BOOKS OF THE DAY
Age of the Tyrants
IN the last New Year letter which Hitler wrote to Mussolini at the end of 1944, he remarked : " One thing is certain, and that is that neither Fascism nor National Socialism will ever be replaced in Europe by democracy." There are some people today who argue that Communism not only is, but always has been, the one major threat to the West ; how much better, therefore, if the war against Hitler had to be fought at all, to have concluded a compromise peace, as Goebbels suggested, and united forces to drive back Communism. This argument, with local variations, can be heard in every country in Europe today. Those who are impressed by it may be recom- mended to read Miss Wiskemann's book. No period is ever more remote than the immediate past, and it is salutary to be reminded that in the last fifteen years Europe has been shaken and torn, not just by one, but by two civil wars. After reading Miss Wiskemann's book, those who despair of defeating Communism may take heart from the defeat of the New Order with which Hitler was threatening Europe only five years ago. Those who are scornful of the extent of Europe's recovery may remind themselves of the straits to which Europe had been reduced by 1945. Those who are tempted to My with the idea of a compromise peace before 1945 may reflect how much worse the present situation would be if Hitler and Goebbels were still alive to exercise their malignant genius on the division between the Soviet Union and the Western Powers.
The value of Miss Wiskemann's book is that it not only provides a study of pre-war diplomacy which ranks with Professor Namier's and Mr. Wheeler-Bennett's books, but that it carries the story right through to its grim and fantastic end. Nothing is more important in the difficult art of writing recent history than the question of where to start and where to stop. Foreshortening leads to distortion, a criticism which Miss Wiskemann herself makes (a little tartly, perhaps) of Mr. Trevor-Roper's account of the last days, and the last days only, of Hitler. By starting her own narrative in 1933 and continuing it to 2945 Miss Wiskemann puts much that is familiar into a new frame and reduces the mass of diplomatic detail to intelligible proportions.
Miss Wiskemann's skill as an historian is shown in her mastery and use of her sources ; she knows how to use quotation without clogging the flow of her narrative. Among the many sources on which she has drawn, the two on which perhaps she has relied most are Ciano's diaries and diplomatic papers, and Michele Lanza's account (published under the pseudonym of L. Simoni) Berlino- Ambasciata d'Italia. This points to Miss Wiskemann's Italian sympathies. Her account of the Axis is written throughout from an Italian point of view. Although she makes full use of German sources, she never once places herself north of the Alps. The theme
of the book is, in fact, the contrast between the German and Italian partners in the Axis. The Italians were, from the first, unwilling and unsatisfactory allies. It was Mussolini who carried Italy into the alliance with Germany and later, against the advice of many high-placed Italians, into the war. From the first there had been doubts about the wisdom of Mussolini's policy, and these grew stronger with every month that passed until they led in 1943 to open opposition, the overthrow of the Duce and the Resistance. Fascism (Miss Wiskemann argues) represented dictatorship, corruption, racketeering, cynical irresponsibility, but it lacked those sinister features of Nazism, methodical inhumanity and the systematic degradation of human beings, even of whole races. It was this humourless brutality, exalted into a philosophy, which repelled the sceptical and more easy-going Italians. This was reflected on the other side in German contempt for a people whom they regard as inefficient, soft and degenerate. " The Duce (Goebbels reflected with singular lack of humour) will enter history as the last Roman, but behind his massive figure a gypsy people has gone to rot."
Miss Wiskemann brings out the inequality of the relations between the two Dictators—Mussolini's ignorance of every important decision ; the long series of humiliations ; the futile attempt to regain face by an independent policy in Greece and the Balkans which always led to failure and the crowning humiliation of appeals for German help. By 1943 even Mussolini had failed Hitler. Never was a more miserable and reluctant puppet dragged through the paces of the Neo-Fascist farce. Broken and ill, his once theatrical personality shrivelled like a pricked balloon, Il Duce shunned the limelight and found his only relaxation in writing his memoirs and riding an old bicycle round the garden. Goebbels noted in his diary : " We may consider the Fuehrer absolutely disillusioned with the Duce's personality.. .. He is not a revolutionary like the Fuehrer or Stalin. He is so bound to his own Italian people that he lacks the broad qualities of a world-wide revolutionary and insurrectionist."
Perhaps the least satisfactory part of Miss Wiskemann's book, is that which deals with events before 1938. There is an obvious reason for this. After March, 1938, the history of Italy is more and more dominated by the relationship with Germany. Before that time relations with Germany only represent a part of the picture. Miss Wiskemann, writing a history of the Axis, tends to forget the other parts. Thus the Spanish Civil War is barely mentioned and the Abyssinian War treated only in its effect on Mussolini's attitude towards Hitler. But Mussolini, if he was later reduced to the status of Hitler's jackal, had been a thug in his own right, and his attack on Abyssinia was as much an act of aggression and as indefensible as any of Hitler's. This raises very important issues. Was the Hoare-Laval Agreement then the right policy in 2935 ? Ought we to have bought off Mussolini with concessions in order to keep a solid front against Hitler ? This is implied by Miss Wiskemann's argu- ment, and is a view still widely held in France and Italy. Or were those right who argued that it is always wrong to condone aggression and that a policy of appeasement once adopted was bound to lead to bigger demands and bigger concessions ? Vacillation between these two views is the characteristic of British policy towards Italy from 1935 up to 1939. There is evidently room for a full-length study of Anglo-Italian relations before 1939. But this is ungrateful criticism of Miss Wiskemann's book, which is principally concerned with events after the Anschlusss and which certainly joins that small group, perhaps half a dozen, not more, of first-class serious historical studies of this contemporary Age of the Tyrants.
ALAN BULLOCK.
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