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Routledge Studies in Second World War History
Mussolini’s Army against Greece
This book analyses why the Italian army failed to defeat its Greek opponent between October 1940 and April 1941. It thoroughly examines the multiple forms of ineffectiveness that plagued the political leadership as well as the military organization.
Mussolini's aggression of Greece ranks among the most neglected campaigns of the Second World War. Initiated on 28 October 1940, the offensive came to a halt less than ten days later; by mid-November, the Greek counter-offensive put the Italian armies on the defensive, and back in Albania. From then on, the fatal interaction between failing command structures, inadequate weapons and equipment, unprepared and unmotivated combatants, and terrible logistics lowered to a dangerous level the fighting power of Italian combatants. This essay proposes that compared to the North African and Russian campaigns where the Regio Esercito achieved a decent level of military effectiveness, the operation against Greece was a military fiasco. Only the courage of its soldiers and the German intervention saved the dictator's army from complete disaster.
This book would appeal to anyone interested in the history of the world war, and to those involved in the study of military effectiveness and intrigued by why armies fail.
Mussolini's aggression of Greece ranks among the most neglected campaigns of the Second World War. Initiated on 28 October 1940, the offensive came to a halt less than ten days later; by mid-November, the Greek counter-offensive put the Italian armies on the defensive, and back in Albania. From then on, the fatal interaction between failing command structures, inadequate weapons and equipment, unprepared and unmotivated combatants, and terrible logistics lowered to a dangerous level the fighting power of Italian combatants. This essay proposes that compared to the North African and Russian campaigns where the Regio Esercito achieved a decent level of military effectiveness, the operation against Greece was a military fiasco. Only the courage of its soldiers and the German intervention saved the dictator's army from complete disaster.
This book would appeal to anyone interested in the history of the world war, and to those involved in the study of military effectiveness and intrigued by why armies fail.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published March 9, 2021
8 people want to read
About the author
Richard C. Carrier
18 books327 followersRichard Cevantis Carrier is an American historian, published philosopher, and prominent defender of the American freethought movement. He is well known for his writings on Internet Infidels, otherwise known as the Secular Web, where he served as Editor-in-Chief for several years. As an advocate of atheism and metaphysical naturalism, he has published articles in books, journals and magazines, and also features on the documentary film The God Who Wasn't There, where he is interviewed about his doubts on the historicity of Jesus. He currently contributes to The God Contention, a web site comparing and contrasting various worldviews.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 2, 2024
This book has some strange terminology and clumsy sentence structure, which suggests it could have used a better editor.
But that doesn't detract too much from the core of the work. This book is very informative regarding a very little known campaign of the Second World War, for which there are not many sources in English.
Richard Carrier has done a fine service in presenting this work, which is full of interesting details about the comparative armaments used by the Greeks and Italians, the major decisions of the Italian leadership, the character of the Italian commanders, and delves deep into the factors influencing the poor morale of the Italian soldiers,
He is thorough enough to suggest that even the delays in mail could have had an impact!
The most important insight I gleaned from this work was the very limited capacity of the Albanian harbours, which was the major problem in equipping the Italy army with the weapons and transport it needed to effectively fight the Greeks.
To put it briefly, the Italians were primarily fighting with infantry armed with bolt-actions because their weak industrial base failed to provide them with the weapons they needed, and the bottlenecks of the Albanian harbours made it impossible for them to transport much of what they had to the front.
This is interesting because the supply problem was the major one in North Africa too, and for many of the same reasons. Namely, that the port capacities of Benghazi and Tripoli were minuscule and historians like Creveld have concluded that it was impossible to sustain Rommel in Egypt whatever the Axis did.
Clearly Italy was deficient in preparing for overseas war as she failed to develop the harbours in either Albania or Libya. She may possibly have been unable to due to technical deficiencies.
Carrier quotes Mussolini lamenting that the Italian Army did better in 1915, and I feel a major reason is because the Italian Army in WWI was not dependent upon these useless harbours for everything it needed. It is truly ironic that the British did better in Egypt despite having to move immensely greater distances.
But that doesn't detract too much from the core of the work. This book is very informative regarding a very little known campaign of the Second World War, for which there are not many sources in English.
Richard Carrier has done a fine service in presenting this work, which is full of interesting details about the comparative armaments used by the Greeks and Italians, the major decisions of the Italian leadership, the character of the Italian commanders, and delves deep into the factors influencing the poor morale of the Italian soldiers,
He is thorough enough to suggest that even the delays in mail could have had an impact!
The most important insight I gleaned from this work was the very limited capacity of the Albanian harbours, which was the major problem in equipping the Italy army with the weapons and transport it needed to effectively fight the Greeks.
To put it briefly, the Italians were primarily fighting with infantry armed with bolt-actions because their weak industrial base failed to provide them with the weapons they needed, and the bottlenecks of the Albanian harbours made it impossible for them to transport much of what they had to the front.
This is interesting because the supply problem was the major one in North Africa too, and for many of the same reasons. Namely, that the port capacities of Benghazi and Tripoli were minuscule and historians like Creveld have concluded that it was impossible to sustain Rommel in Egypt whatever the Axis did.
Clearly Italy was deficient in preparing for overseas war as she failed to develop the harbours in either Albania or Libya. She may possibly have been unable to due to technical deficiencies.
Carrier quotes Mussolini lamenting that the Italian Army did better in 1915, and I feel a major reason is because the Italian Army in WWI was not dependent upon these useless harbours for everything it needed. It is truly ironic that the British did better in Egypt despite having to move immensely greater distances.
Displaying 1 of 1 review