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Reviewed by:
  • Mussolini and His Generals: The Armed Forces and Fascist Foreign Policy, 1922-1940
  • Frank J. Coppa
Mussolini and His Generals: The Armed Forces and Fascist Foreign Policy, 1922-1940. By John Gooch. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0521-85602-7. Maps. Photographs. Tables. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. x, 651. $35.00.

John Gooch, Professor of International History and Politics at the University of Leeds and one of the leading historians of twentieth century Europe, has published widely on military developments and diplomatic relations. He has recourse to all three areas of his expertise in the present volume on the relationship [End Page 673] between the Duce and the Italian military, and the impact of this interaction on Fascist foreign policy from 1922 to 1940. In more than five hundred pages he chronicles Mussolini's rise to power, his lack of military expertise and realism, his differences with the country's three armed forces, and the compromises he reached with the army, navy, and air force over the course of some two decades. He also outlines in considerable detail the aims, ambitions, and careerism of the Italian forces, as well as their divided loyalties and inter-departmental competition all of which contributed to their weakness. In many respects, the book is as the publisher's blurb describes it: "the first authoritative study of the Italian armed forces and the relationship between the military and foreign policies of Fascist Italy." It is certainly a scholarly effort, whose eight fact–filled chapters, Introduction, and Conclusion are supported by one hundred pages of single-spaced notes (pp. 523-623) , and a wide range of archival, printed primary, and secondary sources cited in the Bibliography (pp. 627-642).

A number of the study's chapters would appear by title to concentrate on the relationship between Mussolini's interaction with the military and the consequences of this for Italy's foreign policy, especially chapters: 2. Domestic checks and international balances,1925-1929; 3. Military constraints and diplomatic restraint, 1929-1932; 6. War, arms and the Axis, 1936-1937; and 8. 'Speak of peace and prepare for war', 1939-1940. In fact, here and even more so in the other chapters, much more attention is paid to Mussolini's volatile aims and the reaction of the armed forces than on the impact of their interaction on the foreign policy pursued. Furthermore, the extraordinary focus on details, factors, and processes that do not affect final decisions and conclusions assumed, prove distracting. It results in an informative narrative but one not always easy to read. The author might have relegated such details, which would be of interest to a narrow range of specialists, to notes and thus preserve the flow of the narrative for the general reader.

One would also question why Gooch concludes his study in 1940 rather than in 1943, when Fascist Italy collapsed and the military proved loyal to King Victor Emmanuel III rather than Mussolini. I would think that the military and political disintegration of the Fascist regime, and the part played by the military therein, sheds important light on Gooch's study, which focuses on the interrelationship of the Duce, the military, and Fascist foreign policy. I also wonder about his conclusion that "neither Mussolini nor his chief military advisors grasped the fact that the next war would be a capital-intensive war" (p. 520). I would suggest that very likely the real problem was that there was nothing they could do about Italy's relative economic backwardness during their tenure. On the other hand, I fully concur with Gooch's final assessment that "Mussolini thought of war and his soldiers, sailors and airmen planned them but….his choices ultimately did not square with their capabilities" (p. 521). [End Page 674]

Frank J. Coppa
St. John's University
Jamaica, New York
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