FASCIST ITALY

Italy and the Peace settlement

• Allies had promised land• Italy did not get all the territories : • Trentino , south of Tyrol, Istria and Trieste• Did not receive any reparations • Italy felt cheated• Frustration : not rewarded fairly for their

effort in the war

Mussolini- Background • Initially socialist: • Editor of Socialist

newspaper• Advocated anarchist ideas• Attacked by socialist party in

1915 : change in beliefs• Fascist party in 1919 • Popularise the fascist

movement ; public speeches

• 1922 : March on Rome

Mussolini – Prime Minister

• 31st of October : King Victor Emmanuel III makes Mussolini Prime Minister of a Coalition governement

• Fascist regime• Left-wing parties were suppressed and in 1929

Italy became a one-party state

Reconciliation with the Vatican

• 1870: Dispute between Papacy and Italian Kingdom

• Mussolini and the Pope : Lateran Agreements on Febuary 1929

• Treaty + Concordat + Financial convention• Ends dispute between governement and the

church • Mussolini gains in power

Foreign Policy • Mussolini wanted to establish a modern Roman

Empire in the Mediterranean • Wanted more territories: to acquire raw materials• Expend the fascist doctrine + show national

greatness • 1923: Corfu incident• 1924: obtained port Fiume ( treaty with

Yugoslavia )• 1926: policy of infiltration into Albania • 1935 : Invasion of Abyssinia

Dependance of the Nazis

• Mussolini declares war

• Adolf Hitler admired Mussolini’s achievements

• 1936 : non-military alliance• Signed : Annexation of

austria + dismemberment of Czechoslovakia + Pact of Steel

• Mussolini in Berlin

Declaration of War

• On June 10, 1940 Mussolini declared war on Britan and France

• Mussolini delays Italy's entry into the war

• 10 June 1940, he joins the Germans and declares war on the Allies

• Alliance seems advantageous. • Mussolini's regime crumbled :

the Italian army suffered defeat in North Africa, and the Allies invaded Sicily in 1943

Censorship and Propaganda • Media controled by Fascist • Newspaper-Radio-Cinema-

Posters-Sport-Culture

Mussolini’s successes

• Industry• Battle of Wheat• Land Reclamation• Public Works Program