ABSTRACT
The military conflict which developed into the Second World War was intended to be, and indeed was, the ultimate test for the two fascist regimes and the future of fascism in the international system. The radicalisation of fascist foreign policies in the second half of the 1930s had created a yawning gap between what the two regimes demanded from territorial expansion and what the western powers were willing to concede in a long-drawn-out process of negotiation. The limited character of British and French appeasement confronted the two fascist leaders with the question of means versus ends: it soon became obvious that the mythical core of fascist expansionism – and its ‘radical’ long-term objectives could not be approximated by diplomatic means. At the same time, the establishment of the Axis alliance produced a powerful strategic alternative and a political momentum that were lacking before 1936. Taken together, these two factors transformed war and aggression from a vague ideological desideratum into a legitimate political instrument for future action. War was intended to be the ultimate formula for unifying the political with the mythical aspects of the fascist worldview; or, in other words, for uniting reality with utopia and deeds with words.1
