80 - The Italian Army In North Africa

Long standing listeners will have heard me chat to Walter Zapotoczny before, in episode 57 we looked at Ardennes offensive, and in episode 63 we looked at German penal battalions.

Patrons of the podcast might recall on both occasions after I’d finished recording we got to talking about the Italians in North Africa.

Well, Walter’s book on the topic was released a couple of months ago ‘The Italian Army In North Africa: A Poor Fighting Force or Doomed by Circumstance’

Hopefully we can answer the question a poor fighting force or doomed by circumstance in this podcast.

[gs]

If you praise Rommel and laugh at Italians, remember that 2/3 of Rommel's troops were Italians and won those battles.Thanks for pointing it out at 13:50!

[benwilson]

Italy had several colonies in Africa, Libya, Eritrea and Ethiopia. When they advances into Egypt they outnumbered the British Forces by a factor of more than 5. The main reason the British lost against Rommel initially was Wavell had most of his troops taken from him by Churchill to go to Greece. The reason the British thought that Rommel would not attack was due to Enigma intercepts the Germans told Rommel not attack and therefore Churchill failed to reinforce Wavell.
General O'Connor who lead the advance against the Italians knew the Italian Army well as he had fought with them in WW1. Rommel in contrast in WW1 had received his Knights Cross for fighting against the Italians with the Austrians. General O'Connor always respected the Italian Army.
In North Africa the Italian used many Libyan Troops.
The British Australian and India's had not fought in the desert either.
The Italians had little success fighting in Albania and Greece.
During Operation Compass O'Connor could only advance against the Italian by using captured Italian trucks, supplies, tanks and artillery. There was much grumbling by British and Australian troops as they got fed up eating Pasta.

[elliskaranikolaou]

Operation Compass has been highly propagandized by the British who had been continuously beaten by the Axis at that point in the war. Understandably they used the victories in Operation Compass as a moral boast for Britain, and this was a great victory for them.

However the following needs to be considered to understand what actually happened rather than accepting the rather disrespectful and juvenile stereotypes of the Italian Army in North Africa.

The number of troops involved 36, 000 men (British Commonwealth) versus 150, 000 men (Italian) is often represented as if the 36000 British confronted 150000 Italians in one battle in one place.

This is a gross misrepresentation.

In fact Operation Compass occurred over a 2 month period (9 December 1940 – 9 February 1941) and the Italian forces were spread out over 500 km's. Consequently the British never confronted the Italians in one grand battle, but attacked the less mobile Italians garrisons piecemeal where the Italians could not bring their vast numerical advantage to bear decisively.

ie

Attack on Nibeiwa (5000 British Commonwealth versus 4100 Italians)
Battle of Sidi Barrani (36000 British Commonwealth versus 60000 Italians)
Battle of Bardia (16000 British Commonwealth versus 45000 Italians)
Battle of Tobruk (17000 British Commonwealth versus 22000 Italians)
Action at Mechili (4000 British Commonwealth versus 5000 Italians)
Battle of Beda Fomm (16000 British Commonwealth versus 25000 Italians)

This coupled with the fact that Italian equipment was not equal to what the British had led to their defeat during this Operation.

Oddly enough, the propaganda the British used against the Italians would come back to haunt them when on 8–15 February 1942 in the battle of Singapore.

Here 85, 000 British Commonwealth surrendered to 36, 000 Japanese in one battle at one place despite greatly outnumbering the enemy.

Thanks for the video, subscribed and will buy the book.

[mutolover]

Firstly; Thank you for the insightful video ...audio I guess? Anyway, the more British sounding chap mentioned that he believed that the Italian army would have done better in mountainous terrain. I do agree, however I wanted to note that they were fighting in such terrain against France and Greece with equally poor outcomes as in pre Rommel NA.
At the same time, the specialized mountain troops that Mussolini donated to Operation Barbarossa were sent to the to the open plains rather than the Caucuses. However they did perform very well in that (doomed) theatre.
So it seems like they were quite hit and miss. Clearly being in one of the 19 fully equipped divisions (out of 73!) would have played no small roll in this.

[stephenpodeschi]

The Italian navy lacked radar and fuel to compete with the British navy
and were confined to port for long periods....

[fredferd]

The Italian Army was an ARMY, after all. They were not, as modern stereotypes suggest, a group of bumbling pizza venders running around with hand cranked organ music, singing O Solo Mio and acting goofy on the desert. No, they were not that at all! They fought battles and killed many of their enemies. Most of the bad images originated from British wartime propaganda, and it went on from there.

[iangreenhalgh]

It should be remembered that Italian weapons were mostly unreliable crap and yiu can't blame them for surrendering if their Brda LMG wouldn't function for more than a few shots.

[adrianjackson]

British narrator please stop giggling in the next video if there is one..

[AxNY]

All you have to do is watch a Football match between England and Italy or any British team against Italy to know that the narrative about the War is pure British BS propaganda.

[wcstevens]

The British are a warlike nation...The Italians are not.