00:00:11
again in November
00:00:12
1926 musolini secured a foothold in
00:00:15
Albania with the pact of tyrana this was
00:00:18
part of his attempt to expand Italian
00:00:22
influence into the Balkans which would
00:00:24
be an ongoing
00:00:27
theme the barrier was always France
00:00:31
France who was beginning to link herself
00:00:33
up with Yugoslavia from 1927
00:00:37
onwards France who resisted Italian
00:00:40
attempts to penetrate below the Sahara
00:00:43
in the late
00:00:44
1920s France who was as a democracy
00:00:48
increasingly opposed to fascist
00:00:56
Italy in
00:00:58
1929 m
00:01:00
selected Dino Grandy as his foreign
00:01:03
secretary Grandy would serve for three
00:01:06
years and followed What appeared to be a
00:01:10
new and revolutionary policy a policy of
00:01:15
collaboration with the Western Powers
00:01:17
thus Italy took part in the Geneva
00:01:20
disarmament conferences she played a
00:01:23
role in the League of Nations and she
00:01:25
also took part in the 1930 Naval
00:01:28
disarmament conference
00:01:31
this appeared to pressage a new posture
00:01:35
by Italy in international
00:01:38
Affairs and melini's foreign minister
00:01:42
Dino Grandy expressed the public face of
00:01:46
that policy to the Chamber of deputies
00:01:49
in March
00:01:51
1931 he defined the Italian foreign
00:01:54
policy Mission as one of balance and
00:01:58
conciliation between people
00:02:01
races different and conflicting
00:02:04
ideas but this was only the public face
00:02:08
of Italian policy and we know this
00:02:10
because we have access to a unique
00:02:14
documentary Source the hastily scribbled
00:02:18
notes prepared by prepared by melini's
00:02:22
war minister Petro gatera who had weekly
00:02:26
or fortnightly audiences with the DU
00:02:31
thus from gatz's secret notes and
00:02:35
they're extremely difficult to decipher
00:02:37
even this to this day we learn that in
00:02:40
August
00:02:41
1929 musolini remarked that war would
00:02:44
come when Germany was back on its feet
00:02:47
and could resolve the issues at the top
00:02:49
of its agenda the danzi corridor and
00:02:54
anchas we also know that during these
00:02:57
years when Grand as he himself put it
00:03:01
was chloroforming the international
00:03:04
Powers by appearing to collaborate with
00:03:07
them we know that musolini expected to
00:03:10
complete the encirclement of Yugoslavia
00:03:13
by
00:03:14
1934 then he would be ready to settle
00:03:17
accounts with her and that beyond that
00:03:20
he would then be ready for a general war
00:03:23
in
00:03:23
1935 or
00:03:26
1936 so between 1929 and 19 1932 then
00:03:31
the public face of Italy was one of
00:03:34
collaboration on the international scene
00:03:37
but behind that public face musolini was
00:03:40
committing resources to the expansion of
00:03:43
the army particularly but also of the
00:03:46
Navy and of the Air Force in order to
00:03:49
ready the instruments that he would need
00:03:52
in order to conduct the wars that he now
00:03:55
clearly foresaw would be coming in the
00:03:58
1930s
00:04:01
again we have a very enlightening note
00:04:05
in gatz's records of his meetings with
00:04:09
musolini which tells us exactly what
00:04:12
musolini was doing on the 29th of
00:04:16
January
00:04:17
1931 gatsa recorded of
00:04:20
musolini and these were the du's own
00:04:23
words he will play the pacifist while we
00:04:27
prepare
00:04:31
Germany was left alone in 1930 and 31
00:04:36
even though straan had departed from the
00:04:39
scene his successor Julius ctus
00:04:42
continued the same line of collaboration
00:04:46
with the Western
00:04:48
Powers nonetheless as the Nazis began
00:04:52
their approach to power which would
00:04:54
Triumph with Hitler's becoming
00:04:56
Chancellor in January 1933 the poit iCal
00:05:00
winds were blowing in the right
00:05:02
direction for
00:05:04
Italy Maxim litvinoff the Soviet
00:05:07
commissar had an inkling of what might
00:05:10
be coming in January 1932 he asked
00:05:14
whether if Hitler came to power Italo
00:05:17
German relations would get closer the
00:05:21
answer was that they
00:05:27
would as Hitler approached power and
00:05:31
then entered
00:05:33
office musolini assumed that Germany
00:05:37
would rearm and one of the keys to his
00:05:41
policy in the early to Middle
00:05:44
1930s is his expectation firstly that
00:05:48
that rearmament would happen and
00:05:51
secondly that it would probably take
00:05:53
eight or 10 years for Germany to assume
00:05:57
a dominant military position
00:06:00
this time span was crucial because it
00:06:02
would allow Italy at least enough time
00:06:05
to keep on equal terms with her former
00:06:09
enemy this was one of melini's great
00:06:13
miscalculations what he did not reckon
00:06:16
with and norded his advisers was that
00:06:19
German military rearmament would be much
00:06:21
swifter and much more extensive than he
00:06:25
had thought and therefore than he and
00:06:28
Italy could manage
00:06:33
once Hitler came to power there were
00:06:34
early messages from the fura that Italy
00:06:37
and Germany would in his words march
00:06:40
together towards the attainment of
00:06:42
fascism but there were also early signs
00:06:45
that Hitler was not to be
00:06:48
malleable clearly the nent Nazi Germany
00:06:52
had economic AIMS in the bulans clearly
00:06:55
it looked ultimately to unfettered
00:06:58
rearmament and Hitler made no secret of
00:07:00
the fact that he wished to throw out
00:07:02
Chancellor dolus in Austria the first
00:07:05
sign of German Ambitions in that
00:07:11
area on the 4th of March 1933 musolini
00:07:15
unveiled the four power
00:07:17
pact this was presented to the great
00:07:20
Powers as everything that they could
00:07:22
really wish for and many historians have
00:07:25
been deluded into following their
00:07:27
Illusions it was presented ented as a
00:07:30
way of revising Versa of discussing
00:07:33
disarmament and of negotiating Colonial
00:07:36
divisions under the aaces of the League
00:07:38
of
00:07:39
Nations this was not what it was
00:07:42
intended to do covertly musini intended
00:07:46
it as a means of managing staged German
00:07:49
rearmament staged in such a way that the
00:07:52
Western Allied Powers would be able to
00:07:54
swallow it but staged also in such a way
00:07:57
that it would not escape from Italian
00:07:59
control and therefore become too great
00:08:02
and too
00:08:04
extreme it was a clever idea but it
00:08:07
failed and it failed because neither
00:08:10
France nor Germany were prepared to
00:08:12
agree to it and indeed on the 14th of
00:08:15
October
00:08:16
1933 Germany withdrew from the League of
00:08:20
Nations with that the cover was gone and
00:08:24
the attempt to manage German rearmament
00:08:28
began to fall
00:08:32
part in 1934 the pace of German real
00:08:36
speeded
00:08:37
up initially the Italians thought that
00:08:40
it was going to take 5 to 10 years for
00:08:42
Hitler to remedy his
00:08:44
inferiority but now they thought that it
00:08:46
might only take four and that by 1938 a
00:08:49
newly militarized Germany would be ready
00:08:52
for
00:08:55
war this change in the balance of
00:09:00
international power had a number of
00:09:04
important consequences for musolini and
00:09:06
for fascist
00:09:08
Italy the first was that Rising German
00:09:12
power and the threat that it presented
00:09:13
in the Balkans pushed Yugoslavia towards
00:09:17
Italy so that after half a decade of
00:09:20
conflict and incipient War a war which
00:09:23
musini was always itching to declare but
00:09:26
which his generals told him was for the
00:09:28
moment impossible in the early 1930s
00:09:30
Yugoslavia began to come to terms with
00:09:33
Italy
00:09:35
secondly this increased German
00:09:38
rearmament pushed France towards Italy
00:09:41
thereby improving her power and
00:09:45
her thereby improving her position and
00:09:48
her ability to achieve her objectives in
00:09:52
Europe thirdly it also encouraged Great
00:09:56
Britain to look to Italy for
00:09:58
collaboration
00:09:59
against the rising power of
00:10:02
Germany against this background we can
00:10:06
look at the first and perhaps greatest
00:10:10
if that word can be used Italian
00:10:13
military adventure of the 1930s the
00:10:17
invasion of abisinia which began on the
00:10:20
3D of October
00:10:25
1935 abisinia had for a long time been
00:10:28
in Italian site if for no other reason
00:10:31
than the desire to avenge the defeat
00:10:34
that the absans then Ethiopians had
00:10:37
inflicted upon the Italians at the
00:10:38
Battle of adawa in
00:10:41
1896 the worst defeat suffered by a
00:10:43
white European Army in colonial Warfare
00:10:46
in the 19th
00:10:48
century as early as
00:10:50
1927 Italy had expressed interests in
00:10:54
moving into abisinia and ultimately
00:10:57
taking control of her
00:11:01
there were encouraging signs from the
00:11:04
French who three times in 1931 and 1932
00:11:09
indicated that they were prepared to
00:11:11
give Italy a free
00:11:13
hand at that time musolini was not
00:11:16
willing to take up this offer because he
00:11:18
feared that it was a French trap
00:11:20
designed to weaken Italy by engaging her
00:11:23
in a distant conflict and so making her
00:11:25
vulnerable in Europe shortly though he
00:11:28
was to change his
00:11:30
mind Italy was not free to act in North
00:11:34
Africa until January 1932 at the
00:11:37
earliest because it was not until then
00:11:40
that the pacification of Libya by
00:11:43
Italian troops was finally completed
00:11:46
once that was so then musolini was free
00:11:50
on the North African Shore to look
00:11:54
elsewhere as well as Revenge there
00:11:58
were
00:12:00
powerful economic and social reasons why
00:12:04
abisinia should be in Italy's sites a
00:12:07
foreign office memorandum from the time
00:12:09
notes it is certain that abisinia is the
00:12:12
only demographic and economic Outlet
00:12:15
still left open to us to penetrate it
00:12:18
requires money to take it probably
00:12:24
War there was a further reason to focus
00:12:28
on abisinia in the early 1930s and that
00:12:31
was that the
00:12:32
French the much feared and greatly
00:12:34
disliked French were stirring things up
00:12:38
news came to Rome that France was
00:12:40
supplying aircraft to abisinia and
00:12:44
improving her military
00:12:46
position there was in Italian circles at
00:12:50
this time what seems to be a genuine if
00:12:53
misplaced fear that a Reviving abisinia
00:12:58
one in which the authority of Highly
00:13:00
salassi and the ability of the
00:13:02
centralized power to direct the Affairs
00:13:05
of the country were increasing a fear
00:13:07
that a revived abisinia represented a
00:13:10
real military threat to
00:13:13
Italy it did not but that is how it
00:13:16
seemed to some people in Rome at least
00:13:18
and there's no reason to suppose that
00:13:20
that was not a genuine if misplaced
00:13:23
perception at the heart of the Roman
00:13:26
Empire
00:13:30
finally one should add a pressure that's
00:13:33
familiar to historians who cover the
00:13:36
development of the British and other
00:13:38
empires in the late 19th century and
00:13:40
that is local forward pressure by
00:13:44
administrators on the spot the governors
00:13:47
of the Italian governors of Somalia and
00:13:49
Eritrea had been pressing ever since
00:13:52
1923 to expand into what they called
00:13:56
Ethiopia and what we call aminia
00:14:01
all these pressures and all these
00:14:05
threads came together for the first time
00:14:07
on the 29th of November
00:14:10
1932 it was then that the first war plan
00:14:13
was drawn up at this time three things
00:14:17
held musolini back from activating it
00:14:19
and from starting a war in
00:14:22
abisinia first the Army was not yet
00:14:25
prepared we could fight them now
00:14:28
musolini Remar
00:14:29
but the game is not worth the
00:14:31
candle secondly at this time 1932 1933
00:14:37
the complications of the European
00:14:39
situation suggested that a war might
00:14:41
break out there and so fighting in
00:14:43
abisinia was not the best of
00:14:46
ideas thirdly in
00:14:49
1932 the state was still in considerable
00:14:52
Financial disarray and simply could not
00:14:54
afford a war at this
00:14:57
time however
00:15:01
a little over a year later in the
00:15:03
beginning of 1934 musolini saw things
00:15:07
slightly
00:15:08
differently if things are quiet in
00:15:11
Europe then it was recorded he would
00:15:14
like to carry out the operation in 1935
