Be a nation of people that has continually produced some of the greatest military minds and commanders in history...

>Be a nation of people that has continually produced some of the greatest military minds and commanders in history, despite them always fighting for other countries nations
>Have a tough population with the individual soldier famously being regarded as brave and tough throughout all wars
>Have the legacy of the greatest militaristic empire in history
>Somehow the worst country in the world at war, with even the microstates it was once made up of being terrible at war on a small scale as well too

What did they mean by this?

It means unification was a mistake.

How can it be the worst when it won both WWs?

I blame Catholics.

Even the city states werent great at full on war, despite producing great individual fighters and commanders

Cmon. Germany lost two world wars as well. Are we gonna say they were bad at war too?

French are catholic...

>Are we gonna say they were bad at war too?
The strategists' own particular objectives determine whether a military operation or campaign is successful.

Defeat in these cases means you get to suffer things like the Treaty of Veirsailles, a country split in two, and reparations that are being paid even today.

If this is what means to be "good at war" these days, I wouldn't want my country to be "good at war." Ever.

Pic related, a monument to the victors in Tiergarten.

So by this rationale you would say Italians were very good at war? These sound more like Diplomatic failures than failures of war...

Anyone who expects a still largely agrarian society like Italy in the World Wars to perform as well as major industrial powers like Germany is a dumdum desu

ok but what about everything pre world wars?

>switching sides

>This meme

Didnt happen in WW1

in WW2 northern italy was axis until the end.

Given how young this country is, how actual world powers could play with its peoples like a chessboard before, during and after its unification, and how it went during the two World Wars (for example WWI debt was paid in 1970 and there was kind of another war in the middle...), it's something of a miracle that this particular country even exists in the first place.

And no, a military that goes to conquer territory, and gets the country with significantly less land that it originally held on its very continent as a consequence, never calls itself successful.

And with no shortage of Germans.

lol and why were world powers able to play with Italian city states like a chess board in the first place. Why couldnt they effectively fight and preserve their sovereignty. It goes back to my central question.

>Why couldnt they effectively fight and preserve their sovereignty
They took a third option. Warring and voting is how Italians got their country first, and current form of government second.

Germany was bad at war
They just happened to be really good at the tactical and sometimes the operational level and so the fact that they haven't won a war since 1871 tends to get overlooked.

I dont understand. What do you mean "third option"

So do you think you could reasonably say Italy was strategically smarter than Germany for the most part?

Inb4 "Napoleon was Italian"

transcendence is what they meant

what does that even mean

he was brah. Minor Tuscan nobility

>What do you mean "third option"
Lateral thinking musn't be your strong point. There is more to fight or flight.

A third option would be to become a world power, or at least something close to one, as opposed to have all these smaller states individually fighting (the first option) or submitting (the second) to the far larger national states of Europe.

I'll have you know my particular region became part of the then Kingdom of Italy by means of voting.

>So do you think you could reasonably say Italy was strategically smarter than Germany for the most part?
I don't think Sun Tzu was particularly popular in Germany.

>Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win
>Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak

>the best antique generals are all Italians
>the best rennaissance generals are all Italians
>the best french general of all time was an Italian
>the best spanish general of all time was an Italian
>the best austrian general of all time was an Italian
>Italy itself has a history of being militarily a joke

Really makes you ponder

Individualism

>Italy
>nation

Literally a meme.

Because the Roman army was crap until they recruited iberian and numidian soldiers.You should read about the punic wars.Italian soldiers despite intensive training were garbage and were always trashed by Hannibal while Scipio's Iberian and Numidian army BTFO Carthage's army.

WE

>the best spanish general of all time was an Italian
Since when are Castillians Italian

Just read about it.Rome just threw waves of soldiers against Carthage.It worked in the first punic war but it didn't work anymore in the second punic war when Carthage got a decent commander.So the republic was forced to launch an invasion of Spain allying with local tribesman that brought the only victories in the war.Also the Numidian succesion was key for Rome as the Numedian cavalry was the best in the world.Overall Italians have always sucked at war and relied on foreign mercenaries from Germans,Swiss,or Vandals to French Spanish or even Scottish

NOS

WAS

ROMANZ

>Somehow the worst country in the world at war, with even the microstates it was once made up of being terrible at war on a small scale as well too
The first part is a gross exaggeration and the second is laughably false.

t.Giusseppe Corleone Surrendini

T. I know only memes and I must post.

t.Giusseppe Corleone Surrendini

Ethnically yes.

100%

when italy unified and war became an aspect of industrial capacity Italy was still a rural country

>WWI
>The Strafenexpedition eats shit almost immidiately.
>A-H's navy gets its ships sunk in port more often than not because there are sybs trained to ride a torpedo to destination, then swim away.

>WW2
>Last Italian stronghold in Ethiopia surrenders only only almost a year of sieging and with only a bullet per soldier left.
>Cefalonia.

>A few orderless "Italian" (Italy didn't really exists between the 8th of September and the 25th of April) units surrenders to the Allies, then go backto War shortly After.
>"Hurr, Italians are surrendering cowards durr."

>>the best antique generals are all Italians
>Alcibiades
>Philip and Alexander
>Hannibal

*Italic

>Germany has never won a World War
>Italy has never lost a World War

>be Italian
>be alive

really makes you think

How much of that top bar do you think was self inflicted?

bout tree fiddy