of the Ionian Islands. Because of its status, Italian was also taught in schools alongside Greek and English (the Ionian Islands were a protectorate of the United Kingdom from 1815 until 1864). In the first year of secondary education, for instance, Greek was taught four times a week, Italian three times and English twice. In the 1907 Greek census, 4,675 people from the Ionian Islands stated Catholicism as their denomination, about 1.8% of the total population (254,494). At the same time, 2,541 Ionians (1.0%) gave Italian as their mother tongue, making it the second most frequent language by number of speakers. The Italian language remains popular on the islands. The Hellenic Union of Heptanesians, a civil non-profit organization working to promote Septinsular culture, objected to the Ministry's decision to abolish the teaching of Italian in schools, arguing that students had a "right to be taught the language they wish, and especially Italian" as "the preferred language in the Ionian Islands and beyond". They defend its place on the regional curriculum as "a tradition" and deem it "necessary (…) owing to the scale of Italian tourism as well as other, e.g. cultural and commercial ties with the country". These cultural remnants of the Venetian period were the pretext of Mussolini's desire to incorporate the Ionian Islands into the Kingdom of Italy. Even before the outbreak of World War II and the Greek-Italian War, Mussolini had expressed his wish to annex the Ionian Islands as part of his wider plans for an Italian Empire centered around the Mediterranean Sea. On 15 October, in a meeting in the Palazzo Venezia, he made the final decision to invade Greece. His initial goal was the occupation of Corfu, Zante and Cephalonia. After the fall of Greece, in early April 1941, the invaders divided its lands into three occupation zones; the Italians occupied much of the country, including the Ionians. Mussolini informed General Carlo Geloso that the Ionian Islands would form a separate Italian province through a annexation, but the Germans would not approve it. The Italian authorities nevertheless continued to prepare the ground for the annexation. Finally, on 22 April 1941, after discussions between the German and Italian rulers, German Adolf Hitler agreed that Italy could proceed with a annexation of the islands. From then on, until the end of the war, the islands passed through a phase of Italianization in all areas, from their