Italy

Italy is a nation in southern Europe on the Mediterranean Sea.

Italy in Southern Victory
Italy was a founding member of the Central Powers alliance system with Germany, Austria-Hungary and the United States. However, when Austria-Hungary invoked this alliance in 1914 in preparation for a war against Russia (which developed into the Great War), Italy refused to participate, claiming the war was not a defensive war on Vienna's part.

Italy remained neutral throughout the war, much to the frustration of the Germans and Austro-Hungarians who wanted access to its strategic locations. Italy was briefly courted by the Entente but nothing came of this.

Despite its neutrality, Italy granted full diplomatic recognition to the Republic of Quebec upon that nation's inception in 1916.

Italy in Worldwar
Italy was allied with Germany in the Axis in 1942. During World War II, it fought British forces in North Africa and had also contributed troops to Germany's 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union.

When the Race's Conquest Fleet landed in 1942, it quickly conquered Italy, and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was overthrown. (He was imprisoned but was later freed in a raid by Otto Skorzeny and eventually found himself in the United States.) The Race used Italy as one of several points from which to launch an invasion of Germany. The Germans retaliated by destroying the city of Rome with an atomic bomb smuggled into the city by submarine.

At the Cairo Peace Conference, German representative Joachim von Ribbentrop demanded that the Race cede Italy to Germany, and Italy was annexed to the Greater German Reich.