The question to ask about The Italians

[rico21]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Almost finished Mussolini Unleashed. This has been such a good read and really brings home the true nature of the German/Italian relationship in the early years of the war (and of course the total basket case that was Commando Supremo). If anyone has found this thread interesting I would thoroughly recommend buying this book.

and if we have found that this thread is more interesting than the book?[:D]

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Buckrock

ORIGINAL: warspite1
If anyone has found this thread interesting I would thoroughly recommend buying this book.

I'm sure the author of Mussolini Unleashed will be so grateful for a comparison like that.[:D]

warspite1

Correct - you can't buy that kind of publicity [:)]

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Almost finished Mussolini Unleashed. This has been such a good read and really brings home the true nature of the German/Italian relationship in the early years of the war (and of course the total basket case that was Commando Supremo). If anyone has found this thread interesting I would thoroughly recommend buying this book.

Forgive me mate, but I've been away from the forum and certainly this thread for a time. Is this a serious positive book review of which you speak or is this an inside joke based upon the unread body of 1398 previous posts on this thread?

[Zorch]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Almost finished Mussolini Unleashed. This has been such a good read and really brings home the true nature of the German/Italian relationship in the early years of the war (and of course the total basket case that was Commando Supremo). If anyone has found this thread interesting I would thoroughly recommend buying this book.

Forgive me mate, but I've been away from the forum and certainly this thread for a time. Is this a serious positive book review of which you speak or is this an inside joke based upon the unread body of 1398 previous posts on this thread?

+1 [:D]

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Almost finished Mussolini Unleashed. This has been such a good read and really brings home the true nature of the German/Italian relationship in the early years of the war (and of course the total basket case that was Commando Supremo). If anyone has found this thread interesting I would thoroughly recommend buying this book.

Forgive me mate, but I've been away from the forum and certainly this thread for a time. Is this a serious positive book review of which you speak or is this an inside joke based upon the unread body of 1398 previous posts on this thread?

warspite1

Welcome back!

Yes, this is a serious comment on the book Mussolini Unleashed 1939-1941 (Knox)

The thread started off as an question of whether better equipment would have resulted in better Italian performance, and then morphed into a “staff study” that suggested a war winning strategy for Germany would have seen them postpone Barbarossa for a year and adopt a Med first strategy.

I suggested that anyone who found this thread of interest should read this book. The reason for that concerns one of the central components of this “staff study”. What was being put forward was that the Italian – German relationship was one of perfect harmony and total trust, in which the Italians were quite happy for the Germans to take the lead in the Mediterranean. The Italians were happy to play nothing more than a bit part role – the Italian army’s sole purpose was limited to conceding the whole of Cyrenaica and large parts of Tripolitania and merely defending Tripoli from British attack - while the Germans took Gibraltar (invading Spain in the process and creating a German puppet regime). The Italians were also equally happy that the Balkans came under the German sphere of influence, leading to a German invasion of Turkey and the Middle East and ultimately Suez. The “staff study” also claims that the Italians would be happy, post the fighting, for their army to be merely used for occupation duties in countries that they never defeated and/or no longer were even in Italy’s sphere of influence.

It was argued by a number of people that this was frankly absurd for any number of reasons, and this book makes clear that those arguments are fully supported by the facts. The “staff study” treats the Italians as mere puppets or extensions of Germany and suggests that Italy, Mussolini and the Italian military would have been happy to be treated in that way.

Simply put, it ignores real life. It ignores the personalities involved, it ignores the comments and actions of those involved – comments and actions that are superbly brought to life by Knox. We see periods of time in which Mussolini was actually hoping for a German defeat, and other times, hoping for at least a German reverse to give Italy time to win her own battles, we see Mussolini desperate for Italian victories, scared witless that the Germans and British (or at other times, the Germans and Soviets) would come to a deal. Importantly it also shows that Mussolini feared swapping the jailers at Gibraltar and Suez (the British) for another (the Germans).

Mussolini was in a horrible position of his own making – and he knew it. He didn’t like the Germans – or at least he certainly distrusted them, but he needed them if his dreams were to be realised. He hated being the junior member of an alliance in which Hitler never told him anything and presented him with ‘fait accompli’. He knew full well (and the defeat of France confirmed it) that Italy would need her own victories, failing which, Italy would simply be the lap dog, feeding off German scraps, a lap-dog that the “staff study” suggests they would have been happy with – but of course was something Mussolini wasn’t going to allow (at least until defeat after defeat made that inevitable).

But life isn’t simple (as if the above wasn’t complicated enough for Mussolini). He also had his subordinates going off and doing their own things. Again the book brings out just how often Ciano, Badoglio, Graziani and Cavagnari were either ignoring Mussolini or even actively working against him (often with good reason). About the only thing that united them was that they didn’t want the Germans encroaching in their preserve.

This, very readable book, is very useful as part of understanding why the war developed in the way it did post the fall of France.

[Chickenboy]

Useful summary. Thanks mate.

Did Mussolini's outlook on his relationship with Ze Germans change post Skorzeny rescue? That was pretty late in the game and, from what anecdotal references I've seen-he was already a 'beaten' man in many ways. But did this rescue and follow-on realpolitik change meaningfully?

[rico21]

http://www.sixtant.net/2011/artigos.php ... tion-felix*

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Useful summary. Thanks mate.

Did Mussolini's outlook on his relationship with Ze Germans change post Skorzeny rescue? That was pretty late in the game and, from what anecdotal references I've seen-he was already a 'beaten' man in many ways. But did this rescue and follow-on realpolitik change meaningfully?

don't think he had much choice then. The RSI was a classic German puppet regime, so not under their full control but close enough. Even if it had wanted to, it had nowhere to go. Italy had surrendered and the Germans wouldn't simply retreat and it lacked much normal armed forces apart from some very pro-Fascist elements.

The Allies by late 44 were negioting with figures in his regime to try and set up the basis for a transition of power to limit the risk that the partisan movement got control of a region (and possibly set off a Greek style revolt vs the Allies).

Its fiction but Carlo Lucarelli's Carte Blanche is really good on the internal dynamics of the final days. They were still trying to undermine each other for power, there was a vestige of a normal state but the one person no one was interested in was Mussolini

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Useful summary. Thanks mate.

Did Mussolini's outlook on his relationship with Ze Germans change post Skorzeny rescue? That was pretty late in the game and, from what anecdotal references I've seen-he was already a 'beaten' man in many ways. But did this rescue and follow-on realpolitik change meaningfully?

don't think he had much choice then. The RSI was a classic German puppet regime, so not under their full control but close enough. Even if it had wanted to, it had nowhere to go. Italy had surrendered and the Germans wouldn't simply retreat and it lacked much normal armed forces apart from some very pro-Fascist elements.

The Allies by late 44 were negioting with figures in his regime to try and set up the basis for a transition of power to limit the risk that the partisan movement got control of a region (and possibly set off a Greek style revolt vs the Allies).

warspite1

Nothing to add to this really. Mussolini was an irrelevance by then.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: UP844

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Here is an interesting read:

the wages of destruction

https://www.bing.com/search?q=the+wages ... FORM=QSRE8

Full text of "Tooze, Adam The Wages Of Destruction The Making And Breaking Of The Nazi Economy"

https://archive.org/stream/ToozeAdamThe ... y_djvu.txt

Thanks for reporting this book!! [&o]

warspite1

So what is your take on the introduction? Is Tooze blaming the US (at least initially) for the start of Germany's problems? Is he suggesting Britain was to blame for moving off the Gold Standard? What I don't get a sense of here is why countries took the action they did - but moreover, what they could have done differently.

[Buckrock]

Perhaps if you just continue on with reading Tooze, you may well answer your own questions. I'd love to see your review of the book. You can post it on the WitP AE forum, just like you do with other books you've read that have nothing to do with the Pacific War.[:'(]

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Buckrock

Perhaps if you just continue on with reading Tooze, you may well answer your own questions.

warspite1

Well perhaps you've read the book and so know more than I about what is to come? However I'm now in 1934 and so I really don't understand how or why Tooze is going to revisit the 1920's later in the book to answer those questions. I asked those questions simply because UP844 seemed to suggest he understood the point. That is all [&:]

ORIGINAL: Buckrock

I'd love to see your review of the book. You can post it on the WitP AE forum, just like you do with other books you've read that have nothing to do with the Pacific War [:'(].

warspite1

I don't really understand the need for that. Maybe you refer to the thread about In Passage Perillous. You know, the thread started in the WITP-AE forum by an American, long-time poster on that forum, who used the book to enquire about the Regia Marina in WWII? Clearly someone was interested in that thread as it had over 26,000 hits - more than most threads in that forum.

Funny isn't it? Have a glance at that forum - have a look at how many OT threads there are; OT not just because they are not about the Pacific War, but OT because they aren't even about the war. But you seem to be making a point about books I've mentioned that are to do with WWII but that aren't to do with the Pacific War on the WITP-AE thread? Why?

[Buckrock]

ORIGINAL: warspite1
Well perhaps you've read the book and so know more than I about what is to come? However I'm now in 1934 and so I really don't understand how or why Tooze is going to revisit the 1920's later in the book to answer those questions. I asked those questions simply because UP844 seemed to suggest he understood the point. That is all [&:]

It's been some time since I read Tooze but I'd still highly recommend you read it (as you appear to be doing anyway).

I didn't think he specifically blamed either the US or the UK for the path Germany took, rather he just noted that their own nationalistic approaches to economic problems (including the dropping of the gold standard) ended any immediate opportunity for international financial and economic co-operation to be the way out for many of the other struggling countries at the time.

What he should have said was that Churchill was to blame for re-introducing the gold standard for the english pound in the first place during the 1920s.[:'(]

I don't really understand the need for that. Maybe you refer to the thread about In Passage Perillous. You know, the thread started in the WITP-AE forum by an American, long-time poster on that forum, who used the book to enquire about the Regia Marina in WWII? Clearly someone was interested in that thread as it had over 26,000 hits - more than most threads in that forum.

And how many of those hits were you making multiple re-writes of your posts until they achieved literary perfection.[:'(]

Funny isn't it? Have a glance at that forum - have a look at how many OT threads there are; OT not just because they are not about the Pacific War, but OT because they aren't even about the war. But you seem to be making a point about books I've mentioned that are to do with WWII but that aren't to do with the Pacific War on the WITP-AE thread? Why?

No need for all this sudden seriousness given the nature of my original comment. The AE forum is open to all. The topics there are primarily but not exclusively about the game and the theatre. You are always free to post there about some book you've read or intend to read or wish to share your review of. It's just disappointing that you picked the wrong theatre to be so fascinated about.

Pacific Rules!

[warspite1]

I am continuing with the book - it is an interesting read. Glad to see the dig at Churchill - I don't expect any WWII conversation to last more than 5 minutes without a dig at Churchill or Montgomery so I was starting to feel a little off balance. So equalibrium restored [:'(]

Obviously no one could be interested in the Med War so I suspect 26,000 of those 26,200 hits were mine....

I am interested in all naval warfare in WWII. The 'problem' if one can call it that, with the Pacific is that apart from some of 1942, the thing was so one-sided and so there is a lessening of interest from that point of view.

[Buckrock]

ORIGINAL: warspite1
Glad to see the dig at Churchill - I don't expect any WWII conversation to last more than 5 minutes without a dig at Churchill or Montgomery so I was starting to feel a little off balance. So equalibrium restored [:'(]

What goes around, comes around. You slighted the great man's reputation earlier when you outrageously suggested he would willfully ignore the objections of the CoS to get his way. I naturally leapt to his defense.

So I thought it only fair to give you the same opportunity.

I am interested in all naval warfare in WWII. The 'problem' if one can call it that, with the Pacific is that apart from some of 1942, the thing was so one-sided and so there is a lessening of interest from that point of view.

"Some of 1942"? Without writing an essay length answer for you, I'd point out that even in 1943, very few of the dozen naval clashes that occurred in the Pacific during that year would qualify as "one-sided". The USN's superiority over the IJN was building through this period but it would not translate into anything like "one sided" naval warfare until 1944.

Anyway, when is your hypothesis on a German Med strategy going to move beyond the start line. I'm getting tired of regularly having to come all the way over to the General Forums just to check its pulse.

[warspite1]

I suspect that there were one of two individual battles that weren't victories for the US. But that is not what I meant. Even those that were such, were not key battles that meant anything really in terms of the overall war.

I would love to hear from you on why you think that is wrong - and if you were to write an essay length piece, I would not make comment on my lap top battery or suggest you are drowning me with verbiage (not one of yours) but would instead welcome your thoughts on why you believe that comment was false.

[Buckrock]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

I suspect that there were one of two individual battles that weren't victories for the US. But that is not what I meant. Even those that were such, were not key battles that meant anything really in terms of the overall war.

I was responding to your amusing "one-sided...except for some of 1942" comment regarding naval warfare in the Pacific. If instead you meant the study of WWII naval warfare in the Pacific is of limited interest simply because Japan was always fated to lose against the power of the US in the long run, then I'll happily leave that one to you.

I would love to hear from you on why you think that is wrong - and if you were to write an essay length piece, I would not make comment on my lap top battery or suggest you are drowning me with verbiage (not one of yours) but would instead welcome your thoughts on why you believe that comment was false.

If I were to do that in this particular thread, I'd just be adding a fresh cherry topping to an otherwise old and very smelly sandwich. About the only purpose I can see for this thread now is to perhaps justify all the previous verbiage by establishing once and for all through the balance of historical probabilities what the most likely timeline was for Germany to conduct a Med strategy and where it would end up.

Or perhaps simply start a new thread for that specific purpose and leave this one's baggage behind.

Either way, I'm here waiting to be dazzled like the HMS Warspite's camouflage during a RN Pride Month.[:)]

[warspite1]

I'm not too sure what any further additions on the timeline would add here. There was only one person who thought that a summer of 1940 (July!) timeline was ever possible. Indeed I can't recall any other contributors - and certainly not myself - believing that the Germans would ever have contemplated invading Spain. As such, and with the proposer of the "draft study" gone, there is not much in the way of motivation to continue with further comment other than what has already been suggested. Even if not just one hurdle - a Med first strategy - is overcome, but then a second - Hitler invades Spain - then I still don't see such an invasion much before real life Felix.

If others wish to add further comment then they of course can do so.

[Buckrock]

Previously on warspite1

And so now, for the first time, with France being routed and a Mediterranean front opened up, I think its the very earliest opportunity for any consideration to be given to Gibraltar.

But given the personalities involved, given the way Hitler and Mussolini work, what is possible here? (Remember the only key alteration at this point is that Hitler can and will be persuaded to adopt a Med-first strategy. But how, realistically could this have come about?

- When?
- From whom?
- What about Spain?

Remember to that at this point, Italy has simply entered the war and Germany do not yet know what France will do.....So from 10th June 1940 how does the early summer pan out?

Currently on warspite1

I'm not too sure what any further additions on the timeline would add here. There was only one person who thought that a summer of 1940 (July!) timeline was ever possible. Indeed I can't recall any other contributors - and certainly not myself - believing that the Germans would ever have contemplated invading Spain.

From what I saw, there was no detailed effort to address the questions you set out other than "Nah, it just wouldn't have happened, lets move on". I didn't realize it was that easy to shut down one of your hypotheticals. Must remember that for the future.

Anyway, what a gyp. I even bought popcorn and chose a seat up front. This European Theater sucks. Where's the manager!!!

[Aurelian]

The countries that surrendered before their capitals fell are:

Italy
Bulgaria
Romania
Hungary
Finland
Germany
Japan

Just what do they all have in common?

Germany surrendered after Berlin fell.