The war goes back to the legacy of the Third Global War when the Kingdom of Italy was created and Italy became a powerful rival of the Byzantine Empire in the Mediterranean. They had built up a colonial empire by taking Libya in the Treaty of Rome, and establishing colonies in Eritrea, Somalia, and Tunisia. They had an army based on conscripition, as was common in Europe at the time, and it numbered at around 1,000,000 and a powerful navy of 4 battleships at the head of its fleet. The Byzantines, after the Reforms of 1898, had an army of 3,000,000 men, a navy of 8 battleshipsat its head, and their own air force, with 40 aircraft, all aerial scouts. The Italians had some aerial scout units, but they weren't their own military force.