World War and the Growth of Global Power 235Great War. In the 1920s, Italy began to create Italian East Africa, which
involved the takeover of Somaliland, Eritrea, and Ethiopia, as well as getting
control of Libya in North Africa. Mussolini also had designs on Albania and
the Greek island of Corfu. The conquest of Ethiopia in 1935-36 was particu-
larly brutal, with Italian forces killing 275,000 and wounding 500,000 more
Ethiopians. Mussolini’s successful aggression showed how weak the League
of Nations was, as he just ignored the League’s condemnation of the invasion.
The British and French did little more, criticizing the Italian moves but not
imposing sanctions or cutting off oil supplies. Italy’s gains in Africa made
Mussolini confident that he could become a major world leader [on par with
Adolph Hitler of Germany] so he seized Albania in 1939 and initiated a war
against Greece in October 1940. The Greeks, however, counterattacked and
forced an Italian retreat and then occupied a good part of Albania. Finally, to
Mussolini’s embarrassment, Germany invaded Greece in April 1941 to end the
war and bail out Italy.
Germany, of course, gets the most attention during this period, and rightly
so. Barely a decade after its stinging defeat in the Great War and at Versailles,
the Germans were rebuilding and hoping to restore their traditional role as
the most powerful country in Central Europe. Germany had been devastated
by the events of 1914-1919. Its costs for the war equaled two-thirds of its
total national prewar income; its army was limited to 100,000 troops; it could
have no aircraft, tanks, or artillery; its navy was supposed to be turned over
to the British but the Germans scuttled most ships rather than do that; it was
to have no submarines and even had to hand over parts of its merchant marine
and fishing fleet; and the Rhineland, a border region between France and
Germany, was to be demilitarized, meaning Germany could have no troops or
military presence in this region of its own land. Germany had to agree to a
statement that it caused “all the loss and damage” of the war, and, as we have
seen, was given a massive reparations amount to pay, and also told to make
yearly coal deliveries to France, Italy, and Belgium to pay for the destruction
in those countries. Yet, out of this destruction, the Germans rebuilt and remil-
itarized quickly enough to become the greatest threat to global peace by the
early 1930s.
In the aftermath of the war, political groups from the right and the
Socialists tried to gain power inside Germany. The Socialists and other leftists
resented the reparations payments as much as anyone but advocated “fulfill-