>>210054From what I read after thd first anscluss of 1934 and the nazi shipment of war materiel to Abyssinia Mussolini had a strained relationship with Hitler but the failure to prevent the second anscluss, the collapse of the Stresa front, and the increasingly chauvanistic posturing of the great powers meant that by September of '39 Mussolini was isolated and surrounded by countries seeking to cut up Italy like Romania or Czechoslovakia. Be it the Franco-Anglo entente seeking to snuff out neutral states, the USSR seeking to extend its power into the Mediterranean, or Germany seeking to unify the Germanic cultures, ala Süd Tirol, it meant that Hitler held all the cards and could rely on a cornered Italy to submit to German ambitions.