From the time Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, it was at war; there in East Africa, behind Franco in Spain, conquering Albania, and finally allied with Hitler in the twentieth century’s greatest calamity. If the imperial conquests pleased and even rallied Italians to the fascist – or at least the Nation’s – cause, the alliance with the Nazis, the repercussions of ongoing warfare, and the perception that Italy might not come out victorious meant that the Duce’s star had begun to fade.