Hitler's Italian allies2000

"This book tries to understand why the Italian armed forces and Fascist regime were so remarkably ineffectual at an activity - war - that was central to their existence. Military-economic weakness, Mussolini's ideological fantasies and strategic megalomania, and Hitler's failure in the wider war made Italian defeat inevitable. But those factors do not wholly account for the peculiarly undignified character of Fascist Italy's final ruin. The book offers an innovative analytical cross-section of the Italian war effort, from society and culture, through politics and war production, to strategy, operations, and tactics, and demonstrates the extent to which Italian military culture - a concept with applications far beyond Fascist Italy or its last war - and the blinkered approach of Italy's...