ABSTRACT
Much historiographical controversy has raged over whether the ambitions of Italian Fascism should be taken seriously or if the Regime was just another of those Italian circus acts to which Europe and the USA had grown accustomed. Italy's disastrous war was not just a reflection of relative economic weakness but, as Mussolini might have put it, it was also a problem that was quintessentially political. The Hitler-inspired Italian Social Republic (RSI Repubblica Sociale Italiana) walked the thin line between tragedy and farce but for Mussolini a few more weeks as dictator of even a rump Italy was always going to be more attractive than death. The subordination of the Italian to the German dictatorship, which had begun even before the outbreak of war, was now complete. In the end, the might of the Anglo-American military prevailed and for Mussolini the logic of having chosen and rechosen Hitler reached its grisly conclusion.
