Annales
New Member
There are several enduring myths about the Italians in the Second World War that have been largely created by the Anglo-American-German fraternity. In my research it appears that many Anglo-American historians have simply taken disparaging German accounts of their Axis partner – the Italians – on face value. One example, are the Rommel Papers as well as reports and memoirs from an array of German generals such as Keitel, Kesselring (who made the snide remark that the Italians were “trained more for display than for action”), General von Thoma (who wrote to Hitler that Italian troops were useless, that “one British soldier was better than 12 Italian”), to Admiral Raeder and others. Such remarks were eagerly accepted by Anglo-American historians as the gospel truth. Indeed, many (but not all) Germans at the time, held such prejudiced beliefs about the Italians due to their heightened sense of racial superiority drummed into them by the Nazis. It is worth mentioning that such erroneous beliefs were also held about other races as well, such as the Romanians, the Hungarians, the Bulgarians, not to mention, Poles and Jews. Rommel himself brought such beliefs with him to North Africa. As one Italian liaison officer observed, “the Italians were widely believed by the Germans to be weak, lazy, cowardly, and militarily incompetent.” I think this last statement pretty much sums it up. With an ally like this, who needs enemies?
Of course, as we on Commando Supremo, and anyone with a scrap of intelligence knows this is all hogwash and nonsense. But back in the 1930’s and 40’s, political correctness and multicultural tolerance hardly existed, and certainly not in the German high command, where they were nearly all good Prussian soldiers: efficient, direct, strait-laced, opinionated bigots to the core.
And since many Anglo historians share or have shared such racist sentiments, who were they to argue with the Germans, their “racial cousins”?
It is sad, but it is what it is. Fortunately, there is some light at the end of the tunnel from certain quarters: Prof. Richard Carrier of the Department of History, Royal Military College of Canada, being one.
In his relatively recent article, ‘Some Reflections on the Fighting Power of the Italian Army in North Africa, 1940–1943’ (War in History, 2015, Vol. 22:4 503–528), he makes a convincing case that after the disaster of Operation Compass, Italian leadership and training dramatically improved. It was a steep learning curve, but one that, by and large, the Italians succeeded in. Certainly the Italians improved their performance whilst learning from their mistakes faster than the Russians who in contrast, required several disasters and nearly a million prisoners before they started to learn from theirs. The Italians did not have the luxury of time and space – but improve, they did.
The myth of Italian military ineffectiveness
Carrier has also exposed another myth for us: that of Italian military ineffectiveness, which he blames on two factors: the lack of familiarity of Italian military archives and official histories and the Rommel legend. Surprise, surprise! But hang on? His article was written in 2015 and still, even today, Anglo and German historians are unfamiliar with Italian archives!! Hard to believe, isn’t it? And yet, this is what Carrier maintains.
But let’s get back to Carrier, an academic who has actually researched Italian WW2 archives. He goes on to write that “unfortunately, few of them [historians] have taken into consideration Italian sources at all, and many still trust the Rommel Papers [edited by Liddell Hart in 1953] as the most reliable source on Italian military performance.” Fortunately, we now know that Liddell Hart had a personal and professional interest in presenting Rommel in the best possible light. This controversy was described by the political scientist Dr John Mersheimer in his work The Weight of History, who concluded that, by "putting words in the mouths of German Generals and manipulating history", Liddell Hart was in a position to show that he had been at the root of the dramatic German successes in 1940" (Wikipedia: The Rommel Papers).
The myth of low morale
Another myth that Carrier exposes is the myth that the Italian soldier was plagued by consistently low morale and a distinct lack of will to fight. “During the campaign, and contrary to common belief, Italian morale was not always low, even in the case of the infantry divisions.” This does not mean that after the disaster of Operation Compass, Italian morale did not reach rock bottom. Of course it did and it would be very odd if it didn’t. But what it does mean is that morale wasn’t always going to remain low. Morale soon recovered with the appearance of the Ariete and Trento armored divisions, more infantry and motorized divisions, as well as the arrival of the Germans. Any help was going to be appreciated from any quarter. (However, the assistance the Italians received from the Germans was not free of nuances and complications, as we will see later.) More importantly, the Italian soldier received better training. It is true that for the average rank and file, the training they received on the Italian mainland was not always of the highest quality nor sufficient. But after the mauling of Graziani’s 10th Army by the British, training improved markedly, training which occurred behind the lines in North Africa at Centri di Istruzione or instruction centers in order to increase their fighting performance for the fighting to come. With on the spot training, practical instruction, real field experience, armored reinforcements, the support provided by the Germans coupled with better tactics and equipment, the performance of the Italians improved significantly. According to Carrier, training requirements and methods were reviewed and implemented, and the result was impressive. In addition, infantry units and divisions were upgraded and better trained, with good results. For example, men were trained on how to use the 47mm anti-tank gun more effectively at close range against vulnerable parts of an enemy vehicle and how to use improvised explosive devices such as incendiary bombs to maximum effect. Even reputedly weak infantry units improved dramatically and gave a good account of themselves against the Australians at Tel el Makh Khad ridge. Dr Carrier, having studied the primary sources from Italian military archives closely, confirms that Italian generals and officers took the matter of training very seriously. The newly restructured Italian army in Libya by the winter of 1941 was very different to the Italian army of June 1940.
Italian - German collaboration
The presence of the Germans was initially welcomed by the Italians. As stated previously, any help from any quarter was always going to be welcomed. It was often assumed by the British that the new, improved performance of the Italians and higher morale was “due almost certainly to increasing German influence both in organization and tactics” (British General Staff Intelligence, Brief Notes, p. 5 cited in Carrier, p.524). However, it wasn’t as simple as that. Carrier argues that this assumption, while seemingly correct, is difficult to prove “as primary and secondary sources have little to offer.” Notwithstanding the German factor, the arrival of reinforcements of infantry and amour like the Ariete and Trento divisions, plus improved training, allowed Italian morale and performance to recover from the shock of their mauling in early 1941. It is my view that the presence of the German divisions and Rommel augmented an increase in morale and performance, but were not the originator of them. Italian officers were not clueless ninnies and stuffed shirts that Anglo and German popular historians like to portray, preferring to eat pasta and play the mandolin than fight. The Italian officer class already had the leadership and skills to train their men up – they didn’t need the Germans for that. But certainly, having the Germans on the ground was the icing on the cake in that it enhanced an increase in leadership, morale and combat performance for the Italians. Carrier notes that their proximity to the Germans, literally eating, fighting and dying shoulder to shoulder, allowed the Italians to learn new tactical and operational techniques, which contributed to an improved performance against their British and Commonwealth opponents.
Carrier’s conclusion: that the Italian army moved on from the disaster of 1940 to become in his words, “an effective fighting force”, even though its successes were often overlooked by the Germans and the British. For all that, the real tragedy or irony of the North African campaign for the Italians was this: notwithstanding the much improved performance of the Italians and their ability to improvise with inferior weaponry to maximum effect, as the war continued their weapons became more and more outdated and less effective, thus losing the technological race that would end in their defeat.
Of course, as we on Commando Supremo, and anyone with a scrap of intelligence knows this is all hogwash and nonsense. But back in the 1930’s and 40’s, political correctness and multicultural tolerance hardly existed, and certainly not in the German high command, where they were nearly all good Prussian soldiers: efficient, direct, strait-laced, opinionated bigots to the core.
And since many Anglo historians share or have shared such racist sentiments, who were they to argue with the Germans, their “racial cousins”?
It is sad, but it is what it is. Fortunately, there is some light at the end of the tunnel from certain quarters: Prof. Richard Carrier of the Department of History, Royal Military College of Canada, being one.
In his relatively recent article, ‘Some Reflections on the Fighting Power of the Italian Army in North Africa, 1940–1943’ (War in History, 2015, Vol. 22:4 503–528), he makes a convincing case that after the disaster of Operation Compass, Italian leadership and training dramatically improved. It was a steep learning curve, but one that, by and large, the Italians succeeded in. Certainly the Italians improved their performance whilst learning from their mistakes faster than the Russians who in contrast, required several disasters and nearly a million prisoners before they started to learn from theirs. The Italians did not have the luxury of time and space – but improve, they did.
The myth of Italian military ineffectiveness
Carrier has also exposed another myth for us: that of Italian military ineffectiveness, which he blames on two factors: the lack of familiarity of Italian military archives and official histories and the Rommel legend. Surprise, surprise! But hang on? His article was written in 2015 and still, even today, Anglo and German historians are unfamiliar with Italian archives!! Hard to believe, isn’t it? And yet, this is what Carrier maintains.
But let’s get back to Carrier, an academic who has actually researched Italian WW2 archives. He goes on to write that “unfortunately, few of them [historians] have taken into consideration Italian sources at all, and many still trust the Rommel Papers [edited by Liddell Hart in 1953] as the most reliable source on Italian military performance.” Fortunately, we now know that Liddell Hart had a personal and professional interest in presenting Rommel in the best possible light. This controversy was described by the political scientist Dr John Mersheimer in his work The Weight of History, who concluded that, by "putting words in the mouths of German Generals and manipulating history", Liddell Hart was in a position to show that he had been at the root of the dramatic German successes in 1940" (Wikipedia: The Rommel Papers).
The myth of low morale
Another myth that Carrier exposes is the myth that the Italian soldier was plagued by consistently low morale and a distinct lack of will to fight. “During the campaign, and contrary to common belief, Italian morale was not always low, even in the case of the infantry divisions.” This does not mean that after the disaster of Operation Compass, Italian morale did not reach rock bottom. Of course it did and it would be very odd if it didn’t. But what it does mean is that morale wasn’t always going to remain low. Morale soon recovered with the appearance of the Ariete and Trento armored divisions, more infantry and motorized divisions, as well as the arrival of the Germans. Any help was going to be appreciated from any quarter. (However, the assistance the Italians received from the Germans was not free of nuances and complications, as we will see later.) More importantly, the Italian soldier received better training. It is true that for the average rank and file, the training they received on the Italian mainland was not always of the highest quality nor sufficient. But after the mauling of Graziani’s 10th Army by the British, training improved markedly, training which occurred behind the lines in North Africa at Centri di Istruzione or instruction centers in order to increase their fighting performance for the fighting to come. With on the spot training, practical instruction, real field experience, armored reinforcements, the support provided by the Germans coupled with better tactics and equipment, the performance of the Italians improved significantly. According to Carrier, training requirements and methods were reviewed and implemented, and the result was impressive. In addition, infantry units and divisions were upgraded and better trained, with good results. For example, men were trained on how to use the 47mm anti-tank gun more effectively at close range against vulnerable parts of an enemy vehicle and how to use improvised explosive devices such as incendiary bombs to maximum effect. Even reputedly weak infantry units improved dramatically and gave a good account of themselves against the Australians at Tel el Makh Khad ridge. Dr Carrier, having studied the primary sources from Italian military archives closely, confirms that Italian generals and officers took the matter of training very seriously. The newly restructured Italian army in Libya by the winter of 1941 was very different to the Italian army of June 1940.
Italian - German collaboration
The presence of the Germans was initially welcomed by the Italians. As stated previously, any help from any quarter was always going to be welcomed. It was often assumed by the British that the new, improved performance of the Italians and higher morale was “due almost certainly to increasing German influence both in organization and tactics” (British General Staff Intelligence, Brief Notes, p. 5 cited in Carrier, p.524). However, it wasn’t as simple as that. Carrier argues that this assumption, while seemingly correct, is difficult to prove “as primary and secondary sources have little to offer.” Notwithstanding the German factor, the arrival of reinforcements of infantry and amour like the Ariete and Trento divisions, plus improved training, allowed Italian morale and performance to recover from the shock of their mauling in early 1941. It is my view that the presence of the German divisions and Rommel augmented an increase in morale and performance, but were not the originator of them. Italian officers were not clueless ninnies and stuffed shirts that Anglo and German popular historians like to portray, preferring to eat pasta and play the mandolin than fight. The Italian officer class already had the leadership and skills to train their men up – they didn’t need the Germans for that. But certainly, having the Germans on the ground was the icing on the cake in that it enhanced an increase in leadership, morale and combat performance for the Italians. Carrier notes that their proximity to the Germans, literally eating, fighting and dying shoulder to shoulder, allowed the Italians to learn new tactical and operational techniques, which contributed to an improved performance against their British and Commonwealth opponents.
Carrier’s conclusion: that the Italian army moved on from the disaster of 1940 to become in his words, “an effective fighting force”, even though its successes were often overlooked by the Germans and the British. For all that, the real tragedy or irony of the North African campaign for the Italians was this: notwithstanding the much improved performance of the Italians and their ability to improvise with inferior weaponry to maximum effect, as the war continued their weapons became more and more outdated and less effective, thus losing the technological race that would end in their defeat.
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