The Strategy of Fascist Italy: A Premise

Author: Lucio Ceva

Source: Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Volume 2, Number 3, Winter 2001 , pp. 41-54(14)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

In Fascist Italy, the political and military leader was one individual, Mussolini. His foreign policy from 1922 to 1940 was aggressive, according to his personal political and moral structure. His true nature could be made explicit only after the break in the European balance, when a regime similar to Fascism seized power in Germany in 1933. Fascist Italy accomplished its political goals through military force only when the opponents were harmless or inferior (such as the Libyan mugiahidin, Ethiopian partisan troops, Albanian and Republican Spanish soldiers). Otherwise, Fascist imperialism relied on the widespread fear of Nazi weapons, both when they were not yet powerful enough (during the controversy with Great Britain and the League of Nations over the war in Ethiopia in 1935-36) and when they were really effective (during the 1938 crisis, postponed by the Munich agreement, and on the occasion of Italy's entering the war in 1940). Mussolini sacrificed Italy and the Italian people in favour of his personal inclinations and connivance, even though he was growing aware that there were only two possible outcomes to the war: either Italy would be defeated or it would become subservient to Germany.

Keywords: Fascist Italy; strategy; aggressive politics; 1922-40

Document Type: Research article

Publication date: 2001-12-01