What did Italy want in the World Wars? | Mussolini, Italian Empire, Italy WW2

Mussolini, Italian Empire, Italy WW2, Italy WW1, Italian Colonies, Italian Army, Mussolini Hitler, Latin Bloc, Rome Protocols, Italian Unification, Tripartite Pact

[JabzyJoe]

Couple Mistakes - Nice and Savoy are mislabeled. And I said Straits of Messina, not the Straits of Sicily.

[nenenindonu]

Italy's long and poor political presence prior to WW1 wasn't something reversible hence a more realistic and humble perspective on gaining lands would've turned out better

[marcocastelli]

Actually one of the main reasons why italy looked at tunisia as a possible colony was because at the time tunisia was an highly italianized area of north africa and (also due to the fact that it is quite close to the coasts of sicily and southern italy) many Italians lived there, it was already percieved as a part of the country. That's why the french conquest had such an impact on the italian public opinion

[SocialStudiess]

Full blooded Eritrean here. Raised in the states, but visited Eritrea as a teenager. It's crazy how much our capital city of Asmara looks so similar to Rome. It's to bad the Ethiopians did everything they could to destroy it during our 30 year war of independence against from from 1961-1991 (which we won by the way!).

[fredericchopin]

You are by far my favorite history channel on the platform. Apart from the value of the topics you cover, the quality of production is top notch as well. Good work man, you deserve many more subs.

[paolo.barone]

Great job and amazing research you've done. Also appreciate the historical impartiality with which is presented.

[po-yuhuang]

Very amazingly done. Italy as an ally of Germany during WWII was often overlooked as being an insignificant player. Your video actually shows how ambitious they were in idealizing their desire for a Mediterranean empire - Mare Nostrum. Although Italy was not successful, it was still interesting to learn the kind of influence they enjoy in Europe, Latin America and the Islamic world before preforming so terribly during war.

[jayasuryangoral-maanyan]

I can imagine a world where italy, spain, france, yugoslavia and hungary could have existed separately from the nnazis. Would be an interesting setting for an alternate history book.

[RinoBellissimo]

Count Galeazzo Ciano was Mussolini's son in-law. The Ciano Diaries 1939 - 1943. He was the Italian Foreign Minister from 1936 to 1943. I enjoy your work, thank you very much.

[nenenindonu]

Expectation ; Reviving the Roman empire
Reality ; Not even owning Corsica

[aronvstheworld]

This video was simply perfect: perfect music, perfect tone of voice, perfect speed, perfect thought, perfect style... Make more like this one because it was super interesting and a joy to watch!!!

[Tulkash]

The reason Italy started to look for colonies after its unification as very little to do with the ancient past (propaganda aside) and much more to do with the age Italy finally became a united entity. It was the age of colonialism and any aspiring european power thought they needed colonies to compete with their neighbours. Italy was no different, although it was far weaker than nations like France, England, Germany and even the Austro-Hungarian empire.
As for WWII involvement, Mussolini's choice was basically down to political miscalculation. He and his generals were well aware Italy was not ready for war but, after the nazis overwhelmed the French and the English he thought he just needed to declare war to an already defeated France to gain territory (he was famously quoted claiming "I just need an handful of dead bodies to throw on the peace table"). In practice even this minimal effort went badly (Italy lost quite a few troops when trying to invade France) and later on the idea that the war was basically over proved to be completely wrong. The funthing is, if the allied forces had not been so soundly defeated by the Germans Mussolini would have never declared war and history could have developed in a radically different manner.

[nikoclesceri]

I really hope that when Italy gets a rework in HOI4 that the anti-German path gets Balbo as the leader and not Mussolini, and we get the option to have all the territory shown in the end as the end goal of the tree

[GRasputin]

Trying to revive the Roman Empire was like trying to restore a decayed corpse to life. You can try to sew it back together but it's not really going to live again, except perhaps as a shambling zombie

[FlagAnthem]

"If Italy ever became tyrannical, I wouldn't hesitate to turn my sword against her" Giuseppe Garibaldi

[AmySavage]

Colonialism was such a weird fever dream, especially the new imperialism overstretch before WW1. As an anecdote about how pervasive the idea was during the time, there was a movement among Finnish upper classes to acquire "Amboland" in Northern Namibia to be a Finnish colony.... It was reasoned through the longtime missionary efforts in the area and the requirement for a European country to have a colony in order to be properly independent. All this during the 1920's when our country was less than a decade old and South Africa already firmly in charge there.
It seems ridiculous and crazy today of course, and even then it wasn't a proper mainstream idea, but it does show that truly no country with a sea access in Europe could completely resist the contagion.

[Inuzumi]

Amazing video, watched it a couple of times and doesn't seem to get old to me. I really don't know why but I find italian history so interesting.

[smacky]

Awesome stuff. Love to hear about the politics and ambitions during the interwar period. Glad to stumble upon the channel.

[IpernickTheGreat]

This is great and accurate. It's great to see Italian history content in English, glad to see I am not alone in this.

[kingjaques]

A way better video than I was expecting considering how poor the discussion on Italy in the 1st half of the 20th century is.