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Italy enters World War II in 1940....



Item # 674111

June 10, 1940

HERALD EXPRESS, Los Angeles, 2nd WAR EXTRA, June 10, 1940

* Italy enters World War II - WWII (1st report)
* Benito Mussolini's announcement

The front page has a nice banner headline above the masthead: "ITALY DECLARES WAR" with subhead. Nice for display.
Complete 1st section only with pages 1 to 16, light toning and minor wear at the central fold and spine, generally good.

wikipedia notes: On 10 June 1940, as the French government fled to Bordeaux before the German invasion, declaring Paris an open city, Mussolini felt the conflict would soon end and declared war on Britain and France. As he said to the Army's Chief-of-Staff, Marshal Badoglio:

    I only need a few thousand dead so that I can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought.

Mussolini had the immediate war aim of expanding the Italian colonies in North Africa by taking land from the British and French colonies.

Of Italy's declaration of war, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, said:

    On this tenth day of June 1940, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.

Category: World War II