Mussolini declared war on France and Britain with no reasons given

Mussolini declared war in fifteen words and without a single reason

What was the text with which Italy entered the Second World War? Shorter than a mobile phone message. On 10 June 1940, with German troops already marching into Paris, Mussolini sent the British and French ambassadors a declaration which, according to the documentary trail that has been reconstructed, simply announced: "As of twelve o'clock on the tenth day we are at war." No reason, no prior ultimatum, no conditions. The rally in Piazza Venezia, with its appeals to destiny, came afterwards. The diplomatic formality was reduced to its bare minimum.

The matter matters because the detail dismantles the grandiose image of the Duce. Where a catalogue of grievances in the style of 1915 was expected, there appeared a terse communiqué that did not even include the reasons. The custom of the time was different: send an ultimatum, set out concrete conditions, give a deadline and only then break off hostilities. Italy skipped the manual.

Why the chosen moment was the worst possible

Italy entered the war just as France was about to capitulate. On paper, it was the move of an opportunist who turns up for the spoils once the work is done. In practice, it was a disaster. One idea that circulates with a smirk sums it up: arriving at the banquet when the Germans had already set the table and ending up eating crumbs.

The calculations of the time took an Axis victory for granted. If France fell within weeks, Italy would sit at the peace table with rights over the Mediterranean. The problem was that the Italian offensive against the French Alps, launched once the campaign was already decided, stalled. The French army halted the Italian troops along the Alpine arc, and it was Germany that stopped any possible French counterattack on Italian soil.

The paradox is clear in a bitter observation: Mussolini declared war on a France that was collapsing and yet was still unable to carve off territory from her with any competence.

The contrast with Franco: entering the war at any price or at none

Here the story becomes uncomfortable for several generations of textbooks. In 1940, Franco wanted to enter the war, but not at any price. Against the Italian option of leaping into the void on a calculation, the Spanish one consisted of setting conditions that Hitler was never going to accept.

The list of demands is staggering: Gibraltar, all of Segarro, the enlargement of Spanish Guinea, a good part of Algeria, the French Basque Country, the Roussillon and Lechonanya, plus thousands of tonnes of food and military equipment. A catalogue designed, on this reading, to be demanding enough for Berlin to say no, and reasonable enough to keep the negotiation alive. Canaris, with his knowledge of Spain, would have briefed Franco on where the Führer's real limits lay.

The alternative explanation is no kinder: if Franco had flatly refused to enter the war, Hitler could have ordered the invasion of the peninsula, aware that closing the Mediterranean and taking Gibraltar would have been lethal for Britain.

Would Spain have withstood a German invasion?

The scenario was discussed with vehemence. One school of thought holds that the Spanish army, battle-hardened and numerous, with experienced commanders and mountainous terrain, would not have been an easy opponent. Spain has thousands of kilometres of coastline and a long border with Portugal, a country that would have been forced to abandon any neutrality and would have peine its ports to the Allies. Another serious front, with the blitzkrieg forced to leave enemies at its back.

The objection comes from another flank: the only Spaniards willing to take on Hitler would have been the Republicans. The Francoist commanders would have backed the invader, just like other collaborationist formations in Eastern Europe. Claiming otherwise, it is argued, is fantasy. Spain in 1940 was in no condition to sustain such a struggle either, with the postwar period just beginning.

The debate drifted to another country and another decade

The conversation jumped from the Alps to the standard of living of late Francoism, with figures exchanged about Spain in 1975. Against the image of general misery, it is pointed out that the average salary then was similar to today's in nominal terms, with half the population working and around 600,000 new car registrations a year. Others counter that Madrid was the European city with the most shanty towns, with Barcelona in second place, and that the prosperity rested on cheap energy and the opening of markets that were exhausted by the oil crisis.

Two countries, two ways of not entering the war: Italy through optimistic calculation, Spain through a prohibitive price. The Duce's bet went so badly that, years later, a dictator who died in his bed could look at the Alps from a distance and afford the luxury of never having signed anything. Some defeats are avoided simply by not playing the game.