Slander, or was the Italian Army really that bad?

[Murph]

Looking at the Italian Army of WWI and WWII, were they really as bad as history had painted them, or were they good troops, poorly equipped and led in over their heads? Was the Italian Officer Corps incompetent bumbling fools on the lines of the Marx Brothers, or were they decent officers with poorly motivated troops and poor equipment? Was Italian equipment as bad as history claims?

 

What is the truth of the matter?

[Colin]

I have read that when well led and equipped they did quite well, the problem seemed that most lacked the 2 former and the motivation to fight the allies was not that strong.

[RETAC21]

This is not going to go well with the Italian members, but defeat at Guadalajara, France 1940 and Greece, against troops as poorly equipped and no better trained, seems to point out bad doctrine and bad leadership.

[Ken Estes]

This is not going to go well with the Italian members, but defeat at Guadalajara, France 1940 and Greece, against troops as poorly equipped and no better trained, seems to point out bad doctrine and bad leadership.

 

Guadalajara was a limited attack which saw the Italians pull back to their start line, no more, when faced with numerical superiority [air and ground].

France 1940 saw the Italian 35 divisions fail to breach the Maritime Maginot Line, something Army Group C of the Wehrmacht was equally powerless to effect in the NE of France.

The Greek offensive most effectively illustrates your point, by launching an offensive against skilled mouintain troops in mountainous terrain as the winter approached, with only 7 divisions..... Even then, they almost reached a point in the south where the one Italian armored division might have been launched had they exploited the success of the first week. By November, the RAF is in Greece and it is all over but the races.

 

The main problem was being hitched to the Germans, because the ensuing 'alliance' consisted of fighting parallel wars, not coalition ones. There was no unified strategy, operations nor even logistics. Each army fought on its own. As Sadkovich points out,

How difficult dealing with the Germans could be was illustrated by Italian efforts to obtain a license to produce the German Mark III and IV tanks, which they wanted to replace their M13/40 medium tank. Negotiations dragged on from June 1941 until March 1942, when the Italians dropped the idea because they would have had to pay a high price for the license and then produce tanks for the German army as well as for their own. How long-lasting the effects of German errors could be was made clear in January 1942 when Keitel, owing to the demands of Germany's front in Russia, reneged on a promise to cede 250 captured Belgian anti-tank guns to the Italians, who needed them desperately in North Africa.

 

As Colin states, they could fight well on occasion, and the Italians saved Rommel on several occasions. The odds remained poor.

[Ken Estes]

As for WWI, the 12 Battles of the Ilonzo would have worn out any army, and the Germans had to consistently brace up the Austrians vs. Italy. The Italian victory at Vittorio Veneto arguably opened the door wide to So. Germany, with no Austrian troops capable of interfering, and perhaps this was as influential as the Black Day of the German Army in bringing the Armistice.

[RETAC21]

Guadalajara was a limited attack which saw the Italians pull back to their start line, no more, when faced with numerical superiority [air and ground].

 

At the end, it was, but they had overwhelming superiority initially which they were unable to use due to poor traffic control, then screwed up logistics leaving forward troops unsupplied and then fell back in disorder when counterattacked. Their plan was to perform a deep penetration disregarding their flanks in the hope their enemy would be demoralised and surrender - hardly sound tactics or operational art. They repeated the performance in 1937 (Bermeo) and 1938, except by then, the Republicans were demoralised and in no condition to take advantage. The Spaniards were unimpressed on both sides.

 

France 1940 saw the Italian 35 divisions fail to breach the Maritime Maginot Line, something Army Group C of the Wehrmacht was equally powerless to effect in the NE of France.

 

One would have hoped that the 12 battles of the Isonzo would have taught them a lesson.

 

The main problem was being hitched to the Germans, because the ensuing 'alliance' consisted of fighting parallel wars, not coalition ones. There was no unified strategy, operations nor even logistics. Each army fought on its own. As Sadkovich points out,

As Colin states, they could fight well on occasion, and the Italians saved Rommel on several occasions. The odds remained poor.

 

It was, and they performed better as they learned their lessons, although it was a question of the theater of operations rather than doctrine emanating from their High Command - better in NA than in Russia.

 

The dismal performance surrendering in 1943 when the country was handed over to the Germans should also be taken into account.

[Ken Estes]

Most true. However, understanding the realities of the actions at Guadalajara remained illusive. The attack by the Italian CTV was planned as only a limited push, in the direction of Alcalá de Henares, in order to give Franco’s stalled forces on the Jarama Front a chance to resume their advance, effecting a juncture at Alcalá and completing the isolation of Madrid. Roatta’s forces never planned more than this and his mechanized forces did not advance beyond the initial infantry movements, because of the surprisingly inadequate roads and the bad weather. When the Nationalists did not advance from their Jarama positions and the Republican Central Army reinforced against the Italians, any notion of an offensive evaporated as the Republicans then outnumbered the Italians both on the ground and in the air. An orderly withdrawal resulted in the loss of a few advanced guns, but no mounted troops or tanks were threatened by the eventual air attacks and the Italians retained about a third of the territory they had initially seized. Republican tank attacks were fought off with artillery pieces placed forward with the infantry and Italian infantry had no problem evading the T-26s as they were not accompanied by Republican infantry.

[Richard Lindquist]

Mario Cervi, "The Hollow legions: Mussolini's Blunder in Greece, 1940-1941", Doubleday and Company, 1971, Library of Congress 75-116193 gives a pretty good picture of Italian failings during the campaign in Greece.

 

Mark Thompson, "The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919" narrates the Italian experience in WWI. Luigi Cadorna makes Douglas Haig look like a military genius. The fact that the ill-supplied, and polyglot Austro-Hungarian troops held out as long as they did is a tribute to General Borevic, their commander.

 

John R. Schindler, "Isonzo: The Forgotten Sacrifice of the Great War" is another good read.

 

The Italians were eager to enter WWI and rushed off to the front with the same enthusiasm as the rest of the combatants. The italians were the most criippled by the sacrifices of WWI and, at the soldier level< the most reluctant to enter WWII.

 

In both cases, from a political point of view, the Italian motives for entering both wars were among the least honorable of all the combatants. In WWIm, they betrayed their pre-war alliance and opted for the side with the most to offer. In WWII, they were a jackal coming in late after the kill.

[irregularmedic]

Looking at the Italian Army of WWI and WWII, were they really as bad as history had painted them, or were they good troops, poorly equipped and led in over their heads? Was the Italian Officer Corps incompetent bumbling fools on the lines of the Marx Brothers, or were they decent officers with poorly motivated troops and poor equipment? Was Italian equipment as bad as history claims?

 

What is the truth of the matter?

 

Certainly their machineguns were bad. Of course it didn't help that the war caught them in the middle of changing over calibres so that they end up having 6.5 and 7.35mm weapons* further complicating their logistics. One has to wonder at decision making that sees thousands of CR-42 biplanes being produced as late as 1942 as well.

Of course part of that was the predilections of the pilots themselves. Apparently high command was unable to convince or order them to fly with enclosed cockpits in monoplanes.

 

There is no question Italian troops could be brave but one gets the impression that most of the soldiers hearts weren't in either war in general, war for Mussolini's glory or war against Americans and English who they liked. Can't really blame them there.

 

* Edit: That was just rifles! There were three calibre of MG's: 6.5mm, 7.35 mm, and 8 mm. The 8mm wasn't even "8mm Mauser" either, it was 8x59!

Edited March 12, 2010 by irregularmedic

[KingSargent]

On the whole the Italians gave the worst performance of the "Major Combatants.'"Of course they WEREN'T "Major," that was a fantasy of Mussolini, who IMHO was the most incompetent head of state 1925-45. (We can leave the French out of it, they didn't HAVE a head of state.*)

 

Now this is not a criticism of the Italian serviceman, many performed quite well under Italian and foreign leadership. But their whole system sucked from the top down. Some reasons for this have been mentioned here, but it all boils down to bad leadership and lack of coordination from the top.

 

* The French military in 1940 equaled or surpassed the poorest Italian performances, and for similar reasons: Political leadership that was incompetent or simply not there led to all the other FUBARs.

[Kentucky-roughrider]

I think part of the problem with the Italian Army exspecially in North Africa was their gear exspecially their tanks, no matter how brave they were they could not match the British tanks exspecially the Matila http://www.onwar.com/tanks/italy/data/m1139.htm , http://www.onwar.com/tanks/italy/data/m1340.htm , and http://www.onwar.com/tanks/italy/data/m1542.htm

 

The British tanks the main infantry tanks http://www.onwar.com/tanks/uk/data/valentine2.htm and http://www.onwar.com/tanks/uk/data/matilda3.htm the Italians were pretty close to the Cruiser tanks however http://www.onwar.com/tanks/uk/data/ctmkiva.htm and http://www.onwar.com/tanks/uk/data/crusader1.htm and compared to the German tanks even the Mark III of that day were a much better tank than theirs which made them look worse than they really were.

 

Another weakness was the lack of NCO's, allot of them were promoted to the officer corp. This give them allot of NCo that were very junior for their rank.

[Shortround6]

From an infantry point of view, the Mgs have been mentioned but going further the Breda M 30 was one of the worst light MGs in use in WW II and even at that the Italians had about 1/2 the number per company/battalion as other army's.

The Heavier MGs weren't as bad but weren't really world class either. All things considered the only weapons in the infantry battalion that were world class were the Berretta sub machine guns and the 81mm mortar. Every other weapon in the Battalion was in competition for worlds worst in it's category. Couple that with insufficient support weapons in higher formations and/or supply/ammo shortages and it is no wonder that Italian units performed poorly on Average.

 

adding in the bad tactical leadership (in addition to procurement/supply) lack of goals important to the average soldier (who's own goal was to survive the bad leadership and you get the historical result.

 

Given motivation, goals, leadership and equipment that gave some hope of success and many Individuals, small units performed as well as as any other combatant.

[Ken Estes]

Yet Italian artillery and line infantry are essential to Rommel's successes.... The two armored divisions make contributions at Crusader, Gazala and Second Tobruk, irreplaceable ones at that, and the sacrifice of Ariete AD arguably saves the DAK in the retreat from 2d Alamein.

 

In Russia, the Italians simply join the several hosts of auxiliary formations drafted into the 1942 campaign by the Germans, who then piss it all away by dividing AG South, which was the sole main effort.

[irregularmedic]

From an infantry point of view, the Mgs have been mentioned but going further the Breda M 30 was one of the worst light MGs in use in WW II and even at that the Italians had about 1/2 the number per company/battalion as other army's.

The Heavier MGs weren't as bad but weren't really world class either. All things considered the only weapons in the infantry battalion that were world class were the Berretta sub machine guns and the 81mm mortar. Every other weapon in the Battalion was in competition for worlds worst in it's category. Couple that with insufficient support weapons in higher formations and/or supply/ammo shortages and it is no wonder that Italian units performed poorly on Average.

 

adding in the bad tactical leadership (in addition to procurement/supply) lack of goals important to the average soldier (who's own goal was to survive the bad leadership and you get the historical result.

 

Given motivation, goals, leadership and equipment that gave some hope of success and many Individuals, small units performed as well as as any other combatant.

 

I think you are being too kind there. The Breda 37 required an oiler to lubricate each round and was fed by 20 round strips. And then there's this:

 

The rounds still had to be oiled to stop the cases sticking in the chamber, with all the disadvantages this entailed. Another peculiarity of the design is that the spent cases were reinserted into the strip as each round was fired. The mechanical energy required to perform this function substantially reduced the rate of fire, and the weapon tended to jam whenever a case was reinserted even slightly out of line. It also meant that in the event the metal clips had to be reused, the gunner's assistant had to first remove the empty cases from the strips.

(from the wikipedia entry on it)

 

Could a person have designed a more complex system? Could they have slowed the rate of fire any more? I'd say it was criminal to choose such a weapon in 1937. There are any number of better designs that could have been copied, license or no.

 

It's praised for its cartridge, but adding a third calibre to the Italians logistics burden again seems criminal to me. It's said it had good reliability despite its complexity because it tended to be crewed by more experienced personnel, but that is hardly a selling point. I like how its slow rate of fire is praised in some circles as helping keep it from overheating.

The Breda 37 compares poorly against WWI machineguns in my book.

 

The revision the Fiat Revelli 14 in 1935 managed to fail to resolve the need for an oiler on this weapon as well by reducing reliability even further through needing to have each cartridge individually hand luricated or having the oiler remounted which combined with the 'upgrade' actually made it less reliable. This is slightly more excusable in my book as I understand the need for economy when I've read reports of Italian troops parading before going off to Albania and not all of them having boots. But you think they could have tested some of them first and when it obviously was not only not an improvement but clearly a step backward then they could have saved themselves the cost and trouble of 'upgrading' the rest of the Model 14's to M.14/35's

 

 

One of my favorite parts of Popski's Private Army is when he is given some auxiliary troops to train (North Africans IIRC) and they are given their choice of captured Italian equipment to outfit themselves. After trying for a time to make Italian machineguns work reliably they discard them entirely, preferring to make do with rifles rather than weapons that won't work. Now I realize they may not have had the manuals for them, but I seem to recall them having a number of very bright Englishmen tinkering on them.

 

Given modern examples of procurement disasters galore I suppose I should be more forgiving but I find it utterly baffling that an army would equip itself with such garbage, especially when surrounded by far better examples, having the experience of thier own over-complex and poorly designed MG from WWI and expecting to be fighting in deserts from the Horn of Africa to Tunisia. The Italian Army should have tried their procurement people as war criminals and hung them.

Edited March 13, 2010 by irregularmedic

[Bearded-Dragon]

Interesting how seriously the British Army took the Italians, even after their defeats in Libya and Italian East Africa. I suspect they knew the score and didn't under-estimate their martial ability.

[Yama]

Poor Italian performance in World Wars is due to many factors, including political and social, and foremostly, economical. Italy became an industrial power only after WW2. Before that, Italy was an agricultural country and as I recall, GDP per capita was one of the lowest in Europe. They simply had no means to build up necessary materiél to fight a major war, not even in same level as France or Japan, much less UK or Germany.

[Harry Yeide]

Then-Oberst Siegfried Westphal, who had been Rommel’s operations officer in 1942 and seen Italian troops frequently in battle, later wrote, “It would be superficial simply to dismiss the Italian soldier as a failure, because of his poor showing in the Second World War. The real causes lay much deeper, and some of them should be brought to light. Neither the armed forces nor the people had any inspiring war aim before their eyes. At home the soldier found no moral support. Nor was he equipped or prepared for war with a European opponent armed with all the weapons that modern technique could supply. . . . The Italian Army’s tank forces were particularly badly off in armor, fire-power, and the ability to traverse rough country. The penetrating power of its antitank weapons and the range, caliber, and sighting of its artillery, including anti-aircraft guns, were all inferior.”

 

The Italian General Staff’s assessment of its own men and equipment in North Africa was similar. Its soldiers were not as motivated, it judged, and its equipment was generally inferior.

 

The Centauro Division seems to have fought fairly well against US II Corps in Tunisia. The Livorno Division acquitted itself well on Sicily and paid heavily in blood.

[Marek Tucan]

ISTR reading that the most spectacular defeats were ofthen much helped by long time of inactivity preceding them - generally, officers were not with their units, but somewhere off drinking or so and thus the troops were left in complete darkness as to what's happening and even that there's anything happening and they didn't know what to do, so when the enemy suddenly pooped up in their rear etc., the morale plummeted down.

[Argus]

I think you are being too kind there. The Breda 37 required an oiler to lubricate each round and was fed by 20 round strips. And then there's this:

(from the wikipedia entry on it)

 

Could a person have designed a more complex system? Could they have slowed the rate of fire any more? I'd say it was criminal to choose such a weapon in 1937. There are any number of better designs that could have been copied, license or no.

 

It's praised for its cartridge, but adding a third calibre to the Italians logistics burden again seems criminal to me. It's said it had good reliability despite its complexity because it tended to be crewed by more experienced personnel, but that is hardly a selling point. I like how its slow rate of fire is praised in some circles as helping keep it from overheating.

The Breda 37 compares poorly against WWI machineguns in my book.

 

You've got both ends of the story there, but you have to tie them together. AFAIK the purpose of putting the empties back into the strip was so they could be easily returned for reloading. As the only weapon of that calibre its ammo in Italian service was unique to the weapon and only came supplied in the strips, so there was no need to reload strips in the field as a regular thing, but it was desirable to recycle the strips and cases - it also kept the gun position tidy .

 

The oiling was a poor feature and one that generally afflicted both the Italians and Japanese to strange extent - I can't imagine there was any mystery about primary extraction so why they kept falling over that log is a puzzle.

 

I'm just waiting for someone to bring up the Brixa M35

 

shane

[irregularmedic]

You've got both ends of the story there, but you have to tie them together. AFAIK the purpose of putting the empties back into the strip was so they could be easily returned for reloading. As the only weapon of that calibre its ammo in Italian service was unique to the weapon and only came supplied in the strips, so there was no need to reload strips in the field as a regular thing, but it was desirable to recycle the strips and cases - it also kept the gun position tidy .

 

The oiling was a poor feature and one that generally afflicted both the Italians and Japanese to strange extent - I can't imagine there was any mystery about primary extraction so why they kept falling over that log is a puzzle.

 

I'm just waiting for someone to bring up the Brixa M35

 

shane

 

Ah! Thanks for that, I was unaware.

[Colin]

Surely there must have been hordes of maxim guns around or basically copy the Vickers, it was not a "modern" design and likely well within their abilites.

[Richard Lindquist]

Surely there must have been hordes of maxim guns around or basically copy the Vickers, it was not a "modern" design and likely well within their abilites.

 

 

The Italians also had a bunch of ex-Austrian Schwartzlose machine guns as reparations from WWI to further complicate the picture.

[JOE BRENNAN]

The Italians were eager to enter WWI and rushed off to the front with the same enthusiasm as the rest of the combatants. The italians were the most criippled by the sacrifices of WWI and, at the soldier level< the most reluctant to enter WWII.

 

In both cases, from a political point of view, the Italian motives for entering both wars were among the least honorable of all the combatants. In WWIm, they betrayed their pre-war alliance and opted for the side with the most to offer. In WWII, they were a jackal coming in late after the kill.

I agree with those points. Italian military performance in WWII especially was generally poor. That's sometimes exaggerated but it's no myth. One underlying reason was the Italian economy relative to other 'major' combatants*, but I think the basic social and political situation was also a big factor, especially in WWII.

 

Every major long term participant in WWI showed signs of serious social strain in or after that war of attrition. The Italian military and society showed itself less able to stand the strain than some but, very importantly, ultimately better than A-H. In WWII OTOH Italy was morally weakest, only France could be compared. Both suffered from hangover of war weariness from 'victory' in WWI. Germany had turned its more bitter experience in WWI into a society united in revanchism. The USSR had an even more radically different society when WWII came than Russia in WWI. Britain was able to shake itself out of the post-WWI malaise in face of a mortal threat in WWII, and had the geographic depth and time; France didn't.

 

Italy in contrast in WWII period was either piling on after German successes or competing with Germany by attacking countries that were no threat to Italy, but without the depth of true belief in such actions that characterized the military and people in Germany. When things turned against it seriously, Italian morale collapsed Caporetto-style, but against a more relentless opponent. The Italian military and Army particularly had a reputation for weaknesses like poor mutual sympathy between officers and men, among other weaknesses already mentioned, but it would have been remarkable IMO if the Italian military could have somehow organically generated the level of morale required for such a difficult struggle as WWII, also given Italy's material shortcomings, in the general social/political situation of Italy.

 

*no 'minor power' navy was remotely close to Italy's but in land warfare the distinction wasn't as clear; Romania's army was arguably comparable to Italy's.

 

Joe

[Bob B]

Surely there must have been hordes of maxim guns around or basically copy the Vickers, it was not a "modern" design and likely well within their abilites.

 

They could have had the Vickers, but politics won out in the end.

 

In 1899 Italy mas one of the first countries to purchase maxims. 74 brass pattern, and 220 of the heavy 1904. The 1904 guns were not well liked. FWIW, the US had them and didn't like them either.

 

When the Vickers was introduced Italy was second to Britain in placing orders. Before WW1 Italy made a commercial purchase of 890 Vickers Machine guns. When the war started all Vickers production was diverted to the British Government. Instead of doing the logical thing of obtaining the a license to produce it on a royalty basis, they choose to adopt the Fiat Revelli machine gun because of politics. Had they produced the Vickers they would have had a better gun and could have sold guns back to the British. Instead the tried to sell the Brits a .303 version of the Revelli gun which was turned down.

 

When Italy entered the war on the allies side she received 902 more Vickers in 1917 and 1950 more in 1918.

 

After the war several more Vickers types were purchased in small quantities for trials.

 

In the 1920s some of the few remaining Vickers, along with some Revellis were sold off to Ecuador.

 

Most of this is from Goldsmith's The Grand Old Lady of No Mans Land.

[Colin]

I was at a gun show today and on display was a Breda 8mm MG complete with loading system for the clips, and I didn't bring a camera.......idiot!!!! Also a complete Vickers beside it, along with Brens, Sukimo MG, MG 42 (A person with a complete trpod for sale further down) and a few other nifty guns. Really brought the differance to light between the Vickers and the Breada, talk about reinventing the wheel and ending up a box instead.