Allies and Enemies of Fascism in the Reports of Italian Military Attachés

Abstract

An analysis of the reports of the Italian military attachés in London, Paris, and Berlin during the 1930s suggests that these officers’ perception of the countries they observed was increasingly influenced by the totalitarian evolution of the regime. While traditional interpretation of the relationship between the Italian Army and the regime is that the alliance between the two granted meaningful autonomy to the former, this article suggests that the Italian military had absorbed a worldview seeing democracy as weak and decadent and authoritarianism as the way ahead, and perceived the world according to strong national and racial stereotypes.