Chapter 752 The Second Italo-Egyptian War

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

Of course, Italy's performance in World War I did not live up to the contempt of the powers. Their army could not defeat any powerful country, and was even far inferior to the Balkan countries with tough folk customs.

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

If it were not for the Balkan countries and Russia to tie up a large number of troops from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy would probably be the first powerful country to be occupied.

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

As a very ambitious ruler, Mussolini knew that he had to create enough political achievements and live up to the dictatorship he created in Italy.

Mussolini had great ambitions. He not only wanted to expand Italy's territory, but also wanted Italy to dominate the Mediterranean and become the only overlord of the Mediterranean, and to divide up the British and French colonies in East Africa and North Africa.

Well, if such ambitions are put more appropriately, they can also be said to be to recover the territory of the Roman Empire and to re-establish a new Roman Empire in the 20th century.

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

But it is obvious that so far, Mussolini's plan has not been implemented at all. 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 has not gained nothing.

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

After Mussolini successfully seized the military and political power of Italy, he launched a drastic reform of the army and established a strategy centered on his own ideas to strengthen the morale of Italian soldiers.

Now, after a period of preparation, because of the rebellion in India, the British Empire, Mussolini believes that the time for Italy to expand has come.

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

In addition to the British colonies, what other regions are there in East Africa? Of course, it is Ethiopia, which Italy has coveted decades ago.

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

Even if there is no Italy, Britain and France will infiltrate Ethiopia, and the final outcome of Ethiopia is to become a colony.

In order to avoid the risks of the first battle, Mussolini mobilized more than 100,000 troops and decided to send out all the navy to transport enough 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 world situation map, it can be clearly seen that Britain and France occupy the east and west of Africa respectively.

Of course, due to their different geographical locations, Britain and France occupy Africa differently.

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

The British colonies run through the whole of Africa, from Egypt to South Africa, directly connecting Britain's colonies in Africa.

Especially after Germany was defeated 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 does not seem to be as huge as the British colonies.

The Ethiopian region where the Abyssinian Empire is located has been surrounded by British and Italian colonies.

According to common sense, this is actually a colonial competition between Italy and Britain. Whoever gains the advantage first can obtain the surrounded colonies.

But the problem is that there is a huge gap between the strength of Italy and Britain. Although Italy has certain advantages in the prominent areas of East Africa, namely Ethiopia and Somalia, the previous Kingdom of Italy 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 also unwilling to let Italy connect its colonies and pose a huge threat to themselves in East Africa.

This led to a serious problem that Italy could not expand in East Africa. The inability to expand colonies also limited Italy's strength to a certain extent.

Looking closely at the world powers, either they have vast colonies or their own land is vast and rich in resources.

The most obvious examples of the former are Britain and France, and the most obvious examples of the latter are the now-extinct United States and Australasia.

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

And Italy was unified too late, and the country's mineral resources were relatively scarce, making it difficult to build a large industry.

The local restrictions made it difficult for Italy to become a superpower, which is very similar to the island countries in Asia.

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

Italy is different. The combat capability of the Italian army directly led to Italy's inability to compete with other powers. Under this situation, the best result for Italy is to maintain its status as a last-class power and seek help from other powers.

In fact, Mussolini had already tested the attitude of Britain and France on Ethiopia before.

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

But the French were just the opposite. First of all, the French colonies were concentrated in West Africa 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 has always been the French policy to give the British a headache, which also made the French 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 an invasion of Ethiopia.

After all, the French had no plan to help Italy fight against Britain. If they did not pay attention to the British's opinions, would it mean that Mussolini would fight the British alone?

But now is a good opportunity.

After the rebellion in India, the British's 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 vigilance against some countries, including Italy.

After Mussolini's repeated attempts to determine that the British would not oppose Italy's invasion of the Abyssinian Empire, Mussolini was relieved and ordered the army to begin studying the offensive plan against the Abyssinian Empire.

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

The treaty stipulated that France would support Italy's colonization of East Africa in diplomacy and promised not to oppose Italy in any way, including diplomatic, economic and military means, during the war.

In return, Italy and France signed a non-aggression treaty and gave up their sovereignty claims over the entire North Africa.

This agreement was called the "Italian-French Agreement", which also meant that Italy had 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 make trouble when the British were suppressing the rebellion in India, and would not join the alliance with France to fight against Britain, and obtained Britain's consent for Italy's invasion of the Abyssinian Empire.

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

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

Even if Italy really lost two soldiers, it didn't need to send a division of soldiers to search for them, right?

What's more, Italian soldiers had never been seen on the border, so such an excuse was just a false accusation.

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

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

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

In order to avenge the previous shame, 100,000 Italian troops went to Abyssinia in a mighty manner.

In fact, if the Italian troops in the two colonies are counted, the number of soldiers dispatched this time has exceeded 120,000, which is close to 8 times the number when the Kingdom of Italy invaded Ethiopia before.

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 continuous Italian East African colony can Italy become stronger and he can build the huge empire in his ambition.

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