Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941

by Ian Kershaw

  Obviously, from Mussolini’s point of view Italy had no choice in the matter. The only question for him was not whether, but when, Italy would enter the war. Mussolini has often been portrayed as merely an opportunist, a dictator without driving ideological motivation and with simply an eye on the main chance, an exclusive focus on prestige, personal grandeur and power for its own sake. But this is to underestimate him. Entry into the war did not amount for Mussolini just to seizing the opportunity, important though the precise timing of intervention was. It was an inevitable step if his grandiose aims of an Italian imperium centred on the Mediterranean, erected on the ashes of the British and French Empires and the basis for making Italy a world power in deed and not just in presumption, were ever to be realized. It was the logical outcome of the pretensions he had harboured since coming to power almost two decades earlier. In that time, as we have seen, Mussolini’s hold over Italy had strengthened inordinately. By 1940 the political system had been fragmented and eroded to the extent that no constitutional checks, apart from the King himself, could constrain Mussolini’s internal freedom of action. And no corporate body, such as a Cabinet, helped to form decisions. Personal rule, when it came to questions of war and peace, had come to mean precisely that. When he took the decision for war at the end of May 1940, it was not after lengthy, indeed after any, consultation with a variety of advisers. No one, it is true, among Italy’s political establishment was by then in the slightest doubt about the Duce’s wishes. But equally, no one influenced the implementation of those wishes. The decision for war was his alone.

  Until the heady days of May, alternatives did exist for other important sections of the Italian political elite, as well as for the mass of the population. Fascist prominenti like Ciano and Grandi, big-business magnates such as Giovanni Agnelli and Alberto Pirelli, military leaders including Badoglio and Cavagnari, and not least the King himself, had before May preferred to stay out of the conflict. Two possibilities beyond Mussolini’s favoured interventionism were at least theoretically available.

  The first of these was to switch allegiance from Germany to the Allies. This, of course, eventually happened in September 1943, but under very different circumstances. Despite the widespread dislike of Nazi Germany, stretching from most ordinary Italians to Count Ciano and the King himself, no one in spring 1940 seriously considered breaking the Axis alliance and swapping sides. That could only have taken place following a coup to topple Mussolini–something scarcely feasible in 1940 (even if the King, as we have seen, appears momentarily and vaguely to have flirted with the notion in March). And it would have involved Italy in the war anyway, but against Germany. This would unquestionably have invited Hitler’s wrath. Mussolini himself, as we noted, more than once voiced his fear that crossing Hitler would mean the might of the Wehrmacht being turned against Italy. Whether, in such circumstances, Hitler could have held down Italy as well as the Balkans in turmoil and still turned on the Soviet Union with Britain unconquered might be questioned. But the question remains purely in the realm of counter-factual speculation. In reality, the option to ditch Hitler in favour of the Allies never existed in 1940.

  The second alternative was more plausible. This was simply to retain the status of non-belligerence, or neutrality. Those in Italy favouring non-intervention had, either explicitly or by default, this option in mind. Mussolini’s rejection of it was, as we have seen, dictated by his ideological aims and his assumption that national ‘virility’ demanded that a would-be great power should fight and not remain neutral. Apart from Mussolini’s psychological disposition and the aspirations to great-power status (which he shared with traditional imperialists in the national-conservative elite), could neutrality have been sustained? Franco managed it for Spain (even if neutrality had effectively been forced upon him when Hitler had proved unwilling to provide massive aid for a Spanish economy in ruins after three years of civil war). But Italy’s geographical position, and her alliance with Germany, put her in a different position. One later assessment, though in a work sympathetic to Mussolini and arguing that Italy had no choice but to throw in her lot with Germany, stated that in the event of continued neutrality, she ‘would sooner or later have been subjected to ever-increasing pressure by both sides’. In the end, her geographical situation would have brought an ultimatum from one side or the other to permit armed forces to be deployed in Italy. On refusal, Italy ‘would have been invaded and devastated by the victors, whoever they were’.100 This was, however, no more than apologetics. At the time that Mussolini opted for war, his choice was not shaped by any sense that Italy would otherwise be at the mercy of Germany, let alone of Great Britain.

  A quite different, far more optimistic scenario was later painted by Churchill. ‘It was certainly only common prudence for Mussolini to see how the war would go before committing himself and his country irrevocably,’ Churchill wrote:

  The process of waiting was by no means unprofitable. Italy was courted by both sides, and gained much consideration for her interests, many profitable contracts, and time to improve her armaments. Thus the twilight months had passed. It is an interesting speculation what the Italian fortunes would have been if this policy had been maintained…Peace, prosperity, and growing power would have been the prize of a persistent neutrality. Once Hitler was embroiled with Russia this happy state might have been almost indefinitely prolonged, with ever-growing benefits, and Mussolini might have stood forth in the peace or in the closing year of the war as the wisest statesman the sunny peninsula and its industrious and prolific people had known. This was a more agreeable situation than that which in fact awaited him.101

  No one can, of course, know how a decision to defer entry to a date that could have become ever more distant would have played out in practice. But Ciano and others thought the prospect had a chance of success. That Italy would have come under pressure from both sides is obvious. This was already happening well before her entry into the war. As early as December 1939 Britain had tried to bribe Italy by an offer of most of the large supplies of coal that were so desperately needed. Italy would pay for the coal largely through the sale of arms. Ciano was well disposed towards the idea. But Mussolini would not sell arms to the British. He repeated his veto when a further attempt to buy Italian goodwill was tried some weeks later. That deal, too, foundered.102 Hitler lost little time in offering his own economic inducements. The vital coal, which the British blockade ensured could not reach Italy from Germany by sea, would be sent by rail across the Brenner.103 There is no doubt that such pressure and blandishments would have continued, and intensified, had Italy stayed out of the war. But, with clever diplomacy, Italy could have continued to play off each side against the other, retaining the advantages of neutrality, one-sided as it was, and avoiding being sucked into the maelstrom. By May 1940 Mussolini was being pressed for action from various sides in Germany.104 Even then he was not forced to enter the conflict; he did so willingly. Had Italy not entered the war, it is extremely unlikely that the Germans would have taken any punitive action. A benevolent neutrality in the summer and autumn of 1940 would probably have suited German purposes at least as well as Italian involvement–in some senses better, as things turned out.105 And from an Italian point of view, there was–apart from Mussolini’s sense of urgency–a lot to be said for playing for time. In the climate of May 1940, however, such arguments were lost. All factions of the ruling elite fell in behind Mussolini’s dogmatic belligerency. The fateful decision to take Italy into a war against Britain and France for which she was so ill prepared was taken. A heavy price would be paid.

  IV

  Italian forces had barely stuttered into action by the time the new French premier, Marshal Pétain, sought an armistice from Hitler on 17 June. By then a few air raids, to little effect, on Corsica (in which Ciano took part as leader of a bomber squadron106), southern France and Malta and a minor, inconsequential Alpine offensive had constituted practically the sum total of the initial Italian war effort.
The armistice plea had come too early, and the Italian engagement had been too puny, for Mussolini to be happy. ‘The Duce is an extremist,’ Ciano noted on 17 June. ‘He would like to go so far as the total occupation of French territory and demands the surrender of the French fleet. But he is aware that his opinion has only a consultative value. The war has been won by Hitler without any active military participation on the part of Italy, and it is Hitler who will have the last word. This, naturally, disturbs and saddens him. His reflections on the Italian people and, above all, on our armed forces are extremely bitter this evening.’107

  Mussolini’s embarrassment at the minimal Italian contribution to France’s humiliation did not prevent him, en route with Ciano to meet Hitler in Munich to discuss armistice terms, from concocting a formidable list of demands to be made of the French. These included occupation of France as far as the Rhône, together with French cession of Nice, Corsica, Tunisia and Djibouti. The French fleet and air force would also come into Italian possession. Hitler voiced no opposition to the occupation zone that Mussolini demanded. However, he wanted to treat the French leniently in order to prevent the French fleet going over to the British and the French government from transferring to north Africa, and also in the hope that it would persuade Britain to come to the negotiating table. And he was not prepared to include the Italians in the particular spectacle he had in mind for agreeing on an armistice. He insisted on Italy conducting a separate armistice, once the German terms had been settled. Mussolini was ‘very much embarrassed’, feeling ‘that his role is secondary’.108

  When he saw the relatively moderate German armistice terms, Mussolini felt compelled to content himself with the more modest demand of a thirty-mile demilitarized strip within the French frontier and the hope of advancing his more extensive demands at the final peace settlement. His limited armistice demands had been influenced by further military humiliation. While the French were already prostrate and seeking an armistice of the Germans, Mussolini had decided to launch an Alpine offensive. Badoglio opposed it. Ciano thought it ‘rather inglorious to fall upon a defeated army’. But Mussolini insisted. In dreadful weather conditions the Italian attack ground to an ignominious halt at the first show of French resistance. To add to the humiliation, Libyan colonial troops had been overrun by a British force in north Africa, and an Italian general had been captured.109 It was little wonder that, in contrast to the great symbolic significance that Hitler attached to the signing of the armistice at Compiégne, in the very same railway coach that had been the scene of Germany’s humiliating capitulation of 1918, Mussolini ordered no publicity for the Italian armistice negotiations, which were conducted ‘almost secretly’. The separate Italian armistice with the French, concluded in Rome, was signed on 24 June.110 Mussolini was ‘bitter because he had wanted to reach the armistice after a victory by our own armed forces’. Ciano was sure that the Italian people would be greatly disillusioned by the limited gains war had brought.111 Bottai indeed registered the popular criticism and sense of disappointment.112

  Mussolini’s thinking, and the war strategy that proceeded from such thoughts, in the weeks following the armistice with France was less than clear. On the one hand, he wanted a quick war together with the booty–and glory–that would follow on a triumphant peace settlement. The prospect of peace negotiations between Britain and Germany without Italy having seriously engaged in battle was not an attractive one for him. So when Britain made it clear that she was going to fight on, following Hitler’s tepid encouragement to sue for peace in his Reichstag speech of 19 July 1940, Mussolini was, in a perverse way, not displeased. He had feared that the British would find even such a pallid invitation a pretext to open negotiations. ‘That would be sad for Mussolini,’ commented Ciano, ‘because now more than ever he wants war.’113

  On the other hand, Mussolini was well aware that Italy was in no fit state to fight a long war. So victory had to come quickly. With Britain determined to continue the war, despite unofficial peace-feelers through neutral channels that continued to give him cause for worry, Mussolini pinned his hopes on the German invasion that he had been told was imminent. He wanted Italian troops to take part alongside the Wehrmacht, but was politely though firmly rebuffed by Hitler. At this, while wanting the invasion to succeed, he hoped that the Germans would get a bloody nose in tough fighting and suffer perhaps a million casualties.114 With Britain and Germany both weakened, Italy would be in a prime position to maximize its booty. And this was to be considerable. Apart from the extensive gains from France, the territorial aims put together by Ciano included the acquisition of Malta and British Somaliland from Britain together with effective control over former British-controlled countries in the Middle East and north Africa (including Egypt), which would retain only nominal independence.115

  The best way Italy could have inflicted her own serious damage upon Britain was, in fact, in north Africa, where the British military presence was still weak and the Italians were equal in armoury and superior in numbers. Badoglio still hoped that big gains could be made for little or no military effort. But Mussolini was anxious to accelerate the drive across 350 miles of desert from Libya to Alexandria, to force the British out of Egypt and take over Suez, before a peace settlement could be reached. With characteristic bravado, he told Hitler in July that he would be in Egypt before the end of the month.116 The enterprise was not helped when Marshal Balbo, who would have launched the attack from Libya, was shot down and killed when his own side opened fire on his plane near Tobruk at the end of June. His replacement, Graziani, then spent the rest of the summer finding excuses for not pressing home what turned out to be a short-lived advantage. In September, he advanced sixty miles into Egypt and took the fortified base at Sidi Barrani. But he showed no inclination to press on to Alexandria. Whatever Mussolini’s urgings, Graziani would find a reason for inaction. Mussolini could do nothing about it. And, from a misplaced sense of pride and sensitivity to prestige, anxious to demonstrate that Italian troops could handle one front on their own, and at the same time equally anxious to keep the Germans out of his own sphere of activity, he declined Hitler’s offer of troops to assist in the push for Egypt. Unwilling as on other occasions to affront his co-dictator, Hitler did not insist. The Axis war effort remained two uncoordinated strategies. Meanwhile, the British built up sizeable forces to face the Italians. The chance, possible with German aid, had been missed.117

  Mussolini’s other hope lay in the Balkans. He had temporarily seen prospective military action in this region as a mere sideshow while the main event was taking place in France. But now, egged on by Ciano, he again cast his eyes on what looked to be rich pickings across the Adriatic. And not just Yugoslavia, but now–for the first time in earnest–Greece entered the frame as a concrete object of Italian expansionism. By the autumn, the decision to attack Greece would become the most calamitous mistake Mussolini had made; calamitous for the Greeks, of course, but also calamitous for himself, for the Fascist regime and, in the futile loss of life it caused, for his country.

  Ever since the Italian takeover in Albania in April 1939 the Greeks had looked towards Italy with a wary eye, and not without cause. Ciano had noted in his diary on 12 May that year that the new programme of public works in Albania had started well. ‘The roads are all planned in such a way as to lead to the Greek border. This plan was ordered by the Duce, who is thinking more and more of attacking Greece at the first opportunity.’118 As the crisis mounted before the German invasion of Poland relations between Greece and Italy became tense. Italian troops were moved for a while to the border between Albania and Greece, while aircraft violated Greek airspace. On 16 August 1939 Badoglio had been given orders to prepare a plan to invade Greece. But nothing came of it. The tension subsided. On 11 September Mussolini told his representative in Athens, Emanuele Grazzi, that ‘Greece does not lie on our path, and we want nothing from her’. Nine days later he was equally plain in speaking to General Alfredo Guzzoni, the military commande
r in Albania derided by Ciano for being ‘small, with such a big belly, and dyed hair’. Mussolini informed him that ‘war with Greece is off. Greece is a bare bone, and is not worth the loss of a single Sardinian grenadier.’ Italian troops were pulled back to about twelve miles from the Greek border. The General Staff’s invasion ‘study’ was consigned to the bottom drawer.119 All went quiet until Italy joined in the war in June 1940.