I don't agree much with Pat Buchanan, but his new book, "The Unnecessary War," provides some interesting details on how Mussolini was unnecessarily run out of Italy's First World War alliance with Britain & France, and pushed toward a new alliance with Hitler's Germany.
Clearly Mussolini was unwise, but a more skillful British diplomacy might have kept him on the democratic allies' side, says Pat.
That idea was the topic of a book a few years back (well, probably about ten years ago), did Buchanan cite anything? It wasn’t his idea.
Mussolini was looking around for alliances (the European economy was very bad for years after WWI, well before the Great Depression hit in the US), was basically given the brush-off by Britain and France, then met Hitler and was wowed. Also, the goose-stepping was something that didn’t originate in WWII, obviously (I remember seeing a snippet of an English honor guard stepping that way, from film shot between the wars), but I think the Italian troops used for the welcome parade were doing that, and Hitler really liked how it looked. :’)
Hitler’s economic approach was to trade German finished goods for raw materials (most seriously for the US, he made those arrangements with variou countries in South America), making it possible for countries with insignificant industrial bases and little foreign exchange to dig some deep holes or what have you and get autos and the works. It was a smart and effective strategy for a country which had few overseas colonies (and none of much value to it) before WWI, and basically none thereafter. The lost trade for the US was estimated by the State Dep’t at $2 billions, and that was a LOT of money back then.