A few academic historians would disagree that Mussolini believed in his own propaganda which was primarily stating that he is an infallible man of destiny. The Abyssinian war was a result of Mussolini believing and dreaming about Italy being a great power. It is too simplistic to argue that rearmament and war were the only way that the regime could find to stimulate a depressed economy. Mussolini kept a nationalist dream of re-creating the glories of Ancient Rome, returning Italy as the Great Power like before. Propaganda in Italy seemed to work, but the economy was weak and it didn’t seem ready for war. The Abyssinian war did not change Italy’s economy for better or for worse. Both of these views, Mussolini’s propaganda and Italy’s economy …show more content…
Mussolini sent over a half a million soldiers and civilian workers to East Africa, an army far larger than had ever been used before in a colonial war. Mussolini insisted on enough army corps as if they were to conquer Egypt and Sudan. With unchallenged air superiority over Ethiopia’s several hundred machine guns and ten unarmed planes, Mussolini had a big advantage. The use of gas and chemical weapons is perhaps less noteworthy than the great effort put into concealing the fact of its use. Mussolini used propaganda to make the world believe Italy was fighting a barbarous country, not the other way round, where Italy was the one resorting in illegal barbarities. The church also suffered from the brutality of using poison gas and killing nearly 300 thousand people. Instead of promoting Christianity, the Fascist regime was more concerned with maintaining their new colony. The war was going positively well for Italy during this time. The reason for this is because Italy occupied most of Abyssinia including Adowa. However, Mussolini was living in isolation “seeing and hearing nothing of reality” during December of the stress of the ‘Hoare-Laval’ plan between Britain and France of ending the Second Italo-Abyssinian war. (Smith, 1982) Italy occupied Addis Ababa and the Ethiopian Emperor left in May 1936 which meant that it was the end of the Second Italo-Abyssinian war with Italy being on the victorious