From his accession to power in 1921, Benito Mussolini had delivered countless speeches to the Italian people vowing to restore Italy's military prowess and prestige to the levels of the ancient Roman Empire. In his speeches, Mussolini shared his dream of controlling the whole Mediterranean Sea which he referred to Mare Nostrum (Our Sea, in Latin), the same way as ancient Romans did.
In 1936, and acting against a mandate of the League of Nations, Mussolini ordered the invasion of Ethiopia and Eritrea, which the Italian troops conquered in a matter of weeks. Even though Mussolini had signed an alliance with Hitler's Germany, he decided to remain neutral and left Germany alone in its campaigns against Poland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium. Mussolini secretly made a bet against Germany, but as Germany was one week away from completing its conquest of France, the country with the largest army in western Europe, Mussolini declared war on the Allies (Britain and France) looking forward to obtain a sizable portion of land for the Italian "contribution" to the war. To the dismal of Mussolini, his armies were only able to conquer 2 square miles of French border territory, so Italy gained nothing from the fall of France.
Later on, Mussolini made failed attempts to increase Italy's possessions around the Mediterranean Sea: 1) invaded Albania and failed, 2) invaded Greece and failed, 3) invaded Britain-controlled Egypt and failed. In view of hi ally's spectacular and humiliating failures, Hitler sent German troops to all these areas bail out Mussolini's troubled troops. As of 1941, it became clear that Mussolini's ambitions to bring back the success and prestige of the Roman Empire were all gone.