During the late 1920s, Benito Mussolini claimed that Italy needed an outlet for its "surplus population" and that it would be in other countries' best interests to aid in this expansion. The regime wanted "hegemony in the Mediterranean–Danubian–Balkan region" and the gaining of world power by the conquest "of an empire stretching from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Strait of Hormuz". The Fascists had designs on Albania, Dalmatia, large parts of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Greece and harked back to the Roman empire. The regime also sought to establish protectorates with Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Covert motives were for Italy to become the dominant power in the Mediterranean, capable of challenging France or Britain and gaining access to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.