Germany and Japan are largely seen as the main aggressors throughout the war. However it should be noted that Mussolini did attempt to carve out his own Mediterranean empire. One that he sought to rival the ancient Romans with, this ultimately led to aggression in North Africa, however the Italians were quickly dispatched by a superior British force. Thus, the conflict there was relatively mild until Hitler summoned Rommel to lead a force there which effectively introduced the Afrika Corps to the African theatre. Upon the Germans into the African conflict, the fighting became more fierce and costly for both sides. Although Italy (it could be argued) solely caused the conflict in North Africa to come about, it was never able to inflict heavy casualties or establish itself as a component of the axis able to operate independent of German aid or influence. Whereas Japan and Germany were both aggressors on multiple fronts with complete military and economic autonomy.

Sorry to potentially hijack this thread, but did the Italians commit any atrocities in WW2? I mean, most people know about the Holocaust by the Germans and the Rape of Nanking by the Japanese, but I don't recall anything even close to that by the Italians.

My Google-fu only returns Yekatit 12 with a death toll of about 30,000 people according to the Ethopian sources, which isn't that much more than the 25,000 killed in the Dresden bombing by the Allies a few years later.

One key point is that Italy wasn't actually a belligerent until June of 1940, and despite the Pact of Steel and their ties to Germany it wasn't considered a given that they would enter the war until shortly before that.

Both Britain and the U.S. made attempts to keep Italy neutral, and it's possible that more competent and less complacent policies might have succeeded. In late 1939, there seemed to be a prevailing opinion in the British Foreign Office that Italy would stay neutral for the foreseeable future.

I would also point out the effect of contemporary Allied propaganda. Churchill enjoyed using Mussolini as a punch line as early as late 1941. It's difficult to paint Italy as equal to the dark, dangerous German Nazis when the Allies have been laughing at them for most of the war.

From a European perspective, WWII can be thought of as a continuation of WWI, or springing from the same roots. I.e. with the rise of nationalism, the industrialization of Germany, and the collapse of multiethnic imperial orders like Austria-Hungary, the political system of Europe underwent a rearrangement (I.e. the rise of new states like Germany, Italy, various successor states to Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire) that disturbed the 19th century's balance of power arrangement.

Of these new states clearly the most important and powerful one was Germany. And thus from a Western Europe-centric (English, French, even Russian) point of view, the two world wars are very much about how to deal with the rise of Germany and the disturbance in the pre WWI balance of power it entailed.

So, while Italy had imperial pretensions in Africa, and even claims on European French and Austrian territories, it simply wasn't powerful enough or pose such a drastic challenge to the old order, and that right in the heart of Europe, as Germany did.

In the Pacific likewise WWII boiled down to s struggle between Japan and the US for hegemony in the Western Pacific.

So from the perspective of Americans and Western Europeans, the two Axis countries that were the "main problem" or main antagonists in those two theatres were Germany and Japan, respectively.

To piggyback on this question, it's pretty much without doubt the Italian forces were militarily incompetent in WWII. Do modern historians basically agree with Paul Kennedy's argument in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers that this was because they rearmed too quickly and with inferior technology?

Sorry my bad English.

This thread is translated into Japanse on a Japanese site. Japanese are very angry and,at the same time,laughing at this discussion. If premises are not based on facts, the discussion will be a waste.

History is not fiction. History is not propaganda. If people believe Nanking massacre, they will show contempt of history.