Aside from any tactical errors by the French or British, and any cunning maneuvers of Fascist diplomacy, there was a basic political fact: the refusal by those governments (and by ample sectors of the governing classes, particularly the American one) to conduct a policy that would defeat Mussolini, at the cost of his liquidation.

The key here is to recognize that his liquidation would indeed be a cost for those governments: that is why they found practically any concession preferable. The Hoare-Laval Pact would demonstrate this, and was already in the air when the foreign secretary wrote the message to Lindsay; in the final analysis, these statesmen were working toward Mussolini’s political triumph.

As Rowse noted in his interesting memoir entitled The Appeasers (the title reveals the focus of the book on those British politicians who pursued the policy of appeasement, attempting to placate fascist dictators through concessions), Sir John Simon — the foreign secretary previous to Hoare — explicitly confirmed this when, confronted with a proposal to act drastically against Italy, he said, “We couldn’t do that: it would mean that Mussolini would fall!” Rowse commented: “That was what was at the back of their minds — the anti-Red theme that confused their minds when they should have been thinking in terms of their country’s interests and safety.”¹³⁰

While Rowse did grasp the true roots of that policy, he remained prisoner of the political and historiographical judgments that considered it a tragic error rather than the logical consequence of a class-based worldview shared by all the leaders involved. This inclination was also present in American society; but this is a topic we shall return to later.

(Source.)