In the Context of Italy 1830-1945, to What Extent Was Foreign Policy a Succession of Failures?

“In the context of Italy 1830 to 1945, to what extent was foreign policy a succession of failures?”

 Having watched documentaries and films such as Mussolini: the untold story (1985) to begin familiarising myself with my area of investigation, my initial thoughts were that it was a succession of failures on account of events such as the Austrian occupation through to the complete failure in the Second World War. Therefore for first impressions, I was inclined to agree with this view of failure as even though there are successes such as Corfu 1923 in which it was the resounding victor following diplomatic disputes as well as successes with the development of Italy into becoming its own country as opposed to separate kingdoms. Nevertheless, the most famous and notable events are that of complete failure and embarrassment such as Adowa 1895 in which Liberal Italy tried to seize territory in what is now known as Ethiopia and were humiliatingly defeated by an army whose technology was far inferior to Italy’s. However, as historians, we have the benefit of hindsight, what we now see as a failure could have been considered a major success, such as the Pact of Steel which saw Italy being partnered with a major European power and therefore giving it considerable status. Through this essay I tested the hypothesis to see if this is true through the evaluation of different events from the views of different historians.

To begin my investigation, I turned to Hite and Hinton (1998) as this was a primary source in class and also contained many other sources which would help in my direction for the rest of my evaluation, upon reading Fascist Italy by Hite and Hinton (Hinton C, 1998), I noticed the extent of military involvement in regards to foreign policy, an area I chose to investigate was the invasion of Abyssinia 1935 as it seemed very military heavy. Personally, I find military success is often a defining factor in what makes a country’s foreign policy and foreign influence successful as can be seen in the British Empire largely being successful due to the strength of the British navy.

Hite and Hinton (Hinton C, 1998) say that Mussolini used the invasion to fuel propaganda and say the invasion marked the high point in Italian foreign policy. The war was described as a military success with the Abyssinian troops ‘never really having any hope of stemming the advance of the blackshirt militia and regular Italian troops with their fiat machine guns and overwhelming preponderance of modern weapons’. However, Hite and Hinton (1998) do reflect on a more negative aspect which was the speed or lack thereof with which they conquered a country with weaponry far inferior to their own. Due to the balanced nature of the evaluation and the general lack of bias in regards to all other aspects of fascist Italy, such as performance in World War 2, I would consider this source to be reliable. This source does not agree with the hypothesis that Italian foreign policy was a succession of failures as it outlines a clear success with only a few limitations. This source also concerns itself more with the military successes than economic or diplomatic so whilst it had a positive effect in terms of military successes, I know from other sources that the Abyssinian invasion was the beginning of Italy’s turn away from the western powers like Britain and France and into the hands of Germany as an ally with led to Italy joining the pact of steel which arguably led to the downfall of Mussolini. When faced with this, I decided to explore other historians to see if they agreed with the relatively favourable review of Hite and Hinton (1998).