The Italian Army 1940-45 (2) Africa 1940-43

BY the time of its entry into the Second World War the Italian Army had been fighting in Africa for over 40 years, establishing an empire by the conquest of Eritrea, Libya, Italian Somaliland and finally, in 1936, Ethiopia (Abyssinia). By the late 1930s Italy had her empire, and the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini could now claim to have the 'Living Space' which he claimed his nation needed. The empire had taken a lot of effort t0 build; but the declaration of war on Britain and France on 10 June 1940, at a lime when the German Wehrmacht was apparently invincible, seemed to offer Italy the opportunity to expand it further. In reality the Italian Army was soon to be on the defensive in all its African possessions, and by the end of 1941 much of the empire would already be lost forever. The imperial age would in fact come to an end over the next 20 years for all the colonial powers; but Italy, the last European power to gain an overseas empire, would be the first to lose it. To defend these African possessions Italy certainly appeared to have the manpower available, with 15 divisions in Libya and over 250,000 men in Italian East Africa. This large army was backed up - on paper - with powerful armoured and air forces, and posed a serious threat to the British position in the Middle East, where the Persian oil fields and the Suez Canal were of vital strategic importance.
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