I always thought Mussolini told Hitler the Italians would not be ready for war until some 1942 to 1943 or even later period, and Hitler told there would be no war until then. And only when Germany beat France 1940 was Mussolini ready to enter war in June 1940 to take a part of the cake.

One of the interesting points of politics between Italy and Germany in my opinion is during early 1940 when Mussolini wanted to help the Finns and Hitler stopped all the help going through Germany, and Benito definitely was angry about Germany´s pro-Soviet attitude and perhaps even more of stopping his deliveries getting through.I am looking for a book on this period on Italy´s and Germany´s political correspondence to see how inflamed the relations were at that point.

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