Mussolini's rise to power was rapid his Fascist Party Blackshirts marched into Rome in 1922. A year before Hitler's failed first attempt to seize power. By the time Hitler became the leader of Germany Mussolini had been the leader of Italy for more than ten years. He had been successful in improving the Italian economy and bringing stability as it was said He made the trains run on time by shooting someone if they didn't. His ambition was to regain for Italy the prestige and power.
His biggest mistake was the decision to go into WWII. On 10 June 1940. Germany had been at war with Britain and France since September. Italy had little reason to fear that any of the other powers would attack it. Germany was about to winning the Battle of France and France was likely to surrender very soon and it seemed that Britain would then make peace. Mussolini thought that Italy would be the next target for Nazi attack if he did not help Hitler win or he may have just been moved to grab a piece of France before it was too late. He did declare war on France.
As the war continued weaknesses of the Italian Army and Navy were seen. When Advancing the Front Mussolini will try first to defeat the British to keep them out of the Mediterranean sea. Then he will concentrate on beating the Soviets before he tries advancing across the Atlantic to fight the USA. Large new warships did no good when the admirals commanding them were unwilling to risk defeat. Brave and well-trained pilots could do very little when most of them were flying lightly-armed biplanes that could not catch modern bombers.
