What is it about the Italian people that makes them suck at war en masse (IE when they are surrounded by other Italians, whether it is the country of Italy or the irrelevant shitty states they were forever), but absolutely shit stomp as commanders and soldiers in the service of other nations and peoples, as well as doing really well in individual combat?
Why does a population of people who are by all accounts rough and alpha as well as smart do so shitty at war when surrounded by each other, but so well when surrounded by others not like them?
1. Raimondo Montecuccoli, Marshal of the Holy Roman Empire considered the greatest general of early modern warfare who had significant defeats over both Le Grande Conde and Turrene
2. Ambrogio Spinola, General and Admiral for Spain who succeeded in crushing the Dutch Revolt for a time. Considered by many to be the greatest master of siege warfare in history owing to to nearly 100 successful sieges and 0 defeats in war.
3. Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, also in the service of Spain, considered one of the best ever "Spanish" generals who contributed to the crushing of the dutch revolt as well.
5. Andre Massena, Napoleonic Marshal, considered by many to be Napoleon's best and most capable military commander next to Davout. He was affectionately nicknamed "the darling child of victory".
Daniel Peterson
>Why does a population of people who are by all accounts rough and alpha as well as smart do so shitty at war when surrounded by each other, but so well when surrounded by others not like them?
my meme answer is that they cant work effectively together because everyone tries to be a stallion so theres no teamwork
6. Prince Eugene of Savoy, Marshal of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire, considered by many to be one of the greatest commanders in history, he dealt crushing defeats to the Turks, as well as the French in the War of Spanish Succession.
Landon Powell
Ah. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians and all that?
7. Ottavio Piccolomini, Marshal of the Holy Roman Empire during the 30 years war, considered one of the Empire's best generals in history, dealt crushing defeats to both the French and the Swedes who were at the time seemingly unbeatable on the battlefield
8. Fiore dei Liberi, fencing master who codified most of European swordsmanship in his work "the flower of battle", considered the greatest master of individual combat in Europe in his day.
9. Alessandro Dal Barro, Marshal of the Holy Roman Empire, dealt many crushing defeats to the Ottoman Empire and was so successful that he was nicknamed "the Terror of the Turks"
10. Occhiali, an Admiral of the Ottoman Empire and Barbary pirate born in Calabria who was kidnapped as a slave and through skill and bravery in combat and leadership alone came to be one of, if not the greatest Ottoman Naval commander next to Barbarossa
Jose Perry
si
Andrew Cruz
That's a very good question. Throughout the middle ages and renaissance the Italians produced excellent fighting manuals, weapons, armour, political theory and military theory, but in practice didn't co-operate and stabbed each rival city-state in the back.
Lack of a common goal I guess.
Ryan Campbell
Fioreist here, fuck yeah.
Don't forget Marozzo or dall'Agocchie though
Cameron Taylor
Yours is kind of a baseless premise, since only modern Italy was bad at war. From Rome and the italics to the lombard league and Venice, Italy kicked ass. Modern Italy however suffered from being an economically backward and resourceless, relatively small nation trying to take on world spanning imperial superpowers. It's hardly surprising that they have a shit (not even that shit) track record.
Luke Parker
Parma was a bastard from Charles the V and lived most of his life in Spain. He wasn't Italian
James Morales
>Parma was a bastard from Charles the V Are you implying Charles cucked his own son in law and knocked up his own daughter?
Joseph Taylor
Yes
James Allen
Italy won WW1 and de facto didn't lose WW2
Juan Carter
I mean ok, we're discussing Habsburgs, but that still seems unlikely.
Justin Butler
Yeah man, the Italians sure do suck at wa-
Lucas Stewart
The answer is quite simple and well known. Italian political corruption and the lack of an industrial base. In the service of other states which have systems based on merit, the best Italian generals could rise and command. This was never the case within Italy itself. There commanders formed the military component of the aristocracy. Just look at the Cadorna family. The first worked his way up through battle and won everlasting distinction for the capture of Rome. The second was a harsh peacetime commander who should have gone into retirement at the start of WWI. Instead he conducted the 11 battles of the Isonzo River and the war in the Alpine snow for Trentino. The collapse of the Italian army at Caporetto was the end result. Had it not been for French and British insistence he would not have been removed from command. The third Cadorna worked his way up like his grandfather, through battle.
In terms of industrial resources, Italy was behind by a large margin in both World Wars.
>Coal Production in 1914 >Britain 292 million tons >Germany 277 million tons >Austria-Hungary 47 million tons >France 40 million tons >Russia 36.2 million tons >Italy 0.9 million tons
Noah Watson
The coal thing is... kind of expected. The Italian peninsula has no coal deposits, and the ones in Sardinia could only do so much.
A better argument would be steel production, or at least production of derivate materiel.
Isaac Wright
>modern italy >that they have a shit (not even that shit) track record. >not even that shit
>Italians are this delusional lols
Elijah Wilson
>"the Terror of the Turks" how? Did he eat them?
Chase Bennett
You can't make steel without coal.
Ryan Watson
>crushing the Dutch Revolt for a time You wish Habscuck, he only surpressed parts of it. He never even crossed into Holland or Utrecht.
Parker Turner
>An acute summary of the mood of the troops came from patriotic writer Adolfo Omodeo, who observed that ‘the peasants of the prosperous, “fat”, Romagna are astonished to see the thin reddish soil of the Carso [west of Trieste] and ask their officers whether it has really been worth unleashing the wrath of God to conquer such piddling land’. >Given that family loyalty so often outweighed any sense of identity with the nation, it is no surprise to find that, among the Allies, Italy lay third behind Russia and Portugal in the proportion of its men who became POWs by the end of combat, with the tally of 530,000 not being many fewer than the total dead (578,000). The French gave up 446,300 POWs to 1,398,000 killed; the British 170,389 to 723,000. Among Italian POWs, the percentage of officers was low, about 3 per cent. The Italian dead amounted to 10.3 per cent of those mobilized (France 16.8, Germany 15.4, Australia 14.5 and Serbia an appalling 37.1 per cent). >More than 100,000 of the POWs did not make it back to Italy. Their mortality rate in the Austrian camps reached 20 per cent (and over 5 per cent in the German camps), with quite a few perishing from starvation.
Jonathan Phillips
Italy was fractured after the Roman empire into various city states the .ost powerful being Venice. Each state has its own military and fought amongst themselves more then anyone else. Many of these city states were republics and couldnt stand up to the the absolute rule and rescources that other European monarchs had. Italy as we know it united didnt exist until the 1800s.
Jonathan Jones
Unification was a mistake.
Jason Sanchez
Italians are more interested in killing eachother than any foreigner
Camden Campbell
The constant backstabbing gets under your skin after awhile. Still, fuck Genoa.
Landon Lee
Italians in Italy got their shit stomped all throughout the middle ages and early modern period up until unification (they were subjects of larger powers). Check out the Italian wars. Particularly the first italian war when the French invaded dood
Samuel Hill
Lel. No he wasnt. Check his genealogy ya dingus
Adam Ortiz
Their performance in WW1 is hardly something you could consider as winning... Battles of the Isonzo and Caperetto... Luigi Cadorna...
Kayden Ward
They were once amazing... how did it change and they stopped being so good so fast?
Joshua Price
He killed thousands of them in battle and died fighting them like a real man. He was 1000 times the man you will ever be... and not just in size compared to your scrawny virgin ass.
Alexander Sanders
What does this imply?
Andrew Rodriguez
Yeah. The Dutch revolt totally was doing awesome when Spinola was running a train on your irrelevant low country
Elijah Brown
why. the city states werent great at war
Ayden Robinson
Why Genoa??? What did they do?
Jeremiah Taylor
How exactly was the Lombard League so effective at defeating Barbarossa and the Army of the Holy Roman Empire? If I am not mistaken they were probably the most powerful force in the period right?
Isaac Carter
Didnt see Bohemond I. Guy was renown for his competence in the Byza tone campeigns, only to be turned around once to defend land at the call of the pope. He was of the best leaders for the first Crusade.
I know he was a "Norman" but im brash enough to accept him as an Itailian born leader. After all we can thank the Norman Italians for btfoing the muslims out of Sicily.
Charles White
They know what they did.
Ryan Nguyen
.... what did they do?
Did the Normans in Italy consider themselves Italian? Or Sicilian? Or firmly Norman...
I dont know if I can consider literal vikings as Italian or Italic people...
Daniel Ortiz
Genoese are like the poorer weaker version of Venetians who try to compensate by being the most perfidious and opportunistic of all the Italian states.
Daniel Sullivan
Normans is a contemporary term used. Though I know the Norman peoples of Royalty in northern and Central Europe held onto their title as hard as they could until they traded up. The Italizn Normans were consumed by the HRE.
Bohemond speifically was bastardized out of his Norman line so techniquically he was Italian. The Kingdom of Italy was of Roger I brother of Robert of Guiscard who was Seen as A Norman, but he married his heirs off and himself off to Non Normans as to sort of end the Norman line and create his own. (Though that is not factual, Im justmgoing off of what I know spis factual)
Michael James
In the case of Ww1 and 2 Italy >agriculture country with little to lagging industry >surrounded by larger, more developed, and stronger neighbours >shitty, shitty officer corps Rommel wrote that the average Italian soldier was as good as he could ask for, but their officer corps didn't give a fuck, staying miles from the front line, never venturing forward to assess the situation, etc
But like all foreign dynasties they became Italian over time. Cesere Borgia's father was born in Spain, but Cesere was basically Italian.
Landon Parker
>Why am I largely ignorant of any history past 100 years ago?
How does it feel to be outed as an idiot, mate?
William Watson
>city states were viable in the 19th century
lol
Xavier Myers
Cesar was a Spaniard that lived in Navarra most of its life
Evan Johnson
Italy officially lost only two of the wars they fought after unification(against Ethiopia in 1896 and against Albania in 1920). Performance is another story and most of their foes were unimpressive, but going by raw numbers their winrate is good.
