Germany's wartime ally Italy, under the rule of Benito Mussolini, desired the Italian-speaking areas of Switzerland as part of its irredentist claims in Europe, particularly the Swiss canton of Ticino. In a tour of the Italian alpine regions, he announced to his entourage that "the New Europe ... could not have more than four or five large states; the small ones [would] have no further raison d'être and [would] have to disappear".[26]