ABSTRACT
The most lasting consequence of Mussolini's masterpiece was realignment in Italian foreign policy that eventually led to a grand alliance with Nazi Germany and the intertwining of the fates of the Italian and German dictatorships. Mussolini could never simply rest on his laurels, as the eventual fizzling out of the Ethiopian War factor proved, and needed to find new reasons for both his personal historical role, and also for the whole and elephantine construction that was Fascism. For Mussolini, Hitler's seriousness, his brutality on show during the Night of the Long Knives was proof of his earnestness, although tempered by the Fhrers undoubted Italophilia and his obvious adulation of Mussolini as a figure of great historical standing. Mussolini's determination to bring Italy into a partnership with the Third Reich was the fruit of what seemed an impregnable position of prestige at home.
