Imperial Italy (fascist) in the context of "Greco-Italian War"

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⭐ Core Definition: Imperial Italy (fascist)

Imperialism, colonialism and irredentism played an important role in the foreign policy of Fascist Italy. These included both ethnic-nationalist irredentist claims and frivolous foreign adventures intended to artificially raise the regime’s prestige. Among the regime's goals were the acquisition of territory considered historically Italian in France (e.g. Nice) and Yugoslavia (e.g. Dalmatia), the expansion of Italy's sphere of influence into the Balkans (e.g. Greece) and the acquisition of more colonies in Africa. The pacification of Libya (1923–32), the invasion of Ethiopia (1935–36), the invasion of Albania (1939), the invasion of France (1940), the invasion of Greece (1940–41) and the invasion of Yugoslavia (1941) were all undertaken in part to add to Italy's national space. According to historian Patrick Bernhard, Fascist Italian imperialism under Benito Mussolini, particularly in Africa, served as a model for the much more famous expansionism of Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe.

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Imperial Italy (fascist) in the context of Italian fascism

Italian fascism (Italian: fascismo italiano), also called classical fascism and fascism, is the original fascist ideology, which Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini developed in Italy. The ideology of Italian fascism is associated with a series of political parties led by Mussolini: the National Fascist Party (PNF), which governed the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, and the Republican Fascist Party (PFR), which governed the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945. Italian fascism also is associated with the post–war Italian Social Movement (MSI) and later Italian neo-fascist political organisations.

Italian fascism originated from ideological combinations of ultranationalism and Italian nationalism, national syndicalism and revolutionary nationalism, and from the militarism of Italian irredentism to regain "lost overseas territories of Italy" deemed necessary to restore Italian nationalist pride. Italian Fascists also claimed that modern Italy was an heiress to the imperial legacy of Ancient Rome, and that there existed historical proof which supported the creation of an Imperial Fascist Italy to provide spazio vitale (vital space) for the Second Italo-Senussi War of Italian settler colonisation en route to establishing hegemonic control of the terrestrial basin of the Mediterranean Sea.

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