What made Mussolini decide that joining Germany was a good idea?

What made Mussolini decide that joining Germany was a good idea?

No one else liked him

Hitler was a fanboy
and they were the only ones who would accommodate his ambitions

Because he didn't think the war would be a total one, and that Hitler had already essentially won. He would show up, win a few easy concessions from France, and the thing would be over in a few weeks.

Literally fatal mistake. The retard could probably have still been ruling Italy into the 50s if he had just played it cool or sided with the Allies.

This.

Alternative history:
>Italy joins the Allies
>The Allies lose the war

Similar ideology and Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia left Italy shamed and isolated by Britain and France so it looked towards Germany and even places like Spain and Japan for allies. Mussolini's goals also required the defeat of France and Britain to be made and make Italy much more powerful, he considered the lack of possessions and French domination in the Mediterranean a prison, "The bars of this prison are Corsica, Tunisia, Malta, and Cyprus. The guards of this prison are Gibraltar and Suez. Corsica is a pistol pointed at the heart of Italy; Tunisia at Sicily. Malta and Cyprus constitute a threat to all our positions in the eastern and western Mediterrean. Greece, Turkey, and Egypt have been ready to form a chain with Great Britain and to complete the politico-military encirclement of Italy. Thus Greece, Turkey, and Egypt must be considered vital enemies of Italy's expansion ... The aim of Italian policy, which cannot have, and does not have continental objectives of a European territorial nature except Albania, is first of all to break the bars of this prison ... Once the bars are broken, Italian policy can only have one motto – to march to the oceans."

Depending if fascism didn't collaspe by then.

It's unsurprising, but in retrospect pretty funny, that both Mussolini and Hitler completely failed to realize that technological economic changes would within a few years make the whole idea of conquering giant swaths of land so that you could plant soldier-farmer colonies on them idiotic and unprofitable, and technological military changes would within a few years make strong land and sea defenses secondary to having a nuclear deterrent.