Was allying with Hitler his greatest mistake?

symbolizes agriculture

wheat ?

WUZ

KANG

Because they usually cause famines

Yes.

What other option did he have? Stay neutral? Ally with the West? Ally with the Soviets?

Yeah, his two choices were ally with Hitler or get zerg rushed by Hitler.

No, he could have stayed neutral. Hitler wouldn't have invaded Italy, that would have been militarily difficult and really out of the way of the main line of Nazi geopolitical ambitions.

Nah, the meth habit is up there too.

>Hitler wouldn't have invaded Italy, that would have been militarily difficult

evidently not.

would have Italy received support if it was invaded by Germany?

>evidently not.
In 1943, the Germans already had military personnel all over Italy, were integrated with Italian forces, plus the Allies were already invading. A German invasion of Italy in the 1938-1940 would have been significantly more difficult. I'm not saying the Germans would have failed, but it wouldn't have been as easy as in 1943.
>would have Italy received support if it was invaded by Germany?
If Germany had already attacked Poland by this point, then yes, I'm sure Britain and France would have loved to get Italy on board. Otherwise, not sure.

>Redpill me on him. Was he a good leader outside of military affairs?
No. He tried to be a totalitarian "all power within il duce" leader a la other authoritarians springing up in the 20s-30s, but never managed to create a totally secure power base (Remember, he would be dismissed by the Italian king come late 1943). As a result, he tried to act as if he wasn't beholden to anyone else in the government, while simultaneously parrying attempts from the people he really relied upon in the Italian governmental structure to keep from throwing his ass out on the curb. In practice, that meant firing anyone (He coudln't get away with exiling or killing them) who showed a degree of competence and rapidly changing his policy goals, so nothing ever really got done.

Because they usually piss off other states and lose the ability to conduct foriegn trade. At that point, they badly need to be at the very least agriculturally self-sufficient, because if people are starving in the streets, it gets really bad really fast.

Mussolini could have absolutely stayed neutral, the problem is that he wouldn't have done that. Remember that he was one of the biggest supporters of Italy's intervention in WWI and fascism is also an ideology that is inherently favorable to war. Moreover, he wanted his own Lebensraum in the Mediterranean and there was no chance he could've got that if he stayed neutral, no matter who won.

His best option was to not sperg out about the sanctions and stay in the British sphere of influence. Many people tend to forget that before 1936 Italy had fairly good relations with Britain and France, while the relations with Hitler were very tense because of the Austrian question.

>Get zerg rushed by Hitler

He could have easily gotten away with fascism and colonies if he just stayed solo like Franco.

No, he was never going to achieve his goals in the mediteranean with France and Britian blocking every path he had.
He didn't want to ally Germany but he was pushed into it.

The real problem was having poor relations with Hitler in respects to military grand strategy.
They constantly fucked with each other instead of working together.

>Wouldn't have been able to beat fucking ETHIOPIA without Germany's help.

You have it backwards user, it was Germany's greatest mistake allying with Italy.

Real answer- it was Italy's lack of industrialization which was it's enemy. They needed another 4 years and complete access to German engineering.

Yes. It got Italy literally nothing and directly caused the downfall of it. If he had stayed neutral he could've benefited massively due to his strategic position by playing both sides into trying to sweeten the deal to stay neutral. He might have even been able to get away with keeping Libya and conquering Greece, parts of Yugoslavia, and Albania.

Though now Italy has the eighth largest economy in the world and isn't a fascist shithole, even if it still does have many issues, so in the end it all worked out.

He's right.

whats weird about that?

This

because they can't feed their own people

He didn't really have a choice after his main ally in Europe (First Austrian Republic) was Anschluss'd

As far as I know he did also originally try to ally with the Allied Powers but after the Second Italo-Ethiopian War he kind of alienated himself from them and had a load of trade sanctions put upon him.

Mussolini didn't have a choice. Italian fascism was pretty different from German Naziism, and Mussolini himself didn't particularly like Hitler. It was more that Hitler was a Pastaboo who tried to LARP as a fascist while throwing in autistic racial theory. Mussolini was more concerned with the nation rather than racial science and Mussolini's Italy was largely not institutionally anti-Semitic until the middle of the war when he didn't have a choice in the matter.

Even in 1934, Mussolini was concerned about the potential Anschluss of Austria following the assassination of their President that year. He even threatened war with Germany if the Germans attempted to Anschluss Austria that year. Mussolini was worried about Germany becoming the dominant fascist power in Europe.

However, due to the isolation of Italy following the conquest of Ethiopia, Mussolini found that he had very few allies in the world, yet there was Hitler to the north of him who still was LARPing as a fascist. If the other European nations who controlled the rest of Africa hadn't been hypocrites and accepted the Italian conquest of Ethiopia, it is likely that Mussolini could have been made an ally against Hitler, or at least a neutral power in the war. Even if he wasn't on the side of the Allies, he still could have helped contain Germany in the interest of Italy's hegemony in the fascist world.

He didnt commit genocide from the (((chosen people))) so it still exist

*to

Mussolini got rid of the mafia, but they all sprung up when the allies invaded Sicily and freed them all in exchange on info to help fight him

It's a good symbol for their ideal conception of people: useful when ground down to a uniform consistency.

Mussolini was a great man who wasn't too different from FDR as far as domestic policy is concerned.

Neato