The Royal Army was preceded by the individual armies of the various independent Italian states and was followed by the Italian Army (Esercito Italiano) of the Italian Republic (Repubblica Italiana). Italy declared war on 10 June 1940 and initially the Royal Army started a campaign with limited advances in the Alps against the French Army. The Italians bombed Mandatory Palestine, invaded Egypt and occupied British Somaliland with initial success. We are an italian militaria dealer and manufacturer, at the same time a retail shop of militaria ss nazi german and italian militaria repros'. [93] The same happened in Albania. In December 1940, British and Commonwealth forces launched Operation Compass which, by February 1941, ended in the conquering of all of Cyrenaica and the complete destruction of a large Italian army. All Italian citizens from the ages of 18 to 54 years were liable for military service. [135] Gerhard L.Weinberg, in his 2011 George C. Marshall Lecture "Military History – Some Myths of World War II" (2011) complained that "there is far too much denigration of the performance of Italy's forces during the conflict."[136]. A few weeks later the Axis forces of Germany, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria defeated in a few days the Yugoslavian army and invaded Greece. By design, an armoured division included one tank regiment, one artillery regiment, one highly-mobile infantry (Bersaglieri) regiment, a divisional support and a mixed engineer company. [3], Unlike German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was officially only the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy. The tank regiment could have between three and five tank battalions. Mussolini was captured and killed on 28 April 1945 by the Italian resistance while attempting to flee. All were transported on pack animals. Fought from February to March, the outcome of the Battle of Keren determined the fate of Italian East Africa. In 1940, Italy had two divisions in Italian North Africa composed of troops native to Libya commanded by Italian officers. Italian East Africa, however, was isolated and far from the Italian mainland, leaving the forces there cut off from supply and thus severely limited in the operations they could undertake. Uniforms Uniformi. [35][36] Italian coal was one of the most discussed issues in diplomatic circles in the spring of 1940. After a reorganization in 1938, Italian infantry divisions were known as "binary" divisions (divisione binaria). There is a strong tendency to give the Italian soldiers a bad reputation for being cowards and unreliable, which certainly is influenced by the fact that in World War 1 the Italians turned against their former Allies the German and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMack_Smith1982 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFMartel1999 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFBideleuxJeffries1998 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFPreston1999 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFPreston1996 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFGrenville2001 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFBurgwyn1997 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFSalerno2002 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFHarvey2009 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFMallett2003 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFWeinberg1994 (, Beevor (2006) pp.45,47,88–89,148,152,167,222–4,247,322–6,360,405–6,415, sfn error: no target: CITEREFCliadakis1974 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFMallett1997 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFSadkovich1989 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFJensen1968 (, Sadkovich (1991) pp.290–91; and references therein, Eden & Moeng (Eds.) In the area of Rome, only one infantry division—the Granatieri di Sardegna—and some small armoured units fought with commitment, but by 11 September they were overwhelmed by superior German forces. [24] Rather, the pact was designed for a "joint war against France and Britain", although the Italian hierarchy held the understanding that such a war would not take place for several years. The next day Mussolini met with the King, was dismissed as prime minister, and was then imprisoned. [44][53] Also of note were the AB 41 and the Camionetta AS 42 armoured cars, which were regarded as excellent vehicles of their type. "[142] James Sadkovich gives the most charitable interpretation of Italian failures, blaming inferior equipment, overextension, and inter-service rivalries. Ralph Goodman and Bruce Howard. Alberto Tarchiani, an anti-fascist journalist and activist, was appointed as Ambassador to Washington by the cabinet of Badoglio, which acted as provisional head of the Italian government pending the occupation of the country by the Allied forces. [113][114] Kenneth Macksey wrote in 1972, that after the split in the Italian state and the reinforcement of fascist Italy by German troops, "the British threw out the Italian Chicken only to let in the German Eagle", for example. As Churchill wrote in his Memories: "...before El Alamein we had only defeats, after El Alamein we had only victories...". Each regiment was provided with a battalion of 75 mm howitzers. Their 75/46 fixed AA/AT gun, 75/32 gun, 90/53 AA/AT gun (an equally deadly but less famous peer of the German 88/55), 47/32 AT gun, and the 20 mm AA autocannon were effective, modern weapons. This is most commonly seen in the many World War II-based television shows that were produced in the decades following the war. The Italian Army in Russia (Italian: Armata Italiana in Russia; ARMIR) was an army-sized unit of the Royal Italian Army which fought on the Eastern Front during World War II. During this operation, Italian casualties amounted to 1,247 men dead or missing and 2,631 wounded. The Axis seemed on the verge of sweeping the British out of Egypt, but at the First Battle of El Alamein (July 1942) General Claude Auchinleck halted Rommel's advance only 90 mi (140 km) from Alexandria. Initially the King and his staff (conscious of the Italian lack of preparation to war) did not approve Mussolini's intentions, but when France was clearly defeated in June 1940, the Italian Royal Army (Regio Esercito) was abruptly sent to war.[9]. (2002), pp.684–685,930,1061, harvnb error: no target: CITEREFWilmott1944 (. However, this was only a brief happy time for Mussolini. See more ideas about world war ii, world war, italian army. The northern half of the country was occupied by the Germans with the cooperation of Italian fascists, and became a collaborationist puppet state (with more than 800,000 soldiers and militia recruited for the Axis), while the south was officially controlled by monarchist forces, which fought for the Allied cause as the Italian Co-Belligerent Army (at its height numbering more than 50,000 men), as well as around 350,000[2] Italian resistance movement partisans (many of them ex-Royal Italian Army soldiers) of disparate political ideologies that operated all over Italy. With Allied assistance some Italian troops in the south were organized into what were known as "co-belligerent" or "royalist" forces. World War II - World War II - The Italian front, 1944: The Allies’ northward advance up the Italian peninsula to Rome was still blocked by Kesselring’s Gustav Line, which was hinged on Monte Cassino. Mussolini, the leader of Italy during WW2, filled the officer positions with men whose only “qualification” was loyalty to Il Duce. The tanks were typically L3s or L6s. The Italian Royal Army remained comparatively weak in armaments. [123] Rommel also conceded praise on several occasions. At the beginning of the war, the armoured divisions were filled with L3 tankettes and, as a result, were incapable of providing the armoured spearhead that the German tank (panzer) formations could. Sep 17, 2017 - Explore C FRIEDRICH's board "ITALIAN MILITARY UNIFORMS - World War II", followed by 127 people on Pinterest. By the summer of 1943 the Allies were poised for an invasion of the Italian homeland. On 28 June Marshal Italo Balbo, the Governor-General of Libya, was killed by friendly fire while landing in Tobruk. [9] The aftermath of the war in Ethiopia saw a reconciliation of German-Italian relations following years of a previously strained relationship, resulting in the signing of a treaty of mutual interest in October 1936. In an ambush east of Bardia, the British captured the Italian 10th Army Engineer-in-Chief, General Lastucci. The 10th Light Flotilla, also known as Decima Flottiglia MAS or Xª MAS, which carried out these attacks, sank or damaged 28 ships from September 1940 to the end of 1942. The nominal Commander-in-Chief of the Italian Royal Army was His Majesty King Vittorio Emanuele III. Italian forces invaded Albania on 7 April 1939 and swiftly took control of the small country. This article is about the Italian Royal Army (Regio Esercito) which participated in World War II. The invasions ended with a complete Axis victory in May when Crete fell. Impressive on paper, most Italian divisions did not have the full complement of men or materials when war was declared in 1940. Despite French uncertainty, Britain rejected concessions to Italy so as not to "create an impression of weakness". Each infantry regiment had three infantry battalion and a Guns company (4 65/17 mm I-Guns ). In spite of the upgrade, these divisions were still not fully motorized. The Italians assumed control of most of Greece with their 11th Army, while the Bulgarians occupied the northern provinces and the Germans the strategically most important areas. On 28 April 1945, Benito Mussolini was executed by Italian partisans, two days before Adolf Hitler's suicide. This had the effect of providing a de facto temporary haven for French Jews fleeing the Holocaust. In the newly created Italian Empire, Italy had used most of the economic and military resources available during the conquest of Ethiopia from 1935 to 1936, during the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, and during the invasion of Albania in 1939. The order to invade Greece was given by Mussolini to Badoglio and Army Chief of Staff Mario Roatta on 15 October, with the expectation that the attack would commence within 12 days. [102], Civilian losses as a result of the fighting in Italian Libya were estimated by an independent Russian journalist to be 10,000. Their five main fortifications were placed too far apart to allow mutual support against an attacking force, and the areas between were weakly patrolled. Dir. The Italian tanks were of poor quality. The personnel for the mountain (Alpini) divisions was drawn from Italy's mountainous Alpine region and tended to be of superior quality. This was the astonishingly fast way that allowed Germany to conquer in a few months Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Belgium, and France. Mussolini also dramatically overestimated the ability of the Italian military at times, sending them into situations where failure was likely, such as the invasion of Greece. Italian militaria | WW1, WW2. The formation of these units came into reality after the capitulation of Italy on September 8, 1943 and the disarming of the Italian military forces in German-held territory. Japan reacted with shock and outrage to the news of the surrender of Italy to the Allied forces in September 1943. Two more Allied landings took place on 9 September at Salerno (Operation Avalanche) and at Taranto (Operation Slapstick). They were short on every area of equipment despite heavy infusion of British aid in February and March, with the army as a whole having only 1 month of artillery ammunition left by the start of April and insufficient arms and equipment to mobilize its reserves. Senior leadership was also a problem. [35] On 2 February 1940, however, Mussolini approved a draft contract with the Royal Air Force to provide 400 Caproni aircraft; yet he scrapped the deal on 8 February. MGM, 2008. Pages 45, 87-88. Italian troops captured by the Germans were given a choice to keep fighting with the Germans. Mussolini launched the invasion of Greece in haste after the Kingdom of Romania, a state which he perceived as lying within the Italian sphere of influence, allied itself with Germany. There were an additional 18,655 Italian casualties in Italy (plus 54,622 Italian casualties in the rest of Europe) between September and October 1943. [26], Mussolini's Under-Secretary for War Production, Carlo Favagrossa, had estimated that Italy could not possibly be prepared for major military operations until at least October 1942. Each Libyan division had two colonial infantry regiments. Tunisia, just occupied together with the German Army in November 1942, was lost in May 1943. However, from the day of the announcement of the Armistice, when Italian citizens, military personnel and military units decided to rise up and resist on their own; they were sometimes quite effective against the Germans. [25] However, despite the Italian impression, the pact made no reference to such a period of peace and the Germans proceeded with their plans to invade Poland. On 10 June 1940, as the French government fled to Bordeaux during the German invasion, declaring Paris an open city, Mussolini felt the conflict would soon end and declared war on Britain and France. The Axis forces were ejected from Libya and Tunisia in six months after the Battle of El Alamein, while their supply lines were harassed day after day by the growing and overwhelming aerial and naval supremacy of the Allies. However, some regiments had as many as five battalions. From 1 March 1940, an MVSN Legion of two battalions was attached to most infantry divisions. [85], After British troops arrived in Greece in March 1941, British bombers operating from Greek bases could reach the Romanian oil fields, vital to the German war effort. In March 1941, prior to the German invasion of Yugoslavia, the Italian Royal Army launched an offensive against the Greeks which ended with few meaningful gains and at high costs. Crucially, the bulk of the Greek Army (fifteen divisions out of twenty-one) was left facing the Italians in Albania and Epirus when the Germans intervened. These vehicles were hardly on par with the Allied tanks available in 1939 and were seriously out-classed by 1942. The nominal Commander-in-Chief of the Italian Royal Army was His Majesty King Vittorio Emanuele III. The Italians in East Africa made a final stand around the town of Gondar in November 1941. [80] Nonetheless, D-day was set at dawn on 28 October. As he said to the Army's Chief-of-Staff, Marshal Badoglio: I only need a few thousand dead so that I can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought.[69]. Plans to attack the harbour of New York City with CA class midget submarines in 1943 were disrupted when the submarine converted to carry out the attack, the Leonardo da Vinci, was sunk in May 1943. Edition of 1999. Corsica! Dir. On 17 April, Yugoslavia surrendered to the Germans and the Italians. "The Fallen." After the defeat at El Alamein, the Royal Army lost Libya in a few months. We are an italian militaria dealer and manufacturer, at the same time a retail shop of militaria ss nazi german and italian militaria repros'. At full strength, the firepower for a mountain infantry regiment was 27 heavy machine guns, 81 light machine guns, 27 45 mm mortars, 12 81 mm mortars, and 27 flamethrowers. Italian militaria. The Viceroy of Ethiopia, Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, surrendered at the stronghold of Amba Alagi in May. Of these, around 50,000 died while imprisoned or while under transportation. Below the Army Group were armies. This in turn created the opportunity Mussolini needed to begin to realize his imperial goals. While the Italian Army or its soldiers are often the antagonist, they are often treated as a non-threat or comic relief. In 1942, the motor-transportable divisions in North Africa were upgraded to become "North African" type motorised divisions. The lack of a stronger automotive industry made it difficult for Italy to mechanize its military. Though subordinate to the Italians, under Rommel's direction the Axis troops pushed the British and Commonwealth troops back into Egypt but were unable to complete the task because of the exhaustion and their extended supply lines which were under threat from the Allied enclave at Tobruk, which they failed to capture.
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