By the time Benito Mussolini declared war against the Allies in June 1940, the Second World War looked like it would soon be over. Nazi Germany had already swept through most of Western Europe, France was teetering and once it fell Britain, isolated and alone, would surely capitulate too. Keen to exploit the situation by grabbing French and British possessions in North and East Africa, including the Suez Canal, Mussolini sent his armies across the Mediterranean to start a conflict that they were in no fit state to fight.
The Great Depression and decades
