Italian colonists in the Dodecanese especially in Rhodes and Leros. The Kingdom of Italy occupied the Dodecanese Islands in the Aegean sea during the Italian-Turkish war of 1911. In the 1919 Venizelos-Tittoni Agreement, Italy promised to cede the overwhelmingly Greek-inhabited islands, except Rhodes, to Greece, but this treaty was never implemented due to the Greek catastrophe in Asia Minor. With the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, the Dodecanese was formally annexed by Italy, as the "Possedimenti Italiani dell'Egeo". In the 1930s, Mussolini embarked on a program of Italianization, hoping to make the island of Rhodes a modern transportation hub that would serve as a focal
Dodecanese Regiment Dodecanese Regiment The Dodecanese Regiment or Regiment of the Dodecanesians () was an infantry regiment of the Hellenic Army composed to a large extent of volunteers from the Dodecanese Islands and was formed shortly after Greece entered World War II. The islands were under Italian occupation since 1912, and consequently the Dodecanesian Greeks had Italian citizenship, yet they were eager to fight against the Italian Army either in the Dodecanese or on the Albanian Front. On October 28, 1940, Italy invaded Greece and the Dodecanesian community in Athens saw it as the best chance to press for the liberation of