To the casual observer, Mussolini and Hitler are something of a diabolical double act: aggressive right-wing dictators who rose to power in similar circumstances, shared a similar ideology, fought side by side in World War Two, and died violently at the end of the conflict in 1945. But the reality is much more complex. In particular, it was Mussolini’s Italy – not the democracies of Britain, France or the USA – that initially led the most vigorous attempts to contain the aggression of Hitler’s Germany. It was the West’s decision to appease Hitler rather than confront him that was at least partly responsible for Mussolini’s decision to realign Italy as an ally of Germany. In the words of Richard Lamb, ‘British policy threw Mussolini into Hitler's arms’. A study of the foreign policy of both dictators, therefore, highlights at least as many contrasts as comparisons.
It is probably the partition of India which was the division of British and India in 1947 which eventually created two independent dominions, India and Pakistan.
World War I began after the assassination of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand by South Slav nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. Read more about Franz Ferdinand. Read more about why the Balkans became the “powder keg of Europe.”
