Italian colonists in the Dodecanese the island of Rhodes. Approximately 40,000 Italian soldiers and sailors were on military duty in the Dodecanese islands in 1940. The appointment of Fascist quadrumvir Cesare Maria De Vecchi as governor of the Italian Aegean Islands in 1936 marked a turning point. De Vecchi promoted a more vigorous and forceful program of Italianization, which was only interrupted by Italy's entry in World War II in 1940. Indeed, he promoted the possible unification of the islands to Italy as part of the fascist ideal of an Imperial Italy. During World War II, Italy joined the Axis Powers, and used the Dodecanese
Greece in the Balkan Wars promises of the Young Turks caused much enthusiasm both inside the Empire and in the Balkan states, but they gradually adopted a policy of forced "Ottomanisation", which, coupled with the parallel rise of Albanian nationalism, threatened the interests of the other Balkan states. Italy too, in search of a colonial empire, took advantage of the turmoil in the Ottoman Empire, attacking Libya and seizing the Dodecanese islands during the Italo-Turkish War. The Italians promised to cede the Greek-inhabited Dodecanese islands to Greece, but in the end kept them. This aroused indignation in Greece. Coupled with Bulgarian aspirations for Macedonia and