page_title: Italian invasion of France
section_title: Italian imperial ambitions
hierarchical_section_title: Italian invasion of France / Background / Italian imperial ambitions
caption_attribution_description: English: Imperial ambitions of Fascist Italy in Europe, 1936. The Fascist regime also sought to establish protective patron-client relationships with Austria, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. (Robert Bideleux, Ian Jeffries. A history of eastern Europe: crisis and change. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 1998. P. 467). In Eastern Europe, the Fascist regime held imperial designs on Albania, Dalmatia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vardar Macedonia, and Greece based on the precedent of previous Roman dominance in these regions.(Robert Bideleux, Ian Jeffries. A history of eastern Europe: crisis and change. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 1998. P. 467). Dalmatia and Slovenia were to be directly annexed into Italy while the remainder of the Balkans was to be transformed into Italian client states.(Allan R. Millett, Williamson Murray. Military Effectiveness, Volume 2. New edition. New York, New York, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2010. P. 184.). In Spain in July 1936, Francisco Franco of the Nationalist faction in the Spanish Civil War requested Italian support against the ruling Republican faction, and guaranteed that if Italy supported the Nationalists, that "future relations would be more than friendly" and that Italian support "would have permitted the influence of Rome to prevail over that of Berlin in the future politics of Spain" essentially saying that Spain would be a client state of Italy. (Sebastian Balfour, Paul Preston. Spain and the Great Powers in the Twentieth Century. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 1999. P. 152.). To the north of Italy, the Fascist regime in the 1930s had designs on the largely Italian-populated region of Ticino and the largely Romansch-populated region of Graubünden in Switzerland (the Romansch are a people with an Latin-based dialect).(John F. L. Ross. Neutrality and International Sanctions: Sweden, Switzerland, and Collective Security. ABC-CLIO, 1989. P. 91.) The Fascist regime accused the Swiss government of oppressing the Romansch people in Graubünden.(John F. L. Ross. Neutrality and International Sanctions: Sweden, Switzerland, and Collective Security. ABC-CLIO, 1989. P. 91.) Mussolini argued that Romansch was an Italian dialect and thus Graubünden should be incorporated into Italy.(Carl Skutsch. Encyclopedia of the world's minorities, Volume 3. London, England, UK: Routledge, 2005. P. 1027.).
context_page_description: The Italian invasion of France, also called the Battle of the Alps, was the first major Italian engagement of World War II and the last major engagement of the Battle of France.
  The Italian entry into the war widened its scope considerably in Africa and the Mediterranean Sea. The goal of the Italian leader, Benito Mussolini, was the elimination of Anglo-French domination in the Mediterranean, the reclamation of historically Italian territory and the expansion of Italian influence over the Balkans and in Africa. France and Britain tried during the 1930s to draw Mussolini away from an alliance with Germany but the rapid German successes from 1938 to 1940 made Italian intervention on the German side inevitable by May 1940.
  Italy declared war on France and Britain on the evening of 10 June, to take effect just after midnight. The two sides exchanged air raids on the first day of war, but little transpired on the Alpine front, since France and Italy had defensive strategies. There was some skirmishing between patrols and the French forts of the Ligne Alpine exchanged fire with their Italian counterparts of the Vallo Alpino.
context_section_description: During the late 1920s, the Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini spoke with increasing urgency about imperial expansion, arguing that Italy needed an outlet for its "surplus population" and that it would therefore be in the best interests of other countries to aid in this expansion. The immediate aspiration of the regime was political "hegemony in the Mediterranean–Danubian–Balkan region", more grandiosely Mussolini imagined the conquest "of an empire stretching from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Strait of Hormuz". Balkan and Mediterranean hegemony was predicated by ancient Roman dominance in the same regions. There were designs for a protectorate over Albania and for the annexation of Dalmatia, as well as economic and military control of Yugoslavia and Greece. The regime also sought to establish protective patron–client relationships with Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, which all lay on the outside edges of its European sphere of influence. Although it was not among his publicly proclaimed aims, Mussolini wished to challenge the supremacy of Britain and France in the Mediterranean Sea, which was considered strategically vital, since the Mediterranean was Italy's only conduit to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
  In 1935, Italy initiated the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, "a nineteenth-century colonial campaign waged out of due time". The campaign gave rise to optimistic talk on raising a native Ethiopian army "to help conquer" Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The war also marked a shift towards a more aggressive Italian foreign policy and also "exposed [the] vulnerabilities" of the British and French. This in turn created the opportunity Mussolini needed to begin to realize his imperial goals. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out. From the beginning, Italy played an important role in the conflict. Their military contribution was so vast, that it played a decisive role in the victory of the Nationalist forces led by Francisco Franco. Mussolini had engaged in "a full-scale external war" due to the insinuation of future Spanish subservience to the Italian Empire, and as a way of placing the country on a war footing and creating "a warrior culture". The aftermath of the war in Ethiopia saw a reconciliation of German-Italian relations following years of a previously strained relationship, resulting in the signing of a treaty of mutual interest in October 1936. Mussolini referred to this treaty as the creation of a Berlin-Rome Axis, which Europe would revolve around. The treaty was the result of increasing dependence on German coal following League of Nations sanctions, similar policies between the two countries over the conflict in Spain, and German sympathy towards Italy following European backlash to the Ethiopian War. The aftermath of the treaty saw the increasing ties between Italy and Germany, and Mussolini falling under Adolf Hitler's influence from which "he never escaped".
  In October 1938, in the aftermath of the Munich Agreement, Italy demanded concessions from France. These included a free port at Djibouti, control of the Addis Ababa–Djibouti railway, Italian participation in the management of Suez Canal Company, some form of French-Italian condominium over French Tunisia, and the preservation of Italian culture on Corsica with no French assimilation of the people. The French refused the demands, believing the true Italian intention was the territorial acquisition of Nice, Corsica, Tunisia, and Djibouti. On 30 November 1938, Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano addressed the Chamber of Deputies on the "natural aspirations of the Italian people" and was met with shouts of "Nice! Corsica! Savoy! Tunisia! Djibouti! Malta!" Later that day, Mussolini addressed the Fascist Grand Council "on the subject of what he called the immediate goals of 'Fascist dynamism'." These were Albania; Tunisia; Corsica, an integral part of France; the Ticino, a canton of Switzerland; and all "French territory east of the River Var", including Nice, but not Savoy.
  Beginning in 1939 Mussolini often voiced his contention that Italy required uncontest
caption: Ambitions of Fascist Italy in Europe in 1936.
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