Why did Divisions Occur Between Mussolini and Galeazzo Ciano on the Rome-Berlin Alliance?
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After signing the Pact of Steel on May 22, 1939, Galeazzo Ciano, the Foreign Minister in Fascist Italy, expressed a sense of unease in his diary: “It is clear to me that the pact is better liked in Germany than in Italy.” He was worried that the Rome-Berlin military alliance would lead Italy into the war without being fully rearmed. However, Ciano’s bureaucratic position and kinship forced him to obey the instruction of his commander and father-in-law, Benito Mussolini, who strongly promoted the Axis alliance. Mussolini’s radical perception of international relations made him pursue an influential military ally, while Ciano has a more realistic and pragmatic perspective on Italian diplomacy, which made him aware of Italy’s security. This paper will use Ciano’s diary and his diplomatic papers to illustrate the divergence in Ciano’s and Mussolini’s perspectives on the Rome-Berlin alliance. It will use the primary documents to argue that the division between their perceptions of racial issues, personal experiences, and the influence of domestic politics shapes the tension in Fascist Italy’s diplomacy, and it sets the stage for Italy’s ill-prepared entry into World War II.
Prior to the Pact of Steel, Mussolini’s ambition and the military circumstances in Europe shaped the fascist foreign policy. In the interwar period, the Nationalist government before Mussolini had enforced the colonial expansion, targeting “small nations” in Africa and the Mediterranean. Compared to his former Nationalist government, Mussolini shifted his geographic focus from African and Mediterranean to Southeast Europe, and he believed that expanding influence over “small nations” would not achieve his goal. In the biography Mussolini il Duce, historian Renzo De Felice interpreted Mussolini’s expansionist ambition as to elevate Italy’s status as a peso determinante, that Italy should have a “decisive voice” in the balance of power in southeastern Europe in terms of military conflict and politics. He wanted to address the rivalry with France and Yugoslavia. France was the only great power on the border of Italy, and Yugoslavia was Italy’s new eastern neighbor. If Italy became stronger militarily than France, and it made Yugoslavia its satellite, it would become the most influential nation in southeastern Europe. Driven by this “Mediterranean Mission,” Mussolini started comprehensive rearmament in the navy and the air force. In the mid-1930s, Italy had the world’s largest military budget, and it also formed alliances with various small nations.
Historians had different interpretations on Mussolini’s expansionist policies. Renzo De Felice focused on analyzing Mussolini’s ideal of Italy’s status. He claimed that Mussolini’ pursuit of Italy’s decisive role in the European balance of power drove him to expand Italy’s influence over southeastern Europe by annexing small nations. On the other hand, the anti-fascist politician and former Deputy of the Kingdom of Italy, Gaetano Salvemini, criticized Mussolini’s obsession with political power. He maintained that Mussolini did not actually have a “foreign policy.” His diplomacy was only a series of improvisations that served internal propaganda purposes in order to solidify his dictatorship. Historian Gregor Knox argued in his book about German and Italian foreign policy, Common Destiny, that previous theories from De Felice and Salvemini failed to account for the disputes between Mussolini and some of his foreign ministers. The diary of Ciano and the memoir of his predecessor, former foreign minister Dino Grandi, often revealed that Mussolini’s foreign policies were strongly driven by racism and ultranationalism instead of pragmatic views of international relations. This fanatical obsession could explain Italy’s military alliance with Germany and its shift of focus from small regional conflicts to full-scale war.
Ciano’s term as the Italian Foreign Minister started in 1936 after he came back from bombing villages in Ethiopia. Because of the invasion of Ethiopia, the League of Nations put economic sanctions on Italy. According to Ciano’s biography written by Tobias Hof, his initial diplomatic goal was to bring Italy out of international isolation and economic precarity. Hof also mentioned that Ciano was a true believer in dynamism, the idea that politics should always move forward from its status quo, so his ambition was not limited to freeing Italy from sanctions, but also making it a Mediterranean empire. The realistic purpose and the great ideal led him to share the same expansionist targets with Mussolini. In his diary on November 14, 1938, he mentioned that he was interested in obtaining French territories, especially those on the French-Italian border like Marseille and Nice. Also, on June 14, 1939, he expressed his interest in seizing western Mediterranean French colonies such as Tunisia and Algeria. After their conversations, Mussolini approved all these specific goals, so Ciano had no political and moral restraints on his diplomatic-military visions.
However, Ciano’s initial enthusiasm over Italy’s imperial ambitions turned into frustration because he could foresee the dangers for Italy’s security under Mussolini’s uncompromising radicalization that eventually led Italy into the war on Hitler’s side. Gregor Knox suggested that Mussolini actively pursued Italy’s alliance with Germany. Mussolini found Nazi Germany as a perfect ally who shared ideological goals with Fascist Italy and could help Italy to counterbalance the power of Britain and France. He expressed the feeling that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy had parallel military policies and nationalist ambitions in his correspondence with German diplomats, and Germany became the chief supplier of Italy’s industrial resources after the economic sanction.
By this point, Mussolini’s desire to avenge the sanctions and his disdain for Western liberal powers led him to overlook the great possibility that Italy would be thrust into war. Ciano sensed this. In his diary on April 28, 1939, Ciano wrote about Hitler’s speech and expressed his mixed feelings about Italy’s future alignment with Germany. He first expressed his satisfaction about Hitler’s “every word which leaves any hope of peaceful intentions,” because “no nation wants war today.” He then referred to the unfathomable nature of German policy: “whether a German moved against Poland, and lead to a new Munich.” Ciano worried that Germany would occupy Polish territories as it had in Czechoslovakia through the Munich Accord. Ciano wondered if Hitler’s apparent verbal commitment to peace was real, while he questioned the possibility of Germany igniting a large-scale war. His worry was confirmed a few months later when Germany invaded Poland, and Mussolini’s romanticized vision of the alliance dragged Italy into the war the following June. In contrast, Ciano worried over the practical consequences of the alliance for Italy’s security and diplomatic flexibility in the region.
Another major difference lay in Mussolini and Ciano’s respective attitudes toward racial issues. In August to December 1938, Fascist Italy adopted a series of legislative provisions that deprived Italian Jews of their civil rights and came to be known as the “Racial Laws.” Historian Christopher Duggan, in his book Fascist Voices, used primary documents like civilians’ memoirs and letters to illustrate Italian people’s incomprehension about the antisemitic laws. For example, a Jewish man named Roberto Cohen found himself not able to comprehend the “suddenness” of the antisemitic campaign, because the Jews had been living in Italy for two thousand years with no hatred in the society. Duggan suggested that one of the purposes of Mussolini’s racist campaign could be to “encourage a hard racist mentality,” because Mussolini expressed his scorn towards the “weakness” of Italians who expressed sympathy on the Jews in his letter to his mistress. Even though racial laws were a step for Mussolini to cultivate a general tough-minded Italian society, the pressure on Mussolini to align with Hitler’s racial ideology is more suitable to explain the sudden implementation. Implementing Racial Laws in 1938 aligned Italy more closely with Hitler’s policies, as it showed the unified front against perceived common enemies, particularly Jews and communists. This was part of a broader strategy to gain favor with Germany to secure military and economic support.
The body of knowledge organized around “Jewishness” for Mussolini and Ciano is different, which caused their division of ideas in the racial policies. Mussolini focused on a biological antisemitism. In the book A Primer of Italian Fascism, historian Jeffrey T. Schnapp translated the Manifesto of the Racial Law by Mussolini and the Fascist government. The manifesto was drawn up by ten prominent Italian academics, laying down “the bases of fascist racism.” It declared that race was a “purely biological” concept, and that the overwhelming majority of Italians were of “Aryan origin” and “Aryan civilization.” Using the ethos of prominent Italian scientists, Mussolini was able to justify his racism based on the grounds of “biological difference,” stating that the Jews did not belong to the Italian race.
However, Ciano never adopted a “biological antisemitism.” Although in many of Ciano’s diary entries, he accused the Jewish people and Judaism as “anti-fascist,” he still had a lot of Jewish friends in his hometown Livorno and Venice, which are all multiethnic cities. His early interaction with the longstanding Jewish community made him believe that “Jews in small doses are necessary to society, just as yeast is necessary to bread.” Therefore, he expressed his view on the racial laws in his diary on October 22, 1983, that the laws were counterproductive to a loyal racial group in Italy. Moreover, Ciano considered the policies unnecessary and even harmful to Italy’s diplomatic relationships. He believed that racial laws strained Italy’s diplomatic relations with Britain and France. The Western powers may view Italy’s adoption of Racial Laws as the first step to aligning with Germany and submitting to its influence. Based on the balance of power in 1938, implementing racial laws might cost Italy the benefits of alliances with Britain and France.
Ciano’s nationalism was shaped by a more realistic pragmatism and a racial self-perception that always drove him to look out for Italy’s security, while Mussolini’s view on foreign policy and the Rome-Berlin alliance showed that he had a dogmatic understanding of international relations. He was, furthermore, obsessed with racism. The contradiction of their ideas is closely related to their different personal backgrounds, which represent different fascist generations.
Mussolini was born in 1883, and he experienced the Great War and the Treaty of Versailles during his youth. Like many young Italians of his generation, he was dismayed by the divisions and the lagging economic development in Italy, and he demanded a war. From his role as the leader of the blackshirts to the head of the National Fascist Party, Mussolini insisted on his ambition for the great Italian empire. Knox analyzed that Mussolini’s early experience as a revolutionary syndicalist made him believe that “a country has to be made out of bloodshed.” The blackshirts revolutionaries believed that “participation in war might generate a more revolutionary environment and neutrality.” Consequently, in Mussolini’s political career after he became the prime minister of Italy, he consistently incorporated warrior indoctrination into education, racial campaigns and foreign expansionist policies. His desire for war and expansion extended to the Rome-Berlin Axis, which he saw as a way to achieve both internal unity and external strength. Mussolini believed the alliance would help Italy counterbalance the power of France and Britain, “regain access to the sea,” and prepare Italians for war by instilling a warrior spirit. However, in pursuing this ambition, he neglected Italy’s security and led the country into World War II without adequate military preparation.
On the contrary, Ciano was born in 1903 and belonged to what the German historian Michael Wildt called the “uncompromising generation.” Wildt analyzed the general mentality of this generation in his book: the war youths were “too young to participate in World War I, but old enough to experience the impact of the war.” Therefore, this generation of youths believed that they should shape the nations’ future by the next war. Hof argued that Ciano shared the same view as many of his peers in the “uncompromising generation.” When Ciano was young, he witnessed the nationalist propaganda in Venice when the city suffered from war, but he was too young to participate. This experience made him eager to prove himself in future military conflicts. Additionally, his father, Costanzo Ciano, who actively participated in the fascist movement in 1921 and ultimately succeeded, instilled in him the belief that youths were the essential force driving a country forward. Ciano was eager to prove himself through military action, which is evident in his promotion of the invasion of Ethiopia and his use of the “hunting” metaphor to describe combat missions in the Ethiopian war. His early experiences also shaped his belief in political dynamism, driving him to bring Italy out of the status quo and towards becoming a Mediterranean Empire through expansionist policies.
Nevertheless, despite Ciano’s initial affinity to the fascist ideology, he fell outside of the heterogenous “uncompromising war youths’ generation.” Ciano’s career achievement separated him and other members of the radical war youths in Italy. His ambition and his early diplomatic trainings in Europe and Asia made him rise to power when he was only thirty. His closeness to Mussolini further allowed him to become the most important foreign minister in Fascist Italy. Activists who led the “second revolution” of fascism like Avero Gravelli and Ruggero Zangrandi all belonged to the same generation as Ciano. They thought that fascism should not fall into a normal dictatorship, and Ciano could use his power to push the movement. However, according to Hof, Ciano was “never willing to endanger his own social and political positions.” After he gained diplomatic power and Mussolini’s trust, he gradually lost his former adherence to actions and dynamism, turning into the maintenance of Fascist Italy’s existence. It was this mindset of maintenance that led him to think diplomatically in terms of peaceful solutions and the security of Italy.
What Ciano did not realize was that his proximity to Mussolini and defense of political power would make him and the Duce drift apart. In fact, the division between them could be traced back to their personal experiences and ideology. Their backgrounds, shaped by distinctive generational experiences of the Great War and Italian politics during the interwar period, influenced their views on domestic politics, racial issues, and the Rome-Berlin Alliance. Mussolini actively promoted the alliance, while Ciano consistently expressed reservations about it, particularly regarding Italy’s lack of preparedness for war. In the end, Ciano was correct—Fascist Italy entered the war without being fully rearmed and suffered disastrous defeats against the Allied forces. Instead of blaming Mussolini alone, it is more appropriate to say that the divisions within Mussolini’s foreign cabinet represent the flaws inherent in fascism. Fascism was rooted in radical foreign policies and romanticized violence and warfare, which led Italy to blindly pursue military alliances and an ill-fated Mediterranean empire, ultimately resulting in its downfall.
The issues discussed in this paper are inherently complicated. Historians had various analyses and interpretations of Mussolini and his foreign policies, and Hof asserts that “Ciano’s role in the Italian collective memory remains ambivalent.” To many observers, Ciano was merely an enforcer of Mussolini’s ideology, with his familial ties to Mussolini ensuring his loyalty to the Duce. However, the close examination of Ciano’s diaries shows his own “racial hierarchy,” his impression of German high officials like Hitler and Ribbentrop, and his diplomatic thoughts about Shanghai and Tokyo. These all demonstrate that Ciano was more than a mere subordinate to the Duce. Ciano possessed his own perspectives on foreign relations and Italian diplomacy, which often led to significant divergences with Mussolini. Nevertheless, the characteristics of the Fascist Party and the nature of the regime rendered it impossible for Ciano to fully pursue his ideas and visions. Understanding the peculiarities of fascism and the complexities of its historiography is essential for the study of Fascist Italy and World War II.
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