Benito Mussolini
Foreign policy

In foreign policy, Mussolini was pragmatic and opportunistic. His vision centered on forging a new Roman Empire in Africa and the Balkans, vindicating the so-called " mutilated victory " of 1918 imposed by Britain and France, which betrayed the Treaty of London and denied Italy its "natural right" to supremacy in the Mediterranean. However, in the 1920s, given Germany's weakness, post-war reconstruction, and reparations issues, Europe's situation was unfavorable for openly revising the Treaty of Versailles. Italy's foreign policy focused on maintaining an "equidistant" stance from major powers to exercise "determinant weight," using alignment with one power to secure support for Italian ambitions in Europe and Africa. Mussolini believed that Italy's population, then at 40 million, was insufficient for a major war, and sought to increase it to at least 60 million through relentless natalist policies, including making advocacy of contraception a criminal offense in 1924.

Initially, Mussolini operated as a pragmatic statesman, seeking advantages without risking war with Britain and France. An exception was the 1923 Corfu incident, where Mussolini was prepared for war with Britain over the assassination of Italian military personnel, but was persuaded to accept a diplomatic solution by the Italian Navy's leadership. In 1925, Mussolini secretly told Italian military leaders that Italy needed to win spazio vitale, aiming to unite the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean under Italian control, though he acknowledged that Italy lacked sufficient manpower for war until the mid-1930s. Mussolini participated in the Locarno Treaties of 1925, which guaranteed Germany's western borders. In 1929, he began planning for aggression against France and Yugoslavia, and by 1932 sought an anti-French alliance with Germany. A planned attack on France and Yugoslavia in 1933 was aborted when Mussolini learned that French intelligence had broken Italian military codes. After Adolf Hitler rose to power, threatening Italian interests in Austria and the Danube basin, Mussolini proposed the Four Power Pact with Britain, France, and Germany in 1933. When Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss was assassinated in 1934 by Austrian Nazis during a coup, Mussolini threatened Hitler with war in the event of a German invasion of Austria, and opposed any German attempt at Anschluss, promoting the Stresa Front against Germany in 1935.

Despite earlier opposition to the Italo-Turkish War, after the Abyssinia Crisis of 1935–1936, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia following border incidents between Ethiopia and Italian Somaliland. Historians are divided on the reasons for the invasion. Some argue it was a distraction from the Great Depression, while others see it as part of a broader expansionist program. Italy’s forces quickly overwhelmed Ethiopia, leading to the proclamation of an Italian Empire in May 1936. Confident of French support due to his opposition to Hitler, Mussolini dismissed the League of Nations' sanctions imposed over the Ethiopian invasion. He viewed the sanctions as hypocritical attempts by older imperial powers to block Italy’s expansion. Italy was criticized for its use of mustard gas and brutal tactics against Ethiopian guerrillas. Mussolini ordered systematic terror against Ethiopian rebels, targeting both combatants and civilians. Mussolini ordered the execution of the entire adult male population in a town and in one district ordered that "the prisoners, their accomplices and the uncertain will have to be executed" as part of the "gradual liquidation" of the population. Mussolini favoured a policy of brutality partly because he believed the Ethiopians were not a nation because black people were too stupid to have a sense of nationality. The other reason was because Mussolini was planning on bringing millions of Italians into Ethiopia and wanted to kill off much of the population to make room.

Sanctions against Italy pushed Mussolini towards an alliance with Germany. In 1936, he told the German Ambassador that Italy had no objections to Austria becoming a German satellite, removing a key obstacle to Italo-German relations. After the sanctions ended, France and Britain tried to revive the Stresa Front, seeking to retain Italy as an ally. However, in 1936, Mussolini agreed to the Rome-Berlin Axis with Germany, and in 1939 signed the Pact of Steel, binding Italy and Germany in a full military alliance.

The conquest of Ethiopia cost 12,000 Italian lives and placed a severe financial burden on Italy. Mussolini had underestimated the cost of the invasion, which proved far higher than expected, and the ongoing occupation further strained Italy’s economy. The Ethiopian and Spanish wars consumed funds intended for military modernization, weakening Italy's military power. From 1936 to 1939, Mussolini provided substantial military support to Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, further distancing Italy from France and Britain. This intervention and the worsening relationship with the Western powers led Mussolini to accept the German annexation of Austria and the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. At the Munich Conference in 1938, Mussolini posed as a peacemaker while supporting Germany’s annexation of the Sudetenland.

In 1938, TIGR, a Slovene partisan group, plotted to assassinate Mussolini in Kobarid, but their attempt was unsuccessful.
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