Cecil Rhodes a one-off gun named Long Cecil. Rhodes used his position and influence to lobby the British government to relieve the siege of Kimberley, claiming in the press that the situation in the city was desperate. The military wanted to assemble a large force to take the Boer cities of Bloemfontein and Pretoria, but they were compelled to change their plans and send three separate smaller forces to relieve the sieges of Kimberley, Mafeking and Ladysmith. Although Rhodes remained a leading figure in the politics of southern Africa, especially during the Second Boer War, he was dogged by ill health throughout
Military history of Italy during World War II initial success. However, German and Japanese actions in 1941 led to the entry of the US and the USSR in the War, thus ruining the Italian plan and postponing indefinitely the objective of forcing Britain to agree to a negotiated peace settlement. The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was aware that Italy (whose resources were reduced by pre-WWII military interventions, albeit successful, in Spain, Ethiopia and Albania) was not ready for a long conflict against three superpowers but opted to remain in the war as the imperial ambitions of the Fascist regime, which aspired to restore the Roman Empire in the