Hitler's Italian Allies: Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime, and the War of 19401943 [Hardcover]

This book tries to understand why the Italian armed forces and Fascist regime were so remarkably ineffective at an activity - war - central to their existence.This book tries to explain why the Italian armed forces and the Fascist regime were so remarkably ineffective at an activity--war SH central to their existence. It approaches the issue above all from the perspective of military culture, and offers a social-cultural, political, military-economic, strategic, operational, and tactical cross-section of the Italian war effort. The result emphasizes that the inherited cultural-intellectual limitations of the military professionals were as vital as the megalomania of the dictator in ensuring that Fascist Italy's ruinous end would be peculiarly undignified.This book tries to explain why the Italian armed forces and the Fascist regime were so remarkably ineffective at an activity--war SH central to their existence. It approaches the issue above all from the perspective of military culture, and offers a social-cultural, political, military-economic, strategic, operational, and tactical cross-section of the Italian war effort. The result emphasizes that the inherited cultural-intellectual limitations of the military professionals were as vital as the megalomania of the dictator in ensuring that Fascist Italy's ruinous end would be peculiarly undignified.This book explains why the Italian armed forces and Fascist regime were so remarkably ineffectual at an activity-war-that was central to their existence. Italy's economic fragility, Mussolini's strategic-ideological fantasies, and Hitler's failure in the wider war made Italy's ruin inevitable, but did not determine its peculiarly undignified character. Hitler's Italian Allies demonstrates the extent to which Italian military culture-a concept with applications far beyond Fascist Italy-made humiliation inescapable. It offers a striking portrait of a military and industrial establishment largely unable to imagine modern warlƒD