German and Italian Expansion (1933-1940)

In 1918, Italy was a constitutional monarchy. Liberal parties controlling the government faced many challenges. Among these was a sense of frustration among Italians, who saw their country falling behind other European countries, many of which had seized control of far-flung empires. Also, Italians were unsatisfied with the small territorial gains Italy had won as a result of WWI. In the Treaty of London (1915), Italy had been promised more extensive lands in return for entry into the war, but these promises were not kept and the lost land (known as terra irredenta) represented a serious grievance for many Italians.

Following the war, Italy also went through an economic crisis. Inflation and unemployment were rampant, and many turned to the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) for answers. For two years (1919-1920), the socialists engaged in strikes and occupations of factories; the two years are referred to as the ‘biennio rosso’ or the ‘two red years’. The rising tide of socialism and the business disruptions played into the hands of fascists, who were gaining support throughout Italy. The fascist agenda was nationalist and emphasized the value of violence. Furthermore, the fascists aligned themselves against the socialists. Fascism appealed to ex-soldiers, students, and the working class, but also to the middle classes, businessmen, and the wealthy.

In March of 1919, in Milan, Mussolini established the fasci di combattimento or “fighting groups.” These groups of fascists, controlled by local leaders called “ras” spread quickly. In October, 1922, Mussolini planned a “March on Rome” in which thousands of fascists were to overthrow the Italian government and seize power. Fascists in fact seized some towns in Northern Italy, which frightened the leaders of Italy into calling Mussolini to Rome and inviting him to become Prime Minister. As Prime Minister, Mussolini had the Acerbo Law passed in 1923; this law gave 2/3 of the seats in parliament to whichever party received the most votes. In the 1924 election, the fascists used violence and intimidation to suppress voter turnout and won 65% of the seats in Parliament outright. By 1925, Italy was a single-party state ruled by Mussolini as Il Duce.

Mussolini had promised his followers an empire, and began by going to war against Abyssinia (Ethiopia) (1935-36). He also intervened in support of Franco’s nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. This brought Italy closer to Germany, which also supported Franco. In 1936, acknowledging this growing relationship, Italy and Germany signed the Rome-Berlin Axis, and in 1937, Italy became a signatory to the Anti-Comintern Pact.

In 1939, Italy invaded Albania, which had desirable ports and controlled the entrance to the Adriatic. And, in May of 1939, Italy and Germany signed the Pact of Steel, a formal military and political alliance. Yet, when Hitler began WWII with his invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Italy did not join the war immediately; it was not yet sufficiently prepared economically. But, in June of 1940, Mussolini at last entered the war; Italy was dependent on German coal, and Britain had cut off Italy’s coal supply by means of a naval blockade. Furthermore, Italy hoped to gain land and it seemed possible the war would soon be over and Italy would be left out in the distribution of spoils if it remained neutral.

Following WWI, Germany faced enormous economic challenges: huge reparations payments, hyperinflation, and unemployment; moreover, it had lost land in the Treaty of Versailles. Many Germans also believed that victory had been stolen from them by the surrender of their leaders when German armies were on the verge of victory (this belief is called the Dolchstosslegende). The Weimar Republic, Germany’s government between the wars, was weak and unpopular; waves of assassinations plagued its leaders.

Adolf Hitler joined the Nazi party in 1919, the year it was founded, attracted by its nationalism. By 1921, he was its leader. The Nazis under Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, demanded the return of the land that had been taken from Germany, called for the acquisition of additional land for lebensraum or living space, claimed that the German people belonged to an Aryan master race, and asserted that others such as Jews and Slavs were inferior.

In 1923, the Nazis tried to take over Munich hoping to use this as a starting point for their planned overthrow of the Weimar government. This attack, the Munich Putsch or Beer Hall Putsch, failed, and Hitler was imprisoned for a few months; during this time, he wrote Mein Kampf. As Germany began to recover economically, the Great Depression spread to Europe. Once again, unemployment surged, and bread lines grew longer. The Nazi party began to grow, promising bread and jobs to those who supported Nazi candidates.

Although the Nazis had a small percentage of the seats in the German Parliament, in 1933, Hitler was invited to become German Chancellor. Using anger against communists as a springboard, Hitler had the Enabling Act passed. This allowed him to rule by decree. Other parties were banned, and German became a single-party state. Also in 1933, Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nations. He continued the rearmament of Germany; the new strength of Germany allowed Hitler to occupy and remilitarize the Rhineland in 1936.

Also in 1936, Hitler joined the side of Franco’s nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Civil war drew Germany closer to Italy, and in October the two countries signed the Rome-Berlin Axis. In March, 1938, Germany invaded Austria (the Anschluss) and unified Austria and Germany. That same year, Hitler demanded Germany be given a portion of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland. The Munich Agreement of September, 1938 gave him what he had asked for, despite the fact that the Czech government was not party to the agreement.

By March, 1939, all of Czechoslovakia was in German hands, and in May of that same year, Italy and Germany affirmed a formal military and political alliance, the Pact of Steel. Hitler still wanted to reunite Germany with East Prussia, which had been separated from Germany by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. To accomplish this, he needed a piece of land that had been given to Poland, the Polish Corridor. The Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 contained a secret agreement dividing Poland between the two powers. Days after it was signed, on September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. The Anglo-Polish Treaty, made earlier that year, guaranteed Poland protection. When Germany refused to call off its invasion, France and Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939.

In the decade immediately following World War I, there were indications that Italy and Germany were committed to pursuing peaceful and cooperative foreign policies. Both Italy and Germany had joined the League of Nations, an organization devoted to the maintenance of peace through the policy of collective security whereby all members agree to support each other in the event of an attack.

In 1925, an international summit at Locarno including Italy and Germany as well as France, Britain, and Belgium, gave rise to the “Locarno Spirit”, a feeling that Europe had entered a new period of peace and cooperation. And, in 1928, joining the Kellogg Briand Pact, Italy and Germany agreed, along with other nations, to renounce war as an instrument of foreign policy.

However, when Hitler took power in 1933, he immediately accelerated the rearmament of Germany. In a last moment of harmony, Italy, France, and Britain formed the Stresa Front in Spring of 1935 to push for arms limitations on Germany. In less than a year, the Stresa Front had collapsed. As Italy and then Germany adopted aggressive foreign policies, other countries responded ineffectually.

The invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) by Italy in 1935 proved how hollow agreements like the Kellogg Briand Pact and even the covenant of the League of Nations were. Abyssinia was a member of the League of Nations, having joined in 1923. Its Emperor, Hailie Selassie, protested against Mussolini’s aggression, and the League of Nations imposed limited sanctions on Italy for its invasion.

However, diplomats from Britain and France, Samuel Hoare and Pierre Laval, negotiated the Hoare-Laval Pact, which would have given much of Abyssinia to Italy, in an early act of appeasement and a betrayal of the policy of collective security. The Pact, worked out in secret, was revealed, to the embarrassment of both France and Britain, and never implemented. Nevertheless, the Pact was connected to Germany’s challenges to the Treaty of Versailles; when Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936, he was taking advantage of the diplomatic distractions that arose from the Hoare-Laval Pact, predicting that France and Britain would stand by without action.

Germany left the League of Nations in 1933, and Italy in 1937 and both continued their aggression unchecked. By the late 1930s, Mussolini and Hitler were acting in concert with each other. They had first signed the Rome-Berlin Axis in 1936 and then the Anti-Comintern Pact. Finally, in 1939, they signed the Pact of Steel, a formal alliance.  Although Italy had at first resisted Anschluss (the unification of Germany and Austria), by 1938 Mussolini was no longer willing to oppose it. And, when Hitler demanded the Sudetenland, Mussolini acted as a negotiator on his behalf.

British policy in the late 1930s was directed by Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Britain from 1937 to 1940, and a strong advocate of appeasement. The Munich Agreement, perhaps the most well-known act of appeasement toward Germany, handed over the Sudeten region of Czechoslovakia to Germany, thus depriving Czechoslovakia of a wealthy and populous part of its country. In return, Hitler promised to consult the international community on issues of German expansion. That this promise was entirely empty was apparent by March 15, 1939, as Germany occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia.

Disillusioned, Britain signed the Anglo-Polish treaty, guaranteeing Polish security. Hitler’s remaining concern was fighting a war on two fronts, facing France and Britain on one front and the USSR on the other. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 1939) put an end to that concern. Hitler could now invade Poland without concern that he would have to fight a war on two fronts, and did so on September 1, 1939.