Italy At War 1940-1941

[merdiolu]

from TIME-LIFE series “Italy At War”

Within months of Italy’s entry into War , flaws in the structure of Fascism became so evident that a classified Italian police report spoke bluntly of the progressive degeneration of the state. The mammoth party machinery was too unwieldy to respond to crisis , and too conformist to seek new solutions to problems the country had never before faced. Rivalries and jurisdictional disputes increasingly splintered the party hierarchy. Corruption was so widespread that said one senior poliçe official , the term gerarca (Fascist Leader) was used as a synonym for “thief”. Italian Army , Italian Navy and Air Force squabbled and plotted among themselves , going so far as to spy on oneanothers activities.

The underlaying problem was that Mussolini had imposed on Italy such a highly personal style of goverment that he had in effect , become the Fascist State itself. At the outbreak of the war he bolstered his already far-flung authority by naming himself Commander in Chief of Italian Armed Forces ,a title constitutionally reserved for the King. In areas where Mussolini was unwilling or unable to exert his personal power , there was no other alternate authority to ensure the orderly conduct of the goverment. And as the Duce’s own judgment became increasingly erratic , so did the course steered by party bureaucracy schooled in dictum that was emblazoned on homes and publi buildings all over Italy : “Mussolini is always right”

Although veteran Fascist notables complained to him about confusion and lack of direction in the ranks , Mussolini rejected all suggested reforms , believing that a certain amount of turmoil helped secure his own supreme authority. For same reason , he was reluctant to delegate power to anyone with proven ability or too popular.”As soon as he sees too much light shining on us” remarked Fascist avitaion hero Italo Balbo “he turns off the switch” Another Fascist veteran Giuseppe Bottai noted that Mussolini was so wary of any sign of concerted action on the part of his subordinates that he proceededon the assumption “If three ministries agree on a subject , it is a conspiracy”

By the time Italy entered the war in June 1940 , the elected national legislature had been replaced by an appointed chamber heavily loaded with Fascists. This rubber stamp legislature was largely ignored by Mussolini , as were the traditional Council of Ministers and so called Grand Council of Fascism which had been set up in 1920’ies as a kind of shadow cabinet as highest governing body of the state. In practice though ther Grand Council and the Council of Ministers were summoned only intermittenly by Mussolini , who used them as soundingf boardswhen he wanted to think out loud.

The Grand Counil , which consisted of 20 of the Fascist elite rarely conveyed before midnight and seldom adjourned before dawn. Mussolini conducted these nocturnal sessions as he would a high school civics class. First the roll was called , with each member shouting “Present!” in a loud voice. Then the meeting is thrown open into discussion which usually consisted of a harangue by Mussolini sometimes lasting as long as three hours. When Duce felt the need to pause he would rise up abrubtly and say ”This meeting is adjourned , go smoke a cigarette” At the buffet outside the meeting room , the Council members would find the black uuniformed moschettieri , the Duce’s personal bodyguards , each wearing a skull and crossbones insignia on their fez , a dagger at their belt and a carbine slung on their shoulder.

At Mussolini’s insistence , no minutes were ever kept , nor any votes taken at the sessions of Grand Council or Council of Ministers. Thus the official records of their proceedings were incomplate and unreliable. Mussolini usually ignored the agenda of the day and in accustomed fashion , started rambling over a wide range of topics as they came to mind. When one minister began to take notes once , Mussolini snapped “Do not do so. You can see the even the Secretary of Council is keeping no records , on my orders because I want to talk freely and I can do so only in this body , which alone can keep a secret.”

The real business of goverment went on in the Duce’s cavernous office in Palazzo Venezia. This imposing structure which was built in the 15th Century of massive stones transported from Coliseum , appealed to Mussolini’s love of the theatrical and his yearning to anricent Roman past. Its balconies over Piazza Venetia suggested a grandeur Mussolini felt Fascism often lacked.

Here in his office (a 60 feet long and 40 feet high gallery called Hall of Globe with a 13 foot desk (in which he kept loose change to hand out to petitioners and a pistol for self defence) Mussolini received his visitors , starting 09:30 AM in every morning. The room and 13 foot desk was situated so Mussolini established a psychological dominance over his guests by remaining seated while visitors (high ranking officials or military officers like generals , admirals) made the long walk from his office door to his desk under Mussolini’s penetrating stare before snapping to attention and give Fascist salute to Il Duce. When he wished , Mussolini could be very impressive in personal interviews. A fast reader with a good memory from his youth , he gave impression of knowing far more than he did. On the other hand he enjoyed playing petty tyrant and distrupting the audience before conversation even began. Often the hangers-on outside his office could hear his angry shouts as he dismissed some luckless official who had offended because his shoes squeaked on the stone floor or Mussolini disliked cut of his beard. He had a calculated way of scowling and of fixing a visitor with his famous “magnetic look” which intimidated even most courageous of his collegues and made a balanced dialogue all but impossible.

Every morning Mussolini saw the chief of carabinieri or national military police and chiefs of political and criminal poliçe. He also met with Foreign Minister Count Ciano (who was also his son in law) and Ministers of Interior and Popular Culture (Propaganda) He read war bulletins , Foreign Office telegrams , General Staff reports and reports from regional Fascist officials. Much of the rest of his time he gave private audiences , read newspapers and Secret Service reports.

He read newspapers with eye of a professional journalist , issued instructions to editors , judged the covers of magazines submitted for his approval , and he examined every official photograph he appeared in to determine which should be released to press ! He even wrote headlines ,using words that had a reounding ring but that usually bore little relation to reality. Thus in July 1940 after Naval Action off Calabria when Royal Navy battleship HMS Warspite damaged Italian battleship Cesare and afterwards Italian planes accidently attacked Italian ships but left both sides unscarred , Mussolini unabashedly composed a headline for release : “We Sunk 50 Per Cent of British Navy in Three Days !”

Although Mussolini spent long hours in his office , he did very little substantial administrative work while there. Part of Duce’s trouble was his fascination with trivia , over which he felt he could exert some measurable control. Hence during summer of 1940 , when he should have been concerning himself with critical military matters , he worried instead about the date on which the Roman traffic police should switch to their white summer uniforms and when military band on Lido at Venice should begin its schedule of summer concerts. Count Ciano later complained bitterly that the Duce was so obsessed with detail that he could not or would not see the disastrous condition of Italy’s armed forces.

[merdiolu]

Mussolini reserved the late afternoon of workday usually for relations with women. Although he was extolled in Fascist propaganda as a faithful family man and loving father of five children , he had always been a pursuerer of women , becoming more active as oppurtunuties increased. A special secreterial staff at Palezzo Venezia classified and filed the letters sent to him by adoring females. Those sounding particularly interesting were first screened by police and then sent a private message inviting them to Palazzo for a “private audience” These casual encounters did not take much of Duce’s time. But there were longer liaisons , notably with Clara Petacci which began in 1936 and lasted to the end of both their lives. Mussolini was feeling his years when affair began (he was 53 , she was 24) and perhaps for this reason Clara took more of his time and distracted him from his duties more than any woman he had known. Although Mussolini eventually tired of her and tried to break up their liaison , Clara’s tears prevailed and Mussolini wearily made up.

Clara Petacci

Harassed by these personal entanglements , unwilling to delegate authority , beguiled by his own propaganda and isolated from reality by the very fear he inspired in his subordinates , the Duce governed Italy by impulse and improvisation. Much important state business he conducted either in private conversation or by telephone , neglecting to make any record of his decisions. The results were predictably chaotic at best. Becauser of his desire to be seen as omniscient he was reluctant to ask any questions to his ministers , and so often led to write “Approved” on conflicting memoranda presented to him by different ministries. Officials urging rival policies on him always tried to see him late in the day because they knew his habit of deciding in favor of the last person who visited his office.

The Duce’s inability to follow up on his decisions –and make them stick-endlessly complicated the business of goverment. When he decided to put General Seebastiano Visconti-Prasca at the head of Eleventh Army in summer of 1940 , Marshal Pietro Badoglio publicly agreed , privately however Bodoglio resented the fact that Visconti-Prasca was a political appointee who was leapfrogging over a number of his seniors on Army promotion list.

Badoglio sabotaged the Duce’s order by giving Prasca only an army corps. Prasca appealed to Deputy Minister of War who confirmed the orginal appointment. Badoglio then turned over the command of Eleventh Army to Prasca but then he rendered the command of that army largely meaningless by depriving Eleventh Army most of its troops.Visconti-Prasca threatened to fly Rome to see Mussolini. This skirmishing continued fo three confusing months before Visconti Prasca was finally allowed to take over his command. Situations like these , Mussolini confided to his old fascist comrade in arms Giuseppe Bottai , that made him think he was “the most disobeyed man of 20th Century”

Marshal Pietro Badoglio

Perhaps Mussolini’s greatest weakness as an administrator , was he was more adept at terrorising his colleagues rather than at disciplining them. Anxious to avoid scenes , he sometimes responded to flagrant insubordination or inefficiency not by confronting the offenders but by complately overhauling the goverment (“changing the guard” he called it. The most extreme of these changes occured in January 1941 when he rid of himself of half a dozen ministers who displeased him by shipping them off to the war fronts. Most customarily he was content to call newsopaper editors and inform them that such a minister was out.
This practice of Mussolini’s became so commonplace that the verb “to resign” acquired a new usage in Fascist Italy ; gossips wondered which minister was likely “to be resigned” next. The victims of such summary dismissals were usually the last to know.

[merdiolu]

Nothing in Mussolini’s chaotic system of goverment was more damaging than the illusions it fostered in his own mind. Chief among these was the fallacy that Italy was ready to go to war. Fascist propaganda claimed that no nation in Europe was better prepared for battle and even that Fascism had evolved a new and better way of fighting. Of ten Mussolini behaved as though he believed this.

Knowing his gullibility and afraid to disillusion him , his military commanders craftily produced the semblance of modern combat capability. Carmine Selice , Italian Chief of Police , recalled how Duce once was taken to an airport to see more than 1.000 military aircraft lined up. “Proudly Mussolini admired that suberp display of force and never knew that only a few of these planes could fly” Thus fooled , he talked of air armadas that would block out sun. On other occasions , when Mussolini wished to review troops , the Army would borrow armored cars from police , paint them a regulation grey-green then restore them to their original color after the parade was over.

To knowledgeble eyes , a coat of paint was not enough of course. Italian Army Chief of Staff Marshal Graziani remarked in private that tactically Italian Army has not advanced much beyond the level of “the Macedonian phalanx” Chief of Italian Air Force Staff General Pricolo added that his own forces were “at the level of a Balkan state” Old liner Roberto Farinacci had the courage to speak Mussolini , telling him that Italy had a “toy army , without at least a serious training” When faced with such unpalatable truths , Mussolini sometimes flew into rage and vowed to punish those responsible. More often he comforted himself that in war what really matters is morale. A German military attache who observed him at a parade of Italian soldiers near Yugoslav border was suprised to note that he was less interested in his troops antiquated equipment than in how lustily they sung as they marched past the reviewing stand.

Italian Army’s basic problems were both material and organizational and these in turn had a devestating effect on morale. Before Italy entered war Mussolini boasted of being able to mobilize “eight million bayonets” In truth Italian Army had equipment , uniforms and barracks space to house no more than a million men , which was why Italy never declared a general mobilization.

Moreover the material furnished a few years earlier to Spain’s General Franco –quarter of a million rifles , 1.900 artillery pieces and more than 700 air raft-had not been replaced. Much of remaining equipment available to Italian Army was obsolescent-trifles of 1891 design , horse drawn artillery dating back to World War I. Unable to call anymore men to arms Mussolini instead hit on the idea of reducing army divisions from three regiments to two regiments which enabled him to claim 80 divisions Later he forgot what he had done and overestimated the forces available to him.

On paper Italian Army had three armored divisions which were said to include 25 ton tanks. In reality it had two such divisions with no heavy tanks at all , only 70 medium tanks and 1.500 light tanks so thinly armored that machine gun bullets could penetrate them. Mussolini defended these light tank models by saying they were more attuned to quick reflexes of Italian soldiersAnti aircraft artillery was almost non existent and motor transport was such in short supply only 24 vehicles were assigned per division. Shortly after Italy entered war , General Ugo Cavallero said Count Ciano in all seriousness he has solved the problem of undermechanization : From now on infantry would be required to march 25 miles instead of 12 miles in a day.

Some of the army’s material problems could be be alleviated at least if Italian industry in years before the country entered the war, had not become leading arms suppliers to much of the world. In search of foreign exchange to bolster the economy Italian goverment sold aircraft to both Finland and Soviet Union during Winter War and arms both Japan and Nationalist China. Weapons Italians themselves lacked were sold Bulgaria , Rumenia , Portugal and South America. Even after September 1939 during period of non belligerency , Mussolini approved export of large quantities of airplane engines , railway engines , torpedoes , mines , machine parts even military boots and blankets. Two of Italy’s best customers were England and France.

Shortage of uniforms , weapons and equipment badly compromised the battle readiness of the army , for it meant recruits were usually trained for far less than 18 months prescribed by law. In 1940 , some officers at the battalion level were called back into service without any retraining since their mobilisation after World War I.

Ill equipped , ill trained and skeptical of Fascisms bellicose propaganda , Italy’s troops were probably less motivated than those of any other major combatant in World War II. Adding to their disillusionment was a command structure in which advancement came as often by political favoritism as by military skill. Mussolini not only stiffled all debate-he fired one general on the spot for counselling him not to go to war-but judged his officers almost solely on the basis of their “Fascist merits” According to that practice an extra regiment of Fascist Black Shirt militia regiment was sandwiched into every division with two regular regiments. Badly trained , indisciplined and more experienced in street fights and terrorising political opponents rather actual modern warfare , Black Shirts in frontline with their somewhat better uniforms and equipment drew ire and dislike of regular Italian troops who were starved of equipment and supplies.

[merdiolu]

On those occasions when Mussolini accepted the defects of his army , he rationalised that air power was the way to win modern wars . Fascist propaganda insisted on superiorty of Italian combat aircraft and their ability to dominate Mediterranean. Italy claimed 8.500 arcraft of all kinds and Mussolini boasted marvels such as a (non existent) Italian bomber that could fly all the way to Britain non stop , hit its target and return back. In fact Italy had only 3.296 fighters and bombers in total and these had neither speed nor armaments to match best Allied planes.

Of three services , Italian Navy was the best prepared. It was better equipped and commanded than other branches and it had resisted fascist political meddling better. When Italian Navy started operations in 1940 morale and dicipline among Italian crews were good , though Mussolini’s sudden entry to war without preparation or informing his navy , stranded and isolated one third of Italian mechant marine across the globe (300.000 tons of shipping) when Gibraltar and Suez-main chokepoints of Mediterranean-were closed to Italian merchant shipping. Stranded Italian vessels out of Mediterranean when war was declared in June 1940 were picked up one by one by Allied navies and air forces following months. Still Italian Navy for sheer tonnage had been impressive. Its special pride was its force of six battleships (and two more nearing completion in yards) , 19 light and heavy cruisers , 59 destroyers , 67 torpedoboats and a larger fleet of submarines (115 of them) than any other nation yet possesed. Italian naval designers had sacrificed weight of armor and cruising range to speed and firepower but in theory at least this was no disadvantage. The Italian Admiralty reasoned that its ships would be operating in a closed sea in suprise hit and run raids that made speed more important than range.

In practice , however , the Italian Navy had such grave problems that after a few early action it rarely put to sea. Italian submarines had a very limited range and firepower. And they submerged too slowly -with the result that a tenth of existing Italian submarines were sunk in a few months after decleration of war. The vaunted speed advantage of battleships was nullified by the lack of air reconnaissance which allowed British ships to approach undetected and pound the lightly armored Italian vessels almost at will. Italian admirals belived that the war at sea was lost by Italy on the day Mussolini decided that aircraft carriers were obsolete and land based aircraft could cover the entire Mediterranean.

Yet even the lack of reconnaissance might not have proven fatal had the Italian ships been equipped with radar. Without it , they were virtually helpless against the British who were the first to employ the radio detecting and ranging device. Italians had no idea such a device was being used against them and they were baffled when British showed disquieting signs of being able to see their ships in darkness of night.

In addition to technical limitations , the Italian Fleet was plagued by a persistant shortage of oil and lack of spare parts. Under normal conditions , Italy received much of its oil from Rumania and purchased rest from overseas. With Suez and Gibraltar closed to Italian shipping after June 1940 and Rumanian oilfields were taken over by Germans in 1940 , Italians found themselves complately dependent on their northern ally for oil which was soon reduced to one fifth of their peacetime consumption. The shortage became so serious in following months that training cruises were cancelled and recruits were taught the rudiments of seamanship board imitation ships o dry land For the conduct of the war , Italian Navy was alloted no more than 30.000 tons of fuel a month , most of which went to Italian submarines since they were main striking arm of Italian Navy in Mediterranean. Rarely able to put to sea even if they wanted to , Italian sailors listened bitterly to a gibe often made on BBC Italian propaganda broadcasts “While United States Navy drinks whiskey and British Navy prefers rum , the Italian Navy sticks to port !” (“porto” Italian word for port also means porto wine)

Compounding all these problems , Italian Armed Forces suffered from an almost total lack of liaison among the services. Not only did they have no plans for joint operations , but they vied with one another to obtain scarce supplies and pursue their own limited tactical projects. Mussolini tried to resolve these rivalries when he took over the Supreme Command of Armed Forces but he was too far removed from daily conduct of the war and too immersed in his own concerns and delusions.

The Duce had been warned by his ministers in advance that there was not enough oil to fight a war and that other raw materials were in critically and chronically short supply. Mussolini chose to ignore these warnings , believing instead that the British would be defeated before shortages became critical. From the beginning , Italy lacked cotton , wool and iron. Many industries were geared up for war production with only a few days of coal supply at hand. Although Fascists liked to boast before the war that they won " Battle of the Grain" so the country was self sufficient in food , they suppressed the fact that Italy imported three quarters of its fertilizers , making its food supply highly vulnerable to a blockade.

After declerations of war Italian industry became dependent on Germany for more than oil. Certain key factories in Milan and Turin reported losing one out of every six hours of work because they lacked one strategic material after another. The situation would not have been so critical if goverment had allocated its limited resources wisel. But until well into war great quantities of steel and cement continued to be diverted to the construction of stadiums , highways , canals , bridges , public housing and a projected tunnel under the Strait of Messina. Reasoning that it was important to retain public confidance in the regime , Mussolini instructed his Minister of Public Works to proceed “as if war did not exist” He even ordered that construction continue on a World’s Fair project that was slated to open in 1942 in celebration of 20 years of Fascist rule

Many Italian industries never did go on a geniune wartime footing . Partly it was inadvertent-the shortages and mis allocation of war materials-but partly it was by design. Counting on a short war , some industrialists with powerful Fascist political ties had reserved a part of their factories producttion capacity for a quick return to the manufacture of civilian goods in the predicted post war boom. One result was the percentage of production devoted to armaments was lower than in any other belligerent nations and even less than it had been in Italy during World War I.

Under these military , economic and goverment administration Italy entered Egypt in September 1940 , its forces awaiting isolated in front of Mersa Matruh Egypt after a short advance and then on October 1940 , declared war on Greece

[merdiolu]

Summary : 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. This had been made clear during the Italo-German negotiations for the Pact of Steel, whereby it was stipulated that neither signatory was to make war without the other earlier than 1943. Although considered a great power , the Italian industrial sector was relatively weak compared to other European major powers. Italian industry did not equal more than 15% of that of France or of Britain in militarily critical areas such as automobile production: the number of automobiles in Italy before the war was around 374,000, in comparison to around 2,500,000 in Britain and France. The lack of a stronger automotive industry made it difficult for Italy to mechanize its military. Italy still had a predominantly agricultural-based economy, with demographics more akin to a developing country (high illiteracy, poverty, rapid population growth and a high proportion of adolescents) and a proportion of GNP derived from industry less than that of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Sweden , in addition to the other great powers. In terms of [strategic materials , in 1940, Italy produced 4.4 megatonnes (Mt) of coal, 0.01 Mt of crude oil, 1.2 Mt of iron ore and 2.1 Mt of steel. By comparison, Great Britain produced 224.3 Mt of coal, 11.9 Mt of crude oil, 17.7 Mt of iron ore, and 13.0 Mt of steel and Germany produced 364.8 Mt of coal, 8.0 Mt of crude oil, 29.5 Mt of iron ore and 21.5 Mt of steel. Most raw material needs could be fulfilled only through importation, and no effort was made to stockpile key materials before the entry into war. Approximately one quarter of the ships of Italy’s merchant fleet were in foreign ports at the outbreak of hostilities, and, given no forewarning, were immediately impounded.

[ethanmartin]

This is all reading like a Monty Python skit