cut short in October 1934 when he met King
Alexander in Marseilles. A Croat terrorist assassi-
nated both Alexander and Barthou, an event dra-
matically captured by the newsreel cameras. His
successor, Pierre Laval, who was to play an infa-
mous role in the wartime Vichy government, in
1935 pursued Barthou’s policy skilfully. Barthou
had wooed Mussolini for Italy’s friendship and
even an alliance for France. In 1934 and 1935
this was a realistic aim – though Mussolini was
notoriously fickle and impulsive – but, militarily
speaking, the Italian alliance was of limited value.
Although Mussolini had hoped that Germany
would follow the fascist path of Italy, he was not
so sure about Hitler personally. Hitler, for his
part, admired the duce, who, so he thought was
trying to make something of the Italian people.
The duce was seen by Hitler as a ruthless man of
action who, like himself, believed in superior
force. His framed photograph stood on Hitler’s
desk in Munich. Mussolini’s admiration for Hitler
was not uncritical. He patronised him and sent
him advice; there were times when Mussolini sus-
pected Hitler might be mad. Many Italian fascists
naturally resented Germany’s emphasis on Nordic
racialism and the supposed superiority of light-
skinned blonds over swarthy Latins. In Italy there
was no tradition of anti-Semitism. Indeed, few
Jews lived there and some were prominent fas-
cists. In June 1934 Mussolini and Hitler met in
Venice. Mussolini stage-managed the whole visit
to impress Hitler with his superiority. Hitler
looked decidedly drab in a raincoat: the junior
partner. As they discussed the questions over
which German–Italian conflict might arise, the
agitation of the German-speaking inhabitants in
the South Tyrol and the future of the Austrian
Republic, Hitler said he was ready to abandon the
Germans of the South Tyrol in the interests of
Italian friendship, but Mussolini remained suspi-
cious as the irredentist movement was encouraged
by Nazi Party officials. More immediately serious
was Hitler’s pressure on Chancellor Engelbert
Dollfuss to resign and allow an internal takeover
by the Austrian Nazi movement. Dollfuss reacted
robustly. The Austrian Nazis were now conspir-
ing to seize power.
Austria, with a population of 6.5 million, was one
of Europe’s smallest nations. Some 3.5 million
former German Austrians were now subjects of
the Italians and the Czechs. Austria had not
exactly been created by the Allies at Paris; it con-
sisted of what was left of the Habsburg Empire
after the territories of all the successor states had
been shorn off. The Austrian state made very little
economic sense with its large capital in Vienna
and impoverished provinces incapable of feeding
the whole population. Economically the Republic
had been kept afloat only by loans arranged
through the League of Nations, whose represen-
tatives supervised the government’s finances. The
depression had hit Austria particularly hard and
unemployment soared. Not surprisingly it was in
Vienna in 1931 that the general European
banking collapse began. This impoverished state
was also deeply divided politically and socially.
Austrian labour was united behind the Social
Democratic Party, which supported the parlia-
mentary constitution and rejected the solutions
both of revolutionary communism and of fascism.
On the right, supported by the Catholic Church,
stood the Christian Social Party and groups of
right-wing nationalist extremists. For a short
while from 1918 to 1920 the Social Democrats
had held power. After 1920, although the Social
Democrats maintained their strength they no
longer commanded an absolute majority. Except
for a year from 1929 to 1930, the Bürgerblock, a
coalition of Christian Socials and Nationalist and
pan-German parties, was in power until the
extinction of the multi-party system in 1934.
The only issue that united this coalition was a
common hatred of labour and socialism.
So deep were the political and social divisions
that the danger of civil war was always close. The
(Catholic) Christian Socials favoured authoritar-
ian solutions, and their fascist and Nazi allies set
up paramilitary organisations such as the SA, the
SS and the Heimwehr. The Social Democrats also
sought to defend themselves by enrolling armed
workers in a Republican Defence Corps. Mean-
while many Austrians regarded their state as a
wholly artificial creation; loyalties were provincial
rather than national. There were many Austrians
who looked towards a union with Germany.