The role of foreign policy in Mussolini’s Italy was critical instrument for the maintenance of the Fascist dictatorship from 1922 to 1939. Foreign policy played a dynamic, double-edged role: while external successes initially strengthened his position at home, the regime’s increasingly reckless foreign engagements in the late 1930s undermined its stability. This highlights how authoritarian regimes often rely on foreign policy not simply as diplomacy but as a mechanism of internal political system, where victories are magnified and failures concealed—until their consequences become too great to manage.
In order to understand why foreign policy mattered so profoundly to Mussolini, it is important to note briefly the internal conditions of Fascist rule. Mussolini’s regime depended on consent from key societal groups, including the monarchy, industrialists, and sections of the middle class. Foreign policy, therefore, presented Mussolini with an arena in which he could dramatize strength and decisive leadership: “the state, the military and the diplomatic service, resolute to overcome past Liberal weakness, must become the agents of Italian ‘grandeur’ throughout the globe, expressed both ‘materially and symbolically’.” (R.J.B. Bosworth, 2005) Thus, foreign policy should be taken as a substitute for domestic reform, when fascism institutional weaknesses could not be resolved, foreign policy achievements allow Mussolini to mask internal fragilities with displays of international vigor.
In its early years, Fascist foreign policy served primarily as a tool of domestic propaganda and legitimacy-building. The Corfu Incident of 1923 saw Italy’s use of force to coerce Greece in apologizing for the death of an Italian general on her soil and the paying a large indemnity of 50 million lire. The League of Nations did not conclusively find evidence for Greek responsibility for the murders, yet Italy still extracted benefits; Mussolini portrayed the episode as a triumph of national will. Even more significant was the 1924 Treaty of Rome, which finally secured Fiume—territory promised but denied to Italy at the Paris Conference and unsuccessfully pursued by the previous liberal government—from Yugoslavia, delivered a long-awaited irredentist victory that massively boosted Mussolini’s prestige, showcasing Italy’s renewed dominance in Mediterranean politics and underscoring his more effective diplomacy. Italy’s participation in the Locarno Treaties of 1925 further positioned Mussolini as a stabilizer of European peace, appealing to moderate Italians and foreign observers alike, reinforcing the idea that Fascism was restoring Italy’s place among the great powers. These early successes helped Mussolini consolidate control at home by presenting Fascism as effective, determined, and internationally respected.
Foreign policy contributed even more dramatically to the maintenance of power through imperial expansion, which Mussolini used as a unifying national project in the mid-1930s. The Abyssinia campaign from 1935 to 1936 marked the apex of this strategy. To avenge the national disgrace of the humiliating defeat at Adwa in 1896, Fascist propaganda framed the invasion as the fulfillment of Italy’s spazio vitale, to build a new “Roman Empire” in Africa. The Great Depression hit Italy hard; colonial expansion was advertised as a solution with its resources, land, and markets. Newspapers such as Il Popolo d’Italia by the state-controlled Istituto Luce portrayed the invasion as an act of liberation, modernization, and racial destiny. The enthusiasm was unprecedented: over a million Italians participated directly or indirectly in war-related rallies, fundraising drives, or regime-organized celebrations. The imposition of League of Nations sanctions in late 1935 presented allowed Mussolini to us them as propaganda framing how Italy became a victim of Western hypocrisy, providing a powerful pretext for tightening authoritarian control and increased OVRA censorship. King Victor Emmanuel III awarded him the title “Emperor of Ethiopia” after the conquer on May 9, 1936, symbolically binding the monarchy to Fascist success.
However, the impact of foreign policy on Mussolini’s maintenance of power was not uniformly positive. By the late 1930s, Mussolini’s increasingly reckless international decisions strained Italy’s economy, eroded elite confidence, and undermined his popular standing. The intervention in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), though justified as a crusade against Bolshevism, imposed severe financial and military burdens on Italy. Ian Walker estimates 78,500 men dispatched to Spain, and estimated at 6-8.5 billion lire, equal to 14-20% of annual expenditure. The Italian public gained little tangible benefit from the venture, and behind the scenes many military leaders were alarmed by the depletion of resources.
At the same time, Mussolini’s alignment with Nazi Germany—cemented by the Rome–Berlin Axis (1936) and the Pact of Steel (1939)—significantly reduced Italy’s diplomatic autonomy. The relationship served immediate propaganda purposes, giving the image of Italy as one of Europe’s two “new empires,” but it caused widespread unease among conservative elites, segments of the officer corps, and the Catholic Church. The alliance locked Italy into Hitler’s strategic timetable, meaning that Mussolini’s ability to calibrate foreign policy according to domestic needs was fatally weakened. Mussolini’s racial laws starting from 1938, mirroring Nazi policies, were particularly unpopular and revealed how foreign policy pressures could push the regime into decisions that weakened rather than strengthened its domestic legitimacy.
Nevertheless, some historians contend that foreign policy was not the primary determinant of Mussolini’s ability to maintain power. They argue that the regime rested more on internal mechanisms of control, such as the OVRA and MVSN, the corporatist system, and the co-optation of elites, than on diplomatic achievements. None the less, some historians maintain that Mussolini was, from start to finish, a fanatic who thirsted for war and lusted to tear down the existing world order: the first weeks after his assumption of power in October 1922, Mussolini’s statements had suggested “that at the very least he would try to startle the diplomatic world with a series of melodramatic gestures.” (Barros, 1965) In conclusion, foreign policy was a decisive instrument in the maintenance of Mussolini’s power between 1922 and 1939. Early diplomatic assertiveness and imperial conquest significantly bolstered the regime’s popularity and helped Mussolini craft his image, although the very ambitions that strengthened Mussolini in the mid-1930s ultimately undermined him: costly interventions, dependence on Nazi Germany, racial legislation, and economic deterioration weakened the regime’s foundations well before the Second World War began. Foreign policy therefore operated as both the foundation and the undoing of Fascist power.
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