Firstly, let us examine the clear successes which came about as a result of Mussolini’s foreign policy. One of Mussolini’s earliest foreign successes was in the Balkans in 1924, when Italy received the Yugoslavian city of Fiume through the Pact of Rome. In an attempt to show the new nation of Yugoslavia that Italy could create many difficulties for it, Mussolini supplied Ahmed Zog, the leader of the state of Albania on Yugoslavia’s southern border with resources, staffed its army with Italian officers and encouraged Italian investment in the country. The result was that Albania eventually became a satellite state of Italy. Another one of the more victorious of Mussolini’s conquests was Ethiopia. He had been having his eye on the African nation for some time now. Besides, a foreign war, according to historian Mark Robson, was ‘needed to capture the public imagination’1 as his previous two policies; the battles for grain and births were losing momentum. The benefits of gaining Ethiopia seemed manifold. For one, Italy would be able to have a colony from which she could extract resources and manpower. Secondly, this would be a concrete step towards give her the ‘great power’ status she so desired. In 1935, Italy attacked Ethiopia and crushed the Ethiopian resistance there. In the end, he won control of the country with relatively very few losses. However, while this move did nothing to help in Italy’s relationships with its powerful European neighbours: France and Britain, these two countries were too preoccupied with the potential problem of Germany and so did not make many concerted efforts to stop him. However, whatever efforts they did do, such as economic sanctions on arms and Italian imports (which did not really cripple Italy as much as annoy it), the Italian public rallied around Mussolini to protect the prestige of the country. When the war was won so quickly, Mussolini’s popularity soared and so, in this respect, it can be considered wildly successful.
Unfortunately, this is where the good areas of Mussolini’s foreign policy end. In fact, one of the clearer failures of his foreign policy is his relationship with Nazi Germany. Although Italy and Germany did not have a very good relationship in the early 1930s due to the Stresa Front, which basically stated that there would be an alliance by Italy, Britain and France against Germany should she try to have an anschluss with Austria. However, starting from the mid-1930s, Mussolini began to look upon Germany with kinder eyes. After all, Germany was another fascist state which had had its own problems with France and Britain dating back to the post-World War 1 (WW1) treaties. The first clear sign of failure was Italy’s involvement in the Spanish Civil War in 1936. At first, he played a relatively minor role in the revolution, but started to pour resources into the war when heavily criticised by the French. This was an ill-fated move as Mussolini had never thought about the consequences of the war neither did he think of how it would and could be won without great losses to Italy. As it was, Italy lost 4000 men through the war and a staggering 8 billion lira. Also, in 1938, Mussolini began to demand more and more from Europe: territory. He announced to parliament that they should demand the annexation of Nice, Corsica and Tunis from France. This notion, obviously, outraged the French and Mussolini, aware of a rearming France (which had started to rearm after seeing that Hitler was willing to carry out his expansionist plans in Europe through things [eg the takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1939), still hoped that he could defeat it, especially if he had Nazi Germany as an ally. Although previous agreements between Germany and Italy existed, like the ‘Rome-Berlin Axis’, the relationship between these two countries was set in stone with the Pact of Steel in 1939. This pact basically committed both nations to each other to join the other in war even if that other country had caused the war by an act of aggression. This can be considered a failure simply because Italy was in no way ready for a war anytime soon during this period. In fact, Mussolini even sent a message to Italy saying that although they were willing to fulfil the pact, any war should be postponed for at least three years in order to give time for Italy to prepare itself. Hitler was, of course, angered and did not even bother replying this message. All this eventually culminated in Italy’s entrance into World War 2 (WW2) on the side of the Germans. Although Italy had previously pledged non-belligerence, Germany’s huge successes in Europe through his blitzkrieg tactics (such as the 5-day takeover of the Netherlands and the quick surrender of the Belgium troops) made Mussolini scared that if Italy did not enter the war on the side of a seemingly-victorious Germany, she would not get any of the spoils in the war just by being a neutral. And so, ill-prepared though Italy was, she entered WW2, and with that, eventually channelled German troops to Italy just to help it in its conquests and became an extreme liability to Germany. In fact, Italy suffered from many major defeats in WW2 such as the unsuccessful offensives on both Egypt and Greece and had to be helped by German forces. The public eventually became disillusioned with Mussolini and eventually wanted him to step down from power in exchange for peace. This is already in itself a huge failure of his foreign policy as it took away all of the support that he previously had. Also, it eventually led to his death as Italy effectively rebelled against Mussolini and at the end of the war, found him when he was trying to escape and killed him.
All in all, I would say that Mussolini’s foreign policy was more of a failure than a success. This is because Mussolini simply and utterly failed to achieve his goals he had set out to achieve. Italy did not have any of the requirements needed to achieve Mediterranean dominance and overseas imperialism simultaneously: far-sighted leadership, and efficient and modernised armed forces, a committed populace and lastly, an advanced industrialised economy geared for war. This led to many eventual defeats later on during his rule. In Western eyes, Mussolini did have to be treated more cautiously because of its cordial relations with Nazi Germany. However, it was precisely because of this reason that the Western powers could not completely trust Mussolini. He could not be an impartial mediator and he was obviously not a leader who promoted peace, as shown by his various military campaigns. As for Germany, Hitler did prefer having Mussolini as an ally but frankly speaking, did not really take Italy as a serious military power. Italy’s stance would not have mattered much in Hitler’s ‘grand scheme’, as can be seen by him carrying out the anschluss and the takeover of Czechoslovakia without even consulting Italy. Whatever early successes Italy had in its foreign policy were later foreshadowed by these much more dire failures which in themselves. He might have been able to keep public support through his early successes such as Albania and Ethiopia, but WW2 was the deciding factor on his fate. All his public support vanished and he was eventually executed. In most ways, that could be the ultimate failure of all.
