Explain the aims of Mussolinis Foreign Policy in the 1920s.

However, until during the 1920s these plans lacked detail. Mussolini was not sure which colonies would expand. Nor did he know how he would achieve `dominance' in the Mediterranean, or how much power he desired in the Balkans. Nevertheless, the Duce's overall objectives remained the same, even if circumstances, particularly the general situation in Europe, would force him to adopt a variety of tactics in pursuing these objectives.

The Duce soon recognised that foreign affairs could provide him with the ideal stage - he would impress his fellow countrymen with spectacles where he would overshadow foreign statesmen, and defend and promote Italian interests with unending success. He would conduct foreign policy himself, avoiding the old, stuffy foreign office, and reap international prestige and internal support. Foreign affairs came to take up more and more of his time.

Mussolini saw himself as a major international statesman. Italy remained in the League of Nations - the supposed guarantor of international good conduct - signed the Locarno Treaties, which confirmed the permanence of Germany's western borders, and entered into the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 outlawing war. This could be seen as Mussolini wanting to adopt a pro-British approach to foreign policy in the later 1920s.

He enjoyed being taken seriously as a European statesman. He would organise dramatic entrances to international conferences, as when he raced across Lake Maggiore in a flotilla of speedboats to Locarno. Italian press coverage was always extensive, suggesting that the Duce was being treated as an equal by the leaders of the great powers and that Mussolini's presence and contributions had been crucial in reaching such momentous European agreements. This was gross exaggeration - at Locarno, for instance, he attended only one session of the conference and did not even bother to read the final draft of the treaties - but it created a powerful impression in Italy.