On 10 June 1940, as the French government fled to Bordeaux during the German invasion, declaring Paris an open city, Mussolini felt the conflict would soon end and declared war on Britain and France. As he said to the Army’s Chief-of-Staff, Marshal Badoglio:
I only need a few thousand dead so that I can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought.[58]
Mussolini had the immediate war aim of expanding the Italian colonies in North Africa by taking land from the British and French colonies.
About Mussolini’s declaration of war in France, President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States said:
On this tenth day of June 1940, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.[59]
After Italy entered the war, because of pressure from Nazi Germany, some Jewish refugees living in Italy were interned in the Campagna concentration camp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Italy_during_World_War_II#Italy_enters_the_war:_June_1940
June 1940 was pretty simple.
Operation Dynamo had been completed at Dunkirk and France has surrendered.
So…what does Benito Mussolini decide to do?
He decides to join the war on the Axis side.
If you were an Italian during this time of Fascism…and NOT knowing how the war would turn out…would you have still supported Mussolini in his decision to become partners with Hitler’s Germany?
