In October 1936 Mussolini’s son-in-law and Foreign Minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, travelled to Berlin to begin talks. He found Hitler in expansive and friendly mood. ‘Mussolini is the first statesman of the world with whom no one else has the right even remotely to compare himself,’ declared Hitler. Ciano was acquainted with Mussolini well enough to know this was not true, but accepted the flattery and signed a secret agreement with Hitler. The Germans could have Austria, but the current Italian border would be respected.
In September 1937 Mussolini himself travelled to Germany. The Italian had a new uniform designed by a top Milan fashion house for the occasion and not only wore the magnificent commander’s uniform himself, but also dressed his hundred-strong entourage the same way. He even commissioned a special evening-wear uniform for the trip. Hitler, as usual, wore a more modest outfit, this time the Nazi Party brown uniform.
There was nothing modest about the itinerary lined up for Mussolini, however. He was shown the new German army, including panzer troops, on manoeuvres, then given a tour of the vast Krupp armaments factory before being whisked off to a mass meeting of the Nazi Party with 60,000 SS guards and a million people in attendance. Mussolini was impressed. It was then that Hitler made a promise that turned out to be far more rash than he had intended. He pledged firm and lasting friendship, then told Mussolini he could have a free hand in the Mediterranean if Hitler had a free hand north of the Alps.
It is likely that neither Hitler nor Mussolini realised the full importance of what they were agreeing. Mussolini seems to have thought he was agreeing to accept the union of Austria with Germany and to support Hitler in his diplomatic moves to gain control of the Sudetenland, that part of Czechoslovakia occupied by ethnic Germans. Hitler, in his turn, seems to have believed he was backing Mussolini’s Ethiopian adventure and Italian plans to tighten their hold on Libya and apply pressure on the French and British colonies.
At first the new agreement worked well. When Hitler marched into Austria, he had Italian approval. When Hitler took Britain and France to the brink of war over the Sudetenland in September 1938, he had Mussolini’s forthright support. ‘Il Duce informs you that, whatever the Führer decides, Fascist Italy stands behind him,’ announced the Italian ambassador publicly, though he privately told Hitler that Mussolini thought the Germans should accept the compromise deal offered by Britain rather than go to war. Hitler did just that and Mussolini gained an inflated impression of his influence. It was Mussolini’s suggestion that the final meeting of the premiers involved be held in Munich and it was Mussolini who basked in international acclaim as the peace-maker.
In October 1938, Hitler suggested to Mussolini that the successful friendship and agreements between their two nations should be converted into a firm military alliance. Hitler felt that he needed to be certain of Italian armed support before risking war with Britain and France. Such a war was, he was now convinced, bound to happen sooner or later. He wanted the Italian army to invade southern France and tie down the western Allies if German troops were busy in the east. At first Mussolini delayed and played for time. In January 1939, however, he came to believe that Britain and France intended to block his foreign policy aspirations. Mussolini authorised his diplomats to begin negotiations on the detail of a military alliance with Hitler.
In March Hitler took over the rest of Czechoslovakia. He did not tell Mussolini in advance of the plan, and the Italian dictator was put out by this lack of trust. Partly in retaliation, and partly to show Hitler that the Italians also had military ability, Mussolini invaded Albania on 7 April 1939. The Italians had long been involved both commercially and politically, in that impoverished country. Mussolini had been a staunch supporter of Albania’s King Zog, but by 1939 the obvious corruption of Zog’s regime and his delight in perpetuating internal tribal feuds had reached the point where Italy’s business interests were at risk. The invasion was carried out by four divisions making an amphibious landing, supported by the Italian air force and navy. Armoured divisions landed later the same day and the fighting was over within 48 hours.
Hitler was annoyed by Mussolini’s adventure, but loyally supported the move because he still did not have Mussolini’s signature on the formal alliance. In May 1939, Mussolini finally signed the alliance, the Pact of Steel. He even accepted Hitler’s telling revision that the alliance would apply to all wars, not just those fought in defence. Hitler believed that he could plan the invasion of Poland secure in the knowledge that he would have Italian backing if Britain and France dared to intervene.
HUNGARY
But Hitler was not going to invade Poland without having first assured himself of the support or neutrality of any country in a position to intervene. Sharing a border with both Germany and Poland was Hungary, a nation which would be able to cause Germany great problems if it took a hostile stance. In the 1930s Hungary had her own problems and these were of a nature to make her wide open to German influence and suggestions.
In the Treaty of Versailles which ended the Great War of 1914 to 1918, Hungary had been established as a country free of the centuries-long rule from Austria. Despite promises of self-determination for the nationalities of eastern Europe, however, millions of Magyars were left living in areas outside the boundaries of their nation state, Hungary. Not unnaturally the Hungarian government and the Magyars outside the kingdom were dissatisfied. Like Hitler, they railed against the Versailles Treaty.
By the time Hitler began seriously to consider moves of aggression in the east, Hungary was under the control of a military dictator named Nikolaus Horthy de Nagybanya, an admiral in the Austrian navy during the Great War. Horthy supported the Hapsburg monarchy and wanted to restore the absent King Charles IV to the throne of Hungary. Talk of such a move proved hugely unpopular, so Horthy had himself declared Regent instead and acquired almost dictatorial powers.
When Hitler came to power, Horthy was secure in government and had established reasonably friendly relations with the other states of eastern Europe, though relations with Russia were strained after an abortive Communist coup was put down with much bloodshed. When Hitler took over Austria, Horthy felt threatened. He had over half a million Germans living in western Hungary and feared his borders might be breached.
Hitler meets Hungarian dictator Horthy
Hitler could not afford to have a hostile Hungary at his back, so he rushed to reassure Horthy with all the charm that he and his foreign minister, Joachim Ribbentrop, could muster. Charm alone was not enough to win over the wily Horthy. Instead, Hitler bought Hungarian friendship by allowing Horthy to take over those parts of southern Czechoslovakia that had a majority of ethnic Magyars. The Hungarian invasion came just two months after the Munich Agreement. Although Hitler fully supported Horthy in private, he could still tell Britain and France that the move was not his own. Indeed, Horthy’s action allowed Hitler to claim that eastern Europe was in danger of falling into anarchy and needed a new settlement to replace that of Versailles.
When Hitler moved to occupy the rest of Czechoslovakia, he again encouraged Horthy to take action. This time Hungary annexed the far eastern tail of Czechoslovakia, an area known as Ruthenia. There were 175,000 Magyars in Ruthenia, but they formed only a minority of the population. For the first time, Horthy had embarked on a war of conquest without the figleaf of claiming to ‘liberate’ a Magyar majority from oppressive rule. The price Hungary paid to Hitler was to promise strict neutrality in the coming war against Poland. It was a price that Horthy was perfectly content to pay.
SLOVAKIA
By his invasion of the rump of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Hitler created a new military ally in the shape of Slovakia. The agricultural Slovakia had never been an easy partner with the more populous and richer industrial Czech lands, but the two had been forced together by the Treaty of Versailles as neither was thought strong enough to survive for long on its own. There had been some agitation for Slovak independence in the early 1930s, but it was Nazi money and r
esources which boosted the demands from 1935 onwards as Hitler sought to destablise Czechoslovakia. The leader of the separatist movement was a Catholic priest named Josef Tiso. When Hitler created Slovakia in March 1939, Tiso was installed as President.
As usual, Hitler extracted a price for such favours. He demanded that Slovakia join the war against Poland. Tiso was enthusiastic and ordered Slovakia’s elite 1st Division to invade Poland over the Dukla Pass. The division was spearheaded by almost 100 of the latest tanks from the Skoda factories and was backed by thousands of infantry, all mounted on trucks. Ideally suited to a blitzkrieg campaign of fast movement, the Slovaks fought well as part of Rundstedt’s southern army. When the short Polish campaign was over, Slovakia settled back to enjoy a privileged position in Hitler’s New Order for Europe.
YUGOSLAVIA
When Hitler marched into Austria he not only opened up a border with Italy, but also with Yugoslavia. This strange, polyglot kingdom had been created by the Treaty of Versailles from the southern provinces of the old Austrian Empire. It was an area of desperately mixed ethnic populations. There were 4 million Croats, 1.3 million Slovenes, 1 million Macedonians, 400,000 Montenegrians and a sprinkling of German, Magyar, Italian, Albanian and Rumanian minorities. But the largest ethnic component were the 7 million Serbs, who had lived under their own monarchy outside the Austrian Empire before Versailles.
Under the Versailles settlements, the realm of the Serb monarchy was expanded into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The various ethnic minorities were, however, protected not just by the most democratic constitution in eastern Europe, but also by the division of the kingdom into a number of semi-self-governing provinces. The Serbs had been allied to the British and French before and during the Great War, and remained friendly to the western powers throughout the 1920s. With their long coastline and excellent ports, the Yugoslavs believed that they were not as isolated as other countries in eastern Europe. The powerful fleets of Britain and France could reach Yugoslavia with ease, should the need ever arise.
In 1929 King Alexander I stepped forward to stamp on internal disorder and established himself with near dictatorial powers. After his death in 1934, the crown passed to his eleven year old son, Peter II, though power rested with a council of noblemen led by the boy-king’s Uncle Paul. The council followed a foreign policy based on friendship with the western allies and a watchful neutrality towards Hungary and Rumania, both of which could make out good claims to slices of Yugoslav territory.
When Hitler occupied Austria, the Yugoslav Council became alarmed. Several hundred thousand Germans lived in northern Yugoslavia and Prince Paul feared these were next on Hitler’s list for incorporation into the Reich. Hitler managed to convince Paul that this was not the case. The Italian invasion of Albania rightly alarmed the Yugoslavs again, but Prince Paul concluded he had nothing to gain by antagonising Hitler. When Germany invaded Poland, Prince Paul contented himself with neutrality, though he built up the Yugoslav army until it numbered about 350,000 men on permanent alert and many more in reserve.
BULGARIA
Beyond Hungary and Yugoslavia lay Bulgaria, Rumania and Greece. The Bulgarians’ traditional foreign policy was to be friendly with Russia to gain the support of that empire against the Turks and Austrians. Since the Communists had taken power, however, King Boris of Bulgaria had grown cool towards the Soviet Union. Boris was keen to win back lands lost to his kingdom in the Treaty of Versailles, but he was wary of Hitler, viewing him as a dangerous fanatic who was taking risks and would ultimately come to grief. Unwilling to aid Hitler, he was nonetheless pragmatic enough to remain on good terms with Germany. In any case, any problems Germany might cause were far away from Boris’s southern kingdom and he felt able to ignore them.
GREECE
Greece, likewise, felt it was so far from Germany that it did not need to become unduly alarmed by Hitler’s growing power and aggressive nature. In any case, Greece was in a state of armed and belligerent peace with her eastern neighbour Turkey. The two nations had been at war, off and on, for over a century with the most recent conflict in the 1920s. The Greek dictator, General Metaxas, maintained friendly enough relations with Hitler, but the two did not meet and diplomatic contact was minimal.
RUMANIA
Rumania was quite different. The country had existed as a small kingdom before the Great War, but was hugely expanded by the Versailles Treaty. to include Transylvania, Bessarabia and Dobruja. Although the overall population was overwhelmingly Rumanian, some 13 million out of 17 million, the new areas contained sizeable populations of Bulgars, Magyars, Germans and Russians and many towns had large Jewish ghettos. King Carol of Rumania naturally looked with some suspicion at Hitler and his policy of overthrowing the Versailles Treaty, from which Rumania had done so well.
Hitler responded by funding a Rumanian extremist right-wing party. In the elections of 1937, this quasi-nazi party won nearly a third of the popular vote and demanded posts in government. King Carol’s reaction was swift. He dismissed Parliament and took emergency powers for himself. These powers were used to crack down on the extremists and sever their links to Germany. Nevertheless, Carol remained neutral during the Munich crisis of 1938. He pledged his support to Britain and France, but when they did nothing there was little he could do. As Germany moved towards the invasion of Poland, Rumania could be counted upon to remain neutral.
This web of relationships with the countries of eastern Europe meant that by 1939, Hitler was assured of support or neutrality from all the small states which might previously have wanted to intervene in a German–Polish war. There was still one remaining problem and it was a big one: Russia.
THE SOVIET UNION
Ever since he joined the Nazi Party in the early 1920s, Hitler had been telling anyone who would listen that the three greatest enemies of the German people were Communism, Jews and Asia. Since all three were epitomised in Hitler’s mind by Russia it was only natural that he would see that vast Asian country as his natural enemy. At one time, Hitler had toyed with the idea of allying Germany to Poland to attack Russia, but soon dismissed the idea of an alliance with a Slavic nation.
By late in 1938, Hitler had his eyes set on invading Poland and he knew he would need Soviet neutrality to be confident of victory. Hitler was helped in his task of reaching an accommodation with the Soviet dictator, Josef Stalin, by the actions of his predecessors in control of Germany. They had co-operated with the Soviets on secret military experiments in tank design and air strike tactics. Although these were cut after Hitler came to power, the idea of Germany and Russia being linked because of mutual ostracism by the outside world persisted.
In March 1939 the Soviets took the first step when they invited Peter Kleist, a minor official at the German foreign office to tea at the Russian Embassy. He was met by an equally minor Soviet official, Georgi Astakhov, who talked at length about the benefits of economic co-operation between the two states. In April the Soviet ambassador himself, Alexei Merekalov, dropped open hints that Stalin wanted friendship with Hitler. The Germans responded favourably, but took no active steps.
Then, in May, Stalin sacked his anti-German foreign minister and replaced him with Vyacheslav Molotov. The move was seen by Hitler as marking a distinct change in attitude by Stalin, but he was still wary of being trapped by false promises of friendship. Hitler was, in any case, in talks with Japan which in turn was fighting a bitter frontier dispute with the Soviet Union in Manchuria. Japan was unwilling to join the Germany–Italy pact, but had not ruled the idea out completely. Talks with Stalin were, therefore, fraught with difficulties.
On 15 August, with the planned date for an attack on Poland just weeks away, Hitler ordered Ribbentrop to reach an understanding with Molotov, whatever the cost. The Soviets responded by signing an economic treaty, which was generous to the Soviets, but asked for a week to consider the implications of a non-aggression pact. On the 20th Hitler sent a personal telegram to Stalin stating that there was a need for s
peed as German relations with Poland were deteriorating rapidly. In response Stalin sent back a Soviet draft of a ten-year non-aggression treaty. The draft contained articles highly favourable to the Soviet Union, but Hitler had little time to debate the issue. He needed to be certain of Russian neutrality within nine days. Ribbentrop was sent to Moscow to finalise the deal.
Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov (l) signs the Nazi–Soviet Pact, November 1940
Almost as soon as Ribbentrop’s aircraft landed in Moscow, he was whisked off to see Stalin. The Soviet dictator announced that he wanted secret additions to the non-aggression treaty. He wanted the Germans to accept that the Russians could occupy and annex Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and a large slice of eastern Poland. He also wanted Bessarabia, then part of Rumania. Ribbentrop hurried back to the German embassy and put through a call to Hitler on a secure line. An hour later came the reply. Hitler agreed to everything, except Bessarabia, which would have to wait for a favourable moment. Ribbentrop hastened back to the Kremlin to sign the deal.
On 24 August the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty was announced to the world, though the proposed carving up of eastern Europe was kept secret. At the very last minute, Hitler had finally put in place the network of alliances, friendships and neutralities that he needed in eastern Europe. He could go to war with confidence.
The very next day it all seemed to go horribly wrong.
Although Mussolini had kept the news very much to himself, the Italian attack on Albania had not gone as well as the Italians had made out. The Italian navy had operated superbly and the air force had flown with skill and daring, but the army had proved a grave disappointment. The tanks had broken down, ammunition jammed or misfired and the supply system collapsed with embarrassing speed. The soldiers, perfectly understandably, had proved reluctant to risk their lives in battle when carrying equipment which was so obviously faulty. The main problem was rumoured corruption in the army’s purchasing department where bribes had been taken to accept less than perfect equipment.
Hitler: Military Commander Page 5
