Neapolitan Empire

In this timeline Italy stays neutral for most of WWII before invading Germany and southern Europe, not stopping there fascist Italy conquers and annexes many North and east African nation.

Point of Divergence
Historically on June 10, 1940 Mussolini's Italy declares war on Britain and France and invades southern France, but in this time line Mussolini remains neutral, preferring instead to gather his strength, train his forces and join later on the winning side. The notoriously poor Italian soldiers and equipment had four more years to train and better themselves.

Declaration
On October 21, 1944 the city of Aachen becomes the first German city to fall to the allies, and sways Italy to join the war. On November 1, 1944 Mussolini declares Italy's declaration of war upon Germany, the allies welcomed this despite Italy being a fascist state. Italy had it's own reason for joining, Mussolini intended to annex any territories he liberated from German control. Over eight million Italian troops were ready to go to war.

The Balkans
Italy had conquered Albania in April, 1939 and already had a foothold in the area, Italian forces attacked occupied Greece on the very day war was declared, the unexpecting Germans were caught off guard. Several battalions stormed into northern Greece while forces landed on the Peloponnesian peninsula, at the same time Greek partisans were rising up all over the country, within a two weeks Athens all of Greece was in Italian hands.

Shortly after the fall of Greece Italy turned it's sights on Bulgaria, 250,000 troops from Greece marched into Bulgaria, the Germans were facing pressure from Russian forces and were outflanked by the Italian offensive. On December 2, 1944 Italian forces and Bulgarian partisans liberated the capital city of Sofia. The liberation of Bulgaria put Mussolini at odds with Soviet leader Josef Stalin, who wanted Bulgaria for his "Soviet Empire".

The Germans knew an invasion of Yugoslavia was imminent and began preparing, the only question was when and by whom. On Christmas Eve 1944 Italians launched a three pronged assault on Yugoslavia, the main forced attacked from Albania in the south, a second force attacked from Italy in the north and a third force landed on the Croatian coast. The Italian offensive was aided by the US Air Force who bombarded key German strongholds. Following the liberation of these nations Mussolini was hailed as a hero by the Balkan peoples.

Austria
Following their successes in the Balkans Mussolini ordered Austria to be liberated (Austria had been annexed by Germany) and he ordered General Pietro Badaglio to take it. Badaglio began his offensive on January 9, 1945 with 750,000 troops and 1,200 tanks the Italians stormed into Austria. The Italians were met with heavy resistance and their troops report many Germans fighting to the last man, even throwing debris when ammo ran out. Despite the resistance the Italians were able to advance quickly, partly due to the chaos in the German military command.

On April 9, 1945 the Austrian capital Vienna fell into Italian hands after over a month of urban combat. The Italian force continued north towards Munich, they arrived at the city on April 28th and liberated the Dachau concentration camp, the horrific sights disgusted and appalled the Italian soldiers who demanded that their officers bombard the city. The Italian artillery barrage lasted fourteen hours and killed almost four thousand Germans, the barrage ended with the arrival of US soldiers who joined with the Italians with an assault on the city, Munich was taken.