Fascist expansionism and the Mediterranean: the rise of Italian sea power seen from France (1924–1936)

Military and naval power was pivotal in Fascist Italy’s expansionism. Nevertheless, studies on this subject focus on the era of the Fascist wars (1935–1943), neglecting the military role in sustaining Fascist revisionism before that phase. Moreover, research on the pre-1935 period has focused on diplomatic and propaganda history, overlooking the military’s role in precociously building Fascist Italy’s challenge to the international order in the inter-war era. This article analyses French perceptions of the rise of the interwar Italian Navy; namely, the precocious perception of Fascist naval expansionism, which was the product of an ideologically driven foreign policy by Mussolini.