Hostname: page-component-6b989bf9dc-jks4b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-14T21:48:52.978Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Historiography of fascist foreign policy*

Part of: Historiographical Reviews

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Stephen Corrado Azzi
Stephen Corrado Azzi
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article analyses how, in the last half-century, scholars have differed over the nature of Italian foreign policy under the fascist regime. It examines the debate between orthodox and revisionist historians over Mussolini's foreign policy in general, and also over three specific areas of Italian policy in the interwar years: Franco-Italian relations, Italian participation in the Spanish Civil War, and the alliance with nazi Germany. The author concludes that much of the debate has arisen because of conceptual befuddlement; writers have been primarily concerned with questions of coherence and continuity, and not with understanding Italian foreign relations. Historians have also disagreed over whether Mussolini had a ‘programme’, but a closer look shows that many of them were engaging in a semantic debate, and did not differ over the nature of fascist policy.

Type
Historiographical Review
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , March 1993 , pp. 187 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Of the histories of the fascist period written by Mussolini's enemies in the post-war period, the most important are: Salvemini, Gaetano, Mussolini diplomatico, revised edition (Bari, 1952)Google Scholar; Salvemini, Gaetano, Prelude to World War II (London, 1953)Google Scholar; Chabod, Federico, A history of Italian fascism (London, 1963)Google Scholar; Salvatorelli, Luigi and Mira, Giovanni, Storia del fascismo: L' Italia dal 1919 al 1945 (Rome, 1952)Google Scholar; Salvatorelli, Luigi and Mira, Giovanni, Storia d'Italia nel periodo fascista (Turin, 1956)Google Scholar.

2 Salvemini, Gaetano, The fascist dictatorship in Italy (New York, 1927)Google Scholar; Salvemini, Gaetano, Under the axe of fascism (London, 1936)Google Scholar; Salvemini, Gaetano, Italian fascism (London, 1938)Google Scholar.

3 Salvemini, , Prelude to World War II, p. 10Google Scholar.

4 Azzi, Gianni, Modena 1859–1898: Condizioni economiche, sociali, politiche (Modena, 1969), p. 17Google Scholar.

5 Sestan, Ernesto, ‘Salvemini storico e maestro’, Rivista storica italiana, LXX (1958), 43Google Scholar.

6 Wiskemann, Elizabeth, The Rome-Berlin Axis: A history of the relations between Hitler and Mussolini (London, 1949), p. 339Google Scholar.

7 Hughes, H. Stuart, ‘The early diplomacy of Italian fascism, 1922–1932’, in Craig, Gordon A. and Gilbert, Felix, eds., The diplomats 1922–1932, 1 (Princeton, New Jersey, 1953), 224Google Scholar.

8 Cassels, Alan, Mussolini's early diplomacy (Princeton, New Jersey, 1970)Google Scholar.

9 Nolfo, Ennio Di, Mussolini e la politico estera italiana (Padua, 1960), p. 45Google Scholar.

10 Di Nolfo, p. 100.

11 Di Nolfo, p. 45.

12 Cited in Cassels, , Mussolini's early diplomacy, p. 390Google Scholar.

13 Cassels, , Mussolini's early diplomacy, p. 401Google Scholar.

14 In foreign affairs, revisionism was the policy of seeking to alter the Versailles settlement. In historiography, the revisionists were those scholars who challenged the orthodox interpretation.

15 Rumi, Giorgio, ‘“Revisionismo” fascista ed espansione coloniale’, Il movimento di liberazione in Italia, XVII (1965), 45Google Scholar.

16 Rumi, Giorgio, Alle origini della politica estera fascista (Bari, 1968)Google Scholar.

17 Ian Kershaw had a similar criticism of the literature on nazi foreign policy. Kershaw, Ian, The nazi dictatorship: problems and perspectives of interpretation (London, 1985), pp. 121–2Google Scholar.

18 Carocci, Giampiero, La politico estera dell' Italia fascista (Bari, 1969), pp. 13–14Google Scholar.

19 Robertson, Esmonde M., Mussolini as empire-builder: Europe and Africa, 1932–36 (London, 1977), p. 17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Robertson, p. 17.

21 Knox, MacGregor, Mussolini unleashed, 1939–1941: politics and strategy in fascist Italy's last war (Cambridge, 1982), p. 286CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Rumi, , ‘“Revisionismo” fascista’, p. 45Google Scholar.

23 Felice, Renzo De, Mussolini il rivoluzionario (Turin, 1965)Google Scholar.

24 Felice, Renzo De, Mussolini il fascista: I. La conquista del potere (Turin, 1966), p. 559Google Scholar.

25 Felice, Renzo De, Mussolini il fascista: II. L'Organizzazione dello Stato fascista (Turin, 1968), p. 439Google Scholar.

26 Felice, Renzo De, Mussolini il duce: I. Gli anni del consenso (Turin, 1974). p. 323Google Scholar.

27 Smith, Denis Mack, ‘A monument for the Duce’, Times Literary Supplement (10 31, 1975). p. 1278Google Scholar.

28 Felice, De, Il duce I, p. 337Google Scholar.

29 Felice, De, Il duce I, p. 338Google Scholar.

30 Felice, Renzo De, Mussolini il duce: II. Lo Stato totalitario (Turin, 1981)Google Scholar.

31 Felice, Renzo De, Mussolini l' alleato: I. L'Italia in guerra, two volumes (Turin, 1990)Google Scholar.

32 Taylor, A. J. P., The origins of the Second World War (london, 1962), p. 56Google Scholar.

33 Kirkpatrick, Ivone, Mussolini: a study in power (New York, 1964), pp. 165–6Google Scholar.

34 Smith, Denis Mack, Mussolini's Roman empire (London, 1976), p. 252Google Scholar; first published as Le guerre del Duce (Bari, 1976)Google Scholar.

35 Smith, Denis Mack, Mussolini (London, 1981)Google Scholar.

36 Taylor, A. J. P., ‘The great pretender,’ Mew York Review of Books (08 5, 1976), p. 4Google Scholar.

37 Knox, p. 2. One wonders if Mack Smith has based his argument on an a priori use of the evidence. His views were first advanced in an article in 1959 and have not significantly changed since then, in spite of the opening of the archives and a revolution in the historiography. Smith, Denis Mack, ‘Mussolini, artist in propaganda: the downfall of fascism’, History Today, IX (04 1959)Google Scholar.

38 Salvemini - shortly after the war began - was the first to argue that Mussolini invaded Ethiopia because of the domestic economic situation: ‘[T]he war was willed primarily by Mussolini… because something had to be done to restore the prestige of the Fascist regime in Italy… [which had] steadily declined during the six years of world depression… The Ethiopian war was the way out of domestic stagnation.’ The other orthodox historians did not agree. Kirkpatrick and Taylor saw the Ethiopian adventure as merely a continuation of the Duce's bid for propaganda successes. According to Kirkpatrick, ‘Jealousy, aggravated by his natural egotism, drove him to attempt to match the German dictator and so to embark on a series of adventures’. Similarly, Taylor argued, ‘he was merely intoxicated out of his senses by the militaristic blustering which he had started and in which Hitler was now outbidding him’. Mack Smith thought Mussolini was trapped by his own propaganda into believing that the conquest of Ethiopia would help solve Italian economic problems. Salvemini, , Under the axe of fascism, pp. 390–1Google Scholar; Kirkpatrick, p. 192; Taylor, , Origins, p. 88Google Scholar; Smith, Mack, Mussolini, p. 190Google Scholar.

39 Baer, George W., The coming of the Italian-Ethiopian war (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967), p. 31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Baer, , Coming, p. 33Google Scholar.

41 Catalano, Franco, L'economia italiana diguerra (Milan, 1969)Google Scholar; Rochat, Giorgio, Militari e politici nellepreparazione della campagna d'Etiopia (Milan, 1971)Google Scholar.

42 Felice, De, Il duce, I, p. 323Google Scholar.

43 Felice, Renzo De, Fascism: an informal introduction to its theory and practice, with Ledeen, Michael A. (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1976), p. 79Google Scholar.

44 Cassels, Alan, ‘Switching partners: Italy in A. J. P. Taylor's Origins of the Second World War’, in Martel, Gordon, ed., The origins of the Second World War reconsidered: the A. J. P. Taylor debate after twenty-five years (Winchester, Massachusetts, 1986), p. 80Google Scholar.

45 Robertson, p. 123.

46 Robertson, p. 93.

47 Hughes, p. 229.

48 Felice, De, Il fascista I, p. 559Google Scholar.

49 Bosworth, R. J. B., Italy, the least of the Great Powers: Italian foreign policy before the First World War (London, 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Bosworth, Richard, ‘Italian foreign policy and its historiography’, in Bosworth, Richard and Rizzo, Gino, eds., Altro Polo: intellectuals and their ideas in contemporary Italy (Sydney, 1983), p. 73Google Scholar.

51 Bosworth, , ‘Italian foreign policy’, pp. 78–9Google Scholar.

52 Cassels, Alan, Fascist Italy (New York, 1968), p. 73Google Scholar.

53 Salvemini, Gaetano, Mazzini (London, 1956), p. 83Google Scholar.

54 Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste and Serra, Enrico, eds., Italia e Francia dal 1919 al 1939 (Milan, 1981)Google Scholar; Shorrock, William, From ally to enemy: the enigma of fascist Italy in French diplomacy 1920–1940 (Kent, Ohio, 1988)Google Scholar.

55 Salvemini, , Prelude to World War II, p. 72Google Scholar.

56 Salvemini, , Prelude to World War II, p. 77Google Scholar.

57 Cassels, , Fascist Italy, pp. 80–1Google Scholar.

58 Felice, De, Il duce I, pp. 357–8Google Scholar.

59 Di Nolfo, p. 308.

60 Villari, Luigi, Italian foreign policy under Mussolini (London, 1959), p. 167Google Scholar.

61 Grand, Alexander De, Italian fascism: its origins & development (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1989), p. 119Google Scholar.

62 Cassels, , Fascist Italy, p. 88Google Scholar.

63 Pastorelli, Pietro, ‘La politica estera della fine del conflitto etiopico alia seconda guerra mondiale’, in Felice, Renzo De, ed., L' Italia fra tedeschi e alleati: La politica estera fascista e la seconda guerra mondiale (Bologna, 1973), p. 105Google Scholar.

64 Coverdale, John F., Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War (Princeton, New Jersey, 1975), p. 15Google Scholar.

65 Coverdale, p. 390.

66 Coverdale, pp. 388–9.

67 Coverdale, p. 77.

68 Coverdale, p. 76.

69 Smith, Mack, Roman empire, p. 100Google Scholar.

70 Watt, D. C., ‘The Rome–Berlin axis, 1936–1940: myth and reality’, The Review of Politics, XXII (10 1960), 522Google Scholar.

71 Petersen, Jens, Hitler–Mussolini: Die Entstehung der Achse Berlin–Rom, 1933–1936 (Tubingen, 1973)Google Scholar.

72 Smith, Mack, Roman empire, p. 132Google Scholar.

73 Salvemini, , Prelude to World War II, p. 156Google Scholar.

74 Kirkpatrick, p. 289.

75 Felice, De, Fascism: an informal introduction, pp. 80–1Google Scholar.

78 Quartararo, Rosaria, Roma tra Londra e Berlino: La politico esterafascista dal 1930 al 1940 (Rome, 1980), p. 461Google Scholar.

77 Quartararo, p. 469.

78 Quartararo, p. 625.

79 Quartararo, p. 461.

80 Gilbert, Felix, ‘Ciano and his ambassadors’, in Craig, Gordon A. and Gilbert, Felix, eds., The diplomats 1919–1939, vol. 2 (Princeton, New Jersey, 1953), p. 533Google Scholar.

81 Funke, Manfred, Sanktionen und Kanonen: Hitler, Mussolini und der Internationale Abessinienkonflikt 1934–36 (Düsseldorf, 1970)Google Scholar; translated as Sanzioni e cannoni, 1934–1936: Hitler, Mussolini e il conflitto etiopico (Milan, 1972)Google Scholar.

82 Pastorelli, , ‘La politica estera’, p. 103Google Scholar; Mori, Renato, Mussolini e la conquista dell'Etiopia (Florence, 1978), p. 314Google Scholar; Cassels, , Fascist Italy, p. 81Google Scholar; Cassels, , ‘Switching partners’, p. 81Google Scholar.

83 For example, MacGregor Knox looked at the factors that restrained Mussolini who wanted – from an early date – to enter the war. Knox, pp. 85–6, 187.

84 Coverdale, p. 407.

85 Felice, De, Il duce II, p. 684Google Scholar.

86 Felice, De, Il duce II, p. 844Google Scholar. The quotation comes from Churchill's 23 December 1940 BBC address to the Italian people. See Churchill, Winston S., Their finest hour (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1949), p. 620Google Scholar.

87 Bosworth, R. J. B., ‘In the green corner, Denis Mack Smith. In the red? black? corner, Renzo De Felice: an account of the 1976 contest in the historiography of Italian fascism’, Teaching History, IX (08 1977), p. 38Google Scholar. See also Bosworth, , ‘Italian foreign policy’, pp. 78–9Google Scholar.

88 Bosworth, , ‘Italian foreign policy’, p. 79Google Scholar.

89 Mori, p. 4.

90 Bosworth, , ‘Italian foreign policy’, p. 78Google Scholar.