Italy

## Fascist Italy

The official state flag of fascist Italy, used throughout World War II

### Climate

A predominantly Mediterranean climate with mild, sometimes rainy winters and sunny, hot, dry summers in mainland Italy, hot and arid in Libya and a diverse climate in Ethiopia, ranging from an equatorial rainforest with high rainfall and humidity in the south and southwest, the Afro-Alpine on the summits of the Simien and Bale Mountains, to desert-like conditions in the north-east, east and south-east lowlands

### Terrain

Mostly rugged and mountainous with some plains and coastal lowlands on the Italian mainland, mostly barren, flat to undulating plains, plateaus and depressions in Libya and high plateaus, mountains, and dry lowland plains in Ethiopia

## Political Information

### Notable Cities

Venice, Florence, Milan, Tripoli and Addis Ababa

### Government

Unitary, constitutional monarchy, under a fascist, one-party, totalitarian, dictatorship (1925-1943)

### Leader(s)

Monarch: Victor Emmanuel III (1900-1946)Prime Minister/Duce: Benito Mussolini (1922-1943)

### Affiliation

Axis

Italy or the Kingdom of Italy, officially known as Fascist Italy throughout this period, was one of the 2 major allies of Nazi Germany during World War II, who fought many campaigns with the Germans, primarily in the Balkans and in Africa

Notable engagements that Italy was involved in included the Axis invasion of France, the North African Campaign, during which, Italy engaged in attrition warfare to defend its colonies against the neighboring British colonies, the Balkan campaigns, during which, Italy expanded its sphere of influence into the nations of Albania, Yugoslavia and Greece and the Invasion of Sicily, during which, the Americans made a successful landing on the Italian island of Sicily, which caused Mussolini's fascist government to fall and for the Italian civil war to begin

## **Italy Before the War**

Before the official start of the war, Italy had seen some success in its expansion in Africa, following the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and eventual capitulation of the country in 1937. Following this, Mussolini would merge Italian Eritrea and Italian Somalia with the now occupied Ethiopia, to form the new colony of Italian East Africa, which gave Mussolini quite a lot of popular support from the people of Italy, but the expansion wouldn't stop there as Mussolini would now move on to secure his control of the Mediterranean Sea

## **Italian Invasion of Albania**

Shortly before the German invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939, Italy would strike once again, this time, in the Balkans. Mussolini had ambitions to restore Italy to its former glory, by restoring the Roman Empire but to do so, he would need to conquer the Mediterranean once again and he started with Albania. Even though Albania was 10 times smaller than Italy at the time and was being pressured immensely by Mussolini to give into the terms, the brave king of Albania, Zog the I, refused to submit to Italian influence, so because of that, on April 7th, Italy launched a sudden invasion of Albania, which caused the people to freakout, therefore, causing many high-ranking officers of the Albanian army to leave the country and for the government to start falling apart. Even though King Zog promised that Albania would resist Italy, the people were still starting to feel that the government was abandoning them

By April 12th, the Albanian parliament voted to depose King Zog and made a unanimous decision to unite with Italy, by offering the Albanian crown to the constitutional monarch of Italy, Victor Emmanuel the III. Albania had fallen and this was only just the beginning

## **The Pact of Steel**

Seeing the military success that Nazi Germany had been experiencing, Italy had decided to seek closer relations with their fascist neighbor. On the 22nd of May 1939, 4 months before the start of World War II, Italy and Germany had met in the Reich Chancellery building to sign the Pact of Steel, which officially formalized the alliance between Germany and Italy. The pact was also originally meant to include Japan as well but because of disagreements on who their main target should be, with Japan arguing that the USSR should be the main focus, while Germany and Italy argued that it should be Great Britian instead, Japan did not end up signing the pact and only officially joined the Axis following the signing of the Tripartite Pact on the 27th of September 1940, one year and 4 months after the signing of the Pact of Steel

## **Invasion of France**

After Germany had managed to significantly cripple the fragile French Third Republic, Italy decided to join in on the action to gain some land out of the French and declared war on France on June 10th, alongside declaring war on Britian as well. After about 15 days of fighting, the French Third Republic had crumbled and was split between Germany, Italy and the now new puppet regime of Vichy France. Italy had managed to snatch some small amounts of land from France, including the rest of Savoy that was controlled by France, about 90% of the Provence province of France and also the French island of Corsica. Though it wasn't much land, it was still a good start that would help bolster the popular support of Benito Mussolini and the new fascist Italian state

## **The North African Campaign**

While Italy was gaining land in Europe, they also needed to be concerned with protecting their colonies in Africa. After they declared war on Great Britian, the British wasted no time in descending into Libyan territory by the Italian fort by the name of Fort Capuzzo, as you can imagine, the Italians didn't take that too well, so they followed up with a counter-offensive into British Egypt and capturing the city of Sidi Barrani. The Italians held the city until September, after which, it was recaptured by British and Commonwealth forces in Operation Compass...

## Republic of Salò

The official war flag, used by the Italian Social Republic during World War II

## Geographic Information

### Terrain

Mainly rugged and mountainous terrain, with partial plains and coastal lowlands

## Political Information

### Notable Cities

Verona, Milan, Bergamo, Bologna and Genoa

### Government

Unitary, fascist, one-party, state under a totalitarian, dictatorship

### Affiliation

Axis

Following the success of Operation Achse and the Gran Sasso raid, Nazi Germany had decided to re-establish a semi-independent fascist Italy in the northern and central half of the Italian peninsula. This state would eventually become known as the Italian Social Republic or more popularly known as the Republic of Salò

WIP