MUSSOLINI’S FOREIGN POLICY

In the early days of Mussolini’s regime (he came to power in 1922), Italian foreign policy seemed rather confused: Mussolini knew what he wanted, which was ‘to make Italy great, respected and feared.’ But he was not sure how to achieve this, apart from agitating for a revision of the 1919 peace settlement in Italy’s favour. At first he seemed to think an adventurous foreign policy was his best line of action, hence the Corfu Incident and the occupation of Fiume in 1923. By an agreement signed at Rapallo in 1920, Fiume was to be a ‘free city’, used jointly by Italy and Yugoslavia; after Italian troops moved in, Yugoslavia agreed that it should belong to Italy. After these early successes, Mussolini became
Mussolini was commiting Italy to deeper and deeper invovlement with Germany, which in the end would ruin him.
HITLER’S FOREIGN POLICY

What were his aims in Foreign Policy? Was he successful?
Hitler aimed to make Germany into a great power again
He hoped to achieve this by:
a) destroying the hated Versailles settlement
b) building up the army
c) recovering lost territory such as the Saar and the Polish Corridor
d) bringing all German speaking people inside the Reich; this would involve annexing Austria and taking territory from Czechoslovaki and Poland, both of which had large German minorities as a result of the peace settlement.
Hitler wanted the Germans to have Lebensraum (Living Space).
Whatever his long term aims, one this is for certain and that is that he had a series of successes, which became one of the main reasons for his popularity with Germans. Everything he wanted was given to him by Britain and France’s approval -- the only aspect left was that he was not able to bring Poland into the Reich. Unfortunatley, it was when he invaded Poland that the trouble started.
1) Given that Hitler was still militarily weak, Hitler had to move cautiously first. He withdrew Germany from the World Disarmament Conference and from the League of Nations, on the grounds that France would not agree to Germany