Mussolini Unleashed, 1939-1941: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy's Last War

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Cambridge University Press, Jun 27, 1986 - Biography & Autobiography - 385 pages
This book explores the motives, preparation, objectives, contact and consequences of Italy's war of 1940, which ended the country's role as a great power and reduced it to the status of first among Germany's satellites. What Professor Knox demonstrates more clearly than any previous biographer or historian is the limits of Mussolini's power. In particular, thanks to exhaustive research in the relevant archives, he has been able to throw important new light on Mussolini's relations with his military advisers and commanders. His scholarship is first-class, and for once a publisher's blurb does not exaggerate in claiming that his book is 'superbly written'.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
There has been much bluff
3
Bellicose nonbelligerent
44
2 Uneasy axis
59
3 Toward commitment
69
The most impatient of all Italians
87
2 Mussolini unleashed
116
JuneSeptember 1940 Duce strategy in the shadow of Sea Lion
134
To the Berghof Italys end as a great power
231
2 Disaster
249
3 Consequences
272
The meaning of Fascist Italys last war
286
The diaries of Count Galeazzo Ciano
291
Military expenditure Italy and the powers compared
292
Abbreviations
297
Notes
300

2 The Mediterranean and Africa
146
3 Rube auf dem Balkan
165
4 The long summer ends
179
The attack on Greece
189
2 Mussolini takes command
209
A note on sources
365
Frequently cited works
368
Index
374
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