1050 Ch. 26 • World War II

would divide Eastern Europe between them. Attempting to avoid war at all
costs, Britain and France accepted the occupation of Austria and Czecho­
slovakia but drew the line at Poland. The Second World War began.

The Axis

Benito Mussolini had already signed a pact with Hitler in October 1936,
forming what the Italian dictator called an “Axis.” Hitler made clear that
Germany’s interests lay to the east; Mussolini could have the Mediterranean
and a free hand in Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece. Joint participation in
support of the Spanish nationalists during the Spanish War (1936-1939;
see Chapter 25) brought Nazi Germany and fascist Italy closer together.
Mussolini accepted Austria’s loss of independence in exchange for a closer
relationship with Germany. Concluding that German military strength
could further Italian aims, the Duce ordered his soldiers to goose-step like
the Germans, claiming that it was the military stride of ancient Rome.
This led to considerable embarrassment for the elderly King Victor
Emmanuel III, who tried it but fell down. Mussolini also ordered his
countrymen to stop shaking hands and take up the ancient Roman mili­
tary salute of an outstretched arm at a 45-degree angle.
Racial theories had hitherto never played more than a minor part in
Mussolini’s rise to power or his daily bombast. The Duce, who had a Jewish
mistress, had mocked Hitler’s “delirium of race.’’ Mussolini had at first
enjoyed widespread support among Italian Jews—about one of every three
had first joined the Fascist Party. But in 1938 Mussolini began a campaign
against Italian Jews, who numbered no more than 50,000 in a country of
40 million people. These measures managed only to irritate many Italians
in a country in which Jews seemed perfectly well assimilated.
Germany found another authoritarian partner in Japan. Over the last half
of the nineteenth century following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japan
had made itself an industrial and military power. In need of raw materials
such as oil and rubber, the Japanese government sought to build an empire
in Southeast Asia. By the late 1930s, the Japanese army had reached 1 mil­
lion men, with reserves of twice that number. The Japanese air force had
2,000 fighter planes, including the new “Zero” fighter, as fast as any in the
world. In 1931, Japan embarked on a piecemeal conquest of Manchuria at
the expense of China. Since Japan has virtually no natural resources, its
goal was to create a resource base, which would be necessary for fighting
the total war that many young Japanese generals eagerly anticipated. A year
later, the Japanese government created the client state of Manchukuo,
declaring the last emperor of China, Henry Pu-Yi, to be its emperor.
Fearing that the Soviet Union might try to hinder its military expansion,
Japan late in 1936 signed a formal friendship treaty with Germany, the
“Anti-Comintern Pact” (anti—Communist International), hoping also to dis­
courage possible British and American intervention in Asia. In 1937, Japa­