ABSTRACT
With the conquest of Ethiopia accomplished, Mussolini stood at a diplomatic crossroads. Whatever methods he may now have begun to use, as far as his goals were concerned he had not yet ventured beyond the well-worn paths of Italian foreign policy. Despite British support of sanctions over Ethiopia, those ties with Britain which had formed the most consistent element in his diplomacy remained intact. The Duce’s horizons were shifting, however, and within weeks, with his acquiescent son-in-law Ciano at the foreign ministry, he had embarked on a course that was entirely new. In July 1936 right-wing military and civilian rebels rose against the elected government of the Spanish Republic. Mussolini, who had been funding Spanish right-wing militias since 1934, saw the rebellion as an opportunity to help kill off democracy and ‘bolshevism’ in a leading Latin sister-state while also extending Italian influence throughout the western Mediterranean. Anticipating another quick and easy victory on top of that in Ethiopia, he accordingly threw Italian resources into the war on the rebel side. It was to be a major investment: 25,000 troops and Fascist militiamen at the peak in 1937 and over 70,000 in all, together with quantities of aircraft, weapons and ammunition that Italy could ill afford to squander. Victory, moreover, proved far from quick and easy: the Spanish Civil War dragged on for almost three years before the rebel
Nationalists, under their leader Franco, finally overcame Republican resistance on 31 March 1939. The war, while advertising the impressive military professionalism of Franco’s other principal foreign patron, Nazi Germany, exposed and aggravated Italy’s military deficiencies. As for the expected rewards, here too Italy, while obtaining some strategic benefit, was smoothly upstaged by its German ally. The conduct of Italian troops and militia over the course of the war was at best uneven. The defeat of Italian Fascist forces at the battle of Guadalajara (March 1937) acquired special significance. Inflicted in part by the Garibaldi battalion of the volunteer International Brigades, made up of Italian anti-fascist exiles, it provided anti-fascists within Italy with a double reassurance: that the flame of resistance still burned, and that the power of Fascism was not insuperable. For any Italian Fascists who were prepared to replace sloganizing with analysis, the Spanish experience offered evidence that the transformation of Italians into ‘new Fascist men’ still had some way to go.
