While Japan is busy formulating a new national policy, the situation in Europe has taken a new turn, but this time the protagonist is not the Germans, but Italy.

Italy is a very funny country, and in a very fashionable phrase in later generations, it is a little naturally cute. In the history of modern warfare, without Italy, it would have been full of bloodshed and carnage, and there would have been no laughing at all. The existence of Italy has given some comedy to modern wars.

Italy is a country that can really be worthy of the evaluation of "cute", just like the comment given to Italy by German military enthusiasts: "If Italy remains neutral, it will be equivalent to an increase in the strength of our army by 10 divisions; If Italy were to oppose the fascists, it would be equivalent to an increase in the strength of 20 divisions of our army; But if Italy wants to join the Axis powers, our army will have to spend 50 divisions to protect him! ”

Italy in World War II is known as one of the three fascist powers, but his war history can be said to be the most humorous, what this country did is simply ridiculous, even God, this country is simply against the sky.

Italy, like Japan, was defined as a latecomer to the industrial world, and during World War I, the Italian government abandoned its alliances with the Second Empire and Austria-Hungary in favor of Britain and France, thus gaining the status of the victorious power in World War I. However, in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Italy did not reap the same benefits as Britain, France, and the United States, and even less so than Japan, which had only fought a small war in Qingdao.

Japan had managed to take over from the defeated Germany its privileges in China and some of its island colonies in the Pacific, and had several battleships of the German Ocean Fleet. Moreover, it earned enough weight in the subsequent naval negotiations, and became a second-class sea power country alongside Italy and France, second only to Britain and the United States.

And Italy didn't even get a piece of Germany's overseas colony! Compared to the trauma of the war, this little gain was a drop in the bucket, and as a result, Italy's domestic economy began to regress, the political situation became unstable, new currents of thought began to proliferate, and the government could not control the situation.

In 1922, Mossolini's fascist party came to power, and Italy became the first fascist state to have a dictatorship and centralized power. However. The fascists were not able to save Italy. From 1922 to 1931, the economic situation in Italy continued to deteriorate, and unemployment continued to increase. Italy's aggressive and expansionist situation abroad is also not optimistic.

Italy's military strength did not improve much because of the fascist dictatorship and reckless militarism. The Italian army, demoralized and internally corrupt, soon tasted the bitterness of the war. The combat effectiveness of the Italian army was really not very good. This can be seen in their two invasions of Abyssinia.

This Abyssinia is later known as Ethiopia, a landlocked country located in northeastern Africa, with an area of about 1.22 million square kilometers. It's not big, but it's a big guy compared to Europe.

Italy's coveting of Africa began as early as the 19th century, when Italian colonial armies carried out a brutal and brutal invasion of Abyssinian in 1896. In 1890, Italy annexed the northern territories it had seized from Ethiopia with the Eritrean colony, but the Ethiopian government refused to accept the demands and did not recognize its occupation.

Subsequently, Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia informed the Italian Government that, as of 2 May 1894, he would cease to perform all the rights and obligations of the Treaty of Usali. To this end, Italy prepared 14,000 troops to be handed over to General Balatieri for an armed invasion of Ethiopia.

Looking at the comparison of the military strength of the two sides, Italy was equipped with the most advanced rifles and artillery in Europe at the time, and Italy at that time had completed the Industrial Revolution. In Ethiopia, they don't even have muskets, they just have spears, javelins, bows and arrows, and some African weapons that we don't know much about.

To go to the battlefield with such primitive weapons and to face a group of Italian troops equipped with advanced machine guns, cannons, tanks and planes is undoubtedly suicidal in our eyes now. However, it was in the midst of this suicidal weapon and civilization that the tenacious Abyssinian people put up resistance to the Italian invaders. It is inconceivable that the people of Abyssinia, under the leadership of the miraculous king, miraculously won the war.

On March 1, 1896, the Ethiopian military first reconnoitred the Italian barracks and learned operational information. The distance between the Italian troops and the separation of the marches allowed the Egyptian troops to inflict heavy losses on the scattered Italian troops one by one. The Ethiopian command made good use of frontal attacks and flank operations in depth, combining troops and encircling enemy forces. The main target was the column of General Aliberton of the Italian Army, and although the Italian artillery effectively sniped the attack, the Italian column was still routed and almost completely annihilated, and the other Italian columns were also defeated. Although the Italians had good equipment and military skills, the Italians were again routed at the Battle of Adwa.

This victory is no longer something that human civilization and wisdom can explain clearly, can you imagine that a group of modern troops equipped with advanced weapons, which can cover the opponent with shells and suppress the deadly threat from a distance of a few kilometers or even tens of kilometers, will be defeated by a group of natives armed with spears?

If it's one-on-one, there is a possibility, but if the army touches the army, the one who holds the spear can only die steadily. But it's hard to imagine that they won, a fact that only novelists can imagine, and that only novelists who write legends or fantasy mythological novels can think of. Such a scene can only appear on the movie screen, and it must be a child's file.

Maybe there really was some unknowable force that controlled the war, maybe the king of Abyssinia had a great sorcerer under his command, and he applied sorcery to the king's army, so that when they charged, the Italian enemy army would be paralyzed, or all unconscious, or all of them would be mentally retarded, otherwise it would be difficult to guarantee that these natives would not be completely destroyed when they were halfway through.

The end result was that the Abyssinians had succeeded in numerous such charges, so the only explanation was that the Italians had fallen for the witchcraft of the sorcerers en masse, and their defeat was inevitable, so Abyssinia won the war.

The number of casualties in this victory was also unbelievable, the Italian invading army suffered 6,500 casualties and 2,500 prisoners, and as the backward side of the natives, they fought with spears, and the result was only a mere 3,000 wounded, less than half of the Italian casualties, which is really difficult to explain. The natives who could not defeat the natives with bows and arrows with cannons and machine guns, and the only ones who could defeat wooden ships with steel ships were Italy.

This was a glorious victory in the history of the world's anti-colonization, thanks to God for giving this world an Italy, and giving hope to all the people of the colonized lands, after this victory, Abyssinia maintained its independent posture for at least a few decades.

This is just one example of Italy's poor performance, and there are many more such things, such as the Italian Governor-General in Libya, Field Marshal Balbo, who was shot down by Italy's own anti-aircraft artillery over Tobruk on June 30, 1940. The Italians, in order to disguise this cup, announced that the marshal had been killed in an air battle with the British. Shooting his own marshal with an anti-aircraft gun made him the highest-ranking man among the wounded soldiers of World War II, something that only Italy could do.

For example, when Germany attacked France last year, it saw the Germans marching forward and being invincible all the way. Mussolini knew that France was about to be defeated, so he wanted to take advantage of the fire and seize the lands in the south of France. Italy declared war on France and England.

However, Italy was not prepared for war at all, and it was only after ten days that Italy launched an attack on France, and the Italian army crossed the Italian-French border in three directions, and attacked in two directions, through the Alps and along the Mediterranean to Nice. The Italians initially enjoyed a certain degree of success, as the French used most of their forces against the Germans, but then the Italians were plagued by cold weather in the Alps and encountered stubborn resistance in the Alpine and southern Maginot lines in the Mediterranean, so they advanced only 5 kilometers and stopped at the Riviera. The Italians suffered 3,881 casualties and missing in this short battle, compared to 274 in the opposite French.

For example, when Italy attacked Greece a few months ago, the Italian soldiers unanimously said that we could not attack because there were Finnish troops in Greece. Although Finland is not a big country and its national strength is not strong, the Finnish soldiers beat the Soviets very badly in the Soviet-Finnish Winter War, so that the combat effectiveness of the Finnish army is infinitely exaggerated, and no country in Europe dares to ignore Finland.

Mussolini immediately telegraphed the Finnish government and asked Finland to withdraw its troops from Greece, which was very strange at the time, they did not send troops to Greece, not to mention that Finland and Germany have always had good relations, and Germany is an ally of Italy, and Finland cannot send troops to fight the Italians anyway!

In desperation, the Finnish government had to send people to Greece to investigate, and to the frustration of the Finnish government, after the investigation, they found that there were only three Finnish soldiers and three officers who were volunteers in Greece, so they replied to Mussolini that the so-called army only had six volunteers. Mussolini was so angry that he sent a telegram to Finland: "These are the people I mean!" In all this, it is not difficult to see the combat effectiveness of the Italian army.

But it was one of the most active countries in Europe at this time, and as early as 1935, the Italians had captured Ethiopia, and last year they had captured a piece of land in southern France, and two months earlier, Mussolini had launched an attack on Greece despite Hitler's dissuasion, and the situation in Europe was caused by this. (To be continued......)