During the second half of the 1930s he fought in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, being promoted to Major General in 1936, then in the Spanish Civil War and finally in the conquest of Albania. At the outbreak of World War II he was in Italian East Africa, and on 3 April 1941 he replaced Giuseppe Daodice as governor of Addis Ababa and the Scioa Governorate. He was ordered by the Duke of Aosta, Viceroy of Italian East Africa, to surrender Addis Ababa to the advancing British forces without fighting, in order to spare the civilian population; he reluctantly carried out this order on 6 April 1941, but on the same day, feeling dishonored, he committed suicide.