L’espansione della Banca Commerciale Italiana in Europa orientale durante il fascismo

Abstract

After the Versailles treaty, the Italian Commercial Bank (Comit) started a vigorous expansion in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. The Comit created, in less than a ten years, a dense network of branches and affiliated that soon became a reference in the credit market of the successor states. At the same time, the rise to power of Benito Mussolini provoked a change in the course in the traditional Italian foreign policy in the Balkans that, since 1925, assumed more aggressive tones. Through complex and often contradictory diplomatic manoeuvres, Mussolini attracted Austria and Hungary toward Italy, and created a “transverse axis” to oppose pro-French alliance of the “Little Entente” and Germany’s strategies.

Keywords

• fascism
• Italian Commercial Bank
• policy of power
• Eastern Europe
• Interwar period
• fascismo
• Banca commerciale Italiana
• politica di potenza fascista
• Europa orientale
• periodo interbellico