval accord. This problem will be resolved only on
the eld of battle.
34
Grandi panicked. Sure that the Duces truculence
would provoke the French military to war, the Italian foreign minister ad-
monished: We must have the courage to wait, chloroforming, applying
morphine, to our situation.
35
Meanwhile, until Italy was stronger, the
Locarno stratagem of alignment with Britain to hold France and Germany
in check would have to sufce. In spite of Grandis fear of Francehis
essential gallophobiahe regarded Germanys Drang nach Su dosten as the
greatest threat facing Italy:
What we have not succeeded in doing for eight yearsto weaken the prestige and
power of France in Eastern EuropeGermany has succeeded in doing in a day.
Czechoslovakia has been gripped by terror, Hungary has not resisted the tempta-
The Grandi Era 63
tion, and Romania declares its will to treat with Berlin. Yugoslavia has declared
that Anschluss is better than a return of the Habsburgs to Vienna.
36
If French inuence in Eastern Europe was an irritant, Germanys was a
blow. To salvage the Balkans as an Italian sphere of inuence, Grandi
concluded that, We must arrive at an agreement with France; we must
compel France to recognize our rights in Albania.
37
Worse still, Germanys
customs union project, by deepening the divisions among the former Allies,
had further weakened the ailing Franco-Italian naval agreement. To prevent
any decisive Italian move into Berlins camp, Grandi hoped that the statis-
tics on trade marshaled by his technicians would eventually persuade the
Duce to drop economic talks with Germany.
If Grandi often gave way to resentment, it was usually privately ex-
pressed. Not so the Duce. His pugnacious outbursts made banner headlines,
prompting Europe to raise its guard against Fascist volatility. Grandi took
note of the problems: Italy needed calm, yet Mussolini publicly displayed
his hostility toward France; Italy needed rst to rearm, yet the Duce was
prepared to risk Italys war-making capability by exposing industrial de-
velopment to ruinous German competition. Equally worrisome, Mussolinis
pro-German orientation threatened to upset the much-vaunted peso deter-
minante strategy.
38
Only on 26 April did Mussolini come around to Grandis view that the
customs union project represented a misfortune for Italy: We can neither
go it alone in order to spite the French nor can we accept the grave damage
of an Anschluss.
39
After a round of talks among the Great Powers, in
which Italy played no important part, the customs union question was
referred, at the end of May, to the Permanent Court of International Justice
at The Hague for an advisory opinion.
Since Grandi doubted that the Permanent Court would deliver a decision
against the customs union, he did not want to burn all his bridges to Berlin.
In an apt maneuver, Grandi allowed France to assume the lead against the
customs union while titillating the German foreign minister, Julius Curtius,
with talk of Italian friendship.
40
It was only belatedly that Grandi came
straight to the point with Curtius by challenging the German sham that the
customs union was an innocent economic arrangement contrived solely to
enlarge the markets of two independent countries that both happened to
be in desperate nancial straits. Expressing regret that Italy appeared to be
in alignment with France, he nonetheless reminded Curtius that one can-
not always practice a policy which disadvantages others. The German
minister gave his game away by callously asking: what causes your irre-
ducible opposition to an Anschluss . . . [?] Rather than point out the ob-
viousthat a Germany engorged with Austria would inevitably bear down
on the South Tyrol and TriesteGrandi broke off the meeting.
41
On 5 September, the Hague Tribunal ruled by a majority of one that the
customs union was incompatible with the Geneva Protocols of 1922. The
threat having subsided, there was great relief in Rome, for others would
bear the brunt of the ghting. It was nonetheless a awed victory, since
Grandi had conveyed the impression that Italy was not resolute enough to
act swiftly in defense of its interests in Europe. Italys resolve to stand up
to future Anschluss threats, therefore, remained in doubt. Instead of acting
as the decisive inuence in the European balance of power, Grandi left
behind a trail of ambiguity and opportunism. If he had wanted to ingrain
in the Teutonic mind that Italy would not tolerate any move toward An-
schluss, he should have swallowed his disappointment over Italys failure
to obtain naval parity (which would have amounted only to a paper ad-
vantage in any case) and aligned openly with France in forcing Germany
and Austria to renounce their project well before it reached the League.
CONTRASTING VIEWS OF GERMANY
Germany posed a perplexing problem for Italy during the early 1930s.
Grandi and Mussolini certainly had differing views on how to cope with
Drang nach Su dosten, and the dangerous gure who had emerged from the
deepening depression onto Germanys center-stage, Adolf Hitler, threatened
to drive a wedge permanently between the two Italian leaders.
Notwithstanding his youthful admiration of German culture, Grandi had
developed an abiding distrust of German expansion into territories he
deemed to be part of Italys natural domain: the Alto Adige, Trieste, the
Balkans, and the Adriatic. Before the wounded giant recovered its strength,
Grandi intended to support German claims to parity and Gleichberechti-
gung (equality of rights) as a way of intimidating France into a compre-
hensive settlement on his terms. But there was a constant threat hovering
over Italy of a Franco-German rapprochement advanced by a Berlin that
had been weakened by the Versailles diktat, a rapprochement that Grandi
was wont to describe as fornicazione. But this judgment never deterred
him from engaging in similar depravity with each of the Rhineland oppo-
nents in order to win advantages for his own country at the expense of the
other.
Still, when Grandi experienced difculties in coaxing concessions from
the French, he blamed Mussolini for his excessive bias toward Germany:
The Duce does not wish to hear that Germany works against our inter-
ests.
42
Equally troubling was Mussolinis preference for modern authori-
tarian movements, rather than the old-fashioned nationalist parties and
Prussian autocrats whom Grandi regarded as the most reliable and safest
defenders of the country against Bolshevism and chaos. It should not have
come as a surprise to him, then, that Mussolini would endorse Hitler rather
than Paul von Hindenburg in the German presidential election of March
1932.
43
Grandi frequently boasted that his diplomacy was revolutionary,
The Grandi Era 65
but Mussolini, in his view, opened up dangerous vistas by imagining that
only Nazi-style dynamism could inject renewed momentum into Italian di-
plomacyan ominous indication that the Duce was becoming hostage to
his own ideology. Grandi mused in his diary: Mussolini declared himself
an ally of the newly reviving German nationalism that seeks to reverse the
results of its war against the whole of Europe. . . . Fascist Italy reappears
with its subversive, revolutionary, isolationist face. Is this in our interest?
44
As one who understood Fascism mainly as an instrument to unite and
strengthen Italy, Grandi rejected the notion that a uniquely Italian phenom-
enon could be an article of export.
45
Mussolini also arrived at this conclu-
sion at the end of the 1920s. The dissolution of the Fascist League in the
United States offers a case in point. Mussolini, who otherwise supported
the idea of the Fasci allestero as another arm in his parallel diplomacy,
had never allowed U.S. Fascists to infringe on Italian policy toward the
United States, which remained on a traditional footing based on the notion
of noninterference in domestic affairs. Dino Grandi had been instrumental
in applying the foreign ministrys control over the American Fascists by
ordering their compliance with the directives of his functionaries in the
United States.
46
Much to Grandis discomfort, however, the Duce reversed
himself in 1930 by espousing Fascist universalism.
47
Grandis single-minded
pursuit of Italian national grandeur led him to suspect that Mussolinis
incautious oratory on Fascist universalism would produce a dangerous tilt
toward the Fu hrer. Let God protect Italy from its so-called friend Hitler!
Grandi recorded in his diary on 22 February 1932.
48
Grandi treated Ger-
many with great reserve, profoundly distrusted the Nazis, and dismissed
Hitler as a mindless fanatic.
Grandis thinking about the National Socialist phenomenon was at once
obtuse and astute. As a Fascist, his mind was immune to liberalisms cri-
tique of Nazism and unconcerned about the nihilism and unrestrained vi-
olence of Hitlers creed. But as a Realpolitiker, he feared the Fu hrer more
than Stresemann, a fear that Grandi did not try to conceal from the German
minister in Rome, Baron Constantin von Neurath: I would not like that
Hitler, with his immature enthusiasm, and the Steel Helmets [non-Nazi
ultranationalists], with their precipitate demonstrations, should render
more distress than good to the German cause and to the state of Europe.
49
Grandi rarely expatiated on the ideological differences between Fas-
cism and Nazism by questioning Hitlers Nordic racism or violent anti-
Semitismsomething Mussolini noted in his many off-the-cuff asides.
Grandi seemed troubled only by the premonition that Nazism represented
a threat to carefully calibrated diplomatic balances and Italys national in-
terests. As Grandi feared, Mussolini was playing with re by opening up a
dialogue with the Nazis. There was merit in the foreign ministers predic-
tion that Mussolinis hatred of the decadent West and its supine leaders
would eventually cause him to give Hitler pride of place next to Italy in
Fascist universalism. Moreover, Grandi was not wrong in suggesting that
Mussolini had been encouraged by Hitlers example to strike a revolu-
tionary pose by lashing out against the Western democraciestirades that
certainly hurt Italys diplomatic standing in Europe. Grandi had a less ab-
rasive approach that held out more promise: attery and conciliation to
cajole the West into granting Italy redress of long-standing grievances.
Much to Grandis annoyance, the Duce supplemented the Palazzo Chigis
representatives in Germany with a variety of agents and go-betweens to
sound out rightist groups of many hues outside the Berlin government. As
for the Nazis, high party dignitaries were entertained in Italy. Although a
planned meeting between Hitler and Mussolini failed to take place in these
years, the two men exchanged views through Italian intermediaries. Grandi
was particularly irked by the activity of Major Giuseppe Renzetti, who was
instructed to weld the Hitler movement together with the Stahlhelm (also
distrusted by Grandi) to form the basis of a German rightist bloc. Mussolini
often withheld key information on his German doings from the Palazzo
Chigi. Grandi was informed of an Italo-German air agreement by the Duce
only belatedly and learned about many of his inammatory speeches in the
newspapers. Troubled by these initiatives undertaken without his knowl-
edge, Grandi attempted to maintain control by enjoining the irregulars in
the eld to avoid interference in the Italian ambassadors bailiwick. To
prevent overlap, Renzetti was assigned major responsibility for coordinat-
ing these extracurricular activities and promoting close ties between prom-
inent Nazis and Fascists. It was only in July 1933 that Mussolini explicitly
instructed Renzetti to avoid impinging on matters strictly pertaining to di-
plomacy.
50
If there was ambivalence in the Italian attitude toward Germany, there
was none in the ofcial German attitude toward Italy. German perceptions
of Italians were as clear as German expansionist drives were unrelenting.
If Stresemann had attempted to sidetrack Italy and the Western Powers
with the formula, the Anschluss question is not acute, his successor at
the foreign ministry, Julius Curtius, cared not one whit about the Italian
reaction when he brazenly tried to ram through a speedy implementation
of a customs union with Austria. Contempt for Italy permeated the Wil-
helmstrasse. Forgetting Bismarcks ruthless treatment of Italy, their Triple
Alliance partner, the Germans imagined that their former ally had betrayed
them by violating the sacred obligation of military assistance at the hour
of Germanys great need in 1914. This resentment remained a continuing
theme in the German in-house diplomatic correspondence between Berlin
and Rome.
51
LE
THIOPIE PAR EXEMPLE?

In the aftermath of the customs union crisis, the French prime minister,
Pierre Laval, suggested that France, as part of an across-the-board settle-
The Grandi Era 67
ment, would consider granting Italy concessions in AfricaLE
thiopie par
exemple?
52
Grandi was initially intrigued, but when he learned that the
French admiralty would never concede naval parity to Italy, he lost inter-
est.
53
There matters rested while Grandi voyaged to the United States on a
goodwill mission in November 1931. His major accomplishment, as he
wrote to the Duce, was to have won over his American hosts by a show
of restraint, in contrast with Laval, who, on a visit immediately preceding
his, had worn out his welcome with demands and recriminations.
54
On
Grandis return in early February 1932, he had two short and tense sessions
with the tough French negotiator, Andre Tardieu. Not until France had
rst gained British and U.S. acquiescence in the French thesis on land ar-
maments would Tardieu even consider naval parity with Italy.
55
In the latter part of February, the anti-Italian atmosphere in Paris was
moderated by a growing French fear of Germany and the suspicion that
Italy was about to bind itself to the Teutonic world. Philippe Berthelot, the
secretary general of the Quai dOrsay who was not known for his admi-
ration of Fascist Italy, for the rst time approached Italy to discuss concrete
issues dividing the two countries. Berthelot suggested that crumbling
Ethiopia serve as an acceptable outlet for Italian expansion. His overture
was choreographed by an ofcially inspired press campaign that called for
improved relations with Italy. Rightist leaders chimed in. In an address
before the French Senate on 29 March 1932, Tardieu dwelled on Latin
Sistership and the two nations common culture. Even the leftists warmed
up. One of Italys betes noires, Edouard Herriot, was prepared to pay the
Duce homage.
56
The subject of Ethiopia kept bobbing up. Mussolini, however, viewed
the hints of Laval and Berthelot as a French trap to ensnare him in Africa,
far away from the Balkans and the Danube. Moreover, while Grandi be-
came discouraged when he learned that Tardieu, instead of playing up to
the Italians, was about to approach Germany, the latter was already mak-
ing overtures in Paris.
57
That Italys stock in the French capital had not
really risen in value seemed conrmed by a dramatic reversal engineered
by Tardieu when he called for a Franco-German collaboration in the Dan-
ube basin through a mechanism of trading preferences. Grandis Danubian
barrier, the Brocchi accordsa series of Italo-Austrian economic preference
agreementsseemed doomed to extinction. Hence, Mussolini brushed
aside Tardieu, refused to meet with Laval, and ignored Herriot.
To take control of Balkan diplomacy as well as to forestall Tardieus
rapprochement with Germany, Grandi on 4 March 1932 urgently pressed
Mussolini to get on with a global settlement with France as a prelude to
avenging the defeat of Italian arms at Adowa by the conquest of Ethiopia.
We will give France the Beaumarchais project regarding citizenship in
Tunisia the day in which our troops enter Addis Ababa, Grandi boasted.
Mussolini responded, But dont you understand that France wants to
chase us out [of the Balkans] in order to immobilize us againinAfrica . . . ?
58
In July, Grandi recorded the Duce as saying: France wants to bog us down
again in Africa in order to distract us from Europe. It is a crude trap.
59
In actual fact, Mussolini was indeed preparing to unsheathe the imperial
swordbut behind Grandis back. On 22 March 1932, he sent General
Emilio De Bono on a reconnaissance mission to Ethiopia. De Bono sub-
mitted a cautious report, recommending prudence and political action
rather than military invasion. The Duce wanted no one to steal the credit
or the control in planning African imperialism. But one fact cannot be
overlooked: Mussolini implemented three years later what Grandi had ad-
vocated in 1932.
Grandis hopes for an agreement with France surged when Herriot re-
placed the hard-bitten Tardieu in May as head of a left-oriented govern-
ment in Paris. The Italian foreign minister ruminated on ways to catch
Yugoslavia and Germany in the Italian net as well. Adding urgency to this
fantasy was the need for a dramatic diplomatic coup to save his job, which
he knew to be in peril. There was a icker of promise that Herriot would
be more yielding on naval parity, but alarm quickly set in when Grandi
learned that Herriot was building a Franco-British-American front against
Germany without Italy. Worst of all, Herriot presented Grandi with the
clear-cut choice he wished to avoid: alignment with the defenders of Ver-
sailles against German revanchism or collusion with the unreconciled
vanquished powers bent on expansion.
Grandi naively believed that Herriot would freely pay him the long-
overdue colonial reparations in return for Italian loyalty to the wartime
alliance. Even less adroit was Grandis effort, without the Duces prior
authorization, to coax from Herriots condante, Joseph Paganon, a man-
date over Cameroon as well as a free hand in Ethiopiaall this in return
for Italys support against Germany. But to no avail. Herriot, in July 1932,
like Laval in 1931, was not yet sufciently worried by Germanys resur-
gence to pay Fascist Italys high price for a common front against Berlin.
Not until 1935, after Hitler had arrived on the scene, was the attempt again
made, with unexpectedly disastrous results all around.
60
For the upcoming Lausanne conference of July, Mussolini ordered that
Grandi, if he could not forestall a pending Franco-German rapproche-
ment, should destroy the conference.
61
Grandi instead persisted with the
goal of naval parity with France, which doomed his Lausanne diplomacy
to failure. For having gone to bed with England and France,
62
Musso-
lini cashiered him on 20 July 1932. Grandi was sent off to London as Ital-
ian ambassador, and Mussolini, taking over the foreign ministry, applied
the peso determinante strategy more aggressively, with a stronger pro-
German orientation stripped of the Grandian language of peace and dis-
armament.
The Grandi Era 69
NOTES
1. De Felice, Mussolini il duce, 1: 37879.
2. GD, 20 October 1929.
3. GD, 25 December 1929.
4. FO, C2355/230/18, 14 May 1930; ibid., C3851/55/22, 14 May 1930.
5. GD, . . . July 1932; De Felice, Mussolini il duce, 1: 38485.
6. GD, 16 December 1930 and 30 March 1932.
7. This British version of Mussolinis Florence speech is somewhat at variance
with that rendered in Mussolinis OO, 24: 23336.
8. Ibid., 23536.
9. FO, C5515/29/22, 27 June 1930.
10. For a further discussion of this theme, see Gian Giacomo Migone, Gli Stati
Uniti e il fascismo (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1980).
11. GD, 24 December 1929.
12. GD, 26 August 1930.
13. GD, 6 June 1930; DDI, 7, IX, 370, 12 November 1930.
14. De Felice, Mussolini il duce, 1: 381, n. 1.
15. DDI, 7, VIII, 302, 8 January 1930.
16. De Felice, Mussolini il duce, 1: 367418; Dino Grandi, La politica estera
dellItalia dal 1929 al 1932 (Rome: Bonacci, 1985), introduction by Paolo Nello,
1389; G. Boccianti, Verso gli accordi Mussolini-Laval: Il ravvicimento italo-
francese fra il 1931 e il 1934 (Milan: Giuffre`, 1984).
17. GD, 25 August 1930.
18. GD, 21 March 1931.
19. DDI, 7, X, 26, 21 January 1931.
20. GD, 23 March 1931.
21. GD, 28 March 1931.
22. GD, 23 March 1931.
23. GD, 24 March 1931.
24. DDI, 7, X, 162, 24 March 1931.
25. ARR, T. 68586, 3 April 1931; ibid., T. 426, 2 April 1931; T. 49697, 14
April 1931; T. 606, 30 April 1931; T. 61213, 2 May 1931.
26. ARR, T. 68586, 3 April 1931.
27. DDI, 7, X, 169, n. 3; GD, 2 April 1931.
28. ADAP, B, XVII, 36 and 65, 23 March and 3 April 1931; DDI, 7, X, 157,
23 March 1931.
29. ADAP, B, XVII, 49, 27 March 1931; GFM, 1388/2784/D53970608, 29
March 1931.
30. GD, 23 March 1931; DDI, 7, X, 142, 21 March 1931.
31. ARR, T. 543559, 29 March 1931; DDI, 7, X, 169, n. 3, 26 March 1931;
ibid., 196, 11 April 1931; GD, 25 March 1931.
32. DDI, 7, X, 272, 17 May 1931.
33. DDI, 7, X, 245, 4 May 1931.
34. GD, 2 April 1931.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. GD, 11 April 1931.
39. GD, 26 April 1931.
40. Fulvio DAmoja, Declino e prima crisi dellEuropa di Versailles (Milan: Giuf-
fre`, 1967), 43, n. 11.
41. DDI, 7, X, 284, 22 May 1931; See also Grandis harsh rebuke of Curtius
policy in DDI, 7, X, 269, 15 May 1931; ADAP, B, XVII, 131, 15 May 1931.
42. GD, 13 March 1932.
43. GD, 20 March 1932.
44. Ibid.
45. Ennio Di Nolfo, Mussolini e la politica estera italiana (19191933) (Padua:
CEDAM, 1960), 251.
46. For a persuasive elaboration of this thesis, see the article by Philip V. Can-
nistraro, Per una storia dei Fasci negli Stati Uniti (19211929), Storia contem-
poranea 26, no. 6 (December 1995): 10611144.
47. GD, 12 September 1930.
48. GD, 22 February 1932.
49. GD, 28 October 1930.
50. GD, 3 January 1931; DDI, 7, VIII, 340, 420 and 478, 31 January, 12 March,
and 9 April 1930.
51. The ofcial Wilhelmstrasse position can be found in GFM, 4007/D428/
K12366772, 15 May 1928; ibid., 4007/K428/K12391114, 18 June 1931.
52. DDI, 7, X, 413, 25 July 1931.
53. Peter C. Kent, The Pope and the Duce (New York: St. Martins Press, 1981),
124; Guariglia, Ricordi, 74; DDI, 7, XI, 41, 6 October 1931.
54. DDI, 7, XI, 100, 2 December 1931.
55. DDI, 7, XI, 189 and 211, 3 and 17 February 1932.
56. Burgwyn, Il revisionismo fascista, 22829; GD, 20 February 1932; DDI, 7,
XI, 222, 17 February 1932.
57. DDI, 7, XI, 248, 27 February 1932; GD, 28 February 1932.
58. GD, 4 March 1932.
59. GD, July 1932.
60. For particulars, see H. James Burgwyn, Conict or Rapprochement? Grandi
Confronts France and its Protege Yugoslavia: 19291932, Storia delle relazioni
internazionali 1 (1987): 7495.
61. GD, . . . July 1932.
CHAPTER 5
1933: Annus Diabolicus
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
When Mussolini himself took over the portfolio of foreign affairs in July
1932, he appointed Fulvio Suvich to be his undersecretary and Baron Pom-
peo Aloisi his personal chef du bureau. These changes suggested the si-
multaneous emergence of two contradictory strains in Italian foreign policy.
On the one hand, the elevation of both Suvich, a native of Trieste, and the
francophile Aloisi, an expert in Balkan affairs, seemed to conrm the pre-
eminence of the Adriatic wing in the foreign ofce; on the other hand,
Mussolinis dismissal of Grandi and his impatience with the machinery of
the League of Nations seemed to anticipate a more militant mood. Instead
of bringing about grandeur, economic reconstruction, and an outlet for
surplus population through collaboration with the Western Powers in the
elds of disarmament, reparations, and debts in the Grandian style, Mus-
solini intended to energize dynamism by revitalizing a tono fascista in
Italian foreign policy. Moreover, the economic depression, which had
brought about a disruption of international trading and a virtual break-
down of the gold standard, had loosened Italys ties with the New York
and London nancial markets. Thrown back on its own economic devices,
Italy pondered autarky and bilateral economic agreements. In a Europe
convulsed by mounting economic chaos and political upheaval, which ex-
acerbated the ideological conict between the democratic West and Bol-
shevist Russia, Mussolini advanced Fascist corporativism as a remedy. As
part of a totalitarian solution to restore national unity and power, cor-
porativism aimed to mediate between individualism and collectivism, rec-
onciling an alienated proletariat with Italian big business.
Mussolinis new outlook was punctuated by Italian support for the
German position on reparations, the Saar, and on a speeded-up timetable
for the evacuation of French troops from the Rhineland. To break Anglo-
French domination of the League, Italy agreed to side with Germany and
Soviet Russia, in a show of solidarity among proletarian nations, on
disarmament and reform of the Leagues Secretariat. But the Duces bid for
friendship was not reciprocated. Although lacking the power to pursue a
vigorous peso determinante strategy against the Western Powers without
rm backing from Berlin, Mussolini persisted in supporting Gleichberech-
tigung, Germanys demand for equality of rights. He proceeded to invite
further danger by wooing revisionist Hungary.
EAGER AND RELUCTANT REVISIONIST ALLIES
During the rst half of 1932, Mussolini lacked Danubian friends. The
government of Gyula Ka rolyi in Budapest, hopeful of obtaining a loan in
Paris, muted revisionism, and Vienna, under the leadership of Karl Buresch,
exhibited coolness toward Fascist Italy. When Engelbert Dollfuss replaced
Buresch as Austrian chancellor in May, Mussolini imagined that the coun-
trys authoritarian savior had arrived in power. Having lost faith in the
Heimwehr as an independent striking force, the Duce summoned Prince
Starhemberg to Rome in June and implored him to cooperate with Dollfuss
in ghting both Nazis and Marxists, offering money and weapons in re-
turn.
1
He had no need to persuade Starhemberg, but, since Dollfuss relied
on French nancial assistance, which Rome could not hope to provide, he
kept his distance from Mussolini. Having secured passage of the Lausanne
loan through his parliament by a razor-thin margin of one vote and buf-
feted by extremists at both ends of the political spectrum, Dollfuss was in
no mood to engage in an adventurous relationship with Starhemberg.
2
Stalled in Vienna by the reluctant Dollfuss, Mussolini was encouraged
when Julius Go mbo s became minister-resident of Hungary on 30 Septem-
ber 1932. An unrepentant revisionist, Go mbo s had long dreamed of tearing
up the treaty of Trianon and repossessing lands that had formerly been
part of the Magyar heritage. As opposed to Bethlen, who welcomed support
from every quarter, Go mbo s focused mainly on those countries with avow-
edly rightist regimes. Alone, Hungary was not powerful enough to advance
its claims against any single state of the Little Entente. Clearly, then, Mag-
yar irredentism was contingent upon an alliance with one or more of the
larger revisionist states. Mussolini was elated to nd a Fascist sympathizer
in Budapest prepared to infuse new life into his oundering political bloc
of Austria, Hungary, and Italy. Welded together by a common commitment
1933: Annus Diabolicus 73
to authoritarian principles, the bloc would safeguard Austrias indepen-
dence.
After signaling Rome that he was prepared to break the logjam in the
economic tripartite talks, Go mbo s moved to win Dollfuss over to the idea
of a political agreement with Italy by promising to grant Austria tariff
concessions to Hungary. More daring still, he offered to take up with Mus-
solini a hitherto untouchable subject: Italys harsh treatment of the South
Tyrolean Germans.
3
In their meeting on 10 November in Rome, Mussolini and Go mbo s set
the stage for what was to be a strong Italian bid for ascendancy in the
Danube region. The main item on the agenda was the Austrian problem.
Worried over Nazi ambitions, Mussolini expatiated on his determination
to defend the little rump state. Go mbo s conceded the Anschluss threat im-
plicit in the rise of Hitler, but he added that the Austrian people, since they
belonged to the Teutonic community, would, in the long run, inevitably be
carried away by the Pan-German idea. Better a friendly Germany ensconced
on the Brenner associated with the tripartite bloc than a hostile Hitler bear-
ing down on the Adriatic. Mussolini revealed his lack of faith in Austrias
viability by expressing the hope that Anschluss could be postponed as long
as possibleuntil the unavoidable European war that was bound to break
out sometime in 1938. At this point, Go mbo s titillated the Duce by in-
forming him that Dollfuss hated the Prussians, was opposed to an An-
schluss, and seemed ready to enlarge the Brocchi accords, provided that
the nomenclature customs union be avoided to spare him an angry Pan-
German fallout in both Berlin and Vienna. This revisionist camaraderie was
clinched when Mussolini agreed to take part in the promotion of Croatian
insurrection against the Yugoslav state.
4
Acting on the program he had worked out with Go mbo s in Rome, Mus-
solini on 29 November applied pressure on Dollfuss to implement Fascist-
like reforms, join a customs union with Italy and Hungary cemented by
close political ties, and eschew alignments with Germany, France, and
Czechoslovakia.
5
But Dollfuss was not yet ready to shut down the Austrian
parliament and rule by decree. Moreover, the partnership between Dollfuss
and Prince Starhembergs Heimwehr continued to be uneasy; instead of
cooperation with Italy, each demonstrated a readiness to negotiate with the
Nazis behind the others back.
6
WAR SCARES
An important link in any strong chain against German expansion was
Yugoslavia. But relations between Italy and Yugoslavia, a mainstay of
Frances Eastern European alliance system, had been badly strained
throughout the latter part of 1932. In retaliation for the renewal on 28
October 1932 of the Franco-Yugoslav Treaty of 1927, Mussolini proposed
a customs union with Albania. Such a move was like waving a red ag in
Belgrades face, but the Duces attempt to pull Albania permanently into
Italys orbit by this ruse failed.
The Yugoslav state, in Mussolinis eyes, was near collapse. A deep eco-
nomic malaise caused by a precipitous decline in the price of wheat had
aggravated tensions among the various minority nationalities persecuted by
Serb dictatorship. Mussolini pondered the use of terrorism. The Dalmatian
coast, spotted with Italian-speaking communities, seemed an ideal place to
begin. In September 1932, the Ustasa, a Croatian terrorist organization,
jumping off from camps in Zara, attempted to instigate an insurrection by
rampaging through the region of Lika in Dalmatia, looting and throwing
bombs. Infuriated, King Alexander talked freely of blood and war. Italy
was denounced in the Yugoslav Senate, and anti-Italian organizations
staged rallies in Belgrade. Yugoslav activists answered the Ustasa provo-
cation with the senseless decapitation of the famous Lions of Trau, the
symbol of Italys mighty imperial past, which commemorated Venetian rule
in Dalmatia. Insults and threats of war were exchanged in the press.
Passion on both sides threatened to progress beyond the usual vituper-
ative editorials when Mussolini appointed one of his most trusted collab-
orators, Paolo Cortese, as the new manager of insurrection. A Committee
of Dalmatian Action was launched to rekindle irredentism while strate-
gists in Rome mapped out a synchronized Italo-Bulgarian military build-
up along Yugoslav frontiers.
Mussolinis newly unleashed press war was marked by a basic contra-
diction and was self-defeating. His projection of territorial ambitions be-
yond the outer fringes of the old irredentist claims did indeed tally with
the italianization of Croatians and Slovenians in the Julian Alps. But many
of those Croatians whom he was trying to enlist in the struggle against the
Serb-dominated regime in Belgrade were so alienated by these measures
as well as by the anti-Slav Fascist propagandathat they overlooked their
own national grievances and sought protection from King Alexander
against their common Italian foe. Moreover, the Duce seemed not to ap-
preciate the likelihood that an independent Croatia, instead of shoring up
the defense of Austria in cooperation with Italy, would be a barely viable
entity, thus providing an inviting target for German expansion into the
Balkans. Equally fanciful was the Duces belief that Croatia would serve as
an exemplary Italian appendage while Italy pursued irredentism in Dal-
matia, which itself was heavily populated by Croatians. Hobbled by the
same mistakes committed during the era of the Tirana pacts, Mussolinis
policy toward Yugoslavia in 1932 and January 1933 degenerated into aim-
less, shifting, almost frantic provocation, in the misguided hope that some-
how the nerves of his Serb adversaries would crack and the Yugoslav state
collapse from ethnic tensions exacerbated by Italian subsidies and terror-
ism.
While marching to the brink with Yugoslavia, Mussolini feared a Franco-
Yugoslav preventive war against Italy launched by General Maxime Wey-
gand, but that did not stop him from swearing vengeance on every invader
of Italy.
7
Only after nally digesting the information conveyed to him by
Baron Pompeo Aloisi that Yugoslavia was not on the verge of collapse did
Mussolini eventually cut off additional subsidies to the Ustasa leader Ante
Pavelic.
8
Although continuing to support Croatian separatism, Mussolini
vetoed further revolutionary actions. By February 1933 the crisis had eased.
The worsening climate in Europe prompted France to revive the idea of
a rapprochement with Italy that Laval had tried to put into motion in 1931.
The spread of the great depression, Hitlers coming to power in Germany,
and Italys support of Gleichberechtigung at the ongoing Disarmament
Conference seemed to presage an Italo-German alignment. In seeking a
counterweight against Germany, the anti-Fascist French foreign minister,
Joseph Paul-Boncour, appointed his friend, the newspaperman Henri de
Jouvenel, as a special ambassador to Mussolini in a mission limited to six
months. De Jouvenel arrived in Rome on 22 January 1933 with high ex-
pectations of negotiating a general understanding with Italy. The outstand-
ing issues dividing them were the perennial ones: Libya, Italian nationality
rights in Tunisia, Ethiopia, and the Danubian question. But despite his
optimism, de Jouvenel was not equipped with the necessary instructions to
transform his good intentions into something concrete. The suggestion to
expand the Franco-Yugoslav treaty into a tripartite arrangement and the
absence of any French concession of naval parity left Mussolini cold. Be-
cause he wanted to assure Austrian independence on his own, the Duce
had no interest in the French proposal that Italy align itself with France
and the Little Entente, nor would Mussolini knuckle under to French pres-
sure that he cease efforts to break up the Yugoslav state.
HITLER IN POWER
Hitlers electrifying accession to the chancellorship of Germany on 30
January 1933 jolted Europes diplomats. Mussolini was initially delighted
with the surge to power of a kindred movement that resoundingly validated
the Fascist idea. Hitler sent a personal message to the Duce, citing his ad-
miration and homage, as well as his anticipation of friendship or even an
alliance with Italy and a visit to Rome. To disarm Italian fears, the Fu hrer
reiterated his lack of interest in the Alto Adige.
9
Mussolini responded by
sending warm congratulations to Germanys new master and told his cap-
tive audience at home: War alone can carry to the maximum tension all
human energies and imprint with the seal of nobility those people who
have the courage to confront it; every other test is a mere substitute. The
Duce expounded on imperial expansion as a clear sign of national vitality
and claimed that Fascism was the one powerful and truly original force
in our century. The new watchword: Better one day as a lion than a
hundred years as a sheep.
10
But behind these brave words lurked the fear
of Anschluss and the determination to uphold Austrias independence.
Indeed, Hitlers unabashed intention of annexing Austria threatened to
put a quick end to the Nazi-Fascist honeymoon. Mussolinis assurances to
Berlin that Dollfuss headed a ercely anti-Marxist government did not per-
suade any German Nazi to respect Austrias independence. Faced with con-
tinued German pressure on Austria, the Duce informed Hitler that he was
adamantly opposed to Anschluss, and he let the idea of a visit to Rome
drop.
11
But far from renouncing Anschluss, the Fu hrer slapped the Duce in
the face by expressing his intention to throw Dollfuss into the sea. Con-
dent that the Nazi wave was irresistible, he demanded new elections in
Austria that would mark the end of Dollfuss, the political death of the
Heimwehr, and the formation of a parliament dominated by Hitlers own
minions in Vienna.
12
The Duce was taken aback, since, for him, Hitlers
respect of Austrian independence was the precondition of ideological broth-
erhood. True, Hitlers promise to renounce Germanys claims on the South
Tyrola declaration that no other top-level Nazi or German politician had
ever cared to makepleased Mussolini. That gesture was, however, offset
by the Wilhelmstrasses refusal to carve up Eastern Europe into economic
spheres of interest between Germany and Italy as recommended by Ger-
manys own ambassador in Rome, Ulrich von Hassell; rather, the Fu hrer
would pursue Drang nach Su dosten Nazi-style.
Mussolini was thrown into a quandary. Since he harbored exaggerated
fears that an increasingly belligerent France was plotting a European anti-
Fascist bloc and a preventive war against Italy, he needed Germany as a
friendly counterweight.
13
Yet, at the same time, Mussolini was aware that
geopolitical logic required rm action against Hitlers stepped-up Anschluss
campaign.
14
Sensing Nazi impetuosity, Mussolini advised Hitler to keep on
the good side of the British and to follow the Italian example of crushing
Communism at home while preserving correct diplomatic relations with
Moscow.
15
His rst enthusiasm over Hitler having worn off, Mussolini
hoped to tame the Fu hrers dynamic expansionism by making small vol-
untary concessions before Germany would be strong enough to dictate its
price. Apprehensive over the threat to his newly found, if vacillating, pro-
tege Dollfuss, Mussolini informed Berlin of his opposition to Hitlers call
for immediate elections in Austria, which he feared would result in big Nazi
gains and speed Austria down the road to voluntary Anschluss.
For Dollfuss, Hitlers arrival in power was a disaster. Increased Nazi
agitation against his government quickly followed, and this, in turn, made
him perilously dependent on Italy. At the same time, Mussolini caused
Dollfuss much embarrassment over the Hirtenberg crisis that blew up in
January when the Viennese socialist newspaper, Arbeiter Zeitung, pub-
lished the details of the import from Italy of captured World War I weapons
for repairs at the factory of their origin at Hirtenberg in Austria. The bulk
of these arms were bound for pro-Nazi sections of the Austrian Heimwehr,
mainly in Styria, and the rest were set aside for the Ustasa.
16
Not surpris-
ingly, the socialists revelations produced a storm of protest in France and
the Little Entente. Mussolini sought to protect himself by letting Dollfuss
take the brunt of Little Entente criticism, to which the Austrian chancellor
responded deantly.
17
The case eventually went before the League, where,
on 11 February, Britain and France allowed Italy to escape international
censure. Austria alone was required either to destroy the arms or ship them
back to Italy. Eventually, much of the military equipment fell into the hands
of the Heimwehr or ended up in Hungary.
Since Mussolini was unsure about Dollfuss commitment to either Italy
or authoritarianism, he kept Starhemberg in reserve as an insurrectionary
alternative. Arriving in Rome for a round of talks in mid-February 1933,
the prince proposed that Italy nance a Heimwehr coup detat, whose pur-
pose would be the destruction of the parliament and the elimination of
Austro-Marxism as a political force in the country, after which, perhaps,
some of the old men, like Dollfuss and Anton Rintelen, could be kept
on. Both opposed Anschluss, but Starhemberg hedged his bets by suggesting
that Hitler would be pleased with a Heimwehr dictatorship.
18
The Duce
indirectly warned Starhemberg of Hitlers designs. The Danubian Basin
was Italys European hinterland, Mussolini remarked; without it we shall
be forced to play the insignicant role of a peninsula on the edge of Eu-
rope. Would the Nazis recognize the Danube region as Italys sphere of
inuence?
In harmony with Mussolinis wishes, if on his own initiative, Dollfuss
prorogued the Austrian parliament and began to rule by decree on 7 March
1933the opening round in a campaign to disrupt both the Nazis and the
Social Democratic party. The banning of the Socialists defense arm, the
Schutzbund, followed on 31 March. To maintain a certain distance from
Rome, Dollfuss expressed irritation over the pressure exercised on him by
Starhemberg and the princes main rival in the Heimwehr, Emil Fey, to
speed up Fascist reforms, knowing full well that they were carrying out
Mussolinis express wishes.
19
In March, the Italians and Hungarians made important decisions on Aus-
tria. They agreed on wholehearted support for Dollfuss as the head of a
government that vowed the destruction of Austro-Marxism. The trouble
was that Dollfuss was mishandling the question of Austrias identity. The
Austrian Nazis were rapidly capturing a large following on the platform
one people, one state, while Dollfuss and the Heimwehr oundered in
equivocation and avoided a rm commitment to Austrian independence.
Hence, the Italians and Hungarians struck on the formula one people,
two states, which would impart to the two Germanic peoples a sense of
spiritual community and cultural afnity; neither Mussolini nor the Hun-
garians seemed to comprehend that this formula was more consistent with
Hitlers current ruse of Gleichschaltung (political coordination) than with
a newly forged concept of Austrian statehood.
20
Likewise, the Heimwehr
posed a serious problem. Headed by a dilettante and splintered between
pro-Nazi sympathizers and Austrian patriots, it was not entirely reliable
and should therefore have been kept from the levers of power. Yet no one
in Rome and Budapest was willing to discard the old paramilitary ally.
During the Easter holidays, two prominent political visitors from Ger-
manyVice-Chancellor Franz von Papen and Hitlers right-hand man Her-
mann Go ringarrived in Rome, while Austrian Chancellor Engelbert
Dollfuss made the pilgrimage from Vienna. To prevent an Italo-German
deal behind his back, Dollfuss intended to ght Go ring and von Papen for
the Duces ear. Dollfuss had every reason to be suspicious of Go ring, who
tried to obtain Mussolinis acquiescence in the appointment of Nazis to the
Austrian government.
21
Fortunately for Dollfuss, Go rings brusque manner
in discoursing on the inevitability of Nazi domination in Austria raised
Mussolinis guard against Germany.
22
On the other hand, Go ring repeated
Hitlers promise to regard the question of the South Tyrol frontier as
nally liquidated by the peace treaties.
23
When it was Dollfuss turn to see Mussolini, he proved to be no syco-
phant. If basically in agreement with the Duces logica logic fully shared
by Starhembergthat crushing Marxism would take the wind out of the
Nazis sails,
24
he intended to do so step by step. And there was much that
Dollfuss did not share with the Duce. He neither revealed his intention of
keeping lines with France and Czechoslovakia open nor his determination
to avoid alienating his anti-authoritarian following by an aggressively pro-
Italian orientation and open warfare against the socialists.
25
Dollfuss also
had a bone to pick with Starhemberg for acting like a rebellious subordi-
nate rather than a loyal follower.
26
Mussolini admitted the justice of Doll-
fuss complaint but insisted that he keep on good terms with the
Heimwehr.
27
Agreement was nally reached: Dollfuss would be in charge
of the government and the one to safeguard Austrias independence, while
the Heimwehr would conduct the propaganda campaign against Marx-
ism.
28
In a matter dear to his heart but touchy for die-hard Fascists, Doll-
fuss asked the Duce to allow private schools to be founded for the
German-speaking population in the province of Bolzano. Although Mus-
solini would not be drawn into questions relating to italianization programs
in the South Tyrol, the meeting ended on a happy note, for the Duce was
personally drawn to the feisty Austrian chancellor.
Since Mussolinis squabble with Hitler over Austria was now an open
secret, he emphasized the aws in Nazi Aryanism and intimated to the
Germans that their anti-Semitic policy was a dangerous mistake that played
into the hands of international Jewry and harmed Germanys interna-
tional reputation.
29
One could discreetly conduct a purge of Jews from high
positions of power without giving the impression of persecution.
30
Rather
than race, what unied people and galvanized them to follow a predestined
leader to power and empire was the idea of nationhood. Mussolini followed
up his lecture on pragmatic anti-Semitism by prompting Hitler to achieve
class peace by adopting Italian-style corporativism.
But there were limits to what Mussolini would do to check Nazi Ger-
manys ill-concealed ambitions. When asked by Dollfuss to make represen-
tations in Berlin over the terrorist acts of Austrian Nazis bent on the
overthrow of his government, the Duce did nothing other than reiterate his
opposition to Anschluss. Similarly, for fear of alienating the Fu hrer, Mus-
solini would not respond to Dollfuss plea to cooperate with the Western
Powers in joint League action to restrain Hitler.
31
Mussolini would not risk
an outright break with Germany.
32
To block any further German penetration into the Balkan-Danubian re-
gion, Mussolini sought a fallback alignment of Italy, Yugoslavia, and Hun-
gary, supplemented by an Italian-led Balkan alignment of Turkey, Greece,
and Bulgaria.
33
This was a chimera. As a prerequisite to diplomatic coop-
eration between Budapest and Belgrade, Go mbo s would have to sacrice
Hungarys revisionist claims on Yugoslavia, which no Magyar would ever
do. Worse still, with Mussolinis own road to detente with Yugoslavia
marked by discord, he decisively rejected French participation in talks be-
tween Belgrade and Rome. The Yugoslavs proved equally unaccommodat-
ing, publicizing exposes about Italian diplomatic personnel who were
stirring up trouble against the Belgrade regime. Another Yugoslav com-
plaint concerned the Croatian separatists who continued to nd hospitality
on Italian soilmuch to the relief of the Hungarians.
34
King Alexander
revealed his intransigence by telling the French, I would much prefer to
see German sausages in Trieste than Italian macaroni.
35
Not until the
following September would either Rome or Belgrade take any serious steps
to repair the broken line of communication.
Mussolinis inability to patch over his own quarrel with Yugoslavia or
to broker a settlement between Budapest and Belgrade impeded the imple-
mentation of the program that he and Go mbo s had mapped out for Aus-
tria. Keeping Germany in line therefore became all the more important. He
would do this by outsmarting Hitler. By pointing out that, in view of Ger-
manys growing isolation, the Fu hrer should join Italys Four Power Pact
which would strike the weapons from the enemys propaganda
36
Mus-
solini set his own table. Using the pact as a means of containing Germany,
the Duce aimed to best Hitler in their competition over Austria and in the
Danube region without having to confront the Fu hrer directly or having to
lead a coalition of great powers against him.
THE FOUR POWER PACT AND DISARMAMENT
In a dramatic speech delivered in Turin on 23 October 1932, Mussolini
proposed the formation of a Four Power Directorate, consisting of Italy,
Britain, Germany, and France; under his leadership, the directorate would
bring about orderly treaty revision outside an outmoded League of Nations.
The Duce was then concerned mostly about curtailing French hegemony,
but, as Hitlers intransigence on the Austrian question began to make itself
felt, his priorities underwent a change. Less fearful of a French preventive
war against Italy (in reality, a nonexistent threat), Mussolinis attention
turned to controlling German rearmament and revanchism. By March
1933, Mussolinis Eastern European diplomacy had run aground. Unable
to establish a dominant position in the Balkans, at odds with the Little
Entente, estranged from a Yugoslavia that refused to break up, and hanging
on for dear life in Austria, Italy had failed in its revisionist ambitions. But
all was not bleak. In 1933, the depression had rooted itself everywhere, the
liberal democracies seemed ill-equipped to provide remedies, and new au-
thoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe were aping Mussolinis style and
Italys novel corporativist economic institutions. Mussolini boasted that the
Fascist model would save the world from class warfare and economic mis-
ery, that his Italy, not Joseph Stalins Soviet Union, represented the wave
of the future. Rather than reducing tensions by sliding into passivity, Mus-
solini contrived the Four Power Pact to refurbish Italys prestige. Incon-
venienced by the instability and war threats in Europe that Italy was in no
position to exploit, the Duce constantly had to defer his plans to invade
Ethiopia to an indenite future. The Four Power Pact, by institutionalizing
Great Power cooperation, was supposed to immobilize European opposi-
tion and grant Mussolini time and opportunity. Fearing that Europe was
dividing between competing blocs and alliance systems, his newly consti-
tuted Concert of Europe would contain Great Power rivalries and dispense
justice by carefully managed treaty revision. Mussolini produced the rst
draft of the pact on 4 March 1933, an instrument of crisis management,
by which Italy could obtain maximum security in Europe and also leave
the way open to selective revisionism.
37
The Four Power Pact was Mussolinis answer to the League of Nations,
toward which he had long been hostile. Under the domination of France
and its Eastern European allies, the League had codied the injustices of
the peace treaties and perpetuated the distinctions between victors and van-
quished. Mussolini was not alone in deriding the notion that the League
could ever promote harmony and goodwill among nations; what particu-
larly bothered him was the bloated sense of power by such clients of France
as Eduard Benes and Nicolae Titulescu, who placed their hopes in the
League as a peace-keeping entity. Italy claimed that the aggrieved nations
would inevitably rearm and avenge themselves against the dictated peace.
Mussolini intended to use the pact to satisfy his dreams of an African
empire by overcoming the foreboding of an annus diabolicus that gripped
Europe on Hitlers emergence in power. If Mussolini were able to establish
normal relations with France, at least for the short run, and could encour-
age Britains active participation in European affairs, there was no inevi-
tability about a Nazi-Fascist alignment. These singular accomplishments
would win Italy deserved recognition as one of the Great Powers. As Eu-
ropes honest broker, Mussolini intended to implement Italys decisive
weight in the continental balance of power from the Fascist citadel in
Rome. A friend of no one, Italy would observe an intransigent autonomy
and be the balance wheel of European diplomacy. Consistent with the Fas-
cist principles of authoritarianism and hierarchy, Mussolini held that the
strong had the right to dominate the weak. Thanks to a temporary edge in
certain types of military equipment, he took his country to be more than
an equal among the strong.
The one European Great Power that had been excluded was Soviet Rus-
sia. Owing to their hatred of communism, the members of the refurbished
European Concert were all agreed on leaving the feared Stalin on the fringes
of European high politics. But Mussolini, uninhibited by ideological scru-
ple, was careful to keep his own line out to Moscow. Italy had recognized
the Soviet Union in 1924, which led to important economic ties between
the two countries. Since Hitler represented as much of a threat to the Soviet
Union as he did to Italy, there was room for cooperation between Rome
and Moscow. Italy and the Soviet Union therefore signed a Pact of Friend-
ship, Neutrality, and Nonaggression on 2 September 1933. Yet another
brick in Mussolinis complex diplomatic architecture, the pact with the
Soviet Union could be used, as the need arose, either to keep Germany in
check or to lessen French inuence in Central Europe.
38
While Mussolinis Four Power Pact idea fell on sympathetic ears in Brit-
ain, he had a formidable task in selling it to Hitler, in spite of the advan-
tages held out to Germany. To be sure, Mussolini was bafed over the best
way to handle the Third Reich. Unlimited German strength posed a danger
to Austria and the South Tyrol as well as to Italys ambitions in Southeast
Europe. At the same time, a stronger Germany would make a more ade-
quate counterweight to France. Whatever his inner doubts, Mussolini tried
to hasten Germanys signature by pointing out the need to quiet the violent
reaction of the world to the new Nazi regime. To avoid isolation and a
preventive attack by revanchist circles, Germany should break through
the ring and get through the next few months without conict by sign-
ing up.
39
Behind these Italian warnings lay an ulterior motive. Mussolini
wanted to buy time for his own war against Ethiopia. He was therefore
willing to sponsor a degree of German rearmament. As opposed to the
Italian position during the 1920s, Mussolini was now prepared to acquiesce
in certain revisions in favor of the Third Reich at the expense of Poland,
such as the Polish Corridor, which would set the dangerous precedent
of territorial rectications.
Given the Nazi Weltanschauung of conquest and expansion, it was small
wonder that Hitler would perceive only annoying impediments in Musso-
linis Four Power Pact. Although pleased with the revisionist and anti-
League aspects of Mussolinis project, the Fu hrer had no intention of
allowing foreign supervision of a controlled rearmament in stages; further-
more, he regarded Mussolinis advocacy of a band of territory across the
Polish corridor linking the Reich to East Prussia as only a prelude to a
much vaster program of expansion dened in the Nazi lexicon as Lebens-
raum. Nor was Hitler much impressed with Mussolinis argument that,
since France was on the warpath, the conclusion of the Four Power Pact
would be for Germany the best counterblow that could be dealt to anti-
German propaganda throughout the world. Guns, blood and soil, much
more than paper, were what made the world turn in Berlin. Much more
than Mussolini, Hitler knew that the French had long ago lost their stom-
ach for war. Already a defeated people, they would be vanquished in due
course. Moreover, Hitler had absolutely no intention of respecting Austrias
integrity or of allowing Germany to be circumscribed in any way. Since
Nazism was propelled by a savage hatred of Germanys wartime enemies,
to say nothing of Jews and Slavs (even the Italian people, a Mediterranean
race, were considered to be Untermenschen), Hitler placed no more stock
in true Great Power cooperation than he did in the despised League of
Nations. But all this would be played out in the future. For the time being,
to give him more time to rearm, Hitler would artfully use Mussolinis pact
as a temporary expedient during a fragile period for the Third Reich.
Mussolini had even less success with the French. On 2 March, he granted
de Jouvenel an audience to acquaint him with the thinking behind the Four
Power Pact, but they quickly got bogged down on naval parity and the
Polish corridor. Hungary also thwarted agreement by complicating the
Yugoslav equation. Mussolini insisted that the gravely mutilated and hu-
miliated Hungary be given justice by a return of territories containing a
majority of Magyars. Yugoslavia would never agree to surrender the Mag-
yar-dominated Voivodina, which, if turned over, would bring Hungary to
the gates of Belgrade. Mussolini persevered, insisting that Italian security
in the Adriatic could be preserved only by an Italian presence in Albania,
but this was a convenient ploy to sabotage an Italian rapprochement with
Yugoslavia dictated by Paris. As a means of overcoming the chronic conict
between Italy and Yugoslavia, de Jouvenel suggested the formation of a
large Danubian union that would unite Austria, Hungary, and the Little
Entente. Still undecided about war against Ethiopia, Mussolini was not yet
ready for this solution; only on Tunisia and Libya did he show less intrac-
tability. For his part, de Jouvenel could not make any meaningful conces-
sions to Italy; in spite of his ebullient optimism, his hands were tied by the
Quai dOrsay. Only on the question of Austrian independence was there a
meeting of minds: There would be no Anschluss. Even so, they did not
agree on the means. Mussolini had long been convinced that France must
allow him complete liberty on the Danube where, united with Austria and
Hungary, Italy would form a rampart that could prevent an Anschluss.
Instead of a rapprochement with France based on a global settlement of
their grievances, Mussolini intended to use his Four Power Pact to extract
concessions and hold the balance between France and Germany.
40
Mussolinis Four Power Pact was inextricably linked with the disarma-
ment question that continued to drag on in Geneva without any resolution
in sight. When Germany abruptly departed from a plenary session in early
December 1932, the disarmament talks seemed to have broken down per-
manently. The day was saved when France, Germany, Italy, Britain, and
the United States issued a statement on 11 December granting Germany
equality of rights in a system that would provide security for all nations.
If the other signatories did not disarm, then Germany would be entitled to
rearm. Under this promise, Germany returned to the disarmament confer-
ence, but in the presence of Hitler, the fragile consensus quickly fell apart.
The French were greatly alarmed, especially in the absence of British guar-
antees of support against future German aggression. Still, the British per-
severed in the belief that some agreement should be made to set limits to
German rearmament; otherwise the Nazis would run amok. The French,
by contrast, insisted that a nazied Reich released them from any bond to
make more concessions that required disarmament and trust in Berlin on
inspection systems; Hitler would be restrained only by counterforce and
alliance systems.
Faced by French tenacity and a warlike regime in Berlin, Ramsay Mac-
Donald struggled to save the tottering disarmament conference, which had
reopened on 2 February 1933. A deadlock immediately developed between
the French demand for security and arms control and the German insistence
on parity of armaments. In mid-March, MacDonald presented a plan for
disarmament that attempted to spell out the already conceded principle of
equality of rights with concrete arms gures. While the talks limped along,
Baron Aloisi, behind the scenes, convinced MacDonald and his foreign sec-
retary, John Simon, that they should repair to Rome for a talk with Mus-
solini to forestall another collapse in Geneva. The two British statesmen
arrived in Rome on 17 March; there Mussolini presented them with the
Four Power Pact. They immediately expressed their admiration of the
Duces project and remarked on the similarity between the British and Ital-
ian positions on parity of rights for Germany and the principle of treaty
revision.
Mussolini seemed to have stolen the show on the disarmament question
by presenting his Four Power Pact as the appropriate forum in which to
resolve the various controversies aficting Europe. Almost immediately,
however, the other three powers began to bend the provisions of the pact
to suit their own interests. The British demanded the deletion of the article
that provided for consultation between the signatories on non-European
and colonial problems; the French were worried over the very mention of
treaty revision; and their allies in the Little Entente, equally distressed, put
forward the demand that they be represented as the Fifth Power. To
avoid complete ostracism, Hitler drifted along with the current as long as
equality of rights still remained in the successive drafts. Surprisingly,
Mussolini, with hardly a protest, yielded on all fronts by allowing drastic
changes that emptied revisionism of all meaning. By the time the Four
Power Pact was nally signed in Rome on 15 July 1933,
41
it had taken a
long and tortured journey to an inconclusive declaration of good intentions.
Mussolini tolerated the emasculated nal product because he still hoped to
have secured the indispensable condition for the invasion of Ethiopia: an
unbroken period of peace in Europe.
The disarmament negotiations taking place in Geneva expired more
slowly. Cornered on the Anglo-Italian front, Hitler accepted the MacDon-
ald plan as a basis for negotiation after his famous peace speech of 17
May, for which Mussolini took much of the credit.
42
This was merely a
ruse, which guaranteed continued haggling. Britain preferred an agreement
that placed some limits on Germany to no agreement at all, while the
French were reluctant to make concessions in the absence of new guaran-
tees of their security if any new treaty were violated. Unwilling to assume
new responsibilities on the Continent, the British were ready to listen to
the Italian argument that concessions must be made to Germany. The Ital-
ian position was at once realistic, naive, and tantamount to a biased bro-
kerage favorable to Germany. No matter what was decided, so read the
Italian thesis, Germany would rearm. Since not even France was prepared
to undertake a preventive war, Germanys signature on a treaty must be
obtained by allowing some rearmament.
Frustrated by his failure at mediation, Mussolini exploded against both
France and Germany. To Aloisi on 2 September he said: I do not under-
stand why France, with 84 billions of gold, with formidable defenses in the
East and colonies . . . trembles before Germany. There are only two ways
of solving the problem of German rearmament: a preventive war, or con-
trol.
43
On 11 October, he remarked to Ronald Graham, the British am-
bassador in Rome, that German policy was in the hands of two men,
Hitler and Go ring, one a dreamer, the other an ex-inmate of a lunatic
asylum, neither of them conspicuous for reason or logic and both suffering
from a bitter sense of injustice.
44
To save the Geneva conference from
imminent disaster, Mussolini proposed to transfer the disarmament talks
to the already moribund Four Power Pact forum, where he intended to
present another of his compromise proposals. Hitler answered by walking
out of the League on 14 October, which effectively killed the Four Power
Pact, the disarmament conference, and Mussolinis compromise proposals
at a stroke. Since Hitler had given Mussolini no prior warning, his callous
behavior produced a chill in Italo-German relations.
45
On the whole, as far as Europe was concerned, Mussolini meant to use
the Four Power Pact primarily to slow down Germanys military resurgence
as a means of preventing Hitlers absorption of Austria. But since the Duce
continued to overvalue French power and to underestimate the speed with
which Hitler was preparing to burst the bonds of the Versailles treaty, in
total deance of the rest of Europe, his much vaunted equidistance
among the Great Powers was not working convincingly. As the next chap-
ters will show, his pact failed to check German rearmament. And, instead
of arresting Hitlers ongoing subversion of Austria by means of cooperation
with the West in the interest of preserving European stability, the Duce
contributed to the weakening of the anti-Nazi elements in the country out
of an ideological preference for authoritarian solutions over democratic
fronts and alignment with the Little Entente. Rather than redounding to
Italys advantage, such subversion of the existing European order played
into Hitlers hands. By the time the Duces invasion plans of Ethiopia
moved into high gear during the latter part of 1934, the pact had been
long forgotten and the future of Austrian independence imperiled.
NOTES
1. DAmoja, Declino e prima crisi dellEuropa di Versailles, 139.
2. DDF, 1, II, 149, 30 December 1932.
3. Lajos Kerekes, Abendda mmerung einer Demokratie. Mussolini, Go mbo s,
und die Heimwehr (Vienna, Frankfurt, Zurich: Europa Verlag, 1966), 11619;
NPA, 416, 4 November 1932, and 416, 6 November 1932; K. Haas, Die Ro m-
ische Allianz, 1934, Der Ma rz 1933: Vom Verfassungsbruch zur Diktatur in E.
Fro schl and H. Zoitl, eds. (Vienna: Volksbuchhandlung, 1984), 7879.
4. DDI, 7, XII, 414, 437, and 491, 10, 17 November and 1 December 1932;
Kerekes, Abendda mmerung, 11719.
5. DDI, 7, XII, 480, 29 November 1932.
6. For a more complete background on Italys intrigues with Dollfuss and Star-
hemberg during 1932, see H. James Burgwyn, La troika danubiana di Mussolini:
Italia, Austria e Ungheria, 19271936, Storia contemporanea 21, no. 4 (August
1990): 62630.
7. Baron Pompeo Aloisi, Journal: 25 juillet 193214 juin 1936 (Paris: Plon,
1957), 41.
8. Ibid., 3940, 4849; Sadkovich, Italian Support for Croatian Separatism,
117.
9. DDI, 7, XIII, 61 and 91, 31 January and 14 February 1933; De Felice,
Mussolini il Duce, 1: 437 n. 1.
10. The quotations in this paragraph are taken from Mack Smith, Mussolinis
Roman Empire, 47.
11. DDI, 7, XIII, 91 and 202, 14 February and 14 March 1933; DGFP, C, 1,
112, 23 March 1933.
12. DDI, 7, XIII, 202, 212, and 243, 14, 16, and 20 March 1933.
13. An Italian private informer, S. Pirazzoli, wrote from Paris that General Max-
ime Weygand was campaigning for a preventive war against Italy in early April
assisted by the Yugoslavs. Attilo Tamaro, Venti anni di storia, 19221943, 3 vols.
(Rome: Tiber, 1955), 2: 3.
14. For a balanced discussion of Mussolinis reaction to Hitlers coming to
power, see De Felice, Mussolini il Duce, 1: 43867.
15. DDI, 7, XIII, 121, 21 February 1933.
16. Esmonde M. Robertson, Mussolini as Empire-Builder: Europe and Africa,
19321936 (New York: St. Martins Press, 1977), 35.
17. Ju rgen Gehl, Austria, Germany, and the Anschluss, 19311938 (London:
Oxford University Press, 1963), 4849.
18. DDI, 7, XIII, 98 and 103, 16 and 17 February 1933; Starhemberg, Between
Hitler and Mussolini, 1039.
19. DDI, 7, XIII, 224 and 323, 16 and 29 March 1933.
20. DDI, 7, XIII, 226 and 292, 17 and 25 March 1933.
21. DDI, 7, XIII, 442, 20 April 1933.
22. Ibid.
23. DBFP, 2, V, 90, 25 April 1933; DDI, 7, XIII, 442, 20 April 1933.
24. Dollfuss phrase. DDI, 7, XIII, 204, 14 March 1933.
25. De Felice, Mussolini il Duce, 1: 473.
26. DDI, 7, XIII, 319 and 323, 29 March 1933.
27. DDI, 7, XIII, 411 and 442, 12 and 20 April 1933.
28. DDI, 7, XIII, 364 and 365, 4 April 1933; Gottfried-Karl Kindermann, Hit-
lers Defeat in Austria 19331934 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988), 72.
29. Aloisi, Journal, 109.
30. DDI, 7, XIII, 427, 18 April 1933.
31. DDI, 7, XIII, 849, 16 June 1933.
32. DDI, 7, XIII, 393, 9 April 1933. Dollfuss rst asked for Mussolinis inter-
vention in Berlin in March. DDI, 7, XIII, 224, 16 March 1933.
33. DDI, 7, XIII, 479, 26 April 1933.
34. DDI, 7, XIII, 479, 26 April 1933.
35. Hubert de Lagardelle, Mission a` Rome: Mussolini (Paris: Plon, 1955), 6.
36. DGFP, C, 1, 164, 19 April 1933.
37. DDI, 7, XIII, 165, 4 March 1933.
38. The details of this story can be found in J. Calvitt Clarke III, Russia and
Italy against Hitler: The Bolshevik-Fascist Rapprochement of the 1930s (Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991).
39. DGFP, C, I, 122 and 230, 29 March and 13 May 1933.
40. DDI, 7, XIII, 157, 2 March 1933.
41. The history of the Four Power Pact is best told by Konrad Hugo Jarausch,
The Four Power Pact 1933 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966).
42. DDI, 7, XIII, 628, 18 May 1933.
44. DBFP, 2, V, 444, 11 October 1933.
45. DGFP, C, II, 120, 126, and 145, 12, 13, and 22 December 1933.
CHAPTER 6
Mussolinis Danubian Strategy
CRUSHING AUSTRIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
During the negotiations for the Four Power Pact, Mussolini intensied his
effort to save Austria from the Nazis and establish Italian sway in Vienna
by waging a war against Social Democracy through Dollfuss and Starhem-
berg, in alignment with revisionist Hungary. His long-range ambition (er-
ratically pursued during the latter 1920s) of staking out the Danube region
as an Italian sphere of inuence remained unaltered. Mussolini aimed to
have his own sponsored alignmenta tripartite front consisting of Italy,
Austria, and Hungary, whose governments were based on authoritarian
principles that would prevail over the Little Entente and the democratic
idea. The maneuver was based on four false premises: rst, that Hitler
would need a long time to consolidate his power in Germany before chal-
lenging Austrias independence; second, that the suppression of Austro-
Marxism and democratic institutions in Vienna would inoculate the
country against the Nazi virus; third, that Go mbo s would be a loyal fol-
lower of Rome rather than a supplicant of Berlin; and fourth, that Italy
would have the power and prestige to dominate the Danube region. There
was also a basic contradiction aficting Romes tripartite alignment.
Whereas Italy and particularly Hungary still longed to bring about a rea-
lignment of power along the Danube, Austria, barely hanging on to its
independence, was content to abide by the status quo.
On the rst step of his Danubian programestablishing Italian sway
over AustriaMussolini encountered difculty. While needing the Duces
support of Austrias independence, Dollfuss tried to avoid becoming an
Italian satellite and eschewed Fascism as a model for his country; he had
his own authoritarian solutions in mind, based on Catholic principles and
an economic program designed to benet the hard-pressed small farmers.
Since members of the conservative Christian Social party predominated in
his cabinet, Dollfuss was able to keep Starhembergs paramilitary Heim-
wehr in its place, and hence, Italian inuence at bay.
1
Mussolini looked on approvingly when, in May 1933, Dollfuss founded
the Fatherland Front as an authoritarian device through which to rule in
place of the defunct parliament, a move Rome hoped would make him ever
more dependent on both Italy and the Heimwehr. But in desperate need of
money from the Western Powers, Dollfuss was reluctant to antagonize the
French Socialist party by violent action against the Austro-Marxists.
2
From
his perspective, the Nazis represented a far greater danger than the subdued
Socialists, who had disavowed Anschluss and long ago lost their revolu-
tionary elan.
Notwithstanding Italys private representations in Berlin, there was no
letup in Nazi violence. Berlin further punished Dollfuss by imposing a pro-
hibitive 1,000 mark tax on all German travelers seeking to enter Austria,
which sharply reduced the ow of much-needed German marks into an
economy already in desperate straits. Dollfuss contemplated taking his case
to the League, instead of relying solely on Italy to get Hitler to clamp down
on the radical Nazi Landesinspekteur Theodor Habicht, and his Munich
crowd, which was orchestrating anti-government propaganda in Austria.
Still, that did not deter him from trying to make a deal on his own with
Habicht by offering the Nazis two seats in his cabinet.
3
Nor was the Heim-
wehr a totally pliant Italian tool. As long as the Austrian chancellor
dragged his feet on persecuting Socialists and continued to tolerate mem-
bers of the Agrarian party (Pan-Germans with faint democratic leanings)
in his cabinet, the Heimwehr would resist Mussolinis proddings to join
the Fatherland Front.
Perturbed by the Nazi propaganda blitz against Dollfuss, Mussolini lent
support to the Austrian chancellor in his determination to avoid either new
elections or the appointment of Nazis in his cabinet. But Italys support
had its price. On 1 July, the Duce ordered Dollfuss to speed up an offensive
against the Socialists and to implement Fascist-style reforms that would
supposedly stimulate Austrian patriotism and lessen the attractiveness of
Nazism. Dollfuss was further expected to shun the League in favor of po-
litical talks with Italy and Hungary, aimed at a common policy toward the
Little Entente and Germany.
4
Dollfuss, however, was no docile satellite. Steeped in Catholic authori-
tarianism rather than Fascism, he was worried that too intimate a connec-
tion with Mussolini would estrange the Austrian workers whom he was
trying to woo from the Social Democrats. Leery of the immediate assault
Mussolinis Danubian Strategy 89
against Marxism preached in Rome and Budapest, Dollfuss made it clear
that he intended to proceed more slowly and with less drastic measures to
avoid alienating important elements in the Christian Social party whose
support was needed for the survival of his government. Nor did Dollfuss
conceal his distrust of the Hungarians. Their expansive revisionist program
was worrisome to the ruler of a country barely hanging on to independence.
Dollfuss had no intention of cutting off all ties between Austria and the
Little Entente, and he thought it senseless to participate in talks between
the tripartite front and Germany before he had immobilized the Austrian
Nazis.
Go mbo s, too, showed that he was no Italian appendage. Without fore-
warning Mussolini, he visited Hitler on 16 June to seek concrete promises
for support of Magyar revisionism rather than endure more persiage in
Rome. Go mbo s meant also to work out a formula for a detente between
Berlin and Vienna within an expanded tripartite front that would include
Germany. He came home empty-handed, his ears ringing with the Fu hrers
expressed hatred of Dollfuss. Still, Go mbo s would not be budged from his
neutral position in the dispute between Austria and Germany and contin-
ued to hold Dollfuss at arms length in the endeavor to keep on the right
side of Berlin.
At the end of July 1933, Mussolini and Go mbo s met in Rome to thrash
out their differences. Although it was agreed that the most urgent matter
facing Austria is to bring about a detente with Germany, the Duce tried,
none too successfully, to disabuse Go mbo s of his favorite quadruplice no-
tion by pointing out that Hitlers currently hostile behavior toward Austria
had disqualied Germany from membership in the tripartite front. In fact,
Go mbo s succeeded in aligning Italian policy with his own. For from now
on, Mussolini would give the impression, even if it did not always represent
his true intention, of using the German peril to reduce French inuence in
the Danubian basin rather than building a common front of Great Powers
against Hitler. Underlying everything, there was a touch of Magyar black-
mail: If Mussolini were to acquiesce in French confederation schemes for
the Danube, Hungary would move closer to Germany.
5
Given his shaky position in Vienna, Dollfuss was the weakest partner of
the tripartite alignment. Nevertheless, he showed more guile and exibility
than his strong-minded confederates in the ght to preserve Austrias in-
dependence and the survival of his own cabinet against Nazi pressures by
keeping an open mind on diplomatic alignments with the Western Powers
and the Little Entente countries. To broaden Austrias diplomatic base,
Dollfuss undertook a trip to London and Paris during the summer of 1933
to gain support against Nazi terrorism. The British were sympathetic to his
predicament, but they suggested that he reconcile with the Social Democrats
to avoid isolation. Although Dollfuss brushed aside this advice, the British
did agree on 26 July to support him by making representations in Berlin
to end German-backed subversion of the Austrian government. Mussolini,
however, did not fall in line. Wanting to prevent France and the Little
Entente from speculating on German-Italian antagonism regarding Austria,
the Duce advised Hitler privately on 29 July to head off Britains gesture
for concerted action by easing up on the propaganda war against Austria.
6
The Fu hrer agreed to do this and to forbid acts of terrorism, but he cate-
gorically refused to give a written undertaking to abstain from an
Anschluss. On 9 August, Habicht gave his answer by making a hostile
broadcast against the Austrian government.
Dollfuss had no better luck with the French. Joseph Paul-Boncour with-
held French support for an international loan to Austria until Dollfuss
made peace overtures to the Socialists and reduced his dependency on Fas-
cist Italy. Still, Dollfuss persisted in asking the French for permission to
form special auxiliary corps to counter Nazi subversion. This placed the
French in an awkward position. Austria, they acknowledged, needed tools
to resist the Nazis, but they did not want to challenge the disarmament
clauses of the peace treaties.
7
Irritated by Dollfuss peregrinations in the West, Mussolini summoned
him to Riccione on 19 August. After chastising him for not moving expe-
ditiously on the Italian program, the Duce ordered Dollfuss to impose the
Fatherland Front on the parties and to replace the Agrarians in his cabinet
with Starhemberg and the princes Heimwehr cohort Richard Steidle.
8
Mus-
solini promised military assistance in case either the Germans or the Aus-
trian Legion (consisting of expatriate Austrian Nazis undergoing military
training in Bavarian camps) should try to force their way across the fron-
tier. As a signicant concession, Mussolini allowed the Austrian chancellor
to initiate economic contacts with the Little Entente, contrary to the as-
surance made to Go mbo s in Rome that there would be no overtures to
Prague.
9
Starhemberg followed Dollfuss to Italy where he hammered out a hard-
line Heimwehr policy with Mussolini. Until Dollfuss instituted a Fascist
dictatorship, the prince would shun his cabinet and refuse Heimwehr mem-
bership in the Fatherland Front.
10
But Mussolini, with the memory of the
failed Heimwehr coup of 1929 in his mind, held back from giving Star-
hemberg carte blanche. Dollfuss was still his man in Vienna. While en-
couraging increased Heimwehr pressure on the Austrian chancellor, the
Duce cautioned the prince to avoid any public statement that might dimin-
ish his prestige.
11
Buoyed by the knowledge that Mussolini had linked the independence
of Austria to his quasi-dictatorship in Vienna,
12
Dollfuss on 11 September
publicly announced his intention of instituting a Christian Social German
state in Austria organized on corporative precepts; he also reshufed his
cabinet by appointing loyal Heimwehr men to key positions. Monsignor
Enrico Sibilia, the apostolic nuncio in Vienna, lent a helping hand for au-
thoritarian solutions by releasing President Wilhelm Miklas from his oath
to the constitution.
13
But when it became obvious that Italy was unable to
restrain Hitler from interfering in Austrias domestic affairs, Dollfuss re-
sumed his usual procrastination in carrying out Mussolinis program. Hav-
ing determined to shift for himself, he proceeded to engage in secret
contacts with various German factions without prior approval from
Rome.
14
On hearing of these intrigues, Mussolini, it was rumored, de-
spaired of Dollfuss and even considered replacing him with his archenemies
Emil Fey and Anton Rintelenmen more likely to toe the Italian line.
Equally irritating, Dollfuss proved as stubborn as ever in refusing to expand
the Brocchi agreements, a series of tripartite tariff reductions worked out
in 1932. In this case, it was Go mbo s who did the urging, but Dollfuss,
suspicious that Hungary was working against his efforts to ward off
German pressure, argued that Austria could not absorb any more Hungar-
ian agricultural products.
15
Starhemberg, too, harried the Italians with his complaints against Doll-
fuss and reports of the incessent internecine Heimwehr conicts. Although
the prince had managed to strengthen his position, having entered an alli-
ance with Kurt von Schuschniggs paramilitary formation, the Stu rmsharen,
and assumed the vice-presidency of the Fatherland Front, Starhemberg was
worried about the Heimwehrs future. Should Dollfuss conspire with the
Agrarians to abandon the struggle against Marxism, he warned the Italians,
the youth and healthy elements in the country would go over to the
Nazis. Critical of what he alleged to be Dollfuss open door to Pan-
German organizations, such as the National Corporative Front and the
Landbund, Starhemberg feared that Nazi fellow-traveling Greater Germans
would be able to wrest control of the Fatherland Front from his hands.
Starhemberg was also afraid of being outsmarted; he worried that Dollfuss
would impose his leadership on the Heimwehr for the unpopular war on
Nazism while stealing credit for the suppression of the Socialists. Mean-
while, Starhembergs spat with Fey, his long-standing rival, continued un-
abated. Should the Socialists rst be smoked out of Vienna, as urged by
Fey, or should they be rounded up in the provinces before the nal assault
on their stronghold in the Austrian capital, as advocated by the prince?
16
Italian undersecretary Fulvio Suvich visited Berlin on 1213 December
in an attempt to ease the tension between Austria and Germany. Hitler
gave him the usual runaround by asking that Italy accept his promise to
respect Austrias independence (without any written guarantee) while de-
livering a diatribe against Dollfuss for pursuing anti-German policies. If
Dollfuss wanted an agreement with Germany, he should cease suppressing
Austrian Nazis, shun France and the Little Entente, appoint Habicht as
interior minister, and grant Habicht Austrian citizenship. Suvich replied
that Germany should swing behind Mussolini and Dollfuss in the destruc-
tion of democracy and Marxism in Austria. After this rough exchange,
Suvich realized that nothing could be done to deter the Fu hrer from hound-
ing Dollfuss from public life and from placing Nazis in the Austrian gov-
ernment.
17
Dollfuss, sensing that Fey, his most dreaded rival, was replacing Star-
hemberg as Romes favorite, hastened to assure the Italians that everything
was well between himself and the prince. In truth, tension between them
was strained to the breaking point over the pace in implementing Musso-
linis program. Their feud culminated when Dollfuss, without prior con-
sultation with either the Heimwehr or Rome, arranged to meet Habicht
secretly in Vienna to prepare the ground for a deal with the Nazis. When
Starhemberg discovered the plot sometime during the rst week of January
1934, he prevailed on Dollfuss to cancel the meeting. Habicht, who was
bound for Austria by air when he heard the news, had to turn back to
Germany abruptly. The Italians did not learn of these machinations until
7 January; it is quite possible that the Italian agent, Eugeneo Morreale,
joined Starhemberg in staying Dollfuss hand. The Italian minister, Gabriele
Preziosi, was not ofcially apprised until two days later.
18
Mussolini was
thoroughly disgusted with the whole business.
Worried that Suvich in Berlin was planning a deal with Hitler at his
expense, Dollfuss asked that he visit Vienna as a conrmation of Italian
loyalty.
19
Suvich agreed, but when he met with Dollfuss in January, instead
of offering reassurances, the Italian minister shocked him with criticisms
and exhortations to speed up the war against Social Democracy. Further-
more, Suvich expressed dismay over the Habicht incident and Dollfuss
request that Britain and France take Austrias case before the League. Side-
tracking Dollfuss, Suvich turned to the Heimwehr by imploring Fey to keep
up the pressure for implementation of authoritarianism in Austria. Dollfuss
resented the obvious slight but was in no position to challenge Suvich or
reduce his dependency on Italy, since his dispute with Hitler had reached
a complete impasse. Similarly, he could not count on the Western Powers
since they seemed disposed to let Mussolini take the lead in bringing Hitler
to book.
Quite different reasons lay behind Go mbo s vexation with the Austrian
leader. Outraged that Dollfuss might reject Magyar revisionism in favor of
reconciliation with Prague, he dismissed the Austrian chancellor as a vac-
illator, for his shameless maneuvering and lack of charismatic appeal. He
lamented that 60 percent of Austrias population, discouraged over Doll-
fuss failure to live up to his Fascist promises, had fallen to the Nazisa
refrain he was to repeat endlessly in the upcoming months.
20
All the bickering appeared to vanish when, on 12 February, the Austrian
government nally settled accounts with the hapless Socialists by storming
their strongholds in Vienna. The government explained that it was merely
responding to a Socialist armed uprising. In reality, the militarys assault
was the inevitable outcome of steadily increasing provocation on the part
of the Dollfuss regime, egged on by Mussolini and the Heimwehr. After
many months of lukewarm support for the Heimwehr, Mussolini had -
nally decided in January to halt Dollfuss backsliding and irtation with
the Nazis by putting his money on the Heimwehr. To the satisfaction of
Italian Fascists and the Go mbo s circle, the Heimwehrs victory was com-
plete. Equally gratifying, the Western Powers, although fussing over the
authoritarian behavior of the Dollfuss regime, seemed prepared to concede
Italian domination over Austria. Although Dollfuss eventually did take his
case to the League, against Italian wishes, Mussolini did not really mind,
since the resultant declaration on 17 February that Austrias independence
and integrity should be maintained was an empty one not likely to nettle
Hitler.
The violence that marked 12 February annoyed Dollfuss, for he preferred
the slower but less risky strategy of chipping away at Social Democratic
political power. But, so far as is known, he made no protest against either
the nal outcome or the drastic measures taken against those rounded up
by his minister of justice, Kurt von Schuschnigg. Dollfuss, who had a deep-
seated aversion to the Socialists, accepted the violent way that red Vienna
had been crushed.
In contrast, the Heimwehr camp was unabashedly elated over how the
repression was managed. After the initial euphoria had died down, how-
ever, Starhemberg grumbled over the few posts that Dollfuss had reserved
for Heimwehr men following the Socialist purge.
21
Another visit with Mus-
solini on 17 April sufced to brace his spirits. Mussolini told him that
Dollfuss must complete his work by a nal liquidation of the parties and
by applying the nishing Fascist touches to the Fatherland Front. Starhem-
berg, jealous over Feys having received the lions share of credit for the
events of 12 February, spelled out new differences between himself and his
energetic foe. In a complete turnabout, he suggested that the Heimwehr
eschew independence and join the Fatherland Front en masse while he col-
lected all the militarized forces in the country under his authority as vice-
president of the Front. Fey held fast to the old view that the Heimwehr
would be swallowed up by party intrigue should it join the Front. Mussolini
sidetracked Fey by rmly supporting Starhemberg and instructed the prince
to work things out with Dollfuss.
22
The Hungarians, though pleased over the Heimwehrs show of force,
were quite determined not to allow Italy to become the sole arbiter of the
Danube region. Believing that an Italo-Hungarian alignment could not sub-
stitute for German assistance to Hungary in its revisionist aims, they has-
tened to inform Berlin of their absolute neutrality in the Austrian-German
conict.
23
Admiral Miklo s von Nagyba nya Horthy, the Regent of Hungary,
who exercised a strong inuence on policy, was more explicit still in claim-
ing that he regarded an Austrian political coordination with Germany as
an historical necessity.
24
In a meeting that took place in Budapest during the latter part of Feb-
ruary, Suvich and Go mbo s agreed to the following: the postponement, for
the moment, of an accord between Germany and Austria; the rejection of
Nazis and their nationalist sympathizers in the Austrian government;
support for a DollfussFeyStarhemberg triumvirate in a common struggle
against the left; and pressure on Austria to cut all ties with France and the
Little Entente. As soon as the Dollfuss regime was rmly in place in Vienna,
they would take a new look at Germany. Although giving way to the Ital-
ians on their Austrian program, Go mbo s once again scored a success by
scotching an Austrian rapprochement with the Little Entente. At the end,
the conversation veered into dangerous military speculations. Go mbo s was
transported by visions of a European war waged victoriously by the total-
itarian powers. Czechoslovakia would be crushed and Anschluss consum-
mated, which would enable Hungary to seize Slovakia and the Burgenland.
Thus did Go mbo s reveal his shallow delity to the preservation of Austria,
the bedrock of Italian security in Europe.
25
ROME PROTOCOLS BLOC
In spite of Hungarian unreliability, Mussolini aimed to swing Go mbo s
around to a rm defense of Austria and the Dollfuss regime during a tri-
partite meeting that took place in Rome in March 1934. But Go mbo s re-
fused to be pinned down. Mussolini could only dissuade Go mbo s from
insisting on a provision assuring Hitler, in the nal communique issuing
from the meeting, that the newly established Rome Protocols Bloc was not
directed against the Third Reich. Hungary, Go mbo s deantly asserted, in-
tended to carve out its own sphere of inuence in the central portion of
the Carpathian range. Germanys active assistance would be solicited north
of the Danube and Italy was counted on for support in the south. Go mbo s
had thereby hoped to ruin the French plan of achieving a comprehensive
Danube community through Franco-Italian cooperation. Much more to
Hungarian taste was the prospect of the Danube region divided between
two separate and hostile camps. Mussolini, perhaps with Ethiopia on his
mind, let Hungarian intransigence stand in the hope that the bloc would
purchase Italy time by placing Austrian concerns on hold.
26
On 18 March, Mussolini capped his meetings with Go mbo s and Dollfuss
with a provocative speech in support of Hungarian revisionism. In what
was likely a truer revelation of this thinking, he explained to the British
that if Hungarian revisionism was not given a public endorsement, nothing
would stop Go mbo s from conniving with Hitler to hasten Germanys ab-
sorption of Austria.
As if acting by prearrangement with Rome, Dollfuss, on 26 April, re-
placed Fey at the vice-chancellery with Starhemberg, who also kept his post
as vice president of the Fatherland Front. Fey was left with an unimportant
security portfolio. To cement a partnership with Dollfuss that he knew was
favored in Rome, Starhemberg quashed any lingering putschist impulses by
nally agreeing to the Heimwehrs incorporation into the Fatherland
Front.
27
Mussolini was pleased by this action that supposedly placed coun-
try above politics. But matters did not work out smoothly. Angered by his
loss of inuence when the Heimwehr was deprived of its autonomy, Fey
turned to clandestine talks with the Nazis to restore his political fortunes.
28
Dollfuss was greatly irritated by Feys independence and his contacts with
Nazi street thugs, but that did not stop the Austrian chancellor from ini-
tiating a dialogue with upper-class Pan-German Austrian nationals (cau-
tious sympathizers of Nazism and moderate friends of Hitler) to stave off
a Nazi putsch.
THE ASSASSINATION OF DOLLFUSS
On 16 March, Hitler gave the order that prohibited terrorism and prop-
aganda against the Dollfuss regime. Encouraged by Nazi restraint, Mus-
solini, on the suggestion of Franz von Papen, nally agreed to meet the
Fu hrer in order to thrash out their differences over Austria. Ulrich von
Hassell reported that Mussolini, recoiling from any discussion on ne
points of ideology, penetrated to the heart of Italo-German disagreements
in some surprising observations:
Austria was a German State and could only make German policy. He [Mussolini]
had always taken cognizance with satisfaction of the Chancellors assurance that
Germany did not desire an Anschluss, but Italys fear was that the Austrian NSDAP
[Habicht] directed from Germany might create a de facto situation of Anschluss. If
assurances were given that the Austrian NSDAP was not directed by Reich Ger-
mans, Dollfuss would be willing to permit the NSDAP an important role in the
government. Dollfuss himself desired this, and he, Mussolini, would support this
because he urgently hoped for a termination of the German-Austrian conict.
29
Mussolinis understanding of von Papens initiative was that such a meeting
with Hitler should be carefully prepared, prefaced by a clear afrmation of
Austrian independence.
30
The position of the Wilhelmstrasse, which wanted to apply tight controls
over Nazi activity in Austria, was to allow free scope to the natural po-
litical developments in Austria. Pressure applied from Germany for either
annexation or Gleichschaltung would be precluded, provided that the rest
of Europe also abstain from interference in Austrias affairs. Since the Wil-
helmstrasse was condent that Pan-Germanism would eventually capture
the hearts of most Austrians, this was Gleichschaltung by natural causes
rather than articially induced from across the frontier. The Nazis should
behave themselves by keeping out of the way while the professionals com-
pleted their work.
31
Von Hassell in Rome, like von Papen, thought that
this message could best be brought home by a meeting between Hitler and
Mussolini. In addition, von Hassell wanted to take the anti-German sting
out of the Rome Protocols Bloc by implementing his plan of parallel Italo-
German economic exploitation of the Danube region. Sheltered by a Gen-
tlemans Agreement between the two countries tidying up all matters
under dispute, Italy would not feel endangered as Germany and Austria
drew closer together. There would be no more need for secretive negotia-
tions and both would be freed from surprises by the Western Powers.
32
But the Austrian Nazis continued to defy the Wilhelmstrasse. Through-
out April, several clashes occurred between the Austrian Legion and the
Heimwehr, causing Mussolini much anxiety. The Wilhelmstrasse could not
prevent Austrian Nazis from acts of terror against the Austrian government,
any more than Mussolini could bring order out of the feuding Heimwehr
factions that undermined Dollfuss authority. Against this chaotic back-
ground, Mussolini repeated to von Hassell on 28 May what he had pre-
viously told von Papen. While still insisting that his Alpine neighbor remain
independent, he averred that Austria was absolutely a German state
which in the long run could never conduct a policy against Germany but
only always with Germany, and Italy very much desired a settlement of the
conict between Vienna and Berlin on this basis. If the Austrian Nazis
really kept the peace, Dollfuss, so promised the Duce, would seize the
initiative for better relations with Germany.
33
Neither dictator had been altogether candid with the other. Hitler had
no intention of letting up on the pressure to unseat Dollfuss and naziy
Austria, and Mussolini would not agree to any face-saving Gleichschaltung
formula. The Duces talk of Austria as a German state . . . that could
never conduct a policy against Germany was a coded message, for his
preference was clearly to develop a plan with Hitler that would guarantee
Austrias independence rather than to consort with the Western Powers
against the Fu hrera tall order indeed. Mussolini was deterred from elic-
iting the support of London and Paris in checking an Anschluss from the
fear that they might ask embarrassing questions about Italys part in the
destruction of the Social Democrats in Austria; moreover, such a move, he
suspected, would be considered in Berlin as ideological apostasy, to be
avoided at all costs. In truth, both Mussolini and Hitler were attracted to
each other as charismatic dictators who hoped to wish the problem of
Austria away so that they could rm up a totalitarian front against Paris
and the Little Entente. The problem of Austria would not, however, go
away. In the absence of straightforward talk, rumors abounded that Mus-
solini would drop Dollfuss if a suitable alternative could be found. But,
after the unfortunate experiences leading up to the events of 12 February,
would Mussolini consider the likes of Fey, Rintelen, or Starhemberg? Dis-
trustful of these unreliables and incompetents, he would stand by Dollfuss.
Now he would have to make this clear to the Fu hrer in person.
When Hitler stepped off the plane at Venice on 14 June, wearing an
ordinary trenchcoat and civilian clothes and nervously dgeting with a gray
felt hat, he was met by a condent Duce tted out in a snappy military
costume, his chest emblazoned by ribbons and medals. Venice was Mus-
solinis show. Vast throngs cheered him while mocking the undistinguished
Fu hrer. Heated debates on Austria took place between them at Stra and
then on the Lido. Hitler was blunt and to the point. Mussolini should
withdraw his protecting hand from Austria by agreeing to Dollfuss re-
placement by an independent, nonparty gure who would immediately
promulgate elections. National Socialists would be appointed to the new
cabinet in proportion to the votes they received, which were expected to
be high. Hitler wrapped up his oration by declaring his lack of interest in
Anschluss for the present.
34
There was no need to put this in writing, for
one should rely on the Fu hrers word. Not much was said about the Rome
Protocols or Nazi terror in Austria.
35
Because Hitler ranted for long periods
without the aid of an interpreter, what occurred was more monologue than
dialogue, and his words may well have given rise to misunderstanding. But
what the Duce did comprehend was the standard Nazi refrain that he had
long ago rejected: new elections and a new chancellor. For Mussolini, ter-
rorism in Austria must cease and tranquility be restored for some time
before any progress could be made on Hitlers program.
36
Since the Duce
was in no mood to yield on these vital points, his deadlock with Hitler was
not easily veiled by the mutual promise to keep in touch on all matters
concerning Austria.
While refusing to budge on Hitlers major demands, Mussolini did in-
form Berlin that he would accept a coalition cabinet including Nazi sym-
pathizersso long as it was one dominated by Dollfuss. When the Nazis
persisted in demanding the Austrian chancellors removal, the Duce readily
took up Starhembergs wish to block anyone close to Hitler from the bas-
tions of political power in Vienna. Upset over rumors that Dollfuss was
planning to broaden his support by including certain pro-Nazi nationals in
his government, Mussolini in July implored both Fey and Starhemberg to
end their feuding and act decisively against the Nazi threat before it was
too late.
37
Mussolinis StarhembergDollfuss duumvirate was obviously crumbling.
Dissension within the Heimwehr had worsened, the Nazi tide owed
stronger than ever, and the Fatherland Front, its Fascism stillborn, had
failed to generate either ideological or economic dynamism. At a time when
the Hungarians were sorely testing Italian patience with their agging loy-
alty to Austrian independence, the entire experiment collapsed when the
unfortunate Dollfuss fell under a hail of Austrian Nazi bullets on 25 July
1934. Although Dollfuss had cleverly played off his many opponents and
supposed allies in a gallant effort to preserve the independence of his coun-
try, the Austrian chancellor had contributed to the erosion of his own
standing by his shortsighted decisions, a narrow political outlook, and ex-
cessive machinations.
Mussolini was outraged. Hitler is the murderer of Dollfuss,
38
he thun-
dered to Starhemberg, ignoring Hitlers disavowals that he had any ties
with the Austrian Nazis involved in the attempted coup. After offering
condolences to Dollfuss wife, Mussolini hurried the prince onto a ight to
Vienna from his favorite vacation spot on the Lido to meet the emergency,
and he rushed several Italian divisions to the Brenner. When news arrived
that the coup had failed and that Hitlers armies remained in their barracks,
the Italian troops camped on their side of the Austrian frontier. But the
crisis did not blow over so quickly. The Italian press took up the offensive
by denouncing the Germans as a nation of pederasts and assassins. Mus-
solinis ofcial periodical, Gerarchia, pointed out that Austrians were in no
sense Germans by culture or sentiment; they belonged to a Roman, Med-
iterranean, and Catholic civilization.
39
Mussolini raged to Starhemberg that
Hitler was a horrible sexual degenerate, a dangerous fool. In Bari, on 6
September, the Duce proclaimed from a tank turret: Thirty centuries of
history allow us to regard with supreme indulgence certain doctrines taught
beyond the Alps by the descendants of people who were wholly illiterate
in the days when Caesar, Virgil and Augustus ourished in Rome.
40
Notwithstanding Mussolinis quick military response as a clear warning
to Hitler, Dollfuss death revealed many aws in the Duces efforts to shore
up Austrias independence. As effective anti-Anschluss devices, the Four
Power Pact remained stillborn, and the Danubian troika lost its anti-
German edge due to the relentless revisionism of Julius Go mbo s and his
lack of support for Dollfuss. Moreover, Austrias resistance to Nazi pres-
sure was not helped by Mussolinis cooperation with Prince Starhemberg
in imploring Dollfuss to disable the Social Democratic Party. To have de-
stroyed a useful anti-Anschluss rampart inside the country out of ideolog-
ical hatred was self-defeating.
NOTES
1. F. L. Carsten, The First Austrian Republic 19181938 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1986), 182.
2. DDI, 7, XIII, 691 and 778, 25 May and 8 June 1933.
3. Martin Kitchen, The Coming of Austrian Fascism (London: Croom Helm,
1980), 149. The Italians got wind of these negotiations. ASMAE, AP:A, 19: 949,
11 May 1933.
4. For Mussolinis 1 July letter to Dollfuss, see Julius Braunthal, The Tragedy
of Austria (London: Victor Gollancz, 1948), 18487.
5. DDI, 7, XIV, 24 and 29, 26 and 27 July 1933; Jens Petersen, Hitler e Mus-
solini (Bari: Laterza, 1975), 207; Kerekes, Abendda mmerung, 15354. Kerekes and
Petersen agree that Go mbo s had gotten the best of Mussolini at this meeting.
6. DDI, 7, XIV, 34, 29 July 1933.
7. Jacques Nere, The Foreign Policy of France from 1914 to 1945 (London
and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975), 14445.
8. DDI, 7, XIV, 102, 18 August 1933.
9. NPA, 477, 19, 20 August 1933; Haas, Die Ro mische Allianz, 82.
10. C. Earl Edmondson, The Heimwehr and Austrian Politics (Athens: Univer-
sity of Georgia Press, 1978), 196; DDI, 7, XIV, 154, 6 September 1933.
11. ASMAE, AP:A 18: 1677/206, 20 September 1933.
12. Karl Stuhlpfarrer, Zur Aussenpolitischen Lage O
sterreichs im Jahre 1934,

in Februar 1934, Erich Fro schl and Helge Zoitl, eds. (Vienna: Volksbuchandlung,
1984), 45556.
13. ASMAE, AA, 409: 3948/175, 23 September 1933.
14. The twists and turns of Dollfuss negotiations with the Germans are sum-
marized in Petersen, Hitler e Mussolini, 17592, and in Gehl, Austria, Germany,
and the Anschluss, 7176.
15. ASMAE, AA 370: 245, 27 November 1933; DDI, 7, XIV, 462, 9 December
1933.
16. ASMAE, AP:A 17: 4614/2496, 8 November 1933; DDI, 7, XIV, 400 and
489, 22 November and 18 December 1933; ASMAE, Austria, 1933, 17, 5006/463,
19 December 1933, and AP:A 24: 58/3 and 430/240, 1 and 31 January 1934.
17. DDI, 7, XIV, 476, 13 December 1933; ibid., 505, 25 December 1933.
18. ASMAE, AA 307: 1003/495, 8 March 1934.
19. NPA, 413, 9 December 1933.
20. DDI, 7, XIV, 157 and 435, 7 September and 2 December 1933.
21. ASMAE, AA 307: 1003/495, 8 March 1934.
22. DDI, 7, XV, 110, 17 April 1933; Edmondson, The Heimwehr and Austrian
Politics, 230.
23. DGFP, C, 2, 279, 26 February 1934.
24. DGFP, C, 2, 290, 28 February 1934.
25. GFM, K6419342396, 21 February 1934; ASMAE, AA 307: 2123 Feb-
ruary 1934; Haas, Die Ro misches Allianz, 83.
26. DDI, 7, XIV, 802, 13 March 1934; Petersen, Hitler e Mussolini, 292; DGFP,
C, 2, 346, 21 March 1933; Aloisi, Journal, 182.
27. DDI, 7, XV, 151, 26 April 1934.
28. ASMAE, AA 410: 082, 2 May 1934; DDI, 7, XIV, 246 and 345, 17 May
and 4 June 1934; ibid., XV, 175, 2 May 1934.
29. DGFP, C, II, 377, 3 April 1934.
30. DDI, 7, XV, 197, 8 May 1934.
31. DGFP, C, II, 320 and 329, 13 and 16 March 1934; ibid., 389 and 393, 9
and 10 April 1934.
32. GFM, 3408/8842/E61525661, 24 March 1934.
33. DGFP, C, II, 472, 29 May 1934.
34. DGFP, C, III, 5, 7, and 10, 15 and 16 June 1934.
35. GFM, 2811/6100H/E4430935, 23 June 1934.
36. FO, R3510/37/3, 20 June 1934.
37. DDI, 7, XV, 520 and 528, 13 and 15 July 1934.
38. Starhemberg, Between Hitler and Mussolini, 170.
39. Mack Smith, Mussolinis Roman Empire, 56.
40. Elizabeth Wiskemann, The Rome-Berlin Axis (London: Collins, 1966), 57.
CHAPTER 7
Italys Imperialist Adventure
MUSSOLINI PONDERS INVASION
Italian nationalists ever since the great imperialist Francesco Crispi had
yearned to acquire Ethiopia as a colony; Mussolini was no exception. But
during the 1920s, though given to outbursts that Italy must reach the
Oceans, Mussolini was frustrated by Anglo-French dominance in the
Mediterranean and was distracted from an African empire by revisionist
projects. As late as mid-1932, when Grandi suggested an invasion of Ethi-
opia, the Duce made short shrift of the idea. In December 1932, however,
after Grandis departure, Mussolini commissioned General Emilio De
Bono, a Fascist comrade of the rst hour, to draw up a preliminary war
plan while he made the diplomatic preparations along the lines roughed
out by Rafaello Guariglia, the Palazzo Chigis most radical spokesman for
African colonization. According to Guariglia, Italy should acquire Ethiopia
not by gradual economic or political penetration but by a military cam-
paign in the grand style. Before embarking on invasion, however, Italy
must rst gain British and French acquiescence. To prevent any radical
break with tradition, Guariglia felt that the Ethiopian enterprise should be
made an episode, rather than a dangerous new departure. Once a protec-
torate had been imposed on a defeated Ethiopia, Italy, in his view, would
be a satised power and a reliable Concert of Europe partner, rather than
a radical revisionist bent on continental expansion.
1
Guariglias colleagues in the Palazzo Chigi viewed Ethiopia through nine-
teenth-century imperialist lenses. Dependent on trade and maritime com-
merce, lacking a strong industrial base, Italy was condemned to be a
second-rate power unless it obtained colonies. Ethiopia was the only major
African region that had not already been snapped up by the other European
powers. Important as a source of raw materials, it possessed highland ag-
ricultural areas deemed suitable for Italian emigrants. The economic im-
perialist persuasion was augmented during the early 1930s by the argument
that the unemployment and stagnation of trade caused by the depression
could be relieved by imperialist acquisitions. Still, until Italy was ready for
a test of arms, it should engage in a peripheral policy by the subversion of
Ethiopia and bribery of the border tribal chiefs.
But this politica periferica, halfheartedly pursued, yielded no quick or
spectacular returns. Growing restless, Mussolini began to ponder invasion.
In early 1933, he told Starhemberg that if Italy failed to penetrate the
Danube region, We might even be pushed to Africa.
2
In August, the Duce
transferred all matters pertaining to East Africa to the colonial ministry
under De Bono. Freed of interference by unimaginative service chiefs and
the Palazzo Chigis diplomatic propriety, De Bono could on his own initia-
tive draw up operational plans and implement them. But events in Europe
stayed Mussolinis hand. Rather than behaving like a dutiful Fascist pupil,
Hitler stepped up the pressure on Austria, while Dollfuss avoided depend-
ency on Italy. Mussolini therefore had no choice but to place Ethiopia on
hold and move cautiously during most of 1933. He refrained from talk of
war against the world and strove to preserve the status quo in Europe by
means of the Four Power Pact until diplomacy had done its work. Harmony
reigned so far between the Palazzo Venezia and the Palazzo Chigi.
By fall 1933, Italys diplomatic preparations had bogged down. The Four
Power Pact had zzled, and the disarmament talks came to an abrupt end
when Germany stormed out of the League in October 1933. Losing pa-
tience with diplomacy, Mussolini entrusted De Bono with the practical
preparations for an attack on Ethiopia. In a similar spirit, he published a
sensational article, entitled Verso il Riarmo, in March 1934 that scan-
dalized Europe. Bristling with militant nationalism, Mussolini denounced
the League and sneered at pacism. In the real world of arms races and
military alliances, he wrote, Italy would have to hasten its rearmament and
win quick returns in Africa before other states could move. The Mediter-
ranean must be converted from an Anglo-Saxon lake into a Roman sea. In
the same article, Mussolini injected a worrisome ideological component
into his Realpolitik. Breaking with the peaceful and European spirit
of the defunct Four Power Pact, he urged Fascist combat against liberal
democracy.
3
One month later, he released additional funds for Ethiopian
war preparations.
But the shrewd calculator in Mussolini emerged to temper the visceral
impulse for war. Since Italy was in no position to defy the Western Powers,
careful diplomatic preparation could not be avoided. Although, by autumn
Italys Imperialist Adventure 103
of 1934, a sizable Italian military force had arrived in East Africa, the Duce
was still undecided whether he would ght a colonial war, a national war,
or any war at all.
AUSTRIA
After the assassination of Dollfuss, which brought Italian troops to the
Brenner and was denounced by the Western Powers, the Germans under-
took a new course toward Austria. Momentarily eschewing violence, Hitler
appointed Franz von Papen as his personal extraordinary emissary in Vi-
enna. Ostensibly, von Papens mandate was to restore normal relations
between the two governments, but the urbane, silver-tongued aristocrat
actually aimed to seduce the new government with a Pan-German program
that would culminate in a peaceful Anschluss. The Fu hrer dismissed Ha-
bicht from his post as director of propaganda for Austria and closed the
border to Nazi trafc. But since there was no letup in Austrian Nazi vio-
lence, Rome remained suspicious. Worse still, from the Italian standpoint,
political pundits everywhere in the post-Dollfuss era were predicting that
a rudderless Austria would quickly slide into Nazism. To reestablish his
leadership, Mussolini looked for a reliable minion to steel Austria against
further Nazi encroachment. Should it be Kurt von Schuschnigg or Prince
Starhemberg? Which one would control the government, the army, and the
Fatherland Front?
Starhemberg saved Rome from having to make a choice by stepping
aside, which enabled Schuschnigg to be appointed without opposition as
the deceased chancellors replacement.
4
Italys views of this transition re-
main unclear. We know that Schuschnigg was not loved in Rome, but the
Italians also questioned Starhembergs competence when he began preach-
ing that the renovation of Austria should be patterned on the encyclical
Quadragesimo Anno, which had been issued by the Holy Father in 1931.
5
An angry Suvich decried this as a defection from Fascism to Catholicism,
but Starhemberg, unrepentant, justied his apostasy as the only credible
counter to the Nazis. Rome retaliated by slashing nancial and military aid
to the Heimwehr.
6
Yet Starhemberg continued to carry out Mussolinis directives by apply-
ing pressure on Schuschnigg to avoid drawing moderate Nazis and na-
tional opposition into his entourage.
7
Ignoring this advice, Schuschnigg
admitted to Mussolini during a meeting in Rome on 21 August 1934 that
he was willing to consult with those Greater Germans if they endorsed the
principle of Austrian independence. Hardly raising a protest,
8
Mussolini let
Schuschnigg deal with the Nazi problem in his own way. Schuschnigg took
advantage of Mussolinis agging interest by gradually establishing his as-
cendancy over the prince, whose energies were being dissipated in the high
life and in his continued rivalry with Fey over control of the Heimwehr.
9
Unquestionably, there existed no rapport between Mussolini, the dare-
devil Fascist revolutionary, and the austere and reserved Schuschnigg,
whose stuffy legitimism and Tyrolean associations made for formal meet-
ings devoid of freewheeling discussion. The cloistered college professor and
the man on horseback did little more than exchange pious hopes for Aus-
trias capacity to survive the Nazi onslaught.
10
Mussolini, however, was not yet prepared to give up on Austria. Nev-
ertheless, the assassination of Dollfuss and growing German power con-
vinced him that his previous approachesmeddling in Austrian internal
politics or the defense of Austria by Italy alone, in cooperation with Ger-
many, or through the Rome Protocols Blocwould not sufce. In the
search for a guarantee of Austrias independence, he would have to bring
in France and the Little Entente, not one by one, but as a bloc.
The Duce was faced with many obstacles. The Little Entente acted as if
it preferred Anschluss to a Habsburg restoration and took no initiative in
alleviating Austrias economic distress. Thanks to its running feud with
Italy, Yugoslavia had moved closer to Germany; Romania was relatively
far removed from Pan-German pressures and was preoccupied mainly with
minimizing Italian inuence in the Balkans; and the Czechs, offended by
the Italian role in the suppression of the Austrian Socialists, disliked
Schuschniggs authoritarian regime. The Yugoslavs posed the greatest prob-
lem. When Mussolini rushed troops to the Brenner in July, they threatened
a move into Carinthia, should the Italians cross the frontier. To a certain
extent, Mussolini had brought this Little Entente hostility upon Italy by his
association with Hungarian revisionism.
While Mussolini sought a means by which to reduce the tensions in the
Danube region between the Little Entente and his troika partners, Austria
and Hungary, the French faced disarray in Eastern Europe following Hit-
lers rise to power. In April, the French foreign minister, Louis Barthou,
undertook a fence-mending tour of Eastern Europe to revive French lead-
ership.
11
While solicitous of Poland and the Little Entente, he was not pre-
pared to offer additional French commitments to deter German aggression.
Rather, his nuanced diplomacy was aimed at easing the tension in Eastern
Europe that had been provoked by Frances negotiations with the Soviet
Union to contain Hitler. None of this was to Mussolinis liking, not so
much because he regarded the Soviet Union as an evil empire but because
he felt left out.
Austria seemed more manageable as an object of Franco-Italian coop-
eration. Both Britain and France had expressed gratitude to Mussolini for
his forceful defense of Austria, but, to avoid an Italo-Yugoslav military
confrontation in the event Hitler stirred up further trouble in the Danube
region, they wanted to broaden the little beleaguered countrys basis of
support. On 31 July, the permanent secretary of the Quai dOrsay, Alexis
Leger, suggested that a tripartite committee be set up in Rome to oversee
Austrian affairs and to recommend joint action should Austrian indepen-
dence again be threatened.
12
This came at a time when Italy and Austria
were working on a military protocol between them.
13
To prevent the Ger-
mans from playing on great-power differences over the Anschluss question,
the Italians were willing to include Great Britain, France, and Germany in
the projected protocol. If Hitler agreed to join, he would be accepting Aus-
trian independence just as Stresemann, at Locarno, had accepted the nality
of Germanys frontiers with France and Belgium. In other words, such
agreement would insist on no diktat on either the Rhine or the Brenner.
Such a forum of ambassadors would also grant Italy a mandate to protect
Schuschnigg against Gleichschaltung. Should Germany refuse participation,
this would earn Hitlers regime the opprobrium of France and Britain and
would undermine von Papens gambit of an Austro-German modus vivendi
based exclusively on Teutonic unity.
14
Instead, Germany simply ignored
the Italian proposal in favor of a waiting game, on the assumption that
Austrias independence could not be propped up indenitely either collec-
tively or by Italy alone.
But the British and French were not nished. In mid-August they pro-
posed a demarche to Vienna that urged Schuschnigg to widen his popular
support by reconciling with moderate Socialists and national elements
free of Nazi excesses. This proposal was anathema to the Italians, who
would have no truck with the hated Austro-Marxists and distrusted Nazis
dressed up as respectable bourgeois citizens. Moreover, they feared massive
defections from the Heimwehr to the Austrian Nazis should Schuschnigg
either admit Socialists into the government or grant amnesty to those jailed
in the 12 February government crackdown.
15
Mussolini, willing to join a
diplomatic partnership to protect Austria, would simply not accept shared
responsibility in Austrian domestic affairs with anyone.
Hounded by the British and French to reconcile with the Austrian So-
cialists, Mussolini intended to talk with Schuschnigg, during the latters
upcoming visit in Rome on 21 August, about an Italo-Austrian protocol
containing military guarantees open to the participation of other countries.
London and Paris would be kept in the dark until the Italo-Austrian pro-
tocol had been worked out. But Schuschnigg never gave Mussolini a
chance, for he, more than Dollfuss, resented Italian tutelage and pressure
for greater Heimwehr representation in his government. Moreover, in sore
need of loans, he wanted to keep lines open with Paris and London, since
there was no gold available in Rome.
16
Taking the initiative, the Austrians at the end of August presented a
proposal that the Italians thought resembled their own. Yet, there would
be no Italo-Austrian protocol, and the initiative would be left to Schusch-
nigg rather than to Mussolini.
17
Austria, France, Germany, Britain, and
Italy would be obliged to intervene immediately in the event that Viennas
domestic order and security were threatened. A major absentee was Yu-
goslavia, which bothered the Italians only insofar as no one was doing
much to halt Belgrades growing tilt toward Berlin. Could France restrain
the Serbs in case of a German march into Austria? The Austrian govern-
ment would determine both the nature of the threat and the country to
send military assistance.
18
Although not happy at the elimination of the
protocol from the Austrian proposal,
19
Mussolini swung behind Schusch-
niggs version and let him take the lead in shepherding it through the Ge-
neva back corridors.
20
All seemed to be proceeding smoothly when the British suddenly declared
in mid-September that they would refuse to participate in any guarantee of
Austria.
21
Bending to British pressure, Barthou, who had earlier been will-
ing to consider a Danubian organization centered on the states of the Ro-
man Protocols,
22
also declined to be associated with any Great Power
assembly outside the Leagues jurisdiction and without the inclusion of the
Little Entente countries as equals. Angered by the very mention of the
League, the Italians insisted that Britain and France grant them a mandate
to act on their behalf in Austria, reiterated the necessity of a preliminary
bilateral accord of guarantee with Schuschnigg, and scorned the Yugo-
slavs.
23
This forceful Italian reply placed Barthou in a quandary. So long as
France and Italy remained hopelessly snarled in their perennial outstanding
disputesdisarmament, Tunisia, and colonieslittle progress could be
made on the Austrian question. Furthermore, much to Mussolinis chagrin,
Barthous peregrinations in Eastern Europe were stealing the limelight from
Rome. For his part, Barthou preferred to downgrade Italys part in his anti-
German front but knew that he could not. Mussolini, after all, was resolved
to defend Austria and was on bad terms with Hitler. Barthou therefore
decided to accept Italian predominance in Vienna as the most effective
safeguard against Nazi pressure. He was indeed a political realist who did
not permit ideology to interfere with French national interests. Still, he was
discouraged by Britains refusal to undertake any commitment and by the
intransigence of the Little Entente. Moreover, he was susceptible to the
argument of the Quai dOrsay, which held that the Yugoslavs would drift
into the German camp if France followed Mussolinis lead on the Austrian
question. The Yugoslavs, to be sure, were not facilitating Barthous en-
deavor to placate Rome. Indeed, they instigated an irresponsible press war
that denigrated the Italian army, belligerently stated their preference for an
Anschluss over a Habsburg restoration in Austria, and bragged about
marching into Carinthia should the Italians ever venture across the Brenner
frontier. Mussolini replied by threatening to break off diplomatic relations
with Yugoslavia.
24
Confronted by this mounting Italo-Yugoslav antago-
nism, Barthou made his choice. Instead of coddling the Italians, he caved
in to Britain and the Little Entente in order to pursue negotiations with the
Soviet Union and the Danube Convention aimed at the creation of an East-
ern Locarno. Although wanting to crown his tour dhorizon of Europe with
a successful trip to Rome, Barthou placed his invitation at risk by treating
the Italians lightlyon par with Yugoslaviain the conviction that they
would have to agree to French terms in order to prevent Anschluss.
Given these intractable deadlocks, Britain, France, and Italy issued a dec-
laration on 27 September 1934 reafrming the independence and the ter-
ritorial integrity of Austria. As empty of force as the declaration of 17
February, this farcical and tardy response to the Nazi assassination of Doll-
fuss revealed the lack of will and contrasting perspectives of the three sig-
natories. Not surprisingly, it was greeted with derision in Berlin. Although
the Italians were worried by the yawning gap between an afrmation of
principle and a formula of guarantee for Austrias independence,
25
they
were not terribly upset. Yugoslavia would be excluded from Great Power
parley and the League left out of the Austrian equation. Similarly, the West-
ern Powers would no longer meddle with the Italian effort to dominate
Schuschnigg, notwithstanding Mussolinis diminished condence in the
Austrian chancellors determination to evade the blandishments of von Pa-
pen. Schuschnigg was much less happy with the negotiations leading up to
the 27 September declaration. The British had written off Austria, the
French had shown partiality to the Little Entente over the defense of Aus-
tria, and Schuschnigg himself was under re in Vienna for his excessive
dependency on Italy, which redoubled his resolve to avoid any bilateral
military protocol with Mussolini in the future.
On 17 November, Schuschnigg arrived in Rome to talk again with Mus-
solini. Their exchanges were awkward and underscored by a mutual lack
of comprehension. The agenda was the usual one: loans for Austria, the
nature of Austrias nationals, Italian concessions in the Alto Adige, and
the dangers of Hungarian revisionism. But these burning issues were run
through quickly and handled gingerly. Nothing was said about either the
Italo-Austrian military protocol or broader international guarantees to de-
ter a German invasion of Austria.
26
Having merely gone through the mo-
tions with Schuschnigg, Mussolini nally had to develop a new approach
to keep the peace in Europe while he moved ahead with his plans to invade
Ethiopia: a multinational guarantee of Austria negotiated in concert with
France against either a nazication of Austria or a German invasion.
GROUNDWORK FOR WAR
During the last weeks of September, Barthou, in a change of course,
authorized the resumption of Franco-Italian talks on colonial questions;
these had been suspended since Grandis departure from the Palazzo Chigi.
The Italians presented a set of proposals. To fulll Article 13 of the London
Pact, France should declare its disinterest in Ethiopia, concede the coastline
of French Somalia, with the exception of Djibouti, and make other colonial
territorial rectications along the Libyan frontier. Italy would reciprocate
by abandoning its claims in Tunisia and Morocco. As an earnest of good-
will, Mussolini promised to downgrade Italian support for Croatian sepa-
ratism and to discuss the tangled Albanian question directly with Belgrade.
Before an immense throng in Milan on 6 October, Mussolini showed re-
straint toward the Serbs, though he did boast of Italys military strength.
Aloisi construed his speech as a clear invitation to Yugoslavia.
27
Impressed by a less intransigent Italy, Barthou decided to tackle the Yu-
goslavs head-on by inviting King Alexander to France for a lecture on the
importance of Austrias independence to Yugoslav security and the neces-
sity of cooperation with Italy in upholding it.
28
A visit to Rome by Barthou
would follow between 4 and 11 November 1934. King Alexander was in
a quandary. He took the Italo-Yugoslav entente so ardently espoused by
the French as a retreat from their treaty obligations toward Yugoslavia; at
the same time, he suspected that Mussolini, with Barthous connivance, was
poised to succeed France as the dominant power in the Balkans. Hence,
Alexander spurned Italys tentative overtures for a detente,
29
but he ac-
cepted Barthous invitation. This tentative beginning, however, was aborted
when Croatian terrorists, some of whom were known to have resided in
Italian training camps, assassinated Alexander and Barthou in Marseille on
9 October.
30
Many ngers pointed toward Mussolini for ordering the kings murder,
but there is still no evidence implicating the Duce directly in the crime,
apart from his past support of Croatian terrorism and the camps he pro-
vided in Italy to house Pavelic and his henchmen. Why should the Duce
suddenly want to stir up a crisis with Yugoslavia when his diplomacy was
aimed at the inclusion of Belgrade in his anti-Anschluss front? Notwith-
standing a wish to play down the incident, Mussolini stoutly defended
himself and Hungary against Yugoslav charges that they together had mas-
terminded the outrage. The resultant quarrel between the two revisionist
allies and the Little Entente proved to be more of an obstacle to Franco-
Italian rapprochement than their long-standing colonial differences.
Whereas the new French government insisted that an African settlement
was possible only if Italy would agree to a clause on Austrian independence
guaranteed by the Little Entente,
31
Mussolini insisted that Hungary be rec-
ognized as a major guarantor. Rather than conciliate Yugoslavia, he would
stand by Magyar revisionism.
32
Pierre Laval, who succeeded Barthou at the Quai dOrsay, was a man
cut from a different cloth. A traditional and ardent republican, Barthou
was an intellectual who expressed his ideas forthrightly, whereas Laval was
a backstairs intriguer whose devotion to the truth was suspect. Instead of
encircling Germany with alliances, the new French foreign minister meant
to downgrade Barthous pactomania and take little steps in the direction
of improved relations with Hitler. Laval eschewed blocs in favor of bilateral
negotiations with Rome and Berlin. Less anti-German and more comfort-
able among dictators than Barthou, Laval was eager to please Mussolini
by diverting criticism from Italy over the Marseille assassinations. In such
an improved atmosphere, the two countries would arrive at a meeting of
minds on the contentious issues dividing them and Laval would publicize
the rapprochement by a visit to Rome.
But there were major stumbling blocks. The Yugoslavs accused Italy of
complicity in the plot to kill their king and of abetting the disintegration
of their country. Stung by the criticism leveled at Italy by the Little Entente,
Mussolini avoided approaching Belgrade on an Italo-Yugoslav treaty of
arbitration and conciliation that the French held to be a prerequisite to
Franco-Italian discussions.
33
Lavals projected trip to Rome appeared to
have been squelched.
At this point, an incident occurred that seemed to galvanize Mussolini
into accelerating his plans to invade Ethiopia. On 5 December 1934, an
Anglo-Ethiopian boundary commission clashed with a force of Italian-led
tribesmen at the oasis of Walwal in the Ogaden province of Ethiopia. After
a erce battle, the Ethiopians were routed. Mussolini had had no hand in
this affair, which was provoked by a trigger-happy Italian commander.
Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia brought the Walwal incident to the
notice of the League of Nations on 14 December.
Mussolini was thus given a handy pretext for condemning Ethiopia as
an irresponsible and barbaric empire, but the incident came at a time when
he was becoming increasingly agitated over Germany. Fearing that Hitler
would be emboldened to exacerbate tensions in Austria after the antici-
pated German victory in the upcoming Saar plebiscite,
34
the Duce bent to
Lavals demand that Italy cooperate with the Little Entente in defending
Austria under the auspices of the League.
35
This meant downgrading Hun-
garian revisionism. Go mbo s lashed back by warning that Hungary would
not tolerate any extension by the Little Entente to guarantee the Danubian
territorial status quo under the guise of protecting Austria.
36
But since Mus-
solini was pressed for time,
37
he ignored Go mbo s and allowed the Rome
Protocols to languish.
On 30 December, without informing the foreign ministry, Mussolini is-
sued a directive to the military for an invasion of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian
problem must be solved as soon as possible, he maintained, before Haile
Selassie had time to modernize his army with the help of foreign experts.
The aim was to be the destruction of the Abyssinian forces and the total
conquest of the country. . . . The empire cannot be made otherwise. A
large force (mechanized equipment and gas) was needed for a conquest
the quicker the better, to reduce the diplomatic fallout. Mussolini con-
vinced himself that Hitler was still two or three years away from acquiring
the war machine needed to move on Austria and that Yugoslavia posed no
threat to Italy since it was paralyzed by internal division.
38
But Mussolini knew that he had to have an accord with France before
the Ethiopian matter could be addressed. Luckily, at the end of December,
Laval discarded the prerequisite of an Italo-Yugoslav detente, which re-
moved the last obstacle to talks with the Duce. The stage was thus set for
the historic meeting between Mussolini and Laval, which took place in
Rome between 4 and 7 January 1935. After extensive talks, they succeeded
in sorting out their conicting interests and their claims on Africa, arma-
ments, and Central Europe.
The European provisions concerned Germany and the Anschluss threat.
In the event that the independence or integrity of Austria was threatened,
France and Italy, within the framework of the League (this was a key con-
cession by Mussolini), would consult on measures to be taken; in addition,
Austrias neighbors (except Switzerland), as well as France, and perhaps
Poland and Romania, would together work out a pact of nonintervention
in each others domestic affairs. As a neighbor of Austria, Yugoslavia
loomed large in these plans, but Mussolini showed no disposition to resolve
the issues of Croatian terrorism or Albania directly with Belgrade. Finally,
in a departure from past practice between their two countries, Mussolini
and Laval agreed to cooperate on the question of disarmament and to
consult in case Germany broke the restrictions imposed on it by the Ver-
sailles Treaty. It was obvious that the ring around Germany that Mussolini
and Laval wanted to create had many missing links.
On the subject of Africa, Mussolini and Laval were able to settle most
of their differences quite easily. Minor frontier rectications, between Eri-
trea and French Somaliland and between Tunisia and Libya, were agreed
to in Italys favor. Italy made a great concession by promising to relinquish
the special rights of Italian citizens in Tunisia. It was Ethiopia that posed
the greatest problem. After the hard bargaining was over, ambiguity re-
sulted from the exchange of notes, the meetings, the oral exchanges, and
what was said and written afterward.
39
But this much is clear: France was
prepared to forgo the economic interests in Ethiopia that it had enjoyed
under the 1906 agreements, save the zone adjoining Djiboutithe Addis
Ababa railway; this ruled out French consent to a total Italian military
conquest of Ethiopia. The rest is uncertain. Mussolini claimed that Laval,
in using the phrase free hand, had granted him French acquiescence in
Italian economic domination of Ethiopia; Frances political disinterest in
the country left him room for war against Haile Selassie. Perhaps Mussolini
took this expansive view because, as he revealed later to Anthony Eden, he
thought it was fair compensation for his having yielded to France 100,000
Italians in Tunis and received in return half a dozen palm trees in one place
and a strip of desert which did not even contain a sheep in another.
40
No doubt Laval had conceded Mussolini economic predominance in
Ethiopia and political inuence over Haile Selassiemaybe even an Italian-
sponsored coup detat to remove him from power. In the absence of any
discussion of war, however, Laval thought it unlikely that Mussolini would
risk diplomatic isolation by undertaking a hugely expensive and dangerous
attack against Ethiopia. Imperial grandeur a` la Mussolini and military ad-
venturism were quite foreign to Lavals wheeling-and-dealing nature. Laval
later insisted in a self-serving way that French disinterest could not in any
case have been equated with a violation of the sovereignty and integrity of
Ethiopia. Laval claimed that he had granted a free hand at once as a per-
mission for Italy to undertake a peaceful political penetration of Ethiopia
and as a warning to Haile Selassie that he could no longer count on French
protection against Italy. It behooved the Negus (one of Haile Selassies
titles), therefore, to make far-reaching concessions to Mussolini. Undoubt-
edly, differences arose from glib oral exchanges between two men not
known for their attention to detail. While Mussolini eventually took a free
hand and a wink as Lavals willingness to ignore Italian use of force,
no matter on what scale, the French minister had no such thoughts. Rather,
he seems to have believed that the Italians would follow the French example
in Morocco: subsidization of internal unrest, guerrilla warfare, and the
leisurely conversion of Ethiopia into an Italian protectorate within the Eu-
ropean Concert and at no risk to Italys security on the Brennerthe very
politica periferica favored by Mussolinis advisers in the Palazzo Chigi.
Was Mussolini bent on conquest in January? Did he seek to avenge Adua
and satisfy Fascist pride by a quick military occupation of the Ogaden as
a prelude to a dictated peace imposed on Haile Selassie? Or were his gi-
gantic military preparations merely intended as leverage to wrest Italys
claims by diplomatic intimidation? Though inclined toward a total solu-
tion, Mussolini reckoned that the agreements with Laval left open a re-
treat to a negotiated settlement that would still leave him master of
Ethiopia. Since Britain had to be factored into his imperialist equation, the
Duce would wait on events and decide accordingly. But no matter what
was on his mind, Mussolini had scored a great propaganda victory at home.
By coming to Rome to sign bilateral accords, Laval had admitted parity
with Italy. The old and decadent democracy, the cradle of the revolution
that had once changed the world, had conferred a patent of respectability
on Mussolini, who represented the wave of the future. Armed with what
he took to be Lavals blank check for Ethiopia, Mussolini now had to
obtain one from the Britisha much more difcult task.
41
Mussolini delayed until 25 January 1935 before instructing Grandi to
inform the British government of the 7 January accords, but Grandi was
told to seal his lips on the Duces intention of resolving the Ethiopian
problem in a radical manner for fear that the British would not be as
accommodating as the French.
42
On 29 January, Grandi carried out these
instructions, only to discover that Sir John Simon, the British foreign sec-
retary, had already been apprised by Laval.
43
Like Laval, Simon had slight
interest in Ethiopia and little faith in the League as an effective peacekeep-
ing device; most of the cabinet had little faith in it as well. Italian vagueness
was answered by Simons lawyerly hair-splitting. His negative reactions to
Italys Ethiopian plans were implicit rather than stated. He accommodated
Mussolini by blocking Ethiopia from bringing its case before the League.
In cooperation with France, Simon sought to sidetrack the Ethiopians by
insisting that they activate their 1928 agreement with Italy, which called
on the two signatories to settle their disputes by bilateral arbitration. To
avoid the glare of international publicity and scrutiny at Geneva, the Ital-
ians readily accepted. The League Council was thereby enabled to defer
discussion of the problem until the outcome of arbitration was known.
Mussolini drew from Simons behind-the-scene maneuvers the mistaken im-
pression that Britain had countersigned Lavals blank check and would
refrain from taking the Italo-Ethiopian dispute before the League if it came
to a test of arms.
While immersed in his Ethiopian preparations, Mussolini could not hide
from the problem of Austria. Since Schuschnigg was slipping out of his
control, the Duce decided at the end of February to reduce tensions with
Yugoslavia by broaching the idea of rapprochement. Italy would repudiate
Croatian terrorism and break up the Ustasa gang quartered on the Italian
island of Lipari. Following a mutual press truce, a friendship treaty would
be signed, topped by a military alliance. The aim was to block German
annexation of Austria and, failing that, a German Drang nach Su dosten.
44
As might be expected, Mussolinis idea of rapprochement with Belgrade
and the inclusion of Yugoslavia in the projected defense of Austria rocked
Budapest. Mussolini tried on 23 March to convince Go mbo s of the peril
of Anschluss. To deter Hitler further, Mussolini urged Go mbo s to acquiesce
in a mutual security pact in the Danube region, negotiated with France, to
include Germany and the Little Entente which, in turn, would concede to
both Austria and Hungary the right to rearm.
45
Since there was no room
for Hungarian territorial revisionism in this implementation of the Mus-
soliniLaval accords of 7 January, the plan did not sit well with Go mbo s,
nor did it with Hitler, who showed no interest in a pact of mutual assis-
tance in Central and Eastern Europe, since such an arrangement would
hem in Nazi Lebensraum. Bilateral nonaggression pacts with neighboring
states represented the Fu hrers outer limit.
THE STRESA CONFERENCE
On 16 March 1935, Germany shocked Europe by publicly repudiating
the disarmament provisions of the Versailles Treaty. Mussolini was irritated
by Hitlers bold stroke and appalled by Britains weak reaction. Ignoring
the dangerous consequences of the German landslide victory in the Saar-
land plebiscite, Simon and Anthony Eden, Lord Privy Seal, traveled to Ber-
lin at the end of March in order to make Hitler a law-abiding European
citizen. Mussolinis reaction was more to the point: I know the Germans
only too well.
46
Only by a show of force could they be brought to reason.
Worried about Hitlers intentions, Mussolini called on France and Britain
to hammer out a set of agreements based on the commitment to check
further unilaterial German rearmament, to protect Austrian independence,
and to preserve the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland. Laval, having uc-
tuated between appeasement and encirclement of Germany, in this instance
agreed that Berlin needed a clear warning. But would Laval and Mussolini
together be able to overcome Britains equivocation? The omens were not
good. Instead of joining a united front against Germany, the British still
hoped to persuade the French and Italians to cooperate with them in luring
Germany back into a system of collective security under the auspices of the
League, with the emphasis on disarmament rather than deterrence. Like-
wise, the British cared little about Austrias future, as the Italians had long
known. Still, Mussolini plunged ahead. At the Stresa Conference, which
convened on 11 April at British initiative, he persuasively spoke of the need
for concerted action with binding commitments, but Ramsay MacDonald
and Sir John Simon would not be moved. Although desiring to follow the
Duces lead, Laval and Pierre Etienne Flandin dragged their feet.
The nal result was a bland communique that did nothing to deter Hitler
and served only to convince Mussolini that the Western democracies were
pusillanimous.
47
Germany was spanked for repudiating its disarmament
obligations; Britain and Italy reafrmed their obligations under the Locarno
agreements; and all three powers agreed to consult on the steps necessary
for the maintenance of Austrias independencenothing more and nothing
less than the pious nullities of 17 February and 27 September. The two
most responsible for the loophole on Austria were surely MacDonald and
Simon, who made everyone else believe that their hands were tied by their
countrymens aversion to any continental military commitments. Instead of
binding themselves to new undertakings in Eastern Europe, they contem-
plated a naval agreement with Germany.
And what about Ethiopia? While platitudes stood for concerted action
on Austria, nothing was said in the plenary sessions about Ethiopia, which
made a complete farce out of the so-called Stresa Front. The French avoided
the subject for fear of an Italo-British dispute that might wreck their united
front against Germany; the British believed that relations with Italy could
only worsen if awkward inquiries were made about Italys war prepara-
tions. Moreover, as the British permanent undersecretary Sir Robert Van-
sittart later admitted, My real trouble was that we should all have to
choose between Austria and Abyssinia, if Mussolini stuck to his mania for
fame and sand.
48
Before the convening of the conference, the Italians had
expressed the wish to exchange views on the mutually harmonious de-
velopment of economic interests in Ethiopia,
49
but they later changed their
minds, having decided that the matter would be better decided by direct
Italo-Ethiopian negotiations or by unilateral Italian action. Behind the
scenes, Ethiopia was discussed and Italian military plans aired among the
secondary players, so nobody in London could plead ignorance as to Mus-
solinis ultimate intentionseven a military showdown between Italy and
Ethiopia.
50
Nor could the Italians claim that the British had hidden their
opposition to an Italian war against Ethiopia.
51
Nevertheless, frank ex-
changes by the lesser fry at Stresa were obscured by an important last-
minute change made in the nal communique. The three powers would
oppose any unilateral repudiation of treaties that might endanger the peace
of Europe; this replaced the phrase of the world from an earlier draft.
Laval smiled, and the British made no objection. Small wonder that Mus-
solini should take this silence for consent to do as he wished in Ethiopia.
Italian news bulletins crowed that Italy had emerged from Stresa as the
power broker of Europe, while the British and French press lavished praise
on Mussolini for acting as a responsible European. It did seem as though
Mussolini had engineered an astonishing shift from a posturing revisionist
to a pillar of the status quo. The purpose behind this, however, was not
the high-minded one of preserving peace but of keeping Germany at bay
while Italy proceeded with the invasion of Ethiopia, free of the Anschluss
incubus and the active opposition of France and Britain.
When it became clear that Britain would remain a passive spectator to
German rearmament and Nazi intrigues in Austria, the French and Italians
moved quickly to strengthen their Stresa declarations by signing military
accords on 28 June 1935. These outlined the various contingencies for
Franco-Italian military cooperation in the event of German aggression
against either signatory or against Austria. The French started to transfer
some ten to fourteen divisions from the Italian border in the Alps to the
northeast. This enabled the Italians to remove their troops from the French
frontier to the Istrian peninsula and the Brenner.
Whatever credibility the Stresa Front had as a deterrent against further
German rearmament was destroyed by the Anglo-German Naval Accord
of 18 June 1935, which allowed Germany to build up to 35 percent of
British naval strength. Britain had once again become an accomplice of
Germany in its violation of the Versailles Treaty. Still, that did not stop
the British from lecturing Rome on the sanctity of Italys international ob-
ligations. From Stresa onward, both London and Paris implied that Mus-
solini should eschew war against Ethiopia lest he fail to discharge his
European responsibility as watchdog of the Brenner.
52
The Duce resented
this kind of moral prompting. Why should he listen to arrogant Perdious
Albion ponticate on Italys duty to police the Nazis on the Anschluss
question, when those same high-minded British gentlemen were themselves
cutting a naval deal with Hitler behind Italys back and contributing noth-
ing to the defense of Austria? Laval, too, though worried about the An-
schluss threat, did not want to antagonize Britain by appearing to be too
pro-Italian. Mussolini needed no further proof of the Stresa fronts fragility.
Never one to tread quietly, Mussolini proceeded by bluster and scare
tactics, rather than by chicanery a` la Laval. He intensied his pressure on
the British with a radio campaignRadio Bariaimed at undermining
British inuence in Egypt, Palestine, and the Yemen, and he tried to tie
their hands on the Ethiopian question by publicly keeping a low prole on
the Anschluss question. He told the departing German military attache on
25 May of a basic reorientation of Italian policy, perhaps a gradual
and systematic rapprochement between Germany and Italy.
53
Finally, the
ultimate threat. Only Austria stood between Italy and Germany, he told
the Fascist Grand Council the following day. It may therefore not be out
of place to address a few words to those who would like to fossilize us on
the Brenner to prevent us from moving in any other part of the world.
Rather than sacrice his Ethiopian policy, Mussolini implied, he would
abandon Austria. Was this threat merely a bluff? Would Mussolini be able
to scare the British into following Lavals line on Ethiopia by his threat to
open up the road to Berlin?
On 11 May, Mussolini met with Schuschnigg in Venice, at which time
they broached the subject of Italian military assistance to Austria. Two big
impediments were Hungarian opposition and Yugoslav hostility. If Yugo-
slavia should succumb to German blandishments, Mussolinis military
strategy vis-a` -vis Austria would be seriously compromised. One way or the
other, Mussolini conceded, Yugoslavia would have to be included in Italys
Danubian anti-Anschluss front. Schuschnigg, menaced by armed Nazis en-
camped in Carinthia, preferred to see Yugoslavia in Mussolinis grip rather
than in Hitlers. In spite of this common ground, Schuschnigg was reluctant
to accept Italian patronage, no matter what grave perils his country faced.
Although aware that Austria alone could not repel a German attack, he
favored a European defense over Italian military assistance. Discouraged,
Mussolini urged that the restoration of the Archduke Otto be contemplated
as a last-ditch measure to unify a divided Austria against Nazi pressure.
While not concealing his monarchist leanings, Schuschnigg pointed out that
a return of the Habsburgs would encounter formidable opposition in Eu-
rope.
54
As Mussolini became increasingly troubled by Schuschniggs eva-
siveness, the Hungarians moved closer to Germany. On the threshhold of
the invasion of Ethiopia, therefore, Mussolinis grip on Austria was loos-
ening, and he was witness to the slow but steady unraveling of his Protocols
Bloc.
ITALIA FARA
`
DA SE
`
In Britain, a new government came to ofce in June 1935. MacDonald
retired and was replaced as prime minister by Stanley Baldwin in a general
cabinet reshufe. Baldwin made Eden minister for League of Nations affairs
while appointing Sir Samuel Hoare as foreign secretary. Increasingly wor-
ried about Mussolinis warlike intentions in Ethiopia, Vansittart decided
that veiled warnings were not enough: Italy will have to be bought offlet
us use and face ugly wordsin some form or other, or Abyssinia will
eventually perish.
55
Vansittart drew up a proposal, which Eden presented to Mussolini dur-
ing a visit in Rome on 2425 June 1935. Great Britain would cede a cor-
ridor across British Somaliland to Ethiopia, including the port of Zeila,
which would give Ethiopia an outlet to the sea; in return, Ethiopia would
grant substantial territory in the Ogaden to Italy, most of which consisted
of large tracts of useless desert. Eden presented the plan without rst con-
sulting the Ethiopian government, nor were the French apprised. Mussolini
summarily rejected the Zeila Plan, since it would have allowed Ethiopia
to enjoy British protection and to become a maritime power, able to import
arms and communicate with the outside world. Moreover, since the Italian
colonies were small, exposed to attack, and separated by hundreds of miles,
he needed a corridor to connect them. When Eden dened Lavals free hand
as limited to economic predominance, Signor Mussolini ung himself back
in his chair with a gesture of incredulous astonishment.
56
The Duce replied
with two alternatives: (1) a peaceful cession to Italy of all the territories
surrounding the region of the old Amharic kingdom conquered by Abys-
sinia over the last half century, as well as Italian control over the Abyssinian
nucleus, where the emperor would be allowed to keep his throne; or (2) a
call to Italian arms to wipe out the name of Abyssinia from the map.
57
The battle lines were drawn. Edens compromise plan remained on the table
down to the HoareLaval proposals in December, while Mussolini, having
nally apprised the British directly of his warlike intentions, remained rm
up to the Italian invasion on 3 October. The Duce left the door barely
cracked for a diplomatic solution. Bitterly disappointed by Mussolinis
abrupt rejection of the Zeila plan,
58
Eden departed with a distinct dislike
of the Duce, a dislike the Italian leader reciprocated by referring to him as
Lord Eyelashes.
During the rst months of 1935, the League of Nations Union, a British
nonparty organization, prepared for a national plebiscite on the question
of whether or not the British people favored the idea of peace through
collective security. On 27 June, the results of the Peace Ballot were an-
nounced. The majority of the people supported the League, but they did
not want war with Italy. Moreover, they did not understand that collective
security could probably be enforced only by the adoption of military sanc-
tions. But, since the government felt itself bound by public opinion, its
resolve to defend the League Covenant was strengthened. With such a close
association with the League, little room was left for diplomacy in a cabinet
not renowned for taking clear and open decisions. Better to take heed of
the ballot and preach loyalty to the League, hoping that Mussolini would
come to his senses, rather than to take any risky independent initiative. The
Cabinets penchant for inaction was further strengthened when it received
on 18 June the report of the interdepartmental committee, chaired by Sir
John Maffey, which was mandated to review British interests in Ethiopia.
The report, which was supposed to be kept secret, stated that since no vital
British interests existed in the area, there was no need for Britain to resist
an Italian conquest of Ethiopia.
Mussolini, in contrast, placed a premium on action. Concluding from
Edens visit that Britain could be pushed around, he addressed the Black-
shirts on 6 July:
Abyssinia, which we are going to conquer, we shall have totally. We shall not be
content with partial concessions, and if it dares resist our formidable strength, we
shall put it to pillage and re. . . . To those who may hope to stop us with docu-
ments or words, we shall give the answer with the heroic motto of our rst storm
troops: I dont give a damn.
59
In Il Popolo dItalia on 31 July, Mussolini ruled out compromise. There
would be no turning back, only a total solution . . . with Geneva, without
Geneva, against Geneva.
60
Too much money had been spent, and too
many troops were under arms. The prestige of the regime was at stake.
Mussolinis determination to defy the League was ably assisted by the
League itself. The secretary-general was the pro-Italian Joseph Avenol,
whose chief aide was the Italian Massimo Pilotti; throughout the crisis, they
bent over backwards in facilitating a compromise on the Ethiopian question
favorable to Italy. In a political sense, the League had no existence at all
as an independent agency; collective security was a chimera. Furthermore,
the League machinery was not geared to dealing with cases of premeditated
aggression. Still, the League possessed the important weapon of sanctions
to deter would-be aggressors. And Fascist Italy, due to the countrys dearth
of raw materials, had precisely the kind of economy that the sanctions
system was capable of crippling without having to resort to military mea-
suressanctions on oil and coal. Drawing back from the threat of sanc-
tions, Britain and France chose to activate the Leagues mechanism of
mediation in their search for a peaceful resolution of Italys dispute with
Ethiopia.
As Mussolini hurtled his way toward war, Grandi in early July discussed
with the British a convening of the tripartite powersBritain, France, and
Italyas dened in the 1906 treaty, while Aloisi talked with Laval and
Eden. The two Italian diplomats played on the German danger in order to
persuade the British and the French to keep Italys quarrel with Ethiopia
outside the competence of the League.
61
Italy gained a respite when, on 1
August, the League Council accepted a scheme sponsored by Britain and
France to defer further scrutiny of the Ethiopian question until 4 September
while the tripartite committee attempted conciliation. But Mussolini was
in no mood for compromise. When Aloisi left Rome for Paris to represent
Italy in the tripartite talks, he was instructed: You must act as a ghter
rather than as a diplomat, as a Fascist rather than as a negotiator. Even if
I am given everything I prefer to avenge Adowa. I am prepared.
62
Such
an attitude doomed the tripartite meetings to failure and brought talk of
sanctions out in the open.
The British were torn. Should they preserve the Stresa Front and respect
the Franco-Italian agreements by appeasing Italy with territorial conces-
sions in Ethiopia? What if Mussolini persistently refused to compromise
and attacked British forces or territories? On 16 August, the British tried
to placate Rome by introducing certain modications of the Zeila plan.
Italy would be granted broad economic concessions but no political control
unless Emperor Haile Selassie gave his consent. With the exception of
Edens territorial adjustments in June, Ethiopian sovereignty would be re-
spected. Britain would support the League, avoid use of the deadly word
sanctions, and take no isolated action against Italy. Simon was following
Vansittarts advice not to force the pace in Paris with an unreliable France
and an unready England.
63
But Mussolini rejected the British-sponsored
proposal and stood rm on his all-or-nothing position. Bending to British
pressure, Laval wrote Mussolini on 30 August that France could not ignore
the League and implored him to reconsider. Mussolini took this in stride;
he knew that Laval was doing good work for Italy at Geneva in polishing
a plan with Avenol designed to declare Ethiopia not worthy of League
membership because of its brutal slave trade and abuse of dissident tribes
within the empire.
When the League Council convened on 4 September, the Ethiopian del-
egation politely but rmly countered the Italian charge that their govern-
ment was uncivilized. The Italians replied the next day by walking out of
the meeting. To escape the deadlock, the Council set up a Committee of
Five to search for a solution. During this crisis, the British appeared ready
to assume a more forceful leadership of the League. On 11 September 1935,
Sir Samuel Hoare rose before a hushed League assembly and made what
appeared to many as an unequivocal declaration to invoke collective se-
curity against all acts of unprovoked aggression. Representatives of the
small states rushed to shake his hand over Britains announcement that
peace was indivisible and that every nation, large and small, would be
protected against military attack. Devotees of the League were sure that
Hoare had broken with vacillating British policy toward the peacekeeping
mechanisms of the Covenant. Although attered by all the attention, Hoare
had not meant to take a strong stand in opposing Italys war plans. Rather,
he hoped to deter Mussolini from undertaking a mad-dog act. Should
he achieve that goal, peace would be maintained, Britain would emerge as
the champion of the League, and Hoare would be toasted by public opinion
as the hero of collective security without sacrice or risk of war. The speech
was apparently strengthened by the movement of two British battle cruisers,
anked by other ships, to the vicinity of Gibraltar, Alexandria, and Aden.
The Duce countered by deploying the Italian navy between the Eastern
Mediterranean and the Red Sea and by strengthening his forces in Libya.
On 18 September 1935, the Committee of Five came up with a compro-
mise. The League would be given extensive supervision and control of Ethi-
opia, Italy would carry out that nations economic development, and
France and Britain would facilitate territorial adjustments between Italy
and Ethiopia. Believing that Hoare would not hesitate to use the eet if
necessary, Aloisi, Guariglia, and Grandi urged Mussolini to accept the com-
mittees compromise.
64
After a moment of hesitation, however, the Duce
brushed off his chief advisers and rejected the proposals of the Committee
of Five outright in the belief that Britain would not go to war for the sake
of Ethiopia.
Mussolini could get away with such deance because Hoare and Laval
had tied each others hands. Laval refused to apply harmful sanctions or
promise unconditional commitments against Italy without a rm British
guarantee in Europe covering an Anschluss and a German remilitarization
of the Rhineland.
65
Failing to gain from the British what he considered as
fair compensation for dissociating himself from Italian political domination
of Ethiopia, Laval would not give unequivocal assurance of military sup-
port if Italy attacked British forces in the Mediterranean. Likewise, he
would not sacrice the security afforded by the Franco-Italian Accords and
their military corollaries aimed at the protection of Austria simply to deny
Mussolini the rewards of a colonial adventure in East Africa. He would
accept only limited staff talks in return for another joint attempt to con-
ciliate Mussolini. Still, if forced to choose between Rome and London,
Laval would choose Londonand Genevaa priority forced on him in
the French cabinet by Edouard Herriot, a staunch supporter of the League
and an outspoken critic of Fascist Italy.
66
So Laval tried to do the impos-
sibleto support the League, Britain, and Italy.
Hoare, however, refused to act on the sanctions question without strong
French support. As this was not forthcoming, Hoare made it clear to Rome
that Britain had no intention of either imposing military sanctions or clos-
ing the Suez Canal; the naval build-up was a purely precautionary measure.
Instead of provoking Mussolini into war and permanent estrangement,
peace must be preserved and Italy maintained as a guardian of the Brenner
against any German move on Austria. Moreover, the British people were
quite opposed to any military response to Italian aggression to save a far-
away African country. Faced by the facade of a resolute Anglo-French
front, Mussolini, it was hoped, would reconsider his warlike attitude. Such
were the ingredients of Britains appeasement of Italy. Hoare was supported
in this strategy by the Admiralty, which felt undermanned, overextended,
and incapable of meeting the threats posed simultaneously by Japan, Ger-
many, and Italy. Would armed force or sanctions on oil have stopped Mus-
solini? That was a question both Hoare and Laval wished to avoid. Feeling
militarily unprepared, they determined in advance that there would be no
showdown with Mussolini. Hoares 11 September speech therefore falsely
raised public hopes that Britain and France were nally ready to breathe
life into the League by stopping Italian aggression in its tracks as an object
lesson to Hitler.
While there was bluff among the British and French, there was none in
Mussolini. His deance was based on shrewd calculation informed by pur-
loined British documents. His intelligence service provided him with the
Maffey report, which stated that no vital British interest was at stake in
Ethiopia; he was also informed by the same unimpeachable source that the
British eet was suffering severe shortages of ammunition, submarines, and
aircraft. This knowledge enabled him to ignore chief of staff Pietro Bado-
glios dire prophesies of a general war with Britain if Italy continued on its
collision course. Mussolini calculated that Britain would be moved to mil-
itary action only if Italy should try to prot from the war by modifying
the status quo in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
In his preference for action over compromise, Mussolini disdained diplo-
macy and its polite usages. In spite of Badoglios reservations, the second
thoughts of his diplomats, and his own genuine alarm over a possible war
with Britain, Mussolini feared that, after the propaganda and the arms
build-up, anything short of military glory would expose him to ridicule and
cause the ruination of his regime. There could be no retreat. On the eve of
the war, Sir Eric Drummond, the British ambassador in Rome, read him
well:
I need only say in conclusion that I found the Head of the Government calm, affable
and unperturbed. If mad, he is a very singular madman; while for one who has set
the whole world by the ears, condemned thousands of young Italians to a painful
death, and millions of his countrymen to an almost animal level of existence, he
seems astonishingly untroubled by the remorse of conscience. The explanation lies
probably in his philosophy and creed. He believes in war as the means by which a
country can be kept vigorous, young, powerful and progressive. He believes also
that Italy is the heritor of the ancient traditions of the Roman Empire. He nds his
country lacking space, raw materials and the place in the sun which he holds to be
its due. These reasons combined have rendered him oblivious of other considera-
tions such as economic and nancial facts and have produced in his mind the
impression that he is acting as a predestined instrument.
67
On the evening of 2 October, the doors of the balcony were ung open,
and Mussolini strode out to address a huge throng of Italians assembled in
the Piazza Venezia. His face stern and imperturbable, the Duce proclaimed
in a harsh and stacatto cadence Fascisms indomitable will to seize what
was rightfully Italian. The thousands of Blackshirts packed in the square
led the chant, Duce! Duce! Duce! Mussolini basked in the glory of de-
ance and popular acclaim as his troops launched the invasion of Ethiopia
the next day.
NOTES
1. DDI, 7, XII, 223, 27 August 1932.
2. Starhemberg, Hitler and Mussolini, 107.
3. Toscano makes this point in his introduction to Aloisis Journal, xiii.
4. DDI, 7, XV, 610, 30 July 1934.
5. ASMAE, AP:A 26: 4549/2399, 22 November 1934.
6. DDI, 7, XVI, 178, 23 November 1934; FRUS, 863.00/1216, 4 October
1935; ibid., 863.001236, 11 October 1935.
7. Edmondson carefully unties the complicated tangle of intrigues in his The
Heimwehr and Austrian Politics, 24563.
8. DDI, 7, XV, 722, 21 August 1934.
9. DDI, 7, XV, 722, 21 August 1934.
10. Carsten, The First Austrian Republic, 222.
11. For a detailed description of Barthous diplomacy, see Piotr S. Wandycz, The
Twilight of French Eastern Alliances, 19261936 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1988).
12. DBFP, 2, VI, 548, 31 July 1934; DDI, 7, XV, 615 and 616, 31 July 1931.
13. The draft of such a protocol cannot be found in the Italian archives. DDI,
7, XV, 646, 3 August 1934, n. 3.
14. Ibid.
15. DDI, 7, XV, 700, 705, and 712, 11, 16, and 18 August 1934.
16. DDI, 7, XV, 722, 21 August 1934; Aloisi, Journal, 21011; FO, R4686/37/3,
23 August 1934.
17. DDI, 7, XV, 788, 9 September 1934.
18. DDI, 7, XV, 741, 776, and 781, 29 August, 6 and 8 September 1934.
20. DDI, 7, XV, 783, 8 September 1934.
21. DBFP, 2, XII, 87, 12 September 1934.
22. Jordan, The Popular Front and Central Europe, 28.
23. DBFP, II, XII, 104, 109, and 110, 23 and 25 September 1934; DDF, I, VII,
343, 361, 364, 19 and 25 September 1934; DDI, 7, XV, 839, 859, 870, and 875,
19, 23, and 25 September 1934.
24. Francesco Lefebvre DOvidio, Iintesa italo-francese del 1935 (Rome: Pri-
vately published, 1984), 437.
25. DDI, 7, XVI, 23, 7 October 1934.
26. DDI, 7, XVI, 157 and 164, 17 and 19 November 1934.
27. Aloisi, Journal, p. 225.
28. William I. Shorrock, From Ally to Enemy: The Enigma of Fascist Italy in
French Diplomacy (Kent, Ohio and London, England: Kent State University Press,
1988), 49.
29. Sadkovitch, Italian Support for Croatian Separatism, 129.
30. There are two excellent summaries of Barthous policies: Shorrock, From
Ally to Enemy, 7898, and Nere, The Foreign Policy of France from 19141945,
155172.
31. DDF, 1, VIII, 235 and 246, 12 and 13 December 1934; De Felice, Mussolini
il duce, 1: 521.
32. Robertson, Mussolini As Empire-Builder, 9091.
33. DDI, 7, XVI, 247, 277, and 288, 6, 11, and 14 December 1934.
34. GFM, 2700/5737/H02911017, 23 November 1935.
35. DDF, 1, VIII, 323 and 346, 27 and 29 December 1935.
36. DDI, 7, XVI, 338, 26 December 1934.
37. Mussolini told Aloisi on Christmas day, it is now necessary to get things
moving fast. Aloisi, Journal, 239.
38. DDI, 7, XVI, 358, 30 December 1934.
39. The ofcial record of Mussolinis talks with Laval and their exchange of
notes can be found in DDI, 7, XVI, 391 and 399, 5 and 6 January 1935. The
general declarations, proce`s verbal, protocols, and correspondence that followed
are in DDI, 7, XV1, 403, 7 January 1935. Mussolini and Laval later exchanged
letters on the meaning of their accords that can be found in DDI, 8, III, 106, 23
January 1936, and 252, 19 February 1936.
40. DBFP, 2, XIV, 325, 25 June 1935. Enclosure.
41. The literature on the Franco-Italian accords is vast. Most helpful are the
works by Robertson, Baer, Shorrock, De Felice, and C. J. Lowe and F. Marzari,
Italian Foreign Policy 18701940 (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1975).
42. DDI, 7, XVI, 492, 25 January 1935.
43. DDI, 7, XVI, 510, 30 January 1935.
44. ASMAE, FL, Reel 10, 26 February 1935.
45. KU
M, 35, 23 March 1935. See also Aloisis Journal, 24647, for further
examples of Mussolinis irritation with the Hungarians.
47. The judgment of Leon Noel, Les Illusions de Stresa: LItalie abandonnee a`
Hitler (Paris: E
ditions France-Empire, 1975), 7080

48. Sir Robert Vansittart, The Mist Procession (London: Hutchinson, 1958),
52123.
49. DBFP, 2, XIV, 225, 3 April 1935.
50. DBFP, 2, XIV, 230, 12 April 1935. Simon was aware of Italys plans to
invade Ethiopia as far back as January. Richard Lamb, The Ghosts of Peace 1935
1945 (London: Michael Russell, 1987), 9.
51. Ibid.
52. DBFP, 2, XIV, 244, 3 May 1935.
53. DGFP, C, IV, 109, 26 May 1935.
54. ASMAE, FL, 11, 11 May 1935; NPA, 414, 11 May 1935.
55. DBFP, 2, XIV, 301, 8 June 1935.
56. Anthony Eden, Facing the Dictators, 19231938 (Boston: Houghton Mifin,
1962), 22125.
57. DBFP, 2, XIV, 325, 25 June 1935, Enclosure; DDI, 8, I, 431 and 443, 24
and 25 June 1935.
58. Anthony R. Peters, Anthony Eden at the Foreign Ofce 19311938 (New
York: St. Martins Press, 1986), 122.
59. Quoted in George W. Baer, The Coming of the Italian-Ethiopian War (Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), 219 n. 24.
60. OO, XXVII: 11011.
61. DBFP, 2, XIV, 346 and 365, 5 and 15 July 1935.
63. DBFP, 2, XIV, 434, 9 August 1935.
64. Aloisi, Journal, 3078; Guariglia, Ricordi, 26469.
65. Gaines Post, Jr., Dilemmas of Appeasement: British Deterrence and Defense
19341937 (Ithaca, N.Y. and London: Cornell University Press, 1993), 9496.
66. Shorrock, From Enemy to Ally, 147.
67. DBFP, 2, XIV, 630, 23 September 1935.
CHAPTER 8
The Italian Empire:
A Hollow Triumph
HOARE-LAVAL AGREEMENTS
The Italian invasion of Ethiopia began at dawn on 3 October without the
usual courtesy of a formal declaration of war. Heading a force of 127,500
metropolitan and 83,000 colonials, General De Bono jumped off from the
Italian assembly areas in Eritrea. Adua was the rst objective, to be fol-
lowed by a thrust into Danakil. Further military movement into Amhara
hinged on diplomatic developments in Europe, but there was a war plan
that aimed at the complete conquest of the Ethiopian armies. Undefended,
Adua was speedily overrun, which helped to restore Italian honor. The
campaign quickly took on an ugly appearance, however, with the random
bombing of the citys defenseless population. After the initial success, a lull
ensued as the cautious De Bono awaited reinforcements, a delay that caused
Mussolini many a headache.
On 7 October, the League Council found that Italy had resorted to war
in disregard of its obligations under Article 12 of the League Covenant,
which required that member states submit disputes to arbitration. Acting
on the report, the League Assembly ratied this decision on 11 October.
Only the friends of ItalyAustria, Hungary, and Albaniadissented. In
accordance with Article 16 of the Covenant, the Assembly established a
Coordination Committee of Eighteen to consider the imposition of sanc-
tions against Italy. Action was swiftly taken: an embargo on arms and
munitions, a ban on loans and credits, and a prohibition of the export of
materials important for Italys war production. Oil, however, essential for
Italys war effort, was omitted from the list, which raised questions on the
Leagues resolve to stem Mussolinis aggression. Britain and France were
charged with the task of negotiating a resolution of the conict before the
sanctions were scheduled to go into effect on 18 November.
If the purpose of the sanctions resolution was to chastise Mussolini with-
out thoroughly alienating him, the opposite effect was achieved. What had
originally been a Fascist enterprise planned on the sly had been transformed
by League opposition into a national cause. Singled out for punishment by
a satiated and selsh West, proletarian Italy was now ready for sacrice
to achieve nal satisfaction for the vittoria mutilata. Men ocked to the
colors, and women rushed to common collection points with wedding rings
and other gold artifacts to help defray the huge expenses of the war.
Throughout the fall, Mussolini wavered between the annexation of Ethi-
opia and a more limited goal. At rst, he threatened that sanctions mean
war, but, when it became clear that there would be sanctions, he changed
his tune. An economic embargo short of oil he could live with; military
gestures would be answered by war.
1
After the expected quick victory and
before the League could react, he would dictate the terms of empire. But
behind the phrase crisis with Britain yes, a decisive break no, Mussolini
left open the possibility of a settlement on Italian terms negotiated away
from the noisy public forum in Geneva. Here, Italy would recognize British
interests in Ethiopia, accompanied by a reciprocal and simultaneous de-
mobilization of the Mediterranean.
2
But the carrot was always accompanied by the stick. Should the League
resort to sanctions on oil and should Britain close the Suez Canal to Italian
shipping, Mussolini would reply with war and the abandonment of the
Brenner. Was this a bluff? In view of repeated assurances from both the
British and the French that stringent countermeasures would not take
place,
3
brinkmanship would work. In spite of his military directive of 30
December 1934 and his belligerent talk to Eden in June of wiping Ethiopia
off the map, Mussolini wanted to gain control of Ethiopia without pre-
cluding the restoration of normal relations with the Western Powers at the
end of the military campaign. He did not want a war with Britain in the
fall of 1935 simply because the Italian armies were already stretched too
thin and Hitler stood poised to exploit Italys quarrel with the League by
absorbing Austria. Though eminently capable of a mad-dog act and itch-
ing for a showdown with the British navy, Mussolini kept his balance, if
just barely, out of fear coupled with a streak of common sense.
4
The immediate task facing Mussolini was to secure a military victory
before oil sanctions set in or the League took military action against him.
The imposition of economic sanctions against Italy promised to impose a
great hardship on an already overstrained economy. Galvanized by Mus-
solinis risky propagandaItaly against the worldthe country tight-
ened its belt and prepared for a campaign that would reach a successful
The Italian Empire: A Hollow Triumph 127
outcome by May 1936. An important diplomatic objective was to prevent
the imposition of oil sanctions and to maintain the ow of oil from the
one non-League member, the United States, no matter what action the
League might take.
Laval was caught in the crossre between Rome and London. To neu-
tralize Eden, who had become the symbol in Italy of the Leagues punitive
measures against Mussolini, Laval worked on a system of diluted sanctions,
hoping that the British would eventually recognize that secure European
frontiers were of far greater importance than League embarrassment over
Italys African peccadillo. But unable to evade British pressure, Laval
warned Mussolini on 8 October that in case of hostilities in the Mediter-
ranean, France would be obliged to stand with Britain. To avoid this dis-
aster, Italy should negotiate and make concessions.
5
The Italian delegation in Geneva buckled under the pressure. Aloisi told
Mussolini on 12 October that Britain was determined to carry through its
punitive policy against Fascist Italy. Laval is our only safeguard, Aloisi
added, urging the Duce to take the mediating hand that the Frenchman
had extended. To prevent Laval from giving in to British pressure, Mus-
solini agreed.
6
In the effort to extricate himself from this inevitability, Mussolini
worked on Laval between 13 and 17 October by spelling out his terms
for resolving the conict.
7
Italy would acquire already conquered territory
in northern Ethiopia, a coastal linkage between Eritrea and Somalia, a man-
date or other form of administration in the peripheral zones of Ethiopia,
and a commercial outlet for Ethiopia through the Italian colonial port of
Assab. Italian control over Addis Ababa, whether by direct League mandate
or some other diplomatic contrivance, would be assured by the requirement
that Ethiopia disarm.
8
Rarely absent from Mussolinis dialogue with the
French was a threat. War between Great Britain and Italy, if allowed to
break out, would isolate France against a powerful Germany and cause
Italy to withdraw its troops from the Brenner.
9
The Duce provided himself
with an escape route by requesting that the terms of any negotiation bear
the stamp of a French initiative. To allow Britain to save face, Mussolini
would agree to stay in the League by linking the congruent participation
of Italy in the administration of Amhara and the disarmament of Ethiopia
to the previously rejected proposal of the Committee of Five.
10
While en-
gaged in negotiations, he counted on De Bono for quick territorial con-
quests to strengthen his diplomatic hand.
Laval was cornered. He knew that Mussolinis truculent demands were
beyond what the British would accept, yet he did not want to lose his
privileged standing in Rome. He retreated to the comfortable assumption
that Mussolini would be content with a political solution that left in exis-
tence a rump Abyssinia under Haile Selassies rule once Adua had been
avenged. The British would thereby be placated.
11
On 17 October, Hoare called in Grandi to make two points: The British
were not engaged in a conict with Fascism, and war was in no way in-
evitable between Great Britain and Italy. This was music to Mussolinis
ears; the attack on Ethiopia could continue without fear of retaliation.
12
Hoare and Grandi talked of easing the tension by mutual troop withdraw-
als from areas of potential conict. Naturally Hoare did not reveal to
Grandi that he was simultaneously applying heavy pressure on Laval to
stand by Britain.
The next day Laval gave in from fear that France might lose Britain
without having won Italy. He reluctantly pledged military support in the
Mediterranean in case of an Italian attack resulting from Britains collab-
oration in the international action undertaken by the League and pursued
in concert with France. Nevertheless, translating the commitment into a
credible military deterrent remained problematic. The nancially pinched
British eet was already stretched to the breaking point in guarding remote
imperial outposts in the Far East against menacing Japanese moves. Low
on the list of priorities was the Italian threat to the British imperial lifeline
running through the Suez Canal. The Mediterranean eet was suffering
from severe shortages of all kinds, and the British naval lords were not
anxious to be drawn into a conict with Italy. Neither were the French
admirals, and the French army still counted on military agreements with
Italy to protect Austrias independence. France would not go to war against
Italy if oil sanctions were imposed or to check an Italian invasion of Ethi-
opia.
Mussolini learned of these military talks and drew the gloomy conclusion
that Britain and France were preparing for a showdown with Italy in the
Mediterranean; equally worrisome, the Western Powers were pressuring
Germany and America to adhere to League sanctions on oil.
13
Time, he
told De Bono, works against us; hence, he implored, as much territory
as possible should be occupied with lightning speed.
14
Mussolinis fears
turned out to be groundless, for talk of war encouraged talk of conciliation.
On 22 October, the British took up Lavals mediation suggestion by
launching conversations with the French aimed at a compromise between
Italy and Ethiopia.
Many participants played secret and important roles in the hammering
out of the nal proposal. Mussolini sent General Ezio Garibaldi to London
as his personal agent, and Grandi worked with Vansittart in drafting an
outline of possible agreement. Spadework was done in Paris by a foreign
ofce ofcial, Maurice Peterson, and his French counterpart, Count Rene
de Saint-Quentin; Vansittart and Hoare put on the nal touches.
15
With
rumors abounding of Anglo-French naval maneuvers in the Mediterranean
and Mussolini on record to wage war if sanctions on oil should be declared,
the HoareLaval Agreement emerged on 7 December 1935. In many re-
spects, the agreement approximated what Mussolini had earlier demanded.
Most of the Ogaden region would be annexed to Italian Somaliland, and
land recently conquered by the Italian expeditionary corps in Tigre would
be added to Italian Eritrea. Italy would be charged with the economic de-
velopment of a vast zone in the southern Amharic regions under some form
of League supervision. In exchange, the Negus would retain sovereignty
over territories not ceded outright to Italy, and Ethiopia would be com-
pensated by a corridor running through Eritrea to Assab on the Red Sea.
Before the HoareLaval proposal was transmitted to Mussolini, it was
leaked in Paris on 9 December, presumably by enemies of Fascist Italy in
the Quai dOrsay. The dramatic publication of the agreement in popular
French and British newspapers produced an outcry in both countries
against rewarding Italian aggression. Still, Laval pressed hard for an im-
mediate and favorable reply. Since Mussolini wanted rst to evaluate the
hullabaloo before making a decision on a proposal whose substance he did
not much like, he put Laval off by saying that no decision could be made
until the Fascist Grand Council met on 18 October.
16
Wanting neither to
accept outright nor bluntly refuse, he preferred probing the British and
French for more concessions: additional territory, a precise denition of
economic expansion, and an explicit obligation placed on Ethiopia to dis-
arm. When an exhausted Laval replied that he could do no more, Mussolini
continued to spin out negotiations in the belief that another postponement
of oil sanctions would surely follow. But since Italys diplomats all thought
the HoareLaval proposal fair, and the military, caught in the change of
command in Ethiopia between De Bono and Badoglio, was biding its time,
Mussolini was under heavy pressure to accept it. Shrewdly, Suvich sent
Mussolini a long memorandum that appeared at once to salve his ambition
and serve as a warning. Suvich, too, found much wrong with the Hoare
Laval plan and anticipated its rejection. The League would answer by im-
posing oil sanctions followed by Italys departure from the League. Then
it would be a race against time with the fate of the nation resting in the
lap of the military. Badoglio would have to bring home the Ethiopian tro-
phy before the economy collapsed.
17
Was that possible?
Shortly before the Fascist Grand Council was to meet on 18 October,
Mussolini, apparently seized by doubts over his militarys ability to outpace
League action, drafted a communique stating his acceptance of the Hoare
Laval proposal as a basis for discussion.
18
It was just what Hoare and Laval
were looking for. But before the announcement was released to the press,
public furor in London persuaded the House of Commons to reject their
plan. Hoare was singled out as the scapegoat and forced to resign by em-
barrassed colleagues who drew back from bucking an aroused public opin-
ion. A cruel joke quickly made the rounds: No more coals to Newcastle,
no more Hoares to Paris!
19
With the death knell of the agreement sounded
in London, Mussolini lost no time in tearing up his communique. Following
a Grand Council meeting on 20 November, he issued a statement blaming
Britain for the imbroglio, which left only a crack in the door for further
negotiations.
A heavy gloom enveloped Rome. Prices were rising, defying the world
was losing its attraction, war weariness was setting in, and there was a
worrisome military standstill as the Italian armies braced for the much-
heralded Ethiopian Christmas offensive. Would the Adua disaster be re-
peated? Germany certainly thought so. The diplomatic front offered no
relief. Suvich found Mussolini to be very discouraged and gripped by fa-
talism, and Aloisi reected that the international situation was absolutely
uncertain, confused, and without direction.
20
In a letter to the Duce on
22 December, Laval reproached Mussolini for preventing a quick accep-
tance of his plan; the outcome of peace in Europe lies in the hands of
Italy.
21
Mussolini wrote back a conciliatory note three days later, prom-
ising to do nothing that might lead to an irreparable breach with France.
22
When Laval was ousted from ofce in January in a hailstorm of criticism
for his appeasement of Italian aggression, the new government, headed by
Albert Sarraut and his foreign minister Pierre-Etienne Flandin, offered noth-
ing except threats from Leger that Italian bombs landing on the Addis
Ababa-Djibouti railroad would cause outrage in France and a denunciation
of the 7 January accords.
23
From London there was bad news as well. On
22 December, Baldwin gave Eden, Mussolinis bete-noir, the post of foreign
secretary, which he assumed on 2 January 1936. But as the year progressed,
the situation improved. Sanctions continued to be imposed in a haphazard
manner, and the crucial question of an oil embargo was pigeonholed in an
experts committee. Badoglio had thrown back the Ethiopian Christmas
offensive and was preparing to go over to the attack. General Rodolfo
Graziani, in charge of southern armies based in Somaliland, set forth to-
ward Harrar across arid and craggy land in Ogaden. With negotiations at
a standstill, Mussolini was free to proceed with his military pincers move-
ment unhampered by diplomacy or effective League action.
AUSTRIA SLIPS AWAY
Up to summer 1935, Italys relations with Germany remained frozen over
Austria; Mussolini still portrayed Hitler as a sexual degenerate and accused
Germany of giving the Negus military hardware that could be used against
an Italian invasion. Hitlers most pressing fear was that Italy and Ethiopia
might reach a negotiated settlement, thereby curtailing Italys deepening
isolation from the West. But strict German neutrality turned to cordiality
when Hitler began to fear an Italian defeat before the rst shot was red.
Dire consequences would follow. The Fascist regime would collapse, fol-
lowed by the spread of Communism. To appease Mussolini, Hitler put a
stop to the arms trafc and began to encourage Italian aggression. In the
improved atmosphere, a stream of high-ranking party ofcials passed back
and forth between the two countries during September, highlighted by an
important meeting near Verona between Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head
of the German armed forces intelligence, and General Mario Roatta, his
Italian counterpart. After attempting to clear the air about Austria, Roatta
suggested police cooperation in the common struggle against the com-
munist danger. Although no formal agreement was signed between the
two secret police services until 1 April 1936, this was the rst time that
anti-Communism provided a pretext to draw the two regimes together.
There was, however, no movement beyond irtation during the fall of
1935. Much to the disappointment of the Germans, Mussolini did not have
any intention of abandoning Austria. But with oil sanctions hanging over
his head following the failure of the HoareLaval agreement, to say nothing
of an uncertain outcome on the Ethiopian battleeld, the Duce, in January
1936perhaps out of momentary panic or resentment toward the West
took what appeared to be a major step in reorienting Italian policy toward
Germany. The simplest method would be for Berlin and Vienna them-
selves to settle their relations on the basis of Austrian independence, he
told von Hassell on 6 January; If Austria, as a formally quite independent
State, were thus in practice to become a German satellite, he [Mussolini]
would have no objection.
24
The Duce declared that Stresa was dead and
buried once and for all, and he denounced Bolshevism for hatching the
anti-Italian sanctionist campaign at Geneva. Mussolini followed up the von
Hassell interview with a lead article in Popolo dItalia on 26 January, in
which he took exception to the Anglo-French Declaration of Mutual As-
sistance in the Mediterranean, aimed against Italy. He threatened to rede-
ne Italys obligations under the Locarno Treaty and to storm out of the
League should oil sanctions be applied. On 28 January, von Hassell em-
phasized to the Duce the resultant necessity for the Italian side to exert
their inuence in Vienna toward an understanding with Berlin. After as-
serting that he no longer saw any reason to stand by Austria, the Duce
excused himself for not yet applying inuence in Vienna for an agreement
with Germany, as if a rm understanding that he would do so had already
been reached.
25
Did Mussolini mean what he said? Though tempted to break with the
West and gravitate toward Germany, Austria still gave him pause. The
Duces advisers differed on what he should do. His son-in-law, Galeazzo
Ciano, the minister of press and propaganda who eyed the foreign ministry,
favored close ties with Germany based on ideological kinship, as did his
underling, Dino Aleri, as well as the Italian ambassador in Berlin, Ber-
nardo Attolico. But Suvich stubbornly held out for Austria. In two incisive
memoranda to the Duce, he pointed out that an Italian sacrice of Austria
to Germany would be a colossal error, for that action would remove an
important obstacle to the ageless Teutonic drive on Trieste and the Adriatic.
To be a Mediterranean power was the ultimate German objective. Since
the Nazis were the quintessential expansionists in the Reich, they should
be treated with the utmost caution and utilized only as a diplomatic lever
to reduce French and British pressure on Italy arising from the Ethiopian
conict. Italy must avoid a complete break with the West to prevent de-
pendency on an unreliable Hitler.
26
Confronted by this conicting advice,
Mussolini swung like a pendulum between the traditional diplomats and
the young Fascist admirers of Nazi Germany.
At the cost of annoying the Western Powers, the government in Vienna
demonstrated its loyalty to Italy by supporting Mussolinis line at Geneva
against sanctions. This decision was unpopular with the Austrian people,
however, who were opposed to Mussolinis war of aggression. Neverthe-
less, a change began to occur in Austrian policy after Mussolini launched
his invasion of Ethiopia. Without securing clearance from Rome, Schusch-
nigg in October 1935 allowed himself to be drawn into discussions with
Franz von Papen, Hitlers special emissary to Vienna, aimed at a bilateral
agreement between Germany and Austria. When, during the latter part of
December, Mussolini for the rst time withdrew troops from the Brenner
to reinforce the Ethiopian front, Schuschnigg, alarmed by this relaxed Ital-
ian vigilance, did what the Hungarians had feared all along and what Mus-
solini had expressly told him not to do. He stepped outside the Roman
Protocols bloc by visiting Prague in latter January to explore a Central
European solution to the problem of Austrias independence.
DECLARATION OF EMPIRE
Three major overlapping events threw doubt on Mussolinis peso deter-
minante strategy and threatened Italy with isolation: the pending League
decision on the question of oil sanctions, Hitlers imminent remilitarization
of the Rhineland (Einmarsch), and the looming ratication of the Franco-
Soviet Pact by the French Senate.
Mussolini was greatly relieved when Badoglio smashed through the Ethi-
opian lines on 16 February. The string of victories on the military front
that followed hardened the Duces attitude toward the Western Powers.
There would be no more talk about an Ethiopian mandate under the aegis
of Geneva. No settlement with the defeated Negus would be considered,
except through Mussolinis own approved intermediaries, and only a set-
tlement that would leave Italy a stranglehold over Haile Selassies coun-
try.
27
But Rome was thrown into a panic later in February. Since there had
been no effort by Mussolini to resolve the Ethiopian conict by negotiation,
the British, who had not taken the initiative since the misring of the
HoareLaval plan, raised the question of oil sanctions against Italy. To
ward off this potential threat, the Italians applied heavy pressure on the
French to detach themselves from the British lead. Should the League apply
oil sanctions, Italy would withdraw from the League and denounce the 7
January 1935 accords with France, including the proviso on military co-
operation.
28
Although Mussolini, Suvich, and Aloisi all refrained from any
direct threat to denounce their countrys Locarno obligations, the French
ambassador in Rome, Charles de Chambrun, concluded that, should oil
sanctions be applied, Italy would escape isolation by taking the road to
Berlin and would leave France to face a potential German remilitarization
of the Rhineland without hope of Italian support.
29
Indeed, the Italians
mused, how could a country victimized by sanctions participate in sanc-
tions against Germany? But, threatened by the oil embargo and still fearing
a military mischance, Mussolini covered himself by promising a return to
Stresa and some sort of agreement with a defeated and truncated Ethiopia
if the French blocked additional League action.
30
In another breath, how-
ever, attempting to curry Hitlers favor, Mussolini told von Hassell that
Stresa was dead. This was Mussolinis brand of equidistance, but no
matter what he said or to whom, decisions on the Ethiopian battleeld
would dictate Italian diplomacy.
During the middle of February 1936, Hitler made the momentous deci-
sion to remilitarize the Rhineland, in deance of Germanys obligations
under existing European law.
31
To throw the Anglo-French into disarray,
the Fu hrer wanted Mussolini to repudiate the Locarno Treaty that he was
poised to violate by his planned Einmarsch.
32
This step was likely only if
sanctions on oil were applied. Paradoxically, if military victory made Mus-
solini strut more deantly against the Western Powers, it also enabled him
to keep Germany at arms length and Italys intransigent autonomy alive.
Thus, one must take with a grain of salt Mussolinis assurance to von
Hassell on 22 February that Italy would not support Britain and France
should they take action against a German remilitarization of the Rhine-
land;
33
he would wait on events. Hitler and Mussolini clearly eyed each
other with the greatest suspicion, and both reserved maximum freedom of
action. Mussolinis language to the Germans was veiled. When he wanted
to stress their two countries ideological afnity, he talked up the Bolshevik
peril; when he wanted to deliver Berlin a warning on Austriaor conceal
his own inner reserve toward the Nazi regimehe pointed out the stupidity
of Germanys policy toward Jews and the Catholic church. According to
Starhemberg, Mussolini, in early March, ruminated on Hitlers untrus-
tworthiness and Nazi Germanys intention of seizing Austria to open the
door to the Balkans and the Adriatic. Faced with this threat, Mussolini told
the prince, he would eschew any ideological bloc with Nazi Germany
against democracy and steadfastly defend Austrias independence.
34
On 2 March, Eden brought the question of an oil embargo against Italy
before the Sanctions Committee in Geneva. If the battered League were
ever to enjoy renewed life, the application of sanctions against Italy was
unavoidable. It was Edens opinion that, despite the steady deterioration
of Anglo-Italian relations, the continuing suspicion between Germany and
Italy over Austria would keep Mussolini and Hitler apart. As opposed to
his service chiefs, Eden believed that an Italian attack on the British Med-
iterranean eet was remote.
35
In view of his moderate speeches during the
preceding weeks, as well as his failure to forewarn anyone at Geneva, in-
cluding the French, Edens League pronouncement seemed abrupt. His de-
termination to force through a favorable vote was tempered, however, by
the refusal of the United States to cooperate with any League action and
the obvious reluctance of Flandin to follow the British lead. Flandin and
Eden met behind the scenes on 2 and 3 March; their encounters were pain-
ful. Finally, they agreed to make another appeal to Italy and Ethiopia to
negotiatea pointless proposal that hardly masked their profound dif-
ferences. Primarily concerned with security in Europe, Flandin told Eden
that if oil sanctions were imposed, Mussolini would take Italy out of the
League and denounce the Franco-Italian military accords of 28 June 1935;
Hitler would take advantage of the resulting crisis by ordering German
troops into the Rhineland. Flandin would contemplate oil sanctions only
if Britain promised to honor its Locarno commitments, regardless of the
behavior of Italy and Germany. Eden was in a tight spot. Since Ethiopian
resistance was near collapse, sanctions would do little good; but if the
League did nothing, he would look ridiculous at home.
36
Eden met Flandin halfway by agreeing to defer the issue of oil sanctions
to the British cabinet for a nal decision.
37
Flandin reciprocated by prom-
ising not to take isolated action in case of a German remilitarization of the
Rhineland. France had thus precluded a strong reaction to Hitler, and Brit-
ain had abandoned its sanctionist crusade against Mussolini. Flandin,
joined by the Pope, tried to prevail on Mussolini at this eleventh hour to
ward off any League vote on sanctions by negotiating a settlement, any
settlement, with Ethiopia. With the war going so well, however, Mussolini
turned aside this ultimatum by declaring that he would never negotiate
with a pistol at the throat and prepared to leave the League on 7
March.
38
Hitler beat him to the punch by marching into the Rhineland on that
very day, using the imminent passage of the Franco-Soviet pact as a pretext.
He had not bothered to give advance notice to Rome. Brushing aside the
objections of his own generals, Hitler acted on the twin assumptions that
Italy would ignore its pledge to uphold the Locarno Treaty while the Ethi-
opian dispute dragged on at the League and that the French army would
stay put behind the Maginot Line. Hitlers intuition did not fail him. The
French, led by an ineffective caretaker cabinet, were immobilized by a timid
military and by British pressure to refrain from a forceful response to the
German move. In a gesture aimed to conciliate London and prevent a Lo-
carno front from forming against him, Hitler followed up his bold stroke
by promising a return to the League. Ignoring Mussolinis sensibilities, he
made no reference to either Austria or to the Four Power Pact.
Mussolini was thunderstruck by the Einmarsch and outraged by Hitlers
stab in the back. By offering to rejoin the League, the Fu hrer had deprived
the Duce of his threat to leave the League in case sanctions were imposed.
Failing to grasp the duplicity in Hitlers diplomacy, Mussolini feared that
Germany would join a newly strengthened sanctionist front.
39
In Musso-
linis defense, neither Eden nor Hoare fathomed the extent of Hitlers per-
dy either. Distraught by the sudden collapse in Italian bargaining power,
the Duce, on 8 March, hastily agreed in principle to the opening of ne-
gotiations to resolve the Ethiopian conict.
40
Like the French, the Italians
were dismayed by the British disposition to shrug their shoulders over Hit-
lers military promenade into the German Rhineland. That Britain should
frown so menacingly at Mussolinis distant imperialist venture while show-
ing so little concern over Hitlers shredding of the Locarno Treaty signied
to the Italians that London was angling for an agreement with Hitler in-
volving a redistribution of colonies. They were not wide of the mark. There
was more to the German-biased British double standard. Although Eden
accepted the League Councils ruling that the Third Reich was in breach
of its international undertakings, he evaded Geneva in favor of a private
settlement among the Western Powers and Germany that excluded Italy.
He saw the Italian invasion of Ethiopia as a different matter. By holding
the threat of League sanctions over Italys head, he intended that the Duce
travel the road to Geneva. The Italian press and Grandis reports singled
out Eden as the major villain in the piece, but this was hardly the full story.
By his actions in Geneva, Eden was hardly out of line with cabinet direc-
tives, and he mirrored British public opinion that viewed the German action
as not entirely unreasonable and certainly not comparable to Italian ag-
gression against Ethiopia.
Thanks to the Einmarsch, Mussolini escaped the threat of oil sanctions,
but, since this was not immediately clear, the Duce freed himself of Italys
Locarno obligations on 8 March by refusing to take a position on the
remilitarization of the Rhineland.
41
Only when it became obvious that Brit-
ain would oppose any effective punitive measures against the Third Reich
did Mussolini later join France in a meaningless moral note of censure
against Germany. In fact, Mussolini had decided to move closer to Hitler.
Ideological attraction to the Nazi regime had little to do with this decision;
the Duces aim was always Italys elusive peso determinante in European
diplomacy. The large number of high-level Nazis and Fascists who contin-
ued visiting one another produced nothing concrete, only vague hints of
solidaritywith one notable exception. Following up on the Roatta
Canaris accords of the previous September, Arturo Bocchini and Heinrich
Himmler on 1 April agreed on common action between their respective
police forces against the Communist danger. More ominous still, convinced
that Hitlers Einmarsch had rendered French military assistance to Austria
impossible, Mussolini encouraged Schuschnigg to pursue a modus vivendi
between his country and Germanysomething the Austrian chancellor had
already decided on his own to do.
In order to speed up the conquest that would cut through Mussolinis
diplomatic tangles, in mid-March, Badoglio released heavy mustard gas
attacks on the defenseless troops facing him in Ethiopia, shattering their
will to resist as an organized army. As Mussolini sensed victory, he
strengthened Italys intransigent autonomy on 23 March by declaring an
economic policy of autarky. Again, more massive use of gas was ordered.
The opposition crumbled. Spears and swords could not avail against tanks,
planes, and gas canisters. On 2 May, his army in tatters, Emperor Haile
Selassie left Addis Ababa for Djibouti as a way-station to his eventual des-
tination in Jerusalem. Following his departure, what remained of his armies
broke up. While Graziani received his marshalls baton in Harrar, Badoglio
rode victoriously into Addis Ababa on 5 May. At the cost of only 1,600
Italian dead, the Duces war was over.
This was the moment that Mussolini had awaited for so long: announce-
ment of the birth of the Second Roman Empire. On the night of 9 May,
the Duce appeared on the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia to solemnize the
victory. Before an overow crowd intoxicated with patriotic fervor, his face
set and expressionless, he proclaimed that Ethiopia is Italian. Duce!
Duce! Duce! rolled across the piazza as Mussolini stood proud and rigid
at the balcony rail, hands set rmly on his hips, jaw protruding, and a
icker of a smile in acknowledgment of the owers ung his way.
Reluctantly, the founder of the empire had to share the spotlight with
Victor Emmanuel, who received the crown of emperor, but that was a small
irritation that only slightly dampened the festive mood. Medals and honors
were freely dispensed and lavish parties thrown for the returning conquer-
ors. Mussolini basked in the glory of his nest hour. Patriots, large sectors
of the bourgeois classes, and the Church hastened to join the celebration.
Church bells peeled, and te deums were sung across the land. Old critics
of the regime in Italy, like Luigi Albertini and Benedetto Croce, accepted
the victory without protest. The Fascists waxed ecstatic. Italy had won the
battle alone; a national spirit, like that of an armed camp inured to sacrice,
had been forged. The Western Democracies were exposed as decadent, self-
ish, and cowardly, unable to stand up to the vigor and idealism of Fascist
Italy. Through indomitable will, the black-shirted Duce had overwhelmed
the shambling British diplomats mumbling passages from the League Char-
ter. As head of a young nation of warriors on the march, Mussolini had
bested all his enemies and thumbed his nose at the mightiest empire of the
world. All this Fascist embellishment aside, Mussolini had unquestionably
gained in prestige; there is nothing like military conquest to unite a nation
behind a charismatic magician with words. Margherita Sarfatti, Mussolinis
recently dismissed mistress, had perhaps a more realistic assessment: We
have been a little kingdom, now were just a little empire.
42
What prompted Mussolini to take so many risks to conquer Ethiopia, in
deance of both supporters and advisers who feared that disaster instead
of glory would follow his failure to negotiate a settlement? Did the Duce
seek to divert public opinion from the economic problems caused by the
world depression? There were indeed rumblings of discontent. Italians were
feeling the depression, and the disgruntled Marxist-inclined industrial
workers were impervious to the false enticements of Fascist corporativism;
nor had vast legions of impoverished farm workers been successfully inte-
grated into the Fascist state. But Mussolini was able to control dissent, if
not apathy, by a secret political police whose efciency would later win the
admiration of Heinrich Himmler, and the Duce rarely paid any attention
to economic advice or conditions unless there was some visible political
payoff. Mussolinis decision to move in Africa was governed primarily by
the prevailing balance of forces in Europe. There was, he calculated, a
fraction of time that would allow him to conquer Ethiopia while Hitler
was still not in a position to annex Austria militarily and usurp Italys
inoperative hegemony in the Danube basin.
Though Mussolinis African imperialism was not prompted by economic
motives, he used this imperial adventure as a means of generating public
support. Wide investment vistas would now supposedly open up in Africa.
Under Italian domination, Ethiopia would be a prize area for the export
of Italian capital and an excellent source of raw materials. The idea of
building a proletarian empire and civilization in the style of ancient
Rome captured the imagination of Fascists who placed a premium on brute
strength and elan vital in the style of old Roman days. It is ironic that Italy
came so late to colonial empire-building, when this national pastime had
lost its practicality and prot. Such was the inward obsolescence of Fascism
and its major delusion; Mussolini thought of glory in very dated terms.
The Duce covered this outmoded imperialism with a varnish of idealism
by claiming that he was defending Christianity and the white races against
barbarian Ethiopians. But far outweighing the civilizing mission and eco-
nomic myth-making was prestige. Mussolinis craving for conquest was
powered by an inexorable drive to be a modern Italian Caesar. Divorced
from social revolution, Mussolinianismo exalted the power and prestige
of the nation in terms of imperialist conquest. Empire-building emanated
from the fatal logic of Mussolinis unique style of dictatorship and of his
belief in war as a positive good.
How should we evaluate Mussolinis diplomatic achievement? At the
outset of the Ethiopian crisis in December 1934, Mussolini unquestionably
sought a soluzione integrale violenta against Haile Selassie in the belief
that the Western Powers would not hinder his invasion. His mobilization
for war in Africa certainly did not include a showdown with Britain and
France for supremacy in the Mediterranean. Believing himself to be a prac-
titioner of Realpolitik, Mussolini was initially thrown off balance when
Britain departed from its habitual realism at the League hustings and began
to parrot Wilsonian idealism, as if Italy had lost all value as an important
ally against the German menace. Since the British were themselves indif-
ferent to Ethiopia and held a virtual monopoly over the rest of Africa, why
should they not have allowed Italy its place in the sun? Faced by Britains
efforts to block Italys control over the Amharic nucleus, and, thanks to
his intercepted messages, sure that he would meet no military opposition
or sanctions on oil, Mussolini plunged ahead. Had the League stood rm
against Italian aggression, the Duce would have settled for a diplomatic
solution that granted him less than the conquest he sought. Undeniably,
Mussolini was a clever player in the hazardous game of guesswork. He
adroitly sized up the weaknesses of his adversaries and took advantage of
the penchant of the democracies for appeasement. The Duce played hard-
ball and got away with it. Had his generals failed him or had the British
closed the Suez or attacked the Italian eet, he and his regime would most
likely have collapsed. So, within these strict limits, one can call Mussolinis
conquest of Ethiopia a capital achievement. For the moment, an all-too-
brief one as it turned out, Mussolini succeeded in narrowing the gap be-
tween the vox ducis and the vox populi that Fascism had hitherto failed
to attain.
But victory came with a huge price tag. Italy was now burdened with
the enormous task of occupying Ethiopia and subduing scattered resistance
on the part of tribal chiefs who had resolved never to surrender. The Italian
command under General Graziani proceeded to subdue them with the ut-
most savagery. Furthermore, where could a relatively impoverished Italy,
whose economy, overly strained by huge military expenditures, nd the
resources to reconstruct Ethiopia? Additional stress was placed on the mil-
itary. It was a horribly expensive and time-consuming task to return, retool,
and upgrade the masses of unused equipment rusting on African quays and
stored in scattered and remote supply depots throughout Ethiopia. Com-
pletely apart from the problem of the Brenner, Italys strategic position
actually suffered from the acquisition of such a distant empire. The navy
simply lacked the resources to provide adequate protection to such an ex-
tended maritime lifeline.
While Mussolini somehow managed the risks, miscalculations abounded.
Sharing a long-standing nationalist proclivity to overestimate Italian power,
he ignored basic tenets of effective diplomacy. One must plan strategy to
t the worst-case scenario and hold steadily to xed priorities. The pres-
ervation of Austrias independence was the fulcrum of Italian security and
independence, while acquisition of empire enhanced Fascist prestige and
strengthened the Duces own hold over the country. In playing on the
German danger to induce the Western Powers to give him a free hand in
Africa, Mussolini was tempting fate. No matter whether France and Britain
called Italy to account or gave in to Italian blackmail, the Duce would be
hard pressed to guard the Brenner while pursuing African imperialism.
ITALY AND THE AUSTRO-GERMAN GENTLEMANS
AGREEMENT
Two ominous events followed in rapid succession to rob Mussolini of
the fruits of empire. Weakened on the Brenner and distracted by events in
Africa, the Duce ignored his Locarno obligations as Hitler remilitarized the
Rhineland; he also excused himself while Germany signed the Gentlemans
Agreement with Austria on 11 July. Both events represented irreversible
steps toward Anschluss. By fashioning such drastic alterations in the Eu-
ropean balance of power, Hitler dealt Italian security a body blow from
which it failed to recover until after World War II. Besides reducing Mus-
solinis empire to a sideshow, Hitlers command performance irretrievably
compromised Italys position in Austria.
The litmus test of Mussolinis inuence in Vienna was Starhembergs
reliability as a confederate and his standing in Austria. Both were in serious
decline. The prince destroyed his credibility in Rome by seeking out con-
tacts in January 1936 with the Western Powers, the Habsburg pretender
Otto, and Franz von Papen, Hitlers special representative in Vienna.
Though Starhemberg showed vigor, if not dexterity, in his contradictory
diplomatic perambulations, he seemed gripped by lassitude in the struggle
with Schuschnigg over Austrias political future.
43
Appearing in Rome dur-
ing March 1936, the prince suggested to Mussolini that his current pet
projectone also promoted by von Papenof an ideological bloc con-
sisting of Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Germany be accepted as a replace-
ment for the moribund Stresa Front. Mussolini, he alleged, atly turned
down his proposal to avoid antagonizing the Western Powers and, above
all, because it is impossible to make a pact with Germany.
44
Nothing
came of their meeting, because Mussolini had decided, albeit with a heavy
heart, to rely on Schuschnigg rather than on Starhemberg, a decision con-
rmed when he dealt the prince and his Heimwehr a mortal blow by en-
couraging Austria to pass a bill introducing universal military service. As
Starhemberg had pointed out, the draft would open up the army to a large
inux of Nazis and other unreliable political elements.
45
Still, it was some-
thing Schuschnigg wanted, and the measure passed on 1 April. Without a
militant and privileged Heimwehr, Starhemberg was deprived of a political
base in Austria and Mussolini of political leverage in Vienna.
The Duce still tried to control Austrian foreign policy in the Danube
region. Since for both the Italians and the Magyars treating with the Czechs
meant a violation of a taboo, Mussolini and Go mbo s, at the Rome Pro-
tocols meeting on 2123 March 1936, peremptorily ordered Schuschnigg
to break off contacts with Czechoslovakia. The Hungarian minister
did so because he had his eye on Slovakia, the Italian leader because he
hoped Hitler would focus Nazi attention on Prague rather than Vienna.
46
In January 1936, Mussolini had begun to move closer to Germany, and he
became more determined than ever to protect his own personal standing
with Hitler. Still, Mussolini said practically nothing while Schuschnigg ex-
pressed reluctance over being drawn into any dialogue with the Germans.
47
Obviously Mussolini was confounded by conicting objectives. He wanted
to slow down the momentum leading to Anschluss, to protect his own
privileged access to Hitler, to keep Austria cut off from the Little Entente,
and to prevent Go mbo s from forging links with the Third Reich indepen-
dent of Italy. As in the case of Ethiopia, Mussolini was irting with danger
by allowing himself to be caught in contending forces beyond his control.
Starhemberg made one last dramatic gesture to revive his agging for-
tunes and gain Mussolinis support. Without consulting the cabinet, he
published a message on 13 May praising Fascism for overcoming demo-
cratic falsehood and hypocrisy to conquer barbaric Ethiopia. A agrant
affront to the Western Powers, the communique irritated Schuschnigg, who
used the princes blunder as a pretext for reshufing his cabinet. Starhem-
berg was peremptorily dismissed from the vice-chancellery. By combining
the leadership of the Fatherland Front with the chancellorship, Schuschnigg
put an effective end to dualism. Starhemberg was left with two public po-
sitions: federal sports leader and chairman of the mothers aid section of
the Fatherland Front. No satirist could have missed the humor of the play-
boy prince so sedulously serving motherhood. Yet Starhemberg did not give
up. Once again in Rome, to attend an Austro-Italian soccer game on 15
May, he professed his readiness to take up the ght, not excluding a coup
detat.
48
Mussolini let Starhemberg down graciously by promising to reem-
ploy him should the Austrian chancellor take a wrong turn,
49
but there was
no mistaking the Duces endorsement of Schuschnigg.
50
Much owed from
that choice. Since Mussolini wanted strong ties with Hitler, he was pre-
pared to allow, if not encourage, Schuschnigg to seek a modus vivendi with
Germany. This task was made much easier for the Austrian chancellor by
the Duces dissociation from the Heimwehr, which, in spite of its own inner
fragmentation and pan-German factions, stood as a strong symbol of re-
sistance to the Nazis in Austria.
Now that Starhemberg was out of the way, Schuschnigg was free to
pursue negotiations with von Papen without serious internal opposition
and in consultation with his favorite Italian condante, Senator Francesco
Salata, the president of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Vienna, who had
all along opposed dualism and favored exclusive rule by the Austrian chan-
cellor.
51
Gabriele Preziosi was bypassed since the skeptical Italian minister
had only dark forebodings over any contact with von Papen and had been
the main Italian contact with Starhemberg and the Heimwehr. Schuschnigg
was prepared to accept Austrian nationals (respectable Nazis) in his
cabinet, so long as they loyally accepted the program of the Fatherland
Front. Salata endorsed this idea but cautioned Schuschnigg to avoid any
deal with the nationals outside the framework of an agreement with Ger-
many.
52
Before proceeding further with von Papen, Schuschnigg sought an
audience with Mussolini.
Mussolini hosted Schuschnigg at his country home at Rocca delle Cam-
inate on 56 June 1936. The Austrian chancellor outlined his premises for
a rapprochement with Germany: recognition of Austrias independence, no
direct political accord with Austrias Nazis, and the cessation of Nazi prop-
aganda favoring Anschluss. As for Austrias concessions, Schuschnigg
agreed in principle to the admission of one or two nationals to the govern-
ment, amnesty for the Austrian Nazis, and a reciprocal press accord abol-
ishing political polemics. Mussolini pointed out to Schuschnigg the danger
of direct negotiations with the nationals: they tend to create not a way of
living but a way of dying. But, in view of the disinterest of France and
Britain over Austrias fate, Schuschnigg should come to terms with Ger-
many. Italy, the Duce assured him, would remain a reliable ally.
53
Schuschnigg returned home and plunged immediately into further talks
with von Papen while keeping Salata closely apprised. Both Salata and
Schuschnigg indulged in the ingenuous belief that a modus vivendi with
Germany would enable the government to restore its authority by dividing
the Nazi opposition. Once the handful of nationals had been coopted into
the Fatherland Front and given meaningless posts in the cabinet, the way
would be clear for Schuschnigg to crack down on the radical Nazis. Bound
to the modus vivendi, the Reich government, as well as the Nazi party,
would not be able to move against Schuschniggs punitive measures or
challenge his authority as head of an independent country. Compounding
the navete of this strategy, Schuschnigg chose to maneuver within severely
restricted limits. In line with Italys wishes and in accordance with his own
views, he refused to enlarge his domestic support by including left demo-
crats. To placate Mussolini, Schuschnigg described his consultations with
von Papen as limited by common interests; any agreement with Germany
would be coordinated with and subordinated to the Rome Protocols.
54
No matter what optimism about Austrias future Mussolini conveyed to
Schuschnigg, the Duce realized that he was ghting a rearguard action. On
13 May, he conded to Aloisi his fear of completely losing Austria.
55
Should an Austro-German agreement come into force, he well knew, it
would not constitute a Nazi renunciation of Anschluss but only a pause, a
readiness to allow a Gleichschaltung to evolve by natural forces. Translated
into diplomatic terms, the Anschluss question was not urgenta none too
subtle German reminder to Europe that the problem should be forgotten
until Hitler was ready to move. Mussolini nevertheless swallowed his
doubts because he sensed isolation. Relations with the West were badly
strained over his declaration of empire, and he feared that Hitler would
desert him in favor of a rapprochement with Britain.
56
To keep in Hitlers
good graces, he would promote a modus vivendi between Germany and
Austria and decline to intervene in Berlin on Schuschniggs behalf to secure
him better terms.
57
Having given up on the Heimwehr, he could use Star-
hembergs eclipse as a handy excuse for leaving Austria to its fate.
Meanwhile two other events intervened to dwarf the Austrian problem
in Mussolinis mind and propel him down the road to Berlin: the coming
to power in France of Fascisms nemesis, Leon Blums popular front gov-
ernment, and Francos uprising in Spain. In a general changing of the guard
on 9 June, Mussolini handed the ministry of foreign affairs to Ciano, the
staunchest germanophile in the Duces entourage, and he replaced Suvich
as undersecretary with Giuseppe Bastianini. Dino Aleri advanced to
Cianos former job as minister of press and propaganda. Ciano, Mussolinis
son-in-law, was to expend far less energy than Salata in keeping Italy in-
volved in the modus vivendi between Austria and Germany. Encouraging
the Duces love of grandeur and feeding on his resentment of the Western
Powers, Ciano sought to further Italian dynamism in alignment with the
Third Reich. Mussolini himself had arrived at the conclusion that the Aus-
trians had proven themselves unable to instill unity and redene a viable
historical mission. How could Austria be propped up indenitely by a bitter
traditional enemy that refused either to return the South Tyrol or treat its
German-speaking population with more respect?
Schuschnigg and von Papen produced the German-Austrian Gentle-
mans Agreement (Abkommen) on 11 July 1936. Pro-Nazis were invited
to join the Austrian cabinet, and a normalization of relations with Germany
was piously declared. Schuschnigg mistakenly believed that he had secured
Hitlers recognition of Austrias full sovereignty. The Germans, however,
viewed the Abkommen from a different angle, as a clever diplomatic ruse
to veil the reality that Anschluss was right around the corner. Julius Go m-
bo s was jubilant over the outcome, for he saw that Mussolini had nally
acquiesced in the solution that he had been propounding since 1932.
Knowing that Anschluss was now a foregone conclusion, and tormented
by that realization, Mussolini put on a bold front when he told von Hassell
that the Gentlemans Agreement will bring to an end the unhappy situa-
tion of Austria as a football of foreign interests and, above all, will nally
remove the last and only mortgage on GermanItalian relations.
58
Tell the
Fu hrer, he instructed Ciano, that the modus vivendi was proof of a parallel
Italo-German policy.
59
The Duce had not wanted to make the choice of empire and Anschluss,
nor an estrangement from Hitler, but when events beyond his control out-
paced his calculations, he chose imperial glory, acquiescence in the Gentle-
mans Agreement, and further distance from the Western Powers. His
empire was thus rendered a hollow triumph, more a dangerous frivolity
than an exercise in shrewd Realpolitik. That would have required him to
negotiate with the West on Ethiopia along the lines of the HoareLaval
Pact and to defend Austria by the resurrection of the Stresa Front.
NOTES
1. Mussolini, OO, 27: 139, 159.
2. DDI, 8, II, 236, 4 October 1935.
3. DDI, 8, II, 437, 20 October 1935.
4. Renato Mori, in his carefully researched work, Mussolini e la conquista
dellEtiopia (Florence: Le Monnier, 1978), argues that Mussolini, ever since 1925,
was bent on an all-out war against Ethiopia that left no room for a negotiated
settlement.
5. DDI, 8, II, 292, 8 October 1935.
7. Guariglias term. Guariglia, Ricordi, 263.
8. DDI, 8, II, 331, 13 October 1935.
9. DDI, 8, II, 357 and 366, 16 and 17 October 1935.
10. DDI, 8, II, 366, 17 October 1935.
11. DDI, 8, II, 344, 14 October 1935.
12. FO 371, J630/1/1, 17 October 1935; DDI, 8, II, 376, 17 October 1935.
13. DDI, 8, II, 493, 26 October 1935; ibid., 557, 2 November 1935.
14. Mussolini, OO, 27: 300.
15. The history behind the Hoare-Laval Agreement is told by Rosaria Quartar-
aro, Le origini del piano Hoare-Laval, Storia contemporanea 8, no. 4 (December
1977): 74990.
16. DDI, 8, II, 842, 12 December 1935.
17. DDI, 8, II, 632, 14 November 1935.
18. De Felice, Mussolini il duce, 1: 72021
19. Cited in David Clay Large, Between Two Fires (New York: Norton, 1990),
172.
20. Aloisi, Journal, 33234
21. DDI, 8, II, 904, 22 December 1935.
22. DDI, 8, II, 525, 25 December 1935.
23. Aloisi, Journal, 339, 345.
24. DGFP, C, 4, 485, 7 January 1936.
25. DGFP, C, 4, 525, 28 January 1936.
26. DDI, 8, III, 131 and 194, 29 January and 7 February 1936.
28. DDI, 8, III, 266, 276, and 295, 21 22, and 24 February 1936; DDF, 2, I,
239, 27 February 1936.
29. DDI, 8, III, 294, 24 February 1936; DDF, 2, I, 224, 25 February 1936;
Aloisi, Journal, 352.
30. DDF, 2, I, 239, 27 February 1936.
31. Esmonde M. Robertson, Mussolini and the Rhineland, European Studies
Review 7 (1977): 40935.
32. DGFP, C, 4, 564, 14 February 1936.
33. DGFP, C, 4, 579, 22 February 1936.
34. Starhemberg, Between Hitler and Mussolini, 21522. No record of this con-
versation can be found in the DDI.
35. Peters, Anthony Eden at the Foreign Ofce, 168.
36. DBFP, 2, XVI, 3, 6, and 20, 2, 3, and 4 March 1936.
37. DBFP, 2, XVI, 11, 3 March 1936.
38. DDF, 2, I, 290, 6 March 1936; Aloisi, Journal, 355; DGFP, C, 5, 554, 25
September 1936.
39. Guariglia, Ricordi, 306; DGFP, C, 5, 18 and 45, 7 and 9 March 1936.
40. DDI, 8, III, 398, 8 March 1936; George W. Baer, Test Case: Italy, Ethiopia,
and the League of Nations (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1976), 229.
41. DDI, 8, III, 396, 8 March 1936.
42. Quoted in Philip V. Cannistraro and Brian R. Sullivan, Il Duces Other
Woman (New York: Morrow, 1993), 491.
43. DDI, 8, III, 233, 14 February 1936; AP:A 40, 647/345, 22 February 1936.
45. Starhemberg had forcefully expressed these fears in his meeting with Mus-
solini in April 1935. ASMAE, FL, Reel 2, 19 April 1935.
46. ASMAE, AP:A 43: 86/49, 27 February 1936.
47. DDI, 8, III, 506, 21 March 1936.
48. DGFP, C, 5, 343, 22 May 1936.
50. DDI, 8, IV, 64, 16 May 1936.
51. Gehl, Austria, Germany, and the Anschluss, 125.
52. DDI, 8, IV, 95 and 157, 22 May and 1 June 1936.
53. DDI, 8, IV, 192, 5 June 1936.
54. DDI, 8, IV, 407, 416, and 429, 29, 30 June, and 2 July 1936.
57. DDI, 8, IV, 208, 7 June 1936; ibid., 420 and 448, 1 and 4 July 1936.
58. DGFP, D, 1, 155, 11 July 1936.
59. DDI, 8, IV, 514, 13 July 1936.
CHAPTER 9
The Dictators Converge
MUSSOLINI AT THE CROSSROADS
At the end of the Ethiopian war, no one could say with certainty where
Italy would turn. Having founded his empire without German aid or mil-
itary hindrance by the League, Mussolini had neither obligations toward
Hitler nor concrete reason for breaking off from the West. Even before the
fall of Addis Ababa, the Duce had hinted at a possible return to Stresa.
While the Wilhelmstrasse thoroughly doubted Mussolinis loyalty, Hitler
himself was unsure. Determined to foil any resurrection of Stresa, he hoped
to entice Mussolini to align with him. The British, mindful of their own
role in alienating Mussolini from the West, feared that he might fall into
this trap. To offset Italian resentment over their criticism of his Ethiopian
conquest, they made a bid to improve relations with Rome in June and
July 1936. If Italy could be isolated from Germany, Britains unceasing
search for a direct agreement with Hitler would be much simplied.
But Mussolini emerged from his conquest of Ethiopia with a growing
contempt for Western irresolution, which he ascribed to the defects of their
democratic regimes and their declining populations. The Duces ideological
biases were reinforced by the accession of Galeazzo Ciano to the post of
foreign minister on 9 June 1936. The presumptive heir to his father-in-law,
Ciano was determined that the most Fascist ministry would be the Palazzo
Chigi. But instead of transforming it by a mass dismissal of the old guard
in favor of Fascist stalwarts, Ciano reduced the traditional apparatus to an
empty shell by creating a new ofce at the top, the Gabinetto, which
he staffed with sycophants and favorites. The old chain of command at the
Palazzo Chigi operated more and more in a vacuum, and the reports of
ambassadors stationed abroad were increasingly disregarded. Thus escap-
ing the dead weight of tradition, Ciano could introduce a tono fascista
more in keeping with the new Italy that amounted to a contempt for
diplomacy and its old canons of security and the balance of power. He and
his clique in the Gabinetto preferred to deal with leaders who had the full
power of decision, were not encumbered by parliaments and public opin-
ion, and who delighted in talk of war and expansion. This was a step
beyond Grandi and Suvich. With an eye out for Italian security, they had
negotiatedsometimes in good faith and sometimes notwith other coun-
tries irrespective of their political regimes and leadership styles. Ciano, on
the other hand, searched for countries seeking a new course and dictators
bearing a Fascist mien. By dwelling on the opposing ways of life that di-
vided Italy from the West, the new Italian foreign minister naturally grav-
itated toward the regime in Berlin, which shared Fascist Italys decisiveness,
worship of power, and contempt for negotiation.
Wooed by all sides in the aftermath of the declaration of empire, Mus-
solini oscillated between belligerency and goodwill and continued his usual
mixture of threat and concessions. The opening session of the League As-
sembly in June, which had been called to decide upon the revocation of
sanctions against Italy, failed to tie up the loose ends of the Ethiopian war.
When Haile Selassie made an unexpected entry, the Italian journalists in
the galleries began to whistle and hoot, which prompted Nicolas Titulescu,
the Romanian minister, to shout, In the name of justice, silence these
savages. Many in the audience applauded as the Swiss police escorted the
arrested journalists out of the hall.
But while Mussolini sported about as the conqueror of Ethiopia and
poked fun at the pusillanimous plutocratic democracies, he reiterated
privately to British statesmen and through interviews with the London press
that the end of sanctions would mark the entry of Italy into the ranks of
the satised states. This, he assured them, would be followed by a har-
monization of imperialist interests between their two countries.
1
The British
reciprocated by piloting the lifting of sanctions through the League on 15
July; they further reduced tensions by ordering the end of the Mediterra-
nean and Red sea alerts and by withdrawing their warships to home waters.
With the end of sanctions, the British guarantees to Greece, Yugoslavia,
and Turkey against Italian aggression were dissolved. Britain, however, was
not willing to accept Italys demands for immediate recognition of its em-
pire and the expulsion of Ethiopia from the League. Since Mussolini was
adamant on these points, British overtures of friendship bore no immediate
fruit.
If Mussolinis military confrontation with Britain had been diffused, his
strained relations with France threatened to take a turn for the worse when
The Dictators Converge 147
the Popular Front government took ofce in Paris on 4 June 1936 under
the premiership of the Socialist leader Leon Blum. A rm opponent of
Italys invasion of Ethiopia, Blum had written on Lavals visit to Mussolini
in January 1935: For the rst time a French minister is a guest of the
assassin of [Giacomo] Matteotti.
2
Still, in the aftermath of Hitlers remil-
itarization of the Rhineland, Blum showed that he was prepared to swallow
his antipathy toward Fascism and consider detente with Rome. Mussolini
had an equally difcult time overcoming his dislike of Blum, who repre-
sented much that he held in contempt: anti-militarism, outspoken Social-
ism, and delity to the League. The Popular Front he characterized as
nailed to the cross of the Soviets who wish to Bolshevize France for the
purpose of maximum guarantees against Germany.
3
Yet Mussolini treated
Blum as he had Laval, with a mixture of conciliation and intimidation.
While holding friendly interviews with French correspondents, in which he
expatiated on the dangers of Anschluss and the German peril, he threatened
to denounce the Franco-Italian military accords if Blum did not take the
initiative and lift the Leagues sanctions. This Blum would not do, but he
promised to apply pressure on Britain to do so and not to stand in the way
of any League effort to spare Mussolini further embarrassment over the
recognition of his conquest of Ethiopia.
4
Mussolini reacted to Blums inaction by boycotting the upcoming con-
ference of the Locarno Powers, which was scheduled to meet in Brussels to
respond to Hitlers march into the Rhineland. This action proved that all
along the Duce had linked French security on the Rhine to French initiative
on the sanctions question.
5
Blum must eat humble pie. Furthermore,
Frances stock had dropped in Rome, which characterized the French gov-
ernment as being riddled by leftists and its diplomacy as debilitated by
defeatism. Mussolini told Hans Frank, German minister without portfolio,
France is sick and old. It thinks only of eating; it is a country in which
the cuisine has become an art of the state. Its demographic decadence is
terrifying. In France the population gure falls by two thousand every
week.
6
But if bitter feelings over the Ethiopian war continued to trouble
Italys relations with the Western Powers, two momentous and almost si-
multaneous developments precipitated a decisive plunge downward: Italys
acquiescence in the German-Austrian Gentlemans Agreement of 11 July
1936 and, six days later, the outbreak of civil war in Spain.
When General Francisco Franco raised his standard of rebellion in Span-
ish Morocco on 17 July, the Italians were caught by surprise. There had
been no contact between the rebels and Rome prior to Francos Pronun-
ciamento. True, Italy had cultivated friendly relations with the Spanish dic-
tator Miguel Primo de Rivera during the 1920s, but, after the Republican
government came to power in 1931, Mussolini lost interest in the Iberian
peninsula. In 1934, however, the Italian government signed an agreement
with Spanish monarchist conspirators, providing for military support
should civil war break out in Spain. Since there was no uprising at that
point, nothing came of that accord, and none of the Spaniards involved in
the 1934 negotiations participated in the delegation that Franco dispatched
to Italy during the latter part of July 1936 to solicit Mussolinis military
assistance. Nonetheless, a climate favorable to the military uprising existed
in Rome, particularly after the February 1936 elections in Spain shifted the
political balance toward the extreme left.
Since the Spanish navy stayed loyal to the Republic, General Franco had
to secure help in creating an aerial bridge for the passage of troops from
Morocco to the mainland. He sent Luis Bol n, a monarchist reporter, to
Rome on 19 July with a request for aircraft and munitions. Mussolini,
supported by the Italian Military Information Service, turned a deaf ear. In
desperation, Boln turned to Ciano, who immediately perceived the oppor-
tunity to inject a more dynamic impulse into Italian policy and thereby
cash in on the trust accorded him by his father-in-law as dauphin of the
Fascist movement. After a number of meetings, the Duce reversed his po-
sition. Learning that France had shipped military supplies across the Pyr-
enees to assist the beleaguered legal and recognized Republican government
in quelling the military uprising, Mussolini sent Franco twelve Savoia81
bombers, which arrived in Spanish Morocco on 30 July.
After his about-face, Mussolini perceived solid geopolitical advantages
in Italian intervention. A friendly Franco regime in Madrid would enable
Rome to draw Spain into an expanded Italian Mediterranean orbit by pre-
venting political cooperation between the two popular front governments
recently installed in Paris and Madrid. Also possible was Italys leasing or
purchasing of naval bases in the Balearics. Situated near Gibraltar, the Ital-
ian eet would be in a position to challenge Britains already long and
vulnerable lines through the Suez Canal and disrupt naval trafc between
Algeria and the French mainland.
At this point, apart from Mussolinis visceral dislike of popular front
governments, Fascist ideology counted for little; the strategic purpose of
keeping Spain separated from France was uppermost. Mussolini aimed nei-
ther to export Fascism to Spain nor to engage in an anti-Bolshevik crusade
hand-in-hand with Germany. Soviet aid arrived much later, and the Com-
munists counted for less than 5 percent of the Republican governments
support. Moreover, Germany and Italy did not discuss or coordinate their
respective decisions to intervene. Still, like many conservatives in Britain
and France, Mussolini lumped anarchism, socialism, and communism to-
gether as a leftist conspiracy directed against civilization and the forces of
order. In this counterrevolutionary sense, Mussolini welcomed the oppor-
tunity to support the conservative, authoritarian Franco against red Ma-
drid, as he had supported the conservative, authoritarian Dollfuss against
red Vienna.
7
Inadvertently, therefore, he was able to keep in step with
conservative thought in France and Britain and receive a ringing endorse-
ment from Pope Pius XI who, on 14 September, had warned the world
that communism must be prevented from spreading from Spain to set re
and destroy all Europe. Later, when the Soviet Union became deeply em-
broiled in the Spanish conict, Hitler abetted Mussolinis advancement
from a counterrevolutionary outlook to a more purely Axis conception that
visualized a victory for the Republic as a victory by communism (and its
fellow-traveling democrats and masons) over Fascism and the totalitarian
ideaa conception fraught with antagonism toward European liberals and
conservatives alike. For his part, Ciano fooled himself into believing that
Italy was leading Germany by the hand in this struggle.
8
In July 1936,
however, much remained vague in Mussolinis mind, except the belief that
Franco, with limited Italian help, would win a quick victory and he, as
Fascist Duce, a windfall propaganda success.
Unexpectedly erce Republican resistance dashed Mussolinis facile as-
sumptions. The Blum government immediately leapt to Madrids defense
by shipping war materiel across the Pyrenees. Soon after, however, a split
occurred in Blums cabinet between the Radical Socialists, who wanted to
be neutral in the Spanish conict, and the interventionists, who supported
Blums determination to supply a fellow popular front government under
siege. Blum was also under pressure from the conservative-minded Cham-
ber of Deputies that wanted him to prevail on the other major European
powers to abstain from intervening in Spain. Fearful that his divided cab-
inet would fall if he did not bend to the Chambers wishes, Blumannounced
on 8 August that he was prepared to abide by the principle of noninter-
vention. As an earnest of Frances good intentions, he shut down the Pyr-
enean frontier and prohibited the exportation of all further war materiel
to Spain. Blum was forced to do this mainly because of domestic opposition
to active French support for the Spanish Republic, but the pressure exerted
on him by the British government not to get embroiled in the Spanish
conict was, if indirect, certainly not negligible. The Conservatives running
the British government, if forced to choose, preferred a Franco victory, but
they did not want to work for it themselves and hoped to prevent anyone
else from interfering in favor of either side, out of fear that great power
intervention would cause the civil strife in Spain to become a general war.
As for Italy, the British wanted to make sure that Mussolini would not
acquire bases in the Balearics as the price of his military assistance to
Franco.
On 21 August, Italy joined the French nonintervention plan. Within a
week, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and Germany also accepted. Shortly
thereafter, a formal Nonintervention Committee convened in London to
oversee compliance with the accord. Apart from the occasional surrepti-
tious delivery of materiel, France on the whole complied with noninterven-
tion, as did Britain. But Italy and Germany, followed later by the Soviet
Union, agrantly violated nonintervention by ultimately dispatching huge
quantities of equipment to Francos forces. Large contingents of foreign
troops made their way to the Spanish battleeld: International Brigades to
save Spain from Fascism, Italians in the guise of volunteers to save Spain
from Bolshevism, and the German Condor Legion to test its high-tech
equipment in bombing runs against defenseless Republican civilians. All
that such participation did was to make a mockery of nonintervention and
ensure that the Spanish Civil War would be dragged out indenitely, fought
on a large and bloody scale to the enduring suffering of the Spanish people.
Italian tanks and artillery were sent to Spain at the end of September, and
ground troops arrived on 21 October to participate in the drive on Madrid.
On 28 November, the Italians signed a secret treaty with Franco that at
once gave Italy a lot of vaguely worded rights and an anti-French docu-
ment. Franco was careful not to spell anything out, except a promise of
Spains neutrality in the event of war with a third power; Mussolini was
satised with promises that sounded like concrete concessions.
By December 1936, the British had begun to view Italian intervention in
Spain with alarm, for they suspected that Mussolini was on the verge of
seizing the Balearic Islands. They had grounds for worry. The previous
August, Mussolini had sent a former squadrista, Arconovaldo Bonaccorsi,
to Majorca. In a urry of activity, Bonaccorsi encouraged the Falange
movement (a political satellite of Franco with a distinctly Fascist tone) to
spread terror among the Republicans and supervised the construction of
airelds for bombing raids on Republican strongholds; these actions seemed
to presage an Italian takeover of the island. But, on 17 December, Bon-
accorsi was withdrawn from Majorca, which greatly relieved London. Al-
though the scale of Italian participation in the Spanish struggle was not
diminished, the British were satised that Mussolini would accept without
qualication the territorial status quo in the Mediterranean. This meeting
of the minds was codied in the Anglo-Italian Gentlemans Agreement
of 2 January 1937, a title chosen by Mussolini much to the discomture
of Eden. Italy thereby renounced any territorial claims on the Balearics and
agreed to clamp down on Radio Bari, the source of Italian propaganda to
the Arab world. Nothing specic was said about Spain, save the promise
to further the ends of peace. The British reciprocated by conceding the
Italian point of excluding France, which for years had been trying to pro-
mote the idea of a Locarno pact for the Mediterranean.
9
What irony! Did
Mussolini not feel that he had obtained a free hand in Spain under cover
of a Gentlemans Agreement with Britain, just as Hitler had secured in
Austria with Schuschnigg? Since the British government seemed inclined
more to Franco than to the Republicans, and since London now had a
promise that Italy would respect the imperial lifeline in the Mediterranean,
Mussolini had every right to act with impunity in Spain in deance of the
Nonintervention Committee and without fear of forceful British counter-
measures. As for France, that nation was securely isolated and ofcially
barred from further intervention on behalf of the Spanish Republic.
TO BERLIN VIA VIENNA
Mussolini accepted the Austro-German Gentlemans Agreement of 11
July 1936 as a disagreeable but necessary sacrice to achieve a closer align-
ment with Germany. He was unwilling to renounce his Mediterranean ex-
pansion and solidarity with the Third Reich in favor of an alignment with
the Western Powers to prevent a further Austrian slide into Anschluss.
Nevertheless, he was not yet ready for a total capitulation. To brace spirits
in Vienna, he told the Austrian foreign minister, Guido Schmidt, that the
Gentlemans Agreement would actually redound to Viennas favor, for
Germany had now all the more reason to be dependent on Italian friend-
ship and would not likely sacrice it on Austrias terrain. In reality Ger-
manys dynamism is turned solely against Czechoslovakia.
10
Occasionally
buoyed by the reports of Francesco Salata, who recently had been promoted
to Italian minister in Vienna, Mussolini clung to the hope that Austria
would somehow survive. This ickering optimism was soon to be extin-
guished by Count Galeazzo Ciano and the coterie surrounding him, who,
their heads turned by the discipline and power of the Third Reich, wished
to draw closer to Hitler. Because of his supercilious attitude toward Aus-
tria, Ciano allowed himself to be hustled through the steps leading to An-
schluss, whose progression he chose not to arrest; he felt not the slightest
pinch of remorse, so long as Hitler treated Italy with the respect due to the
founder of the Fascist idea.
Talks between Germany and Italy aimed at their military cooperation in
Spain date from a conversation between Roatta and Canaris on 28 August
1936.
11
On Mussolinis instructions, Ciano took a further step toward a
pronounced German orientation during a Berlin visit in October, just as
Italian troops were entering the lines in Spain.
12
The Fu hrer warmed the
atmosphere by recognizing the Italian empire of Ethiopia, and the two
countries agreed to send additional military aid to Francos insurgents.
Ciano, meeting with Hitler at Berchtesgaden on 24 October, delivered a
batch of purloined British Cabinet correspondence documenting the
German peril that included a harsh indictment by Eden. In stirring up
Hitler against the British, Ciano hoped to sidetrack German approaches to
London; to cultivate Hitlers good will, he avoided the subject of Austria.
Hitler reacted violently by remarking that Britain was governed by dan-
gerous adventurers. By raising the anti-Bolshevik standard, Germany and
Italy now had to take the offensive against the democracies and increase
their aid to Franco, in order to counter the growing inux of Soviet materiel
and to guarantee Francos success in the upcoming attack on Madrid. Hitler
assured Ciano that the Mediterranean was reserved for Italy and the Baltic
for Germany. Carried away by the prospect of a revanchist war, Hitler
said, In three years Germany will be ready, in four years more than
ready.
13
In a speech delivered on 1 November in Milan, Mussolini made the dra-
matic announcement that this BerlinRome Line is not a Diaphragm but
rather an Axis and expatiated on the illusion of disarmament and peace.
Thus did the Axis, for public consumption, get its name. Mussolini did not
neglect his second line of defense in the Balkans. Although reserving kind
words for the military qualities and courage of the Hungarians, Mussolini
held out an olive branch to Yugoslavia,
14
one of Hungarys deadly enemies,
which had been charged in Budapest with persecuting Magyars and living
on the stolen sacred lands of the ancient crown of St. Stephen. Indeed,
Mussolini was careful to stress that the newly born Axis was not intended
to be a closed group hostile to the rest of the world but rather an axis
around which to build a structure of European collaboration. He also in-
dicated the desire for a clear, rapid, and complete understanding [with
Britain, but not France] on the basis of the recognition of our reciprocal
interests.
15
Still, Mussolinis elocution conrmed the widening Italian dis-
tance from the Western Powers in order to associate more closely with
Germany, a process begun with Ethiopia and continued by Italys departure
from the League the next year, accompanied by a large inux of Italian
volunteers in Spain.
On 16 November 1936, Italy and Germany recognized the Franco re-
gime. This was a serious step. By acknowledging Franco to be the head of
the legitimate government in Spain even before the capture of Madrid, Italy
and Germany had proclaimed their determination to ensure the defeat of
the Spanish Republic. Germany stood to prot immensely from this col-
laboration. A prolonged Italian involvement in Spain would result in the
estrangement of Italy from Britain, which fully suited Hitlers purposes; the
Anglo-Italian Gentlemans Agreement was about to be voided and Mus-
solini to become more dependent on him. Germany would provide enough
materiel to ensure that Franco did not lose, but not enough for a quick
victory. Mussolini would be encouraged by the theme of an Axis anti-
Communist crusadea theme strongly emphasized in Hitlers Nuremberg
speech of 13 Septemberto bind himself hand and foot to Franco, which
would bog Italy down indenitely in Spain while the Fu hrer kept his op-
tions open. So what if Mussolini hogged the stage as the high priest of anti-
Bolshevism?
Now Go ring thrust himself forward as the choreographer of the Austrian
ballet by visiting Rome in January 1937 in order to sow distrust of Schusch-
nigg. He informed the Duce that the Schuschnigg regime was disgraced for
having denigrated National Socialism; likewise, the Communist danger was
not being addressed. Italy should prompt Schuschnigg to respect the 11
July agreement and acknowledge Germanys hereditary rights in Austria.
Mussolini assured him: If anyone should speak again of the guardia al
Brennero, they should not count on Italy in any way. He also agreed to
apply pressure on Schuschnigg to live up to the Gentlemans Agreement.
Unwilling to challenge Go ring on the Anschluss question, the Duce relied
on the eld marshals promise that Germany would consult with Italy be-
fore undertaking any forceful change in Austria. Their differences boiled
down to this: Go ring had no specic plan for Anschluss but intended to
move things along as rapidly as possible in the expectation of Italian com-
pliance, while Mussolini, who had no specic plan for avoiding Anschluss,
hoped the problem would go away and torment him no longer.
16
Next on the agenda was Spain. It occurred to the Italians that there was
an imbalance: Italy was providing more aid to Franco than was Germany.
Although his country was seriously strapped for funds, Mussolini would
not press Go ring to open up the German wallet for the Spanish Nation-
alists, fearing that this would augment German inuence in the Mediter-
ranean at Italys invitation. As Ciano told the diplomat Roberto Cantalupo:
If we close the door of Spain to the Russians, only to open it to the
Germans, we can kiss our Latin and Mediterranean policy goodby.
17
Mussolini and Go ring were both quite capable of saying different things
to different people, sometimes with a measure of cunning and duplicity, at
other times with disarming frankness. Behind Mussolinis back, Go ring re-
peatedly reprimanded the Hungarians for their close ties with Rome,
18
and
he told Schuschnigg: Listen, Herr Bundeskanzler [chancellor], neither of
us need these Italians. We shall straighten out such matters between our-
selves. For us the only way is to do things from state to state without the
interference of third parties.
19
Go ring had not hidden anything from Mus-
solini. The inevitability of Anschluss was a tacit assumption left unstated
during the January visit, but it was expressed unambiguously in April when
the two men conferred again.
20
The Duce undoubtedly found Go rings blus-
ter on Austria offensive and his vanity irritating; it was Ciano who admired
him and cultivated certain shared tastes.
21
But apart from the astonishing
fact that the Italians would repeatedly host the most impatient and noisiest
annexationist in the Reich, the Germans and Italians continued their dan-
gerous communication in code. Their talk of a joint crusade against Com-
munism stood for a joint determination to stand against the Western
Powers.
22
Mussolinis guard against Anschluss, as a consequence, was re-
duced one more notch.
In hardly auspicious circumstances, Mussolini met with Schuschnigg in
Venice in April 1937. Although behind the scenes, D. M. Tuninetti, Mus-
solinis agent and the new Italian press ofcer in the Vienna legation had
urged Schuschnigg to absorb chosen nationals into the Fatherland Front
as a means of ending their agitation against the government, there was little
exchange on this subject during the Venice meeting, other than the Duces
reection that Go ring had complained to him about Austrias halting im-
plementation of the Gentlemans Agreement. If Austria was no longer an
Italian military protectorate, Mussolini implied that it would enjoy the pro-
tection of the Axis; he was pleased to hear that Schuschnigg was determined
to avoid the ParisPrague alignment. Mussolini advised that Schuschnigg
emphasize Austria as a German state while afrming substantial differences
in religion and culture. Mussolini made an oral promise that he would
uphold Austrias independence, but he nullied that gesture by omitting
such a pledge in the nal communique.
On the day that Schuschnigg departed for home, Mussolinis mouthpiece
in the Italian press, Virginio Gayda, implied in the Giornale dItalia that
the Austrian chancellor and the Duce had agreed to the admission of Aus-
trian Nazis into the Fatherland Front as a rst step to their sharing power
in the government.
23
Angry that his talks with Mussolini had been misrep-
resented, Schuschnigg demanded a public disavowal.
24
But even his own
minister in Rome admitted that the Italians had pointed out the desirability
of expanding the Fatherland Front with more Nazis.
25
Whatever the dis-
tortions, Schuschnigg was truly embarrassed at being so badly compro-
mised among colleagues back home who had yet to be briefed on the results
of the Venice talks. Insensitive to the Austrian chancellors delicate political
situation, Ciano admitted that he had Gayda publish the article to hold
Schuschnigg to his Venice commitment that more Nazi sympathizers would
be incorporated into his government.
26
Mussolini and Schuschnigg parted company estranged and pessimistic.
27
Schuschnigg was in no mood to suffer the Duces advice on Austrias in-
ternal affairs, while Mussolini was determined to avoid anything that
would antagonize the Germans, even if that meant toeing Berlins Austrian
line. The Gayda affair reveals that the Duce was squiring the Fascist pro-
Nazi fronde into prominence. In using a favored pen to discredit Austria
and its fumbling chancellor, Mussolini seemed not to care that Gayda was
obtaining his information on Austria directly from that countrys Nazis and
their sympathizers. The Austrian foreign ministry unsuccessfully sent reli-
able reporters to Rome to set the record straight.
28
Ciano outdid the Duce in demonstrating a readiness to throw Austria
over. He did not like the country and was unwilling to cut ties with the
Third Reich to save it. To mask the dangers of Anschluss, Ciano indulged
in the fantasy that Italys security and its hold on the Alto Adige would be
left unaffected. The Brenner was easier to defend than the Rhine, he was
wont to lecture the French, for it was snowbound much of the year and
contained rocky, unassailable passes.
29
Cianos pro-German following ac-
celerated the speed with which ideology in Fascist Italy was outpacing
Realpolitik. Austria had fallen out of step with the Axis. Schuschniggs
government was considered much too clerical and tainted with democracy
for radical Fascist tastes; nothing less than outright dictatorship based on
the Fu hrer principle would satisfy them. Since Austria had rejected Italian
Fascism as a model, as was dolefully admitted by Cianos cohort, the Nazis
were backed as the only worthy alternative.
30
Mussolinis tilt toward the Third Reich and his mounting disinterest in
Schuschnigg are largely explained by his fear that Hitler, if double-crossed
by Italy on Austria, might leave him at the mercy of the Western Powers
in the Spanish imbroglio, where Fascist prestige had been heavily invested
in the cause of General Francos Nationalists. The Italian defeat at Guad-
alahara in March threatened to upset Mussolinis timetable. Having ex-
pected a quick capture of Madrid, which now appeared far off, he had
planned to rush troops from Spain back to the Brenner before Hitler moved
into Austria, thus delaying, if not checking, an Anschluss. The bottom line
had been that Mussolini wanted time to fortify the defense of the South
Tyrol against the engorged Nazi colossus. But the restoration of Italian
prestige in Spain was more important than garrisoning the Brenner.
Haunted by Anschluss, Mussolini needled an American reporter: Next fall
I am going to invite Hitler to come into Austria and make Austria
German,
31
as if the Fu hrer needed any prompting from Rome. Ever the
provocateur, Mussolini hid from his own growing despair over Austrias
future by making ofcials and journalists of democratic governments that
he did not like squirm in discomfort and fear.
ITALO-YUGOSLAV RAPPROCHEMENT
Many aspects of the Italo-Yugoslav relationship had recently changed.
With Austrian independence hanging by a thread, the feeling in Rome of
an inherent, irreconcilable hostility toward its Adriatic neighbor began to
subside. Italy contemplated a new approach toward Yugoslavia without
repudiating its long-standing ambitionsseparating Yugoslavia from the
Little Entente and sabotaging a suspected French intention to tighten ties
with Belgrade. But hard negotiation lay ahead to dissipate the enduring
suspicion between the two nations arising from their rivalry over Albania,
Italys asylum for runaway Croatian terrorists, and Mussolinis assumed
complicity in the assassination of King Alexander in 1934. The Italians
were fortunate to nd that Milan Stojadinovic, the new Yugoslav premier,
was partial to authoritarian government and an admirer of the Duce, even
though he had annoyed the Italians by upholding League sanctions during
the Ethiopian conict. In keeping with Mussolinis desire to conclude some-
thing serious or nothing, Ciano drew up an Italian draft for an exclusive
alliance that was forwarded to Belgrade in January 1937. To the Yugoslavs,
he revealed his fear and suspicion of Germany: I am a friend of Germany
butbetween us and condentiallyGermany is not only a dangerous ad-
versary to her enemies but a difcult friend to her friends.
32
The supposedly secret negotiations were leaked to the British. Reeling
from Edens harsh criticism of an exclusive alliance with Italy, Stojadinovic
was able to satisfy the Italians with a watered-down version, which was
signed on 25 March 1937. The Italians made important concessions; they
promised to respect the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and agreed to
keep the Croatian terrorists conned to their camps in Italy. On the Al-
banian question, the Yugoslavs tacitly recognized Italys acquired posi-
tion as delineated in the Ambassadors Conference of 1921. A trade
agreement followed that was intended to increase the volume of goods
exchanged between the two countries. It was clear to everyone that Stoja-
dinovic had downgraded France and the Little Entente in favor of align-
ment with Rome. Ciano paid him the ultimate compliment: Stojadinovic
is a Fascist.
33
By pursuing rapprochement with Yugoslavia, the Italians were taking up
a strategy that had been tried before, in 19321933, with a singular lack
of success. To achieve the destruction of the Little Entente and the elimi-
nation of French inuence in the Balkans, they endeavored once again in
1937 to trade cold war and subversion for rapprochement and authoritar-
ian unity with Belgrade. As before, in the case of Hitlers crusade to remove
Dollfuss, Romes willingness to resolve old differences with a former bitter
enemy amicably was chiey induced by the change in the constellation of
power in Eastern Europe wrought by Germanys resurgence. In anticipation
of Anschluss (Ciano told the Yugoslav Prince Paul that The Anschluss is
inevitable),
34
Italy hoped to rekindle Belgrades interest in a Rome-led
alignment that would serve as a replacement for the Roman Protocols to
safeguard Italian interests south of the Danube.
35
But not in cooperation
with the Little Entente; the alignment would consist of Poland, Hungary,
and a Romania that was expected to sever ties with Paris. Ironically, Berlin,
simultaneously seeking a rapprochement with Yugoslavia, had been urging
the Italians to do likewise and seemed unaware of the anti-German slant
to the RomeBelgrade negotiations.
36
THE DUCE AND FU
HRER MEET
Notwithstanding the cold reception afforded Ciano by the Viennese in
May 1937, he made a belated effort to gain Germanys acquiescence in
Austrias independence. In early July, he submitted a memorandum to Ber-
lin, advocating a four-power agreement between Italy, Germany, Hungary,
and Austriaa warmed-over version of Julius Go mbo s plan to extend the
Roman Protocols to include Berlin.
37
A cat-and-mouse game ensued. Con-
stantin von Neurath immediately dismissed Cianos proposal as contrary
to the Axis spirit, whose consecration was to take place during the Duces
upcoming German visit in September.
38
Mussolini and Ciano were obvi-
ously chang over the meager results of the Axis and wanted to remind the
Germans that Italy still had an interest in Austria. But all that was forgotten
when the Duce stepped onto German soil. He was tremendously impressed
with German military war production gures and swept off his feet by the
goose-stepping parades of the S.S. and the motorized columns of the Wehr-
macht. Only when a violent thunderstorm interrupted his speech before
800,000 intoxicated Nazis at the Maifeld in Berlin on 28 September did
cracks appear in the aura of German efciency. The Duce, soaked to the
skin, his prepared notes drenched, was hustled away by a single chauffeur.
But that unfortunate experience did not cause him to repudiate what he
had proclaimed: When Fascism has a friend, it will march with that friend
to the last. Mesmerized by German discipline, Mussolini returned home
resolved to transform Fascist Italy into the Nazi image. Margherita Sarfatti,
an astute observer of Mussolinis behavior, commented: God, how hes
changed, hes really another person. I am a writer, I sense it even in his
style that he is completely changed.
39
Perhaps it was not that the Duce
had changed so much as that changing events had brought forth basic
character aws and ideological prejudices.
Although no special agreements had been signed, Hitler had achieved an
important psychological advantage: The matter of Austria did not prevent
the mutual esteem between himself and the Duce from turning into mutual
veneration. Both Mussolini and Ciano shied away from the subject of Aus-
tria for fear of provoking Hitler. Doubtless, too, their discretion was
prompted by the belief that Germany would drop Italy in favor of Britain
should Rome dampen the Axis res by bringing up this Teutonic taboo.
Only Go ring raised the question of Austria while the Italians were in Ger-
many, and the Fu hrer correctly inferred from their silence that he had a
free hand. The Italians, for their part, administered a stiff rebuff to Austria
and Hungary by refusing to meet their ministers during the German festiv-
ities. The last Italian anti-Nazi obstacle in Vienna was removed when Fran-
cesco Salata was recalled in late September.
A deplorable consequence of Mussolinis visit was his attempt to foist
on his countrymen certain admired Nazi mannerisms and habits. Military
exercises, parades, and Fascist uniforms for high-ranking Italian bureau-
crats became the order of the day. The elderly and obese were required, as
were young people, to demonstrate their tness by jumping through re
rings. The goose-step was declared de rigueur for military reviews, though
it was thoroughly botched by Italian troops. Less humorous was Musso-
linis strengthened determination that henceforth the [Fascist] revolution
must impinge upon the habits of the Italians. They must learn to be less
sympathetic, in order to become hard, relentless, and hatefulin fact,
masters.
40
Convinced that Hitler was irresistible and Nazi power invin-
cible, Mussolini was ever more resolved to make the RomeBerlin Axis a
postulate of Italian foreign policy. Germany had become what he dreamt
to make of Italy: a gigantic war camp where millions of disciplined and
brainwashed fanatics would joyously worship him as the Germans did the
Fu hrer.
Meanwhile, Germany and Italy labored to factor Japan into the Axis
equation. During the summer of 1936, Italy had eagerly pressed Japan for
a close political alignment. To make themselves an attractive diplomatic
partner, the Italians ostentatiously took the Japanese side in their dispute
with China. Alignment with one of the worlds great naval powers could
divert British attention away from the Mediterranean. But, since this strong
Anglophobe medicine was too much for the Japanese to stomach, the idea
of a bilateral alliance between Rome and Tokyo lost momentum. The Ger-
mans stepped in to pick up the thread. Joachim von Ribbentrop arrived in
Rome in November 1937 to bring Italy into a tripartite alliance with Ger-
many and Japan. Ciano was ecstatic that three nations were poised to em-
bark on a war to break through the crust which is stiing the energy and
the aspirations of the young nations.
41
Despite Cianos optimism, no mil-
itary alliance was signed; he had to be satised with a milder protocol that
on 6 November made Italy a charter member of the Anti-Comintern Pact.
If a tripartite united front against Britain remained a chimera, Mussolini
was able to establish a tighter rapport with the Germans on Austria when
he conded to von Ribbentrop that he was tired of mounting guard over
Austrian independence, especially if the Austrians no longer want their in-
dependence. Italys interest in the little truncated state was no longer as
lively as it was some years ago for one thing because of Italys imperialist
development which was concentrating her interest in the Mediterranean
and the Colonies. The best thing to do, he continued, is to let events
take their natural course.
42
The belief that the Austrians had not modi-
ed in the slightest their cold and negative attitude towards us was rein-
forced in the Duce by unattering comments regarding Italy that the
Austrian foreign minister, Guido Schmidt, was alleged to have made to the
British Permanent Under-Secretary Sir Robert Vansittart.
43
Angered, Ciano
intended to ask for Guido Schmidts scalp.
44
The new Italian minister in
Vienna, Pellegrino Ghigi, was given a description of his task as that of a
doctor who has to give oxygen to a dying man without the dying mans
heir noticing. In case of doubt we are more interested in the heir than in
the dying man.
45
When the Spanish question is liquidated, noted Ciano
in typical Fascist braggadocio, he [Mussolini] will invite Go ring to nazify
Austria.
46
THE SPANISH QUAGMIRE
The Italian contribution to the Nationalist camp was at rst limited to
the supply of military equipment. What had started as a trickle of Italian
arms during the opening phase of the Spanish Civil War had by early spring
1937 reached ood proportionstanks, heavy guns, and 50,000 troops.
Spain was originally Cianos war, which prompted him to sh simultane-
ously in other troubled waters by suggesting to the Turks that they pounce
on the French mandate of Alessandretta.
47
Expectations were raised for a
quick end to Republican resistance with the capture of Ma laga in February,
which the Fascists celebrated as a tribute to their elan. Concentrated on
the Castilian Plateau, Mussolinis volunteer army prepared for a dash
into Madrid in early March, crowned with a glorious ag-blessing of Italian
arms in the Spanish capital. The war would soon be over, and the Black-
shirts would return home to recount their heroic deeds to wives, lovers,
and comrades.
On 10 March, Mussolini sailed to Libya for a theatrical inspection of
his North African colony. A week later, he mounted a horse and brandished
The Sword of Islam at a parade of Arab cavalrymen, symbolic of his
dream to drive the British and French from the Arab world and bring it
under Italian rule. The visit had been prefaced with Arab-language broad-
casts by Radio Bari, beamed to audiences throughout the Near East, which
conveyed the message that Arab peoples had an ally in Proletarian Italy
against British and French exploitation. In the attempt to foment discord
in British-controlled areas, Mussolini hid Italys imperialist conquest of
Libya behind his pose as The Protector of Islam. Just as inconsistent was
the Duces effort to court simultaneously both Arab nationalists and Zi-
onists.
48
Mussolini wanted to announce the fall of Madrid from the Roman ruins
in Libya as one more step toward the recreation of the Roman empire. But
this scheme was rudely interrupted on 18 March by news that the Italian
advance on Madrid had been checked at Guadalahara by the Republican
forces. The poorly trained Fascist militia was thrown into battle on a nar-
row front and in foul weather. When the offensive stalled in a sea of mud,
waves of heavy Soviet tanks counterattacked, anked by infantry of the
International Brigades that included the anti-Fascist Garibaldi Battalion.
The panicked Blackshirts fell back in disarray, though regular Italian army
troops were able to halt the Republican attack the next day. Ernest Hem-
ingway was certainly mistaken in proclaiming Guadalahara as one of the
truly decisive battles of all time, for it only temporarily derailed the Na-
tionalists offensive. But Italy was draped in mourning, while the Repub-
lican forces took heart and the Italian political exiles gloated. The battle
represented the rst defeat for Fascist arms and a terrible humiliation for
Mussolini, as well as a blow to the amour propre of the country, which
had just successfully expunged the blot of Adua. Instead of cutting his
losses and withdrawing from the Spanish conict, Mussolini was prompted
by the defeat at Guadalahara to avenge himself against the reds and the
critics of Fascism around the world for taking delight in the humiliation
inicted on the Blackshirts by the Garibaldini. Mussolinis propaganda ma-
chine swung into high gear with diatribes against Britain. The Gentlemans
Agreement, which was supposed to presage an Anglo-Italian entente, was
further shredded by more volunteers for Spain and reinforcements to
Libya.
Eden concluded from all this activity that Mussolini was perennially dis-
satised, drunk with power, and a gangster whose controlled press por-
trayed Britain as decadent and senile.
49
Instead of a satised power,
Mussolinis Italy was on the prowl to extend its power over Egypt, the
Sudan, and the Red Sea, and it therefore deserved to be ranked high on
Britains ofcial list of possible enemies. But Eden was not imbued with
any sense of urgency. Belittling Italys war-making capabilities, he took care
not to run after the Italians to grant them de jure recognition of the
Italian empire. Furthermore, Eden received a clear warning from the Ad-
miralty to go easy on Italy, which represented far less of a naval menace
to British interests than either Germany or Japan. In addition, Neville
Chamberlain, who became prime minister on 28 May 1937, was ready to
make sacrices to secure Mussolinis goodwill in order to disrupt the
RomeBerlin Axis and thereby strengthen the British hand in relations with
Germany. On 10 June, Chamberlain declared at a gala Conservative dinner
party that it would be the very mid-summer of madness to imagine that
the independence of Ethiopia could be preserved by the continuation of
sanctions. True, Hitler had the highest priority in Chamberlains policy of
appeasement, but Mussolini was not far behind.
Dino Grandi moved to exploit Chamberlains amiability. Knowing that
any initiative for breaking the Anglo-Italian deadlock would not emanate
from the proud Mussolini, Grandi on 27 July 1937 contrived a ctitious
message from the Duce, alleging his desire for an improved atmosphere
with Britain. Grandi took it upon himself to summarize this message
orally to Chamberlain, bypassing Eden.
50
Chamberlain gratefully re-
sponded to the Duces goodwill by writing him a friendly letter that held
out the promise of concessions. Grandis gambit worked. Mussolini be-
lieved that Chamberlain, not he, had taken the initiative in making a fresh
start. But Chamberlain had to overcome the major issue troubling the Ital-
ians: the lack of British recognition for the Italian empire. To avoid a public
outcry in Britain, Chamberlain chose to proceed through the League by
having each member released from its collective obligations toward Ethi-
opia.
51
His hopes were quickly dashed by foot-dragging in Rome. Instead
of encouraging Mussolini to strike while the iron was hot, Ciano preferred
to postpone negotiations with Chamberlain out of his petty jealousy toward
Grandi; more important still, an accord with Japan that bore anti-British
connotations held center stage. In brief, Italys negotiations with Britain
were foiled by German intrigues to block an Italo-British accord, a lack of
pragmatism in the diplomacy of Ciano, and the psychological incapacity
of Mussolini to expose himself to ridicule by extricating Italy from Spain
without rst avenging Guadalahara.
In early August, responding to Francos exhortations, Mussolini stepped
up his intervention by ordering Italian submarines to attack Soviet ships
loaded with weapons and supplies en route to Spanish government ports
from the Black Sea. When a British-registered tanker was sunk, the Western
Powers stiffened themselves against Italian piracy by calling for a con-
ference at Nyon; there a system of patrols would be developed for the
Mediterranean to curb further submarine attacks against neutral ships fer-
rying goods to Spain. The French sniffed a victory over Fascist Italy in this
impending stiff rebuke. By putting enforcement into the nonintervention
policy, a European conict could be avoided and the Republicans given a
better chance to repulse the Franco-led rebels.
Anglo-French resolve to discipline Italy was thrown into doubt, however,
by a rift between Chamberlain and Eden over the most appropriate ap-
proach to Mussolini, a rift that became obvious at a cabinet meeting on 8
September. Eden insisted that unilateral British concessions, such as rec-
ognition of the Italian empire, would merely whet Mussolinis imperialist
appetite and provide further evidence of British weakness and retreat.
Chamberlain countered with the argument that Mussolinis letter held
out hope for breathing life into the moribund Anglo-Italian Gentlemans
Agreement.
52
On 10 September, the Nyon Conference convened. When the Soviet
Union denounced Italy and Germany for piracy on the high seas, the latter
two declined to make an appearance. The Italians were caught off balance
by the unwonted rmness of the Western Powers, who ignored their refusal
to participate and continued the conference. Overcoming their pride, the
Italians arrived late with the Germans. By the end of October, nal ar-
rangements had been made for Italian participation in the patrolling of the
Mediterranean to begin on 11 November. Much to Italys satisfaction, the
Soviet eets patrol duty was conned to the Black Sea.
Unexpectedly, peace prevailed on the high seas. As the British Admiralty
learned from decrypted signals, Italy had suspended its underwater depre-
dations, which made Nyon appear as a triumph of rmness against Italian
lawlessness. A month later, however, Mussolini put the lie to this notion
by shipping more aircraft, four submarines, two destroyers, and, eventually,
more troops to the Nationalists. In this belligerent mood, Mussolini ordered
his delegates to storm out of Geneva on 13 November. As his parting shot,
he portrayed the League Council as fools, maneuvered by turbid occult
forces, enemies of our Italy and of our revolution. Chamberlains position
in London was thereby rendered dubious: How could he recognize Italys
empire by securing the approval of the League from which the Duce had
just rudely taken his leave? To further confound Chamberlain, Mussolini,
despite the warm welcome he had accorded Lady Chamberlain (the widow
of the former Foreign Secretary Sir Austen) in December 1937, directly
challenged the Nyon Conference the next month by renewing submarine
attacks in the Mediterranean. This act conrmed that the Duce was deter-
mined to achieve victory for Franco, regardless of the diplomatic conse-
quences. Fortunately for Mussolini, the British and French representatives
at Nyon had no real intention of enforcing freedom of the seas and
nonintervention in the Spanish Civil War.
But if the Duce proved that he was once again, as in Ethiopia, prepared
to walk to the brink with the Western Powers over the Spanish question,
a terrible truth nally came home to him: Rather than aiming for a quick
victory by rapid movements and large frontal attacks, as was hoped for in
Rome, Franco sought to conquer territory and wear down the enemy in a
war of attrition. No matter how much military assistance Mussolini sent,
no decisive battle was joined. Adding insult to miscalculation, Franco did
not really want any more Italian troops, whose ghting abilities he derided;
hence Italy was sucked ever deeper into the Spanish quicksands.
53
But not
Hitler. Apart from the shameless bombardment of the open city of Guer-
nica and other splashy exploits by the Condor Legion, Hitler kept direct
German military involvement small and under rm control. Unlike the
Duce, the Fu hrer did not tie the prestige of his regime to the success of
Francos cause. In spite of a diminished supply of German weaponry, Berlin
did far better than Rome in securing important economic advantages from
the Franco regime. And the longer the war lasted, the greater the tension
between Italy and the Western Powers that would keep Mussolini bound
to Hitler.
Instead of cutting his losses by removing his troops from Spain, Mus-
solini ordered that they wage a resolute and ruthless war. True, more than
a few Italian representatives and generals, even Mussolini and Ciano from
time to time, protested against Francos mass executions and torture of his
enemies.
54
But the Duce and his son-in-law themselves knew how to be
merciless. Ciano ordered that the water supply of enemy towns be cut off,
and Mussolini ordained that any anti-Fascist Italian taken prisoner in Spain
be shot. In March 1938, the Duce ordered a pitiless bombing of Barcelona
that had no redeeming military value but gave his country a reputation for
pugnacity and ruthlessness; the bombing irritated even Franco and his gen-
erals, who were systematically practicing atrocities against any captured
Spaniards suspected of Republican sympathies. Ciano reported Mussolini
as delighted that the Italians should be horrifying the world by their ag-
gressiveness for a change, instead of charming it by their skill at playing
the guitar. In his [Mussolinis] opinion this will send up our stock in Ger-
many too, where they love total and ruthless war.
55
No matter where ones sympathies lay, on the side of the Republicans
or the Nationalists, the Spanish civil conict witnessed unimaginable bar-
barities on both sides that were daily committed in violation of any military
etiquette or law of war. Joseph Stalins deeds were among these. The sense-
less purges, arbitrary shootings, and kangaroo courts carried out by Soviet
agents against anarchists, comrades-in-arms, and Trotskyist enemies have
by now been well-documented. Less well-known is that Italian brutality in
this war was not only close to that found in the suppression of Libya during
the 1920s and in the conquest and pacication of Ethiopia, but not far
below the brutality visited by the Spaniards on each other and by Germans
on the Spaniards of the Republican persuasion. This truth perhaps was
partially obscured by the failure of Pablo Picasso to put his brush and easel
to use in exposing the Barcelona outrage as he did the German bombard-
ment of Guernica that so horried the civilized world.
On the whole, Mussolinis intervention in the Spanish conict appeared
altruistic, in the sense that he made no serious move either to acquire
the Balearic islands or obtain economic advantages. Indeed, Mussolinis
support of the Spanish insurgents seemed disinterested when compared
to the rank opportunism and ruthless calculation marking Nazi Germanys
military contribution. This restraint was due not to altruism or disinterest-
edness, however, but to a lack of leverage and credibility. Franco, the con-
summate realist, knew that Mussolini had overextended himself, was
isolated, and discredited by his armys spotty performance, and so he re-
plied with negligible payback and niggardly praise. Many high-ranking Ital-
ians wanted fair compensation for their largess, but Mussolini, in his
weakness, had to be satised with posturing as the Fascist padre pro-
tecting the healthy elements of the Spanish population against the athe-
istic reds. Mussolini was similarly deterrred from making a sustained
effort to impose Fascist institutions on the Franco regime by support of the
Spanish Falange. Aside from the ill-fated mission to Spain by the radical
Cremona Fascist leader Roberto Farinacci, who was ultimately laughed out
of the Nationalist camp, Mussolini refrained from any political interference
in the Burgos regime, save exhortations to speed up the pace of the war by
more reliance on Italian generalship and troops. Although constantly grum-
bling over Francos military ineptitude and stalling tactics, the Duce put up
with Spanish contempt and indifference, satised to ght a comradely anti-
Communist crusade. This, he hoped, would prevent a red regime in Madrid
from joining forces with the French Popular Front, a liaison that would
have jeopardized Italys Mediterranean security by facilitating the shuttling
of French troops from their bases in Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco to the
homeland.
But after the battle of Guadalahara, ideological imperatives joined stra-
tegic calculation. Mussolini interpreted Stalins growing control of the Re-
publican forces as a signal for the Communist International to line up the
weak-kneed European democracies to roll back reactionary and Fascist
movements everywhere in Europe. Behind the Popular Front stratagem, in
the Duces view, was Stalins ulterior motive of imposing Communism on
enfeebled and degenerate liberal-Masonic societies deprived of their virile
and regenerative life-forces. No less than for the sympathizers of the Span-
ish Republic, the Spanish Civil War was, for Mussolini, the focal point of
a life-and-death struggle between Fascism and Communism whose outcome
would decide the fate of Europe. As a mark of his own fatalism, the Duce
took the anti-Fascist fuorusciti refrain with deadly seriousness: Today in
Spain, tomorrow in Italy. What had started out as improvisation was
ending up as an ideological commitment to save Spain from Bolshevism
and the Axis Powers from Communist encirclement.
ITALY AND THE ANSCHLUSS
On 12 February 1938, Schuschnigg drove from Salzburg to visit Hitler
at Berchtesgaden, hoping that Germany would conrm the recognition of
Austrian independence embodied in the Austro-German Agreement of July
1936. Instead, Hitler bullied and shouted. Surrounded by his glowering
generals and his surly S.S. guards with their leashed and snapping German
shepherd dogs, Hitler threatened armed attack. Buckling under this brutal
show of force, Schuschnigg agreed to allow the progressive nazication of
Austria. Hitlers dramatic ultimatum prompted Mussolini and Ciano to
revive Anglo-Italian negotiations before the beginning of the nal stage of
Hitlers offensive against Austria.
On 16 February, Ciano instructed Grandi to solicit an accord on the
issues dividing Italy and Britainthe Ethiopian empire, the Mediterranean,
and Italys volunteers in Spainbefore an Anschluss irretrievably weak-
ened Italys diplomatic leverage; otherwise, the world would view Italian
overtures to London as being induced by German pressure on the Brenner.
If an Anschluss should occur, then we would have to direct our policy in
a spirit of sharp, open, and immutable hostility towards the Western Pow-
ers.
56
But Ciano was not prepared to oppose Anschluss; he was concerned
only that Hitlers speeded-up timetable would weaken his negotiating hand
in London. His irritation with Berlin for failing to inform Italy of the show-
down with Schuschnigg did not dampen his enthusiasm for the Axis.
Oddly, Grandi was astonished by Cianos message; he felt it to be entirely
out of line with the Axis, whose evolution over the years had given him
no end of worry. Far from teaching London that Italy represented a key
element of European and British security, Cianos letter, in Grandis view,
demonstrated the correctness of Edens view that Italy should approach
Britain hat in hand.
On 18 February, two meetings of great moment took place between
Grandi, Eden, and Chamberlain. In his vindictiveness toward Eden, Grandi
affected indifference toward the Austrian question. He reproached Britain
for letting Mussolini serve as the lone watchdog on the Brenner and ex-
hibited unswerving loyalty to the Axis at the very moment that Berlin was
imperiling the security of his country.
57
When Chamberlain pressed him on
whether Mussolini and Hitler had arrived at a meeting of the minds on
Austria, Grandi denied emphatically that any agreement . . . had been
made. Chamberlain was reassured, but not Eden. Although it was late in
the day, Grandi continued, Mussolini would be encouraged to take a more
independent line on the Austrian question if Britain would agree to a free-
wheeling discussion on all subjects touching on their mutual relations:
Spain would not be a serious difculty nor would propaganda. The talks
should take place in Rome rather than in London. Still, Grandi would not
accept outright a formula that Britain had put forward to cover the with-
drawal of Italian volunteers from Spain before rst consulting with his
government.
58
It was obvious that Grandi and Chamberlain were pursuing two inter-
related themes; Eden was the odd man out. They wanted to repair the break
between Britain and Italy and, by tacit collusion, to quash Edens sharp
criticisms of Italian policy that blocked a resumption of talks. Hardly need-
ing Cianos instruction that he undertake any step that may add an arrow
to Chamberlains quiver,
59
Grandi reveled in Chamberlains obvious dis-
pleasure with his foreign secretary. Exploiting their differences, he had
placed them squarely in the dilemma Ciano had dreamed of prior to the
Italian foreign ministers cry of alarm of 16 February: Britain must imme-
diately open negotiations with Rome and grant de jure recognition of Italys
empire in Ethiopia or Mussolini would tighten his bond with Germany.
Even if, in this penultimate hour of Austrias existence, Ciano and Grandi
had had the aim of saving Schuschniggand most certainly, Ciano, for
one, had long ago lost interest in Viennas fatethey knew that no help
could be expected from London. The Rhineland precedent of 1936 was
there for all to see. Both Chamberlain and Eden had long ago agreed that
Britain was in no position to halt the expansion of German inuence in
Austria by force. The two Englishmen, however, did differ markedly on
their interpretation of where Italy stood. Chamberlain saw Hitlers threat
to Austria as a direct challenge to Italian security. To counter any further
menacing German moves into the Danube and Balkan regions, Mussolini,
he felt, would be ever more anxious to reach an agreement with Britain on
all outstanding issues. Chamberlain held that his superior comprehension
of diplomatic calculation and economic logic would appeal to what he
conceived to be Mussolinis essential pragmatism and would overcome the
expansionist drives in Fascist ideology that threatened to carry Italy into
the German camp. Eden approached Fascist Italy from quite a different
perspective. Since he believed that Mussolini had tacitly consented to Hit-
lers campaign to draw Austria rmly within Germanys sphere of inuence,
he discounted the possibility of using the Austrian question to disrupt the
RomeBerlin Axis. Finding Fascism repugnant and Mussolini a warmonger,
Eden preferred to let negotiations with Rome drop completely.
This impasse over Italian intentions was overcome by Chamberlain.
Brushing aside his foreign secretarys objections, he concluded that conver-
sations with Grandi must start at once, not with the purpose of saving
Austria, but rather to make a fresh start on the outstanding Mediterranean
issues dividing Britain and Italy. In the absence of an accord between Rome
and London, he was fearful that a precipitate Austrian crisis would explode
into a Franco-German conict and that this would inevitably drag his coun-
try into war before it was prepared to ght. Disliking Nazi strong-armed
methods, he would accommodate limited German expansion eastward if
done by diplomatic agreement. Chamberlain gained support from many
quarters for opening conversations with Italy: the Secretary of the Cabinet,
Sir Maurice Hankey, the Admiralty, the majority in the Cabinet, and that
exemplar among those who favored a stiff line against Germany, Duff Coo-
per, the First Lord of the Admiralty. Eden was isolated. Now that his dis-
pute with Chamberlain had spilled out into the open, he felt he had no
choice but to resign. When that announcement was made on 20 February,
toasts were drunk in the Italian embassy, the Fascist press rejoiced, and
Paris was enveloped in gloom over Britains surrender to the appeasement
of Italy. Chamberlain told Grandi the following day that he perceived the
Axis to be a reality which can constitute perhaps a very precious pillar of
European peace.
60
The great absentee from the Anglo-Italian talks was France. The British
were loath to include the French in the conversations with Grandi because
they feared that Paris would take the Anschluss threat seriously and de-
mand joint action with Britain to halt Hitler before he crossed the Austrian
frontier. Since Chamberlain had no interest in supporting Italy as a bastion
against German pressure on Austria, he would not let the French call his
bluff. But there was no reason to worry. Whenever French Foreign Minister
Yvon Delbos experienced anxiety over Nazi intrigues in Vienna, he would
contemplate only a joint Anglo-French demarche to Berlin declaring op-
position to Anschlussbut this was to be via words, not military action.
What nettled the British was that Delbos, in his belief that Mussolini had
already abandoned Austria in favor of Mediterranean ambitionsa not
far-fetched assumptiondismissed the idea of cooperation with Italy.
There is great irony here. Italy and France, coming from quite different
perspectives, and out of sorts with each other, were both seeking ways to
make their peace with the feared Third Reich on the eve of Austrias demise
and the destruction of the peace settlement in East Central Europe. Bur-
dened by the Maginot mentality and a defeatism that softened them up to
a German-dominated continent, the French sought to avoid war in an ex-
ercise of post-Rhineland neo-realism. Mussolini, on the other hand,
avoiding the harsh reality that his peso determinante was shriveling to an
Italian appeasement of Hitler, doggedly pursued Italian imperialism by
means of intimidation, or threat of war, against the Western Powersthe
Duces post-Anschluss Realpolitik.
On the eve of Schuschniggs meeting with Hitler in Berchtesgaden on 12
February, Ciano noted that Mussolini favored the nazication of Austria.
61
Following this disastrous visit, Schuschnigg halfheartedly sought Musso-
linis counsel. Since the Duce had gone on a skiing trip, Schuschnigg could
get no answer, only the information that Mussolini had tried unsuccessfully
to persuade Hitler by telephone to adopt an attitude of moderation.
62
While ofcially the Duce pretended not to be aroused over Hitlers moves
at Berchtesgaden, in private he was, according to Ciano, irritated over Ger-
manys failure to keep Italy apprised.
63
Ciano claimed to have invited
Schuschnigg to publish details of the part played by Italy in the Austrian
crisis: The truth is that we only learned about the whole thing after the
fait accompli when there was no possible alternative and nothing remained
for us but to give our approval to what Schuschnigg had done.
64
The real
truth is that Ciano had long ago written Austria off. What in fact could
we do? he wrote plaintively on 23 February, Start a war with Ger-
many?
65
Moreover, Schuschnigg, knowing that Mussolini would do little,
if anything, made no strong appeal to Italy for assistancean appeal, in
any event, that he preferred not to make. Nor did the diplomatic wires
hum between Vienna and Rome either after Schuschniggs promulgation of
a plebiscite to head off a German invasion or after Germanys ultimatum
that he cancel it and resign. When informed of the planned plebiscite, the
Duce advised against it.
66
And when, on the penultimate day of Austrias
independence, Schuschnigg turned to Rome for advice, Ciano, after con-
sulting Mussolini, noted in his diary that Italy should not be held to ac-
count. Rather than take any of the blame, Ciano lambasted the Western
Powers: Do they expect to rebuild Stresa in an hour, with Hannibal at
the gates? It was France and England that had lost Austria, he argued,
and concluded deantly that Italy, in the meantime, had acquired Abys-
sinia.
67
No matter how one judges Schuschniggs strategy of taking on Hitler by
himself, the belief in Vienna that the Protocols Bloc had enjoyed a resur-
gence vanished without a trace when Mussolini failed to lift a nger in
Austrias defense following Germanys unopposed invasion and annexation
of the country on 12 March. The Duce told Hitlers special envoy, the
Prince of Hesse, that same evening: Italy is following events with absolute
calm. The Fu hrer was ecstatic: I will never forget this.
68
Now that Austria was nished and Eden was out of the way, Rome and
London could commence work on a settlement of their own differences.
Since both sides wanted to end their public bickering, it did not take long.
The Easter Accords between Italy and Britain were signed on 16 April
1938, reafrming the Gentlemans Agreement of 2 January 1937. Since the
British were now reconciled to a Nationalist victory in Spain, they cared
only to contain Italys interference in the conict so as to prevent any es-
calation into a Franco-Italian conict. London was therefore satised when
Italy pledged to begin a program of evacuating its volunteers from Spain
and to remove all men and war materiel at the end of hostilities. Britain,
in turn, agreed to sponsor legislation in Geneva that would free the
Leagues member nations to recognize the Italian conquest of Ethiopia. But
before the accords could be enforced, there remained a key issue: The Brit-
ish made recognition of Italian sovereignty in Ethiopia conditional on
Italian compliance with their formula for the withdrawal of Italys vol-
unteers from Spain. Mussolini concluded that an Anglo-Italian condomin-
ium had been established in the Mediterranean, while Chamberlain waxed
optimistic that Mussolinis appetite for imperialist expansion had been
quenched. In compliance with Italys wishes, the British left the French out
of the Easter Accords; Mussolini wanted no revival of the Stresa Front.
Much had changed since 1934 when Mussolini, from a position of
strength, had rushed troops to the Brenner as a strong deterrent to German
invasion. Dollfuss had been assassinated, and a less compliant and sim-
patico Schuschnigg held power in a country racked by internal divisions.
In Mussolinis view, Hitler had become unassailable. What irony! In truth,
at the time of the Anschluss, German rearmament was less than it appeared,
and the German economy was weaker than its opponents believed. A re-
construction of the Stresa Front would still have been possible to contain
the expansion of the Third Reich. But the Italians, as well as the British
and French, were victims of Hitlers bluff and their own fear of Nazi Ger-
many. None of them dared to stop the Fu hrer. Given the lassitude and
indifference on the part of Britain and France toward Austrias fate, per-
haps Italy could have done nothing to deny Hitler his Anschluss prize, nor
could Austrias own political leaders deny responsibility for their countrys
vulnerability to Nazi pressure and its ultimate diplomatic isolation. Eduard
Benes and his friends from the Little Entente also share culpability in their
paranoia about a Habsburg restoration and their refusal to grant Austria
economic concessions and diplomatic support. Reacting to Fascist Italys
hostility, they showed a self-serving opportunism that ensured that the
Habsburg successor states, Italy included, would meet the rising Pan-
German menace fragmented and divided.
But if Mussolini was a hapless victim of the Anschluss, much of his
predicament was of his own making. Since Mussolini was opposed to the
formation of coalition governments in Vienna that included liberals or
Marxists, to qualify for Italys protection, Austria would have had to be
an authoritarian state, no matter how much that would limit Schuschniggs
choices in broadening his political support against the mounting Nazi
threat. For Mussolini to have condoned a political mix that included mid-
dle-of-the-road elements and liberals, let alone Austrian Social Democracy,
would have required him to turn in his Blackshirt for democratic broad-
cloth. Incapable of such an ideological somersault, Mussolini was deaf to
the Cassandra-like voice of Karl Ernst Winter, a leading Austrian liberal,
who, in 1934, warned that Italy really had only two choices: democracy in
Austria or a swastika on the Brenner.
69
But by 1938, as the example of
Czechoslovakia proved, democracy alone would not have saved Austria;
only forceful intervention by a resurrected Stresa Front could have done
so.
There was a strange twist in this episode of Fascist Italys foreign policy.
Mussolini and Ciano had both ignored an important historical lesson and
a cardinal ideological plank. Fascism had climbed to power on a program
of exasperated nationalism, which held the liberal classes responsible for
failing to defend the gains of the Great War against the Habsburg Empire.
What a joke it was for them abjectly to have allowed a far more menacing
Nazi Germany to replace truncated little Austria as a Brenner sentinel ca-
pable of imperiling liberal Italys hard-won conquests of Trieste and the
South Tyrol! Not many will disagree with the aphorism that The Berlin
Rome Axis was the spit on which Austria was roasted.
70
NOTES
1. DDI, 8, IV, 112, 171, 174, 27 May and 3 June 1936.
2. Cited in Joel Colton, Leon Blum: Humanist in Politics (New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1966), 219.
3. DDI, 8, IV, 299, 17 June 1936.
4. DDF, 2, II, 324, 19 June 1936; ibid., 328, 329, and 332, 20 and 26 June
1936.
5. Shorrock, From Ally to Enemy, 185.
6. Count Galeazzo Ciano, Cianos Diplomatic Papers, ed. Malcolm Mugger-
idge, trans. Stuart Hood (London: Oldhams Press, 1948), 45.
7. Much of my discussion of Italys involvement in the Spanish Civil War is
drawn from the exhaustive study by John F. Coverdale, Italian Intervention in the
Spanish Civil War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975).
9. Paola Brundu Olla, Lequilibrio difcile (Milan: Giuffre`, 1980); Christopher
Seton-Watson, The Anglo-Italian Gentlemans Agreement of January 1937 and its
Aftermath, in The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement, ed. Wolfgang
Mommsen and Lothar Kettenacker (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983), 26783.
10. ASMAE, FL, Reel 3, September 1936.
11. DDI, 8, IV, 819, 28 August 1936.
12. DGFP, C, V, 618, 21 October 1936.
13. Ciano, Cianos Diplomatic Papers, 5660.
14. OO, XXVIII: 6771.
15. Ibid.
16. Ciano, Cianos Diplomatic Papers, 8091; DGFP, C, VI, 164, 30 January
1937; ibid., D, I, 207, 30 January 1937; ASMAE, FL, Reel 5, 15 and 23 January
1937.
17. Roberto Cantalupo, Fu la Spagna: ambasciata presso Franco (febbraioaprile
1937) (Milan: Mondadori, 1948), 65.
18. Laszlo Lajos Sandor Bartalits, Hongarije en de Anschluss 19181938 (Til-
burg: H. Gianotten N.V., 1968), 16465.
19. Kurt von Schuschnigg, Austrian Requiem (New York: Putnam, 1946), 101.
20. Norbert Schausberger, Der Griff nach O
sterreich (Munich: J&V, 1979),

383.
21. DDF, 2, IV, 431, 11 February 1937.
22. Hitler, in his meeting with Ciano at Berchtesgaden, deftly manipulated
Cianos vanity and desire to be esteemed by Nazis when he urged a joint crusade
against Bolshevism to divert Italys attentions from Pan-Germanism. Ciano, Cianos
Diplomatic Papers, 5660.
23. Virginio Gayda, Il Giornale dItalia, 24 April 1937.
24. Schuschnigg, Austrian Requiem, 12425.
25. NPA, 414, 30 April 1937.
26. D. M. Tuninetti, La mia missione in Austria, 19371938 (Milan: C.E.B.E.S.,
1946), 8889.
27. Von Hassell ably summarized their mutual irritation. DGFP, C, VI, 333, 24
April 1937.
28. Schmidt sent a reliable reporter, Baron De Clies, from the Neue Freie Presse
to inform Gayda of the true domestic situation in Austria, but to no avail. NPA,
406, 4 March 1937. Schuschnigg was angry at Gayda for misrepresenting his talks
with the notorious Arthur Seyss-Inquart. DDF, 2, V, 334, 24 April 1937.
29. DDF, 2, V, 242 and 243, 10 April 1937.
30. Details on the pro-German fronde are provided by Petersen, Hitler e Mus-
solini, 40710, and by Meir Michaelis, Il Conte Galeazzo Ciano di Cortellazzo
quale antesignano dellasse Roma-Berlino, Nuova rivista storica 401, no. 61 (Jan-
uaryJune 1977): 11649.
31. Quoted in Cannistraro and Sullivan, Il Duces Other Woman, 499.
32. Quoted in J. B. Hoptner, Yugoslavia in Crisis 19341941 (New York: Co-
lumbia University Press, 1963), 67.
34. Quoted in Hoptner, Yugoslavia in Crisis, 83.
35. Ibid., 8287; Gehl, Austria, Germany and the Anschluss, 14041.
36. DGFP, C, VI, 297, 28 March 1937; Gerhard L. Weinberg, The Foreign
Policy of Hitlers Germany 19371939 (Chicago and London: University of Chi-
cago Press, 1980), 21617.
37. DGFP, C, VI, 453, 7 July 1937.
38. DGFP, C, VI, 461, 13 July 1937.
39. Quoted in Cannistraro and Sullivan, Il Duces Other Woman, 504.
40. Count Galeazzo Ciano, Cianos Diary, 19371938, ed. Malcolm Mugger-
idge, trans. Andreas Mayor (London: Methuen, 1952), 135.
41. Ibid., 2829.
43. A special le on Schmidt can be found in ASMAE, Ambasciata Vienna, B
318.
44. Ciano, Diary 19371938, 44.
45. Ibid., 37.
46. Ibid., 58.
47. Giordano Bruno Guerri, Galeazzo Ciano (Milan: Bompiani, 1979), 232.
48. Claudio Segre, in his stimulating essay, Liberal and Fascist Italy in the Mid-
dle East, 19191939: The Elusive White Stallion, in The Great Powers and the
Middle East 19191939, ed. Uriel Dann (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1988),
199212, adroitly describes the contradictions in Italys Near Eastern imperialism.
49. Eden, Memoirs, 508.
51. DBFP, 2, XIX, 64 and 65 and n. 1, 27 July 1937.
52. DBFP, 2, XIX, 144, 8 September 1937.
53. Ciano, Diary 19371938, 46.
54. Ibid., 5, 68, 72, 9192.
55. Ibid., 92.
57. Ibid., 16485.
58. DBFP, 2, XIX, Appendix I: Extracts from Neville Chamberlains Diary;
Ciano, Cianos Diplomatic Papers, 16485.
59. Ciano, Diary 19371938, 78.
60. Cited in Quartararo, Roma tra Londra e Berlino, 372.
61. Ciano, Diary 19371938, 73
62. Carsten, The First Austrian Republic, 266.
63. Ciano, Diary 19371938, 77.
64. Ibid., 77.
65. Ibid., 79.
66. Ibid., 85.
67. Ibid., 87.
68. DGFP, D, 1, 352, 11 March 1938.
69. Petersen, Hitler e Mussolini, 17879.
70. Quoted in Gehl, Austria, Germany, and the Anschluss, 133.
CHAPTER 10
Consolidation of the Axis
MUNICH
Now that the Anschluss had become a harsh reality, Mussolini had to
convince himself that the Axis was more valuable to Italy than the pres-
ervation of Austrias independence. A novel tripartite front emerged. In-
stead of the moribund Four Power Pact or the dead Stresa Front, the
Axis Powers, joined by the sleeping partner Britain, would decide the
fate of Europe and preserve Mussolinis freedom of action. By means of
the Easter Accords (which were expected to be ratied quickly by the Brit-
ish Parliament), Italy had balanced Germany and isolated France. Staggered
by the looming defeat of Republican Spain and confronted by an ever
stronger Germany, France would have to come to Italy hat in hand before
being invited back into a regrouped four-power alignment dominated by
the Axis.
Mussolinis updated peso determinante strategy, however, continued to
be awed by an overestimation of Italian power and an ideological bias
that contained shrewd insight, half-truths, and outright nonsense. Accord-
ing to Mussolinis litany, France had been emasculated by anti-Fascist Pop-
ular Front governments, debilitated by its emotional ties with the Spanish
Republic, and thrown leftward by the Franco-Soviet Pact. Encroaching
Communism had accelerated the French slide into a profound moral and
civil crisis that was characterized by a declining birth rate, invasive half-
breeds, urbanism, and sharpening social struggles. In addition to this ide-
ological campaign, Mussolini engaged in combat against vocal Italian
anti-Fascist expatriates (fuorusciti) living abroad. The Duce had pulled the
strings of the assassination on 9 June 1937 of the Rosselli brothers, radical
liberals who had been leaders of the exiled anti-Fascists castigating him
from their French sanctuary. A country that played host to Italys fuorusciti
deserved retribution. Mussolinis press, in Renzo De Felices vivid descrip-
tion, acted like an impotent child indulging in ridiculous spite.
1
After an initial willingness to reconcile with Mussolini, the French prime
minister, Leon Blum, irritated by Italys pointed exclusion of France from
the Easter Accords and by Italys escalated involvement in the Spanish Civil
War, reverted to undisguised anti-Fascism. Nonplussed, Mussolini offered
Blum a Franco-Italian entente in April 1937 if he would repudiate the Span-
ish Republic and grant Franco belligerent status. Blum derisively dismissed
the offer and refused to appoint a successor to Charles de Chambrun as
ambassador to Rome, for fear that a new appointee would require accred-
itation addressed to the king of Italy, Emperor of Ethiopia, a step that
Blum was not prepared to take.
On 10 April 1938, the Radical-Socialist E
douard Daladier, The Bull-

dog, formed a cabinet with Georges Bonnet in charge of the Quai dOrsay.
Hoping to revive the 7 January 1935 Agreements, the new French team
put forth proposals to Rome for a Mediterranean agreement resembling
the Easter Accords. The Italians affected interest, but rst wanted to nd
out what Berlin had to offer. They were not displeased that the Germans
would see that they still had cards to play in Paris.
Notwithstanding his enmity toward France, Mussolini emphasized in the
press and in public declarations that the Axis did not imply a conspiracy
to overthrow the European status quo. Equidistance between London and
Berlin would be respected, and Italy, for the moment, would not throw its
weight on either side of the scales. In this frame of mind, Mussolini awaited
Hitlers visit to Italy, scheduled to take place 39 May, with condence
renewed that he would be able to face his Axis partner from a position of
strength. His lines now opened to both Paris and London, the Duce could
calmly show Hitler around Italy and present his German guests with the
draft of a treaty of mutual respect, signaling Berlin to quell the armed
skirmishes that had recently been instigated by German-speaking hotheads
in the South Tyrol. Hitler, in turn, intended to neutralize the Easter Accords
by wooing Mussolini to be his faithful Axis consort.
In spite of Mussolinis propaganda buildup, Hitlers arrival in Rome was
hardly the occasion for an Italian celebration. Mussolini and Ciano both
realized that the Axis was not at all popular in Italy, especially after the
Anschluss; much more preparation was necessary. Not a few gures in the
cultural world of Rome left the city to escape the Teutonic invasion. The
Pope repaired to his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo and closed down
the Vatican Museum, effectively barring Hitler and his entourage from the
treasures they had planned to visit.
Consolidation of the Axis 175
To dazzle his German guests, Mussolini presided over a six-day cere-
mony lled with pomp and fantasy, designed to surpass everything he had
been shown in Germany. Snappy military maneuvers were held before the
dubious German high command, highlighted by a single-shot volley by
50,000 Italian troops outtted in fancy new dress. Later the Germans were
witness to a large naval review in the sunlit bay of Naples, whose scenery
impressed the visitors more than the might and majesty of the Italian war-
ships. Mussolinis pride suffered from the fact that Italian protocol required
the king, as ofcial host, to ride beside Hitler in the lead carriage conveying
the German guests around Florence. To offset this embarrassment, Mus-
solini hired a mob to crowd around his carriage shouting Duce, Duce,
Duce.
Caught in the contradictory impulse of being closely bound to Hitler, as
German military power dwarfed Italys, and resenting him all the more for
such dependency, Mussolini still was able to deny the Fu hrer the prize he
sought: a rm military alliance with Italy. The Axis friendship, Ciano
coyly smiled, made any alliance superuous.
2
Ciano wanted to keep the
Germans at arms length in order to stay on good terms with Chamberlain,
for he still relied on the British leader to release League members from their
bond to deny Italy recognition of its empire. The results of Hitlers visit,
therefore, were very modest, but a tentative meeting of minds was reached
over Czechoslovakia. The Germans apprised the Italians of Hitlers concern
over the allegedly shabby treatment of the Sudetenland Germans by Czechs
and concluded that Mussolini and Ciano had condence that the problem
would be handled short of a European conict. This tacit understanding
was deceitfully contrived by Hitler, who had no intention of revealing to
Mussolini his real aim to launch war against Prague on 1 October 1938.
The unsuspecting Italians were satised when, at a state dinner at the Pal-
azzo Venezia, Hitler announced his unshakable will and also my political
testament to the German people to consider untouchable forever the fron-
tier at the Alps erected by nature between us.
3
In a private meeting, the
Fu hrer repeated the idea previously advanced by Go ring of transferring the
German-speaking population of the South Tyrol to the Third Reich. Ciano
expressed interest in this solution, but the Duce, out of embarrassment,
maintained a resolute reserve. Any discussion of a population transfer
would expose his italianization programs as a lamentable failure.
4
The Ger-
mans departed for home to brew a crisis with the Czechs; nothing concrete
had been achieved. They were amused by Italian political inghting and
suspicious of Fascist military efciency.
Far from ambiguous was Mussolinis sudden are-up against France. The
pinpricks of the French press during Hitlers visit had activated the Duces
gallophobia, and when in Geneva on 12 May the British arranged for the
last obstacles to be removed for League members individually to recognize
the Italian empire, Mussolinis need for France became even less. He con-
ded to Ciano that the French are a nation ruined by alcohol, syphilis,
and journalism.
5
In a bellicose speech on 14 May at Genoa, the Duce
extolled the Anschluss and declared the Stresa Front dead and buried.
The curtain to further negotiations with Paris was abruptly rung down.
France and Italy stand on opposite sides of the barricades, he declared;
they desire the victory of Barcelona, we, on the other hand, desire the
victory of Franco.
6
The British, however, would move no further in Italys direction, refusing
to ratify the Easter Accords since Italy had violated them by continued
bombings of British ships in Spanish ports. The Foreign Ofce recognized
that Mussolini intended to use the tie with Britain merely to make Italy
more attractive to Hitler and to deepen the distance between London and
Paris. The British stepped up their demands: The Duce must unilaterally
withdraw the Italian forces in Spain, agree to an armistice in the ghting,
and negotiate a settlement with France along the lines of the Easter Ac-
cords.
7
Mussolini refused to consider the British demands short of a Re-
publican surrender and would not tolerate any linkage of France with the
Easter Accords. By the time the Czech crisis came to a head in August,
therefore, Italys relations with France had reached a new nadir, the Easter
Accords remained stillborn, and the Axis remained showmanship rather
than an alliance.
Still, the pageantry surrounding Hitlers visit set the stage in Rome for
further emulation of Nazisms totalitarian measures and hardened the
Duces determination never to be called a traitor by deserting Hitler.
8
The
Fascist party spearheaded a campaign to reform the conduct, habits, and
attitudes of the so-called bourgeois. The spiritual revolution aimed at a
restoration of Squadrist activism that gloried and acted out a life of risk
and violence. To advance the dynamic of Fascist totalitarianism, Mus-
solini, under no pressure from the Germans but much to their satisfaction,
issued a statement in July called the Manifesto of the Race. To demon-
strate his ideological solidarity with the Fu hrer and to widen the gulf be-
tween Italy and the democracies, the Duce deliberately adopted a policy of
racial consciousness, reinforcing the brawny image of the Fascist warrior
as the white conquistador triumphing over swarms of mentally stunted
Ethiopians. The battle lines between Fascist Italy and the democratic West
would be drawn tighter by putting the Jews in their place as well and by
rooting out the effete pacism and humanitarian values of the Italian peo-
pleone and the same thing.
9
Mussolini told Ciano that he intended to
create a bonre of Jewish and pro-German literature. The revolution must
teach Italians to be less sympathetic, in order to become hard, relentless,
and hatefulin fact, masters.
10
The Vatican was hopeful that Mussolinis racial laws would be conned
to the Catholic tradition of a tempered legal and social discrimination that
fell short of actual persecution. In the encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge
(With burning concern), the Pope condemned Nazi-style racism based upon
blood superiority. But these distinctions between Italy and Germany were
obscured by the spectacle of two dictators joined by a common hatred of
Jews and democracy.
In May 1938, Hitler manufactured the rst Czech crisis by concentrating
troops on the Sudeten frontier. Prague answered with a partial mobiliza-
tion, and the French promised to honor their treaty of alliance aimed at
protecting their ally against German aggression. Since Czechoslovakia was
ruled by the chatterbox Benes, a stalwart defender of democracy and the
League of Nations, Mussolini was delighted to support Germanys terri-
torial claims, as well as those of the many hostile neighboring states bearing
down on the hard-pressed francophile Prague government. Carved out of
the old Habsburg Empire, the new polyglot state had been created by the
Paris Peace Conference. It included a multitude of ethnic minorities that
kept the irredentism of Germany, Poland, and Hungary at fever pitch. All
these nations therefore had a vested interest in the dismemberment of the
infant state, but only Hitler was in a position to stir up serious trouble
in the Sudetenland areas populated predominantly by German-speaking
peoples. As treatment of minorities went during the interwar period, the
Prague government did well by the Sudeten Germans, granting them basic
democratic rights and representation in the parliament. But Hitler was de-
termined to magnify Pragues oppression as an excuse to destroy the
Czech state by returning the Sudeten Germans to the Volk community
(they had formerly been part of the Habsburg Empire); this the Nazis clev-
erly passed off to the diplomatic community as vintage Wilsonian self-
determination. Hitlers preference was to accomplish the change by
invasion; Chamberlain tried to persuade him to do so by plebiscite. To
head off a war, Chamberlain in July appointed Lord Walter Runciman as
a mediator to win Prague over to Germanys demands; when that failed,
he offered to pay Hitler a personal visit to save peace in our time.
Germanys intention of liquidating Czechoslovakia was an open secret
that many, out of fear, refused to acknowledge. Von Ribbentrop, however,
did not trouble to conceal Hitlers warlike predisposition from the Italians.
The Fascist heart was with Germany, he knew, even if the Italian nation
had no stomach for war. Sure that the Western Powers would make no
move, von Ribbentrop declared to the Italians that Germany could get the
job done quickly without military assistance from Rome.
11
This was just
what Rome wanted to hear. Ciano, in response, conded that Italy, far
from interested in the fate of Prague, was absolutely solid behind Ger-
many.
12
In this fashion, the Italians downplayed the threat of war until
the rst week of August, when Hitler stoked up a second crisis over Czecho-
slovakia.
13
On 19 August, the German military attache in Rome informed
Ciano of a planned German attack on Czechoslovakia by the end of Sep-
tember. Ciano fretted: Will the conict be localized or will France set re
to the powder barrel? In that eventuality there is no alternative for us but
to fall in beside Germany immediately, with all our resources. The Duce is
decided on action.
14
Compared to his impressionable son-in-law, Mus-
solini, respecting Hitlers cunning, had a calmer view of things. If Benes
reacted violently to Nazi provocation in the Sudetenland, Germany would
have a plausible justication to intervene. There would be no reaction by
the Western Powers because, in the view of the Duce, the British had lost
their fortitude (natural in a people which has a comfortable life and has
made a religion of eating and games) and the French had lost their nerve.
Knowing that Italian military assistance would not be needed in a localized
war, Mussolini boasted that he would march with Hitler.
15
At the same
time, he was irritated by German discretion over the details of their Czech
plans.
The Czech drama proceeded to unfold rapidly. Chamberlain requested
that Mussolini intervene in Berlin to bring Hitler to reason, but he received
no reply. While the Duce sat on the sidelines with arms folded, Hitlers
war threats and German riots in the Sudetenland convinced Chamberlain
that he should meet directly with Hitler in order to head off war. On a
rst air journey, Chamberlain ew to Berchtesgaden on 15 September to
tell Hitler that he agreed in principle to the incorporation of the Sudeten
areas into the Third Reich. All that remained to be worked out were the
modalities and timing of the transfer, the limits of the territory concerned,
and the approval of the cabinets in London, Paris, and Prague. Ciano re-
marked that the Duce saw in embryo the shape of things to come. There
will not be war, Mussolini prophesied, but this is the liquidation of En-
glish prestige.
16
Mussolini emerged from the shadows on 15 September. In a sensational
article published in Popolo dItalia entitled Letter to Runciman, he called
for a nationwide plebiscite designed to grant self-determination to the eth-
nic groups in Czechoslovakia. The Germans rejoiced; Mussolini was im-
posing on Prague more than Hitler had demanded. Two days later,
Mussolini embarked on a tour of northern Italy and made a series of
speeches hostile toward Czechoslovakia. Versailles was extinct; a new Eu-
rope must be formed. Benes tyranny over eight different races [sic] must
be ended and justice given to the Germans, Hungarians, and Poles. Thanks
to Mussolinis comments to Ciano and the observations of contemporary
diplomats, we can deduce from these addresses a rough draft of Italian
policy. Underneath the erce talk lay the hope for a peaceful solution on
German terms; if it came to a localized conict between Germany, Prague,
and Paris, Italy would remain neutral. If Britain intervened to generalize
the war, Italy would enter battle on the side of Germany in an ideological
struggle between democracy and totalitarianism. Mussolinis harsh words
and saber-rattling, if meant to yield to Hitler all he wanted without a ght,
nonetheless enabled the British foreign ofce to convince Chamberlain that
Italy had moved rmly into the camp of the enemy and should therefore
be brushed aside in the search for a peaceful solution of the Sudetenland
crisis.
Chamberlain pressed on with his idea of detaching the German minority
peacefully from Czechoslovakia, in contempt of Prague and by dragging
the French along. On 22 September, he ew to Godesberg to lay the par-
ticulars of his plan before Hitler, but he was shocked to nd that the Fu hrer
had hiked his demands. Negotiations trembled on the verge of breakdown.
As Hitler waxed belligerent, the Czechs mobilized, the British eet was
placed on alert, and gas masks were handed out to the people of London
and Paris. While the drama at Godesberg was being played out, Mussolini
publicly blustered but remained inactive on the diplomatic front to avoid
taking a denite position. Aware that Italy was in no shape to ght, he did
not mind being excluded from the diplomatic mainstream, apart from cu-
riosity over what Hitler was really up to.
The Prince of Hesse, shuttling between Berlin and Rome, nally informed
the Italians on 25 September that Germany would attack with the aim of
destroying Czechoslovakia, regardless of what the Western Powers did, if
Prague had not accepted by 1 October the terms of Hitlers ultimatum. On
the same day, Mussolini considered the possibility of a meeting between
Ciano and von Ribbentrop to clarify the conditions of Italian intervention;
the military staffs would meet on 29 September to plot common strategy.
Since Hitler had rejected Chamberlains Godesberg proposals, war seemed
imminent. Noted Ciano: God protect Italy and the Duce.
17
Dino Grandi, who had fallen from grace in Rome over his disapproval
of the Axis and his criticism of Mussolinis racial laws, now emerged from
ostracism to play an important role.
18
Ordered by Ciano to absent himself
from Whitehall, Grandi had been a hapless witness to the deterioration in
Anglo-Italian relations caused by Mussolinis warlike speeches and Cham-
berlains reliance on Daladier and Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Czech
crisis. Convinced that Mussolini had ed from the Easter Accords to the
Axis, Chamberlain had informed Grandi of neither his pilgrimage to Berch-
tesgaden nor his trip to Godesberg. Not for the rst time, Grandi deed
instructions by taking the initiative in trying to repair the ties between
London and Rome. Through secret channels, he apprised the British of
Mussolinis desire to avoid war and reassured Rome of Britains good will
toward Italy. On 26 September, Grandi arranged to have a message sent
to Whitehall urging that Chamberlain contact Mussolini. A couple of days
later, the Earl of Perth, the British ambassador in Rome, did likewise. Fi-
nally yielding to their importunities, as well as to those of the French,
Chamberlain broke his silence with Rome on 28 September, dramatically
appealing for the Duces intervention with Hitler to head off a German
invasion of Czechoslovakia.
19
On receiving Perths message, Ciano seemed surprised over the readiness
of Britain and France for war and their willingness to tolerate a Russian
military intervention in support of Czechoslovakia. The belief that the
Western Powers would do nothing in the event of a German occupation of
the Sudeten territory suddenly gave way to panic over the apparent im-
minence of a general war. Ciano immediately ran over to the Palazzo Ve-
nezia to consult with Mussolini. Losing no time, the Duce rang up Berlin.
While renewing Italys pledge to stand by Germany, he urged Hitler to
accept Chamberlains idea of a summit conference, where details of terri-
torial cession of the Sudetenland areas to the Reich would be worked out.
Shortly before his ultimatum to the Czechs expired, Hitler agreed to ne-
gotiate; the Four Power Conference would take place in Munich.
20
Hitler
seemed to draw back from the brink on learning that the Duce actually
preferred peace over following him into war.
What induced Mussolini to deliver Chamberlains olive branch to Berlin?
Still bogged down in Spain, he knew that Italy was in no position to gamble
that the Western Powers would not move to stop Hitler from seizing the
Sudetenland by force. In a long drawn-out war, Fascist Italy would be the
rst victimto the advantage of world Communism and to the immense
pleasure of his domestic enemies and the anti-Fascist fuorusciti.
Just before leaving for Munich, Mussolini received from Berlin Ger-
manys moderate claims. At Kiefersfelden, the rst railway stop on the
German side of the former Austrian border, where he joined Hitlers train,
Mussolini was given a fresh set of German demands on Czechoslovakia
and a Nazi monologue on how France would be crushed in a war. That
recitation left the Duce monosyllabic and unsmiling.
21
At Hitlers headquarters in Munich, where the conference took place,
Mussolini found himself in the drivers seat. Fearing that Hitler and von
Ribbentrop would make impossible demands, the Duce pulled from his
pocket the primitive German conditions that he had brought with him from
Rome and presented them to the conference as his own. As Ciano put it,
the Duce then majestically withdrew into studied aloofness from the
vaguely parliamentary atmosphere, moving around the room with his
hands in his pockets and a rather distracted air, while others worked out
the details. Every now and then, he would join in the search for a formula.
22
Andre Francois-Poncet wrote: Standing at his [Mussolinis] side, Hitler
gazed intently upon him, subject to his charm as though fascinated and
hypnotized.
23
Chamberlain and Daladier hastened to accept the Duces
proposals. Outnumbered three to one, Hitler gritted his teeth and accepted
them too. The agreement signed in the early morning of 30 September
provided for the cession of the Sudetenland in stages, for plebiscites under
international control in other zones of mixed population, and for a four-
power guarantee of the new rump state, Czechoslovakia. The Czechs were
conned to the anteroom while the Great Powers dismembered their coun-
try. Presented with an ultimatum to sign, they capitulated.
Munich cast Mussolini in the diplomatic spotlight. Chamberlain wel-
comed his ostensible mediation, Daladier appeared docile and ingratiating,
and Hitler seemed putty in his hands. As Francois-Poncet noted, a bust of
the Duce had always been a showpiece in Hitlers study. But the Fu hrer
was not happy; the Duce had denied him his war. Mussolini himself had
mixed feelings over being hailed inside and outside his country as the savior
of peace.
Throughout the Sudetenland crisis, the Italians appeared anxious to keep
in step with the Germans, and yet they had drawn back when it became
clear that Hitler was prepared to march. Revelatory of the fear that lay
behind the warlike bravado was Cianos notation that Italy had neither
incited nor restrained Germany, as if to excuse his country from any re-
sponsibility or involvement should Hitler draw the sword.
24
As for Mus-
solini, he was always expatiating on the heroism of war and his eagerness
for a showdown against Britain and France, but he did nothing to prepare
his country for such an ordeal; troops were not even recalled from Italys
outposts in Ethiopia, Libya, and Spain to face the potential emergency at
home. Mussolini had no policy, merely the hope that a peaceful solution
of the Sudetenland question would be found. He wanted to believe his own
propaganda that the Western Powers were washed up, that they would not
resort to war to save Czechoslovakia because they were too decrepit and
spiritless to make sacrices. Next it would be his turn to take the measure
of the toothless British lion and the enervated Marianne. But he knew that
this was not yet so.
During most of September, the Duce thought that Italy could support
Hitler in a localized Sudetenland crisis without risk and give striking proof
of Axis dynamism. When the reality, as opposed to the theoretical possi-
bility, of an immediate outbreak of world war burst on him after Godes-
berg, Mussolini was probably unsure whether to pursue heroics by ghting
for Hitlers aims in Czechoslovakia or to retreat to a benevolent neutrality.
Rather, he would wait on events and see who got involved before making
a decision. Chamberlains request for Italian mediation was a godsend that
freed Mussolini of his dilemma and jolted him into an awareness that he
needed the appeasement of Hitler too. Hence the Duces willingness to act
in Munich as the pawnbroker of Czechoslovakia.
If Hitler, in his awareness of Italian ambivalence, failed to keep Mussolini
apprised of his plans, Mussolini, out of pride, refused to make it clear to
the Germans that his hands were tied. His country was utterly unprepared
for war and quite alienated from the Axisfacts that made Mussolini
wince in shame. But should the Sudetenland fall into Hitlers lap, Mussolini
feared that Nazi dynamism would veer southward toward the Adriatic. To
offset the growth of German inuence in Eastern Europe, Mussolini needed
allies. To earn the gratitude and support of Poland and Hungary, he invited
them in inammatory speeches to help themselves to Czech territory, hop-
ing that Hitler would not take note of his aim to check Nazi Lebensraum.
Meanwhile, basking in the limelight as the diplomatic maestro of Europe,
Mussolini momentarily blocked out the harsh reality that the Munich ver-
dict had brought about a further strengthening of Germany to the disad-
vantage of Italy in the European heartland.
DIPLOMACY IN A WHIRLPOOL
To cover himself for future moves, Hitler endeavored to involve Mus-
solini in a tripartite alliance to include Japan to counterbalance the Franco-
Soviet pact and the Western Democracies. But the Duce put off the
Germans both at Munich and later in Rome during a meeting in October
with von Ribbentrop, declaring that the Italian people were happy with the
Axis but not yet prepared for an alliance.
25
Another important reason was
concealed. Still hopeful of a British decision to implement the Easter Ac-
cords, Ciano wrote: we must keep both doors open. An alliance [with
Germany and Japan] would now close, perhaps forever, one of the two,
and that not the less important. The Duce also seems to think so.
26
The
existing arrangement with the Axis was sufcient for Mussolini to exploit
the new balance of power that Munich had altered dramatically to Ger-
manys advantage. Having conquered Ethiopia in deance of the British,
Mussolini anticipated the resolution of Italys long list of grievances with
France left over from the Paris Peace Conference.
When Andre Francois-Poncet was appointed French ambassador to
Rome in early October 1938an appointment that involved the uncon-
ditional recognition of the Italian conquest of Ethiopiait seemed to pres-
age the end of the long-lived Franco-Italian hostility that had been
exacerbated by the Spanish Civil War. Francois-Poncet arrived determined
to establish a close personal rapport with Mussolini, but the sentiment was
not reciprocated. I shall do everything to help him break his head, the
Duce promised Ciano; I dont like the man. To reward the Munich
peacemaker, France must yield much to Italy: a free port at Djibouti, con-
trol of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railroad, Italian participation in the man-
agement of the Suez Canal Company, some form of condominium in
Tunisia, and, last but not least, Corsica, Italian and never gallicized.
27
Spain continued to be an important bone of contention; France must also
abandon the Republican cause. Heightened claims upon France went hand
in hand with the intensication of Italys anti-Semitic campaign.
Worse was not long in coming. As a counter to press talk of a full-edged
Anglo-French military alliance, Ciano on 30 November, in a speech wit-
nessed by Mussolini before the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations,
expatiated on the natural aspirations of the Italian people. Suddenly shouts
were heard from among the deputies and the public galleries: Tunis, Cor-
sica, Nice, Djibouti. Similar cries resonated in the square below the Pal-
azzo Venezia. In a clumsy effort, Fascist bosses, undoubtedly receiving a
tip from above, had inspired the demonstrators to impress on Paris that
Italian public opinion demanded high sacrices from an ungrateful wartime
ally. Indeed, resentment against a niggardly France ran deep throughout
Italy. But Mussolini was also feeling a mounting irritation against a ne-
glectful Germany. What dividends had he reaped from the Axis? Instead
of supporting Italys claims against France, von Ribbentrop was heading
for Paris to promote a Franco-German detente. Perhaps Italys post-Munich
gallophobia was a warning to the Germans to be more attentive to Rome,
lest Mussolini provoke a premature outbreak of war. But there were limits
to this game. As Ciano later admitted to von Ribbentrop, Italys demands
against France came in two packages. The rst contained immediate con-
cessions on Djibouti, the Addis Ababa Railway, and the Suez Canal, con-
cessions that would not necessarily require France to make territorial
sacrices. The second package contained the dynamite, Italys historical
claims, but Ciano hastened to add that Italy was prepared to bide its time.
There was yet another angle. By speaking tough to the French, Mussolini
hoped that the British would react by exercising moral suasion on France
to yield Italy territorial concessions in order to preserve the peace.
Instead of being cowed, the French took the opportunity presented by
the bellicose 30 November demonstrations to shout Never! to all of It-
alys demands. Mussolinis true intentions had been unmasked, and Cianos
subsequent disclaimers of any government involvement were dismissed. Al-
ready deep in appeasement to Germany, the French would not allow the
weaker Axis partner, Italy, to make of the Italian colony in Tunis the Su-
detenland of Italy or to allow the British to give a new mission to Lord
Runciman.
28
To defend themselves against a further charge of weakness,
the French answered Italian belligerency with menacing naval maneuvers,
and Daladier declared before the French Chamber on 16 December that
France would not cede an acre of her territories to Italy. Failing to stand
up to a powerful Germany, Daladier picked on Italy, the country that both
French civilians and military agreed was fatuous and absurd. The Duce
replied the next day by denouncing the Franco-Italian Agreements of Jan-
uary 1935 under the pretext that they had never been ratied and ex-
changed. Since France had failed to grant Italy a free hand in Ethiopia,
meaning the right of conquest, Mussolini wanted to tear up his quid pro
quo: the provision allowing for the ultimate extinction of the rights of
Italians residing in Tunis.
Following von Ribbentrops signing of the Franco-German nonaggres-
sion treaty in Paris on 6 December, the Duce moved to make repairs in the
listing Axis ship. Furthermore, he sought to dissipate any lingering tension
arising from his differences with Hitler over the Vienna Award of 1 No-
vember, which had denied Hungary, Italys protege, the right to annex
Ruthenia. Insecure about Hitlers loyalty, Mussolini prepared for the in-
evitable clash with the occidental democracies on 2 January by taking up
von Ribbentrops proposal to transform the Anti-Comintern Pact into a
hard and fast alliance.
29
By contemplating such a close tie with Germany,
even though no irrevocable move was intended, Mussolini risked denying
Italy the diplomatic leverage of the decisive weight. More important was
future Mediterranean expansion, which would be rendered possible only if
the Axis were given military teeth. So much for Italys maintaining an equal
distance among the Great Powers. Improved commercial relations with the
Third Reich were on his agenda too, as was the South Tyrol, where Mus-
solini, shedding his embarrassment, wanted Hitler to implement his prom-
ise to evacuate those Germans who wished to leave the region for the
Fatherland. Von Ribbentrop wanted to include Japan, an idea not opposed
in Rome, but when Tokyo hung back, Mussolini tabled tripartism in favor
of a strengthened bilateral tie with Berlin. Although von Ribbentrop was
chagrined by Japanese foot-dragging, Hitler was receptive to bilateralism
with Rome, because he needed an Italian cover while undertaking the oc-
cupation of the rump Czechoslovakia, plans that he carefully concealed
from the Duce. Italo-German staff talks were contemplated to prepare the
ground for military cooperation.
While puzzling through alliances and alignments with the Germans and
Japanese, a reluctant Mussolini, urged by Ciano, agreed to invite Cham-
berlain to Italy. Mussolini had not despaired of inspiring the British to
compete with Berlin for Italian friendship by doing his bidding in Paris.
Satised by Cianos assurance in early October that 10,000 Italian troops
would soon be pulled out of Spain, Chamberlain did his part in creating
an atmosphere of reconciliation by nally recognizing Italian sovereignty
over Ethiopia on 16 November 1938. The Easter Accords were at last in
force. In search of an enduring European settlement, Chamberlain hoped
to massage the ckle and unscrupulous Italians and to persuade Mus-
solini to intervene in Berlin to prevent further acts of German aggression.
To loosen the economic bonds tying Italy to Germany, Chamberlain in-
tended to dangle the bait of trade. His rst stop was Paris, where he hoped
to prevail on France to be more yielding to Italy, then on to Rome, where
he would persuade Mussolini to accept an armistice in Spain. Thus, at one
stroke, he would remove the greatest obstacle standing in the way of a
Franco-Italian rapprochement, weaken the Axis, and isolate Germany. In-
stead, due to Daladiers intractability, Chamberlain departed from Paris
with his hands tied.
When Chamberlain and Mussolini met on 11 January 1939 in Rome,
they talked a lot about Spain and practically not at all about Italys de-
mands on France. Mussolini delivered a roundabout apologia for Germany,
obeyed an air-tight silence on what little he knew about the Fu hrers future
projects, and characterized the Western Powers as the warmongers. In the
stilted but polite atmosphere, Mussolini was unable to separate the British
from the French, while Chamberlain failed to loosen the bond between the
Duce and the Fu hrer. The British man of peace and compromise impressed
Mussolini in Rome no more than he had in Munich. Chamberlains cour-
teous words and unmilitary bearing were taken as conrmation that the
British lions roar had turned into an effeminate smile. While taking pains
to be agreeable, Mussolini conded to Ciano that Chamberlain and Vis-
count Halifax are not made of the same stuff as the Francis Drakes and
the other magnicent adventurers who created the empire.
30
Ciano made
similar mocking asides. Oblivious of Fascist scorn, Chamberlain departed
Rome heartened by Mussolinis pleasant farewell and the warm reception
afforded him by the Romans. As his train pulled away, he beamed as the
British colony, assembled on the platform, serenaded him with For hes a
jolly good fellow.
During the latter part of January, the Italians through an obscure go-
between, dropped the French a hint to reopen a dialogue with Rome. Re-
lieved that Chamberlain was not applying pressure on them to make
concessions to Italy, the French sent Paul Baudouin, the director-general of
the Banque dIndochine, as a special emissary to Rome on 1 February.
Everything was hush-hush; not even Francois-Poncet was apprised, since
he was at this time as suspicious of Italian intentions as was Daladier.
Auspices for a Franco-Italian modus vivendi seemed improved, since the
obstacle of Spain, formerly insurmountable, had presumably been removed
by Francos capture of Barcelona in late January 1939. Would the Italians
capitalize on the Nationalists imminent victory by heightening their de-
mands on Paris? Or would the cessation of Communist encirclement and
French military intervention in the Iberian peninsula render the Italians
more reasonable? According to Baudouins report, the Italians submitted
reduced claims: a free zone at Djibouti, acquisition of shares of the Dji-
bouti-Addis Ababa railroad, appointment to several seats on the adminis-
tration of the Suez Canal, and the right of Italians residing in Tunisia to
refuse naturalization. There was no talk of Italian acquisition of the Bal-
earics or of French cession of colonial territory to Italy, which tallied with
Daladiers position that France would suffer no diminution of sovereignty
in its colonial spheres. France, Ciano advised, should launch Baudouins
program through ofcial channels.
But Mussolini lost interest in detente and shifted back into a war mode
when Baudouins visit was leaked in the anti-Fascist French press and after
Hitler in a major speech on 30 January promised German military support
in case of an unprovoked war against Italy. On 4 February, the Duce gave
vent to his soaring ambitions before the Fascist Grand Council. Italy had
no free access to the oceans and was a prisoner in the Mediterranean; the
bars of this prison were Corsica, Tunisia, Malta, and Cyprus, its sentinels
Gibraltar and Cyprus. Italys object must be to break the prison bars and
march to the oceans. To prepare for the inevitable retaliation by the West-
ern Powers, Italy must cover itself in Europe by consolidating the Axis and
lining up Franco as an Italian ally. In the style of Hitler, Italian military
reinforcements were moved into Libya, as if to present the French with a
choice between concessions and war. During the middle of February, Mus-
solinis anti-French press was so shrill as to make the Nazi press by
comparison seem timid and full of tact.
31
These actions, as well as Mus-
solinis oscillations between moderation and bellicosity, convinced Daladier
that negotiations with Italy rested on constantly shifting sands and that
French concessions would only invite heightened Italian demands rather
than a stable and enduring peace. Daladier let Baudouins memoranda
drop; France would not expose itself to the risk of being eaten like an
artichoke leaf-by-leaf.
32
But any thought in Rome of alliance with Germany went up in smoke
when, once again, Hitler surprised the Italiansand the worldby his
lightning occupation of Prague on 15 March 1939. Hitler had not just
broken his Munich promises; he had grabbed non-German territory. Dis-
mayed by the disappearance of Czechoslovakia, the British abandoned ap-
peasement on 31 March by granting Poland a unilateral guarantee to
uphold its independence, if not its integrity; this Hitler denounced as a
move to encircle his country. Having already sold their Czech ally down
the river, the French remained paralyzed behind the Maginot Line.
The Italians were frankly unconcerned about the fate of the Czechs but
felt the sting of a German slap in their faces. Hitler had torn up an agree-
ment that they had orchestrated, and he had reaped further advantages
from the Axis while leaving Mussolini empty-handed. The Duce felt that
he had lost parity in the Axis. But the Italians could not claim that they
had been left completely in the dark. Von Ribbentrop had given Mussolini
a taste of what was to come the previous October: Czechoslovakia can
be considered as liquidated. In September it would have required two weeks
to carry out the invasion, today forty-eight hours would sufce.
33
There
were many other such innuendoes scattered throughout the Italo-German
correspondence, for talk of war, any war, was von Ribbentrops favorite
pastime. The Italians invariably overlooked Nazi braggadocio and were
consistently caught off balance by unexpected and brazen German initia-
tives. Now they jumped to the conclusion that German legions were poised
to descend from the mountains of Croatia to the shores of the Adriatic.
Still, after a moment of shock and anger, the Duce held to the course of
the Axis. Although aware of the hostile reaction of the Italian people and
convinced that Prussian hegemony in Europe was an unalterable reality, he
professed loyalty to the alliance the day after the Prague coup.
34
But Ciano
was dismayed over German treachery; in many talks, he seemed to prevail
on the Duce to reconsider the Axis. During the last few days he [Mus-
solini] has meditated a great deal about our discussion and agrees that it
is now impossible to present to the Italian people the idea of an alliance
with Germany. Even the stones would cry out against it.
35
They decided
to work on a plan for an accord with the Western Powers.
36
Mussolinis
overriding fear was Croatia: No one would tolerate the sight of a swastika
in the Adriatic.
37
All this talk of diplomatic revolution was more an impetuous reaction
to yet another German fait accompli, coupled with an exaggerated fear of
German machinations in Croatia, than a readiness to repair the tattered
relations between Italy and France through serious negotiations. Further-
more, Mussolini was congenitally incapable of admitting a mistake when
the Italian critics of the Axis, both inside and outside the Fascist hierar-
chySenator Luigi Federzoni, Giuseppe Bottai, Italo Balbo, Grandi, the
Catholics, the despised bourgeoisie, and the kingturned out to be right.
Repudiation of Hitler would have meant a renunciation of totalitarianism
at home and the abandonment of the Fascist new man.
38
To be sure,
radical Fascist revolution had long ago given way to all power to the dic-
tator, but the Duce would not destabilize Mussolinianismo by discarding
the recent Fascist myth of unshakable unity with the kindred regime in
Berlin. Moreover, breaking from Hitler would arrest the momentum of
Italian expansion. Mussolini was caught in an Axis vice.
The Germans hastened to assure Rome that their seizure of Prague would
not be a prelude to a strike against Croatia; the masters of the Third Reich
knew that Mussolini could be won back by rm disclaimers of any inten-
tion to poach on Italys vital spaces in the Adriatic and the Mediterra-
nean.
39
Whereas Ciano wanted an indenite postponement of the alliance
while he explored alternatives with the Western Powers, the Duces mind
was eased by Ambassador Hans Georg von Mackensens smooth disavow-
als and von Ribbentrops unctuous reassurances. We cannot change pol-
itics, Mussolini told Ciano; We are not prostitutes.
40
Nonetheless, in
the aftermath of the Anschluss and Prague, Mussolini puzzled over a prob-
lem easily dened but difcult to resolve: how to reestablish an equilibrium
in the Axis and keep Hitler under harness.
On 26 March, Mussolini addressed the Blackshirts with words suscep-
tible to a variety of interpretations. Italy would never again be an unreliable
ally, he proclaimed; Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were bound indissol-
ubly together by a common revolutionary ideology in direct antithesis to
all other conceptions of contemporary civilization.
41
De rigueur for Fascist
radicals, this opener did not presage a total commitment to the Axis. No
matter how much these impulses overshadowed Mussolinis gnawing fear
of Hitler and runaway German power, he was not yet prepared to abandon
his typical oscillations between Berlin and the Western Powers in order to
buy time for military rearmament and secure maximum diplomatic nego-
tiating leverage for Italy. Mussolinis claim of Italys vital spaces in the
Adriatic region constituted a clear warning to the Germans to refrain from
any move there themselves. A grudging hand was extended to the French,
if not in the most polite fashion. Since Franco stood on the verge of victory
(Madrid fell two days later), Mussolini observed, a major barricade be-
tween France and Italy had fallen. Eschewing the use of any familial Latin
metaphors, he suggested discussions with France on Tunis, Djibouti, and
the Suez Canal based on hard-nosed Realpolitik. But here Mussolini was
playing a mind game on himself. Having been treated roughly by the Ger-
mans, he thought it possible to distance Italy from the Axis while still
making demands on France.
The Vatican was impressed and the British hopeful that the Franco-
Italian quarrel, whose resolution was indispensable to European peace,
might yet yield to negotiation. Francois-Poncet, abandoning his opposition
to appeasing Italy, saw a gleam of light; the speech was a maneuver to
incite us to conversation.
42
After the shock of Prague, he reasoned, the
Italians were searching for ways to loosen their ties with Berlin. Rome could
not help but notice that, after the Western Powers had bent over backwards
to appease Hitler with territory, it was now Italys turn to be given a fair
hearing over unfullled claims left over from the Paris Peace Conference.
Bonnet, Laval, Lord Perth, and Halifax all argued that the time was ripe
for France to pay off its long overdue colonial debt to Italy. If Mussolini
was accorded respect as a leader of a Great Power of equal standing, he
would whittle down his demands to reasonable proportions. Chamberlain,
in particular, fretted over Daladiers obstruction. But the French prime min-
ister refused to be moved from his belief that concessions from Paris would
only stimulate Rome to make fresh demands. And quite rightly. At this
time, Daladier was the lone statesman in the West who did not suffer from
the delusion that Mussolini was still a free agent strong enough to conduct
a true policy of equidistance and thereby ready to submit a shortened list
of binding demands on France. Supported by the French Council of Min-
isters, which held that the dictators were acting in concert, Daladier deliv-
ered a radio address on 29 March in which he scotched all rumors of
French concessions to Italy. Feeling stonewalled by Paris, Mussolini chose
to derail the German Balkan express by his own lightning attack on Al-
bania.
INVASION OF ALBANIA
Like Italys intervention in Spain, the invasion of Albania was originally
Cianos brainchild. He had already tried to improve his standing among
the veteran Fascist rst wave, who barely concealed their contempt for the
latecomers precocious arrogance, soft life, lightweight banter, and privi-
leged access to the Duce. To polish his Fascist image, Ciano negotiated the
anti-Comintern pact, ingratiated himself with the Nazis, and made dashing
bombing raids on defenseless civilians. On contemplating the invasion of
Albania, the frivolous foreign minister took no account of the painful his-
torical antecedents. Sidney Sonnino, who similarly lacked military knowl-
edge, had seized control of the Albanian campaign from the Supreme
Command in 1916, with dire consequences for both the Allied cause and
the prestige of Italian arms. Faced by an unexpected rush of Habsburg
troops on Durazzo, Sonnino was compelled to issue the order for the evac-
uation of the Albanian port in 1916 to escape entrapment. Cianos con-
tempt for history was matched by his ignorance of military logistics and
basic economics. The Albanian terrain was simply ill-suited for warfare,
and the country contained few accessible raw materials. The Italian gov-
ernment would have to spend a small fortune to build up an infrastructure
before any nancier would risk heavy investment in this inhospitable eco-
nomic environment. The Albanian clans could be bought but not subdued;
control could be established over the port towns but not over the craggy
mountains in the hinterland, where tribesmen in earlier centuries had hurled
back would-be conquerors from all directions.
The Albanian venture was no spontaneous decision. As early as the late
summer of 1937, Ciano had turned the idea over in his mind; Hitlers
annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland merely accelerated his plans for
invasion to gain compensation for Italy.
43
While Cianos agents were or-
dered in May 1938 to prepare the local terrain and to recruit dissident
politicians opposed to the rule of King Ahmed Zogu, General Alberto Par-
iani was encouraged to organize a coup. Mussolini told Ciano on 18 May
to inform von Ribbentrop that since the Albanian question was a family
matter, Germany should keep its hands off.
44
A month later, the Duce
conrmed his intention to act and occupy Albania before the end of
1939.
45
In January 1939, Ciano paid Milan Stojadinovic a visit to pro-
mote his plans for Albania. On their numerous hunting expeditions, they
pondered whether King Zogu should be replaced or Albania be partitioned
between them. If Italy should acquire Albanian territory, Yugoslavia could
help itself to the Greek port of Salonika. Nothing denite was worked out.
Cianos mind was still unsettled on the details of territorial delimitation,
and Stojadinovic was hamstrung by the prince regent Paul, who wanted no
more Albanians inside his frontiers and no more Fascism in his country.
46
Stojadinovics loose talk with Ciano strengthened Pauls determination to
ease his prime minister out of ofce at the next opportunity.
Cianos talks with Stojadinovic and his many truculent asides leave one
with the impression that he burned with the desire to emulate Germany
and, at the same time, to check its Drang nach Su dosten. In his view, Italy
could not afford to stand still while Germany expanded; moreover, Hitler
needed to be taught that Mussolini, too, could act on his own and defy
the world. It was now time for Rome to catch Berlin by surprise rather
than always the other way around. Ciano cared not one whit about the
reaction of France, which still had important interests to defend in the
lower Balkans, but he hoped to gain Britains acquiescence, no matter that
the Gentlemans Agreement obliged the two powers to respect the status
quo in the Mediterranean.
Mussolini had been a touch more reserved, preferring to await the li-
quidation of the Spanish affair and the stipulation of an alliance with Ger-
many before moving ahead on Albania.
47
A military solution would have
to be postponed, he feared, because Hitler would take advantage of a
shaken Yugoslavia by promoting the independence of Croatia under
German inuence. He would be satised with an Italian protectorate over
the little mountain kingdom by means of an accord with King Zogu.
48
Following Hitlers seizure of Prague, Mussolini ordered the abandonment
of preparations for the attack against Albania in order to be prepared for
a suspected German attack on Yugoslavia.
49
Three events conspired to push
Mussolini over the brink: Stojadinovics resignation on 3 February, which
squelched further talk of Albanias partition; Germanys assurance that the
Balkans and Mediterranean lay within the Italian sphere of interest;
50
and
Daladiers rebuff of 29 March, which extinguished any lingering thought
of detente with France. On 7 April, Italian troops disembarked on the
shores of Albania.
The expedition did not have clear sailing. Improvised at the last moment,
the amphibious landing was disorderly. There had been talk of invasion
during the rst week of February 1939prior to the German annexation
of the rump Czech statebut no battle plan had been worked up. The
chief of general staff was not informed of the invasion target date until 29
March. In these chaotic conditions, it was small wonder that a serious
breakdown in military coordination should occur and that contact should
misre between Rome and the Italian-subsidized Albanian rebels who were
supposed to move against the royal family. Fortunately for the Italian army,
King Zogu put up practically no resistance. Still, what luckily turned out
to be a military promenade strained an already hard-pressed Italian econ-
omy and showed up serious shortcomings in Italys military equipment and
leadership.
The British and French expressed their displeasure on 13 April by ac-
cording a unilateral guarantee to Greece and Romania against any future
Italian aggression. This was followed on 12 May by an Anglo-Turkish
declaration of mutual support in the event of aggression leading to war in
the Mediterranean; the declaration not only served as a warning but also
reopened an old wound inicted on the Italians at the Paris Peace Confer-
ence when the Allies refused to uphold Italian treaty rights in Anatolia.
Hardly less worrisome to the Italians, the British were deep in negotiations
with the Soviet Union, which, if brought to fruition, would let Communism
loose in Europe. The British had downgraded their appeasement of the
dictators; the enactment of national conscription in April drove the point
home. Still, Chamberlain doggedly clung to the possibility of cooperation
with Italy against the Nazi menace, in spite of Mussolinis violation of the
Easter Accords by his occupation of Albania. Nor did the British let up on
exhorting the French to ameliorate their relations with Italy as the key to
peace.
51
But what impressed the Italians were not the discreet British in-
terventions in Paris but the widely publicized guarantees that made them
feel, like the Germans, victims of Allied encirclement. The outcome of
the Albanian adventure was ironic. Launched basically as an Italian warn-
ing to Germany, it ended up instead with a British pledge to defend the
Eastern Mediterranean against Italian pretensions. While the democracies
wagged censorious ngers, the Germans, having snapped up Prague with-
out opposition from anyone, ooded Rome with expressions of solidarity
and congratulations over Italys consolation prize.
PACT OF STEEL
Field marshal Go ring paid Rome a visit during 1417 April to dissipate
Italian anger over Hitlers seizure of Prague. He assured his hosts that Yu-
goslavia was in the Italian sphere. Pleased by this, the Duce expressed the
view that war against the democracies was inevitable; destiny summoned
the Axis to meet the threat united and armed to the teeth; by 19421943,
Armageddon.
The current hot European issue manufactured by Germany was Poland.
After digesting the rump Czech state, Hitler turned on the Warsaw gov-
ernment and made strident claims to the free city of Danzig and the Cor-
ridor. After Hitlers 22 March takeover of the Memel territory, which had
been removed from Germany by the Versailles treaty and had fallen under
Lithuanian control, the Poles knew their turn was next. Go ring took care
not to alarm the Italians by apprising them of Hitlers ultimate intention
to shatter Poland in a Blitzkrieg attack and to pick up the pieces he
wanted.
52
There was an obvious disparity between Go rings anodyne comments on
Poland and Hitlers hysterical speeches. Alarmed in April by Germanys
denunciation of its friendship pact with Poland, Ciano hastened to keep
the roads to both Berlin and Paris open, seeking a meeting with von Rib-
bentrop to get a better read on Hitler and assuring Francois-Poncet that he
favored agreement between their two countries. But France was offended
by Italys action in Albania and unsure of Mussolinis ultimate goals. Were
the Italian demands communicated to Paul Baudouin in February and re-
vealed to the British merely a minimum, preparatory to a broader agenda
once the two sides sat down to serious work?
53
In place of Spain, Tunis
now loomed as the major stumbling block. Angered over the French insis-
tence that resident Italians must become French citizens, Mussolini seemed
intent on reinstating the 1896 convention that Paris had unilaterally ab-
rogated at the end of the Great War. Would he also demand southern
border rectications that would allow Italy to add territories to Cyrenaica?
Rather than pin Mussolini down, Daladier preferred teaching him a les-
son: Italy can and should be smashed in the early stages of a war and our
vital lines of communication assured.
54
Daladier had no desire to treat
with a leader who fancied France a disintegrating country and who, in his
mind, longed to acquire his countrys colonial territory by means of vio-
lence and extortion. No matter what France brought to the table, according
to Daladier, Mussolini would never abandon the Axis. But London insis-
tently prodded Daladier to compose the Franco-Italian quarrel in order to
keep the Duce out of the German orbit.
55
In the British view, Mussolini
needed to be pampered with respectful treatment and a generous initiative.
Daladier bent but did not break. While attempting to sidetrack Whitehall
by warning that Italy was preparing a coup against Gibraltar, he furtively
authorized Francois-Poncet on 3 May to pursue Cianos initiative.
On that same day, the Pope stepped in by proposing a ve-power con-
ference, to include France, Germany, Britain, Italy, and Poland, that would
treat the Franco-Italian and German-Polish controversies as an ensemble.
56
From the Italian standpoint, there were advantages in this; a German war
against Poland over Danzig could be averted, and concessions for Italy
could be wrenched from France in a Munich atmosphere crackling with
Axis intimidation. Nevertheless, Mussolini did not want the Pope to up-
stage him by sponsoring such an important diplomatic conference where
Italy and Germany would be outnumbered three to two. In any event, it
was too late. Britain had already given Poland a unilateral guarantee, and
Bonnet, though prepared to appease Italy with limited concessions in bi-
lateral negotiations, rejected any linkage between the two sets of contro-
versies in a ve-power conference. France would not be confronted by the
dictators while Britain applied pressure on everyone to be accommodating
in the name of peace. Notwithstanding Francois-Poncets optimism that
negotiations could proceed on Baudouins proposals, Daladier reverted to
outright intransigence; he would not pay blackmail to a bandit who in
his mind was besieged by growing popular discontent and under re from
the military, the king, and anti-Nazi Fascist luminaries.
57
The Italians themselves seemed at odds. Ciano was apparently not averse
to exploring talks with France. Mussolini, although aware of the advan-
tages that an agreement with France would have in enabling him to ap-
proach Hitler as an equal within the framework of the Axis, had already
told his son-in-law on 26 April to place Paris on hold until after the treaty
with Germany was in place.
58
No matter what favorable impression the
Duce conveyed to the Vatican, he sidetracked the Popes proposals, as well
as bilateral talks with France, by providing Ciano with a memorandum to
submit to von Ribbentrop that summarized Italys interests and ambitions
and posed the question of an alliance. Although Italy must have peace over
the next three years, Mussolini declared his readiness, depending on To-
kyos pleasure, to conclude either a tripartite or a bilateral pact. He did
not shrink from the ultimate commitment: The military accords must be
carefully prepared in order thatthe circumstances clearly speciedthey
may be invoked almost automatically.
59
In his wish to dissipate the hard
feelings in Berlin stemming from Italys repudiation of the Triple Alliance
in 1914, Mussolini was ready to bind his country hand and foot to Ger-
many: peace for three years, so as to be retooled and fully prepared; then
war against the Western Powers in an alliance that would close off the
escape hatches for both Axis partners.
When von Ribbentrop and Ciano met at Milan during 67 May, much
still needed to be cleared up. The long-held suspicion in Berlin that Mus-
solini was planning an attack on France remained very much alive; the
Germans did not fully understand that Mussolinis talk of war was bluster.
On the other hand, the Italians, left in the dark by the Germans, failed to
draw the conclusion that Danzig and the Corridor were smokescreens con-
cealing Hitlers intention of gobbling up Poland. Von Ribbentrop bore with
him three drafts of an alliance, while Ciano had at his disposal Mussolinis
memorandum.
Von Ribbentrops heart lay in an accord with Japan, to convert the Anti-
Comintern Pact into a threatening military alliance against Britain, France,
and eventually the United States. A strictly bilateral alliance with Italy in-
terested him far less. But von Ribbentrop was hampered by the usual Jap-
anese snag. The Tokyo government, faced with strong opposition from the
navy, refused to countenance anything other than an alliance against the
Soviet Union, an idea that tted well with the anti-Bolshevik strain in Nazi
ideology, but not with Hitlers current Realpolitik. The Fu hrers immediate
aim was to immobilize the Western Powers and isolate Poland for a local-
ized war by means of a tactical detente with Stalin. Von Ribbentrop took
care not to spell this out to Ciano, leaving the impression that the Polish
question was neither critical nor irreconcilable. He further downplayed the
feeling of crisis in Berlin by emphasizing Germanys absolute need for peace
over the next ve years. The ruse worked. Ciano found von Ribbentrop,
whom he personally disliked, surprisingly free of bellicosity and out of
character as the bearer of a policy of moderation and understanding.
60
But while Ciano in Milan was thus tranquilized by the slowing down
of the speed of German dynamism,
61
Mussolini in Rome burned over the
glacial reception that the Milanese gave the German foreign minister, and
he was outraged by the French press, which reported the hootings of the
crowd. Anti-Fascism needed to be taught a lesson by a demonstrative show
of Axis solidarity. On the evening of 6 May, Mussolini ordered Ciano by
phone to sign an alliance with Germany. Von Ribbentrop informed Berlin
and received a quick approval from Hitler. On 12 May, a German draft
was drawn up, unimpeded by Italy. Ciano regarded the provisions as real
dynamite but offered no modication of substance. Mussolini gave his
approval on 17 May and on the next day completely lost interest in the
idea of discussing the Franco-Italian question in a ve-power conference
sponsored by the Vatican.
62
Von Ribbentrop received Italys highest dec-
oration, and Ciano traveled to Berlin on 22 May to sign the alliance.
The Pact of Steel, as the alliance was dubbed (Mussolini rst wanted it
called the Pact in Blood), represents one of the most irresponsibly offen-
sive alliances in the annals of modern European diplomacy; it also reveals
Fascist diplomacy at its sloppiest. Italy was required to commit its forces
in support of Germany should Hitler become involved in war, even a war
of his own making. Nothing was put to paper about avoiding war for three
years and no delimitation of spheres of inuence in the Balkans was
mapped out. The signicance of the Soviet-German rapprochement as part
of Hitlers strategy to isolate Poland ew by the Italians without notice.
Mussolini intended to acquire the right to be consulted in order to delay
war but threw caution to the winds by ignoring safeguards and qualifying
phrases. Finally, if belatedly, the Duce sensed he had fallen into a trap. To
ll in a gaping hole in the alliance, he sent General Ugo Cavallero to Berlin
on 5 June armed with a memorandum that stated Italys need for peace
over the next three years.
63
By this move, Mussolini revealed his fears,
showing the Germans that his talk of war was pure strut and swagger.
Would Hitler ever have postponed German dynamism by allowing the Ital-
ians formally to amend the alliance with the Cavallero Memorandum that
called for an extended period of peace? What was the purpose of the Pact
of Steel anywaypeace or war? Mussolini was not always sure; he seemed
desirous only of obtaining Hitlers faith in his loyalty and martial spirit.
The Fu hrer expressed himself in complete accord with the memorandum
and stated that he was prepared to meet with Mussolini at the Brenner,
perhaps to explore the possibilities of war issuing from Germanys dispute
with Poland over Danzig.
64
But Mussolini evaded the invitation; the Fu h-
rers word would sufce.
Given Mussolinis unexpected carte blanche, the Germans had been able
to work their own primary objective into the alliance: the isolation of Po-
land as a prelude to a war of annihilation. The crusade against the ideo-
logical indels residing in the Kremlin would be postponed sine die in favor
of neutrality sweet talk aimed at Stalin to keep the Soviet Union out of an
alliance with the West. Denied military cooperation with Moscow, the
Western Powers would be deterred from going to war to save Poland from
Germany. The Duce had set himself up as a perfect foil for Hitler. Unin-
formed by the Fu hrer of his train of thought, the Duce, by Italys attach-
ment to the alliance with Germany, unwittingly enabled Hitler to intimidate
the democracies with a solid Axis front. Of course, Mussolini had intended
Italy to be the intimidator, not Germany. On 23 May, in a secret session,
Hitler laid before his generals his intention of pursuing Lebensraum by
obliterating Poland at the rst opportunity. Although Hitler meant his war
to be localized, he saw no point in explaining his reasons to Mussolini,
fearing that the Duce, to fend off a general conict, would either call for
another Munich to rob him of his war or leave him high and dry by pulling
out of the Axis.
Compounding his personalized and careless diplomacy, Mussolini incor-
rectly gauged events. Worried that Britains recent accords of mutual as-
sistance with Turkey and its unilateral guarantee to Greece would block
further Italian moves, he did not want the Western Democracies to think
that the Axis had suffered a setback. By signing an alliance with Hitler, he
would show Britain that its encirclement policies had boomeranged and his
own people that Italy was still a dynamic force in Europe. Above all, Mus-
solini meant to use the Pact of Steel to wheedle concessions from the
French. But the Duce, like Hitler, failed to realize that totalitarian aggres-
sion and diplomatic blackmail would no longer go unanswered. With the
occupation of Prague and Albania, a period of European history had come
to an end and a new one had begun; Western appeasement had been re-
placed by a policy of resistance. Among the Great Powers of Europe, that
left only Italy and the Soviet Union to buy off Hitler. Furthermore, Mus-
solini erroneously calculated that the Pact of Steel would enable him to
circumscribe Hitlers dynamism by the obligation of mutual consultation
in the alliance; he mistakenly believed that Britain would appreciate his
insiders role in Berlin as a brake on the policy of the Third Reich. But was
it realistic to believe that Hitler would honor the alliance by granting Italy
privileged status in Germanys diplomacy? Here once again, Mussolinis
blind-eye toward Germany distorted his Realpolitik. Although repeatedly
declaring that the Western Powers were inwardly decaying, the Duce still
knew that they would not expire from Italian threats; he would need
Hitlers support to turn the Mediterranean into an Italian sea. Was this not
an idle dream that overlooked the failure of Germans from Bismarck
through Hitler to honor their promises, both written and oral, to support
Italys imperialism? At the same time, although powered by the conviction
that German hegemony was irreversible, Mussolini nursed the illusion of
using the Pact of Steel to impose Italys war timetable on Hitler and to
restrain him from prematurely undertaking a mad-dog act against Poland
that would involve Italy in a European war it was nowhere near ready to
ght. Feeding the delusion in Mussolinis diplomacy was a growing fatal-
ism: that events were outrunning his ability to control them and that Italy
was fast falling behind the rapid rearmament pace set by Hitlers Germany.
NOTES
2. Paul Schmidt, Statist Auf Diplomatischer Bu hne, 19231945 (Bonn: Ath-
ena um, 1950), 38788; Ciano, Diary 19371938, 112.
3. OO, XXIX: 9697.
5. Ciano, Diary 19371938, 115.
6. OO, XXIX: 99100.
8. Ciano, Diary 19371938, 134.
9. The two leading books on the subject are Meir Michaelis, Mussolini and the
Jews (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), and Renzo De Felice, Storia degli ebrei
italiani sotto il fascismo (Turin: Einaudi, 1972).
10. Ciano, Diary 19371938, 135.
11. Mario Toscano, The Origins of the Pact of Steel (Baltimore, Md.: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1967), 2930.
12. Ciano, Diary 19371938, 121
13. Giuseppe Bottai, Diario 19351944 (Milan: Rizzoli, 1989), 129; Ciano, Di-
ary 19371938, 11920.
14. Ibid., 145.
15. Ibid., 148.
16. Ibid., 156.
17. Ibid., 162.
18. Dino Grandi, Il mio paese (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1985), 445.
19. DBFP, 3, II, 1159, 28 September 1938.
20. DBFP, 3, II, 1231, 30 September 1938.
21. Filippo Anfuso, Da Palazzo Venezia al Lago di Garda 19361945 (Bologna:
Capelli, 1957), 7276.
22. Cianos adulatory description of Mussolinis behavior, Diary 19371938,
167.
23. Cited in Telford Taylor, Munich: The Price of Peace (New York: Vantage
Books, 1980), 42.
24. Ciano, Diary 19371938, 161, 163.
26. Ciano, Diary 19371938, 185.
27. Ciano, Cianos Diplomatic Papers, 25051, 258; Ciano, Diary 19371938,
191.
28. DBFP, 3, III, 474, 5 December 1938.
29. Ciano, Cianos Diplomatic Papers, 24246, 25859; Count Galeazzo Ciano,
The Ciano Diaries 19391943, ed. Hugh Gibson (New York: Doubleday,
1946), 3.
30. Ibid., 10. For a more detailed description of Chamberlains visit to Rome,
see Paul Stafford, The Chamberlain-Halifax visit to Rome: a reappraisal, English
Historical Review, 98 (January 1983): 61100.
31. DDF, 2, XIV, 130, 16 February 1939.
32. Ibid.
34. Ciano, Diary 19371938, 4445.
35. Ibid., 4748.
36. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 48.
37. Ibid., 46.
38. Point made by De Felice, Mussolini il duce, 2: 59293.
40. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 49.
41. OO, 29: 251.
42. Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, La Decadence (19321939) (Paris: Imprimerie Na-
tionale, 1979), 413.
43. Ciano, Diary 19371938, 4, 6.
44. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 118.
45. Ibid., 128.
47. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 36.
49. Toscano, The Origins of the Pact of Steel, 170.
50. Donatella Bolech Cecchi, Non bruciare ponti con Roma (Milan: Giuffre`,
1986), 239.
52. DGFP, D, VI, 205 and 211, 15 and 18 April 1939.
53. DBFP, 3, V, 369 and 603, 5 and 23 May 1939.
54. DBFP, 3, V, 106, 9 April 1939.
55. DBFP, 3, V, 235, 20 April 1939.
56. Italo Garzia, Pio XII e lItalia nella seconda guerra mondiale (Trent: Mar-
celliana, 1988), 60.
57. FRUS, 1939, I: 17981.
58. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 7071.
59. Cianos memo can be found in Toscano, The Origins of the Pact of Steel,
28990.
60. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 78.
61. Ibid.
62. DGFP, D, 6, 341, 18 May 1939.
63. DDI, 8, XII, 59, 30 May 1939.
64. DDI, 8, XII, 130, 6 June 1939; ibid., 535, 11 July 1939.
CHAPTER 11
War
NONBELLIGERENCY
In the tension-lled months following the signature of the Pact of Steel on
22 May 1939, Mussolini strove to be a peacemaker and to serve as a brake
on Hitlerbut only when general war threatened and hope still existed of
gaining territory from the Allies by intimidation or by force, under the
growing shadow of the Third Reich. Mussolini and Ciano pursued their
own peace policy by soliciting the West to abandon its guarantees to Po-
land, Romania, and Greece, which, they argued, stood as provocations to
the Axis Powers. This Italian make-believe was matched by its dream of a
dynamic diplomacy generated by support of a Croatian uprising against
the Serb-dominated Belgrade regime. But Joseph Goebbels interrupted these
reveries on 17 June in a violent speech at Danzig, in which he accused the
Poles of aggression against the city and reafrmed the German claim to its
return. Because this was the same language that had previously been leveled
at Vienna and Prague, it aroused alarm in most of the capitals of Europe.
But not in Rome. Mussolini and Ciano continued to bask in the illusion
that the Fu hrer, having agreed to a long period of peace, would rant and
rave against the Poles and then, after intimidation had done its work, step
back from the brink and accept Danzig and the Corridor at a European
conference presided over by Italy. Dismissing the German propaganda bar-
rage as typical Nazi hyperbole, Ciano left for Spain on 9 July for a ten-
day visit.
1
Acting on another fundamental misconception, Mussolini concluded
that, thanks to the consultative clause of the Pact of Steel, he was in a
better position than ever for keeping Hitler chained to peace. Britain was
expected to reciprocate by placing pressure on France to make concessions
to Italy. Chamberlain took up the cue by asking Mussolini to restrain Hitler
from a coup in Danzig and pointing out to Daladier on 14 July that the
question of war or peace depended on a settlement of Franco-Italian dif-
ferences.
2
Daladier replied on 24 July that all Rome would understand was
tough talk and that a new French initiative would be considered by Mus-
solini as proof of weakness. Chamberlain made no further demarche in
Paris.
Mussolini showed his discontent over the lack of movement in the West
by lecturing the British about his delity to the German alliance and blam-
ing Poland for the problem of Danzig.
3
Just as Chamberlain was loath to
come down too hard on the French, Mussolini had little disposition to act
as a brake on Hitler if there was no threat of a general war. His real
preference was to stand on the underlying assumptions of the Cavallero
Memorandum: War between the plutocratic, and therefore egoistic and
conservative nations, and the populated and poor is inevitable. To fore-
stall a projected alliance between Britain, France, and the Soviet Union,
Italy and Germany would break the unity of the Western Powers, accelerate
the internal disintegration of their societies, and incite revolts in their col-
onies. Since Rome was not predisposed to ease tensions with France, there
was no further reason to mufe Italys claims on Tunisia, Djibouti, and the
Suez Canal.
4
If, during the rst two weeks of July, Ciano put his trust in von Ribben-
trops assurances that there would be no war over Danzig unless Polish
provocations compelled the Fu hrer to react, the Italian ambassador in
Berlin, Bernardo Attolico, was much less sanguine about German inten-
tions. He reported that Hitler, convinced that Britain and France would
not move in a German war against Poland, was feverishly making plans
against the Poles and wanted to meet with Mussolini before launching
them.
5
His warnings went unheeded in Rome. Sure that the German-Polish
crisis would end up in a new European compromise without exploding into
an open conict, Ciano wrote back that a visit to Italy by the Fu hrer during
August was not opportune; perhaps the following month.
6
Shunning the
hysterical Attolico, Ciano listened to his brother-in-law Massimo Mag-
istrati, the rst counselor of the Italian embassy in Berlin, who played down
Hitlers aggressive intentions, advised that Italy rely on his word, and
pointed out that it was dishonorable for Italy to run after Germany in its
panic that the Fu hrer was ready to move.
7
It was Mussolini, not Ciano, who rst grew anxious over the mounting
tension between Germany and Poland over Danzig. After many evasions,
he prepared himself to take up Hitlers urgent requests for a meeting at the
Brenner to talk about the Polish crisis. Spurred by the threat of a general
War 201
war, which his country was unprepared to ght, the Duce launched a pro-
posal on 24 July for another conference, with a view to restraining Hitler
and blackmailing the democracies into making concessions to Italy. Would
Mussolini be able to nd a formula capable of saving the peace while main-
taining the life of the Axis? To placate Berlin, assurances were in order. If
Germany has to mobilize, Italy will do so likewise and at the same time.
8
But behind the bravado lay compelling diplomatic arguments for postpon-
ing the inevitable showdown with the Western Powers. A war of nerves
suited the Axis better; a conference would provide a popular way of hand-
ing Danzig over to Germany. If the democracies refused to confer, they
would put themselves in the wrong, and, according to the information at
Mussolinis disposal, Poland and the Western Powers were in earnest and
intended to ght.
9
Given this proof that Italy would not follow Germany
blindly, von Ribbentrop scotched Mussolinis proposed conference on 26
July; ve days later, Hitler canceled the Brenner meeting. Just as Attolico
suspected, the Fu hrer was determined to go his own way.
10
By 6 August, Ciano had nally come to his senses. Rather than a panic-
monger, Attolico had been prescient in pointing out that Germany was on
the verge of a war against Poland in which Italy was expected to ght. To
ward off catastrophe, Ciano proposed a meeting with von Ribbentrop.
Needing no persuasion, Mussolini gave Ciano instructions the following
day to inform the Germans that, since a conict with Poland would be
impossible to localize and since a general war would be disastrous for
everybody, it should be avoided at all costs. Never has the Duce spoken
of the need for peace with so much warmth and without reserve, com-
mented a relieved Ciano.
11
In Salzburg and Berchtesgaden on 11 and 12 August, Ciano encountered
Nazis fanatically opposed to compromise, negotiations, or peace; they were
dead set on aggression against Poland. To buy them off, the desperate
foreign minister offered von Ribbentrop Danzig and the Corridor by means
of a European conference. This time von Ribbentrop dropped all pretenses:
We want war, war, war. Poland must be invaded, defeated, annihilated,
and annexed to the Third Reich in the same fashion as Austria and Czecho-
slovakia. The Germans, Ciano belatedly concluded, are possessed by the
demon of destruction.
12
Hitler brutally revealed his hand to Ciano the following day by declaring
that he intended to answer Polish provocations with military might. Since
the Western Powers would not move to broaden Germanys war against
Poland into a general conagration, however, there would be no need for
Italian military assistance. Dismayed by this facile logic, Ciano questioned
the Fu hrers assumption that the Western Powers would not ght and urged
him to accept the Duces proposal for a European conference. Itching for
war, Hitler turned a deaf ear, but, to mollify Mussolini, he invited Italy to
settle accounts with Yugoslavia by seizing Croatia.
13
Hitler was adept in
exploiting the Duces vacillation between greed and fear. If Italy were not
to follow Germany into a European war, the Fu hrer would guarantee the
Duces loyalty to the Axis by promising to provide a cover for future Italian
expansionist moves.
Directly confronted at Salzburg by German determination to wage war,
whatever the risk of a general conagration and regardless of Italian inter-
ests, Ciano emerged a changed man. The onetime Nazi toady (and aggres-
sor in Spain and Albania) now vowed to prevail on Mussolini to regard
Italy as freed from the Axis by Germanys infraction of the Pact of Steel.
14
Cianos disillusionment marked how far apart Rome and Berlin stood.
What the Italians had learned about the attitude of the Western Powers did
not tally with German views. Berlin held that France and Britain would
not intervene. Rome considered it beyond a doubt that both would inter-
vene at once. Behind these conicting views lay the unanswerable military
reality if Italy should enter the war on the side of Germany. Since von
Ribbentrop had stated in Salzburg that Germany would withdraw to de-
fensive positions on its western frontiers, the Duce could reasonably con-
clude that the French and British, confronted by the Western Wall that
blocked the road to Warsaw, would hurl their forces against Italy to knock
out the weaker Axis partner. Since Italian fortications were practically
nonexistent, the French armies would roll unopposed into the Po Valley
and capture the northern heartland of Italian industry while the British
navy wrought havoc on the Italian coastline. As German tanks assaulted
an isolated Poland, an unprepared Italy would bear the entire brunt of the
Allied onslaught.
Mussolini swung to and fro. Exhilarated by the idea of war, he stated
that honor compelled him to march with Germany. Aware of Italys weak-
ness, he hoped that Germanys differences with Poland would be solved
peacefully, with the Poles handing over Danzig and the Corridor to Hitler
under his arbitration. But posturing as a peacemaker while Hitler bran-
dished the sword was humiliating. At the same time, recognizing that the
Western Powers might be ready to ght while Italy was not, Mussolini told
Ciano to detach Italian policy from identifying too closely with Germany.
Still, in case the democracies remained neutral, Mussolini wanted to remain
nominally on the German side, because we too must have our share of
the plunder. To escape from revealing to Hitler the fear of war and the
fear to reveal his fear of war,
15
the Duce on 1314 August considered, in
the event of a European conagration, a declaration of nonbelligerence
rather than neutrality, which he found wimpish and disheartening.
16
Nonbelligerency was a formula that Mussolini contrived to convince Hit-
ler that he could be helpful to Germany from the sidelines and that Italys
loyalty to the Axis would continue to be unshaken. The other side of this
coin was the fear that, if he stayed out of a general war, Hitler would
punish him with invasion for failing to live up to Italys obligations under
War 203
the Pact of Steel. This time there was little hope that the British would help
Mussolini out of his predicament by cooperating with Italy to sell out Po-
land in the interest of peace. Since the British had decided to stand rm,
they would no longer use Mussolini as their appeasement catspaw. Only if
Poland were admitted, allowed to negotiate with Germany on an equal
footing, and defended against an Axis diktat, would Britain agree to a
European conference. In case of a European war, the two ancient friends
would nd themselves in opposite camps, if Italy placed itself on the side
of Germany.
17
The French were more unbending still. They preferred a
declared enemy to a neutral Italy in tacit collusion with Germany.
18
There would be no repetition of Munich.
On 23 August, Germany signed a nonaggression pact with the Soviet
Union. The world was a stunned witness to toasts exchanged in Moscow
of eternal German-Soviet friendship. Whoever would have thought that
diplomacy could bridge the vast ideological differences between the Nazi
and Communist regimes, which for years had treated each other as evil
incarnate? The naked aggressiveness of the pact, highlighted in secret
clauses by yet another partition of Poland and the Soviet absorption of the
Baltic states, remained to be discovered. There is no doubt that the Ger-
mans have struck a master blow, Ciano conceded.
19
At a stroke, the Eu-
ropean balance of power had been transformed at the expense of the
Western Powersand Italy. But seen from Rome, the Poles, armed only
with a imsy and unconvincing British guarantee, had no choice but to
capitulate to German demands. The fear of a general war having suddenly
eased, Italian spirits were buoyed for their own countrys expansion. No
matter that the Nazi-Soviet pact violated the obligation of consultation of
the Pact of Steel and made a shambles of the anti-Comintern Pact; no
matter that the nonaggression pact held perils for Italy. Ciano was preoc-
cupied mainly with taking our share of the booty in Croatia and Dal-
matia, while Mussolini called on his chief of general staff, Marshal Pietro
Badoglio, to prepare a plan of attack on Greece and Yugoslavia.
20
But when
Britain announced a pact of mutual assistance with the embattled Poles on
25 August, the Italians were brought back to earth. Their resolve stiffened
by British words rather than weapons, the Poles vowed to ght to the nish
rather than submit, dreaming that their cavalry and elan would triumph
over Germanys mechanized legions. Frightened by the specter of war, Mus-
solini fell back on the idea of a European conference. This suited the king,
whom Ciano found to be in a state of open hostility toward the Germans.
Meanwhile, the Italian people looked with dismay on the unfolding Eu-
ropean crisis to which Italy might be dragged on the side of the hated
Germans. On the same day, the Duce sent Hitler a letter:
If Germany attacks Poland and the latters allies open a counter-attack against
Germany, I inform you in advance that it will be opportune for me not to take the
initiative in military operations in view of the present state of Italian war prepa-
rations. . . . Our intervention can, however, take place at once if Germany delivers
to us immediately the military supplies and the raw materials to resist the attack
which the French and English would . . . direct against us.
21
The Germans, he knew, were not prepared to provide Italy with the huge
amount of military equipment it wanted. As Ciano noted: The Duces
military instinct and his sense of honor were leading him to war. Reason
has now stopped him. This hurts very much.
22
The arrival of Mussolinis communique of 25 August on the day of Brit-
ains alliance treaty with Poland (which showed that the Western Powers
were not cowed by the Nazi-Soviet Pact) dampened the euphoria in Ger-
many issuing from Hitlers diplomatic coup in Moscow. Perhaps the West
would ght after all, and, faced with a general war, Italy would slink into
neutrality. The Italians are behaving just as they did in 1914, they said in
Berlinwords that echoed unpleasantly in the Duces ears.
The Fu hrer was thrown into a tailspin. He pushed back his plans to
invade Poland from 26 August to 1 September and held Rome responsible
for stiffening Britains resistance. Von Ribbentrop, in particular, claimed
that Ciano had tattled to the British about Italys defection from the Pact
of Steel, an action that he claimed had spurred London to defend Poland.
This was perhaps a half-truth. During Hitlers campaign of intimidation
against Poland in August, the British, in contrast to their diplomacy leading
up to Munich, constantly informed Rome of their every move while solic-
iting Italian advice in order to secure Mussolinis moderating inuence on
Hitler. Moreover, the British ambassador in Rome, Sir Percy Loraine, and
Ciano consulted frequently on ways to preserve the peace. Based on their
own observations, the British were pretty certain that Italy would not enter
the war on Hitlers side; the Duce wanted peace.
23
But rather than the
collusion suspected in Berlin, there was stalemate. The British refused to
satisfy Mussolinis precondition for chairing a conference: obtaining a com-
mitment from the Poles that they freely recognize the right of the Free
City [Danzig] to return to the Reich.
24
Of capital importance was the fact
that Britain had apprised Rome on 27 August of Germanys secret offer of
an alliance behind the back of its Axis partner. This was a shrewd diplo-
matic move, for London wanted to encourage Italy not to follow Germany
and possibly to ask Mussolini to turn Hitler away from his proposed ag-
gression. This would be done, however, without any concession and with
the clear reminder to Mussolini of his equivocal position. Actually no one
in London trusted Mussolini anymore, but Britains courteous demeanor
and apparent deference fooled Ciano and Grandi into believing that Lon-
don and Rome would cooperate in curbing Hitlers appetite for war.
On 26 August, Mussolini wrote to Hitler: I leave it to you to imagine
my state of mind at being compelled by forces beyond my control not to
War 205
afford you real solidarity at the moment of action. Disclaiming any taint
of pacism, he concluded with a despairing appeal for a peaceful settle-
ment: I venture to insist anew . . . on the advantage of a political solution
which I regard as still possible.
25
In spite of his irritation over Mussolinis
loss of nerve, Hitler refrained from recrimination.
As Italy diplomatically distanced itself from the Third Reich, the Fascist
press, to head off German scorn and suspicion, ever more shrilly supported
Hitlers claims on Danzig and the Corridor against Polish intransigence.
On 27 August, Mussolini looked forward to a hard, long, and bloody
struggle from which Italy, on the sidelines, could draw advantages, but the
next day he was restless, wanting to do something.
26
Cognizant of
Italys incapacity to wage war, Mussolini tried to work out conference
proposals during the last days of peace. He informed Hitler on 29 August:
Whereas Italian relations with Paris were, as we knew, such that Italy neither could
or would take any action in Paris, Italys relations with Britain, both ofcial and
personal, were very cordial and good. If Germany wanted Italy to take any action,
or to make any statement in London, the Duce was entirely at the Fu hrers dis-
posal.
27
Since Hitler was bent on aggression, Mussolinis offer to act as Germanys
messenger stood no chance of acceptance in Berlin.
On 31 August, two nal efforts were made in Rome to stave off war. At
11 a.m., Ciano informed Halifax that the Duce could intervene with Hitler
only if he were in a position to bring Germany the fat prize of Danzig.
Empty-handed, he could do nothing. For once the one to act behind his
allys back, Mussolini agreed to let Ciano inform London that Italy had
no intention of going to war, out of fear that some incident might result
in hostilities between the West and Italy for which his country was totally
unprepared.
28
Since the British stood solidly against any further appease-
ment of Germany, they dodged these frantic Italian mediation efforts to
save the peace at the expense of the Poles by cutting their communications
with Rome.
29
On 1 September, in an act of agrant and naked aggression against a
poorly armed victim, Nazi Germanys huge war machine smashed into Po-
land to launch World War II. While the statesmen in London and Paris
prepared with resignation to honor their promises to aid Poland, Ciano in
Rome sighed in relief. Since Mussolini had succeeded with Hitlers approval
in freeing his country from the trap of the Pact of Steel, there would be no
immediate Italian entry into the war. Italy would have time to arm itself
during the unfolding mortal duel between Britain and Germany and would
be at liberty to choose sides when prepared.
30
But Mussolini was not pre-
pared to sever all his ties with Hitler. Before the Grand Council on 1 Sep-
tember, the Italian leader delivered Berlin a defense for nonbelligerence. He
should be charged with neither apostasy nor weakened loyalty toward Hit-
ler, who he privately hoped would barely prevail over his adversaries in a
long, exhausting struggle. At the opportune moment, the Duce would be
able to intervene in the war, arrayed against, though not necessarily in
armed conict with, the Western Powers, but his own objectives and strat-
egy would remain substantially autonomousItalys parallel war. Alter-
natively, if Hitler and the Western Powers fell into a stalemate, Mussolini
could step in as a mediator. In either case, Italy would again emerge as the
peso determinante, pick up choice territory from the exhausted Allies, and
remain in Hitlers good graces in a Europe devoid of a hegemonical power.
In contrast stood Ciano, Grandi, and Bottai, who were convinced that the
Western Powers would hold their own and wanted to create an even greater
distance from Germany than was denoted by nonbelligerence.
31
Between 27 August and 3 September, Mussolini and Ciano were con-
sumed with the questions of war and peace. Would this war be limited or
general, long or short, and who would be the winner? Meanwhile, they
continued to urge Hitler to accept their mediation and a conference, since,
as they repeated each time, Germany was in a very strong position and
would be able to dictate its terms. Due to either wishful thinking or mis-
calculation, Mussolini had not yet learned that Hitler was hardly a man of
moderation who was likely to compromise when the annihilation of the
enemy was within reach. On 3 September, the day that the Western Powers
answered Nazi aggression against Poland with a declaration of war on
Germany, Hitler delivered to Mussolini his nal and inevitable refusal to
parley.
I also believe that, even if we now march down separate paths, Destiny will yet
bind us one to the other. If National Socialist Germany were to be destroyed by
the Western Democracies, Fascist Italy also would face a hard future. I personally
was always aware that the futures of our two regimes were bound up, and I know
that you, Duce, are of exactly the same opinion.
32
In a t of intolerable guilt and cowardice at the moment of truth, Mus-
solini issued his declaration of nonbelligerency. Nonetheless, he was deter-
mined to keep the road to Berlin open by eschewing outright neutrality,
which the Germans would undoubtedly take as betrayal. No matter that
Hitler had acted in the pursuit of purely German interests and had for many
years shockingly deceived his ally; the Duce was determined to avoid any
sacrice of his own expansionist ambitions that could be realized only in
the framework of the Axis. There would therefore be no break with Ger-
many and no thought of intervention on the side of the Allies. Pride and
image were factors too. Propelled by the desire to distance himself from
the old liberal Italy, with its diplomatic opportunism, smallness of view,
and preference for gaining advantage on the sly short of war, the Duce did
War 207
not want anyone in Berlin to insinuate that Italy had once again deserted
its ally, as in 1914. What particularly bothered him was that he had af-
rmed unequivocally and repeatedly his admiration for naked violence and
warfare, then, at the decisive moment, he had pulled back. While the Pope
joined the British in prodding Mussolini to nd a solution that would guar-
antee peace as a moral virtue and as an end in itself, the Duce sought a
mediating role, not as a moral imperative, but as a necessity dictated by
momentary and contingent considerations and by the painful circumstance
of military weakness. Mussolinis future moves would depend on the shift-
ing fortunes of the battleeld.
ITALY DESCENDS INTO WAR
When the Soviet Union invaded Poland on 17 September to take pos-
session of its third of the already vanquished country, Mussolini felt left
out and imperiled. Confronted by yet another fait accompli, he prepared
to strike out on his own. While Mussolini believed that Hitler had deserted
him for Stalin, Ciano pondered the formation of a neutral bloc in Eastern
Europe to resist with every weapon and by every means . . . the monstrous
union [the Nazi-Soviet Pact] against the letter and spirit of our pact.
33
Before a Council of Ministers meeting on 30 September, Mussolini veered
further from Hitler by suggesting that Italy could choose either side once
its armaments were complete. For his part, Ciano aimed to downgrade
nonbelligerency to neutrality and to upgrade Italy from bystander to me-
diator. During a visit with Hitler on 1 October, the Italian foreign minister
raised the possibility of a compromise peace, based on a truncated and
disarmed Poland, and expressed anxiety over the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Hitler
gave short shrift to the idea of a restored Poland in any guise. Furthermore,
nothing would stop him from destroying the Western Powers, and he
would tolerate no disruption in the prevailing harmony between Germany
and the Soviet Union. In using peremptory language for what had been
implicitly implied all along, Hitler urged Ciano to inform Mussolini that
Italys absence from the battleeld and a German defeat would mean the
end of Italys imperial aspirations in the Mediterranean,
34
to say nothing
of its Balkan ambitions. What would happen, Rome was left to ponder, if
Germany won without any Italian military support?
Rebuffed in Berlin, Ciano next pursued a Balkan bloc under Italian tu-
telage. His approach included not only diplomacy but waran attack on
Yugoslavia to gain Croatia as an Italian bastion against both a German
Drang nach Su dosten and further Soviet penetration. This ambition, how-
ever, was thwarted by the unwillingness of the British and French to un-
derstand the anti-German subtleties of Fascist diplomacy and their refusal
to use appeasement to further Italian aggression against independent coun-
tries. Hence, Italys Croatian friends were reluctantly placed on hold. Fur-
thermore, Ciano made no headway with the Balkan neutrals, because
Britain had already lined up Turkey in an alliance and Greece remained
immune to Italian blandishments. Despairing of a neutral bloc, Ciano in-
formed Berlin on 17 October that Italy would abandon its pursuit of a
Balkan league.
35
Mussolini preferred loyalty to the German alliance over
an intermediate position between Berlin and London. Nevertheless, this
pro-German slant did not mean that the Duce had arrived at any rm
decision. When the Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November, Mus-
solini applauded the stout resistance of the brave defenders, while the Ital-
ian people expressed support for the Finns and hostility toward the Soviets,
an attitude that discomted Berlin and threatened to disrupt the ofcially
correct relations between Rome and Moscow.
During the autumn, Italian policy was marked by Cianos desultory ef-
forts to redene nonbelligerency as equidistance (with aggressive intentions
toward Yugoslavia) and the Duces wild mood uctuations caused by the
unpredictabilities of the battleeld. In early October, believing that the Brit-
ish and French would hold rm, Mussolini expressed delight when it ap-
peared that Hitler would be slowed down. In a darker mood, the idea of
Hitlers waging war and, worse still, winning it was altogether unbearable.
In yet another moment, Mussolini hoped to embroil the Germans with the
Soviets in endless disputes.
36
Before the Grand Council on 7 December, the Duce, in line with Cianos
thinking, stated that a victory by either side would be a disaster for Italy.
The best outcome was that the two lions tear each other to pieces, until
they leave their tails on the groundand we, possibly, can go and scoop
them up. For Bottai, however, Mussolinis adherence to Cianos policy
was only an intellectual acceptance; his heart was still full of interven-
tionist palpitations.
37
Two days later, carried away in a transport of pro-
Germanism, the Duce talked of seizing Corsica and Tunisia from France,
38
but these aggressive impulses were tempered by an abiding distrust and fear
of the Third Reich. Instead of resettling the South Tyrolean Germans, as
agreed to in principle earlier by Hitler, Berlin stood by while the Volk-
deutsche carried out Pan-German activities. In November, the Duce ordered
accelerated work on his northern frontier facing Germany to create im-
pregnable fortications on the scale of the Maginot Line. These defenses
against a German invasion, which had originally been stepped up in the
aftermath of the Anschluss, did not represent any turn against Hitler on
the side of the Western Powers.
Ciano delivered a key speech on 16 December before the Italian Chamber
that seemed to mark the beginning of a break with Germany. Describing
the Axis as an integral part of anti-Comintern policy, he dwelled on
German perdy. In transacting the Nazi-Soviet pact with Stalin, Germany
had given Italy only two days notice; by launching aggression against Po-
land, Germany had violated the understanding with Italy that precluded
War 209
war for three to ve years. Ciano boasted in his diary that his speech, if
on rst impression appeared to be anti-Bolshevik, was in substance anti-
German. The Italian people, he concluded, considered his speech to be the
real funeral of the Axis.
39
On 2 January 1940, Ciano warned the Belgians
that Germany was preparing an invasion of their country.
40
As the year 1940 began, Mussolini seemed determined to stay Cianos
course both by upholding neutrality in order to escape subordination to
Germany and by delaying Italys entry into the war while he pursued me-
diation and military rearmament. To avoid a German move against the
West that would force his hand, Mussolini sent Hitler a letter on 5 January
1940 that seemed to underwrite Cianos speech of 16 December:
I feel that you cannot abandon the anti-Semitic and anti-Bolshevik banner which
you have been ying for twenty years and for which so many of your comrades
have died; you cannot renounce your gospel in which the German people have
blindly believed. . . . The solution of your Lebensraum problem is in Russia and
nowhere else.
41
To counter British propaganda that was successfully playing on Ger-
manys brutal treatment of the Poles, he urged the creation of a rump Polish
state under the aegis of Berlin. While Britain and France could never bring
the Third Reich to heel, he pointed out, it was preferable to seek a com-
promise than to risk all in trying to destroy those two nations.
Mussolinis letter revealed a fundamental difference between his views
and Hitlers in language couched in pungent criticisms of Germanys pri-
orities. Although put on notice at the beginning of December by Dr. Robert
Ley, the leader of the German Labor Front, that Hitler would settle ac-
counts with Stalin after knocking out the Western Powers,
42
Mussolini was
doubtful that Germany could accomplish either aim. In the Duces mind,
it was the Soviet Union rather than the Western Democracies that was
currently the major enemynot as the bearer of the Communist virus but
as a strategic threat to Italian interests. Next to Germany itself, the Soviet
Union, in connivance with Hitler, now loomed as the greatest rival to Italy
in the BalkansBessarabia, the Bucovina, Bulgaria. True, Italy had aban-
doned the Danube region by acquiescing in the Anschluss, but Mussolini
wanted to preserve the Balkans as a potential Italian sphere, where a toe-
hold had already been established by the conquest of Albania.
Mussolini was also caught in a time warp that reduced his realistic al-
ternatives. He wanted desperately to prevent Hitler from taking the offen-
sive against the Western Powers before Italy was ready to march. While
Hitler banked on the superiority of German arms to bring total victory,
Mussolini, counting few arms of any worth in his own arsenals, portrayed
a Western defeat as illusory. As a frustrated bystander anxious to prevent
an enlargement of the conict, he would be satised to host another Mu-
nich at Polands expense. But Mussolini did not intend to be an impartial
mediator, for he explicitly stated in his letter to Hitler that the attitude of
Italy is within, not outside, the framework of the Pact of the Alliance.
Were he to disassociate from Germany, there would be no war trophies
for Italy in the future. Only after Germany and Italy had demolished Bol-
shevism would it then be the turn of the big democracies, which cannot
survive the cancer which is gnawing at them.
43
If the Fu hrer could only
be prevailed upon to abort the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Mussolini would be able
to use Germany once again to hold the ring while Italy moved on either
the Balkans or the Mediterranean. Hitler, however, had no intention of
following Mussolinis advice or abiding by his priorities. He delayed reply-
ing to the Duce until 8 March.
While the long gray lines of the British eet continued to guard the gates
of Mussolinis Roman sea, Whitehall tried halfheartedly to keep the line
open to Rome by offering to buy arms and munitions from Italy. When
Mussolini rejected the offer, the British retaliated by xing a blockade on
much-needed German coal shipments to Italy by way of Rotterdam. The
French were even less friendly. From September to March, they took no
initiatives in talks with Italy to exploit the differences between Rome and
Berlin, nor would Daladier take up Mussolinis suggestion of a conference;
resignation was more honorable than a second Munich.
44
Angered by An-
glo-French unconcern, Mussolini at a Council of Ministers meeting on 23
January declared that they could no longer win the war. Disavowing in-
denite neutrality, Mussolini talked of terrorist bombings over France.
45
The Duce proceeded to expound on his notion of a parallel war, an as
yet nebulous phrase that Bottai took to mean a war included in and
meshed with the larger and more general one [on the German side], but
with its own, specically Italian objectives.
46
As Mussolini inched back toward Germany, he put a stop to economic
negotiations with the Western Powers and slighted peacemakers from
abroad. When the American undersecretary Sumner Welles arrived in Italy
on a peace mission in late February, he was rst received by Ciano. Al-
though cordial, Ciano spent more time disparaging von Ribbentrop and
Hitler and inveighing against the British and French than seriously weighing
peace plans. Welles fared no better with Mussolini, who spoke bitterly of
the British and pointed out the invincible might of Nazi Germany.
47
Ac-
cording to Ciano, Mussolini conded to Filippo Anfuso on 27 February:
There are still some criminals and imbeciles in Italy who believe that
Germany will be beaten. I tell you Germany will win.
48
Once France and
Germany had worn each other down, neither being strong enough to score
a decisive victory, he frequently mused, Italy would become the decisive
weight. But personal pride and the spirit of revenge constantly vied with
the Duces gnarled Realpolitik.
War 211
Within a short time [he told Ciano] the guns will loose off by themselves. It is not
possible that of all people I should become the laughing stock of Europe. I have to
stand for one humiliation after another. As soon as I am ready I shall make the
English repent. My intervention in the war will bring about their defeat.
49
As Mussolinis belligerence toward the democracies waxed, his tolerance
of Cianos anti-Germanism lessened: England will be beaten. Inexorably
beaten. This is the pure truth, that you should get into your head. Ciano
dolefully recorded: During our seven years of daily contacts this is the
rst time that he picks on me personally.
50
Finally, on 8 March, Hitler responded to Mussolinis missive of 5 Jan-
uary. He strove to overcome the Duces critical reaction to the Nazi-Soviet
Pact by pointing out that National Socialisms ideological crusade against
Jewish-polluted Communism had been transformed by the departure of
Maxim Litvinov as foreign minister in May 1939. Since Bolshevism in Rus-
sia had given way to Russian national state ideology, relations had re-
verted to normality between two countries blessed with complementary
economies and a common determination to struggle against the blockade
of the world by the plutocratic democracies. Following the attery
though her people, her system and especially her leader, has always been
our foremost friend, and always will remain our foremost friend: Italy
the subtle threat. If Italy did not come into the war to pursue grandeur,
then it would be reduced to survival as a modest European state.
51
To offset the Welles mission, the Fu hrer sent von Ribbentrop to Rome
to prot from the Anglo-Italian coal crisis by a rm offer to deliver by rail
the one million tons of coal a month, promised to Italy under the Italo-
German economic agreement of 24 February. Von Ribbentrop reported
that Hitlers decision to attack the West was irrevocable and that the
French army would be beaten before next fall and that after that the only
British soldiers left on the Continent would be prisoners of war. Con-
fronted by the enmity of the plutocratic West, the destiny of the German
and Italian nations was the same.
52
A meeting between Mussolini and Hitler was hastily arranged to take
place at the Brenner Pass on 18 March. The Duce still hoped to dissuade
Hitler from his land offensive. Ciano recorded Mussolinis conicting emo-
tions: The prospect of an imminent clash in which he might remain an
outsider disturbs him and, to use his words, humiliates him. He still hopes,
but less than before, that he can inuence Hitler and persuade him to desist
from his intention to attack.
53
But once in Hitlers presence, Mussolinis
dilatoriness and reservations melted away before a condent and decisive
Fu hrer poised to end the phony war by a strike against Norway. By de-
claring his unalterable will to carry the war against the West, Hitler left no
room for a compromise peace negotiated by Italy. Although reticent about
revealing the time and place of his offensive in the West, Hitler impressed
on Mussolini the certainty of a complete victory. Hitlers manipulation of
Mussolini was a masterpiece. While boasting of Germanys military might
and its swift conquest of Poland, which he knew would stir the Duces
aggressive impulses and desire to emulate his successes, Hitler reinforced
in his mind the fear of emerging empty-handed unless Italy joined the war
and became a great power at the shoulder of a conquering Germany and
perhaps a Soviet Union associated with the Third Reich.
54
Undoubtedly,
talk of war titillated Mussolini, but he wanted no protracted conict. Italy
would intervene in three or four months, on the condition that the German
offensive in the West was successful.
Although the Duce had told Hitler that Italys entry into the war is
inevitable, once back in Rome, he began to backslide, conding to Ciano
the hope that Hitler would think twice before he jumps into the conict.
. . . Hitler is not preparing to launch the land offensive.
55
Mussolini con-
tinued to believe a quick and decisive German victory over France to be
beyond the capabilities of the Wehrmacht. Regardless of his expectations,
the destiny of Europe rested not in his hands but on the ultimate outcome
of Germanys war. Italys tragic weakness was thus nakedly revealed, as
was the sad self-deception of Mussolinis aim to emerge as Europes peso
determinante.
Mussolini summarized his views on 31 March in a secret memorandum
sent to Ciano, the king, and the military chiefs. He cast off the illusion of
a compromise peace, predicted a German victory, and argued that Italy
could not remain outside the conict in the long run.
56
But the Duce, op-
pressed by the vision of Nazi omnipotence, continued to indulge in fanciful
thinking. Germany, he surmised, would abide the phony war on land while
intensifying naval and air operations. Only in the certainty of a crushing
victoryor in desperation if the blockade left no other coursewould the
German army launch a land offensive against the Western Powers. Given
the continued weakness of Italys armed forces and the singular lack of
enthusiasm for war voiced by his military chiefs, Mussolini continued to
hedge his bets by protracting as long as possible our existing attitude of
nonbelligerence. But should Italy intervene on the side of its Axis partner,
Mussolini would not deploy troops in Southern Germany to ght alongside
the Wehrmacht against France; instead, Italian troops would ght on fronts
of Italys own choosing. To obtain a window on the Atlantic Ocean,
Mussolini planned to wage a vigorous naval war against Britain under the
cover of Nazi victories on land. Elsewhere, apart from a possible attack on
Yugoslavia, Mussolini intended to remain on the defensive. To prevent his
nominal German ally from winning a crushing victory, the Duce would
desist from any offensive in the West, thus allowing the French to concen-
trate their forces on the Germans should they attack. No matter howclosely
Mussolini veered toward Germany and no matter how rapidly events were
pushing him toward a decision for war, he wanted to preserve a free hand.
War 213
If the fortunes of war should ever turn against Hitler, Mussolini, although
terribly disappointed in the collapse of his imperialist ambitions, would
desert him.
From this time on, Ciano ceased to argue that Germany would not win
the war, nor, after the Duces stated refusal on 2 April to act like whores
with the democracies, did Ciano intervene with Mussolini further to im-
plement an evenhanded neutrality by improving relations with the Western
Powers. If we remain neutral, the Duce told him, Italy would lose pres-
tige among the nations of the world for a century . . . and for eternity as a
Fascist regime.
57
But this gust of passion did not overwhelm Mussolinis
calculation. Like most other Italians, he did not want or believe in a total
French military collapse, in spite of his relentless urge to settle accounts
with the stingy and highly resented Latin Sister. Mussolini still hoped to
buy time that would allow Italian intervention to be decisive. Even a distant
intervention, however, received scant encouragement from the heads of the
Italian armed services. In a memorandum delivered to Mussolini on 11
April, they expressed skepticism and distrust regarding even a limited of-
fensive and urged him to ward off German pressure to take the eld.
The era of the phony war was brought to an abrupt end by the German
invasion of Norway on 9 April. Mussolini was ecstatic. On 11 April, he
informed the king that we would no longer remain with our hands
folded while others write history.
58
On the same day, he wrote to Hitler: The increasing vexations of the
blockade against Italian trafc have created a very strong anti-Allied sen-
timent in the Italian people. . . . I do not know whether the French ever
seriously harbored any illusions as to what Italys attitude might be, but if
they did, they will undoubtedly have lost them now.
59
Still, during April,
Mussolini continued to play it both ways. He was afraid of missing an easy
victory through a late entry into the war, and yet, so long as there was
some chance of a negotiated peace, he wanted to play a leading role and
gain advantages for his country. But neutrality was banished for good.
After a long period of silence, on 22 April, Paul Reynaud, the new French
premier, was prompted by Germanys invasion to propose conversations
with Mussolini designed to keep the peace between the two countries. On
26 April, Mussolini responded by explaining that Italys alliance with Ger-
many prevented him from accepting the Frenchmans proposal for a meet-
ing. Pressed by the British, Roosevelt drafted a message on 29 April
warning Mussolini against provoking a further extension of the area of
hostilities. To this, the Duce replied that Hitler could not be beaten and
that Italys situation as a prisoner within the Mediterranean was intol-
erable.
60
As the French military situation worsened, Roosevelt again tried
on 14 May to convince Mussolini to stay out of a war that would en-
compass the destruction of millions of lives; Churchill issued a polite
warning two days later. Mussolini tersely replied to the British and Amer-
icans on 18 May that he had no wish to parley and that Italy would remain
loyal to its alliance with Germany at a time when the fate of Europe hung
in the balance.
On 10 May, Hitler launched the German invasion of Holland and Bel-
gium. Frances turn swiftly followed. The crisis prompted a change in the
British government. Winston Churchill became the prime minister of a co-
alition cabinet, while his rival, Lord Halifax, was kept on as foreign sec-
retary. With the smell of war in the air, the Duces pulse quickened over
Italys imminent military intervention. On 13 May, he told Ciano that the
Allies were lost.
61
The Duce seemed not wide of the mark. Instead of the stalemated war
predicted by many military buffs, the Panzers, supported by swarms of
Stuka dive bombers and motorized infantry, knifed through and raced
around the Maginot Line. The shattered and demoralized French armies
fell back in chaos or abjectly surrendered. After a couple of weeks, the end
appeared to be in sight. Elated, the Duce told von Mackensen that the
time had come. He would strike in the next days. He could not bear
to wait longer. He was the most impatient of all Italians.
62
With the swastika uttering over northern France, many Italians were
carried away by a wave of bellicosity. Germanys overwhelming power
allowed Italy to demand what had not previously been thought possible:
full satisfaction of the claims outstanding on France that remained from
the Paris Peace Conferenceand then some. The war hawks were led by
Roberto Farinacci, a member of the Fascist grand council, and Achille Star-
ace, the secretary of the Fascist Party. Although the monarchy, the Catholic
Church, and Italian big industry were opposed to the German alliance and
appalled at the prospect of war on Hitlers side, many converts from the
ranks of the doubters in and out of Fascist circles now hastened to partic-
ipate in the Nazi victory parade. The Duce was right after all; the Axis
would pay dividends. Enticed by visions of an easy Mediterranean triumph,
Grandi felt renewed faith in Mussolinis innite wisdom, encouraging Ital-
ians to risk everything on a single throw. Ciano, too, succumbed to the
lure of war as Germany marched from victory to victory. Like Mussolini,
he did not want to be tardy in arriving at the conquerors banquet. The
Duce, however, still restrained himself. Aware of the lamentable shape of
his armies, he hoped to protect his ill-prepared country from deadly ex-
posure and vulnerability to a triumphant and unforgiving Germany by
averting a total French military collapse. A partially debilitated France
would allow Italy to move freely on its just claims, but that France had to
be left strong enough to stand against Nazi supremacytortuous thinking
indeed!
While the Germans drove on the British expeditionary force scrambling
to evacuate the beachhead at Dunkirk, the cabinet, threatened with im-
pending disaster, pondered a negotiated peace with Hitler and the appease-
War 215
ment of Mussolini. Halifax, going beyond Churchills wishes, offered Italy
a bribe on 26 May for staying out of the war: Gibraltar, Malta, and the
Suez Canal.
63
According to Chamberlains diary, the new prime minister
told Halifax that if they could get out of the jam by giving up Malta and
Gibraltar and some African colonies to Mussolini, he [Churchill] would
jump at the chance.
64
In answer to Anglo-French exhortations, President Roosevelt on 26 and
27 May went beyond his previous efforts in persuading Mussolini to re-
main neutral by asking him to provide the United States with Italys specic
demands, which Washington would then transmit to the Allies. If Mussolini
kept Italy out of the war, he would be admitted as an equal to the peace
conference. But the Duce shrugged off the American president by empha-
sizing Italys freedom of action.
65
On 27 May, the French foreign min-
ister, Daladier, panicked by his disintegrating forces, scared up a list of
concessions to buy off the Italians in the rst French offer of territorial
concessions to preserve Italian nonbelligerency: the cession of Djibouti and
the Somalian coast, a rectication of the Libyan frontier, an important
territorial concession at the expense of Chad, and a condominium over
Tunisia. Francois-Poncet, according to Ciano, was on 27 May ready to
make a deal about Tunisia and perhaps even about Algeria, but was told
that he was too late.
66
On the same day, Francois Charles-Roux, who
had replaced Leger as secretary general of the Quai dOrsay on 18 May,
held that the British would have to be consulted before formally tendering
such an offer to the Italians; otherwise they might withdraw their naval
and air support from the beleaguered French forces. Since Reynaud agreed
with his secretary general,
67
Daladier was forced to clear with London be-
fore sending his message to Rome. It is not clear whether Francois-Poncet
had acted on his own initiative or whether Ciano recorded his views in-
accurately.
Whatever notions of appeasing Italy or asking Mussolini to chair a con-
ference remained in Churchills mind quickly vanished. With the British
and French backed against the wall, Mussolinis aggressive intentions, in
his view, would only be encouraged by any talk of territorial concessions.
Churchill therefore turned the French down cold, while the British ambas-
sador in Rome, Sir Percy Loraine, rmly informed Ciano: war would be
met with war. . . . if Mussolini chose the sword he would be met with [the]
sword.
68
For his part, thanks to Londons uncompromising stand, Dala-
dier put aside his original telegram to Rome in favor of a note submitted
on 30 May to the Italian ambassador, Raffaello Guariglia, which contained
the suggestion that they survey the whole ensemble of Mediterranean ques-
tions dividing them. Refraining from making any precise offers, Daladier
invited the Italians to submit their agenda of demands. But Cianos position
was that, even if France came forward with an offer tomorrow to cede
Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco, Mussolini would decline to discuss it.
69
Now that Mussolini was sure of a crushing German victory, Italian inter-
vention was just days away.
In Rome, on 29 May, the die was cast; Mussolini xed the date of Italys
entry into the war for 5 June. The king sulked, the Italian military trailed
off into vagueness when asked about its readiness to ght, and Badoglio
remained silent. As outlined in the military directive of 31 March, Italys
principal thrust would be directed against British bases and naval forces in
the Mediterranean. No matter that the Italian ground forces were in woeful
condition; Germanys decisive military victories would allow Mussolinis
foray for booty to become a stroll in the goose step. When Hitler asked
Mussolini to hold back a few days, the Duce complied, pointing out that
he needed additional time to reinforce Libya. The target date was reset for
10 June.
In the early evening of 10 June, Mussolini walked to the balcony of the
Palazzo Venezia and told the assembled throng that The hour destined by
fate is sounding for us. Italy would take the eld against the plutocratic
and reactionary democracies of the West to resolve the problem of its mar-
itime frontiers. The titanic struggle about to begin was but one phase
in the logical development of our Revolution. He closed with a shout:
Italian people, rush to arms and show your tenacity, your courage, your
valour!
70
This time the crowds did not cheer; they glumly dispersed, yet
no one in Italy raised a protest. Winston Churchill remarked: One man
alone had ranged the Italian people in deathly struggle against the British
Empire. In an address delivered at the University of Virginia, Roosevelt
was even less charitable: On this tenth day of June 1940, the hand that
held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor,
71
which per-
fectly articulated the feelings of the French. And on 10 June, Mussolini
committed the folly of entering the war as Hitlers ally without receiving
any prior assurances from Berlin about the realization of Italian aspirations.
The Italian armies shambled up to the Alpine frontier without any initial
intention of undertaking a serious offensive. As opposed to Hitler, and
much to his disgust, Mussolini did have the courtesy to declare war. Fran-
cois-Poncet commented: It is a dagger blow to a man [France] who has
already fallen. In your place, I would not be proud
72
But the Italian armies
encountered unexpectedly serious resistance when they nally moved to the
attack. More humiliating still, Mussolini was required by Germany to sign
parallel armistices with the defeated French on 24 June. Hitler also com-
pelled him to whittle down his extravagant claims after Frances capitula-
tion and accept a token occupation of fty kilometers of French territory.
Actually, the Duce saw the point in equitable treatment of a defeated foe,
which could serve as the foundation for a future collaboration of the two
Latin countries to balance against Germany in the postwar conguration
of power.
As things turned out, Mussolini had sealed his fate when he nally de-
War 217
cided to link up with Hitler as a comrade-in-arms. Little did he know that
Britain would be able to hold out, that the Soviets would administer a
stunning defeat to Germany before Stalingrad a couple of years later, or
that America would eventually bring its entire resources to bear in a world
war that Germany could not win after 1942. But even before these setbacks
occurred, Italys parallel war had turned sour. An Italian invasion of Greece
took place in October 1940, with the ill-prepared Italian troops and in-
competent generals becoming bogged down in the uncharted and craggy
Balkan mountains; eventually they were hurled back into Albania by an
aroused enemy. In Libya, the British smashed through the Italian lines,
capturing large numbers of dazed troops armed with antiquated equipment
who long ago had lost their stomach for war on the side of Hitler. Lacking
diesel fuel for offensive maneuvers, as well as bold leadershiplet alone
adequate air coveragethe Italian eet anchored at Taranto was surprised
by British torpedo planes in November 1940, suffering heavy losses. Much
to the embarrassment of Mussolini, the Germans rushed to the rescue by
storming into Greece and by sending General Erwin Rommel as com-
mander of the Afrika Korps to rm up Italian lines on the Libyan front.
Both salvage operations worked, but Mussolinis prestige suffered irretriev-
ably as Italy sank into further dependency on the German war machine.
The tides of war began to turn in November 1942 when the British and
Americans effected an unopposed amphibious landing on the coasts of Mo-
rocco. After a delay, courtesy of some spirited resistance offered by French
governors and soldiers loyal to the Vichy regime, the Allies drove onward
to Tunisia. This enabled General Bernard Montgomery, attacking from
Egypt, to wrap up the Desert Fox in a pincers movement the following
spring. Sicily fell to the Allies in June 1943 in a campaign marred by poor
coordination between the British and Americans and missed opportunity.
Many of the disheartened Italians surrendered, but the bulk of the German
force escaped to the mainland to ght another day. The invasion of Italy
followed on 10 July. As Allied planes raked Italys defenseless cities, Mus-
solini was overthrown on 25 July in a palace coup at a Fascist Grand
Council meeting, where Ciano, joined by Grandi and others, voted against
him. The Duce was arrested by the kings police the next morning as he
descended the stairs of the royal palace on his way home. No Italian lifted
a nger to save him. The Duces Fascist regime crumbled instantly as an
ecstatic Roman population cheered, desecrated his public icons, and shred-
ded his posters.
As elite Panzer divisions dashed deep into the Italian peninsula to trap
the Allied invaders on their beachheads, as well as to punish the traitorous
Italians, Hitler agonized over the deliverance of the only man outside Ger-
many whom he openly admired. Under his direct order, German S.S. com-
mandos led by Otto Skorzeny conducted a daring rescue mission with glider
planes, plucking Mussolini from captivity in the Abruzzi mountains and
dispatching him to German safekeeping in Munich. Hitler resurrected the
Duce as the puppet head of the infamous Republic of Salo` ofcially, the
Italian Social Republicheadquartered on Lake Garda in northern Italy.
A rst order of business was to arrest the Fascists who had voted to depose
him. Ciano and others were caught and shot after a sham trial, but Grandi
got away. As the Allies churned northward in April 1945, after a erce and
costly ght in the mountains of central Italy against tenacious German
resistance, Italian partisans apprehended the Duce who was eeing to Swit-
zerland with his mistress Clara Petacci and shot them both. Their corpses
were brought to a public square in Milan where they were ignominiously
hanged by the feet from a gas station girder, while swarms of onlookers
hooted and whistled. Mussolini died with hardly a friend left, save a few
diehard loyalists. Gone with the Duce was the Fascist dream of imperialist
glory.
NOTES
1. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 1078.
2. Duroselle, La decadence, 415 n. 71.
3. R.A.C. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement (New York: St. Martins
Press, 1993), 248.
4. OO, XXIX: 27275; Ciano, Diary 19391943, 9091.
5. DDI, 8, XII, 503, 7 July 1939.
6. DDI, 8, XII, 518, 9 July 1939.
7. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 111, 115; DDI, 8, XII, 740, 1 August 1939.
8. DDI, 8, XII, 662, 24 July 1939.
9. Massimo Magistrati, LItalia e Berlino (19371939) (Verona: Mondadori,
1956), 37982.
10. DDI, 8, XII, 687, 26 July 1939; DGFP, D, VI, 718, 25 July 1939.
11. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 118.
12. Ibid., 119.
13. DGFP, D, VII, 43, 12 August 1939.
14. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 120.
15. Mario Luciolli (Mario Donosti, pseud.), Mussolini e lEuropa: La politica
estera fascista (Rome: Leonardo, 1945), 206.
17. DBFP, 3, VII, 79, 19 August 1939.
18. DDI, 8, XII, 241, 25 August 1939.
19. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 126.
20. Ibid.
21. DGFP, D, VII, 271, 25 August 1939.
22. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 129.
23. DBFP, 3, VII, 173, 23 August 1939.
24. DBFP, 3, VII, 222, 24 August 1939.
25. DGFP, D, VII, 317, 26 August 1939.
26. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 12930.
War 219
27. DGFP, D, VII, 418, 29 August 1939.
28. DBFP, 3, VIII, 584, 31 August 1939.
29. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 13435.
30. Bottai, Diario, 157.
31. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 137.
32. DGFP, D, VII, 565, 3 September 1939.
33. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 151.
34. DGFP, D, VIII, 176, 1 October 1939.
35. DGFP, D, VIII, 266, 17 October 1939.
36. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 155, 167.
37. Bottai, Diario, 16971; Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, 62.
38. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 177.
39. Ibid., 180.
40. Ibid., 191.
41. DGFP, D, VIII, 504, 3 January 1940.
42. Gerhard Schreiber, Bernd Stegemann, and Detlef Vogel, Germany and the
Second World War, vol. 3, The Mediterranean, South-east Europe, and North Af-
rica 19391941 (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1995), 20.
43. DGFP, D, VIII, 504, 3 January 1940.
44. DBFP, 3, V, 604, 31 August 1939.
45. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 200.
46. Bottai, Diario, 175.
47. Sumner Welles, The Time for Decision (New York: Harper, 1944), 7886.
48. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 213.
49. Ibid., 216.
50. Ibid., 217.
51. DGFP, D, VIII, 663, 8 March 1940.
52. DGFP, D, VIII, 665, 10 March 1940.
53. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 220.
54. DGFP, D, IX, l, 17 [sic] March 1940.
55. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 22324.
56. DDI, 9, III, 669, 31 March 1940.
57. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 231.
58. Ibid., 23536.
59. DGFP, D, IX, 92, 11 April 1940.
60. Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan,
1948), 1: 779.
61. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 249.
62. Cited in Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, 107 n. 81.
63. Lamb, The Ghosts of Peace, 139.
64. David N. Dilks, British Reactions to Italian Empire-Building, 19361939,
in Italia e Inghilterra nelleta` dell imperialismo, ed. E. Serra and C. Seton-Watson
(Milan: ISPI, 1990), 194.
66. Ciano, Diary 19391943, 255.
68. Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, 115.
69. Quoted in Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, 115.
70. OO, XXIX: 4034.
71. Hull, Memoirs, 1: 784.
72. Andre Francois-Poncet, Au palais Francaise: Souvenirs dune ambassade a`
Rome, 19381940 (Paris: Fayard, 1961), 178.
Conclusion
According to the canons of traditional statecraft, nations pursue their own
interests within the existing framework of the balance of power. The right
of each Great Power to exist as such is a commonly accepted assumption
of the international community. If one nation should seek to become the
hegemonical power by resort to war, the others would combine their forces
to check the would-be aggressor. Calculation based on objective forces,
xed aims, and limited ends were the trademarks of this European system
that broke down in the cataclysm of World War I.
While Sonnino hoped to repair and restore the old system in the postwar
era, Mussolini intended to modify or change its ground rules, using unor-
thodox methods and with goals that went beyond Italys military capabil-
ities. At times, he was attracted to the idea of a Concert of Europe, in
which Italy would uphold the European balance of power. More often,
however, Mussolini strove to make Italy the decisive weight to accord
him leverage for acquiring territory and concessionsa somewhat unreal-
istic task, given Italys lack of military strength. In essence, Mussolini meant
to overturn the prevailing order, codied by the Paris Peace Conference,
for the purpose of advancing Italys power and prestige.
As the deant leader of a pariah country, Mussolini was informed by
futurist moods, nationalist resentments, Fascist slogans, and his own per-
sonal idiosyncrasies. Vanity, ambition, military dilettantism, and a capacity
for self-deception were all hallmarks of Mussolinis character that marred
his judgment. Like many others in postwar Italy, he felt the sting of the
mutilated victory and developed an inferiority complex toward France
222 Conclusion
and Britain, resenting their propensity to treat Italy as a lesser state rather
than as an equal among the Great Powers.
Mussolini could be disarmingly charming or brutally rude, and he liked
to project a sphinx-like mystique. Still, always he wanted to give the im-
pression of decisiveness and daring. An archetypal mountebank, Mussolini
was an opportunist who aimed to acquire and exercise power. Often gov-
erned by instinct, he lacked the perseverance required for a coherent diplo-
macy. Whether addressing his own people or foreign governments, his style
was much the samecharismatic posturing and charlatanry from a public
platform, rather than dialogue and roundtable discussion. Disdainful of
diplomatic parley with its spirit of give-and-take, the Duce treated every
accord as an armistice or a stepping-stone to further demands. Muscle-
exing and will to power were more congenial to his Blackshirt mentality
than was polite discourse among gentlemen in coattails schooled in the old
aristocratic tradition. Mussolinis language brimmed over with violence and
heroesthe challenge of the rough plebeian against inherited privilege, up-
per-class snobbery, and civilized discussion. His mind dominated by Dar-
winian concepts, Mussolini debunked pacism and disdained liberalism
and democracy. Carried away by a certain success, which reached its apex
in the conquest of Ethiopia, the Duce at last sought his own elevation as
Italys new Caesarthe true signicance of Mussolinianismo in the in-
ternational arena. For him, imperialism was the immutable law of nature
and war the crucible of nationhood. The justication for Fascist foreign
policy would be assured by an imperialistic policy that improved on the
lackluster liberal record. Combined, these ideas inclined Mussolini toward
aggression.
When Mussolini came to power in 1922, he possessed a rough outline
of what he wanted to accomplish: a selective revision of the Paris peace
settlement by the establishment of Italian hegemony in the Adriatic and
spheres of inuence in the Balkans and Danube region. But France stood
in Italys way. Though dreaming of replacing France as the dominant in-
uence in Southeastern Europe, by force if need be, Mussolini was aware
that his military was not up to the task of war against the Latin Sister.
Hence, he had to fall back on stratagems. He joined up with the defeated
powers to disrupt the status quo under the rubric of equitable treaty
revision, and he promoted insurrection to destroy Yugoslavia and under-
mine French inuence in Southeastern Europe.
But by the end of the 1920s, it was obvious that Mussolinis revisionist
policies had yielded barren results. The French alliance system in Eastern
Europe remained intact, and Yugoslavia refused to break up. After the
Grandian interlude, Mussolini pondered a conquest of an empire in Africa
carried out in a heroic style. To accomplish this feat, he had to hold the
Western Powers at bay and navigate safely through a hazardous risk zone.
Mussolini acted not on a whim or impetuously, but out of calculation.
Conclusion 223
Since the Western Powers were not expected to offer military opposition
and Hitler was still preoccupied with rearming and consolidating his re-
gime, which precluded any active German foreign policy, Italy seemed to
be facing a favorable, if temporary, conguration of the European balance.
But time was of the essence. The Duce hoped to nish off Ethiopia in time
to reinforce the Brenner frontier with his African veterans as deterrence
against an Anschluss implemented by a rising Third Reich.
The Italians achieved a quick victory over the poorly armed Ethiopian
legions ung against them. Proudly proclaiming the empire, Mussolini
stood at the pinnacle of powerand at the crossroads. He could resuscitate
the Stresa Front as a sated power, in alignment with the Western Powers
to check Hitler, or proceed toward an Axis, to acquire additional leverage
for his ultimate goal: the conversion of the Mediterranean from an Anglo-
French lake into a Roman sea. Avoiding those extremes, Mussolini could
continue to play the old game of makeweight in the balance of power in
order to extract concessions from the appeasers. This was the strategy that
he selected in the immediate aftermath of imperial conquest, or so it
seemed. By refusing Hitlers requests to turn the Axis of October 1936 into
a formal alliance during the Fu hrers visit to Italy in May 1937, as well as
by signing the Gentlemans Agreement of 1937 and the Easter accords with
the British in April the following year, Mussolini still imagined that Italy
could remain the decisive weight by maintaining equidistance. But strong
ideological undercurrents and faulty diplomacy, which converged on the
Austrian question, upset his balancing act.
So long as Austria remained independent, Mussolini believed, Italy would
not be encircled by a German Drang nach Su dosten and thereby lose its
diplomatic maneuverability. But the Duce had already narrowed his choices
in 1934 by conniving with Dollfuss and Starhemberg in the destruction of
the Austrian Social Democratic Party, whose demise removed a major bar-
rier against Anschluss. Mussolini was left with a far less savvy Schuschnigg
and a lifeless Heimwehr. Eventually he was elbowed out of Vienna by Pan-
Germans working hand-in-glove with the proliferating Austrian Nazis. In
standing aloof from the Gentlemans Agreement of July 1936 between Hit-
ler and Schuschnigg, Mussolini acknowledged that the Fu hrer had won the
game in Austria. The Duce could not avoid a bitter truth: He had grossly
underestimated Hitler and the speed of German rearmament. Since Italys
dwarfed military could no longer stand up to the Fu hrers legions, Mus-
solini had no choice but to deliver the keys of Italian security in Europe to
the Third Reich. It was not so much Mussolinis attraction toward the Nazi
creed but his unrelenting hatred of Austrian Social Democracy that pro-
vided the basic ideological component in Italian foreign policy in Europe
between 1934 and 1936. That sufced to compromise Italys security. Equi-
distance could work only so long as Austria remained truly independent.
The negative reaction of the Western Powers to Mussolinis aggression
at the expense of Ethiopia, coupled with the German-Austrian Gentlemans
Agreement, might have been enough to throw Mussolini into Hitlers arms.
But it was the chance opening of the Spanish Civil War and Mussolinis
decision to aid Franco that irrevocably pushed Italy toward the Pact of
Steel. Initially conceived as a move to break up a French-Spanish popular
front that stood as a challenge to Italy in the Mediterranean, Mussolinis
intervention on the side of the Nationalists further distanced him from the
Western Powers. The sea change in Italian policy became explicit during
the Duces trip to Germany in September 1937, for whatever residual neu-
trality had existed in Mussolinis mind vanished in Berlin. Bewitched by
German power and efciency, he became ever more determined to be Italys
man of destiny in the style of Adolf Hitler. In the belief that German mil-
itary power was unstoppable, Mussolini and Hitler traded places: The Fu h-
rer was now the master, the Duce the student. The irony is that the more
Mussolini adhered to his fellow dictator and tried to apply Nazi methods
in Italy, the less room he had for diplomatic maneuver. Mussolinis acqui-
escence in the Anschluss of March 1938, which resulted in a clear shift of
power in favor of the Third Reich on the Continent, ended forever any
realistic hope, if there had ever been one, that Italy could be anything other
than Hitlers junior partner. With German troops posted on the Brenner
frontier, Mussolinis decisive weight was reduced to a gment of his
imagination.
Although irritated by the Anschluss, Mussolini did not complain to Ber-
lin about Hitlers brazen act. In truth, Germany rarely consulted Italy on
any crucial diplomatic decision that directly involved Italian interests. Only
in the case of Dollfuss, when the Nazis presented Italy with an accom-
plished fact, had Mussolini dared to face down the Fu hrer. Hitlers reoc-
cupation of the Rhineland, which caught Rome by surprise during its tangle
with the Western Powers over oil sanctions, was simply forgotten as was
the Fu hrers absorption of rump Czechoslovakia. If the Duce had ably ex-
ploited British and French weakness in the case of Ethiopia, he showed a
remarkable gullibilityor escapismtoward the Nazis on all the particu-
lars of German expansion. In spite of his constant grumbling and his caustic
criticism of the Germans, Mussolini forgave Hitler everything in his deter-
mination to cultivate a special position in Berlin consecrated by the Pact
of Steel. Like Chamberlain, Mussolini was an arch-appeaser of Nazi ag-
gression.
The more Mussolini became entangled with the Third Reich, the less he
was able to keep his mind uncluttered of ideological prejudice. In the past,
whenever the Western Powers seemed to offer solid resistance to Italys
imperialism, the Duce had drawn back, from fear that they had the back-
bone to follow up their strong words with military deeds. For Mussolini,
propaganda was for show rather than the stuff of foreign policy. But when
the Western Powers proceeded to break the Stresa Front by allowing
224 Conclusion
Conclusion 225
German rearmament and appeasing Hitler over Czechoslovakia, Mussolini
took these capitulations as proof positive that they were decadent de-
mocracies in irreversible decline. As Grandi once observed, Mussolini liked
to think of himself as the Pope of anti-democracy.
1
Success in war in
Ethiopia and Spain had turned Mussolinis head. Now that Hitler had
shown him how to get away with aggression, it was his turn to demand
Corsica, Nice, Malta, Djibouti. From February 1938 on, he pondered new
vistas. Once having liberated Italy from the prison of the Mediterranean
and marched to the oceans, he anticipated a New World Order by the
year 2000 that would consist of Italy, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet
Union. Energized by youthful and proletarian peoples, the totalitarian pow-
ers would divest the exhausted and enfeebled Western Democracies of their
empires and divide up the world among themselves. Did Mussolini ever
believe his own reveries? Certainly, he indulged more and more in self-
deception, hiding from Italys increasingly perilous diplomatic position by
bombast and boasting, fooling himself into the belief that threats and in-
timidation would divide Britain from France, and downplaying the impor-
tance of the United States and the Soviet Union in any future European
conict. Furthermore, though holding his military in contempt, Mussolini
made no move to overcome the lethargy and antiquated thinking of Italys
armed forces. Similarly, he seemed not to draw the appropriate conclusions
from the fragile state of the Italian economy. Unwilling to repudiate a pol-
icy of grand presence, Mussolini made no attempt to conduct a diplomacy
that reected Italys true military and economic weakness. Worst of all, he
willfully ignored the dynamic imperialism of Nazi Germany. Isolated in a
small circle of sycophants, the Duce placed faith in his own intuition and
wanted to believe that his judgment was infallible.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Hitler reinforced Mussolinis belief
that Providence had singled him out to do great things for Italy.
This actual conquest of Ethiopia was till now only an idea. I have afrmed, nur-
tured, developed, and achieved it. But this concrete achievement must be followed
by others. Life, like revolution, continues. The conquest of Ethiopia is not an end
in itself; it is a rst step that would be senseless if I did not have a clear vision of
further steps that I must of necessity undertake and implement. . . . Without re-
sorting to hyperbole . . . I can say that I have my fatal responsibilities. My decisions
are not capricious; providence and destiny have burdened me with responsibilities
. . . Responsibilities form the essence of mission. And I am constrained to go on to
the very end until the mission that transcends me is fullled.
2
The ultimate goal was to invigorate the race and forge the new Fascist
man. From mystical nationalism and Futurist yearnings, Mussolini culti-
vated a strange melange of fatalism and voluntarism, of contempt for the
masses, and an irrational belief in their redemption through spilled blood.
226 Conclusion
The Italian people refused to live up to his heroic standards. They were
tired of military adventures, appalled by the alliance with Germany, and
offended by Mussolinis racial laws against Jews that ran counter to their
countrys humanitarian traditions. The Duce turned on his nation of
sheep, searching for the means to forge a nation of 60 million warriors,
for, in his view, a brutal awakening was needed, perhaps by means of war.
But Mussolinis disappointment over his peoples inability or unwillingness
to be transformed into an armed camp was frequently tempered by second
thoughts. Furthermore, he did not enjoy being led around by the nose by
the Fu hrer. The Duce would be the one to choose the time and place for
war, not Hitler. Yet, in choosing the moment, his wargiven Italian weak-
nesswould have to be already won by the Third Reich.
Thus, Mussolini drew back from intervention after Germanys attack on
Poland from fear that an expanded war would bring down his country and
destroy his regime. Pragmatism still held the upper hand over visceral re-
action, impulsiveness, and ideology. Frustrated by inaction, however, Mus-
solini was an unhappy warrior. He resented those, like Ciano, who
whispered that Italy had better stay out of war permanently or even come
in on the side of the Allies. The very thought that the Germans were de-
nouncing him as a traitor for his declaration of nonbelligerency threw him
into rage and humiliation. Fascism and the regime, Mussolini believed,
quivered in the balance; his new civilization and Italys historical mis-
sion still remained unfullled aspirations.
Beyond Mussolinis erce struggle between megalomania and reason was
the irrefutable reality that Italy in 1939 had been reduced to a military,
diplomatic, and economic paraplegic. Mussolinis twin goals of revisionism
and imperialism were devoid of real success, and his country was seriously
drained by its enormous military outlays in Ethiopia and Spain. The Italian
empire, such as it was, was vulnerable to British sea power, the Danube
region rested in the hands of Germany, and the Soviets challenged Italy in
the Balkans. Furthermore, a xation peculiar to Mussolini obstructed clear
thinking. He was not free, as Italys leaders had been in 19141915, to
choose between neutrality and war. In his mind, the option of making a
calculated choice for war on either side simply did not exist in 1939. Italy
in 1914 had decided not to go to war, but this memory strengthened Mus-
solinis inclination toward war. Fascist Italy would not repeat the coward-
ice of liberal Italy. The nonbelligerency of September 1939, therefore, did
not have anything to do with the ambiguous neutrality of 1914. Hounded
by the comparison, Mussolini strained against his own fears to enter the
war and thus to dispel this nightmare. Doubtless, the history of 1914 was
for him a persuasive argument to avoid a break with Germany.
During the period of the phony war, Mussolini contemplated ghting a
parallel war to secure his own objectives outside Hitlers European do-
main but still under Germanys military umbrella. True, he felt an ideolog-
Conclusion 227
ical camaraderie with Hitler insofar as they both presided over virile
dictatorships in mortal combat with the effete democracies, but the Nazi-
Soviet Pact reminded Mussolini that Italys interests did not converge with
Germanys and that Italy was not prepared for war. Furthermore, he un-
derstood that a total German victory in tacit partnership with the Soviet
Union would radically transform Europe to Italys detriment. These were
wake-up calls that curbed Mussolinis bellicosity. Nonetheless, since the
Duce refused to renounce his ambitions in the Adriatic and the Mediter-
ranean, he left himself only one alternative: expanding the political space
and role of Italy within the Axis. Having closed himself off from the West-
ern Powers, Mussolini hoped that his fellow dictator would not be offended
if he pushed Italy forward as a mediator with a decidedly pro-German
slant, or, on the sly, contrived a Balkan bloc of neutrals to contain Ger-
manys Drang nach Su dosten. As late as March 1940, he was still hopeful
of presiding over a second Munich that would end the conict short of
German domination over Europe. Had Germany not invaded France, It-
alys nonbelligerency might have gone on indenitely.
But Hitlers quick victories in France changed everything. Mussolini was
now confronted with a painful reality. No more could he entertain the idea
of a peace conference; Hitler would have none of it. As the French stag-
gered to defeat and with Britains capitulation seemingly imminent, Mus-
solini thought it madness to defy the Fu hrer. Better to join up before it was
too late. By attacking France, Mussolini sealed his own fate; he would go
down in history as Europes most notorious jackal.
Hitlers dizzying victories in France undoubtedly gave Mussolini the nal
push to intervene, but his tangled feelings about the Fu hrer and the Third
Reich created deep ambivalences. Unquestionably, Mussolini and Hitler
had much in common. Both indulged in a mysticism of empire and race,
gloried jackboots, and throve on guns and iron discipline. They exalted
in military reviews and parades, with the leader expounding higher truths
to exhilarated masses. The aura they presented of invincible ruthlessness
captured the imagination of people in both countries who were disillu-
sioned with democracy and fearful of the Bolshevik menace.
The two dictators also found an afnity in hate. As consummate mis-
anthropes, they despised humanitarian values and the democratic creed.
Hitler, grounded on the canons of Blood and Soil, vowed to avenge
Germanys defeat in World War I, overthrow the shackles imposed by
the victorious Allies, and achieve Lebensraum in the Ukraine. Mussolini
was motivated by bitter resentment over the refusal of the erstwhile Allies
at the Paris Peace Conference to grant Italy its just rewards following a
long and costly conict. It would be a mistake to underestimate how pro-
foundly the vittoria mutilata had penetrated Mussolinis psyche, condi-
tioned his diplomacy, and enabled him, playing on the resentments of
Italys frustrated nationalism, to gain popular support. As a result, Mus-
228 Conclusion
solini never seriously considered renewing the wartime alliance with the
Allies. He neither pondered a truly impartial mediators role nor tried to
establish a sound working relationship with Great Britain. Likewise, he
could never overcome his deeply held conviction that France was Italys
inveterate enemy, no matter how long a shadow Hitler cast over Europe.
If the Duce had ever mused on a revolutionary change in his diplomacy,
such as a resurrection of the Stresa Front, he could hardly do so after the
Anschluss, for by then he lacked any exit from the iron cage of Ger-
manys awesome military might.
3
Neither Hitler nor Mussolini considered their shared values to be a blood
vow of solidarity. Hitler continued to esteem the Duce but lied to him,
while Mussolini, underneath the platitudes, felt a contempt, mixed with
horror and fear, toward the Fu hrer. With a few notable exceptions, Fascists
and Nazis simply did not like each other. The rank and le of one pointed
out invidious traits of the other and emphasized the ideological differences
between them. True, in the last years, Mussolini strove to make Italy over
in the image of Nazi Germany, capped by the passage of racial laws against
the Jews, but, given the choice and immensely more power, the Duce would
have done without an Axis. Instead, he would have avenged himself against
the Western Democracies, enlarged the Italian empire, and barred Germany
from the annexation of Austria.
Mussolini chose to link Italys fate with Germany at the moment of truth
from a position of weakness, as the lesser of several evils. This fateful de-
cision was the outgrowth of a diplomatic calculation that had been awed
over the years by amateur diplomacy, the personalization of international
politics, overweening ambition, and Fascist ideology. Given Mussolinis
convictions about war and empire-building, he was incapable of crafting a
foreign policy of limited aims consonant with Italys paucity of natural
resources and its underdeveloped industry that could not supply the armed
forces with the sinews of modern warfare on a large scale. Hitler, on the
other hand, dealt with Mussolini from a position of overwhelming strength;
he did not need Italy as an ally. With a mighty war machine and a mili-
tarized nation at his beck and call, he enjoyed having the Duce on board
for sentimental reasons, as a fellow dictator once considered an inspiration
and beacon of light. No matter what the power disparities between their
two countries or how much they actually looked forward to ghting to-
gether as brother dictators, Mussolini and Hitler were attracted to each
other by a shared fascination with war and a relentless urge to dominate.
But Mussolini was driven by old-fashioned imperialist impulses rather than
the desire for increased living space because of a supposed racial superi-
ority, and so he did not dream, as did Hitler, of annihilating his European
enemies. Whereas Nazi Germanys goal was to declare Aryan supremacy
over the corpses of lesser races, Mussolinis expansionist ambitions were
more conventional: Tunisia, Malta, Corfu, Cyprus, Egypt, and predomi-
Conclusion 229
nance in the Mediterranean and Adriatic. While Hitler took mass killing
to a level not seen since Attila the Huna Holocaust against the Jews,
euthanasia programs, the mass murder of political opponents, and Lebens-
raum at the expense of peoples considered racially inferiorMussolinis
terrorism was far more sporadic and limited to political opponents singly
or in small groups; his anti-Semitism, though vicious, never reached a Final
Solution. (At the same time, one should not forget the atrocities committed
by Fascist Italy against the conquered peoples of Libya and Ethiopia.) Al-
though Mussolini frequently talked about ercely fought campaigns against
the British eet and Italian Lebensraum in the Balkans, he was not irresis-
tibly attracted to the Nazi regime; no ideological magnet drew the Fascist
and Nazi regimes together.
It was rather the bitter realization of Italys impotence that nally pro-
pelled the Duce into the arms of Hitler in June 1940. No longer could
Mussolini stand the tension of ongoing nonbelligerency, a status that stirred
fears of German revenge and of Italys exclusion from distribution of the
colonial spoils of the despised British and French, who seemed on the verge
of a catastrophic defeat. The terrible truth that Mussolini chose to suppress
was that, even in an Axis victory, Italy was bound to lose. Whatever zones
of inuence Mussolini gained in the Balkans, Africa, or the Mediterranean
would have to be shared with a vastly more powerful Germany. Italy could
never be anything other than the Third Reichs satellite, wholly dependent
on the Fu hrers pleasure. But, given Mussolinis imperialist ambition to
secure true national independence through a window on the ocean, an
ambition fortied by his desire to test the mettle of his regime in war, there
was no exit from these dilemmas save intervention on the side of Hitlers
Germany. By tying himself to Hitlers war chariot, Mussolini sacriced the
national interests of his country to the survival of the Fascist regime and
of himself as Italys Duce. After the collapse of France, Mussolinis descent
into war was merely a question of timing, his appointment with history
realized.
NOTES
1. Quoted in MacGregor Knox, Foreign Policy and its Wars, 358.
2. Quoted in De Felice, Mussolini il duce, 2: 690.
3. Di Nolfos colorful term. Ennio Di Nolfo, Mussolini e la decisione italiana
di entrare nella seconda guerra mondiale, in LItalia e la politica di potenza in
Europa 19381940, ed. Ennio di Nolfo, Romain H. Rainero, and Brunello Vigezzi
(Milan: Marzorati, 1986).
Bibliography
PRIMARY SOURCES
This study is based on archival materials, printed collections of documents, and
books and articles published during or after World War II. Unpublished archival
materials were consulted in the Archivio storico del ministero degli affari esteri
(Rome), the Public Record Ofce (London), and the Ministe`re des Affaires E
tran-
ge`res (Paris). A complete set of the Grandi Diaries, 19291932, can be found at
Georgetown University.
PRINTED COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
The prime source of information on Italys foreign policy between the wars con-
sists of I documenti diplomatici italiani, series 69 (19181940). This documentary
collection, still incomplete for series 8, is compiled largely from the archives of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome. Also quite useful are the Documents diplom-
atiques Francais, 19321940; Documents on German Foreign Policy, 19181945;
Foreign Relations of the United States; and Documents on British Foreign Policy,
19191939.
By far the most important of the memoir materials are the Ciano diaries. Al-
though they must be handled with some care, the diaries provide insights into
Cianos character and Mussolinis diplomatic stylehis unpredictable mood
changes, vacillations, and determination to wage war.
232 Bibliography
SECONDARY WORKS CITED IN FOOTNOTES IN THIS
BOOK
A
da m, Magda, Gyula Juha sz, Lajos Kerekes. Allianz HitlerHorthyMussolini:

Dokumente zur Ungarischen Aussenpolitik 19331934. Budapest: Akade-
miai Kiado , 1966.
Albrecht-Carrie, Rene. Italy at the Paris Peace Conference. Hamden, Conn.: Ar-
chon, 1966.
Aloisi, Baron Pompeo. Journal: 25 juillet 193214 juin 1936. Paris: Plon, 1957.
Anfuso, Filippo. Da Palazzo Venezia al Lago di Garda (19361945). Bologna:
Capelli, 1957.
Baer, George W. The Coming of the ItalianEthiopian War. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1967.
. Test Case: Italy, Ethiopia, and the League of Nations. Stanford, Calif.:
Hoover Institution Press, 1976.
Barros, James. The Corfu Incident of 1923. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1965.
Bartalits, Laszlo Lajos Sandor. Hongarije en de Anschluss 19181938. Tilburg:
Hianotten, 1968.
Boccianti, G. Verso gli accordi MussoliniLaval: Il ravvicimento italo-francese fra
il 1931 e il 1934. Milan: Giuffre`, 1984.
Bolech Cecchi, Donatella. Non bruciare i ponti con Roma. Milan: Giuffre`, 1986.
Bosworth, Richard. Italy and the Approach of the First World War. New York: St.
Martins Press, 1983.
Bottai, Giuseppe. Diario 19351944. Milan: Rizzoli, 1989.
Braunthal, Julius. The Tragedy of Austria. London: Gollancz, 1948.
Brundu Olla, Paola. Lequilibrio difcile: Gran Bretagna, Italia e Francia nel Med-
iterraneo (19301937). Milan: Giuffre`, 1980.
Burgwyn, H. James. Il revisionismo fascista. Florence: Feltrinelli, 1979.
. Conict or Rapprochement? Grandi Confronts France and its Protege
Yugoslavia. Storia delle relazioni internazionali 1 (1987): 7495.
. La troika danubiana di Mussolini: Italia, Austria e Ungheria, 1927
1936. Storia contemporanea 31, no. 4 (August 1990): 61786.
. The Legend of the Mutilated Victory: Italy, the Great War, and the Paris
Peace Conference, 19151919. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993.
Cannistraro, Philip V. Per una storia dei fasci negli Stati Uniti. Storia contem-
poranea 35, no. 6 (December 1995): 10611144.
Cannistraro, Philip, and Brian R. Sullivan. Il Duces Other Woman. New York:
Morrow, 1993.
Cantalupo, Roberto. Fu la Spagna: Ambasciata presso Franco (febbraioaprile
1937). Milan: Mondadori, 1948.
Carocci, Giampiero. La politica estera dellItalia fascista. Bari: Laterza, 1969.
Cassels, Alan. Mussolini and German Nationalism 19221925. Journal of Mod-
ern History 35, no. 2 (June 1963): 13757.
. Mussolinis Early Diplomacy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1970.
Chabod, Federico. Italian Foreign Policy: The Statecraft of the Founders (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966).
Bibliography 233
Charles-Roux, Francois. Souvenirs diplomatiques: Une grande ambassade a` Rome.
Paris: Fayard, 1961.
Ciano, Count Galeazzo. The Ciano Diaries, 19391943. Edited by Hugh Gibson.
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1946.
. Cianos Diplomatic Papers. Edited by Malcolm Muggeridge and translated
by Stuart Hood. London: Oldhams Press, 1948.
. Cianos Diary, 19371938. Edited by Malcolm Muggeridge and translated
by Andreas Mayor. London: Methuen, 1952.
Clarke, J. Calvitt, III. Russia and Italy against Hitler: The Bolshevik-Fascist Rap-
prochement of the 1930s. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991.
Cliadakis, Harry. Neutrality and War in Italian Policy, 19391940. Journal of
Contemporary History 9 (1974): 17190.
Collier, Richard. Duce! A Biography of Benito Mussolini. New York: Viking Press,
1971.
Colton, Joel. Leon Blum: Humanist in Politics. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966.
Coverdale, John F. Italian Intervention in the Spanish Civil War. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1975.
DAmoia, Fulvio. Declino e prima crisi dellEuropa di Versailles. Milan: Giuffre`,
1967.
De Felice, Renzo. Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il fascismo. Turin: Einaudi, 1972.
. Mussolini il duce. Vol. 1. Gli anni del consenso 19291936. Turin: Einaudi,
1974.
. Mussolini il duce. Vol. 2: Lo Stato totalitario 19361940. Turin: Einaudi,
1981.
. Mussolini e Hitler: I rapporti segreti, 19221933. Florence: Le Monnier,
1983.
Dilks, David N. British Reactions to Italian Empire-Building, 19361939. In Ita-
lia e Inghilterra nelleta` dell imperialismo, edited by Enrico Serra and Chris-
topher Seton-Watson, 16594. Milan: ISPI, 1990.
Di Nolfo, Ennio. Mussolini e la politica estera italiana (19191933). Padua: CE-
DAM, 1960.
. Mussolini e la decisione italiana di entrare nella seconda guerra mondi-
ale. In LItalia e la politica di potenza in Europa (19381940), edited by
Ennio Di Nolfo, Romain H. Rainero, and Brunello Vigezzi, 1938. Milan:
Marzorati, 1988).
Douglas, Roy. Chamberlain and Eden 193738. Journal of Contemporary His-
tory 13, no. 1 (January 1978): 97116.
DOvidio, Francesco Lefebvre. Lintesa italofrancese del 1935. Rome: privately
published, 1984.
Duroselle, Jean Baptiste. La Decadence (19321939). Paris: Imprimerie Nationale,
1979.
Eden, Anthony. Facing the Dictators, 19231938. Boston: Houghton Mifin, 1962.
Edmondson, C. Earl. The Heimwehr and Austrian Politics 19181936. Athens, Ga.:
University of Georgia Press, 1978.
Francois-Poncet, Andre. Au palais Francaise: souvenirs dune ambassade a` Rome,
19381940. Paris: Fayard, 1961.
234 Bibliography
Garzia, Italo. Pio XII e lItalia nella seconda guerra mondiale. Trent: Morcelliana,
1988.
Gehl, Ju rgen. Austria, Germany, and the Anschluss, 19311938. London: Oxford
University Press, 1963.
Grandi, Dino. Il mio paese. Bologna: Mulino, 1985.
. La politica estera dellItalia dal 19291932. Rome: Bonacci, 1985.
Guerri, Giordano Bruno. Galeazzo Ciano. Milan: Bompiani, 1979.
Haas, Karl. Die Ro mische Allianz, 1934. In Der Ma rz 1933: vom Verfassungs-
bruch zur Diktatur, edited by E. Fro schl and H. Zoitl, 6992. Vienna: Volks-
buchhandlung, 1984.
Hoptner, J. P. Yugoslavia in Crisis 19341941. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1963.
Hull, Cordell. The Memoirs of Cordell Hull. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1948.
Jarausch, Hugo. The Four Power Pact 1933. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1966.
Jordan, Nicole. The Popular Front and Central Europe: The Dilemmas of French
Impotence, 19141918. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Kent, Peter C. The Pope and the Duce. New York: St. Martins Press, 1981.
Kerekes, Lajos. Abendda mmerung einer Demokratie: Mussolini, Go mbo s und die
Heimwehr. Vienna, Frankfurt, Zurich: Europa Verlag, 1966.
Kindermann, Gottfried-Karl. Hitlers Defeat in Austria 19331934. Boulder, Colo.:
Westview Press, 1988.
Kitchen, Martin. The Coming of Austrian Fascism. London: Croom Helm, 1980.
Knox, MacGregor. Mussolini Unleashed 19391941. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1982.
. Conquest, Foreign and Domestic, in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.
Journal of Modern History 56, no. 1 (March 1984): 157.
. I testi aggiustati dei discorsi segreti di Dino Grandi. Passato e Presente
13 (gennaioaprile 1987): 97117.
. Foreign Policy and its Wars: An Anti-Anti-Fascist Orthodoxy? Contem-
porary European History 4, no.1 (1995): 34765.
Lagardelle, Hubert de. Mission a` Rome: Mussolini. Paris: Plon, 1955.
Lamb, Richard. The Ghosts of Peace 19351945. Salisbury, England: Michael Rus-
sell, 1987.
Large, David Clay. Between Two Fires. New York: Norton, 1990.
Lowe, C. J., and F. Marzari. Italian Foreign Policy 18701940. London and Bos-
ton: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975.
Luciolli, Mario. (Mario Donosti, pseud.). Mussolini e lEuropa: La politica estera
fascista. Rome: Leonardo, 1945.
Mack Smith, Denis. Mussolinis Roman Empire. London and New York: Longman,
1976.
Magistrati, Massimo. LItalia e Berlino (19371939). Verona: Mondadori, 1956.
Malagodi, Olindo. Conversazioni della guerra, 19141919. 2 vols. Milan: Riccardo
Ricciardi, 1960.
Marks, Sally. Mussolini and the Ruhr Crisis. International Historical Review 8,
no. 1 (February 1986): 5669.
Marzari, Frank. Projects for an Italian-led Balkan Bloc of Neutrals, September
December 1939. Historical Journal 13, no. 4 (1970): 76788.
Bibliography 235
Michaelis, Meir. Il Conte Galeazzo Ciano di Cortellazzo quale antesignano
dellasse Roma-Berlino. Nuova rivista storica (JanuaryJune 1977): 116
49.
. Mussolini and the Jews. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1978.
. Italys Mediterranean Strategy, 19351939. In Britain and the Middle
East in the 1930s, edited by M. J. Cohen and M. Kolinsky, 4160. London:
St. Martins Press, 1992.
Migone, Gian Giacomo. Gli Stati Uniti e il fascismo. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1980.
Mommsen, Wolfgang, and Lothar Kettenacker, eds. The Fascist Challenge and the
Policy of Appeasement. London: Allen and Unwin, 1983.
Mori, Renato. Mussolini e la conquista dellEtiopia. Florence: Le Monnier, 1978.
Nere, Jacques. The Foreign Policy of France from 1914 to 1945. London and Bos-
ton: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975.
Noel, Leon. Les illusions de Stresa: LItalie abandonnee a` Hitler. Paris: E
ditions
France-Empire, 1975.
Nuti, Leopoldo. I problemi storiograci conessi con lintervento italiano nella se-
conda guerra mondiale. Storia delle relazioni internazionali 2 (1985): 369
91.
Parker, R.A.C. Chamberlain and Appeasement. New York: St. Martins Press,
1993.
Pastorelli, Pietro. Italia e Albania 19241927. Florence: RSPI, 1967.
Peters, Anthony R. Anthony Eden at the Foreign Ofce, 19311938. New York:
St Martins Press, 1986.
Petersen, Jens. Hitler e Mussolini. Bari: Laterza, 1975.
. Il Mussolini di Renzo De Felice. Passato e presente 1 (1982): 1023.
Post, Gaines, Jr. Dilemmas of Appeasement: British Deterrence and Defense 1934
1937. Ithaca, N.Y. and London: Cornell University Press, 1993.
Pratt, Lawrence. East of Malta, West of Suez: Britains Mediterranean Crisis, 1936
1939. London: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
Quartararo, Rosaria. Le origini del piano HoareLaval. Storia contemporanea
8, no. 4 (December 1977): 74990.
. Roma tra Londra e Berlino: La politica estera fascista dal 1930 al 1940.
Rome: Bonacci, 1980.
Robertson, Esmond M. Mussolini as Empire-Builder: Europe and Africa, 1932
1936. New York: St. Martins Press, 1977.
. Mussolini and the Rhineland. European Studies Review 7 (1977): 409
35.
Rusinow, Dennison I. Italys Austrian Heritage 19191946. Oxford, England: Clar-
endon Press, 1969.
Sadkovich, J. J. Italian Support for Croatian Separatism, 19271937. New York:
Garland, 1987.
Schausberger, Norbert. Der Griff nach O
sterreich. Munich: J&V, 1979.

Schmidt, Paul. Statist auf Diplomatischer Bu hne 19231945. Bonn: Athena um,
1950.
Schreiber, Gerhard, Bernd Stegemann, and Detlef Vogel. Germany and the Second
World War. Vol. 3: The Mediterranean, South-east Europe, and North Af-
rica 19391941. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1995.
Schuschnigg, Kurt von. Austrian Requiem. New York: Putnam, 1946.
236 Bibliography
Segre, Claudio. Liberal and Fascist Italy in the Middle East, 19191939: The
Elusive White Stallion. In The Great Powers and the Middle East 1919
1939, edited by Uriel Dann, 199212. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1988.
Seton-Watson, Christopher. The Anglo-Italian Gentlemans Agreement of January
1937 and its Aftermath. In The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Ap-
peasement, edited by Wolfgang Mommsen and Lothar Kettenacker. London:
Allen & Unwin, 1983.
Shorrock, William I. From Ally to Enemy: The Enigma of Fascist Italy in French
Diplomacy. Kent, Ohio, and London: Kent State University Press, 1988.
Smyth, Denis. Duce Diplomatico. Historical Journal 21, no. 4 (December 1978):
9811000.
Stafford, P. The Chamberlain-Halifax visit to Rome: a reappraisal. English
Historical Review 98 (January 1983): 61100.
Starhemberg, Prince Ernst Ru diger. Between Hitler and Mussolini. London: Hodder
and Stoughton, 1942.
Stuhlpfarrer, Karl. Zur Aussenpolitischen Lage O
sterreichs im Jahre 1934. In

Februar 1934, edited by E. Fro schl and H. Zoitl, 45162. Vienna: Volks-
buchandlung, 1984.
Susmel, Edoardo and Duilio, eds. Opera omnia di Benito Mussolini. Florence: La
Fenice, 1956.
Tamaro, Attilo. Venti anni di storia, 19221943. 3 vols. Rome: Tiber, 1955.
Taylor, Telford. Munich: The Price of Peace. New York: Vantage Books, 1980.
Toscano, Mario. The Origins of the Pact of Steel. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1967.
. Storia diplomatica della questione dellAlto Adige. Bari: Laterza, 1967.
Troebst, Stefan. Macedonien und die Ma chte 19221930. Cologne and Vienna:
Bo hlau Verlag, 1987.
Tuninetti, D. M. La mia missione in Austria, 19371938. Milan: C.E.B.E.S., 1946.
Vansittart, Sir Robert. The Mist Procession. London: Hutchinson, 1958.
Varsori, Antonio. Italy, Britain and a Separate Peace 194043. Journal of Italian
History 1, no. 3 (1981)
Wandycz, Piotr S. The Twilight of French Eastern Alliances, 19261936. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Weinberg, Gerhard L. The Foreign Policy of Hitlers Germany 19371939. Chicago
and London: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Welles, Sumner. The Time for Decision. New York: Harper, 1944.
Wiskemann, Elizabeth. The Rome-Berlin Axis. 2d ed. London: Collins, 1966.
Index
Adua, battle of, 1896, 67, 111, 118,
125, 127, 130, 159, 195
Albania, 23, 7, 1516, 20, 2325, 63,
74, 82, 108, 110, 125, 15556, 202,
209, 217; treaty of Tirana with Italy
26 November 1926, 41; pact with
Italy 22 November 1927, 42; inva-
sion of by Italy April 1939, 18891
Albertini, Luigi, 136
Alexander (Karageorgevic), King of
Yugoslavia, 26, 48, 74, 79, 108
Aleri, Dino [Italian Minister for Pop-
ular Culture, 19361939; Ambassa-
dor to the Holy See, 19391940;
Ambassador to Berlin, 19401943],
131, 142
Aloisi, Pompeo [Baron, Chief of Cabi-
net, Italian Foreign Ministry, and
representative to the League of
Nations, 19321936], 8384, 127,
130, 133, 141
Alto Adige, 75, 107, 154. See also
South Tyrol
Anfuso, Filippo, Chief of Cabinet, Ital-
ian Foreign Ministry, 210
Anschluss (union of Austria with Ger-
many), xiv, 6163, 66, 73, 76, 88,
90, 110, 112, 11415, 119, 13942,
147, 151, 164, 166, 168, 17374,
176, 187, 2089, 224; Mussolini
and the Locarno negotiations, 2732;
Mussolinis efforts to defend against,
98, 1038, 14243, 15356, 164
69, 203, 208; Hitler and, 76, 9193,
97, 102, 13940, 150, 164, 16668
Anti-Comintern Pact, 158, 184, 188,
193
Attolico, Bernardo, Italian Ambassa-
dor, Berlin, 19351940, 131, 200
201
Auriti, Giacinto, Italian minister, Vi-
enna, 51
Austria, Federal Republic of: Italy and
Locarno negotiations 1925, 2732;
Italy and the Customs Union negoti-
ations with Germany, 6164; battle-
ground between Italy and Germany,
76 79; Gentlemans Agreement
with Germany 11 July 1936, 13943;
annexation by Germany, March
1938, 16668. See also Anschluss
Austria-Hungary, The Dual Habsburg
Monarchy, 3, 56, 89
238 Index
Austrian Socialist Party, 7778, 8788,
9193, 97, 1045, 223
Avenol, Joseph, 17778
Averescu, General Alexander, Premier
of Romania, 19261927, 3739
Badoglio, General Pietro [Chief of Ital-
ian General Staff, 19251940; Ital-
ian prime minister after dismissal of
Mussolini July 1943], 43, 120, 129
30, 132, 134, 136, 203, 216
Baker, Ray Stannard, 13
Balbo, Italo [Chief of the Italian Air
Force, 19261933; governor of
Libya, 19341940], 187
Baldwin, Stanley, British Prime Minis-
ter, 19351937, 115, 130
Balearic Islands, 14850, 163, 185
Balfour, James Arthur, British Foreign
Secretary, 19161919, 7
Barthou, Louis, French Foreign Minis-
ter, 1934, 104, 1069
Bastianini, Giuseppe, Ambassador to
London, 19391940, 142
Baudouin, Paul, 18586
Beaumarchais, Maurice, French Am-
bassador, Italy, 19281932, 43, 67
Benes, Eduard [Czechoslovak Foreign
Minister, 19181935; President of
Czechoslovak Republic, 19351938],
25, 29, 80, 168, 17778
Berthelot, Philippe, Secretary General
of the French Foreign Ministry,
19251933, 67
Bethlen, Count Istva n, Hungarian
prime minister, 19211931, 39, 49,
72
Blum, Leon, French Prime Minister,
June 1936July 1937, MarchApril
1938, 142, 147, 149, 174
Bocchini, Arturo, Chief of Police, 1926
1940, 135
Bol n, Luis, 148
Bonaccorsi, Arconovaldo, 150
Bonnet, Georges, French Foreign Min-
ister, 19381939, 174, 188, 192
Bottai, Giuseppe, Italian Minister of
Education, 19361943, 187, 206,
208, 210
Briand, Aristide, French Foreign Minis-
ter, 19251932, 27, 3032, 41, 43,
59, 61
Bulgaria, 3638, 40, 43, 4546, 74,
79, 209
Buresch, Karl, 72
Canaris, Admiral Wilhelm, head of
German Intelligence Service, 131,
135, 151
Cantalupo, Roberto, Italian Ambassa-
dor, Madrid, 1937, 153
Caporetto, battle of, 1917, 2, 4
Cavallero, Ugo, 194
Cavallero Memorandum, 194, 200
Chamberlain, Sir Austen, British For-
eign Secretary, 19241929, xvi, 36,
4042, 4546, 53
Chamberlain, Neville, British Prime
Minister, 19371940, 160, 166,
168, 175, 177, 188, 200, 215, 224;
conversation with Grandi 18 Febru-
ary 1938, 165; Czechoslovak crisis
1938, 17581; meeting with Musso-
lini in Rome 11 January 1939, 184
85; attitude toward Italy, 190
Chambrun, Charles de, French Ambas-
sador, Rome, 133, 174
Charles-Roux, Francois, French Am-
bassador, Holy See, 19261940, 215
Christov, Georgi pop, 45
Churchill, Winston Spencer, British
Prime Minister, 19401945, xvi, 213
16
Ciano, Count Galeazzo [Minister of
Propaganda 19331936; Italian For-
eign Minister 19361943], 131, 149,
157, 164, 176, 18285, 19192,
226; character of, 14546; relation-
ship with Mussolini, 169;
appointment as foreign minister June
1936, 142, 145; urges Mussolini to
intervene on Francos side in Spanish
conict, 148, 153, 15960, 164; tilt
toward Hitler, 151, 155, 162; dislike
of Austria, 154, 156, 158, 164; rap-
Index 239
prochement with Yugoslavia, 155
56; signs antiComintern Pact 6
November 1937, 158; views on the
Anschluss crisis of FebruaryMarch
1938, 16465, 167; attitude toward
the Czechoslovak crisis, 17481;
urges invasion of Albania, 18891;
talks with Stoyadinovic, 189; negoti-
ations with von Ribbentrop in Milan
for Pact of Steel May 1939, 19394;
estrangement from Germany, 186
87, 191; meets with Hitler and von
Ribbentrop in Salzburg and Berch-
tesgaden 11 and 12 August 1939,
2012; reactions to Nazi-Soviet
Non-Aggression Pact, 203; visit with
Hitler 1 October 1939, 207; pursuit
of Balkan league, 207; addresses
Italian Chamber 16 December 1939,
2089; meeting with Sumner Welles,
210
Clemenceau, Georges, French Prime
Minister, 19171920, 8, 1113
Colosomo, Gaspare, 11
Contarini, Enrico, 21, 25, 28, 30, 38,
57
Cooper, Duff, 166
Corfu Incident, 21, 2324
Corradini, Enrico, 19
Cortese, Paolo, 74
Crispi, Francesco, 101
Croatia, 5, 14, 74; Italian support of
separatism, 4647, 108, 110, 112,
15556; German threats to, 18687,
190; Mussolinis designs on 1939
1940, 199, 201, 203, 207
Croce, Benedetto, 136
Curtius, Julius, 63, 66
Customs Union, 6164, 66
Czechoslovakia, 16, 20, 25, 27, 39,
62, 94, 151, 169, 201, 224; Musso-
linis attitude toward, 139; crisis with
Germany, 17781; fate of, 184, 186
Daladier, E
douard, French Prime Min-

ister, 19381940, 174, 179, 200; at
Munich, 180; hard line against Italy,
18386, 188; radio address of 29
March 1939, 18890; authorizes
talks with Italy 3 May 1939, 192;
offers concessions to Italy, 215
DAnnunzio, Gabriele, 1416
De Bono, Emilio, 68, 1012, 125, 127
29
De Bosdari, Alessandro, 29
De Felice, Renzo, xvixvii, 58, 174
Delbos, Yvon, French Foreign Minis-
ter, 19361938, 166
Dollfuss, Englebert, Chancellor of Aus-
tria 19321934, 7273, 76, 79, 96
98, 1025, 107, 223 talks with
Mussolini at Riccioni 1933, 90
Doumergue, Gaston, 28
Drang nach Su dosten, 62, 64, 76, 112,
189, 207, 223, 227
Drummond, Sir Eric, 120
Easter Accords of 16 April 1938, 167
68, 17374, 176, 179, 182, 184,
191, 223
Eden, Anthony [British Minister for
League of Nations Affairs 1935;
Foreign Secretary 19351938], 110,
113, 115, 118, 12627, 130, 150
51; visit to Rome June 1935, 116
17; attitude on sanctions, 13335;
attitude toward Mussolini, 160, 164
65; rift with Chamberlain, 161, 164
67
Ethiopia, xiv, 6768, 75, 8082, 84,
94, 10121, 14547, 149, 152, 155,
160, 16265, 222, 224. See also
Mussolini, Benito
Farinacci, Roberto, 163, 214
Fascist Grand Council, 214; meetings
of: 5 February 1929, 60; 26 May
1935, 115; 18 December 1935, 129
30; 4 February 1939, 185; 1 Sep-
tember 1939, 205; 7 December
1939, 208; 2425 July 1943, 217
Fatherland Front, 88, 9091, 9395,
97, 103, 14041
Federzoni, Luigi [Italian Minister of
Colonies, 19221924; of Interior,
19241926], 187
240 Index
Fey, Major Emil, 77, 9197, 103
Flandin, Pierre-E
tienne, French Foreign

Minister, 1936, 13034
Four Power Pact 1933, 87, 98, 102,
134, 173
France: Italian claims on, 4344, 60
61, 18283, 18586; rivalry with It-
aly, 69, 25, 35; Locarno treaty
1925, 2832; Franco-Yugoslav
Treaty 11 November 1927, 41, 73;
and disarmament, 8385; Franco-
Italian Agreement of 7 January
1935, 11011; Stresa Conference
April 1935, 11315; economic sanc-
tions against Italy, 12530; Spanish
Civil War and, 14950; Italian dec-
laration of war on, 216
Franco y Bahamonde, Francisco, dicta-
tor of Spain, 19391975, xvi, 142,
174, 176, 18586, 188, 224; upris-
ing 17 July 1936, 14748; Italian
help to, 14953, 155, 16163, 186,
188
Francois-Poncet, Andre [French Am-
bassador in Berlin, 19311938;
Rome, 19381940], 180, 182, 188,
192, 21516
Franco-Soviet Pact, 132, 134
Frank, Hans, 147
Frank, Ivo, 47
Galli, Carlo, 47
Garibaldi, Ezio, 128
Gayda, Virginio, editor, Giornale
dItalia, 154
Gentlemans Agreement (Abkommen)
between Germany and Austria 11
July 1936, xiv, 139, 142, 147, 151,
15354, 22324
Gentlemens Agreement between Italy
and Britain 2 January 1937, 142,
150, 152, 161, 167, 190, 223
Germany: and Locarno 1925, 2732;
customs union project, 6164; hos-
tility toward Austria, 7679, 9598;
remilitarization of the Rhineland,
13335; military intervention in
Spain, 15153; annexation of Aus-
tria, 164, 16667; dismemberment
of Czechoslovakia, 17382; seizure
of Prague, 186; Pact of Steel with It-
aly, 19395; aggression against Po-
land, 199205; and World War II,
20718
Ghigi, Pellegrino, Italian minister in
Vienna, 1938, 158
Giardino, Gaetano, 25
Giolitti, Giovanni, 15
Go mbo s, Julius, Hungarian Prime
Minister 19321936, 72, 79, 87, 90
91, 98, 109, 112, 13940, 142, 156;
meetings with Mussolini: November
1932, 73; July 1933; 89; disparage-
ment of Dollfuss, 92, 94; approaches
to Hitler, 89
Go ring, Hermann, German Minister
for Air and Commander in Chief of
German Air Force, 78, 84, 15253,
158, 175, 191
Graham, Sir Ronald, British Ambassa-
dor in Rome, 59, 84
Grandi, Dino [Italian minister of For-
eign Affairs, 19291932; Italian Am-
bassador in London, 19321939],
54, 71, 101, 107, 111, 117, 119,
128, 135, 146, 187, 204, 206, 214,
21718, 225; diplomatic Realpoli-
tiker, 5759; ambiguities toward
France and Yugoslavia, 5961; reac-
tion to the German-Austrian Cus-
toms Union project, 6164; views of
Hitler and Germany, 6465; urges
invasion of Ethiopia 1932, 6668;
rivalry with Ciano, 160, 164; meet-
ings with Chamberlain and Eden 18
February 1938, 16466; urges
Chamberlain to contact Mussolini
September 1938, 179
Graziani, Rodolfo, viceroy of Ethiopia,
19361937, 130, 136, 138
Great Britain: Corfu invasion and, 23
24; Locarno negotiations, 2732;
disarmament, 8085; Stresa Front,
11215; Ethiopian war, 11521, 125
30; Spanish Civil War, 14950, 161
62; Anschluss and, 16566; Munich
Index 241
crisis, 17881; outbreak of World
War II, 210, 21315
Guadalajara, battle of, 1937, 15960,
163
Guariglia, Raffaele [Political Director,
Italian Foreign Ofce 19261932;
Ambassador, Paris, 19381940],
101, 119, 215
Habicht, Theodor, German Inspector of
Austrian Nazis, 88, 9092, 95, 103
Habsburg, Otto von, 139
Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia,
19301974, 10911, 13637
Halifax, Viscount, British Foreign Sec-
retary, 19381940, 185, 188, 205,
21415
Hankey, Sir Maurice, 166
Hassell, Ulrich von, German Ambassa-
dor in Rome, 19321938, 76, 95
96, 131, 133, 142
Heimwehr, 72, 78, 88, 90, 103, 105,
223; origins, 4849; internal dissi-
dents, 49, 51; Italian support of, 48,
5051; eclipse of, 13940, 142
Henderson, Arthur, 58, 61
Herriot, Edouard, French Prime Minis-
ter, 19241925, 1932, 6768, 119
Hesse, Philip Prince of, 179
Himmler, Heinrich, 135, 137
Hindenburg, Paul von, 64
Hirtenberg Weapons Affair, 7677
Hitler, Adolf, German Fhrer and Reich
Chancellor, 19331945, 55, 68, 73,
78, 8789, 1036, 109, 11215,
120, 126, 13637, 14142, 145,
147, 151, 18285, 18789, 199; ar-
rival in power, 75, 81; determination
to annex Austria, 76; pressure on
Dollfuss, 9193; meets with Musso-
lini at Venice June 1934, 97; attitude
toward Mussolinis invasion of Ethi-
opia, 130; remilitarizes the Rhine-
land 7 March 1936, 13335, 139;
Gentlemans Agreement with Aus-
tria, 13940, 150; meeting with
Ciano October 1936, 15152; inter-
vention in Spain, 162; receives Mus-
solini in Berlin September 1937, 156
58; receives Schuschnigg at
Berchtesgaden February 1938, 164;
marches into Austria March 1938,
16668; visit to Italy 39 May
1938, 17476; instigates crisis with
Czechoslovakia and Munich confer-
ence September 1938, 17782; seizes
Prague 15 March 1939, 186, 191;
hostility toward Poland, 19193;
Pact of Steel, 19495; meetings with
Ciano 12 and 13 August 1939 at
Salzburg and Berchtesgaden, 2012;
threats against Poland, 200203;
NaziSoviet Pact, 204; receives letter
from Mussolini 25 August 1939,
2034; war against Poland, 206; at-
titude toward Italian
nonbelligerency, 205, 2079; re-
ceives Mussolinis letter of 5 January
1940, 21011; letter to Mussolini 8
March 1940, 211; meets Mussolini
at Brenner 18 March 1940, 21112;
correspondence with Mussolini dur-
ing spring 1940, 21314; orders res-
cue of Mussolini, 21718;
comparison with Mussolini, 22329
Hoare, Sir Samuel, British Foreign Sec-
retary, 1935, 116, 11820, 125, 128
29, 13132, 135
Hoare-Laval Plan 7 December 1935,
12532
Horthy, Miklo s von Nagyba nya, Re-
gent of Hungary, 19201944, 93
House, Edward (Colonel), 5, 12
Hungary, 5, 9, 14, 16, 20, 62, 76, 79,
8283, 91, 104, 109, 112, 125, 139,
152, 15657, 177; relations with It-
aly, 3940, 8789, 9394; revision-
ism, 7273
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary
Organization (IMRO), 37, 4546
Italy: and the Great War, 14; Paris
Peace Conference, 414; Corfu inva-
sion, 2324; Locarno treaty 1925,
2732; Four Power Pact and
disarmament 1933, 8285; Rome
242 Index
Protocols Bloc, 9497, 1049; Stresa
Front, 11215; Ethiopian war, 125,
12930, 13236; League sanctions
against, 11820, 12530, 13235;
intervention in Spanish civil war,
14751, 15864; Rome-Berlin Axis,
15658, 160, 16466, 169, 17396,
199218; Munich crisis 1938, 173
82; invasion of Albania 1939, 188
91; Pact of Steel May 1939, 19195;
military discussions with Germany
1939, 199207; intervention in
World War II, 20716. See also
Mussolini, Benito
Japan, 128, 158, 160, 182, 184, 193,
225
Jouvenel, Henri de, French Ambassa-
dor, Rome, 1933, 75, 82
Ka rolyi, Gyula, 72
Kemal, Mustapha, 14, 2122
Lausanne Conference, 19221923, 22
Laval, Pierre [French Prime Minister,
19311932, 19351936; Foreign
Minister 19341935], 66, 75, 1089,
115, 147, 188; signs agreement with
Mussolini January 1935, 11012;
Hoare-Laval Agreement 7 December
1935, 12532; view on League action
against Italy, 11620; exchange of let-
ters with Mussolini, 130
League of Nations, 20, 32, 40, 61,
106, 11213, 116, 14547, 15255,
16061, 168, 175, 177; Mussolinis
attitude toward, 7172, 80, 102,
117, 161; Corfu incident, 2324;
Grandi and, 5859; Austria, 77, 79,
88, 9293, 1067, 10910; Ger-
many, 82, 84, 102, 135; Ethiopia,
107, 112; sanctions against Italy,
118, 12527, 13335; Committee of
Five, 11819, 127; Committee of
Eighteen, 125
Leger, Alexis, Secretary General French
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1933
1940, 130, 215
Ley, Dr. Robert, 209
Liapcev, Andrei, Bulgarian Premier,
19261931, 37, 4546
Little Entente, 25, 29, 3641, 44, 48
49, 72, 75, 77, 80, 82, 8485, 87
91, 94, 96, 104, 1069, 112, 140,
15556, 168
Lloyd George, David, British Prime
Minister, 19161922, 1112
Locarno Treaty 1925, 27, 3132
Loraine, Sir Percy, British Ambassador,
Rome, 19391940, 204, 215
MacDonald, Ramsay J., British Prime
Minister, 19291935, 58, 8384,
115
Macek, Vladko, 47
Mackensen, Hans Georg von, German
Ambassador, Rome, 19381943,
187, 214
Maffey Report, 117, 120
Magistrati, Massimo, Counselor at
Italian Embassy in Berlin, 200
Matteotti, Giacomo, Italian Socialist,
27, 147
Mazzotti, Vittorio, 47
Mihailov, Ivan, 45
Miklas, Wilhelm, President of Austria,
91
Montgomery, General Bernard, 217
Morreale, Eugenio, Italian Press Atta-
che in Vienna, 47, 51, 92
Mussolini, Benito, Italian prime minis-
ter and Duce of Italian Fascism,
19221943: nature of foreign policy,
xixiii, 1719, 21, 7172, 22122;
revisionist policies, 21, 5155; impe-
rialism, 22, 10121, 12543; Lau-
sanne Conference, 2224; Corfu
incident, 2324; Locarno conference
and the Anschluss question, 2732;
attempted breakup of Yugoslavia, 44
48; insurrectionary plots with the
IMRO, 4446; support of Croatian
terrorists, 4648; subsidizes the
Heimwehr, 4851; discussions with
Starhemberg, 50, 90; appointment of
Grandi as foreign minister 1929, 58;
Index 243
differences with Grandi, 6466;
pressure on Dollfuss, 7679; meeting
with Go mbo s November 1932, 73;
meeting with Dollfuss at Riccione
August 1933, 90; reaction to Hitlers
coming to power, 76; the Four
Power Pact, 8085; Jouvenel mis-
sion, 8283; disarmament negotia-
tions, 8385; directs destruction of
Austrian Social Democracy, 8793;
Rome Protocols Bloc, 9497; meet-
ing with Hitler June 1934, 97; reac-
tion to the assassination of Dollfuss,
98; troubled relationship with
Schuschnigg, 1037; visits with
Schuschnigg: August 1934, 1034;
November 1934, 105, 107; connec-
tion with the assassination of Bar-
thou and King Alexander, 108; plans
invasion of Ethiopia, 109; meeting
with Laval in Rome 47 January
1935, 11011; Stresa Conference
April 1935, 11215; meeting with
Schuschnigg May 1935; discussions
with Eden in Rome 2425 June
1935, 11516; Hoare-Laval plan,
12532; reaction to Hitlers remilita-
rization of the Rhineland, 13335,
139; meetings with Starhemberg
March and May 1936, 140; declara-
tion of the Empire 9 May 1936, 136;
meeting with Schuschnigg 56 June
1936, 141; appoints Ciano foreign
minister 9 June 1936, 142; reaction
to the AustroGerman Gentlemans
Agreement 11 July 1936, 14243;
intervention in the Spanish conict,
14850; speech at Milan 1 Novem-
ber 1936, 152; receives Go ring in
Rome January 1937, 15253; reac-
tion to Italys defeat at the battle of
Guadalahara, 155; meets with
Schuschnigg in Venice April 1937,
15354; rapprochement with Yugo-
slavia, 15556; visit to Germany
September 1937, 15658; acquies-
cence in Anschluss March 1938, 164
69; receives Hitler in Rome, 39
May 1938, 17475; issues Mani-
festo of the Race July 1938, 176;
Czechoslovak crisis, 17779; pre-
sides over Munich Conference Sep-
tember 1938, 18082; speech before
Chamber of Fasces and Corpora-
tions 30 November 1938, 18283;
talks with Chamberlain in Rome
January 1939, 18485; Fascist
Grand Council speech 4 February
1939, 18586; reaction to Ger-
manys occupation of Prague March
1939, 18687; addresses Blackshirts
26 March 1939, 187; invasion of
Albania April 1939, 18891; re-
ceives Go ring in Rome 1417 April
1939, 19192; Pact of Steel May
1939, 19195; correspondence with
Hitler August 1939, 199207; letter
to Hitler 25 August 1939, 2034;
address Fascist Grand Council 7 De-
cember 1939, 208; letter to Hitler 5
January 1940, 209; addresses Coun-
cil of Ministers 23 January 1940,
210; meets Hitler at Brenner 18
March 1940, 21112; memorandum
of 31 March 1940, 212; weighs in-
tervention, 21316; enters war 10
June 1940, 21618; fall from power,
ight, and execution, 21718
Nazi-Soviet Pact 23 August 1939, 203
4, 2078, 21011
Nettuno Conventions 20 July 1925,
26, 42
Neurath, Baron Konstantin von
[German Ambassador, Rome, 1921
1930, Foreign Minister, 19321938],
44, 65, 156
Nincic, Momcilo, Yugoslav Foreign
Minister, 19241927, 2526
Nitti, Francesco Saverio, Italian Prime
Minister, 19191920, 1415
Noli, Fan, 26
Nyon Conference, 16162
Orlando, Vittorio Emanuele, Italian
Prime Minister, 19171919, 5, 11,
244 Index
14; rivalry with Sonnino, 8; aims at
the Paris Peace Conference, 10, 12
13
Pact of London 1915, 112, 15, 18
19, 22, 2425, 28
Pact of Rome 24 July 1924, 2526,
43
Pact of Steel (Italo-German military al-
liance), 22 May 1939, xv, 19195,
199200, 2025
Paganon, Joseph, 68
Papen, Baron Franz von, Hitlers spe-
cial envoy to Austria, 78, 9596,
103, 105, 107, 132, 139, 14041
Pariani, Alberto, Italian Undersecretary
for War, 19361939, 189
Paris Peace Conference, 1919, 23, 7
8, 19, 190, 227
Pasic, Nikola, Serbian Prime Minister,
24
Paul, Prince, 156, 189
Paul-Boncour, Joseph, French Foreign
Minister, 19321934, 1938, 75, 90
Pavelic, Ante, Croat terrorist leader, 47
48, 75, 108
Percec, Gustav, 48
Perth, The Earl of, British Ambassa-
dor, Rome, 19331939, 179, 188
peso determinante (decisive weight),
xiv, xvi, 58, 61, 63, 68, 72, 132,
135, 166, 173, 184, 206, 210, 212,
221, 22324
Petacci, Clara, 218
Peterson, Maurice, 128
Picasso, Pablo, 163
Pilotti, Massimo, 117
Pius XI, Pope, 19221939, 149, 174,
17677
Poincare, Raymond, French Premier,
19221924, 19261929, 22, 32
Poland, 27, 81, 104, 110, 156, 177,
181, 186, 199200, 207; crisis with
and invasion by Germany, 19195,
100105, 208, 210, 212
Popolo dItalia, Mussolinis ofcial or-
gan, 47, 117, 131, 178
Preziosi, Gabriele, Italian Minister in
Vienna, 92, 140
Primo de Rivera, Miguel, 147
Protogerov, Alexandu r, 45
Radic, Stepan, 26
Rapallo, Treaty of, 1920, 16, 24
Renzetti, Giuseppe, Italian Consul-
General in Berlin, 66
Reynauld, Paul, French prime minister,
1940, 213, 215
Rhineland, remilitarization of, 132,
135, 139, 147, 16566
Ribbentrop, Joachim von, German
Foreign Minister, 19381945, 158,
177, 17984, 18687, 189, 19194,
200202, 204, 21011
Ricciardi, Giulio, 51
Rintelen, Dr. Anton, Austrian Minis-
ter, Rome, 77, 91, 96
Rochira, Ubaldo, 47
Romania, 14, 16, 20, 25, 3640, 63,
104, 110, 156, 190, 199
Rome Protocols Bloc, 9497, 104,
109, 13940, 167
Rommel, General Erwin, 217
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, President
of the United States, 19331945,
179, 213, 21516
Rosselli brothers, 174
Rothermere, Lord, 51
Ruhr, occupation of 1923, 2223
Runciman, Lord Walter, Head of Mis-
sion to Czechoslovakia, 1938, 177
78, 183
Saint Jean de Maurienne agreement
1917, 7
Saint-Quentin, Rene de, 128
Salata, Francesco [Director Italian In-
stitute in Vienna; Italian Minister in
Vienna], 140, 142, 151, 157
Sarfatti, Margherita, 136, 157
Sarkotic, General von Lovcen Stjepan,
47
Sarraut, Albert, 130
Schmidt, Guido, Head of Austrian For-
eign Ofce, 151, 158
Index 245
Schober, Johannes [Austrian Chancel-
lor, 19291930; Foreign Minister,
19301931], 5051, 62
Schuschnigg, Dr. Kurt von, Austrian
Chancellor, 19341938, 91, 93, 105,
112, 153, 223; uneasy relationship
with Mussolini, 1057, 135, 155; ri-
valry with Starhemberg, 103, 139;
meetings with Mussolini: August
1934, 1034, 17 November 1934,
107, 11 May 1935, 115; discussion
with von Papen, 132, 140; meeting
with Mussolini 56 June 1936, 141;
signs Gentlemans Agreement with
Germany 11 July 1936, 142, 150,
152; meeting with Mussolini at Ven-
ice April 1937, 15354; meeting
with Hitler at Berchtesgaden, 164;
loses Italian support in Anschluss,
16568
Seipel, Dr. Ignaz [Austrian Chancellor,
19261929; Foreign Minister, 1930],
4950, 62
Se`vres, Treaty of, 1920, 21
Sforza, Count Carlo, Italian Foreign
Minister, 19201921, 1516, 27, 62
Sibilia, Enrico, 90
Simon, Sir John, British Foreign Secre-
tary, 19311935, 83, 11113, 118
Skorzeny, Otto, 217
Smith, Denis Mack, xvi
Sonnino, Baron Sidney, Italian Foreign
Minister, 19141919, 3, 189, 221;
political creed, 4, 6, 15; wartime
leader, 3; rivalry with Orlando, 8;
aims of at the Paris Peace Confer-
ence, 5, 914
South Tyrol, 9, 19, 2730, 49, 5153,
63, 73, 76, 78, 81, 142, 155, 169,
17475, 184, 208. See also Alto
Adige
Soviet Union, 27, 31, 38, 41, 8081,
104, 106, 139, 149, 161, 190, 193
95, 200, 203, 2079, 212, 225
Spain, xiv, 142, 173, 191, 199, 202;
Italys intervention in, 14849;
Francos insurrection, 147
Spanish Civil War, Italy and, 14851,
15864, 176, 18082, 18485, 188,
224
Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich, General
Secretary of Central Committee of
Communist Party, USSR, 8081,
16263, 19394, 2079, 217
Starace, Achille, 214
Starhemberg, Prince Ernst Ru diger,
Heimwehr leader in Austria, 7273,
87, 91, 102, 133, 139; plots coup
detat, 50; rivalry with Dollfuss, 90
97; rivalry with Schuschnigg, 1023,
13940; meetings with Mussolini:
July 1930, 50, February 1933, 77,
September 1933, 90, May 1936, 140;
dropped by Mussolini, 142
Steidle, Dr. Richard, 90
Stojadinovic, Milan, Yugoslav Prime
Minister, 19351939, 15556, 189
90
Stresa Conference 1935, 11215
Stresa Front, 131, 133, 139, 143, 145,
16769, 173, 176, 224
Stresemann, Gustav, German Foreign
Minister, 19231929, 2729, 44, 51
52
Suvich, Fulvio, Italian Undersecretary
for Foreign Affairs, 19321936, 71,
94, 103, 129, 133, 142, 146; visit
with Hitler 1213 December 1933,
9192; visit with Dollfuss January
1934, 92; distrust of Germany, 131
32
Tardieu, Andre, 12, 6768
Tellini, Enrico, 23
Tittoni, Tomaso, Foreign Minister,
19191920, 1415
Tittoni-Venizelos Agreement 20 July
1919, 15
Titulescu, Nicholas, 80, 146
Trumbic, Ante, 12
Tuninetti, D. M., 153
Turkey, 67, 15, 146, 195, 208
United States, 35, 10, 1213, 5859,
65, 6768, 128, 217
246 Index
Ustasa, 7475, 77, 112
Vansittart, Sir Robert, Permanent Un-
dersecretary of the British Foreign
Ofce, 19301938, 113, 116, 118,
128, 158
Vaugoin, Karl, 50
Vecchiarelli, Carlo, 47
Venizelos, Eleutherios, 11, 15
Versailles, Treaty, 1919, 13, 22, 43,
52, 54
Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy,
19001946, 18, 187, 192, 203, 212
13, 21617
Vittoria mutilata (mutilated victory),
xi, 3, 54, 126, 221, 227
Walwal, incident of, 109
Welles, Sumner, American Undersecre-
tary of State, 19371943, 21011
Weygand, General Maxime, 75
Wilson, Woodrow, President of the
United States, 313, 15
Winter, Karl Ernst, 168
Yugoslavia, 35, 911, 1316, 35, 37
44, 4648, 5354, 5960, 63, 68,
82, 146, 152, 15556, 201, 203,
2078, 212, 214
Zeila plan, 116, 118
Zingarelli, Italo, 47
Zogu, King of Albania, 26, 4043, 45,
18990
About the Author
H. JAMES BURGWYN is Professor of History at West Chester University.
He is the author of Il revisionismo fascista and The Legend of the Mutilated
Victory: Italy, the Great War, and the Paris Peace Conference, 19151919
(Greenwood Press, 1993).

Italian Foreign Policy in The Interwar Period 1918-1940

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Italian Foreign Policy in The Interwar Period 1918-1940

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

ITALIAN FOREIGN POLICY

trange`res, Serie Europe

M Hungarian National Archives

da m, Gyula Juha sz, and Lajos Kerekes, Allianz Hitler-

THIOPIE PAR EXEMPLE?

sterreichs im Jahre 1934,

ditions France-Empire, 1975), 7080

sterreich (Munich: J&V, 1979),

douard Daladier, The Bull-

da m, Magda, Gyula Juha sz, Lajos Kerekes. Allianz HitlerHorthyMussolini:

sterreich. Munich: J&V, 1979.

sterreichs im Jahre 1934. In

douard, French Prime Min-

tienne, French Foreign

Вам также может понравиться