I often hear that Italy performed poorly in WW2 due to the Army being in a poor state and worse than it was in WW1. But this begs the question, why?
If Mussolini improved and industrialized Italy, and the military budget was increased, why on earth was the army in such a bad state?
Shithouse officers and a resulting lack of motivation, no inter-service cooperation, different units receiving different pay for the rank, Mussolini withholding equipment from offensives and then complaining when they don't advance fast enough. It was pretty much a shitshow the average soldiers valor or skill couldn't do much about
Okay, but what about the material issues? Divisions not having enough equipment, barely enough men mobilized, etc?
Luigi Cadorna being a terrible commander isn't just a meme. It is a meme, but it is a meme based firmly in truth.
*attacks your river*
>Divisions not having enough equipment, barely enough men mobilized, etc?
That's just how they organized their divisions before 1938, 2 regiments instead of 3, they didn't have the time to finish the reorganization
WW2, retard.
Reorganization, sure, but where did all the material go? I remember reading barely a third of the italian armed forces were fully equipped. Why a supply shortage?
Italian industry couldn't keep up, Italy needed another year of peace at least to have enough trucks and artillery
>If Mussolini improved and industrialized Italy
It was nowhere near enough.
>Mussolini's Under-Secretary for War Production, Carlo Favagrossa, had estimated that Italy could not possibly be prepared for major military operations until at least October 1942. This had been made clear during the Italo-German negotiations for the Pact of Steel, whereby it was stipulated that neither signatory was to make war without the other earlier than 1943. Although considered a great power, the Italian industrial sector was relatively weak compared to other European major powers. Italian industry did not equal more than 15% of that of France or of Britain in militarily critical areas such as automobile production: the number of automobiles in Italy before the war was around 374,000, in comparison to around 2,500,000 in Britain and France. The lack of a stronger automotive industry made it difficult for Italy to mechanize its military. Italy still had a predominantly agricultural-based economy, with demographics more akin to a developing country (high illiteracy, poverty, rapid population growth and a high proportion of adolescents) and a proportion of GNP derived from industry less than that of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Sweden, in addition to the other great powers. In terms of strategic materials, in 1940, Italy produced 4.4 megatonnes (Mt) of coal, 0.01 Mt of crude oil, 1.2 Mt of iron ore and 2.1 Mt of steel. By comparison, Great Britain produced 224.3 Mt of coal, 11.9 Mt of crude oil, 17.7 Mt of iron ore, and 13.0 Mt of steel and Germany produced 364.8 Mt of coal, 8.0 Mt of crude oil, 29.5 Mt of iron ore and 21.5 Mt of steel. Most raw material needs could be fulfilled only through importation, and no effort was made to stockpile key materials before the entry into war. Approximately one quarter of the ships of Italy's merchant fleet were in foreign ports at the outbreak of hostilities, and, given no forewarning, were immediately impounded.
>If Mussolini improved and industrialized Italy, and the military budget was increased
Because the rest of the world also improved and industrialized, except they did it better.
OP, get this book. amazon.com
While it's not entirely about Mussolini, you can't discuss the Mediterranean theater of WW2 without going into Italy. But for a very quick tl;dr, I would say as follows:
Italy didn't have a poor army. Italy had a poor government, which led to a poor army, and everything else too. Mussolini didn't enjoy the kind of broad or deep support that other totalitarian regimes did, and would ultimately be dismissed from service come the Allied invasion of the mainland. He couldn't stay secure in the people's adulation the way someone like Hitler could. As a result, he could only keep power by making sure none of his ministers or other senior governmental officials had any power, and went out of his way to constantly reshuffle thins and change policy quickly to prevent anyone from doing an indispensable job.
This might have kept Mussolini in office, but it was shit for getting anything done, and it wasn't just the military that suffered.
Just checking to see what it was.
There are certain things the Italians cannot do. One is mass producing anything of quality, and two is winning a war decided by your capability to mass produce supplies.
>One is mass producing anything of quality
The Macchi 202 was a great aircraft
>Italy didn't have a poor army.
Get a load of this retard.
People often think the general Italian soldier was the problem and it pisses me off
In reality, their officer corps was fuckign atrocious in both wars
>the Army being in a poor state and worse than it was in WW1
Mussolini fought how many battles of the Isonzo?
Compared to WW1 for Italy, WW2 was an improvement.
State=/=Performance
Italy was better equipped and had a larger force in ww1.
>better equipped and had a larger force
That's why they suffered so many more casualties in WW1?
and they did shit all with it but get a lot of men killed for nothing. At least they had some semblance of success in the early stages of WW2
Poor command was why.
Loogi had grand ideas
>What was Operation Compass
Its existence proved that italy had at least gained a little land and therefore required Operation Compass to take it back in the first place. They never even got that far in WW1, they couldnt gain one inch the whole damn war. If that wasnt bad enough, it was against the austrians, who are their only competition for worst performance in WW1.
Italy was just awful.
It's important to remember here that Italy and Japan had about the same level of industrial capacity.
Except Italy spent like 10% of GDP towards the war effort whereas Japan spent 50+%.
The Italians had advanced into the Austrian Littorial and during WW1. Also it's very hard to advance through heavily prepared defenses in the fucking alps. And not to mention that once a competent Italian general is on the scene it takes like 9 months for the Italians to cause the entire Austro-Hungarian empire to cease existing.
10% more, but it definitely stagnated.
The Italians are pretty successful in WW1 in reality. People like to meme about the battles of the Isonzo river. But the Italians don't have a major fuckup until Capporetto. Whereas the British and French have collosal fuckups repeatedly. The Italians actually make gains into Austrian lands and hold them. Not to mention it makes sense why the Italians were stopped at the Isonzo if you know anything about geography. The Isonzo river is incredibly prone to flooding and for most of WW1 rainfall was way higher that it typically was in the region normally. The Isonzo is also located in an incredibly mountainous region and the Austrians almost always held the high ground.
It's more a matter of shitting on Cadorna for attacking, as you say yourself, extremely unfavourable conditions, all it succeeded in doing was severely demoralizing his troops, and leading to pointless deaths.
They definitely got the aesthetics right, a shame they didn't perform so well.
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They simply weren't motivated to fight for the fascist cause.
Weak industry, old weapons because Mussolini invested a lot into them in 20´s, but G*rmans autism was the greatest problem, Italy wasnt prepared in 1940
Medshits didn't have the organizational skills and have fallen as a race. Same reason every single medshit country has a second-world economy in 2017, while the aryan ones carry the EU.
does the plume mean he's a bersaglieri, or were they not the only group with stuff like that at the time?
>G*rmans autism
Yeah, you're so cool, but read a bit before you post on a history board:
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
or I think it does mean he's a Bersaglieri.
Can you reat retard? If war started sooner, Italy could make it.
Italian soldiers were not inferior fighters
Rommel valued them alot in Tunisia and when given proper command by German superior (kinda like what the empire did in the Great War) they've done pretty well for themselves
any source on that claim? The Greeks had worse equipment and armies than the Italians, and the Italians still fucked up.
Against the British they had no chance at any point.
Are you realy that autistic? Do you understand that Italian army was in middle of reorganization?
>Do you understand that Italian army was in middle of reorganization?
Doesn't mean shit in an industrial war against Britain, maybe against Greece.
If you look at this article you see Italy didn't have a chance: Do you understand that Italian army was in middle of reorganization?
>Are you realy that autistic?
How about coherent arguments and a source instead of insults?
*forgot the link:
en.wikipedia.org
Most Italians just didn't want to go to war
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Italy was waaay behind the arms race and training their army in general.
This and they chose their fights poorly and it was always in the back of the generals heads (hitler will come if this fails)
Thats why,
DAS NÄCHSTE MAL OHNE ITALIEN!!
Mussolini was just the prime minister dealing with the king and the aristocracy and the church and ...
Aristocratic officers had as much to fear from the enemy than to their own subordinates that for all he knew could be an assorted rabble of anarchists, communists, socialists, etc
Italians are naturally incompetent, it is in their nature to fail.
Deutschland hätte auch ohne Italien verloren.
1st nice quads bro.
2nd producing good equipment takes time,so does training the soldiers to use them,
3rd You can have the best soldier on earth but if the logistics are shit they can't do jack squat.
PIC unrelated