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Hitler's Italian allies : Royal Armed Forces, Fascist regime, and the war of 1940-43 /

"This book tries to understand why the Italian armed forces and Fascist regime were so remarkably ineffectual at an activity - war - that was central to their existence. Military-economic weakness, Mussolini's ideological fantasies and strategic megalomania, and Hitler's failure in th...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Clasificación:Libro Electrónico
Autor principal: Knox, MacGregor
Formato: Electrónico eBook
Idioma:Inglés
Publicado: Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Temas:
Acceso en línea:Texto completo
Descripción
Sumario:"This book tries to understand why the Italian armed forces and Fascist regime were so remarkably ineffectual at an activity - war - that was central to their existence. Military-economic weakness, Mussolini's ideological fantasies and strategic megalomania, and Hitler's failure in the wider war made Italian defeat inevitable. But those factors do not wholly account for the peculiarly undignified character of Fascist Italy's final ruin. The book offers an innovative analytical cross-section of the Italian war effort, from society and culture, through politics and war production, to strategy, operations, and tactics, and demonstrates the extent to which Italian military culture - a concept with applications far beyond Fascist Italy or its last war - and the blinkered approach of Italy's major industrial enterprises made humiliation inescapable. The result is a striking portrait of the military institutions and regime whose most significant - if temporary - conquest in 1940-43 was a dusty and useless corner of Africa, British Somaliland. The armed forces proved unable to imagine modern war, much less prepare or fight it. The industrialists, with the connivance of generals, admirals, and dictator, produced the least effective, least numerous, and most overpriced weapons of the Second World War. The regime failed miserably in mobilizing the nation's resources. Hitler's Italian Allies analyzes the resulting disasters, and explains why the Italian armed forces dissolved prematurely and almost without resistance, in stark contrast to the grim fight to the last cartridge of Hitler's army or the fanatical faithfulness unto death of the troops of Imperial Japan."--Publisher's description
Descripción Física:1 online resource (xiv, 207 pages) : illustrations, map
Bibliografía:Includes bibliographical references (pages 195-200) and index.
ISBN:9780511613487
0511613482
0511014546
9780511014543
0511118937
9780511118937
9786610162376
6610162379
1107121310
9781107121317
0521747139
9780521747134
1280162376
9781280162374
0511046626
9780511046629
0511157258
9780511157257
0511304420
9780511304422