The Italian Army during the second world war was a Royal Army with King Victor Emmanuel III as Commander-in-Chief . However dictator and Prime Minister Mussolini and the facist party were in true control of the Italian Army even if he had to ask permission from the king. The Italian Royal Army had tested itself during the conquest of Ethiopia from 1935 to 1936, the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, and the invasion of Albania in 1939.