Lectures take place on Fridays, from 2-3.30pm.
Friday 17 October 2025
Mussolini's 'Roman Empire'
For all his bluster and grandiose nationalist rhetoric, and despite over 20 years in power to prepare, Mussolini’s Italian troops came up short in every theatre of war between 1940 and 1945. Bailed out by Hitler in Greece, temporarily rescued by Rommel in North Africa, and invaded by the Allies in 1943, Italy was a burden on the Axis side. The main underlying reason for these military failures was Mussolini’s unwillingness to create a military-industrial complex worthy of the name. Behind a façade of industrial modernisation Italy’s economy lagged well behind other WWII belligerents. Additionally Mussolini’s chaotic diplomacy led Italy to become subordinate to Hitler’s Germany, sacrificing Italy’s Mediterranean interests in the process.
Friday 24 October 2025
The International Implications of the Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War was characterised both by the external military intervention of the dictatorial powers and the conspicuous non-intervention of the western democracies. For Hitler the conflict proved a training ground for the German air force, not least in the aerial terror attacks against civilian populations. For Mussolini intervention was intended to create a grateful client state but achieved the opposite as Franco asserted Spanish independence and neutrality. For the Soviets intervention was a chance to burnish Stalin’s anti - Fascist credentials as well as an opportunity to extend the Moscow show trials by executing Trotskyists. The British and French preferred non-intervention, though that did not stop the International Brigades recruiting from both countries. Despite foreign participation Franco emerged by 1939 as the war’s unambiguous victor.
Friday 31 October 2025
German Foreign Policy: from Stresemann to Hitler
Historians have usually regarded Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann and Adolf Hitler as polar opposites during the inter war period. After all, Stresemann renounced the use of force, in contrast to Hitler, and Stresemann favoured diplomacy, winning a Nobel Peace Prize in the process, compared to Hitler’s aggression against Germany’s neighbours. However, both Stresemann and Hitler opposed the Versailles Treaty and vowed to pursue a revisionist path. The differences were of method rather than objective. But Hitler’s ultimate aims went well beyond revising Versailles and incorporated a campaign of genocide and military conquest in Europe. Whether the Foreign ministry and the German High Command entirely approved of these objectives has remained controversial amongst historians to this day.
Friday 7 November 2025
Soviet Foreign Policy, 1919-1941
Stalin’s foreign policy in the 1920’s was essentially anti British and pro German. After all, the British, on Churchill’s insistence, had intervened in the Russian civil war on the side of the White armies. The Rapallo Treaty of co-operation with Weimar Germany exemplified Stalin’s approach. But after Hitler’s rise to power and escalating anti Communist rhetoric, Stalin switched to favouring a ‘Popular Front’ strategy to counter fascism. Out of necessity, he made common cause with the European democracies. But believing the policy switch had run its course, Stalin sought to revive the Rapallo policy, except this time the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact contained secret protocols dividing Europe into German and Soviet zones of influence. Assuming the Pact would hold and would be mutually beneficial, Stalin failed to anticipate the Nazi attack on June 22, 1941.
Friday 14 November 2025
The Axis Powers' Diplomatic and Military Objectives in WWII
The late and great Oxford University historian, Prof AJP Taylor, argued that by the end of 1940, the British could defy Hitler but could not undo his work. ‘It was Hitler himself who came to their aid’ Taylor argued, ‘by attacking the two great powers who only wished to be left alone – the Soviet Union and the United States – Hitler transformed a European war he could win into a world war he could not’. Hitler’s decision to attack those two great powers was highly controversial in Germany and was opposed by many, especially in the military, who favoured concentrating on defeating the still resisting British. In the Far East, Japanese aggression has often been regarded as inevitably leading to the Pearl Harbour attack but diplomatic archives indicate that Japan’s long-term ambitions were at the expense of the Soviet Union, rather than America. Pearl Harbour was a botched and improvised strike rather than a carefully planned strategic operation.
Friday 21 November 2025
The Allied Powers' Diplomatic and Military Objectives in WWII
After the fall of France in 1940, the most important contribution to the Allied victory made by the British was to survive and prevent any Axis invasion. But by the end of 1941, Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union - and gratuitous declaration of war on America - changed the dynamic of the conflict. The Red army resisted and then turned back the invading Germans. American economic and military strength proved decisive on the battle field in North Africa and on D Day. But how far were Stalin’s war objectives limited and defensive and how far were they hegemonic? And did Roosevelt pursue conventional war aims of great power status, including dismantling the European colonial Empires, aside from defeating the Axis forces? The origins of the Cold War can be discerned in the rise of the two superpowers at the moment of their triumph in WWII.
Those joining us in person
Tea/coffee and a pastry will be served in the common room after the lectures from 3.30pm.
Those joining us online
Please join the Zoom webinar in good time before the lectures to ensure that you have no connection problems. We recommend joining 10-15 minutes before the start time. Each lecture will last approximately 1 hour, followed by questions.
