The big idea: Two dictators pushed their countries toward war. They were driven by a violent belief in national greatness and by the money troubles of the Great Depression.
Picture Europe after the First World War. Two angry, aggressive movements took charge of two proud nations, and both of their leaders believed their country deserved far more than it had.
In Italy, Fascism seized power in 1922 under Benito Mussolini. In Germany, Nazism took over in 1933 under Adolf Hitler.
Both men glorified the nation, hated communism, and saw war and conquest as healthy and heroic rather than something to fear.
Both leaders also had deep money reasons for wanting more land. Germany still burned with anger at the Treaty of Versailles, which it blamed for years of hardship and shame.
Then came the crash. When the 1929 Depression wrecked both economies, expansion and building weapons became a way to create jobs, restart factories, and take people's minds off how hard life had become.
Spot it: two strands (I-E): Ideology (national greatness, Versailles, living space, a new Rome) and Economics (the Depression, unemployment, self-sufficiency). Almost every cause fits one of these two strands, and the two feed each other.
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Historians usually split the causes into two strands. One is the pull of what these movements believed, and the other is the push of their money problems, especially the Depression.
It helps to look at each cause as its own short story. Germany and Italy were alike in many ways, but they were not identical, so keep an eye on the differences too.
Fascist and Nazi beliefs
Both regimes preached that a nation grows great through struggle and conquest. Mussolini dreamed of reviving ancient Rome and ruling the Mediterranean, a plan he called mare nostrum. Hitler added a racial idea: Germans needed Lebensraum taken from peoples he wrongly called inferior. Both leaders were fiercely warlike and hated communism.
Germany's anger at Versailles
Germans of nearly every party hated the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. It took away German land, shrank the army to just 100,000 men, and forced Germany to accept the blame for starting the war. Hitler's main foreign-policy aim was to tear the treaty up: rebuild the army, win back lost land, and unite all German-speakers into one country. This anger won him huge support.
The Great Depression
The 1929 crash brought mass unemployment to both countries, with about 6 million Germans out of work by 1932. Both leaders used weapons-building and public building projects to create jobs and restart industry. They also chased autarky, and conquest promised the land, food and raw materials a self-sufficient war economy would need.
Beliefs, Versailles, then the crash — ideas set the goal, money set the pace.
Putting it together: Italy invades Abyssinia, 1935: In 1935 Mussolini invaded Abyssinia, the country we now call Ethiopia. His reasons show every strand at once.
There was belief (proving Italy a great power and avenging a humiliating defeat by the Abyssinians at Adowa in 1896), money (new land, resources, and a distraction from the Depression at home), and opportunity (a weak, divided League of Nations that failed to stop him). The invasion marked Italy out as a clear aggressor and pushed Mussolini toward friendship with Hitler.
| Year | Event | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1922 | Mussolini takes power in Italy | Fascism wins its first state; expansionist talk begins |
| 1929 | Great Depression begins | Mass unemployment in both states; extremism grows |
| 1933 | Hitler becomes Chancellor | Nazism in power; plans to overturn Versailles and seek Lebensraum |
| 1935 | Italy invades Abyssinia | Italy revealed as an aggressor; League exposed as weak |
| 1936 | German rearmament in full swing | Economy revived through arms; Versailles openly defied |
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How this is tested (Paper 1): Paper 1 is source-based, but the 9-mark final question asks you to use the sources together with your own knowledge. The causes of German and Italian expansion are your own-knowledge ammunition. The classic task asks you to weigh belief against money, so judge which mattered more rather than just listing both.
'Fascist and Nazi ideology, more than economic problems, explains German and Italian expansion in the 1930s.' Using your own knowledge, evaluate this claim.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Common mistakes: Don't just describe events, such as narrating the Abyssinia invasion, because marks are for explaining and weighing causes.
Don't treat Germany and Italy as identical, and always link back to the exact words of the question, here 'more than economic problems'.