Benito Mussolini Part 5: The Pact of Steel
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Other than the huge oak desk and chair, it contains just a leather couch and an oversized ornamental globe. Spartan, muscular, intimidating. At just after 10 a.m., the phone rings. The call, the house operator informs Ilduce, is most urgent. On the other end of the line is Count Gagliazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law and foreign minister. Nothing new there. Ciano is prone to bouts of excitability.

Though today of all days, he has good cause. Standing before him in the Foreign Ministry, Ciano explains, is Lord Perth, the British ambassador to Italy. And Perth has come brandishing an urgent communique. It's been cabled directly from 10 Downing Street, at the behest of the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. Mussolini takes his time, the theatrics of power, for he knows exactly what this is about.

For the past few days, Europe, the world has been on tenterhooks, all attention focused on the international crisis brewing over Czechoslovakia. Hitler is bent on annexing its border region, the Sudetenland, home to three million ethnic Germans. As per the Nazi playbook, the Führer has manufactured a crisis there, a pretext for military action.

Unless the Sudetenland is handed over to Germany by 2pm today, just four hours from now, his stormtroopers will go in. As upholders of what's left of the crumbling international order, the British and French are now mobilizing their own armed forces. It's 1914 all over again, Europe locked in a death spiral, seemingly destined for all-out war.

Having flown in to visit the Fuhrer twice in recent days, Chamberlain has exhausted all appeals to Nazi reason, hence his request here. As a favour, not to him, but to the people of Europe, could the Duce please try and swing her Hitler round? He is their only hope. Mussolini is no lover of Chamberlain. He is one of the grey old men to whom a virile, fascist Italy should be vehemently opposed.

But Il Duce's never want to pass up an opportunity, especially a chance to showboat. Mussolini tells Ciano he'll see what he can do. Five minutes later, Mussolini is being put through to the operator at the Berghof, the Fuhrer's home in the Bavarian Alps. With a few clicks and burrs, he's connected with the distant, disinterested tones of Adolf Hitler.

In German this time, he tells the Führer about the petition from the British and how it suddenly sparked an idea, a way both to end this Sudetenkrisis and achieve Hitler's aims, without a shot being fired. He, Mussolini, will host a four-power peace conference. Himself, the Führer, Chamberlain, and French Prime Minister, Edouard Deladier,

Hitler has little time for talking shops. His troops are ready to roll, and he's relishing the prospect. The sword is mightier than the pen. But Mussolini ladles on the charm. Eventually, the Fuhrer concedes. Mussolini suggests a neutral venue. Switzerland, perhaps. "No," says Hitler. "He's going nowhere. If Filduce must insist on this ridiculous charade, then people must come to him

In the meantime, he will defer the invasion by 24 hours. 30 minutes later Mussolini rings Ciano back. He has a message for Ambassador Perth to relay to his boss in London. Tomorrow, he instructs. Munich. From the Neuser Network, this is part five of the Mussolini story. And this is Real Dictators. Scrolling back to the end of 1937, and Mussolini has been in power for 15 years.

In the aftermath of the Great War, the violence of his rule had been accepted with a reluctant shrug. Fine, while it was a domestic affair, but Mussolini's recent forays into the international arena are setting alarm bells ringing. Corfu, Libya, Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War. Professor John Foote,

I've seen he's very popular in the West for a very long time. If Italy had gone Bolshevik, that was very problematic for Western democracies and they're delighted that it doesn't. And I think at least until Ethiopia, he's a popular figure or at least no one's really bothered about him apart from certain groups. He's also seen as someone you can talk to, you can discuss things with. His mass murders and violence is kind of placed aside.

Mussolini has become particularly emboldened since he began his love-in with fellow dictator Adolf Hitler. In Rome in 1936, an agreement was signed initiating the Axis alliance. In November 1937, the arrangement is tweaked again when an anti-Kommerntern pact brings fascist Italy and the Third Reich into strategic alignment, ostensibly as an anti-Bolshevik bloc.

"When fascism has a friend," Mussolini declares, "it will march with that friend to the last." But it's just a smokescreen. As both Hitler and Mussolini recognize, the immediate obstacle to their territorial ambitions is not the Soviet Union at all. Rather, it's those old capitalist powers, Britain and France. For the Axis, it's France with its huge army that's seen as the greater threat.

maritime Britain, Hitler hopes, can still be sidelined. Thomas Weber is professor of history at the University of Aberdeen. Ultimately, his idea is if the British and the Germans can divide the world amongst them, then Germany will be safe for all time. He thinks that Germany should be the hegemon of Eurasia, while Britain will rule the seas. But even though

Hitler is trying to tilt the balance within Britain to make this happen. He obviously also knows that he's not anywhere close to that. So he really has to look for other allies. And that also, of course, really explains why he put so much emphasis on trying to court Mussolini. Having been paraded before the German people, Il Duce is keen to return the favor, to reintroduce Hitler to the Italian public.

Their first date, in Venice back in 1934, was rather awkward. And so, on May 3rd, 1938, Hitler arrives in Rome. Hundreds of thousands turn out to greet the Fuhrer, whipped up into a swastika-waving, flower-strewing frenzy. But as the Reich Chancellor steps off the train, it's the King, Victor Emmanuel III, who leads the reception party. He is, after all, the head of state.

A humiliated Mussolini playing second fiddle is forced to shuffle a few paces behind. As the parade proceeds, the Fuhrer must then ride in a ceremonial carriage with the diminutive monarch, a man he openly loathes. The feeling is mutual. The King has already described Hitler as drug-addled, soulless, sexless, certainly compared with his own libidinous Duce. That night, at his hotel, Hitler requests the services of a woman for the evening.

Both the King and Mussolini breathe a sigh of relief. The Fuhrer has his needs, after all, but it's simply to turn down his bed. Professor Helen Roche,

Yes, I mean, certainly you can't compete if you put Mussolini with his mountains of lovers and fitting his sex life into his everyday business with Hitler, who was sort of legendary for being very ascetic in all kinds of ways, you know, sexual vegetarianism, not smoking, not drinking, etc.,

One thing that is interesting is that Hitler felt he had to keep his marriage with Eva Braun secret or pretty much out of the public eye because he wanted, I guess, female followers to see him as available and maybe cultivate that connection, which would be more difficult if he were married. Maybe not that difficult, as Mussolini's example shows.

Hitler's ardor is reserved for his passion project, undoing the settlement of Versailles, stitching a dismembered Germany back together again, a program on which, he hopes, he can count on Mussolini's support. The pair, if you remember, had nearly fallen out over Hitler's meddling in Austria. With Il Duce's reluctant blessing, that country, as of March 1938, has been annexed by the Reich, an absorption known as the Anschluss,

Turning to his next target, the aforementioned Sudetenland, Hitler knows he must sweeten the deal. On the border between Italy and the new expanded Reich lies the alpine region of South Tyrol, ethnically German, but snatched by Italy during the Great War. "It's yours," Hitler tells him. "You can keep it." How could Il Duce refuse? As if to sanctify their union, Mussolini does a few other things to bring the dictatorships more in line.

to have them singing from the same hymn sheet. Dr Lisa Pine: Emulating Nazi Germany, Italians could no longer shake hands in greeting, but they had to use the Roman salute. Civil servants had to wear military uniforms. And these policies were all very demonstrative of Mussolini's increasing closeness to Hitler and indeed of the affinity of these two regimes.

He will also have his troops adopt the Wehrmacht's stiff-legged marching stride, more commonly known as the Gustep. Il Duce passes it off as a coincidence. It is, he says, merely a version of the Passo Romano, a tribute to the yumping style of the Roman legions. Most significantly, Mussolini will mimic some of the most disturbing Nazi legislation.

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Despite the virulent anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany, Mussolini has never bought into Hitler's rampant Jew bashing. Not once has he ever made a pronouncement with regard to Italy's small Jewish population, around 50,000 or so, some of whom have origins going back to classical antiquity. Mussolini has had Jewish cabinet members. There have been Jewish generals. Jews were patriotic players in the struggle for Italian unification.

Mussolini's long-term lover and biographer, Margherita Sarfatti, self-styled godmother of fascism, is herself Jewish. Blaming the Jews for the world's ills thus far has been viewed as a vulgar Nazi affectation. Hitler, however, has been working his skills as a conversion therapist. In Trieste, on September 18, 1938, Mussolini makes yet another of his balcony addresses.

presenting the latest threat to fascist Italy. Not an enemy without this time, but an enemy within. The biggest current problem, he declares, is race. Global Judaism, over the past 16 years and in spite of our policies, has been an irreconcilable enemy of fascism. Regarding Jews, we will henceforth follow a policy of separation, and we will put in place the necessary measures.

Similarly to the Nuremberg Laws, the Italian racial laws called for foreign Jews to be deported. It prohibited marriages between Italian Jews and non-Jews and it prohibited Italian Jews from holding public offices, including teaching and civil service jobs. It banned them from joining the fascist party.

nor did it allow them to run businesses with more than 100 employees, nor to have servants who were not Jewish. And it wasn't particularly popular because it kind of, in some ways, seemed to go against the grain. According to Mussolini's new Manifesto on Race, ethnic Italians are now declared to be part of the Aryan tribe. Even amongst the hardcore, the pronouncement is unsettling.

The king, Victor Emmanuel III, appeals to Mussolini to rescind the proposed legislation. But it's no use. In November, it becomes official state policy. Those alarmed at Mussolini's approach here had not been paying close enough attention. In the northeastern Istrian peninsula, a de facto apartheid has long existed between Italians and Slavs. Mussolini, after all, was the man who invented the term ethnic cleansing. Professor Giulia Albanese,

So it starts with keeping out at the margin the Slavs and Germans at the boundaries of the country. And then it's strengthened through the years with the empire and with the idea that it should separate Italians from colonial people. And then comes antisemitism, which is at the same time a propaganda drive to force this idea of the nation as an homogeneous aspect.

In fact, these laws are with regards more rigid than the Nuremberg Laws. So it's not a copycat situation. It's a situation in which there is an idea of nation which is more and more exclusive and more and more rigid.

It has long been attributed to this turn towards Germany. But I think if you look a bit more closely, you can see the seeds of it in the atrocities that are going on in Africa today.

There were stringent racial and racist guidelines and concerns and fears going on. And there were also mass slaughters. I think there definitely were people in Mussolini's regime who had anti-Semitic views. But there were also a lot of Jews who were high up in the fascist party until then. At a stroke.

10,000 Jews are struck from the party lists, many of whom had participated in the March on Rome, the very act that brought Mussolini to power. And although it isn't an exterminatory policy at first, it paves the way for the deaths of 9,000 Italian Jews in the Second World War by excluding them, eliminating them, discriminating against them, waging a campaign against them within Italian society. Professor Nicholas O'Shaughnessy.

Even though their racism was not the biological racism of the Germans, it amounted to the same thing. It was a cultural racism. But it was racism. It was a loathing of so-called inferior races. Professor Joshua Arthurs

I would actually argue that while there is not the same kind of racial, biological antisemitism that we see in Nazi Germany, that there is an antisemitic current within Italian society, one initially that is more tied to traditional antisemitism.

Catholic anti-Judaism. I think part of the adoption of anti-Semitism was not necessarily under Hitler's influence so much as an attempt to keep up with the latest mode of fascism. That anti-Semitism was coming to the fore and that Mussolini, in order to maintain his position at the forefront of European fascism, had to get with the times.

It was also, fundamentally, a part of the project of constant revolution. The regime was always hunting for a new internal enemy. If there's one thing Mussolini admires about Hitler above all else, it's that Nazi can-do spirit. When Adolf wants something, he takes it. Perhaps Mussolini himself thus far has been too restrained.

Mussolini came to power in order to make Italy greater, to create an empire. And this wasn't possible until 1933 when Hitler came to power. Hitler has long had the plan laid out. It's all there in Mein Kampf. The Anschluss with Austria had been preceded in 1936 by German troops marching into the demilitarized Rhineland.

The latest venture, reclaiming the Sudetenland Hitler promises, would simply be the final act of restoration. Unfortunately, the international community is less easily hoodwinked. With the League of Nations powerless, it is, as anticipated, Britain and France who take the lead. Thus far, their objections to German expansionism have amounted to mutterings of disapproval and threats to write stern letters.

But each know they must put on a united show of force if Nazi Germany is to be contained. Across the summer of 1938, both sides seem set on a collision path. Hitler toying with his opponents in a classic case of brinkmanship.

So this was now really seen as a moment of crisis because now it was becoming clear this was no longer about undoing Versailles. Something else was going on here. This was really aggression against foreign countries and against non-German populations.

People like Chamberlain still think this is maybe just a slightly more extreme version of creating the national security for Germany. Because, of course, what Hitler would tell someone like Chamberlain is not, my ultimate goal is to dominate the entire Eurasian landmass. At 8 p.m. on September the 27th, the eve of Hitler's threatened invasion of Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain makes his forlorn radio broadcast to the British people.

How horrible, how fantastic, how incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing. In Berlin, the French ambassador warns Hitler that he will be lighting the blue touch paper to Armageddon. But thanks to that emergency phone call by Chamberlain where we opened this episode, and thanks to Mussolini's intervention, a war could still be averted.

I think part of his drive for so long had been to get Italy that recognition to be seen as a world statesman rather than, quote, the least of the great powers, which is how Italy had always been viewed, you know, since unification.

It's a very heady thing to be able to play broker with the nations of Europe, as essentially he was doing in Munich. And also maybe the idea that Hitler would have to be a little bit beholden to him. You know, he was going to be Daddy Mussolini and sort this out. Maybe a little bit of a resumption of that earlier, more paternalistic relationship. September the 29th, noon, Munich.

We're outside the Führerbau, Hitler's neoclassical Bavarian headquarters. Crowds line the streets as the international delegations arrive. When the limousines pull up, the teams of Britain and France are greeted warmly. Unused to such clamour, Chamberlain and Deladier even give tentative waves. Inside, however, the mood is tense, awkward. Mussolini plays the genial host, though he has had a spat with Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe.

During a pre-meeting meeting, Göring's pet lion cub had scratched Il Duce. In Göring's office, the corpulent Reich minister had continued to play with his toy train set throughout. But the show would not be derailed. Munich is a strange affair. In the conference antechamber, a buffet has been laid out. Black bread, pickles and cold meats. Both entourages stand apart, eyeing each other.

They're beings from different worlds. Specimens of the old and new. Chamberlain and Daladier, grey and hunched in winged collars and mourning suits. The younger Axis contingent bedecked in their finest military attire. Mussolini stands, chest puffed out, his tunic awash with medals. Rewarded for what, God only knows. Beside him, costumed as a brown shirt, with his vivid swastika armband, is Adolf Hitler.

Ilduce nods at Chamberlain. Britain is a country of four million sexually unsatisfied women equips to an aid. What do you expect of men who have to change into dinner jackets to have their five o'clock tea? A photographer comes over. He suggests that the four leaders go and stand by the fireplace. He will take a commemorative snap. Then, at 12:45, they're ushered into the conference room. It's Mussolini, in his self-appointed role as master of ceremonies, who takes control.

Hitler threw out just grimaces. At Munich, he has the most paradisal role, benign role, best role ever offered to a world statesman, if you can call him that.

of being international peacemaker because Mussolini's unique advantage in a monolingual, monocultural world is that he speaks English and French very well, German not so well, and so he can act as interpreter. This is the whole point about Mussolini at Munich, that he can actually be the peacemaker because he's the interpreter. You don't need a sort of geeky guy there with headphones.

And they're all looking to Mussolini, his leadership, his guidance, his wisdom. But of course, it's all Finn Pipp's clothing. He's rapidly going over to the German side. There must have been at least a residual of disdain, the sheer coarseness of the Nazis. But in the end, it's who's the biggest thug who's in prison with you. It's the most brutal kid in the playground on the block.

The conventional narrative is that the leaders of Britain and France will appease, give in to Hitler.

But the policy pursued is pretty much a continuation of the League of Nations ethos since 1919. Peace at any price. For Britain and France, Chamberlain and Deladier, the prospect of a repeat of World War I is simply unconscionable. That conflict, barely 20 years old, killed over 20 million people in Europe, they repeat. The majority of them civilians. With developments in military technology, particularly bomber aircraft,

It is now possible for whole cities to be obliterated in a single night. Members of all four delegations either fought in the war themselves or suffered family losses as a direct consequence of it. Chamberlain appeals to the fact that both Hitler and Mussolini are veterans of the trenches, wounded in action. The talks are long, they're pained, but just as predicted by Mussolini, the West caves in to Hitler's demands.

At 1:30 AM, an agreement is reached. The Sudeten Territories will be transferred to Germany after the formality of local plebiscites, overseen by an international commission. The four men put their signatures to the necessary documents. The Czechs are not involved in the discussion, but merely invited into the room afterwards to have the decision explained to them.

It was likewise really Mussolini who had brought about Munich, which we now today see as a triumph of Hitler. But at the time Hitler was furious. This was absolutely not what he wanted to have. He really had wanted to march into Czechoslovakia. And now Mussolini had forced his hand and had brought about this international agreement, which Hitler absolutely objected to. And yet he also knew that he was dependent on Italian support.

Back home, Chamberlain and Deladier are greeted as heroes, having pulled back civilization from the precipice. But this is not how their adversaries see it. Afterwards, Hitler tells Mussolini, "If ever that silly old man comes interfering here again with his umbrella, I'll kick him downstairs and jump on his stomach in front of the photographers." A woman struck dead after hearing a haunting whistle. A series of childlike drawings scrawled throughout a country estate.

A prize horse wandering the moors without an owner. To the regular observer, these are merely strange anomalies. But for the master detective, Sherlock Holmes, they are the first pieces of an elaborate puzzle. I'm Hugh Bonneville. Join me every Thursday for Sherlock Holmes Short Stories. I'll be reading a selection of the super sleuths' most baffling cases, all brought to life in their original, masterful form.

The game is afoot, and you're invited to join the chase. From the Noiser Network, this is Sherlock Holmes Short Stories. Search for Sherlock Holmes Short Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Or listen at noiser.com. On a conference high, Mussolini gets carried away.

Days later he makes a provocative statement to France, in which he insists on the return of Corsica and Savoy to Italian rule, as well as Tunisia, once part of the Roman Empire, you know. He also has designs on French Djibouti and the Horn of Africa. On November 30th, the French ambassador André-François Ponce is invited to the opening of the Chamber of Deputies. He is roundly heckled by fascist members chanting "Tunis, Nice, Corsica, Savoy,

Protesters outside shout and wave placards. Having narrowly seen off one war, Mussolini still seems bent on starting another. Chamberlain, meanwhile, doesn't give up. In January 1939 he visits Mussolini in Rome. He wants better relations with Italy, he assures. A British friendship would be much more achievable, hints Chamberlain, if Mussolini could extract himself from the still ongoing Spanish Civil War.

Confirming his own nightmares about the nature of modern warfare, Italian planes have bombed Republican Barcelona, just as the Germans have levelled Guernica. As the war builds to its climax there, it's becoming increasingly horrific.

British, it's really rather sad to see how hard they try. They want to get Mussolini away from the Spanish Civil War because they think only by doing that can they prise him away from Hitler's clavicle grasp.

But in the end, it doesn't work out for one simple reason, that the British won't betray the French. The French are an allied democracy. They are their allies from World War I. They are the neighbors right next door. The French, the British, are whistling in the wind. On March the 15th, 1939, after a classic false flag operation, Hitler launches a full invasion of the Rumpcheck state and occupies Prague.

Munich was always a charade, in time-honored fashion. And despite all they've promised, Hitler had again failed to inform Mussolini of his plans. Even amongst Il Duce's own committed comrades, there is mounting concern that Italy is going to be dragged into something cataclysmic, without consultation, and against the Italian people's wishes. Hitching its star to the Nazi wagon will come with dire consequences.

On March 21st, 1939, there's a meeting of the Fascist Grand Council. Italo Balbo, a key Mussolini ally, the fascist's fascist, warns against, as he puts it, this constant licking of the German boots. The king, too, remains unwavering in his disapproval. Mussolini dismisses his sovereign in typical fashion, pointing out his inability to master the Gustep, the Paso Romano,

What do you expect of someone who needs a ladder to mount a horse? And besides, he is his own man. What's more, he's going to prove it. He's going to invade Albania. Until recently, Albania was governed by Italy as a quasi-protectorate. But Mussolini now makes noises about restoring it to its former position in the Roman Empire.

He gives some flannel about the ethnic kinship between Italians and Albanians, whom he regards as a race apart from the ghastly Slavs. Taking Albania will not only restore greater Italy, he boasts, it will also create a launch pad for further incursions into the Balkans. There is further objection, this time from military and economic advisers.

The Ethiopian campaign, he is reminded, despite the glorious spin, has come at the cost of 12,000 Italian dead and another 5,000 or so Africans in the Italian colonial service. It has also cost 33 billion lira, a figure so staggering that Mussolini himself has had to devalue the currency. The Spanish adventure has added another 14 billion to the debit. His Under-Secretary for War Production, Carlo Favagrosa, lays it out:

The country's planes and tanks are obsolete. Italy won't be on a full war footing till at least the summer of 1942. Mussolini slaps him down. "To build a great people," he says, "you must force them into battle with a kick up the backside." Albania's King Zog is issued an ultimatum to allow an occupation. When he refuses, the Italians move in. It's April 7th, 1939. Good Friday.

In the skies over Tirana rumble Italian bombers, though this time they're dropping not mustard gas but leaflets. Resistance, as they implore, is futile. Despite Italy's perceived military shortcomings and against a spirited defense, it's still a one-sided affair. The whole thing is over in just five days. King Zog is deposed.

The disgruntled Victor Emmanuel, who also opposed the invasion, is proclaimed not just Emperor of Ethiopia, but of Albania too. Mussolini now has a new cheerleader. Her name is Clara Patacci. If you remember, he'd met her at the roadside back in 1932 while harrying around in his Alfa Romeo convertible, screeching to a halt in a cloud of dust. Patacci was not only an attractive young woman, albeit nearly 30 years his junior,

but turned out to be his biggest fan. He had filed her away for later usage. And now, here she is. In 1936, aged 24, Patachi has moved into the upstairs bachelor pad at the Palazzo Venezia. Il Duce has had her husband, an Air Force officer, conveniently transferred as an attaché to Japan. Patachi will displace the previous incumbent of the love nest, a French actress named Magda Fontange.

a woman who wrote enthusiastically of how, over their first intense 48-hour encounter, Ilduche ravaged her twenty times. Soon bored with Fontange, Mussolini had told the French Embassy to see her removal from the country. Not least because OVRA agents discovered amongst her possessions more than 300 compromising photographs of the pair of them together. The breakup does not go well. First, Fontange tries to poison herself,

Later, on March 17th, 1937, having been deported, she will lie in wait for the French ambassador at Paris' Gare du Nord station, shooting him as he alights from his train, assailing him for having destroyed the world's greatest love affair. Mercifully, the wound is non-fatal, and Fontange is given a suspended sentence, only to be re-arrested when trying to escape to Spain. During the war, she will go on to become a key German agent,

betraying French underground networks to the Nazis. Patachi, Mussolini hopes, will be less complicated, therefore handy access via a private staircase, available for swift fornications between official engagements. He dubs her Little Seville after the mistress of Julius Caesar. I love you madly, he tells her. I want to harm you, be brutal with you.

Sevilla replies that "Hadouche is the epitome of beauty and power." Well, this aspect of Mussolini I don't think is just a quirk of his personality. I think it's also central to his role as the embodiment of fascism. Fascism is a masculinist ideology. It's about aggression and force and potency.

And so he did very little to discourage rumors of his sexual exploits. He also made sure that he was photographed with his peasant wife, Rakele, and their children so that he could be the respectable family man. But he also had these very high-profile affairs over the years. This was a demonstration of his virility. And Patachi was the kind of ultimate embodiment of that.

A much younger woman, he essentially becomes her patron and the patron of her family. He sets her sister up with a film career. He finds jobs and bribes for her brother and father. And after Mussolini's fall, Pitacci becomes the symbol of fascist corruption and excess. After their adventures in Czechoslovakia and Albania,

Both Mussolini and Hitler concede that going solo is not a prudent option, particularly now they have the upper hand. On April 1, 1939, Spain falls to Franco's phalangists, fascists by any other name, with fascistic movements springing up all over Europe. In Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, in Hungary, in Croatia, they need to act in concert.

On May 22nd, 1939, at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, the two foreign ministers, Count Ciano and Joachim von Ribbentrop, sign a military alliance, the unsubtly titled Pact of Blood. While the PR gurus scratch their heads as to how they're going to spin this as a peacekeeping venture, Mussolini suggests an alternative title, the Pact of Steel, macho but less morbid. It's not just a mutual defensive pact.

Hitler and Mussolini promised to support each other for better or worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. Once that Pact of Steel has been signed, he's really signed over Italy's fate to be that of Germany's. There's kind of no two ways about it after that. Italy's fate has been signed by Mussolini at that point and then entry into the Second World War and all the consequences of that become inevitable.

Over the summer, Ciano and Ribbentrop continue a series of meetings. Unfortunately, unlike their bosses, they detest each other. On their travels, it transpires both have had affairs with the same woman, a certain Mrs. Wallis Simpson, the consort of the recently abdicated King Edward VIII of England. And Ciano is insulted by the brazen way in which Ribbentrop treats Italy as a junior partner, with near contempt.

In Berlin, a delegation of Italian officers is invited by Hitler to join a meeting of the German High Command. Hitler now speaks openly of reclaiming the strip of territory known as the Polish Corridor and seizing back the old East Prussian port of Danzig. And that's just for starters. At a dinner in Salzburg, while the two foreign ministers are waiting to be seated, Czarno asks Ribbentrop bluntly, "What is it you want?" Ribbentrop replies simply,

We want war. Hitler, without doubt, is bent on a full-on invasion of Poland. But Polish sovereignty since the Munich conference has been guaranteed by both Britain and France. Desperate to relay this information back to Rome, Czarno knows that he cannot do it by phone. The line will surely be tapped. In his hotel room, he can only talk to confidants with the taps running, knowing that the room is bugged.

He even orders his plane to be put under guard lest anyone tamper with it. Until his return, he is only able to record his concerns in his diary. "They have betrayed us and lied to us. Now they are dragging us into an adventure which we do not want and which may compromise the regime and the country as a whole. The Italian people will recoil in horror when they learn about the aggression against Poland and will most probably want to fight the Germans."

On August 23, 1939, Hitler drops a political hand grenade. Ribbentrop has sneaked off to Moscow and signed a secret non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. Hitler and Stalin are a hot new item. Like a spurned lover, Mussolini howls his outrage in private. He assures that he and Hitler are working through their difficulties. The inevitable happens. German panzers roll across the Polish border, and with it,

the Anglo-French line drawn in the sand. On September 3, reluctantly they declare war on Germany. Under the terms of the Pact of Steel, Mussolini should now be rushing to join the party, coming to Hitler's aid. But not so. He cites a technicality: that due to the unsanctioned Nazi-Soviet pact, Germany has violated the letter of their agreement.

While Poland is being crushed, Italy remains for the moment, if not neutral, then a non-combatant. Italy's not as prepared militarily. Mussolini's kind of dragging his feet. He wants a little bit more time. There's quite a lot of shilly-shallying. He's kind of not quite sure, not quite prepared, not ready for decisive action. And yeah, he's already put himself up for it. But Mussolini is soon blinded.

In the spring of 1940, the speed with which Hitler sweeps through Denmark and Norway is a wonder to behold. The pace with which the Blitzkrieg scorches across the Low Countries, then mighty France, exceeds the wildest of expectations. Hitler has achieved in four weeks what the generals of the First World War couldn't do in four years. There is no doubt to Mussolini which is the winning side in this struggle for European civilization.

Plus, he's got a classic case of FOMO: fear of missing out. He has a rethink: to have his seat at the table to share in the victory, he tells his deputies. Italy must now join the war. After the surrender of Belgium on May 28th, 1940, Mussolini summons his chiefs of staff. He informs them that he will declare war on June 5th. There is a numb resignation in the room.

The army head, General Pietro Badoglio, protests that such a move would be suicide. This is no case of butchering their way through colonial outposts, slaughtering people armed with spears. But in a system built around a cult of personality, with insufficient checks and balances, the whim of Ilduce overrides all. "Don't worry," he assures, "it will all be over by September."

Though accepting the military could be better prepared, he pushes his declaration back a few days. On June 10th, he strides onto the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia to address not just the hand-picked fascist crowd, but by radio, the entire nation. Fighting men of the land, the sea, in the air, black shirts of the revolution and of the legions.

Men and women of Italy, of the Empire and the Kingdom of Albania, an hour marked by destiny is striking in the heavens of our fatherland. We go to battle against the plutocratic and reactionary democracies of the West. Ambassadors of Britain and France are summoned, communiques are issued, diplomats and foreign correspondents are seen off with tears and handshakes.

"People of Italy, rush to arms," bellows Mussolini, "and show your tenacity, your courage, your valor. But there are no cheering crowds beyond the choreographed fanatics of the piazza." So Mussolini is caught by surprise when Hitler invades Poland. And Mussolini is outraged when he finds out that Hitler had not told him in advance. And there is a bit of a wait-and-see strategy. Will this pay off?

And it's not until it's clear that France is collapsing in May 1940 that Mussolini decides, "Okay, the coast is clear. We need to get in on this. We need to... If we want to be part of the new fascist Europe that is going to emerge out of the inevitable German victory, then we have to join in." And so that's where the invasion of France and Italy's formal entry into the war starts. It is hardly a triumphant entrance.

Within days, with France effectively beaten, Italian troops advance past the Little Maginot Line on the French-Italian border and occupy a thin strip of territory. As Franklin D. Roosevelt puts it, "The hand that held the dagger was stuck it into the back of its neighbor." Edging along the French Riviera, they still make heavy weather of it, but it's of little consequence. Eleven days after Mussolini's declaration, France signs the armistice.

Mussolini is hedging his bets, but in the end Mussolini sides with Hitler, there are too many common interests, and he covets the spoils of war. Once France has fallen, it means that he can have French territory. Hitler gives him parts of France to occupy, which would have been, of course, for those French, much more pleasant than German occupations. But he takes Nice, he takes Savoy,

and a few of the southern French counties. And his cut runneth over. Mussolini can now turn his attention to the colonies. In East Africa, Italian forces attack British Somaliland. On September 3, 1940, under General Rodolfo Graziani, the Italian 10th Army crosses the border into British-controlled Egypt from Libya. This initiates what would become known as the Western Desert Campaign.

Graziani initially is successful, he gets to the city of Birani. They attack the British in Kenya, in Sudan, in Somaliland and they roll out Somaliland, British Somaliland, conquer that. They're doing awfully well. In the Middle East, Italians even bomb British positions in the Mandate of Palestine. There is a new international order and Mussolini's Italy, just like Hitler's Germany, seems unstoppable.

Whipped up by the propaganda, thrilled with this string of victories, even the most skeptical can concede that this is shaping up to become quite a ride. Il Duce's new Rome, the glorious fascist empire, has its place in the sun.

1940, it looks like it's going really well, right? The invasion of France, I mean, it's incredibly opportunist, but it seems perfect, right? We've gone on the coattails of this great victory. You know, he's a great opportunist, but the opportunism in the end is his downfall. Sure enough, it's all about to go horribly wrong. In the next episode, despite mounting military disasters, Mussolini invades Greece and sends troops to Russia. In solidarity with Japan, he declares war on the United States.

Following an Axis collapse in North Africa, the Allies land in Sicily. And amid widespread civil unrest, the fascist Grand Council calls an extraordinary meeting. Il Duce's future is on the line. That's next time. Get every episode of Real Dictators a week early and ad-free by subscribing to Noisa+. Hit the link in the episode description to find out more.