The Royal Italian Army (Regio Esercito), participated in World War II on the side of the Axis Powers on 1940.

The Royal Italian Army notably fought at the Balkans, Western Alps, North and East Africa and Russia until its defeat in 1943 by the Allies.

The nominal Commander-in-Chief of the Italian Royal Army was His Majesty King Vittorio Emanuele III.

However, in reality, most of the King's military responsibilities were assumed by the Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini.

Impressive on paper, most Italian divisions did not have the full complement of men or materials when war was declared in 1940.

The personnel, named Alpini, drawn from Italy's mountainous regions for the army's alpine divisions and tended to be of superior quality.

[5] By design, an alpine division consisted of a divisional headquarters, two Alpini regiments, a mountain artillery regiment, a mixed engineer battalion, a chemical warfare company, two reserve Alpini battalions, and divisional services.

In addition, they were poorly designed (main armament in a "fixed" position), far too few, too under-gunned, too thinly armoured, too slow, and too unreliable to make a difference.

[6] Once sufficient numbers of the M13/40 tanks and its upgrades were available, Italian armored divisions began to possess some offensive capability.

While always in short supply, 57 of the 90 mm guns were ordered to be mounted on heavy trucks (Autocannoni da 90/53) to enhance mobility.

In addition to 2,500 Libyan troops in 6 battalions, the Maletti Group included a colonial artillery element and 2 coy of armor: 12 M11 medium tanks and 14 L3 tankettes.

Italian tanks typically suffered from poor main armaments and thin, bolted-on armour.

The 50,000 to 75,000 strong "Corps of Volunteer Troops" (Corpo Truppe Volontarie, CVT) was of significant assistance to the Spanish Nationalist cause and was involved in the Aragon Offensive and the "March to the Sea."

[12] Unlike the German Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, Mussolini was officially only the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy.

Victor Emmanuel III remained Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Italian Royal Armed Forces.

[13] Mussolini made the mistake to believe that Britain would accept peace agreements with the Axis after France's surrender, and did not anticipate a long lasting war.

Italy declared war on 10 June 1940 and began the Italian invasion of France against the French army.

But the French were not quickly defeated on this front and all advances came at a high cost to the Italian army.

In August, the Italian Royal Army obtained Italy's only major victory in World War II without German assistance when it conquered British Somaliland.

In December 1940, British Commonwealth forces initiated Operation Compass which, by February 1941, had occupied Cyrenaica and destroyed the Italian 10th Army.

In January 1941, other British Commonwealth forces launched an invasion of Italian East Africa.

In March 1941, prior to the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, the Italian Royal Army launched an offensive against the Greeks which ended in failure, despite meaningful gains and at high costs.

A few weeks later the Axis forces of Germany, Italy, Hungary defeated the Yugoslavian army in few days.

The Axis victory was swift: on April 17, 1941, Yugoslavia surrendered after only eleven days, while Greece was fully occupied in May and was placed under the triple occupation of Italy, Germany and Bulgaria.

The Battle of El Alamein, lasting from July to November 1942, was the turning point of the war for the Italians and the Allies.

The Italian Royal Army fought this battle in a way that can be summarized by the sacrifice of the Division Folgore: the historian Renzo De Felice wrote that "...of the 5.000 "Folgore" paratroopers sent to Africa 4 months before, the survived were only 32 officers and 262 soldiers, most of them wounded.

Because of the chaotic way the Armistice was done, the Italian Royal Army (Regio Esercito) suffered a terrible crisis of leadership between September and October 1943.

With King Victor Emmanuel III and Marshal Pietro Badoglio in command, the Royal Army entered the war on the side of the Allies.

The first consisted of pre-military training which began at 18 and lasted until "the completion of the trainee's 20th year"; which was followed by being a conscript for 18 months after they turned 21.

[19] For an Italian soldier to serve in the North African campaign they needed to "...meet only basic requirements such as their teeth being in order or being in reasonable health".