Why was Italy so funny and weak in World War II?

In the historical cognition of the people of the world, the Italian army has long been at the bottom of the discrimination chain of "being able to fight". China network widely circulated jokes mocking the Italian army; Axis Powers Hetalia, a national anthropomorphic cartoon of World War II made in Japan, depicts Italy as an optimistic loser who loves art and food, but has no fighting capacity. The top Italian jokes on the British website "Encyclopedia of Delicious Jokes" wrote:

What does the Italian flag look like?

A white flag embroidered with a white cross.

This impression undoubtedly comes from the history of World War II in Italy. 1June, 940, Italy declared war on France on the eve of its defeat, but it never broke through the French defense. In September of that year, Italy invaded Egypt. Two months later, it was defeated by the counterattack of 36,000 British troops, and more than 6,543,800 people surrendered. 1940 10 In June, Italy invaded Greece from Albania and was beaten back to Albania in less than a month. At every critical moment, Italy had to turn to the German army for help, and the outstanding performance of the German army further strengthened the disparity between the two armies.

Looking back at the whole history of Italy, its military achievements are really few:

1866, the Italian army was defeated by the Austrian army in the battle of Coustosa, and its cutting-edge navy was also defeated in the naval battle of Lisa.

1896, the Italian expeditionary force that attacked Ethiopia was wiped out in the battle of Adua, setting a record for European countries to pay reparations to African countries.

1899, Italy failed to occupy Sanmen Bay in Zhejiang, which became an example of the Qing government's successful defense of sovereignty.

19 15, Italy declared war on Austria when Russia defeated the Austrian army, but it failed to take advantage. But was defeated by the German-Austrian Coalition forces in the Battle of Caporeto, and finally narrowly won by the internal collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Are Italians really a nation that is not good at fighting by nature?

The birth of a failed country

In fact, whether there is an "Italian" nation is itself the most serious problem that Italy faces as a modern nation-state.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, Apennine Peninsula experienced a division of 1500 years, and has long been famous as an independent city-state such as Venice and Genoa. At first, the so-called Italian Renaissance was just a political trend of thought against foreign control and pursuing liberalism under the separatist pattern. As sporadic riots were wiped out again and again by Austria and France, the political leaders on the peninsula realized that only a unified Italy could defend the revolutionary achievements.

② from unification to Italy during the First World War

During the period of A.D. 1850, the regime most keen on reunification was the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, which was a constitutional monarchy in the northwest of the peninsula. With the efforts of Gafur, the prime minister of the aristocratic Liberal Party, Piedmont soon became the stronghold of the Unionists. However, there are always differences within the unification faction: the * * * faction headed by Ma Zhini and garibaldi hopes to build an Italian nation and country that transcends the interests of the city-state, while the monarchist faction headed by Sardinian Prime Minister Gafur regards the conquest of the Italian peninsula as the honor of the kingdom of Sardinia.

Three Italian Founding Heroes (from left): Ma Zhini, famous for spreading ideas, Gafur, famous for his political skills, and garibaldi, famous for his military achievements.

In this way, Italy moved towards reunification amid serious differences. 1859, Gafur recovered Lombardy with the help of the French army; The following year, he instigated a referendum to merge Zhucheng and the northern jurisdiction of the papal state into the Kingdom of Sardinia, at the cost of ceding Nice and Sava to France. Garibaldi, who hated such activities, suddenly led 1000 volunteers to invade Sicily, promising to bring a * * * republic, and miraculously and quickly subverted the kingdom of Naples.

But the Sardinian army soon entered the papal state, and even invited the French army to enter Rome to confront garibaldi. In order to maintain Italian unity, garibaldi finally gave in. 186 1 March, Gafur's ideal Italian kingdom was proclaimed.

Such unification did not bring a brand-new nation-state as Ma Zhini and garibaldi hoped.

The Kingdom of Italy is not so much a modern nation-state as a conquering dynasty in Sardinia. Unlike the newly born Germany, the Kingdom of Italy completely inherited the old system of the Kingdom of Sardinia, including the Constitution, the army, the parliament and even the national flag. As the founding king of Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel II refused to change "II" to "I" in the new kingdom, and even opposed to moving the capital out of the border of the old kingdom of Sardinia.

▍ The flag of the Kingdom of Italy (the original flag of the Kingdom of Sardinia) consists of the tricolor flag of northern Italy during the French Revolution and the symbol of the Savoy royal family. Before 1860, the papal countries and the kingdom of Naples never accepted the green, white and red national flags. 1946 Italy changed to * * * and removed the royal emblem.

Unilateral reunification has caused serious political consequences. In southern Italy, as soon as uneducated farmers heard that King Sardinia had become their king and wanted to implement new military service and tax policies, they became the most stubborn force against the new kingdom. Southern Italy was plunged into a decade-long civil strife, and the government suppressed it with heavy troops. Both sides died more than 20 thousand before they basically subsided.

The papal state lost most of its territory in the process of revival, but the popularity of the pope was much higher than that of the new Italian king. He incited people to refuse to participate in any vote of the new government. In this way, the parliament and government of the new kingdom can only represent the narrow interests of the middle class of the original Sardinia kingdom and are firmly controlled by a few political elites, which further worsens the problem of national identity.

For this reason, the emerging Italy was constrained by the old system from the beginning and faced with a serious political crisis. Mazzini couldn't help sighing: "I wanted a young Italian, but you brought a mummy."

The young Italian army is unfortunately part of this mummy. The system and culture of the Royal Italian Army are completely inherited from the old Sardinian army, and the positions of senior generals in the navy and army are monopolized by the conservative and incompetent children of Sardinian nobles; The large-scale expansion of the army, coupled with the newly installed foreign officers, makes the command structure extremely chaotic, and the gap between officers and officers from different regions is extremely deep, which makes their tactical ability quite poor.

▍ Arpini, founded in 1872, is the most elite unit of the Italian army, but most of them just "cover the retreat of friendly forces" and so on.

Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that the record and combat effectiveness of the Italian regular army, which is also composed of Italians, is so different from that of the volunteers convened by garibaldi in accordance with the ideals of * * * and the country.

The chain effect of "promoting reunification through war"

The failure of nation-state construction is the motive force of Italian military tragedy history. However, the main reasons for a series of humiliating performances of the Italian army from 1866 to 19 18 are not limited to this. In order to make up for the lack of Italian national identity, Italy took pains to go astray.

▍ 1860' s, Italian government forces fought a long-term public security war in the south for ten years.

At first, the Royal Government wanted to use railways to strengthen the links between different regions of the country, but the industrial capacity of Italy at this time did not allow large-scale construction. Therefore, Italy has chosen another dangerous road: they hope to use the army with congenital deficiency as a tool to arouse people's national consciousness and strengthen national identity through foreign wars.

1866 The Italian-Austrian War was the first attempt to shape a nation by war, and it was even called the "Third Italian War of Independence". King Vittorio Emanuele II led the royal army and garibaldi led the volunteers, hoping to create the image of the whole country working together to recover their homeland.

However, the Italian army of1.20,000 led by the king was defeated by 75,000 Austrian troops in the battle of Custoza because of its chaotic command. Garibaldi has won one victory after another. Unwilling to lose face, the king immediately sent Wang Jiahai, who was not ready, and was defeated by the Austrian army in the battle of Lisa.

▍ 1866 in the battle of Lisa, Italy's main armored ship "King of Italy" was sunk by an Austrian warship.

Although these two defeats were not serious, Italy recovered Veneto at the negotiating table, and the rout of the royal army triggered a constitutional crisis. According to the constitution inherited from Sardinia, the king has exclusive military command, but on the other hand, he is fully responsible for the defeat in the battle. The royal family is the symbol of sovereignty of this fragile country, and its reputation is directly related to the state system. In order to defend the image of sovereignty, the Italian king agreed to retreat behind the scenes and no longer participate in specific military decisions.

But after the king left, the new military decision-making mechanism failed to be established. According to the constitution, the royal army belongs to the monarch, and the civil service system is afraid to make friends with military generals for fear of being labeled as "rebellion." As a result, the internal affairs and diplomacy in the hands of civil servants and the military affairs in the hands of military personnel gradually began to be out of touch. The chaotic system soon brought bad results.

▍ The Decree of Albertino promulgated by the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1848 was adopted as the Italian Constitution, giving the king considerable power. However, the Italian king was lazy to exercise his power, which had a far-reaching impact on the country's military and political affairs.

/kloc-In the 1980s, Italian Prime Minister Silvio crispi put the stage of "promoting reunification through war" in Africa and began to establish colonies in East Africa.

1896 At the beginning of this year, the Italian Expeditionary Force confronted an Ethiopian army in Aldois. At this time, the Italian royal family happened to be involved in a bank scandal. Crispi was worried that the attack on the royal reputation would endanger the state system, and ordered the front line to attack, hoping to defuse the pressure of public opinion with a victory. However, none of the soldiers informed the Prime Minister of the real situation on the front line or made suggestions. Near 18000, the Italian army immediately fell into the encirclement of 12000, and almost all the troops were wiped out.

▍ Francisco crispi, 1887- 189 1, 1893- 1896, served as Italian prime minister twice. Although born in Sicily, he is one of the most radical Italian patriots and expansionists.

After the Ethiopian war, the fatal disconnect between Italian politics and military affairs has not improved at all. Because of this, the Qing government dared to be extremely tough in the Sanmenwan incident in 1899: although Italy already has the third navy in the world, its diplomatic and military cooperation is extremely poor, which is not worth worrying about at all.

A similar situation happened in the First World War. 19 14 after the outbreak of the first world war, the Italian cabinet decided to remain neutral, but the army chief of staff also submitted to the king a plan to unite Germany against France, which was approved and almost put into practice. As Austria-Hungary was defeated by Russia one after another, the voice of recovering lost territory and "promoting reunification through war" rose again.

On May 2 19 15, the Chief of Staff suddenly found that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had reached an agreement with Britain and France on April 26 without telling him that it would declare war on Austria-Hungary on May 26. Moreover, the military production during World War I was not on the right track until the fiasco in 19 17. This kind of political cooperation that makes one's family more confused than the enemy is naturally difficult to bring any victory.

Italian soldiers who stood firm in the snow and ice in the Alps during World War I.

What makes Italian political elites feel even more ashamed is that the long-term policy of "promoting reunification through war" has finally achieved miraculous results in an absurd way.

The left-wing socialist party became the largest party in the parliamentary election of 19 19 due to the inflation caused by the repayment of huge foreign debts after the war. Stimulated by the Russian revolution, the Socialist Party shouted the slogan of dictatorship of the proletariat, demanding collectivization of land, and soon forced farmers in the south, property owners in the north, Catholics and kings to unite.

During the war, the Socialist Party specialized in anti-war strikes, which made the soldiers who served the country very angry. With the concerted efforts of Qi Xin, the leftist movement was suppressed and the weak liberal government suddenly stepped down. Italy has welcomed a nationalist and totalitarian prime minister-benito mussolini.

Unfortunately, the nationalist prime minister did not bring much change to the Italian army.

The last blow of fascism

Before the fascist party came to power, the army of the Kingdom of Italy did not perform well, but it was not strange. Italy's military expenditure is far less than that of big European countries such as Britain, France, Germany and Austria. Despite the constant crisis, we finally won the first world war.

During Mussolini's reign, Italy's military expenditure has caught up with the first-class powers. From 1926 to 1940, Italy's total military expenditure reached 80% of that of Britain and 97% of that of France. During the main preparation period from 1935 to 1939, Italy's military expenditure reached 90% of that of Britain, even 23% more than that of France.

1940, Italy's national fiscal revenue was only 24% of that of Britain and 42% of that of France. Compared with the two, it is not difficult to see the huge investment of fascism in the military, but it also highlights the extremely low energy of the Italian army in World War II.

▍ British South African troops captured the Italian flag on the battlefield in East Africa 194 1, and the soldiers took photos with them with smiles.

Why should Italy spend such a huge amount of military money?

Mussolini put forward the grand blueprint of "restoring the Roman Empire", which not only used nationalism to bridge social contradictions, but also used the means of bribing the army to consolidate one-party dictatorship.

According to the Constitution, the Italian army belongs to the king, who has a profound tradition of loyalty to the monarch and is the only force capable of subverting the fascist regime. Mussolini used carrots and sticks to control the army: he used high military expenses to meet the needs of the army, bought off most of the soldiers, then attacked a few opposition parties and cultivated cronies in the army. Such an approach will undoubtedly bring unexpected side effects.

Under the infiltration and bribery of fascism, the Italian army has almost become the most corrupt military organization in the world. 1928, General Ugo Cavallero became the head coach of Arsenal in Ansaldo. During his tenure, there were scandals in the factory, such as replacing the armored special steel of cruisers with ordinary steel plates and selecting shells to deal with military spot checks. However, all the scandals were covered up by fascism, and his career went smoothly. 194 1, chief of staff of the army. The main training subject of the army is only long-distance marching, and the annual exercises are pre-arranged performances. Soldiers' meat is often detained, and the fascist party has no intention of correcting these ills.

Mussolini once launched the "Wheat Production Movement" and changed the pasture into a wheat field. As a result, meat production has dropped rapidly. Mussolini thinks this is not a problem, because "20 million people have wisely formed the habit of not eating meat". However, the survey of 1939 shows that a quarter of young people are not suitable for joining the army because of malnutrition.

The partisanship of the army has seriously hindered the normal military development. The Italian Air Force was a newly established service after the First World War. Without the historical fetters of Lu Haijun, it soon established a private conspiracy for fascism. For this reason, fascism attaches great importance to the independence of the air force, and Italian fighters have long despised cooperation with the army and navy.

The navy has planned to build an aircraft carrier since 1920. However, due to the principle of "the air force monopolizes all aircraft", the air force even refused to jointly establish a torpedo force with the navy, laying the groundwork for being defeated by the British navy in the future.

▍ 1935, the Italian army established the Quartermaster Production Headquarters (CoGeFaG) to try to coordinate military production. However, the navy successfully controlled the department, monopolized most of the resources and technicians, and dealt a heavy blow to the weapons research and development of the army and air force. However, due to the suppression of the naval aviation faction by the air force, the navy could not play its combat effectiveness equivalent to the input, and the cutting-edge warships were beaten out of the water by the British biplane.

At the same time, Mussolini's desire for personal power expanded, and his good desire to control and guide everything far exceeded his actual ability, which brought more serious negative effects to the Italian army.

Starting from 1925, Mussolini served as the minister of navy, army and air force for a long time, and fully grasped the financial, administrative and military decisions of the three armed forces. He is not a competent dictator and often fails to see the key points in many documents; But he refused to set up a general staff with real power to prevent any soldier from having more influence than himself. To make matters worse, he doesn't care about the professional advice of the general staff and often goes his own way.

Italian military decision-making mechanism in Mussolini's time. Among them, the Supreme General Staff has no real power and few positions; The actual decision was made by Mussolini himself and the general staff of the three armed forces respectively, and the coordination was extremely poor. The General Staff didn't gain real power until the end of 194 1, but its main function was only to implement the requirements of the German army.

From 1935 to 1939, the army general staff put forward many suggestions for updating armaments. But Mussolini, obsessed with the Mediterranean dream, insisted on conquering Ethiopia, interfering in the Spanish civil war, misappropriating three-quarters of the army's military expenditure to East Africa and Spain, and even giving Franco a bunch of tanks and planes that the Italian army did not have its own equipment. As a result, the combat readiness of the Italian army suffered heavy losses.

1939 on the eve of the war, the general staff of the navy and army believed that the Italian army would not be ready for the war until 1942. Mussolini, on the other hand, suddenly declared war on June 1940, driving unprepared troops from all sides to attack France, Egypt and Greece, killing hundreds of thousands of people.

Before World War II, the Italian army was equipped with a large number of ultra-light tanks suitable for mountain operations, and its firepower armor was extremely weak, which could not be compared with foreign tanks. The performance and output of new medium-sized tanks are also extremely insufficient.

More absurdly, due to the absence of the General Staff, all Italy's operational plans were independently formulated by the General Staff of the three armed forces without coordination: the navy only planned a decisive battle with the French fleet and did not consider escorting African troops at all; The army planned to attack the Suez Canal without informing the navy.

Therefore, the efficiency of cooperation between services is extremely low: in the face of Malta, an isolated island from which the British main force has been evacuated, Italy has never been able to organize an effective amphibious attack; In the Mediterranean campaign, there were many times when the navy called for air support, and the air force arrived late and dropped bombs on its warships.

In fact, Italians are by no means without a chance to win military honors. Italian soldiers often go into battle under extremely difficult conditions such as malnutrition, lack of training, insufficient logistics, backward weapons and chaotic command. As long as they improve some of these problems, they can create a stronger record. In many small-scale operations at the grassroots level, the Italian army has a bright performance. The Italian troops stationed in Russia resisted the Soviet onslaught in the Battle of Stalingrad, and their performance was no worse than that of the Germans.