Italy is a country that is really unlucky, and this kind of bad luck is not comparable to that of ordinary countries. In fact, Italy's previous declaration of war on Britain and France and its war on Greece was a typical act of war speculation. Mussolini declared war on Britain and France, not in order to do anything to England, but to participate in the partition of the French heritage. Mussolini's war against Greece was also a confrontation with the British, he just felt that Greece was a weak country, a soft persimmon that could be kneaded at will, and a prop for Mussolini's realistic presence to the Germans.

But Italy clearly did not look at the celebration, let alone the opponent clearly. Here, it is necessary to mention the level of combat effectiveness of Italy's armed forces, although in Hitler's opinion, Italy's armed forces are already very strong, its army, navy and air force are complete, especially the army is as many as dozens of divisions, so Hitler believes that Italy can win in the theater of operations allocated to Italy.

However, in fact, in 1940, Italy's armed forces were not as strong as they appeared to be, especially the lack of weapons and equipment, compared with the luxuriously equipped German army, Italy's weapons and equipment were still stuck in ten years ago, and many of them were still outdated.

According to the information published by Italy after the war, before the Italian attack on Greece, it had a total of 59 divisions in the Apennine Peninsula, Sardinia and Sicily, which does seem to be a lot, well, 59 divisions, if calculated according to the general establishment of Western armies, these 59 divisions should have at least 800,000 troops, or even more.

However, the 59 infantry divisions in Italy were all two-regimental divisions. In addition, due to insufficient armament, only 20 divisions reached 70 per cent of the wartime establishment, and the other 20 divisions reached only 50 per cent. In the words of the Italian Army's Minister of Logistics: "For a general mobilization, we lack everything, and the Army cannot even put all the reservists in their shoes." ”

The lack of equipment and soldiers made the Italian army large in size, but it was strong and capable. And this is not the most terrible, the most worrying is the war potential of Italy. Due to the fact that the output of the military industry is too small, the financial resources are insufficient. The Italian army's technical equipment came to a standstill. There were no motorized and tank divisions comparable to the corresponding German regiments.

Although Mussolini also realized the importance of mechanized troops to Italy after attending Hitler's birthday celebrations, and formed three mechanized infantry divisions after returning home, it is ironic. The three infantry divisions, which were supposed to march by car according to their establishment, were well manned. But they don't have their own cars.

The situation with the Army is like this. The situation is also worrying for the Air Force and Navy, which has 3,700 aircraft, but most of them are obsolete. The condition of the Navy seems to be better than that of the other services. It had 8 battleships, 20 cruisers, 53 destroyers, 68 mine-striking ships and 111 submarines. However, the combat training of the navy, like that of the army and the air force, is far from suited to the requirements of modern warfare. All in all, the Italian army lagged behind its own enemies in terms of command, armament and combat training.

A German officer, who did not want to be named, said of the Italian army: "The Italian army is far from the standards of modern warfare. This force was designed to deal with only a colonial war, and at most it could wipe out some rebellious peoples. Their combat vehicles and armored vehicles were too light, the horsepower of the engines was insufficient, and the radius of action was too short. The artillery used by the artillery was all old goods from the First World War, and the firing range was extremely short. There were not many anti-aircraft guns and anti-aircraft guns, and even rifles and machine guns were old. ”

This is the real state of the Italian army, which is not an exaggeration at all. It's not terrible to have no strength, but it's terrible to be blind without strength. If Mussolini only used this army as a tool for political speculation, then it was sufficient, but it was obviously an unrealistic idea to use this army to "tremble" the world. It is a pity that Mussolini was a madman, and he needed this army to fulfill the promise he made when he left school: "I will make this world tremble!" ”

The Italian invasion of Greece may not seem to be important on the surface, and it has little to do with Germany or Britain, but it turned out to be one of the most important decisions of the Second World War, and it even changed the course of the World War.

Adolph. Hitler wrote to Mussolini shortly after Italy's attack on Greece: "I hope that all of the above will cause you to postpone your action, at least until after the presidential elections in the United States, and in any case I hope that Your Excellency will not act until we have made a blitzkrieg in Crete."

Unfortunately, Mussolini did not listen to Hitler's advice, and he decided to take a risk. Mussolini's ambitions were great, but his motives were small. Obviously, the conquest of a few bald mountains will not solve the problem of overpopulation or economic impoverishment in Italy.

In terms of war, the passage of Ipyrus was not the closest way to Alexandria. Finally, Italy's attack on Greece gave the British the best opportunity to intervene in the Balkans, which meant giving them the opportunity to regain a foothold on the continent.

At his talks with Ziano in July 1940, Hitler was preoccupied with his plan to crush Britain, and he unabashedly hoped that there would be no more separate battlefields in Central or Southern Europe, because Germany and Italy were not the same as Britain. After the defeat of the First World War, Germany's colonies under its rule had been completely divided among the victorious powers, including many parts of Africa and Asia. Although the situation in Italy was a little better, the Italian colonies were mainly concentrated in North and East Africa.

The situation is much better in Britain, a country known as the empire on which the sun never sets, has a large number of colonies within the world. In Asia, Britain had British India (including the Indian subcontinent and Burma, Ceylon), the Straits Settlements (including all parts of Malaysia), and Hong Kong. In Europe, the United Kingdom has Ireland, Cyprus, Malta.

In Oceania, the United Kingdom has Australia, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Nauru, Fiji, Barbados, Kiribati, etc.; In Africa, the United Kingdom has South Africa, Nigeria, Cameroon, Lesotho, Botswana, Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, Zambia, Uganda, Tonga, Seychelles, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Gambia, Egypt, Sudan, Somalia; in the Americas. The UK has Canada, Belize, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Grenada, Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Saint Christopher and Nevis, etc.

Once Britain opens up a new battlefield in southern Europe, then Britain can transfer colonial troops from India, South Africa, East Africa, West Asia and other places to southern Europe through its powerful naval fleet, which will greatly disperse the strength of Germany and Italy, so that Germany has to relax its attack on Britain mainland and other battlefields.

In addition to exhorting Italy not to stir up trouble in the Balkans, Hitler never ceased to advise the hot-headed Hungarians to restrain their desire not to attack the Romanians in order to regain Transylvania. The Hungarians were more obedient, and they heeded Hitler's advice on the strength of the Germans.

But Mussolini didn't care. He saw Hitler's exhortation as tantamount to ordering them to sit in silence. Don't do anything. Coupled with Mussolini's jealousy of Hitler's victory, he was anxious to achieve political and military success on his own initiative and strength, as Hitler, so that he could get rid of his passive supporting role and take his place in the feast where the fruits of victory were shared at the least.

All of his plans had failed without exception. It had filled his heart with a sickly sense of shame. This feeling is starting to turn into a chronic depression again. In order to rush out of this evil mood. Mussolini had to take credit in a parallel war. It was a war to be won by his own strength, and thus his dream of achieving hegemony in the Mediterranean.

But the preparations for this military operation could not have been done any worse, and the Italians threw eleven divisions into the first offensive. It was later increased to sixteen divisions, and then to twenty-five. The Greeks were able to resist them only with four divisions of the first line at first, and then, however, the Italian army soon halted its advance because of the narrowness of the roads, the small number, and the fact that they were washed away by the autumn rains.

At this time, the Greek government was given a respite, and all their common people rallied around their own government; The mountain villagers, both men and women, fed their armies with food, and the partisans also attacked the Italian army from time to time. Later, after the Turks declared that they would not enter the war and protected the Greek rear from the Bulgarian attack, the Greeks launched a counteroffensive, forcing the Italians to retreat on all fronts.

In less than ten days, the Italian army was pushed back behind their starting point. Italian propaganda agencies have fabricated lies that the Greeks' attempt to prevent the strategic retreat of Bersagliri is failing. After that, the Greeks came in droves to Vlora, one of Albania's main ports.

Bardolio became a scapegoat and was made by Ugo. Caballero took over, but that didn't change the situation. When British submarines even infiltrated the Strait of Otranto and sank Italian ships, and the Albanians were ready to move, the Greek General Papgos tried to force the Italians to withdraw to their homeland. The Italian army was defeated both at Epirus and in Libya, and Mussolini had no choice but to turn to Hitler for help.

Mussolini's action was an unpleasant surprise to Hitler, and Hitler was inconvenient to express his annoyance at his partner's failure to explain his intentions to him beforehand, as he himself had done to him before. When Germany blitzed Poland and Germany attacked France, Hitler did not do much more than Mussolini, everyone is the same, you are a crow, I am a pig, no one can say who is black.

But Hitler was furious at the incompetence of the Italian army, and he showed no mercy to the big brother because of Mussolini's unsuccess, which he did. He expressed concern that the British might bomb the oil fields in Ploiesti and sent fighter jets to protect them.

However, Hitler was not very zealous in sending troops to Albania, and the German generals did not advocate him to do so. However, Hitler did not let go of it, neither for the unity of the Axis nor for the sake of his friendship with Mussolini, and Germany was ready to send troops to help Italy, a pig-stupid ally. (To be continued......)