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Description of  Mussolini s Army against Greece: October 1940 April 1941 (Routledge Studies in Second World War History)

This book analyses why the Italian army failed to defeat its Greek opponent between October 1940 and April 1941. It thoroughly examines the multiple forms of ineffectiveness that plagued the political leadership as well as the military organisation. Mussolinis aggression of Greece ranks among the most neglected campaigns of the Second World War. Initiated on 28 October 1940, the offensive came to a halt less than ten days later by mid-November, the Greek counter-offensive put the Italian armies on the defensive, and back in Albania. From then on, the fatal interaction between failing command structures, inadequate weapons and equipment, unprepared and unmotivated combatants, and terrible logistics lowered to a dangerous level the fighting power of Italian combatants. This essay proposes that compared to the North African and Russian campaigns where the Regio Esercito achieved a decent level of military effectiveness, the operation against Greece was a military fiasco. Only the courage of its soldiers and the German intervention saved the dictators army from complete disaster. Read more