ABSTRACT
Benito Mussolini pressed his generals to drive out of Libya into Egypt and out of Ethiopia into British and French Somaliland and the Sudan. The Italians took Sidi el Barrani and Mussolini was overjoyed: he himself dictated the headlines for the newspapers, and he telephoned Ciano in the middle of the night. The navy was ordered to track down the British fleet and make it give battle. Troops were hastily loaded aboard ships for which British submarines were lying in ambush. General Soddu, who even at the front was busy writing music for films, fell back on the Albanian ports. The most important goods were placed under rationing and, at virtually the same time, on the black market. The program proposed to Italians consisted in breaking the treaty of alliance with Hitler, concluding an immediate separate peace, and driving Mussolini out of power.
