Mussolini and the British

Description

This book, a revisionist account of Mussolini’s relations with Britain, shows that, apart from his atrocious bombardment of Corfu in 1923, Mussolini aligned his foreign policy with that of Britain until the Abyssinian crisis of 1935. Initially, Mussolini disliked Hitler and despised his anti-semitism. Once Nazi aggressive intentions were apparent he organized the conference at Stresa in an effort to prevent German rearmament. Following his discussions with Ramsay MacDonald and Sir John Simon at Stresa, Mussolini believed there would be no British attempt to mobilize the League of Nations against his invasion of Abyssinia. The League had, in any case, made no move over his earlier adventures in Corfu, or Japan’s in Manchuria, or Germany’s illegal rearmament. But in 1935 the political landscape was changed by the Peace Ballot, overwhelmingly in favour of League of Nations action to prevent member states attacking one another. The British Cabinet felt obliged to take a lead in economic sanctions against Italy, and Mussolini, surprised and antagonized, halted his efforts to stop German remilitarization.