Italians in WWII

I was highly dissapointed from the performance of the Italian Navy.


And to the troll, the Italians proved highly disappointing in world war one.

 

How many Izonso(sp?) where there? At the end they finally started to break through ( I can be wrong about this, ) But its not completely there fault, I mean it is the mountains and that defendable turf the Austrians had at that time. The Italian Navy performed pretty well in during the war, killing capitial ships of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Aswell as capturing & Sabotage'n a few in ports of like the breakaway regions etc. (I can still be wrong you guys, been a while since i've read stuff on ww1 ^^ )


And Edit: for being off topic I need to add some sort of contribution for the ww2 stuff.
I am a huge fan of the Italian artillery pieces and the tanks they had. Although the tanks were, well.. not what you'd call quality nor in quantity. The p.40 looked promising but alas was to late, as well they called it a heavy tank. The heavier arty pieces of the Italians were alright, as well as a certain peice (the name is not with me right now) was even taken into use by the Germans quite alot. Was a good AT and AA piece aswell (it looks like a 88 knock off). The airfleet was... underpar, for the majority of the war but at the end of it, there was a few goodies but again, by that time the Italians were pretty much screwed.

 

"Ahh, these hobbits are so hasty"

 

You seem to imply that the Royal Navy went looking for a fight that the Regia refused, this is possibly true for 1940 where the Italian admirals had little faith in their old battleships agaist 15' guns but from mid 41 onwards I see little trace of the Royal Navy in the central Med. They abbandoned Malta that was their pre war main base and retreated the heavy escort to both Pedestal and Harpoon with nearly fatal results to both so who is "running away" here? The tactics you describe fit better the RN than the RM for most of the war, the RN never managed to stop the traffic to North Africa, far less that to Sicily, Corsica, Albania, Greece, Sardina, the Dodecannese etc. while it had to mount major fleet operations just to get a couple of ships to Malta while still losing a good percentage of the convoy.
My impression is that, after Crete, both sides were very reluctant to operate heavy units without air cover so the Italians actually controlled the central Med for most of the war with opposition from only light forces (that would have been nearly ineffective without ULTRA). Italian losses to North Africa were not huge if you look at the ratio of tonnage sent and arrived rather than Rommel's blame shifting, they have much greater clain to controlling the Med in late 41 and 42 than the Royal Navy has.

 

I'm no expert but weren't the Italians having a bit of a fuel problem?

I'm also not convinced that the Italians "bought into the war".

 

Yes. We discussed that in the http://www.ww2f.com/north-africa-mediterranean/25649-italian-navy-during-world-war-ii.html thread.

 

By August 1943, more than one third of the naval fuel reserve was in the ship's bunkers. Can you imagine?

 

The battle of isonzo were eleven, then we have Caporetto (also called Twelfth battle of isonzo). Half are italian victories and half are Austrian victories but always Italy was on advance, indeed we have the conquest of importants towns such as Gorizia by Italian Forces.

However
If such results are "highly disappointing" as you wrote before,can you tell me what kind of victories without great losses and whit great territorial gain have allies achieved during 1915-1917? In the western front of course. I see only inconclusive battles, repelled offensives and limited advances from both sides, like the italian front

 

Aiye, but this is not about the other allies. I never said they performed excellent attacks without huge casaulties.

 

JC;
Interesting analysis JC! It would seem that Mussolini never achieved the degree of control over his society that Hitler was able to in Germany. And the Italians-for the most part- never made very enthusiastic fascists. Do you suppose the influence of the Pope in Rome had an effect? Then as the author points out there are the regional differences in Italy that go back to the days of the Greeks. Whatever...could have better PR have made a difference? Once the Germans occuppied Italy all bets seem to have been off.
JeffinMNUSA

 

i don't think about the Pope, because one of the most important thing made by the fascism was the "Patti Lateranensi" (Lateran Treaty) in witch we have the regulation of the position of the Catholic Church and the Catholic religion in the Italian state and the recognizing of the full sovereignty of the Holy See in the State of Vatican City. This ends the problems beetween Italy and the Pope started in 1870 after the conquest of Rome by Italian Army.

 

Jack;
But in Germany and Russia the power of the church was crushed-or at least extremely suborned to the state. Both Stalin and Hitler then set about to setting themselves up as "gods" (with some very expert assistance from their propaganda departments and secret police). In Italy no such thing happened and there was always the voice of the church. In Italy also there was no rush to modernize the military-and not the industrial base to accomplish much in this area in the first place- so Mussolini sent his people to war with antiquated equipment and tactics-so...no great victories to strengthen the dictator. In Italy there has always been a tradition of healthy debate going back to the Greeks. The totalitarian states of the North had more autocratic traditions. AND last and not least, modern nutritionists have come to recognize that Italian cuisine is much healthier than Northern European cooking, and maybe a people's physical health plays a role as to whether they are suceptable to totalitarianism or not. At any rate-the only martial course the Italian people pursued with much vigor and enthusiasm during the whole WWII era was the rebellion against the NAZI totalitarian occupier. GOOD ON THEM I say!
JeffinMNUSA
PS. In my town I think we have one or two German and Russian restaurants respectively. We have literally hundreds of Italian restaurants.

 

In Italy Mussolini and the fascism in general understand that the catholic church could be a powerfull ally. Even today a large part of italians (age >60) give more attention to what the pope says instead what the president says... so Mussolini did well (for his "business" of course) becoming a friend of the vatican.
We have also little military victories only useful to strengthen the dictator, for example the conquest of ethiopia (however not so little for a poor country like Italy of 1930s) and the Spanish Civil War (whit the exception of Guadalajara the whole involvment was a success for the fascist cause).

P.S.
thanks God that you don't have more german restaurant
more italian food for everyone!

 

In Germany and especially in Russia the dictators would not tolerate any power but their own and religion was savagely repressed. Il Duce either couldn't or wouldn't go on the killing sprees Stalin or Hitler used to consolidate their power. Maybe Benito Mussolini figured the Italian people would revolt if he started lining up and shooting churchmen? Italians have always had a healthy skepticism about authority. Or maybe Benito Mussolini could not countenance mass killing. I was reading some more on Rick Atkinson's "An Army At Dawn" about the North African campaign this evening? Well they mentioned Mussolini as being plagued by some STRIKES in Northern Italy at the time of the fall of NAZI in Tunisia. Strikes in a totalitarian country?! If such a thing would have happened in Germany or Russia at the time it would have been solved by the application of firing squads. Apparently Benito Mussolini was not all that much of a totalitarian.
JeffinMNUSA
PS. And scandanavian cooking is the worst of the worst when it comes to Northern European cooking-and Northern European cuisine is the absolute worst. Have you ever heard of Lutefisk? Well my mom made it one day "because it's traditional" (Mom is Karelian/Finnish) and none of us could even go in the kitchen because of that awfull stench-"whitefish cured in lye"??!! Well maybe you could eat that awfull stuff on long sea voyages but I can't see doing it in any other situation. We were all genuinely shocked and Mom herself came to see what a monster she had cooked up...
"Come on kids-we're going to Cafe Di Napoli!" Dad finally said. And with that my Dad drove my brothers, sister and Mom down to our happy little Italiano restaurante.
Mom never made Lutefisk again, and about that time started reading up on Italian cooking.

 

the debate about the fascist regime is still alive in italy, Mussolini has got a huge number of fans and some political parties are inspired by fascist ideas. This could be only because fascism is not brutal as stalinism or nazism. Fascist regime before 1943 may have killed about 200-300 opponents in 20 years, not more, the main punishment for political opponents was the exile in some little island or drinking laxative oil... in Germany if you opposed to the regime... anyone knows about it. In Italy fascism was not the main power, the king remain until 1943 the symbol of Italy (a crap symbol...) and the army only swore loyalty to the King. Mussolini always attempt to weaken the army or "fascistize" it, for example introducing Black shirts units (whitout discipline or training...) between army units... and this could be a problem in battle (and we can see it...).
Mussolini's regime builds its strength on consent of the masses and never on fear or military power... and this mean that the masses could not be happy if things go wrong, so you can easly have strikes in 1943.

P.S.
I never heard about this kind of scandinavian food, maybe you can try the spanish or the greek cooking, they're very good.

about italian food... it's sad that almost only southern Italians emigrated to the U.S.A... because we in the north have a completely different culture,attitude and of course food

 

This thread is taking quite an interesting turn

Jack, where can I learn more on Northern Italy cuisine?

 

well... it's very various because its goes from the very nutritious food of the alps to the fish cuisine of venice or genoa. I can speak form my land... we use lots of meal, in various form, chopped cow meal cooked whit particular vegetables whit polenta and of course pork meal cooked whit a kind of vegetable that take the taste of the pork during the cooking. Also we have a great number of cheese or ham.

 

Jack;
My best friend's family originally came from Rome about the turn of the century, so I have been hooked on Southern Italiano cooking from an early age. There is a small town in Western Wisconsin where I believe the best Southern Italian cooking in the world is going on. This is going to sound strange, but can you believe that a restaurant specialty in Cumberland Wisconsin are cheese raviolis with a single raison in every ravi flooded in tomato sauce? This ancient recipe somehow WORKS. All garden grown and hand made of course... I drive up there from time to time and fill my trunk up with tomato sauce and raison ravis. http://www.bonacasafoods.com/
North Italiano cuisine? I would like to hear about it.
Mussolini? NOT a murdering pig as the others were.
JeffinMNUSA

 

Rather a laxating pig...

 

Za;
Looked like a drunken bozo actually. Still there were no mass murders on Benito's watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0-NT45KGuA
JeffinMNUSA
SOme great Russki music; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYPDkkJrPF8&feature=related