The Rise of Australia

The previous war taught the Italians a painful lesson, and it also allowed the world's powers to see the true combat effectiveness of the Italian army.

Of course, Italy's performance in World War I did not disgrace the great powers. Their army could not defeat any great power country, and was even far inferior to countries with strong folk customs such as the Balkans.

Even the British army, which has been criticized, performed much better than Italy in World War I.

If it weren't for the Balkan countries and Russia to contain the large number of troops of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy would probably be the first country to be occupied by a great power.

Of course, since Mussolini came to power, the pain he had brought to the Kingdom of Italy has been actively forgotten by Mussolini.

As a very ambitious ruler, Mussolini knew that he must create enough political achievements to be worthy of the dictatorship he created in Italy.

Mussolini was very ambitious. Not only did he hope to expand Italy's territory, he even hoped to let Italy dominate the Mediterranean and become the sole hegemon in the Mediterranean, and carve up the British and French colonies in East Africa and North Africa.

Well, if this ambition is put more appropriately, it can also be said to be to regain the territory during the Roman Empire and re-establish a new Roman Empire in the 20th century.

After all, the original Roman Empire was the overlord of the Mediterranean and had a large number of colonies in North and East Africa.

But it is clear that so far, not a single step of Mussolini's plan has been implemented. His enemies, Britain and France, are too powerful, and Italy is not their opponent for the time being.

However, in this long period of development, Mussolini was not completely without gains.

Mussolini believed that the reason why the previous combat effectiveness of the Kingdom of Italy's army was weak was entirely because the Kingdom of Italy's training of the army was backward and the morale of the soldiers was low.

After Mussolini successfully took control of Italy's military and political power, he launched drastic reforms in the military and established a strategy with his own ideas as the core, which strengthened the morale of Italian soldiers.

Now, after a period of intensive military campaigns, due to the rebellion in the British Empire's India, Mussolini believed that the time had come for Italian expansion.

The competition between Britain and France and the rebellion in India left the British with no spare time to pay attention to Italy. This was also a good opportunity for Italy to expand in East Africa.

In addition to the British colonies, what other areas were in East Africa? Of course it was Ethiopia, which Italy had coveted decades ago.

This is also the tragedy of backward countries in this era. They are often coveted by powerful countries. This cannot be avoided no matter what.

Even without Italy, Britain and France would have penetrated Ethiopia, and Ethiopia would have become a colony.

In order to avoid risks like the first battle, Mussolini mobilized more than 100,000 troops and decided to dispatch all the navy to transport sufficient supplies for the army on the front line.

Of course, before launching a war against the Abyssinian Empire, the first thing Mussolini had to do was to test the attitudes of Britain and France.

In Africa, the two major powers that cannot be avoided are Britain and France. If there is a map of the world situation, it can be clearly seen that Britain and France occupy the east and west of Africa respectively.

Of course, because of their different geographical locations, Britain and France occupy Africa differently.

French colonies are generally distributed in West and Central Africa, which are closer to France. France's influence is undoubtedly huge.

The British colonies ran throughout Africa, from Egypt to South Africa, directly connecting the British colonies in Africa.

Especially after Germany's defeat in World War I, German East Africa was successfully taken over by the British, which also allowed the British to connect their colonies together.

Although France also annexed German Cameroon, the situation did not seem as vast as the British colonies being connected together.

The Ethiopian region where the Abyssinian Empire was located was already surrounded by British and Italian colonies.

If we follow common sense, this is actually a colonial competition between Italy and Britain. Whoever takes advantage first will often get the surrounded colony.

But the problem is that there is a huge gap in strength between Italy and Britain. Although Italy has certain advantages in the prominent areas of East Africa, namely Ethiopia and Somalia, the previous Italian Kingdom did not dare to ignore the opinions of the British.

In addition, the Abyssinian Empire at that time did have the perseverance to resist colonial rule, making it difficult for Italy to establish complete colonial rule in this area.

In fact, the British were unwilling to connect their colonies with Italy, which would pose a huge threat to themselves in East Africa.

This led to a serious problem, Italy was unable to expand in East Africa. The inability of colonies to expand also limited Italy's strength to a certain extent.

If we take a closer look at the major powers in the world, they either have vast colonies or their homelands are vast and rich in resources.

The most obvious example of the former is Britain and France, and the most obvious example of the latter is the now-defunct United States and now Australasia.

But Italy is different. Although Italy is also a European power, it does not have the vast colonies of Britain and France, nor does it have a large mainland and rich mineral resources like the United States and Australasia.

Moreover, Italy was unified too late, and its domestic mineral resources were relatively poor, making it difficult to establish a huge industry.

Local restrictions make it difficult for Italy to become a superpower. This situation is very similar to that of Asian island countries.

However, the islanders have very crazy ambitions and ideas, and the combat effectiveness of the island army is worthy of recognition.

Italy is different. The combat capabilities of the Italian army directly caused Italy to be unable to compete with other great powers. Under this situation, the best result for Italy is to maintain its status as a low-ranking power and seek help from other powers.

In fact, Mussolini had tested the attitudes of Britain and France regarding Ethiopia long before.

The British were firmly opposed. After all, British power was concentrated in East Africa and they were very wary of Italian expansion.

But the French are just the opposite. First of all, the French colonies were concentrated in West and East Africa, which were very far away from Ethiopia.

Secondly, supporting Italy's annexation of Ethiopia was actually a stumbling block for the British.

It is the consistent policy of the French to cause headaches to the British, which also led the French to choose to support Italy and support Italy's annexation of the Abyssinian Empire.

Although it received the support of the French, Italy still did not choose to launch a brazen invasion of Ethiopia.

After all, the French have no plans to help Italy fight against the British. If the British opinions are not valued, does it mean that Mussolini wants to fight the British one on one?

But now is a good opportunity.

After the rebellion in India, the British attention was almost entirely focused on India. In order to ensure that there would be no problems in Europe during this period, the British relaxed their guard against some countries, including Italy.

After Mussolini's many tests and confirmation that the British would not object to Italy's invasion of the Abyssinian Empire, Mussolini felt relieved and ordered the army to begin studying how to attack the Abyssinian Empire. Plan of attack.

On April 17, 1930, Italy and France reached an agreement on the East African region.

This treaty stipulated that France would diplomatically support Italy's colonization of East Africa and promised not to oppose it in any form including diplomatic, economic and military aspects during Italy's war.

In return, Italy and France signed a non-aggression pact and renounced their claims to all of North Africa.

This agreement is called the "Italian-French Agreement", and it also means that Italy has enough confidence to invade the Abyssinian Empire.

In order to ensure that the British would not interfere in his war, Mussolini chose to promise the British that he would not cause chaos when the British counter-rebellion in India, and would not join an alliance with France against the British, thus gaining Britain's control over Italy. Agree to invade the Abyssinian Empire.

After making all diplomatic preparations, on May 15, 1930, the Italian government requested to send troops into Abyssinia on the pretext that two colonial soldiers in Italian Eritrea had disappeared on the border with the Abyssinian Empire. Xenia Empire Search.

Originally this was just a normal diplomatic negotiation, but after the Abyssinian Empire learned of the number of troops that Italy wanted to send, it angrily refused.

Even if two soldiers are really missing in Italy, there is no need to dispatch a division of soldiers to find them, right?

What's more, no Italian soldiers have ever been seen at the border, and such excuses are just an attempt to incriminate others.

After being firmly rejected by the Abyssinian Empire, the Kingdom of Italy stopped pretending and stated that for the safety of the two missing soldiers, it could only be forced to launch a war with the Abyssinian Empire.

On May 16, Italy formally declared war on the Abyssinian Empire.

On May 17, the Abyssinian Empire declared war on Italy, and the Second Italian-Ethiopian War began.

In order to avenge their previous humiliation, one hundred thousand Italian troops rushed to Abyssinia in a mighty manner.

In fact, if you include the Italian troops in the two colonies, the number of soldiers dispatched this time has exceeded 120,000, which is nearly 8 times that of the previous invasion of Ethiopia by the Kingdom of Italy.

The use of such a large number of soldiers also proved Mussolini's determination to invade the Abyssinian Empire.

For Mussolini, only by completely controlling the Abyssinian Empire and building a contiguous Italian East African colony can Italy hope to become stronger, and only then can he hope to build the huge empire of his ambitions .

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