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Not to downplay Italian soldiers, but the main reason was probably that their primary opponent, Austria-Hungary, was busy fighting Russia for most of the war. After the Russians were neutralized in 1917, the 12th battle of the Isonzo, which was the Austrian’s only major offensive on the Isonzo front, was one of the most successful breakthroughs of the war.
@@vilheim4753to be Fair,even today when the situation became a stallmate,It become a trench war..in these Mountains weren't impossibile using something different from artillery and infantry.. tank were not yet invented and aircraft were too early
No. There biggest problem was cowardice. The Italian army couldn't and can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. You can pull bits and pieces here and there but if you know ANYTHING about ww1 or 2 you would know this cherry picking is bullshit.
Outside of Luigi Cadorna, the Italians were nightmare for the Austro-Hungarian forces to deal with. They most certainly weren't cowards, but badasses. And not just the Arditi, but all Italian soldiers that fought there were legends.
Well done Simple History,well done. As an Italian i'm proud that we got a video about the tales of heroism of the Arditi(The bold ones) and the soldiers of my country 🫡
Fun fact: The most feared Italian troops in WWI, by the AustroHungarians, was the "Brigata Sassari" (Sardinian Sassari Brigade) that was called by the AustroHungarians "Dimonios" mean "Devils". The AH was running when this Rgt. Was coming around. Still today the Sassari Brigade keep the "Dimonios" name and Hymn, to remember their heroic acts during WWI.
The Asiago War Memorial is a World War I memorial located in the town of Asiago in the Province of Vicenza in the Veneto region of northeast Italy. Surrounded by mountains that were the site of several World War I battles, the monument houses the remains of over 50,000 Italian and Austro-Hungarian soldiers and is a popular destination for travelers to the region. In Italian the memorial is typically called Sacrario Militare di Asiago or Sacrario Militare del Leiten. Leiten is the name of the hill on which the memorial sits.
Honestly, "Grenadier's Leap" sounds more badass than Kamikaze that just means "Divine Wind" and more awesome because you actualy have to do the self destructing yourself instead of having a machine do it
My great grandfather Serafino was in the Alpine trenches and had won a golden medal and silver medal for bravery around 1916 in a year after our war began La patria non ha dimenticato i soldati morti de l'Italia! Viva la Patria Italiana!
@@FlagAnthemhmmm.. nah they never did this these maps are completly different nothing similar to reality you seriously think Monte Grappa and Dolomites were that small like in Bf1?
It's time To defeat the Italian reputation of cowardice once and for all. For all people still saying that the Italians are cowards then study the military history of Italy in both world wars . Anyway. Thanks for making this video Simple History.
Italians performance in both world war is embarrassing. They side with the axis and central powers thinking it would be an easy victory but then betrayed them when things turns the other way..
@@lespaulguitarist921. Italians in WWI did great. Foghting alone an Empire, the A/H one. Only when Germany assisted the A/H Empire with reinforcements, the Italians lose some battles (but fighting 1 vs 2 nations). And no, until the last phases of WWI there was no help of French or English, that was having their issue in the western front at Verdun and Somme. 2. WWII. Italy was dragged in that war without any economy or bellic industry, coming from WWI efforts and immediately after the Spanish Franco's war (where Italy was foughting and spending the few resources they had to stand at Franco's army side). Still with no resources and with an outdated equipment the Italians was standing for years vs the whole world. And go to read the histories of Teseo Tesei or Rosario Randazzo. Or what the Italians did at the Izbushenski Battle. Then come again here to write your chit chat. 3. Italy betrayed no one, nor in WWI and neither in WWII. But to know that you should have a brain and have studied history.
@@lespaulguitarist92 Italian army in both world wars were good they were just unprepared and the italian army was very disorganized in both world wars but never weak.
I'm italo-argentinian, my great grandfather Antonio spend three months on the frontlines untill he fell very ill and almost die in a field hospital, when recover was passed to second line. Told stories of areas where you had to step on dead soldiers because there was no free ground. I was little when he died but remember him well, a small and funny but very tough man.
@@OverlordGrizzaka Surely you jest? It has been hundreds of years since the white man appeared in the SA and caused much events. It would be calling local Argentinians as Spanish, something that may or may not be received with irrational amounts of disdain.
@@bigchungus5065 Argentine culture and way of be in general, "la argentinidad", is much more close to italian culture than spanish. Argentina is considered the second Italy by a lot of argentinians and italians. In fact, Italy helped us in secret during the Malvinas War.
@@me.ne.frego. Ah yes, Islas Malvinas, the correct name for the island famous for the Thatcher incident. Didn't know of the significant Italian influence, reminds me how Pope Francis despite being from Argentina also has Italian descent.
I get the feeling the SH team know about or have played the WW1 game series (Verdun, Tannenberg, and more recently Isonzo). If not, y'all would love it.
Finally! Many falsehoods have been told about Italian soldiers. They fought with immense courage on the Alpine front. Only the ignorant speak the opposite.
The Battle of Asiago or the Südtirol Offensive, nicknamed Strafexpedition by the Austro-Hungarian forces, was a major counteroffensive launched by the Austro-Hungarians on the territory of Vicentine Alps in the Italian Front on 15 May 1916, during World War I. It was an "unexpected" attack that took place near Asiago in the province of Vicenza after the Fifth Battle of the Isonzo. Commemorating this battle and the soldiers killed in World War I is the Asiago War Memorial.
This channel has come a long way and it makes me happy. Looking at the animation differences before 100k subs to now is night and day! Never stop teaching random people of the internet please 🙏
There’s a monument for the Alpini (Italian mountain troops) overlooking lake Como, it read, “in the century after their creation, in memory to the fallen of all wars”
Not sure it's the right niche but if anyone's brutally interested in hard-core Italian warfare (especially Medieval) I strongly recommend Schwerpunkt's relative videos series
The Mechanized Brigade "Granatieri di Sardegna" is a mechanized infantry brigade of the Italian Army, based in Rome and central Italy. The brigade fields one of the oldest regiments of the Army and is one of the guard regiments of the President of Italy. The name of the unit dates back to the Kingdom of Sardinia and not the eponymous Mediterranean island of Sardinia. The brigade is part of the Division "Acqui".
non ha nulla a che vedere con isola di sardegna,? ma queste notizie dove le ha trovate ? caspita se ha attinenza con isola che è la portatrice del regno di sardegna , tra cui il reggimento è stato finanziato poi creato in brigata dal duca sardo don Bernardino Antonio Genovese duca di san pietro
I love how you guys used a lot of the backgrounds from the game I so so which is a ww1 game set in the italian front from the top of mount marmolada fighting in glaciers to fighting in caperetto attacking or defending gorizia whilst blowing up bridges when retreating! So this is really well made!
Little known fact, in ww2 Italian commandos teams managed to infiltrate an rn port completely undetected (twice), the first time with manned torpedos underwater at night, and 2nd in broad daylight using pt boats. They managed to sink 1 heavy cruiser, heavily damage another, and damage 2 battleships to put them out of service for ast least 1 week to a month
Another little know fact: the commander of that frogmans of the Flottiglia X-MAS) was Teseo Tesei. He and another Frogman leaded a manned torpedo under a british ship, but the timer of the bomb wasn't working, so both Teseo Tesei and his comrade decided to manually activate the bomb under the ship, sacrifying themselves.
Monte Cengio is a mountain in the Asiago plateau, within the Vicentine Alps, in Veneto, northeastern Italy. It has an elevation of 1,354 metres and is located on the southwestern edge of the plateau, in the territory of Cogollo del Cengio. The mountain was heavily contested during the Battle of Asiago in the First World War; the Grenadiers of Sardinia distinguished themselves in the fighting, suffering heavy losses. Over 10,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing on Monte Cengio between May and June 1916. A rocky spur overlooking a ravine, near the top of the mountain, became known as salto del granatiere after some grenadiers, who had been surrounded there and had run out of ammunition, grabbed some of the Austro-Hungarian attackers and jumped off the cliff along with them. In 1967 Monte Cengio was declared "sacred to the Fatherland" and proclaimed a monumental area. Wartime galleries and roads are part of the monumental area and are visited by hikers.
@@FlagAnthem it wasn't an alliance, was a three way defensive pact (a lot different than an alliance). That pact stated on Article 7 that no membera of the defensive pact should have becomed an aggressor, otherwise the pact would have been immediately considered null and the member natuons returni g automatically to a Neutral status. Rome warned many times Vienna to diplomatically resolve the issue of the Prince assassination in Serbia, citing the Article 7, but Vienna refused to listen Rome and declared war on Serbia. So AH becomed aggressors, the pact was nullified and Italy and Germany becomed Neutral. Lather Germany, for their own interests choose to sign an alliance with AH and Italy for his own interests decided as neutral, to enter in war vs AH. So at the end of the day, everyone did what was best for their nations, but the one that betrayed the defensive pact was the AH.
“We’ve looked at your content carefully, and have confirmed that age restrictions are still appropriate. We know it may be disappointing, but it’s important that we keep the RU-vid community protected.” Meanwhile RU-vid’s response after Sssniperwolf commits a felony: DUHRRRRRR IM BLIND
I can't help but notice that several of these scenes are directly traced from the indie video game 'Isonzo', based off this front. 5:02 Both of these locations in succession are from thr 'Dolomiti' and 'Grappa' maps respectively, which are very recognizable points if you've played this game considering they are major objectives
I have couple timestamp videos of these exact locations as they appear ingame For example, here is Dolomiti's final objective: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-QJeJnoAL6ws.html And here we can see a specific sabotage objective from Grappa: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-QJeJnoAL6ws.html While these locations are obviously based off the same front that this video is talking about, the fact that several props, light shading, and perspective angles are in the same exact places evidently show how copied this is, with no obvious credit to Blackmill Games, the indie development lead of Isonzo
@@greggrace967We'll have to wait and see, since the video literally just came out. Otherwise, this counts as plagiarism and could go somewhere if noticed, especially due to lack of credit
@@theluiginoidperson1097 Who cares though? Cartoons in a informative video that look slightly like some places from an old video games- that doesn’t matter
I feel Austro Hungarian bravery, loyalty, mercy, and tactical genius has been scuffed by the German Army, yet still, Austro Hungarian held one of the largest fronts in modern history, with less industry, man power, war crimes, and fell due to a single idiot general (Hodzeldorf) and a emperor who was to merciful to his enemy and people to rule. And if you wanna question loyalty My family descends from Slavic peasants, and how they loved there emperor…
Do you know any good references for this part of the war? I really don't know much about the Austro-Hungarian part of the war besides what's just common knowledge in America, which isn't much.
@@brycenlanager1216 To put in perspective just how angered most people were at the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, A man who proposed the triple alliance by putting the Slavic country’s into a state of independence similar to that of Hungary, but back to the point, there were multiple hangings, murders, and harassments started by rioters who began attacking Serbs as retribution for the died Archduke, it didn’t help that the man in charge of governing Bosnia Herzegovina, held the died Franz Ferdinand in his arms at the shooting, but this was not just a governmental response, Catholic, Muslim and Orthodox Croats and Bosnians came to arms, and all the soldiers were Bosnia, which this yes is tragic and I do not justify it, but it should go to prove that Slavs may not have loved Austro Hungarian rule, but they could appreciate that the crown did care about them and wanted to persevere there culture
You ever realize how much warfare comes down to just being able to throw more lives/equipment at the enemy. Pretty much describes Germany's experience in WW1 as a whole and in the eastern front in WW2
Can you make a video about the chaos that followed the end of the first world war in Hungary? I think it is interesting, and not much people know about it. 🇭🇺🇭🇺🇭🇺
Italy never was or is militarly inept. They simple doesn't had an economy, resources or a bellic industry at the time, as other countries had. To strategically and tactically overcome the enemy. Abd by the way if Italians where militarly inept in WWI immagine what was AH that lost vs them, also with the German help.
As an Austrian its always amazing to think of how we were able to hold the italian front, despite being an dying empire and fighting on several fronts with low moral. (I mean big parts of the empire didnt even want to be part of the empire not even all austrians)
The more i look into WW1, Germany and Austria-Hungary had several instances of near breakthroughs that they had to abandon because of another front being assaulted by another of the Entente Powers. Literally suffering from success.
About time. Thank you for that. Do something about WW2 too. So many stereotypes of italians being cowards, meanwhile it was recorded that many (ex. El alamein) "died on the spot, with hands firm on their machine guns"
Are you mentioning the terrible defeat of Caporetto of which the grease head of Badoglio was of the reasons of this terrible defeat? Not happy he signed the armistice with the allies leaving over about 600,000 troops in the Balcainc area and the rest of the army without orders. When the disaster of Caporetto was realised seeing an division in retreat it was the only time the Italian government panicked by ordering the Carabinieri, military police, to shoot anybody retreating. Apparently the ruthless method worked because because the troops realised that it was better to fight the enemy!
I appreciate the uncommon dedication for a piece of history that usually is not considere as "importanto history" by the point of view of the normal anglosaxon culture, but there some mistakes, and I sense the usual prospective of real strong anglosaxons winner of all the wars, speking of "mediterraneans " with non so hidden "compassion" instead of an "real historical analysis". "punish expedition" was a name given to the Austrian-ungarina plan only by our ( italian) propaganda ( it works perfectly still). Italian trups were not imprepared, but they were under numbered, and the attak was massive; no italian regiment fled, they fought every austrian advance, manteining and standing in one of the last position. After mount Cengio there waere other defensible places but not good as the Cengio, but, Monte Cengio is not at the begining of the "venetian plane" in ti son "Astico valley" wich was reinforced. You confused the uniforms of "granatieri" ( grenadieres) with "alpini", ( alps mountain soliers). Only aplpini have the black eagle quill on the hat. Tey were the counter part of the austrian "alpen jeger", and as allied commanders ( in both wars) admitted, the alpini were the best montain troops of the wars.
Italy in WWII was still deeply immersed in WWI post war economic crisis, that's why they performed so badly in WWII. It was a country with no economy, without a bellic industry, coming also from the huge effort of the Franco's Spanish war where Italy goes to fought at Franco's side. In few words, Italy was not even closely prepared for a conflict of that proportion.
@@solinvictus1234 absolutely not. America and Germany had the pre war economy to switch from peace to wartime production that wasn’t there in Italy. While the other major powers of the war were pumping out planes and tanks, the Italians were fielding vespas
@@DB-jc5ns Dude, Vespas comes 1 years after WWII. If you want to talk about history, at least study it. And by the way it took at least a decade to prepair an army to face a major war of that scale, and only if have resources and a solid economy. A thing Italy haven't that time.
@@DB-jc5nsyeah, the commands, equipment and resources of italy in ww2 were embrassing... if u want to more about italy in ww2, you can search in google " 101 italian victories in ww2" its not propaganda but the opposite.
The map at 1:07 has several mistakes. It’s “Arco” not “Arce” and it should be further north. Riva should be where Arco is. Also it’s “Castiglione” not “Costiglione” and “Mantua” not “Mantuo”. The name of the general was “Cadorna” not “Cardona”. The abundance of mistakes diminishes the credibility of an educational channel.
Can I afford to make a correction? the strafexpedition (or battle of the plateaus, in Italy) had nothing to do with the Caporetto offensive. the Battle of Caporetto was proposed by the Austrian high command only after the 11th Battle of the Isonzo given that the Italians had almost managed to break down the lines in that battle
"Qui, rinnovando l'imperativo sublime della resistenza ad ogni costo, la falange dei Granatieri di Sardegna diede corpo al verbo sacrificio sul campo di monte Cengio". En: "Here, in name of magnificent commandment of the resistence by all cost, the phalanx of Granatieri di Sardegna gave body to sacrifice on Mount Cengio's field".
Great joke. But actually the historical revisionism was debunked by the Harward University that after having studied for years the conflict of WWII in north Africa and having acquired actual historical war documents and war journals, knowed that most of the Australian historians was giving to Germany the credit of crucial victories on the Aussies, that was actually merit of the Italians. And how in reality the Italians litterally wiped out the Aussies in North Africa (included the Aussies "heroes of Tobruk"). Was also discovered how the Italian Bersaglieri was costantly chasing and defeating the infamous British "desert rats" that was litterally fleeying from the Italians, to save their lives.
@@solinvictus1234 I know. As far as I know, even Rommel admtted that Italians fought well, if properly lead. There were also more Italians than Germans in North Africa, so it makes sense.... Another joke is from WWI, when it was stated from the Axis: If the Italians go against us, we need two divisions to hold the passes. If they go with us, we need seven, to ensure they do their job.... Looking on the battles of Isonzo, eleven were Italian attacks, which were more or less futile. The twelwth was an Austro Hungarian attack, which was a break through. Aslo known as Caporetto, which earned Rommel his fame....
@@Lassisvulgaris Some misconceptions, or lack of informations, by you there. As i've already explained to another user, the Italians lacked huge artillery fire, that tactically and strategically is what you need to conquering an entrenched enemy. If you don't have a massive artillery fire, the only way to fight an entrenched enemy is to assault his defensive position, period. The Italians back there did no more and no less what Ukrainians today are doing with Russian, with the difference that Ukrainians have tons of artillery gived by western allies. Without that artillery the Ukrainians would have done no kore and no less what Italians was doing at the battles of Isonzo, having the same ending. - At Caporetto the AH never made the breach, actually was the Germans divisions sended as reinforcements for the AH that, fresher and better equipped than the Italian ones, did the job for the AH. Basically at Caporetto Italy was foughting alone vs both AH and Germany...this last one havibg a lot of artillery to make a breach as happened. - Rommel was a good General, but just that, not the strategic genius people believe. Who makes him famous was the Italian secret service. In fact the Italians was capable to infiltrate the US embassy in Rome, stealtly retrieving the allies codex, giving it to Rommel for the North African campaign and them stealtly retrieving in in the US embassy without being noticed. Only when British started to think that Rommel was capable to read the allies codex (so being able to stay a step forward) the allies changed comunication codex and Rommel was nullified. Without the Italians Rommel would have been anything.
Italy: We have a defensive military alliance. So you come to our aid in the even we are attacked, and we do the same if you are attacked. Austria-Hungary: Yes. Italy: So how exactly did your war with Serbia start? Austria-Hungary: Uuuuh.... Italy: From the list of ridiculous demands sent to the Serbian government, it would seem you *wanted* war with them. This is a war of aggression. Austria-Hungary: Bro please. No. Don't do it. **Italy has changed sides**
