Italy was "so useless" in WWII because the average Italian wanted nothing to do with the war. Mussolini made a huge mistake dragging Italy in, he should kept Italy out of the war like Franco did for Spain. The short answer why Italy was "so useless" is because the Italians were too smart to die for Hitler's war.
I asked my great uncle (Australian 6th Division (2/4 Infantry Battalion) that captured Bardia in LIbya and took 40,000 Italian prisoners) specifically about the Italians and he said their "heart was not in it". I guess it was Mussolini's war not "their" war.
As if the Italians were the only ones to surrender when encircled, not much after that event the Italian division Ariete captured tens of thousands of British soldiers including 6 generals (the ones who captured the Italians not long before) during Operation Sunflower.
@@InfoRome You're absolutely right-war is complex, and every nation involved had moments of both success and hardship. The bravery and capabilities of soldiers like those in the Ariete Division during Operation Sunflower should not be overlooked. My great uncle’s perspective was just one personal account of his experiences during the war, and it reflects the specific circumstances he encountered. It's important to remember that history is multifaceted, and many factors influenced the outcomes of battles on all sides. My "heart not in it" comment was not referring to the bravery of the Italian soldiers it was referring to the sentiment that many Italian soldiers might have felt during the war, reflecting the broader disillusionment with Mussolini's leadership as a dictator and the motivations behind Italy's involvement.
@@InfoRome Ariete was the only mechanized unit in the Italian army, it was the first of 3 proposed armoured divisions. The Italians were still using a 2 regiment division which made the Ariete the size of a British armoured brigade. Rommel considered them an asset as part of the Afrika Korps. The other two divisions were never fully operational as Ariete had to take resources from them to keep functioning. That shows how the Italian industrial base wasn’t up to the needs of the military. In North Africa, the Afrika Korps was more fully mobilized than much of the German units in Europe as it needed to be not dependent on horses. Many of the Italian infantry units were fully stationary, with little or no organic transport. Both sides would grab each other’s trucks and other vehicles as they could. There is the story of the German parachute unit that got lost after 2nd El Alamein that stumbled upon a British supply convoy and captured it to make their way back to their lines. Italian infantry was just stuck in place and as the lines moved 100 miles or more just surrendered to save themselves as they didn’t have water or food. Thus isn’t to say that they didn’t have some good equipment, such as the Breda 20mm multi purpose gun, a 90 mm AA gun that was like the 88mm good in an antitank function. The Beretta 9mm pistol and MP 38 submachine gun were good infantry weapons. But they were still using 65mm Austro-Hungarian artillery pieces that were reparations from WWI, this is when 105mm was the regimental standard for most countries and 150mm for divisions. Mussolini’s ego wouldn’t allow him to see that his country didn’t have the ability to gain the resources they needed to build the military base.
I always thought the Eyetie solders had more sense than all the others... When things got rough they just said 'F.. this' and threw up their hands. None of this 'fighting to the last man' b.s. Very wise I'd say.
I'd say the Italians never treated their opponents in the basis of racism or superior civilisation like the Germans or Japanese did. Except for Ethiopia and Libya, the Italians never considered other Europeans truly inferior. They didn't want to fight France, Greece or Poland, but were coerced to do so. Additionally, Italian troops were seen to have treated occupied peoples with leniency and mercy.
@Samsung-1.9Cu.Ft.Microwave lol bullshit. "We were racist but only to Africans" yea OK. As it says in the video, the British battered the Italians based on equipment, training and leadership
Simply put Italians saw little reason for fighting in WW2 after over 2 million casualties of which 50% military dead in WW1 with very little gain for a massive effort fought entirely on Italian territory and a bankrupt economy.
Italy's main problem was it's lack of a developed industry. They didn't have the capacity or the money to develop suitable tanks in quantity, a reliable piston engine for it's aircraft in sufficient quantity, radar for their navy, insufficient artillery, insufficient transport vehicles, insufficient armoured vehicles generally, anti aircraft guns, anti tank guns. Other factors included: they were planning on switching rifle calibres before the war, this programme had begun but they had to switch back, Poor military leadership (not universally, but enough to make a difference), insufficient trained and experienced NCO's in their army (this was way more important than it seems), too much outdated equipment. The air force pilots in particular saw themselves as the elite, I imagine many of them as Squadron Leader Flasheart from Blackadder Goes Forth. It must be remembered that Italy had only been a single country for about eighty years at the outbreak of WW2, they'd already fought in one world war, they just weren't ready for the war. The problem wasn't the troops, no army could function effectively under those circumstances.
-As I pointed out in another post Italy didn't have the coal, oil or natural gas to support a heavy industrialization. They had to rely heavily on German coal and synthetic fuel the latter of which was rationed by Hitler on the basis that German units were produced better results with the same amount of fuel and possibly becoming self fullfiling. As someone else pointed out much of the Italian fleet was laid still by lack of fuel. Another aspect was that Italy rearmed way to early in the 20s and then ran down hill and recommenced rearmament with new types of aircraft way to late. -The Germans did supply competitive aircraft engines and licensed the production of DB601, DB605 and even 603 with which most of the Italian fighters showed excellent performance and handling to the extent the Germans considered producing them to replace their own fighters but the difficulties of mass production meant this wasn't possible so the Fw 190A was evolved into the Fw 190D series and the Ta 152C. The Germans supplied the excellent FuMO 26 Seetakt radar (which had blind fire capability) and these were installed on Italian destroyers. -There were obvious areas of cooperation that might have been better. The Savoia-Marchetti SM.75 and Savoia-Marchetti SM.82 were made of wood and were excellent transports and more could have been made to replace the completely out of date Ju-52
Italian military units were smaller in size using the 2 regiment plan instead of the 3 regiment size divisions that other powers. The Ariete Division was the size of a British armoured brigade and it was the only motorized unit. It fought well but was the only armoured unit. The infantry units were basically stationary units, the mass surrenders was mainly do the lack of ability to retreat without water or food in the desert. Terrible machine guns and most of the artillery was not up to modern weapons with many of the weapons gained from the defeated Austro-Hungarians as war reparations. They did have some excellent weapons such as the Breda 20mm multi purpose gum and a 90 mm anti aircraft Junior the German 88mm was a good anti tank gun, but few of them. Italian aircraft manufacturers didn’t come up with any good engines for their aircraft especially in inline engines and many of the radial engines were license built foreign engines. The Italian NCO’s were considered well trained and decent troops but led mostly by the incompetent. Many Italian officers received commissions based upon their noble ranks. Poorly armed, poorly led without organic transport and left to die in the desert, the rank and file soldiers did what they needed to survive and surrendered. With the 0 series fighter aircraft, the first monoplanes. Both the FIAT G.50 and Macchi C.200 prototypes had enclosed cockpits. The Regia Aeronautica pilots complained about it so the production aircraft were open cockpit.
Italy had indeed about 15 - 25% of the industrial base of Germany or UK. This could have been sufficient as the British concentrated only a part of their forces against Italy. Italy got licences for the latest German weapons as the DB 605 motor but this opportunity was scarcly used. The major issue of the italian war industry was incompetence and corruption that let Italy produce FIAT biplanes in 43. The italian army was not well prepared. The German army was not better prepared. Half of the German artillery was captured mostly old guns from all over Europe. The Finnish army did perform excellent with much worse equipment. It was incompetent leadership. This were main reasons that the Germans (exception Hitler) did not like to provide Italy too much of the scarce fuel and other ressources.
Italy had world leading invetors and scientist. The best equipment of several kinds. But they didn't have the industry to mass produce it in quality. For example, their naval guns were superior to those of the British, but the shells were of such shifting quality that they flew in a wide spread. British captains found themselves in the center of a wide circle of water plumes.
Italy did have excellent scientific work in the 20th century. This is because they had goid universities. Italy had pioneers in rocket technology, electrical engineering, automotive production and more.
@@andre1448 And they invented scuba diving during or before WW2. And Marconi invented the radio! And on and on. They still make (or until recently made, Europe is crashing fast now) the best cars and motorcycles. What is the most hyped Mercedes compared with a Ferrari?
Wrong, super wrong. Italy was selling aircraft to Japan. They were out of soldiers and money because they helped Spain and got sanctioned after invading the African horn. Wikipedia is free! @@thomashenebry8269
The best thing about Italy is the bureaucracy. The Nazis were trying to root out the Jews in Italy and they could make no sense out of their paperwork.😅😅😅
The Italians weren't antisemitic and saw the whole jew-thing as a distasteful German obsession wasting resources and alienating people. So they did their best to be as unhelpful as possible, something the Italian bureaucracy excells at. I mean Mussolini himself had a jewish girlfriend for most of the war...
The Japanese and Italian Empires had similar sized economies GDP wise by late 1939 (141 for Rome and 169 for Tokyo in US billions), yet the difference in industrial output is pretty eye watering, even if Tokyo started to neglect to the Army after 1940.
The Japanese industrial output was more for the navy (which was understandable however) given their situation. But Japan still developed a lot of good army weapons later on. This was something absent with Italy.
@diomuda7903 Japanese aircraft and naval production was substantially higher than Italy throughout the war. Japanese tank production was roughly competitive with Italy and artillery production was higher. By 1944-45, Japanese artillery and vehicle production began to dry up, tanks were still produced with some armored vehicles, but for example, by late 1944 heavy Japanese artillery production more or less ended.
@Justin-rv7oy Yes but it's important to note that, all of the steel production was going into defeating the Americans. China never really gained much throughout the war and kept losing territory until the very end of the war in 1945 because of how insanely badly equipped it was. Japan had taken the vast agricultural plains in the North of China, they had occupied all the ports in the South of China and they had managed to occupy Indochina to block supplies to Chongqing. Putting resources into Invading more of China would have made no sense when the US posed a way bigger threat. So, building planes and aircraft carriers became more essential than building tanks. This is partially why the USSR managed to invade Manchuria and North Korea in less than a month. Japan had put all of its resources in fighting the US. On the other hand, Italy didn't really need a massive navy. Sure, they had the Mediterranean to conquer by sending airstrikes from land is always more convenient than on a ship. The Pacific, unlike the Mediterranean, is huge
They would've compensated for it if they had shut down the olive oil that the sailors drank. If they didn't have enough oil to invade Greece, they shouldn't have invaded Greece. Duh! (Funny that somehow the Greeks had enough oil to beat the Italians?)
My dad was in charge of three Italian POW's during WW2 ; if I recall ,I think this was at Dishforth (?) I remember him saying that they were really compliant and very trustworthy - not militaristic at all.
I agree with all the comments below. Italy was useless because their soldiers' hearts weren't in it. No doubt the real reason was their lack of developed industry. Of course, the biggest reason was the lack of natural resources, specifically coal, oil, and natural gas. But the top reason was that their fighting units weren't fully prepared for war. But you can't deny that the main reason was that their generals weren't very good. But the generals didn't matter, they had bad junior officers and NCOs. Of course, they weren't fed very well, which totally explains the failures of the enlisted troops. Many people have noted that corruption in industry was the top reason, second only to Mafia interference. But as I heard very early in life, their submarines had screen doors, and their armored vehicles had five reverse gears but only one gear for going forward. This was clearly the top reason.
Was Mussolini "right wing"??? He was the role model for Swedish social democrats and we had fascist corporatist institution throughout the cold war. Meaning that union leaders, billionaires, farmers, bureaucrats making deals outside of elected parliament. Sweden is now the country in the world that has the most unequal distribution of wealth. I suppose that is why "right wing" Bernie Sanders has Swedish social democracy as his role model. That's how totally wrong one is if one just marches right left right left right left without ever thinking a single thought about what what any politicians actually ever does. Was Mussolini an advocate for or against individual liberties? That is what matters. Not any disgustingly stupid unlogical propaganda labels of right left right left right left that denies everything that exists in reality.
well, hyping up one's own nation at the expense of another could be considered extremely right wing... Forbidding a use of a language in schools and offices also... and he was indeed very much an advocate against individual liberties, which I agree, is a thing on both the extremes, right an left.
@@matejbovha4337 According to your definition "right" wing is communism and sionism. Key is not right left right left stupid propaganda labels that mean nothing. Was Mussolini for or against individual liberties? I.e. was he a libertarian? Or wasn't he. Are you? Nothing is more anti-libertarian than the extreme center of the Western world of today. Total taxation and sever repression and fanatic war mongering and racial hatred (against the Russian people) is the only thing that any Western government today stands for. (Oops. will this comment be censored now, because freedom of speech is the worst of threats against "democracy") Right left right left, deny reality, know nothing at all. Right is all that's left.
Yes, Mussolini was indeed right-wing. Revisionists usually try to contest this by pointing out the Mussolini used to be a socialist, but the key words here are 'used to'. Mussolini's ideology of fascism disavows class conflict in favour of ethnic divisions; a key feature of right-wing beliefs that seeks to preserve existing power structures. The only two things really separating Mussolini from modern conservatism is the more dogmatic racism of fascism and the fact that power structures are not just preserved, but bolstered and appropriated to enforce an ethnic hierarchy. "He was the role model for Swedish social democrats", and your source for this is..? Fascism is quite literally the antithesis of social democracy, i'm not sure how exactly you managed to come up with this "unlogical propaganda labels of right left right left right left that denies everything that exists in reality", 'left' and 'right' aren't illogical terms. I do agree that is can severely simplify the situation and remove nuance, but the question we should be asking is, is it useful to simplify matters in this way? Science often uses simplified models to help understand complicated topics that aren't necessarily fully accurate, and i'd argue that for a video that isn't about Mussolini's politics specifically, describing him as 'far-right' is useful as it gives a very brief overview of his governing style without getting caught up in a topic that is not the main focus. "Sweden is now the country in the world that has the most unequal distribution of wealth" categorically false. Why even make such untrue statements that can be debunked with a mere google search? "I suppose that is why "right wing" Bernie Sanders..." Who are you actually quoting here when you call Bernie Sanders right-wing? Most Americans who disagree with him would generally accuse him of being communist (a far-left ideology) despite him being more centre-left. Calling him of all people "right wing" only really makes sense if you yourself are a communist and think he's not left wing enough for your tastes, which doesn't seem to be the case for you if you are trying to deny that Mussolini was right wing
Mussolini's corporate state involved the "vertical union" in which the executives were the leaders. That was not good for workers, Mussolini turned upon the real socialists.
wash your mouth when you speak of Italy, one of the greatest military nations in history from ancient Rome conquering the known world to the world wars through the medieval maritime republics and the Reanissance. You wish you were Italian, we know you are jelous of our history, biut focus on your country.
I was in Thailand before and largely the Thais downplayed their own performance in WW2, including winding down the real number of casualties. It's only recently that I was informed that the Royal Thai Armed Forces, which joined the WW2 on the side of Germany and Japan, performed so bad that it earned the infamous nickname "Italy of the east". In fact, I even heard that a group of Chinese partisan managed to wipe out a Thai battalion during the Thai invasion of Yunnan, a total military fiasco that could almost lead Thailand to the same fate as Italy until Japan took over the Thai command. In my mind, what happened to Italy in WW2 exactly mirrored to that of Thailand.
Misinformation! The Japanese never command Thai Army. Thai army won every battle to the Chinese army. Moreover Thai army won the battle against the French army in the eastern front ( later Cambodia ) too.
@@จักษ์นาถะพินธุ Is this why Thailand could not beat a demoralised French Army in Cambodia and Laos? The sinking of Thai fleet in Ko Chang didn't tell enough? Is this why the Thai invasion of Yunnan was a disaster? Are you cringe?
@@jotarokujo9164 I'm Thai, and I don't even know whether this guy is being sarcastic or just plain dumb. At least I know that the whole thing was a logistical embarrassment. The quiet our government is being about something, the more failures we could expect from it.
1. Italy had NO significant natural raw materials like oil, iron ore, coal, copper, aluminum etc. (the BIG oil wells in Italy-Lybia where found later)........2. Italy has not a continental but an sea-doctrine. The only land-borders are in the alps, where u dont need tanks! So they put the absolut max in the fleet and the army was in europe made to defense the alps and wage war in colonial-areas, where the enemy has not much heavy weapons at all. There u need light tanks, to drive long distances, go over old wodden bridges, dont need much fuel etc............3. Italy was not a classic industrial land in 1940. There where only parts in northern italy, where relevant industrieal areas are located. Wide parts in south Italy, sicily and sardinia where complete without an heavy industrie. Only big harbours had some resources for buidling ships!
During the battle of Monte Casino, German soldiers would taunt Americans by asking "How do you like your Italian allies?" and the Americans would reply "You can have them back!" and the Germans would simply laugh. Even though Rommel did give some limited praise to some Italian units in North Africa, history has shown that they were mostly utterly worthless.
Well Rommel was commanding those men and was forced to rely upon them for upcoming battles it is hard to expect for him to criticize them, he was supposed to praise them even if not sincere.
Italy and France fought poorly because they used romantic languages that were far less guttural than in Britain, Germany, and Russia. This means Italians and French people spit on each other's faces less when they talked to one another. In the British, German, and Russian cultures people spit on each other all the time creating a subconscious anger that on the national level helped promote warrior institutions that the French and Italians sorely lacked. In other words, terms like weinershnitzel and flugzeug are why German tanks had radios and French tanks did not. Obviously.
Yes the Italian tanks were light and lightly armored, but that was because they were designed and intended with Italy's World War One experience in mind; namely fighting the Austrians in narrow Alpine roads and passes, going constantly upward. Heavy vehicles with broad tracks would not have been practical in those conditions.
Italians did right thing in right time. After fall of siege on Stalingrad, in february 1943 where italian 8th army was deployed, while other axis allies continued Italy saw the change of tide. Same year in september, italians withdraw . Capitulation was signed.Musolini was executed. Enough for Alies to leave Italy after 1945 alone and continue unoccupied, not as Germany and Austria.
The German SS had a hard time overcoming that small Ill equipped damn Greece, don't underestimate terrain at one point a German officer tossed a live grenade at his troops to force them to run through the small pass and continue under fire.
Funny enough, the Italians were more liked by other Allied soldiers than the Germans or the Japanese. I am Polish and I remember that whenever the Home Army targeted, we never targeted the Italians because they never treated us as enemies, we only reserved it to the Germans.
I really enjoy your videos. With the way you approach everything without bias and try to cut through the propaganda for a better understanding you could make a lot of videos on Roman emperors. So many really weren't as bad as we were taught because of the propaganda and slander from their political enemies
You forgot to say that even faced with the very few troops that France could spare to defend against Italy, the Italians still managed to lose that battle, being repulsed everywhere and suffering more than 10 times more casualties than the French
They got some good hits in. sunk quite a few brit warships, and one Australian ship. Beat the Yanks at Kaserine Pass. Italy didnt just chenge sides, they had a civil war. They also did have some good tanks like the Semovente anti Tank, But by the ttime they got the P40 tank it was too late, the Germans took them.
Japan didn't have the resources or population to be successful during WW2 either but, they had the desire to take over and rule more than their own people. Italy tortured and killed their own people more than anything they didn't want to rule they wanted to copy Hitler but, had no idea how to they basically were that younger brother who wants to hang out with their older brother but, doesn't realize that the reason why they want to hang out with their older brother is because that older brother has their own stronger desires and it's impressive.
Why was Italy "unprepared for war" in 1940? They had waged wars for 5 years by then. Including in distant roadless huge Ethiopia. A logistical achievement if anything.
Exactly because of that. The colonyes, Etiopia and Spain drained the scarce resources of the italian Kingdom for no gains. In 1940 we told the germans we Needed 3 years of full military buildup effort to prepare to war.
Think of it like athletes going to race. All the other athletes drove their so they had all their energy. While Italy ran there. So when the race started Italy was already exhausted.
Interesting and intelligent analysis of why Italy failed in World War 2. Pretty much spot on except for a few points. Italy didn't just "Switch" sides. Mussolini was removed from power and arrested on July 25, 1943. On September 8th, Italy officially surrendered to the allies. On September 12, Mussolini was rescued by the Germans and on September 23rd, returned to northern Italy and established a new fascist Italian state know as the Italian Social Republic, which would continue the war on Germany's side to the bitter end. Meanwhile, the Badoglio government, or the Kingdom of Italy, declared war on Germany on October 13th. Italy was accepted as a co-belligerent but not an ally. So what you had was a civil war within a war in Italy from 1943-45. In Italy today they call the period between September 1943-May 1945 the Civil War just like the period of 1861-1865 is called the Civil War in the USA. Also, the Italian frogmen of the 10th Flotilla had some tremendous success that no other similar unit, axis or allied, had.
My father served in the British 8th Army in North Africa in WW2 and did have a very low opinion of the Italian military's abilities...With four exceptions. He had the highest respect for both the Italian Paratroopers and Italian Frogmen - both units performed exceptionally well. He also said that Italian officers were the most stylish and well dressed, always looking very cool! :) And finally, he said that the Italians were wonderful prisoners of war, they were superb craftsmen and always made some wonderful items to trade with their captors.... So, it wasn't all bad! LOL
Useless? I don't like the title of this video. Ineffective would be a better thing to say... By the way Italia provided 60,000 troops for Operation Barbarossa in June 1941...
Not true. The Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go was a better light tank than the Italian L6/40, the Type 97 Chi-Ha was a better medium tank than the Italian M11/39, M13/40 and M14/41, and the Type 97 Chi-Ha Kai was a better medium tank than the Italian M15/42.
And what about Poland a, country that had only 20 years to build their country,but the West always make Poles as a Strong country,??????and sold Poles to the Soviet.
Just to share the following lines which i have read but can't remember where and bear with me if it had already been mentioned in the comments here: Hitler was having a conference with his generals when his aide came into the room and reported: "My Fuhrer, the Italians has joined the war!" Hitler upon hearing it replied: "Good! We shall send two divisions to beat the crap out of them!" The aide in a shock said: "My Fuhrer, the Italians are joining the war on our side." Then Hitler groaned: "Damn! Then we have to send ten full divisions to help them."😫
Not so USELESS READ THIS AND LET'S BE OBJECTIVE!! The main military powers that fought for years in WW2 were six :On one side Germany ,Italy and Japan .On the other side USA ,Russia,UK .That's it .Italy fought on two continents and four seas with 3.400.000 men (considering army ,navy ,aviation ,auxiliaries).Let's see some points: 1)First of all this video doesn't explain that before the ww2 Italy had two war campaignes in Ethiopia(1935-1936) and Spain civil war(1936-1939) and used a lot of resources to fight and finish those campaignes, for this reason wasn't ready in 1940. 2) REGIA MARINA:The Italian fleet was the fourth in the world in 1940, it had the same tonnage of navy like France .The Littorio Class was the backbone of the navy with the 3 huge battleships: Littorio ,Vittorio Veneto and Roma(in 1940 they were considered the most powerful battleships in the world like artillery.). The Regia Marina had very great successes with submarines ,they fought in fourth different seas:Mediterranean Sea, in the Red Sea,in the Persian Gulf and in the Atlantic Ocean. ,with 1750 missions and the sinking of 132 merchant ships and 18 military ships,Italy lost 128 submarines of the totaly 172.The X Mas ,was a special unit of assault and raid of the Regia Marina ,with great success of sinking to the Royal Navy. 3)REGIA AERONAUTICA:The Italian Air Force had in 1940: 1300 medium bomber ,1160 fighter aircaftt, 500 recoinassence aircraft .It had very good warfighters like Macchi 202 and Macchi 205,Fiat G 55 and the Reggiane RE 2005 (maybe the most beautiful airplane of the WW2) .Italy built from (1940 to 1943) 11508 airplanes(always less in comparison with the othern nations). Only the fourth squadron destroyed 585 airplanes plus 215 probably .The SM 79 was an amazing medium bomber ,very effcient as torpedo bomber ,infact sinked a lot of military ships (Fearless ,Bedouin ,Nestor ,Foresight,Pozarica ecc).The sum of the official ranking of the(only) flying aces is of 1225 shooting down aircrafts.(The highest is Franco Lucchini with 26). 4)REGIO ESERCITO AND SPECIAL FORCES The Italian Army fought in Russia,Yugoslavia,Greece,North Africa ,and South -East Africa with 1.800000 soldiers in 75 divisions(not all well-equipped). Very good were the machine guns Breda 30 and 36, the mortar 81mm, Beretta 38 submachine .Italy built very good armoured cars like the autoblinda 40 and 41 and the SPA Viberti AS 42 ,and only the the tank 105/25 m43.The Special forces like Folgore ,Bersaglieri ,Alpini ,The X Mas ecc were very combative .The Folgore fought in North Africa for 3 years stopping the best English troops. 5)VICTORIES AND HEROIC BATTLE: - El Alamein in the 1942 -The last charge of Izbusenskij of the cavalry Savoy in Croazia in the 1942 - The sinking of the Queen Elizabeth and Valiant by the X Mas in the 1941 -Pantelleria air-naval battle with the sinking of the Burdwan ,Chan and Kentucky and the damage of many others in the 1942 -The battle of August 1942 with the sinking of Manchester ,Cairo and the damage of Nigeria ,Kenya ,Brisbane ecc -The sinking of York and Pericles in the Sudan Bay by the X Mas 1941 - Italian conquest of British Somalia - 1940 -Italian conquest of Cassala,Gallabat and Kurmuk (British-Egypt Sudan)1940; So there are a lot of victories of Italy in ww2(i have wrote only some) ,but Italy lost the war and the winners write the history for this reason there are a lot of fake videos like this .For sure Italy wasn't so bad, but don't worry you can read books(as "Courage Alone" of Chris Dunning) and check on internet .And don't forget ITALY was the first nation to use airplanes in combat in Libia in 1911 and to built the first jet plane Campini Caproni without propeller. Also did a lot of world air records in the 30s .Bye
*@lucaorlandi289* Stop the nonsense and be objective. No one forced Italy to invade Greece, which btw didn't have tanks or planes like Italy. The invasion of Greece means that Italy had the potential, but failed. Also, we Greeks know Italy had brave soldiers!
@@PlanetIscandar my comment Is not about the invasion of Greece .My comment Is about Italy wasn't useless and prove It. All the informations i have written are correct and you can find on internet ,documentaries or reading books .Nothing else
What's really smart and unique it's present a program without any goddamn advertisement I pay for ad block. And I'm not sitting through a goddamn commercial before the video starts. I'm old and this crap reminds me of early radio. I will drop a subscription because of advertisement it's like I dropped Network television because of advertisement
um I seem to remember Mussolini saying something about their DNA, or to that effect.... now if memory serves me correctly, didnt they get invaded a while back..... thats why the northern Italians have blond hair and not black like the southerners....
Hey, Italian WW2 history expert here, you forgot to mention a couple of things. Italy's top generals told Mussolini before the war that their army was vastly under prepared. Below is an quote from The First Victory: The Second World War and the East Africa Campaign by Andrew Stewart (Badoglio said, “We were told we had until 1942 to prepare. Only 20% of our divisions are at fighting strength, 70% of our armored battalions don’t have a single tank to their name, and only 1 in 10 soldiers have a shirt to wear.” Mussolini interrupted him and said “history could not be reckoned by the number of shirts!” He looked his old friend in the face, and said, “Badoglio, I only need a few thousand dead so that I can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought".) He went into WW2 unprepared hoping to gain Egypt and Sudan so he could connect his colonies. Most of the Italians banked on Germany bailing them out and not wanting Sudan. Also I wanted to point out how colonial troops made up a majority of their divisions. So many African troops were not given shoes or told to forage for food. They were also poorly trained. While 100,000 vs 10,000 can sound like a humiliating loss, the quality of their troops was vastly different because the UK took time to actually train their soldiers and feed them. In Greece he literally didn't think to send coats with his solders which led to tons of them bringing their own coats, and tons of friendly fire due to the lack of a standard uniform. Italy's generals largely got their positions through nepotism. Also on a humorous note, the Italians included pasta as a ration for their desert war troops. Meaning the solders had to choose between eating and drinking with their water ration because of the dehydrated pasta. That was just poor war planning on their part. Oh, and their navy largely didn't have radar which meant they lost a majority of the Regia Marina got sunk in one night time battle because the Brits could see their navy in the dark thanks to their radar but the Italians couldn't. Sorry I just wanted to clarify some of the valid points you made with more funny details.
It's crazy that the Italians lacked radar, given that they invented radio (Marconi) and had the mathematical / engineering aptitude to have broken the British naval code.
*@s1140285* "tons of friendly fire"? Calm down my friend. The Italians took tons of Greek fire, because their generals sent them in waves against the Greek positions, in a doomed attempt to capture the hills. And many of them surrendered.
Italo Balbo (The Marshal of the Air, it have an interesting story) was a Quadrunviro and a friend of Mussolini. He warned him to stay neutral many times, knowing that Italy hadn't at time any bellic industry, any economy that was also continuing to deplete for the Italian War efforts in Spain with Franco's war and any resources to sustain a war like that. Italy faced that defeat just to one man decision.
The Italiana soldiers were amazing, Italy had good and bad officers like every country. Italy performed well in WW2 except for the first months when it just wasn't ready for war. Mussolini brought the country into war thinking the war was about to end.
My Ex's father fought in WW2 for the Italian army, he came out to Australia after the war and made his home here. One night he told me that the Italian people didn't want to go to war at all. Thus their heart and soul's weren't into fighting for the Axis.
Funny. My dad's uncle was captured at the Siege of Tobruk by Australian forces. I haven't heard the story from him but it's been passed down from my father. Because my dad is in the Italian navy, before I was born, his uncle apparently always used to find a way to tell this story. He described it as bombs going off everywhere and seeing other men die all around him. Apparently, he was stationed at one place and moved over to a different position after conveniently finding someone from his hometown about 10 metres away. His previous position was then shot up by some Australian soldiers, meaning he survived due to luck. Eventually, he surrendered and was sent to work in Australia as a POW. I really wish he was still alive to tell me these stories in person. Lots of soldiers were traumatised by the war but he honestly just sounds like someone who really didn't care and was just living the moment 😂 He eventually returned to Italy once the war was over
The Italian Army did not have an effective "NCO Chain" in that no sergeant took orders from a higher sergeant, only from officers. There were very few senior NCOs and those were used as clerks and secretaries and in other admin rolls. Another problem not noted in the excellent video was that Mussolini appointed generals for political loyalty, not ability. Il Duce also changed his divisions from 3 regiments to 2 regiments, making the divisions smaller but increasing the number of generals needed to command them by 50%, all of those jobs went to political hacks who had no command level military experience.
The Italians were seen as cowardly and inept, which is sheer bigotry. What is always overlooked is their record concerning the Holocaust. There were three countries that were either part of the Axis, or German satellites during the War, in which the vast majority of their Jewish populations survived, due to the noncompliance of their governments, as well as that of ordinary civilians. who risked their lives to save their Jewish friends and neighbors. These three nations were Denmark, Bulgaria and Italy. In Denmark, 99.6 %of Jews survived, In Italy, 82% were still alive when the War ended and in Bulgaria, over 70%. If anyone doubts what I am saying, then I refer you to the Wannsee Conference documentaries, in which the Germans complain about the Italians loving the Jews and not handing them over to the Nazis. There are also chapters in several highly regarded histories of the War and the Holocaust that substantiate what I have said here. One of these sources is The Destruction of the European Jews.
Italy didn't have coal, oil or natural gas. This prevents the industrialization needed to create first grade air-force and Armour. A German supplied gravitomer helped find natural gas in 1943 but it was too late to exploit the resources.
@answerman9933 Yes, but the Japanese captured the oil it needed. However, due to other factors, they didn't get it back to the home islands. The Dutch East India production was some 65 million barrels a year, the Japanese captured about 22 million barrels and production was about 25 million barrels that year/ 1942, the Japanese also started ww2 with 35 million barrels. The Japanese wanted to kick the USA out of the Pacific for a year the USA arrived after 6 months and caused disruption of Japanese trade/ resources. The Japanese also didn't have the oil tankers needed, they also didn't have the oil to protect the ships as in escorts till half of it's merchant fleet and navy was sunk. Edit: The Japanese navy needed 18 million barrels to operate effectively against the USA a year it never had more then 7, the army wanted almost 6 million barrels a year it never had more then 3, the Japanese industry and merchant fleet used about 12 million barrels of oil a year. The Italians had in ww2 12 million to 16 million barrels of oil and Germany straight out gifted Italy oil to keep them in the war 200k to 500k tons a year or over 1 million to over 2 million barrels in ww2. The Germans by comparison had 200+ million to at best 250 million barrels of oil in ww2.
@@brianlong2334 real what if is what happens if Italy did like Spain in WW2 and stayed neutral but pro German? No German troops wind up wasted in Africa but does that change things?
@@AllenHarris-u5o Germany would still be in the same boat, however D-Day might not happen for the Allies as Germany and Italia thought the Allies were going to D-Day in Napoli instead of Normandie. With Italy out of the picture, Germany would still do the battle of Britain, then go through the Soviet. However the future of Europe would be much bleaker and WW2 would last for a few more years with the nuclear bombs first launched in Germanie instead
I didn’t know this but the salute that Hitler is infamous using actually was Benito Mussolini idea & the goose stepping march. Hitler respected Mussolini so much that after the Italian people had enough of him he was in Germany with Hitler. Sadly today the younger generation of Italians are supporting the ideas of Mussolini.
The goose step is a Prussian tradition, not an Italian one, and existed well before Mussolini. The salute came from the Roman salute to Caesar, not Mussolini.
@varovaro1967 Italian aircraft, naval, and artillery production during WW1 was pretty decent, even after Caporetto. Although it should be noted that they had the resource backing of the allied powers.
No way. Italy had just spent a lot of money and soldiers for helping Spain in the Spanish civil war and got sanctioned after invading Eritrea, Somalia ecc They would have needed another 2 years to be ready. Hitler forced Mussolini to start the war, that's what happened. Hitler knew how Italy was important. It had access to the Mediterranean, to Africa, also it was one of the greatest world power, and making friends with her in a moment of such weakness was the best method. Mussolini's desire to re-establish the Roman Empire and Fascism inspired Nazism. But you guys just prefer to forget and speak sh*t
from 1943 to 1945 as a cobelligerent of the Allies yes. Before that it was actually useful to Germany, but Germans would blame Italians for everything. Italians were actually efficient on many occasions.
@@priatalat If the Italians were inefficient why did the British troops them the honors of war at the battles of Giarabub, Amba Alagi, Cualqueber, El Alamein, why were they defeated by the Italians at the invasion of Somaliland, at the second battle of El Mechili, at the two battles of Bir El Gobi, why did it took the Allies months to defeat the Italians at the battle of Cheren and at the Tunisian campaign. Italians fought well in WW2, with some exceptions like the invasion of Greece, but the propaganda is set to say that they fought bad. You have to leave the propaganda aside and look at the actual records of battles and campaigns. Italian disasters are an excpetion. Italy has many victories and the most of its defeats are not like Compass, are very honorable defeat that the Allies to obatin with a lot of effort..
@@InfoRome Italy was inefficient because they had inefficient industries. It has nothing to do with the soldiers or their abilities, because you need weapons not courage to win wars.
@@priatalat I disagree that it was inefficient, non-propaganda based is proving that Italy's performance is extremely underrated. Look up the special forces, the navy, the victories of the army and on the honorable defeats. People only focus on the bad defeats, of course it's inefficient if you look ONLY at that, but it's incredivly biased to do so.I suggest you the webistes Comando Supremo and the channel Italian Military Archives that talk of ALL the Italian military history in WW2, not just Compass and Greece.
Even if Italy didn't declare war on Britain and France in 1940, Italy would probably still declare war on the USSR in June 1941, and taken part in Operation Barbarossa (like Italy's ally Hungary did). That would likely result in Britain and the USA declaring war on Italy by June 1942, in order to placate Stalin and keep the USSR in the war against Germany.
@@lindadeeds5326 : That idea was never anything more than propaganda. The Roman Empire contained not only North Africa, part of the Middle East and most of the Balkans, but also Turkey, Spain, France, and most of the UK! The idea of Italy with its small industrial base conquering all of that was laughable.
Actually, Italy should pressure France and Britain to give them some concessions and join the allies. Borders protected by Mountains would be hard to invade.
My great uncle fought in the Afrika Korps. He said the normal Italian soldier was a brave and valiant fighter. Their officers were just useless, and their equipment usually bad.
Simple, Mussolini pictured the war as a tour around the Mediterranean collecting the old provinces from hapless savages while Hitler pictured the war as a massive epic Götterdämmerung-esque struggle fighting the great powers of the day. Italy modernised it's military in the 30s and for that specific time they were cutting edge, problem is that as soon as they were done military technology made leaps leaving Italy with a brand new but already obsolete military it spent billions on and tailored it's economy to. Then they got railroaded into the mess with the big boys by Hitler years before they were ready and reorganised. Greece was plain bad luck. But basically they signed up to smack natives, dunk on the petty states of the Balkans, take over a fractured Peloponese and eventually mop up the defeated remnants of Anglo-Egypt once the Germans won against them. Instead they found themselves facing a modernised US supplied Britain, a steamrolling USSR and then the USA themselves.
Oh. Invasion of Greece wasn't a bad luck, it was one of silliest things in history of warfare... Italian army had supply problems in winter, so it was partially disbanded, and the order to start the invasion came! Weather in the mountains was awful, Greeks had defensive points in mountains, simultaneous naval invasion and aircraft support were not prepared...
modernised US supplied Britain? the first arguably modern tanks the British used was 4 years into the war and British tanks made up the vast majority of tanks used in the battle they arrived for. in fact i think the Italians saw less American equipment used against them than the Germans did on the eastern front. the Matilde is called the queen of the desert, not the Sherman.
American GI Bil Mauldin said this about Italy when he was there, or words to this effect anyways " The place was so run down i was amazed they had the nerve to declare war on anybody" And while some units did fight well, most Italian troops did not care much for Mussolini and were not inclined nor motivated to fight or give their lives to satisfy his ambitions.. The Italian Army was well equiped to fight a 1934 war,,,
Mussolini was living in the ancient past, the days of Imperial Rome. 20th Century Italians by contrast had no desire to colonize or annex anybody. They just wanted to be left alone. The Duce found this out the hard way.
Italy is just too innocent of a country for a lot of folks to remember it’s fascism days like they were yesterday. It’s too easy to separate Italy from Mussolini, unlike other certain nations.
@@PhansiKhongoloza Well unless you can show me evidence that the barbarians genocided every Roman from the Alps to Sicily, then you will find you are wrong.
My father was Yugoslav partisan in WWII. Italians would surrender to them by the hundreds, and change sides. They had no desire to fight, and were very afraid to die...pulling out pictures of their family and crying like babies.
@@Stealth86651 You mean like Americans in Vietnam and other countries? Or Russians in Afghanistan? Italian fascists volunteered, they were not forcefully put in uniforms. Swept by euphoria of quick victory and fame. They enjoyed killing the civilians and laughed about it. But, when facing the death themselves, they were embarrassment. Germans, especially the SS were hard core, defiant to the end.
I’ll agree with your points 100%. I would add too that the morale of much of the Italian soldiers was reportedly low. What was their fight for? Why were they going out to die? They were on the winning side in WW1. There was a vague idea of recreating the Roman Empire. But that idea was so ancient, it meant nothing to the people being asked to take up arms to make it happen. They didn’t really have any historic military rivalries in with any of the major powers. There was just so little to inspire the average citizen joining a military to want to really put themselves into harms way to accomplish.
Their are many cases of Italian soldiers being very courageous,so you are quite correct the underlying problem was poor leadership and a lacklustre military industrial complex,jusf like his ally to the north Mossolini bit off more than he could chew!
