Mussolini as leader of Italy during WWII

During WWII Mussolini was the leader of Italy. During his time as leader he had great ambitions to expand Italy’s world presence, and he was very aggressive in trying to do so. Before the official beginning of WWII in Sept 1939 Mussolini had already sent his forces to capture Albania and Ethiopia and because of this the British and French Leaders began to see him a threat.
Like Hitler, Mussolini served in the First World War as a young man and dreamed of military glory in a Second War to come. He entered Italy into the War in 1940; and at this time it looked as though Germany would win it and England would either negotiate or eventually be defeated by an invasion and at the time he thought the war would be limited. He hoped to do the minimum amount of work in the war and get his place at the negotiating table. Some of the reasons Mussolini entered the war were he wanted to add some colonies to his country. Most major countries had colonized Africa and other land during the 19Th Century. Mussolini had declared the Mediterranean Sea as “Italy's sea”.
Mussolini joined forces with Germany as he knew that his military was not prepared for a major war and his armed forces were inadequate; also the Italian economy was weak and inefficient from the start. The Italian people were not to sure about going into the war so Mussolini influenced their decision by telling them that they can have all the land they want if they fight, employment, food and gain pride for their nation, combined with an economy that would be stable and growing and by telling them that there was no way they could lose the war.
After many years of fighting in North Africa against the British, the Italian people became dissatisfied with the leadership and Mussolini's popularity declined and in 1943 there was a popular uprising against Mussolini. German leaders had wisely predicted that there would be a turn of events and moved quickly and efficiently to disarm the Italian armed forces before they could be used by the new Italian government to attack Germany. In one of the most brilliant commando attacks of the war German units even raided the complex where Mussolini was being help captive and freed him. Mussolini was the dictator of Italy until 1943.
Near the end of the war in 1945 he was captured again by Italian partisans who murdered him and his mistress and then strung their mutilated bodies upside down in a north Italian town called plaza.