Introduction

A number of stereotypes and methodological and historiographical problems surround this intervention. There are always subtle differences, of course. Examining geostrategy and sovereignty on an international scale in the era of Fascist expansion and the fascistisation of Europe is not the same as believing that Mussolini’s objective was to ‘stand on a par’ with Hitler and ‘impress him by his conquests’, satisfy his vanity, and become drunk on pride because, despite the mythologising, his aims ‘were worldly’. The result is a stereotypical depiction of a disastrous, disorganised, and discredited military intervention, of arrogant, perfumed combatants, hated by the Spanish, whose greatest achievement was procreation and dissemination of the Italian race via their genitals. It can also be read in diplomatic and military terms, removing the fascist variable from the equation and turning the intervention into a participation by Italy in the Spanish war, without adjectives, without subordinate clauses, without nuances.