Fascist Italy (1922-1943) in the context of "Vito Genovese"

On December 11, 1941, Italy declared war on the United States. The declaration followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor four days earlier, and came the same day as Germany's declaration of war against the United States. Benito Mussolini publicly made the announcement in Rome on December 11. Shortly before Mussolini's speech, Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano delivered the news to the head U.S. diplomat in Italy, George Wadsworth II.

The Italian, German, and Japanese governments had all signed the Tripartite Pact in 1940, formally allying the three powers with one another. Italy and Germany also signed the Pact of Steel military alliance in 1939. Italy had declared war on the United Kingdom and France on June 10, 1940, as Mussolini implemented the Pact of Steel and leveraged the German alliance to win advantages for Italy. Prior to Hitler's declaration of war against America there was little, if any, doubt that Italy would once again "follow Germany's lead."

The Battle of Guadalajara (March 8–23, 1937) saw the victory of the Spanish Republican Army (Ejército Popular Republicano, or EPR) and of the International Brigades over the Italian and Nationalist forces attempting to encircle Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. The Nationalist forces involved in the Battle of Guadalajara were primarily the Italian Corps of Volunteer Troops (Corpo Truppe Volontarie, or CTV).

The battle opened with an Italian offensive on 8 March. This offensive was halted by 11 March. Between 12 and 14 March, renewed Italian attacks were supported by Spanish Nationalist units. These were halted too. On 15 March, a counter-offensive of the Republicans was prepared; it was successfully launched between 18 and 23 March. The battle was decided by the superiority of Soviet armoured vehicles over Italian ones; in Britain, the defeat of Italian forces drew mocking comments by former-UK Prime Minister David Lloyd-George, who called it "the Italian skedaddle".

During World War II, the Spanish State under Francisco Franco espoused neutrality as its official wartime policy. This neutrality wavered at times, and "strict neutrality" gave way to "non-belligerence" after the Fall of France in June 1940. In fact, Franco seriously contemplated joining the Axis powers in support of his allies Italy and Germany, who brought the Spanish Nationalists into power during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). On June 19th, he wrote to Adolf Hitler offering to join the war in exchange for help building Spain's colonial empire. Later in the same year Franco met with Hitler in Hendaye to discuss Spain's possible accession to the Axis. The meeting was unsuccessful, but Franco did help the Italians and the Germans in various ways.

Despite ideological sympathy, Franco stationed field armies in the Pyrenees to deter Axis occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. The Spanish policy frustrated Axis proposals that would have encouraged Franco to take British-controlled Gibraltar. Much of the reason for Spanish reluctance to join the war was due to Spain's reliance on imports from the United States. Spain also was still recovering from its civil war, and Franco knew his armed forces would not be able to defend the Canary Islands and Spanish Morocco from a British attack.