The growth in support for fascism in this period was indeed a key factor in Mussolini’s appointment as prime minister because it helped to put him on the political map. However, the level of this support was simply not large enough to explain Mussolini’s rise on its own. More important was the fear of socialism that gripped much of Italy at this time, along with the need for strong and stable government. Mussolini showed great skill in positioning himself as the answer to these two problems at the same time as convincing the Italian establishment that he would be a responsible prime minister who would respect the constitution and control fascist violence. He may not have had huge popular support, but by 1922 significant numbers of the most influential Italians were prepared to tolerate him as the only acceptable alternative to the status quo.
In addition Napoleon with great diplomatic skills made sure that Venitia would be ceded to France even if Austria won and then passed on to Italy. Moving on a war broke out between France and Prussia in 1870, as a result Napoleon III wanted to bring his army up to strength and so withdrew his troops from Rome. Victor Emmanuel suggested an agreement to pope which was rejected and an army of 6000 troops was sent to occupy Rome. Moreover Napoleon III had many motives that influenced his actions in Italy. The fact that he belonged in the Carbonaris in his youth believed it was his destiny to do something for Italy.
During the fifteenth century, Italy was constantly struggling to stay strong and unified. This gave Barbarians, France, and Spain a perfect opportunity to invade Italy and battle for control. Since Italy did not have one unified, cenralized government, there was much confussion and chaos throughout the country. For over fifteen years, the French and Spanish battled eachother to dominate Italy. The Italian writer and poet, Niccolo Machiavelli, wrote a world famous book titled The Prince, which gave suggestions on how a proper ruler should lead his country.
The years of 1919-1922 saw Benito Mussolini’s role a vital to the development of the Fascist movement as he exemplified his strength and supremacy in distinction to the weak liberal government within the period of three years. Pre 1919 and the year of 1919 saw Italy struggle through a period of social and political unrest where Italy was suffering from a bad economic slump, high rates of unemployment and anger from failed promises delivered by its Allies. Following the examples of “Action Francaise”, a counter-revolutionary movement, came the National Fascist Party, the leader being the only thing saving Italy, an arrogant man, Benito Mussolini. The First World War had left Italy with nothing but high inflation, high unemployment, large debts and the economy in a complete slump leading to social and political unrest. Influenced by the Russian Revolution of 1917, a series of strikes and revolts had broken out making Italy nothing but a ground for organised crime.
Growth of support for facism was a reason for Mussolinis appointment as Prime Minister,however there were many other reasons for Mussolinis appointment as PM, but growth of support was very important for him. The war and the mutilated victory, had an affect on Mussolinis appointment as PM. The main reason wad that the nationalists were bitterly disappointed that italy didn’t make any gains during the war. The nationalists claimed that Italy had been betrayed by the Liberal government, this shows that the nationalists might have wanted to overthrow the Liberal government and therefore supported Mussolini before he was appointed. This links into the title point that Mussolini had a wide support base and that it was growing.
Mussolini’s position as prime minister in October 1922 was by no means secure, the king was still able to at any time dismiss him if any opposition to the fascist party was high and people wanted an alternative government. From the start Mussolini intimidated his opponents and rivals. In 1922 November the 16th he held his first speech as prime minister, he claimed he could with 300,00 black shirts behind him create a fascist government if he wanted to, the parliament responded to his disguised threat by giving the government new votes of confidence. Ex prime ministers Giolitti and facta voted in favour, and he was granted emergency powers. He also had to strengthen his position in the party he created a fascist
In 1934 he increased the size of the army, began building warships and created a German air force. Compulsory military service was also introduced. Hitler had a vision of the German people becoming a master race and ruling the entire world, but he also knew that he could not achieve all this during the war he intended to start. He, however, had two major goals which were to bring all of central Europe together and form a larger Germany and to create more room for Germany to grow by taking over Poland. His first move was to test the other European powers by inserting troops into Germany’s coal mining area next to France.
Both Count Camillo Cavour of Italy and Prussian Prime Minister Otto Von Bismarck brought their respective nations to unify in their own respective ways. In 1852 Cavour, the Prime Minister on Piedmont, he looked onto other liberal Italian principalities. His greatest contribution was his establishment of diplomacy; the negotiations between states. Meanwhile Prime Minister Otto Von Bismarck had a different view on the unification on his country; he was against diplomacy and remained scornful towards liberals. “The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood” (Bismarck).
To avoid war in the years 1935 to 1938, Britain and France turned a blind eye to small acts of aggression and expansion, the United States went along with this policy. Even though Roosevelt knew of the threat the Fascist proposed he was still worried about the majority of the isolationist throughout the country. Testing the waters in 1937 he spoke about the democracies teaming up and trying to “quarantine” the problem. The public did not take to well on this idea, and he quickly dropped the subject. Even though that speech failed Roosevelt somehow managed to argue for neutrality but at the same time convince Congress to start building up the arms and increase the military and naval budget by nearly two-thirds in 1938.
Benito Mussolini was an extremely influential figure in Europe in the 1930s. Many argue that Mussolini was responsible for the downfall and eventual failure of the League of Nations. Mussolini wanted to regain the Roman Empire to it's former glory, and initiated his nationalistic plan with the invasion of Abyssinia in 1935. Both Italy and Abyssinia were members of the League, meaning that it fell to them to deal with this, and could possibly help the League regain respect and credibility which it had recently lost. Instead, the situation in Abyssinia seemed to spark the end of the League.