15. Italian military operations during World War II
Benito Mussolini boasted of creating a new Roman Empire, and his military adventures in North Africa began in 1935 when Italian troops invaded Ethiopia in October. In May of the following year, the Italians announced victory when Italian troops occupied Addis Ababa. Despite the claim, fighting continued between the Italian army and Abyssinian troops for several more years. The Ethiopian Empire was absorbed in the colony of Italian East Africa, despite the clear preference of the Ethiopians to remain free of Italian influence. During the campaigns in North Africa following the beginning of the Second World War Italian troops performed poorly, their fleet was unable to keep the colonial garrisons resupplied, and the new Roman Empire dissolved quickly.
After war broke out in Europe, Mussolini was hesitant to enter the fray, not joining his German ally in Poland, and not invading France until the outcome of that campaign was certain. In October 1940, despite the objections of Hitler, the Italians invaded Greece in what turned into a disastrous campaign for the Italian Army, which found that though it had superior numbers over the Greeks, the enemy was entrenched in fortified positions. The debacle forced the Germans to enter the war in support of their inept ally, to prevent a British stronghold in their rear as they moved into the Soviet Union. By the time of the British entry into the fighting in Greece, the Italian military was an international joke, considered incompetent by their German allies, and nearly immaterial by the allies. Mussolini became a puppet of his German master.