Italian Islands of the Aegean

The Italian Islands of the Aegean were an archipelago of fourteen islands — the Dodecanese, except Kastellorizo — in the southeastern Aegean Sea which, together with the surrounding islets, were ruled by the Kingdom of Italy from 1912 to 1943 and by the Italian Social Republic under German occupation from 1943 to 1945. The islands' Italian possession was confirmed when the Ottoman Empire formally renounced all claims on the Dodecanese with Article 15 of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. The provisional Italian regime on the islands, titled 'Rhodes and the Dodecanese' (Rodi e Dodecaneso), was originally in the hands of military governors until the appointment, on 7 August 1920, of Count Carlo Senni as the Viceroy of the Dodecanese; the seat of government was Rhodes. Through the 1500–1945 window shown on the map the islands' fate followed Italy's: Italian rule to 1943, German occupation thereafter, and after the war the islands were eventually ceded to Greece.