Hitler did something wrong

Enough of this "Italy ruined WW2 next time without italy" meme

The first responsible for Italian lack performance in WW2 is Adolf Hitler

Mussolini was perfectly aware that Italy was not ready for a modern war, as the Ethiopian Campaign proved with no doubt (a waste of resources for little gain, with a bad equipped army led by unfit officers)

He knew that only a strong nation can generate a strong army, so first, he spent a big amount of resources to modernize Italy with many reforms (example: Public Education, Welfare and most important a new health care system, so well done that it became the base for the EU healthcare system). After this he supported the building and farming systems at the same time, reclaiming wetlands and supporting the farmers.
In 1939 Italy was almost at the same level of the other nations for the economical aspects, but the army was still unprepared. For this, when he signed the alliance with Germany, Mussolini personally asked to Hitler to not begin a great war against the western countries before 1943, in order to allow to italy to prepare and modernize its army (the new m13/42 medium tank, the Folgore/Veltro's fighters and new battleships were yet to be completed, and he was still replacing the shitty officers)

Hitler promised to respect this, but when he signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact he believed to have eliminated the biggest threat, so he violated the pact and started his war (there's a letter by foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano, which states that Mussolini, informed of the War, called Hitler and Ribbentrop "reckless idiots").

Mussolini tried to avoid the war, but with french defeat he started to believe that Hitler was really invincible, and that not joining him could bring to a German invasion of Italy, so, despite Italy's lack of military preparation, dragged Italy into a new war.

Also, fascism general thread.
Mussolini's version here
worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/mussolini.htm

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=s3SQFT_E_sg
youtube.com/watch?v=feoZoHWFi1Y
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Compass
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bardia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Bump with Italy's declaration of war

youtube.com/watch?v=s3SQFT_E_sg

DUCE! DUCE! DUCE!

>tfw apparently nobody gives a shit
maybe im just bumping too quickly

Sure is kawaii in here

music bump
youtube.com/watch?v=feoZoHWFi1Y

Are you retarded? Those stupid guaps couldn't keep up. They had subpar equipment and shit tier officers. Timetables are not an excuse. Mussolini failed to prepare his country for the war everyone knew was coming. He was too focused on being loved to realize modernizing the military should have been the priority. All the talk about rebuilding a Roman Empire meant shit. A health care system means shit when you end up full of bullets. Farming support means shit when your fields are bombed to hell and full of treadmarks from American tanks driving through them. They lost and they lost because the piss poor leadership which can be attributed to why the country stayed behind the curve on military tactics + technology.

The biggest reason of defeat is Japan. Japan getting cocky and attacking America was a huge mistake. If Japan had just attacked Russia while their border was undefended, like they were supposed to, they could've taken down Russia.

Mannerheim was the weakest link in the axis camp, not the italians.

>All the talk about rebuilding a Roman Empire
just no

Also we joined Hitler despite being imprepared only because of how he steamrolled France.
None was thinking about starting a war at the time,we didnt want to, we were comfy enuff' in our borders

My great grandfather fought for Italy in ww2 and at least by his account they were very poorly prepared and absolutely should not have been there

exactly my point.

Italy was terrible before mussolini and he was going to fix it and asked hitler not to rush.

But hitler jumped the gun thinking his pact with Russia secured his victory

You couldn't even handle Albania, Greece, or Ethopia. The fighting men were the only saving grace of the Italian war effort because they fought bravely. Too bad your ancestors were wasted on bad generals and supplied with shit that was so useless they might as well have picked up legion shields + swords instead.

You're complaining about the military after in the OP i stated that Italy KNEW it was terrible and was trying to fix it by first building a strong economy a high military budged could sit comfortably on.

Reforming a whole nations army takes money. Mussolini got the money part correct and was working on the military before hitler rushed into war after PROMISING mussolini he wouldn't.

>picked up legion shields + swords instead

italian fascism is based

She is the best pastanigger.
I would eat definely one of her dishes anytime.

Mussolini went on plenty of military adventures before 1943. He is the one who decided to send tens of thousands of troops to aid Spain in their civil war, invade Greece shortly after demobilizing 500,000 troops to help with the harvest, and the failure that was the Ethopian campaign. All as it went he tells the propaganda to the Italian people of the military might and they ate it up. Didn't realize it was shit until it was too late. Italy was not an industrial power of any type. But as basically every other major power in the world understood, spending on the military is a way to boost the economy. Mussolini just decided it was better to be loved for internal improvements so he could have a strong grasp over the people as he filled them with lies about creating a new Italian Empire. He decided the military advancements could wait. His ally Hitler had the strong army anyways, he thought! Their tanks were pea shooters and their air force didn't stop using biplanes in mass until 1942 (a move their general staff was very suspicious of). It is not Hitler's fault Mussolini's priorities were all fucked up.

>Hitler promised to respect this, but when he signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact he believed to have eliminated the biggest threat, so he violated the pact and started his war (there's a letter by foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano, which states that Mussolini, informed of the War, called Hitler and Ribbentrop "reckless idiots").
>Mussolini tried to avoid the war, but with french defeat he started to believe that Hitler was really invincible, and that not joining him could bring to a German invasion of Italy, so, despite Italy's lack of military preparation, dragged Italy into a new war.


He could have always "done a Franco" but was too stupid and vain. Hitler didn't invade Spain (despite the trouble caused by the British possession of Gibraltar) so was hardly likely to invade Italy.

>so was hardly likely to invade Italy
I dont get this thing at all.
Mussolini was pretty much a political mentor for Hitler,he even tried to pull a "marcia su Roma" in Munich but failed quite hard.

i meant to say that H tried to pull that

Mussolini's ego and vanity would never have allowed him to do that. Franco diplomatically remained supportive and allowed volunteer units to go and assist the Axis because he knew that is what it would take to sustain power. Mussolini wasn't interested in simple sustainability. Despite all his focus on internal improvements he still believed he was going to create a new Roman Empire. He might have known how outstretched he was financially and how unprepared his military was, but the fucker still tried to go for it anyway.

>It is not Hitler's fault Mussolini's priorities were all fucked up.

I genuinely think you overestimate the Italian economy prior to Mussolini and thus don't get why he didn't go military first off. They were barely industrialized. Even if he started with guns and tanks they didn't have the means really to mass produce them like the Super powers.

Exactly right. Whatever anyone thinks of Franco's beliefs, he was a cunning fox that that stayed in power for decades.

Everyone's economy was fucked. FDR, Hitler, Churchill, Hirohito, Stalin all were dealing with different levels of fucked situations. Yet they were all able to adjust in preparation then over the course of the war. There were still some minimal industrial players like Fiat in Italy that had the capability to do better. That is just not where the focus was. Why Mussolini didn't try to buy equipment from the Germans also is something I have never understood. They had better means of production after all.

>Their tanks were pea shooters
>They were barely industrialized

True but people forget that the bulk of the early German tanks were pea shooters too (Panzer I and II). They had to use superior Czech 35T and 38T models to supplement their forces in 39-41. Also their economy and military was screwed by the post WW1 treaty, French occupation of the Ruhr, 30s Great Depression etc.

The difference is they had the officers and tactics.

>Be Finland
>Do massive budget cuts for military
>Own 10 tanks, 110 at guns, 300 mortars, 100 it guns, 420 artillery guns, 40 planes etc.
>Many soldiers serve with their own rifles
>some receive only belt and hat emblem from the army
>Largest army in the world invades
>???

Italians were simply being the cowardly shitmonkeys they are. There is no excuse for their performance.

>cowardly shitmonkeys

Now this is wrong. Italy sucked due to poor equipment and EXTREMELY shitty tactics.

Mussolini was on track to reform the military and purge officers who sucked and took the time to do it right assuming hitler kept his promise to wait before starting a war.

soldier wise the Italians were quite brave.
>but why did they surrender
There are moments where you do know for absolute certain you're fucked

>CV33s with machine gun turrets encounter Churchill and Sherman tanks
>implying you can even penetrate their armor
>AT support deployed elsewhere because shit commanders
may as well retreat or surrender.

living in hot weather makes you soft and lazy

Why should we care about the squabbles of low IQ Indo-Europeans?

We were never in the Axis camp. We were where we should've been: in the Finnish camp.

Then you have to wonder why Mussolini waited so long to buy ground equipment from anywhere else. He made some minimal investments in buying German made planes early on but did not do enough to supplement the shortcomings or attempt to create new nationalized industry that wasn't focused on winning the Battle for Grain. Investment in industry fell under Mussolini and growth was minimal in the pre-war years. He threw militarization under the bus in favor of agrarian bullshit.

the Russians won because you know who ordained it... the same group of people that want to denounce and even invade Russia in the current millennium

I think you also assume that everybody knew the major war was coming that quickly

Remember, Britain unironically through Chamberlains peace agreement was the end of Hitlers expansion for at least a decade.

And again, Mussolini was expecting a decade of time anyways as per hitlers words

You dicked around in karelia instead of targeting anything useful so you permanently lost it and finnmark ontop of that for no reason.

this thread makes me want to play hearts of iron 4 lads

>soldier wise the Italians were quite brave.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Compass 134000 captured
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bardia 36000 captured
Italians outnumbered brits 4 to 1 and still surrendered.

Meanwhile in Finland. 4 years of war result in 4600 captured soldiers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War 800-1100 captured
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War 2400-3500 captured

His officers also did this

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre

Hitler did lots of things wrong

>I think you also assume that everybody knew the major war was coming that quickly

It was pretty apparent to everyone that it was. That is why the rest of the world powers were so focused on it.

Mussolini did too. He beat the Albanians as if routing those fucks meant anything and paraded around. He aided Franco, he struggled in Ethopia against an army that barely had any modern weapons, and then shit really hit the fan for him in Greece. He had no time to build up the army because he was parading it around as a massive propaganda cock to impress his people. He failed to correct the issues with equipment lacking what it took to compete in the modern world and the incompetence of officers. Instead he decided horse drawn artillery and tanks that maybe would have been scary in WW1 along with biplanes would create him an empire. His delusion and lack of foresight were his downfall.

Anime is still gay even if you give it military clothes bro.

Yeah, we totally should have sacrificed our troops to urban combat in a city that had larger population than whole Finland.

>Finnmark
>Finnish
American education at best. Finnmark is norwegian territory.

>Mussolini did too. He beat the Albanians as if routing those fucks meant anything and paraded around.

This was in response to Hitler gaining territory to show the Italians were strong too. He realized Hitler was overtaking him in glory and wanted to prove himself to the world. Arrogant? maybe, but not because he was WW2 coming quickly

HE did see it coming though. Hence he told hitler to stall so he could prepare.

>he struggled in Ethopia against an army that barely had any modern weapons
I mentioned this in the OP. You don't seem to learn quickly. Every post you state the same thing over and over again

>italy was bad at guns
>Because mussolini was dumb

which is exactly what i was arguing against in the OP. You might want to read the doctrine of fascism link up there.

If Hitler

A) didn't invade Russia during one of the worst winters and left them alone
B) didn't declare war with America
C) worked better with his allies [Italy, Finland, Romania...]
D) had some way of working with the Japs
E) Told Spain to get off their asses
F) spread his influence to south America faster

He would have won easy

Truth was that by the time WW2 came along many Italians wanted to be on the Allies side and after 1943 many were.

Difficult to make people fight for something they no longer believe in and that doesn't always make them cowards.

Italy also had famous car manufacturers that could probably have designed great tanks for Mussolini if they'd wanted to (Porsche etc made great ones for Hitler) but I suspect they were secretly in the Allied camp...

It was ceded to norway as a wwii concession. If it's not that exact province, you still lost your territory on the top of the country. You also didn't even need to attack leningrad, cutting of the routes to the russian artic ports was possible.

This is also a factor I didn't mention

The Italian elections were extremely polarized. Like the opponents to mussolini were practically communists.

There was plenty of corruption and civil disobedience despite fascists doing the WW2 equivalent of pinochet.

I want to lick her low-cost bean chariot

> not a word about the one thing that actually stopped the soviets: the winter
Apologize to Winter-chan before you lose her favor.

The only thing Hitler did wrong is lose the war.

Yes this meme must die.
But do you have source for the claim that the EU healthcare system is modeled after Mussolini's?

Based Finns, just like in my anime!

...

Go play it then.

I'm preparing to invade Britain so I don't do the stupid mistake Hitler did by fighting on two fronts.

Why did he declare war on France and England in 1940 if he needed more time? Why did he try to invade France in 1940 if he wanted to stay out of a global war? Franco sure as fuck knew better.

He had a huge ego and that is why he continuously went on short term military adventures using what they had rather than building up for the long term. Constantly using the shit military against subpar opponents as a national cock. Mussolini was all talk but since he made Italians domestic life good they went along with his talk. They didn't realize what they thought was a cock amounted to a dildo. A flimsy dildo that the Western Allies snapped in half. Mussolini ended up hated and dead by the end of the war. His broken dildo of an army had no choice but constantly to surrender in situations against nations of equal caliber because they were always outmatched.

Your post is clinically retarded because it favors Mussolini's choice to focus on >muh farms rather than building a competent military.

>It was ceded to norway as a wwii concession
What the fuck have you been reading. Russians did take Petsamo but Norway did not receive any territorial concessions in ww2. Learn some history before you embarrass yourself more.

Cutting those routes wouldn not have been even necessary if you had not licked commie boots and sent all that stuff.

i tried to play as a fourth faction France (go little entente instead of joining the eternal Anglo) with the Czechs, Romania and Yugoslavia... and got fucked by the german war machine desu

I had a vet tell me the Italian troops didn't really give a fuck.
He said they would shoot at the Italians and they would surrender. Only the Germans fighting in Italy put up a real fight.

>Why did he declare war on France and England in 1940 if he needed more time?

ALSO explained in the OP.
>Mussolini tried to avoid the war, but with french defeat he started to believe that Hitler was really invincible, and that not joining him could bring to a German invasion of Italy, so, despite Italy's lack of military preparation, dragged Italy into a new war.

Learn how to read.

And 90% of your posts are just "hurr he was arrogant" without bringing anything important to discussion to the table

The USSR would have launched an offensive as early
as 1942 so Italy was kinda screwed from the start

This is possible.

There's a few sources saying Russia was poised for a full Blitzkrieg of their own against Hitler and would've betrayed the pact first if hitler hadn't.

Which is quite sad for il Duce.

I just want some respect for Italy instead of Victor History memes.

Mussolini was a fool that was lied to by his moronic generals.

>mussolini tried to avoid the war, but with french defeat

Like hell he did. He declared war on France and promptly had his ass handed to him by the French despite them having their asses handed to them by the Germans that same time.

Italy's equipment was abysmal, their generalship poor, their logistics ran by lazy incompetent idiots, and their troop's moral was exactly what you could expect from poorly led men facing a modern war equipped with absolute garbage.

Italy had exactly zero business being involved in France, Greece, or North Africa, or that war in general

Finish reading the quote.

Because Hitler started the war early, AND WAS WINNING, Mussolini thought it was now or never. Knowing full well italy was under equipped but thought Hitler would team carry hard.

I am familiar with the situation. His generals told him Italy was ready for war, he believed them despite all evidence to the contrary. France promptly kicked the shit out of the Italians who somehow learned nothing from the experience.

Oh why on Earth Hitler went for obvious bait labelled "Stalingrad", when they first should have gone for Oil fields in Baku