[Tribbles]

I am quite hard on Mussolinis WWII-policies, yes.

I so no reason not to.

Maybe another time will come, when better solutions are found, and things work out better?

[Far-Right Sage]

When nationalists can construct the magnificent on a bed of liberal ashes.

At this point I can do nothing but perpetually salute the German, Japanese, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, Croatian, and Finnish martyrs who fell for a set of higher ideals I have been deprived of since birth as would anyone who yearns for spiritual nourishment and cultural enrichment.

[Potemkin]

Italian causalities in WWII were just those unlucky souls that were pushed into harms way without getting their chance to surrender.

I'm sorry, but that's a very Italian thing to say, Tribbles.

[Decky]

and they colonized Ethiopia.

Big deal.

No doubt you will bring up their valiant subjugation of the Albanian war machine next.

[starman2003]

Holding up the poor performance of the Italian military as a symbol of Fascism's failure is ridiculous, because they performed just as poorly if not moreso in the First World War.

But fascism should've rectified national weakness. Czarist Russia also performed poorly in WWI and prior to that, in 1905, but the communists, or Stalinists, sure rectified that.

It was a failure of the clannish nature of Italian society which stressed the village above the region and the region above all, including the fatherland,

Again, if Italian fascism were worthwhile, it should've done more about such problems. What's the use of opting for it if it couldn't do better?

and its unindustrialized nature and technological backwardness. Italy was just a poor, relatively weak country....

They built battleships, submarines, cruisers, fighters, tanks etc. Some of their weapons were inferior but others weren't; the British put to use every 20mm Breda they could capture. The main problem was lack of motivation.

[Section Leader]

Italy's heart was never in the war, they expected it would be over in a few months when they joined and only jumped in to claim some of the glory. They had some pretty good equipment but most of their troops weren't even proper soldiers, a lot of them were volunteer Blackshirts who were taught to march, fire a rifle and very little else, and most of them pissed their pants when they saw British or Greek soldiers coming towards them and fled in terror.

[Figlio di Moros]

Holding up the poor performance of the Italian military as a symbol of Fascism's failure is ridiculous, because they performed just as poorly if not moreso in the First World War. It was a failure of the clannish nature of Italian society which stressed the village above the region and the region above all, including the fatherland, and its unindustrialized nature and technological backwardness. Italy was just a poor, relatively weak country and the Second World War did everything to derail any progress on that front, ironically for what it was needed most.

All things Mussolini claimed he'd fix, and had twenty years to do so. South Korea and Singapore are much smaller nations that accomplished far more in half the time- these excuses are simply pathetic, especially for an ideologue whose political structure rested on authoritarianism. For fuck's sake, it took Hitler less than ten years to consolodate the nation, expand industry, and prepare the military for WWII. The fact that Italy made no advancement between WWI and WWII is a testiment it's own worthlessness, and to the perversion of Mussolini worship.

All that has to be said on this front, I said already- Italian-Americans were ten-fold as valiant as Italians.

[Section Leader]

Mussolini was fine as a domestic ruler, but he was no warlord, having little clue about military matters. Truth be told Hitler wasn't that much better, but he had clued-up deputies like Goering and Himmler.

[Far-Right Sage]

All things Mussolini claimed he'd fix, and had twenty years to do so. South Korea and Singapore are much smaller nations that accomplished far more in half the time- these excuses are simply pathetic, especially for an ideologue whose political structure rested on authoritarianism. For fuck's sake, it took Hitler less than ten years to consolodate the nation, expand industry, and prepare the military for WWII. The fact that Italy made no advancement between WWI and WWII is a testiment it's own worthlessness, and to the perversion of Mussolini worship.

All that has to be said on this front, I said already- Italian-Americans were ten-fold as valiant as Italians

The situations in Germany and Italy were not even comparable. In Italy, Italian nationalists were bitter about the British and French reneging on the Treaty of London and giving Fiume (now the Croatian port city of Rijeka) and parts of the Dalmatian coast to the newly created Kingdom of Yugoslavia after Italian soldiers got stuck on one of the most difficult fronts of the war and sacrificed so much. Given the threat of socialist and Communist revolution in the interwar period many became ambivalent toward the liberal establishment and the House of Savoy's ability to protect them and establish a positive vision.

In Germany, the country was absolutely devastated and torn to pieces as a result of Versailles and what came after. Money was so worthless couples would pay for their meal in a restaurant before eating, because the price would jump three or four times before their meal was finished. Restrictions on the military turned the state into a vassal. French colonial Senegalese troops were occupying the left bank of the Rhine and raping German women. Culturally and socially the Weimar Republic was an opportunity for every European freak to show up in Germany and realize their most hedonistic and base of desires. It was hell on Earth and anarchy.

My point is that the NSDAP was starting from what can almost be considered a "blank state". Millions and millions of Germans came to despise the society around them during this period and wished for everything to be torn down around them and something glorious to be built on its ashes and debris, though they didn't know quite what yet. In Italy, centrist factions had more influence as can be evidenced by the initial tolerance of even the socialist Matteoti's protests against Mussolini and Fascist governance. Political "moderates" (know-nothings) were not disaffected with liberal rule to the extent that this occurred in Germany, and Mussolini still had to contend with, initially parliament, later King Victor Emmanuel III and the church.

I suppose my point in bringing this up is that it's clear when one gives a more introspective look to both Fascist Italy and NS Germany that Hitler had far more of a mandate to effect radical change.

Perhaps even more to the point, I don't believe assigning leadership to "fix" a country in a certain time period in the sense of irrevocably altering its social structure which spans millenia is usually possible unless certain conditions are met. Germany was always more efficient and organized than Italian society. It wasn't just true in the Second World War. It's indeed still true today. Travel to Italy and hire a tour or a driver. They will arrive two hours late and are confused when you question them on it. What people fail to understand about great leaders is that men are not gods. Every great leadership in history, and I would include Hitler as one for instance, is made up of two parts: great skill as fighters/intellectuals/men and the conditions and people which exist around them. Hitler was a visionary, a fantastic thinker, writer, speaker, and fighter for the German people, but the conditions that were granted to him were near-perfect for the complete demolition of a society and establishment of a greater vision. Would he have fared as well in Afghanistan, Bolivia, or the United States? Would Stalin?

The bottom line in all this is that Italian performance in the war with notable expections - terrific men such as Italo Balbo and Rodolfo Graziani, the Decima Flottiglia MAS frogman unit of the Regia Marina, the paramilitary resistance until death in defense of the Salo Republic, Italian infantry who fought house to house in Eritrea against British forces and Ethiopian guerrillas (a British author remarked these men were some of the toughest of the war, fighting every bit as fiercely as the Germans at Stalingrad), etc. - was disappointing, but this failure does not erase nearly twenty years of Italian progress for which Mussolini was praised, as I mentioned, by figures as diverse as Hitler to Gandhi. No, the Battle for Wheat, the taming of the Pontine Marshes, the eradication of the Mafia, the creation of a level of economic indepedence in Italy, revolutionary art and architecture, and the return of ethnic Italians to areas they hadn't trod since Roman times cannot be erased.

Mussolini was fine as a domestic ruler, but he was no warlord, having little clue about military matters. Truth be told Hitler wasn't that much better, but he had clued-up deputies like Goering and Himmler.

Indeed, nor were Churchill or Stalin. Churchill without his later career would still be remembered today for the disaster of the Battle of Gallipoli thrown together with poor logistics and complete underestimation of Turkish resistance. He would probably be likened to Douglas Haig. And Stalin almost single-handedly lost the war for the Soviets until his own men essentially told him to sit down and shut up. Once Stalin stepped down and Zhukov stepped up, Soviet fortunes improved.

[Decky]

And Stalin almost single-handedly lost the war for the Soviets until his own men essentially told him to sit down and shut up.

H managed to lose the Polish- Soviet war for the Soviets too due to his completely incompetent generalship in the south, f it wasn't for that the Soviets would have marched on Warsaw (and more than likely Berlin soon afterwards with support of German socialists stopping fascism from ever popping up).

[starman2003]

Mussolini was fine as a domestic ruler, but he was no warlord, having little clue about military matters. Truth be told Hitler wasn't that much better, but he had clued-up deputies like Goering and Himmler.

As military commanders, the latter two left a lot to be desired. Adolf did of course have great generals like Manstein.

[Potemkin]

Mussolini was fine as a domestic ruler, but he was no warlord, having little clue about military matters. Truth be told Hitler wasn't that much better, but he had clued-up deputies like Goering and Himmler.

Starman beat me to it. Goering lost the Battle of Britain and was in disgrace for the rest of the War, and Himmler was just a blithering idiot when it came to military command: Himmler as a military commander.

One of the basic problems for Germany during WWII was that Hitler didn't trust those people who did have military competence (and rightly so, as events were to show), and promoted loyal but imbecilic sycophants into positions of high military command.

[Far-Right Sage]

Yes, that was very much the case.

A problem that could only perhaps have been rectified by an earlier and far better integration of the old Prussian Junker elite than what actually occurred. The divergence of far-right thought was unceasingly interesting during this period. Not only did the Führerprinzip alienate the Strasserite wing, but the old guard as well.

[Rich]

Mussolini was fine as a domestic ruler, but he was no warlord, having little clue about military matters. Truth be told Hitler wasn't that much better, but he had clued-up deputies like Goering and Himmler.

Hitler was very clued up on military matters. He undoubtedly had the touch of genius in strategic and tactical matters. However in the words of his valet this wasn't balanced by the slightest vestige of common sense. This was further compounded. If va Banque is the only call you can make its pretty inevitable you're going to lose eventually.

Churchill had a good feel for strategy. The fact that the Gallipoli campaign ended up as a complete balls up didn't mean that Churchill's broad strategic thinking wasn't absolutely correct. In WWII Churchill was on the money again both politically, understanding the threat of a victorious Soviet Union and in terms of strategy. A cross channel invasion in either 42 or 43, (which was backed by the whole of the American Army command) was cretinism pure and simple. The Mediterranean strategy was a huge success given its continual under resourcing, particularly in terms of shipping. It tied up a lot of German resources for the amount of troops and shipping that were committed. Italy tied up a higher ratio of forces than the Normandy campaign, or the Eastern front ever did.

The Normandy invasion was a fool hardy reckless gamble, that could so easily have turned to disaster if there had been bad weather early on, if the Germans had responded properly in the early hours of June 6th or if they had clocked that the second invasion was a giant ruse.

[starman2003]

It tied up a lot of German resources for the amount of troops and shipping that were committed. Italy tied up a higher ratio of forces than the Normandy campaign, or the Eastern front ever did.

It didn't have to be that way; the Germans didn't have to squander so much in a futile offensive against the Anzio bridgehead in May 1944. Btw Rommel once suggested a defense based on the Alps. I don't suppose the ratio would've been so great in that case...

[Decky]

It tied up a lot of German resources for the amount of troops and shipping that were committed. Italy tied up a higher ratio of forces than the Normandy campaign, or the Eastern front ever did.

After all it was just a little skirmish. If I had typed that I would feel ashamed.

[starman2003]

After all it was just a little skirmish. If I had typed that I would feel ashamed.

He meant ratio of forces i.e. Italy tied up more German troops compared to the # of Allied committed, whereas there were relatively fewer elsewhere. But absolute forces is another matter; I see your point.