Fascist Italy and Spain, 1922–45

Abstract

A long and complex relationship developed between Fascist Italy and Spain. The first phase, from 1923 to 1930, produced friendly relations between two dictators, Mussolini and Primo de Rivera, but no decisive changes. The second phase, from 1930 to 1936, largely coincided with the years of the Second Republic. During this period the relationship was adversarial, but Mussolini was unable to intervene or significantly influence Spanish affairs, which had a comparatively low priority for Italian diplomacy. The third phase was that of the Spanish Civil War, from 1939 to 1939, in which Mussolini intervened, providing more support to the Spanish Nationalists, both absolutely and proportionately, than did Hitler. During the fourth phase, involving most of World War II, from 1939 to 1943, relations remained both close and very friendly and yet dwindled in importance compared with those between Spain and Nazi Germany. After the fall of Fascism, similarly close relations were not reestablished with the Italian Social Republic, and the Spanish regime then initiated its own slow process of ‘defascization’.