In 1940, Germany declared war on France. Italy, being an ally of them, also went to war with France. Did Italy participate in any combat in France, and if so, what are some interesting stories?

Sunshine_Bag · 4時間前

Italy did...kind of.

I can't give you an interesting story about the battles themselves, but I can tell you a tale of blind incompetence that cost the lives of too many Italians. To understand, Mussolini only declared war against France because he wanted a seat at the negotiating table upon their defeat. In fact, the army was only given two weeks notice because Mussolini needed bodies dead, and he needed them now.¹ In his own words on 5 June he is said to have stated, "I only need a few thousand dead so that I can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought." It is safe to say that Italy only entered into the war for purely political reasons, as the thinking was that if Italy could be perceived as doing something that it would cast doubt onto Hitler to in turn invade them.²

Predictably little of note happened as the French were dug into defensive positions, and the Italians did as well - under Mussolini's instructions. The Army was ill equipped, undertrained, unprepared, and being led by a man that had assumed supreme command of the military under dubious grounds (Mussolini)^1. Mussolini himself knew how unprepared his military was, as the entire point of the Pact of Steel had been to forestall Italy being dragged into a war until at least 1943^3, and that most military commanders advised that Italy's military capabilities at best suited itself into an offensive with a minor power such as Greece or Albania, but against a larger power should be purely defensive.² The boots that the Army went to war with were legendarily bad (the infamous "cardboard boots") and in this 'attack' on France, Italy actually ended up losing more soldiers to frostbite than then French lost in total. (The French suffered 229 total casualties, versus 2,151 lost to frostbite for the Italians^4). It is also to note that Mussolini actively interfered with the invasion as he would go around Army commanders and give detailed instructions directly to their subordinates.²

As for the fighting itself? It went poorly. Italy declared war on France (and Britain) on 10 June with Army Group West, composed of the First and the Fourth Armies, attacking France on June 21. The day after the French requested an armistice with Italy.² By the time of the armistice taking effect four days later (in a move that Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano had said was quite fortunate for Italy⁵⁾ none of the objectives set out had been met. Mussolini had launched the offensive hoping to secure for Italy Nice, Savoy, Corsica, and French Tunisian ports - and received none of these because Hitler needed the friendship of the now-defeated France instead of Italy^1. Instead Mussolini could only meekly ask for a rough 832 km² occupational zone (almost precisely at where the Italian soldiers were by the time of the armistice) with a 50km wide demilitarized zone - in which Nice fell, outside of Italian control.

Smith, Denis Mack. Modern Italy: A Political History.
Paoletti, Ciro. A Military History of Italy.
Sadkovich, James J. "Understanding Defeat: Reappraising Italy's Role in World War II." Journal of Contemporary History
Giorgio Rochat , "La campagne italienne de juin 1940 dans les Alpes occidentales", Revue historique des armées
Ciano, Galeazzo, Ciano's Diary, 1939-1943

Sunshine_Bag · 8時間前

This is the one that I want to read.

Sunshine_Bag · 10時間前

I thought that part of the situation with the wellness policy is that they wrote into it that they can wrap up any hanging storylines with the talent, but the talent would not be paid for that time period, and it wouldn't count towards their suspension?

Sunshine_Bag · 10時間前

maybe he gets a Vince style humbling for a while.

Honestly, Roman needed this for the past two years. Hilariously, the best thing that could have happened for him was that Vince sends him to ~~fight his seven evil exes~~ learn to "eat shit and love it" as Triple H did.

One of things that struck me about Roman is that he didn't really know how to handle not being loved really well. He's always been in a position since he came up where he knew that win/lose/draw/apathy the boss liked. Put him in a position where he has to put his nose to the grindstone and he should come out ten times better for it.

Sunshine_Bag · 1日前

Hello esteemed ~~historian overlords~~ moderators and panelists! After a small bout of consideration, and finding out that a few of my answers have been in the weekly roundup or on the twitter I would like to put forth my application for a piece of flair!

I have mainly been a lurker until now, but finally decided to plunge into the deep end as I noticed an uptick of questions that were applicable to my area of knowledge: Italian Fascism and Football.

I offer these answers up as tribute:

In response to Did citizens in Mussolini's Italy realize they were living under a "Fascist regime"? Or was this something that was only defined in historical hindsight? I offer a response on how football was used by the Fascists quite overtly.
Here I explore the origins of the Italian ultrás in response to a question on the origins of football hooliganism.
A look into the way in which the Fascists attempted to control the memory of their rise to power in response to a question on Kissinger.
Here I speak on the memories of the Italian resistance to Fascism/civil war, along with going over the seeds of Mussolini's fall from grace.

I graciously await your verdict, and hope I have not wasted too much of your time!

Sunshine_Bag · 1日前

There were Italians that had resisted from the beginning, but Mussolini and the PNF did a superb job in not only suppressing, but in marginalizing them.

For example, one of the major areas in which a root of dissent could have grown in the beginning were with the anarchists, and the Catholics. For the Catholics, they were deathly afraid of what a man who in his youth had been known as il mangiaprete(the priest eater)¹ would do to them, as Mussolini came from a heavily anti-clerical area. Mussolini shocked mostly everybody by almost immediately making overtures to the Catholics and bringing them into the fold as part of his propaganda machine, effectively silencing any opposition that may have sprung up from this corner.

Another avenue of potential discontent were from the socialists and the anarchists - but once again Mussolini and the PNF did brilliantly in working either with them to begin, or in effectively marginalizing them. Mussolini of course came from anarchist backgrounds, and in the beginning the PNF actually worked with the anarchists and socialists in order to prop up support (this would later actually lead to the PNF in purging many of it's original members who had "collaborated" with these groups)^3. The PNF itself at it's beginnings - as it had derived in heavy aspects from thoughts on the left - prided itself on being the true party of the workers, and worked heavily with the youth to beat away (at times literally, and usually accompanied with castor oil) the older generations in other political parties.⁴

Two turning points worked to keep the PNF and Mussolini on top, and control the dialogue that discouraged dissent. First, the murder of Socialist Giacomo Matteotti. 11 days after speaking in Parliament about the dangers of Fascism and saying the PNF had committed fraud in the previous election he was seen kidnapped into a car by known squadristi and then found murdered later. Mussolini himself would later admit that the party very easily could have come crumbling down is the King had asked, or if someone pushed hard enough. However, Mussolini gave a famous speech in Parliament in which he admitted that yes, the Fascists had been involved in this murder and that if you held the PNF responsible, you must also hold him personally responsible.¹ The roar of support this gave Mussolini and the PNF effectively led to their oppossing voices being silenced, as they now knew that the Fascists could get away with murder, and is cited by historians such as Smith as being when the dictatorship effectively started.⁵

The other I have talked about before when a 15 year old Anarchist attempted to assassinate Mussolini, which directly led to all other political parties but the PNF being banned. Here, Mussolini and the PNF had been using the anarchists in their rise to power, and would effectively eat them in order to strengthen their own position.

So yes while there was resistance to the Fascists early on, they had effectively used these groups in order to consolidate their own base of support.

Kertzer, David I. The Pope and Mussolini
Cannistraro, Philip V. "Mussolini, Sacco-Vanzetti, and the Anarchists: The Transatlantic Context." The Journal of Modern History
Martin, Simon. Football and Fascism
Edward R. Tannenbaum. "The Goals of Italian Fascism." The American Historical Review
Smith, Denis Mack. Mussolini.

Sunshine_Bag · 2日前

Much like the relationship between the head cheerleader and the starting quarterback in High School it's complicated and simple all at the same time.

One of the first things to keep in mind is the unreliability of first hand accounts, along with the efforts that a people will make after the fact to focus on a memory that plays themselves in a better light. Simon Kuper describes the difficulty this plays into the memory of history when he stated he found at the Dutch Institute for War Documentation in Amsterdam that there were six and a half shelves of books on the Dutch Resistance, and just half a shelf on Dutch Collaboration. The conclusion he had presented to him rings well for Italy and the view that they want to have on the war, "All countries have myths about having been good, and they always turn out to be lies."¹

The story of resistance of the Italian people is not one that began heavily under the thrall of Fascism as they were a heavy minority that had been pushed significantly underground in the face of a nominally popular Fascist government⁶ . Instead, the story of resistance is the story against the German occupation, which is when Italy did in fact enter into a full blown civil war.² To get to when the switch was flipped, we need to go back through what got us there.

A good of starting point as any is when Italy and Germany signed the Pact of Steel in May 1939 which effectively gave Hitler an blank check for Italian support if a war broke out. Mussolini did not want to be dragged into Germany's wars as even he knew how woefully unprepared his military would be in such a case^2, and in fact was trying to present himself as a grand mediator between Poland and Germany³ so as to save face in the face of all the blustering he had done up to this point. Between September 1939 and May 1940 il Duce would constantly change his mind between appearing to be the grand "nonbelligerent" ("neutral" was an unfascist word and not manly), to stating that his and the Italian people's honor demanded they march with Germany, to warning Holland and Belgium of German attack, to demanding mobilization of the Italian army, to writing to Hitler personally that peace was the sensible option, to finally declaring war so that he wouldn't be late enough to share in the spoils and glory.² Plus, there was the fear that Hitler would punish Italy for the way that Mussolini had attempted to stand in the way of the Austrian Anschluss.⁴

Italy's misadventures in the war are well documented and were completely hamstrung by Mussolini's inability to ever make up his damn mind about what to do.⁴ Italians - regardless of pro- or anti- fascist sensibilities - fought loyally for their country but the war was quickly unpopular, with the public not in support of the cause.¹ Mussolini himself had begun telling his ministers that he foresaw that the future held a potential conflict between Italy and Germany which is why he held 15 divisions in reserve on the Italian border. As Smith says, "this was crazy talk." By this point Italy found itself as more or less an occupied power under Germany's nominal control with many of it's workers have to be shipped to Germany to replace those sent to Germany's front lines. They were not treated well. At all.² Reports in July 1941 had already started to filter in to Mussolini that antifascism was starting to root in, and strikes at factories soon started spreading, and the Party itself began to devour itself as discontentment suffered the nation.² This is where you first start seeing signs of a 'civil war' brewing in Italy as the lower classes began actively resisting. With news reaching of death, imprisonment, and defeat abroad - and especially of the fact that the Allies had bombed Rome² - the King eventually stepped in with the Fascist Grand Council to arrest Mussolini, and dissolve the Fascist party.⁵

It is important for what comes next to understand that Mussolini losing power and being arrested by the Carabinieri was heavily popular, and there literally was rejoicing in the streets when his arrest was announced over the radio.⁶ It’s also important to note that very quickly the new government and King fled south to Brindisi, leaving without giving orders to the Army. The Germans quickly swept in, occupying all the way down to Naples - where an insurrection of the people were the only thing that allowed the Allies to gain a toehold.² It is here you see the curiosity of memory take hold, as when the new Italian government signed an armistice with the Allies they essentially were admitting defeat.

It would be very strange if France celebrated the defeat at Sedan in 1870 or if in the USA they did the same for Pearl Harbour. Yet this is what happens in Italy with the 8 September. —Giovanni Belardelli,

Indeed, more than one monument rejoices that this is when “THE PEOPLE AND THE ARMY JOINED TOGETHER TO BEGIN THE LIBERATION STRUGGLE.” This is where the Italian memory of brave resistance in the face of Fascism takes hold, as the people were raped, priceless artifacts obliterated⁵ in Naples and Rome, and the Italian army more or less disarmed and evacuated to Germany for forced labor^2. The Germans deliberately started a Malaria epidemic in the Lazio region⁵ as Partisan Brigades began to fight alongside the Allies for their country^2. The resistance against fascism was strong, but it was open resistance against the German brand, and not of the Italian one.

We are once again brought to the quote I brought at the beginning. Italy after the war concentrated heavily on it’s resistance from the years of 1943-1945 in which scores of civilians, and military died resisting the German occupation as the Allies fought their way North.⁵ In many communities the names of the resistance fighters were added to the monuments from the first World War as a way of countering the memory of the Fascist martyrs that had been created after the end of the First World War - to show that this conflict between the left and the Fascists was on a continuum.⁵ What none of this does, however, is explain the years in-between in which Italy provided Germany with roughly 11% of its arms^4, or actively resisted until the situation with Mussolini had become untenable.

The truth, unfortunately, is complicated.

Kuper, Simon. Ajax, the Dutch, the War: Football in Europe during the Second World War.
Smith, Denis Mack. Modern Italy: A Political History.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - May 6, 1939
Sadkovich, James J. "Understanding Defeat: Reappraising Italy's Role in World War II." Journal of Contemporary History
Foot, John. Italy's Divided Memory.
Whittam, John. Fascist Italy.

Sunshine_Bag · 3日前

To that I can't say, as I have not really studied or interacted much with anything by Kissinger. He could have been referring to the macro idea that I stated, as nations can be a sum total of all these events regardless of their interpretations.

Sunshine_Bag · 3日前

(Sorry for the late reply to this, I was ~~enjoying~~ watching Italy ~~lose to~~ help Ireland)

I will still have to disagree with Mr. Kissinger once we are removed from the macro level of history. Once again we will look at Italy.

On a macro level Italian will agree that the lose of Carporetto happened, but as I identified before once we zoom in, the "consciousness of a common history" starts to fall apart. What that lose meant to varying groups was wildly different. To the socialists and marxists Carporetto represented the epitome of the proletariats struggle, while for the nationalists it represents everything wrong with the socialist identity of Italy.

In looking at what the "consciousness of a common history" is, we can not disregard what the common memory of that history is, which is where as I said Kissinger's argument fails. I will quote Foot at length here when dealing with how Italy lacks a common consciousness of history removed from the macro level:

As the work of Baldassari has shown, more- over, there was rarely consensus over which anniversaries were to be used to remember the war...By collapsing the March on Rome anniversaries with those of the war, fascism looked to equate itself with the victory of the nation. November 4 was silenced. There had been “just one victory,” according to the fascist state. But this imposition was not always accepted at a local level, where there was a “geography of dissent.” In Lucca, for example, there was a “plu- rality of identities and memories” and a citywide monument was not cre- ated before 1930.¹

Look at this through your definition:

I believe the word "common history" refers to our common interpretation of history shared amongst people, rather than a perfectly remembered chain of historical events.

We see that there is not a common interpretation of events, or their outcomes. Further into the interpretation of World War I in the so-called monument war fought in Italy in it's outcome we saw differing groups using the same monument for differing purposes. It was not uncommon for members of the Proletarian League to try to remove "their" names from patriotic monuments, while the Nationalists themselves would often find that socialist administrations would refuse to recognize "their dead."²

I used the example of the Bologna-Genoa game to illustrate this on a slightly silly level as some tend to look at sports, but it provides as example where one can agree on a history at a macro level (a sporting event happened on which Bologna defeated Genoa), the interpretation of that event does not share a common interpretation outside of political ideology.

Foot, John. Italy's Divided Memory.
Colombara, Filippo. Vesti la giubba di battaglia. Miti, riti e simboli della guerra partigiana.

Sunshine_Bag · 3日前

It's an interesting theory but it's one that I see slowly falling apart and running into a few problems.

Firstly, it is acknowledged that memory is the way in which to view our relationship with the past - the problem is that "history is also unstable, flimsy..unreliable, and often highly politicized."¹ The famous saying being, of course, "history is written by the victors."

Filtered through the lens of modern Italy we can see that the country suffers from what historian John Foot terms as a "divided memory" that filters across all aspects of society. "It has proved extremely difficult, if not impossible, for any group—public or private—to create a consensus around the past, or around ways of remembering that past."¹ Italy has often had different national narratives on their history, and these narratives have often clashed with the local stories of the event. One of the most prevalent discussions of this 'memory problem' occurs when looking at the causes of, and fallout, from the First World War - especially in the monuments and commemorations of it. The socialists and anarchists viewed the war as a massacre that had been produced by capitalists - and was to be remembered as a disaster for the proletariat. These clashed with many of the returning veterans of the war, who felt that Italy had been cheated her due by the Allies at the peace conferences. These feeling were slightly in part with the promises made going in to the war, that it would be a "quick and heroic means towards national power and wealth."² And even without, the nationalists viewed the conflict as heroic and glorious, as a means to reinvent Italy's image in the world¹ and established Italy among the great powers²

One of the main avenues in which the Fascists rose to power was in controlling the public memory of the First World War and casting themselves in the better light. Nationalists seized upon the notion and national depression faced by the country with the disastrous defeat at Carporetto² and proclaimed that the left were disfattisti (defeatists) of the ilk that Lenin called for in Russia. The left meanwhile proudly wore that badge , and viewed the disaster at Carporetto as a sign of a revolutionary class struggle. Antiwar monuments sprung up throughout Italy, as the more left leaning and socialistic cities and states celebrated the new peace. Unfortunately, the left's notion was a political miscalculation as the Fascists were able to recast the memory of the war as a clash between those who had run away, and those who had fought. Mussolini’s first words on taking power in October 1922 to Victor Emmanuel III were “I bring you the Italy of Vittorio Veneto” - the site of Italy's defeat of Austria-Hungary that in effect ended the Austro-Hungarian Empire.³ A monument war ensued, concurrently with Fascisms rise that saw the destruction of every antiwar monument, and monument to peace.¹ The official state memory was to be that the war was heroic, necessary, and to be repeated as needed.

A slightly less serious, but no more important aspect of the controlling narrative in the lense of a divided memory is that of sporting memory. While I have previously written about the comical turn of events that led to Bologna triumphing over Genoa in the 1924-1925 season, the memory of how those games unfolded differs between the two teams. According to Bologna's official history of the event, the final match between the two teams was played behind closed doors due to the "fiery nature" of the two fan groups. To Genoa, and many other groups, the match is known as Il Furto Della Stella as it denied Genoa its tenth championship, which gives clubs the right to sew a special star on their shirts.⁴ Up until the 1990s in Genoa it was assumed that when one spoke of those from Bologna, they were referring to thieves - at least according to Genovesi film director Giuliano Montaldo.

Either way of spilling it, the memory of this event is of a divided nature on which the official narrative is at odds with the narrative of others - which is quite in common with Italy's history. On a macro level, I can see myself in a way agreeing with Kissinger, but on a micro level it falls apart as historical narrative and memory can be a flimsy beast.

Foot, John. Italy's Divided Memory.
Smith, Denis Mack. Modern Italy: A Political History.
Paoletti, Ciro. A Military History of Italy.
Foot, John. Calcio: A History of Italian Football.

Sunshine_Bag · 7日前

Used Sources of East Asian Tradition, vol II for an undergrad course and I found it fantastic.

Sunshine_Bag · 7日前

Italy says hello.

Sunshine_Bag · 8日前

Many Italian even going into the 2000s did not know it well (many still don't), and as an odd bit of trivia it wasn't officially the national anthem until 2012. Before then it was just the de facto national anthem.

Sunshine_Bag · 8日前

Hilariously with everybody circle jerking over Gigi Buffon during the 90 (and into the early 2000s) there was a minor (and slightly hilarious) amount of debate over the fact that many Italian players didn't sing the national anthem because of, among other reasons, the words were too difficult to remember.

Sunshine_Bag · 9日前

Actually I pull a lot of quotes from interviews when the books start to fail, or if somebody (like Mourinho) hasn't published a book they'd put their name to.

Sunshine_Bag · 9日前

Why thank you!

Sunshine_Bag · 9日前

Maybe that's why we haven't heard any news about Giggs. We're about to get a new veteran winger.

Sunshine_Bag · 9日前

It's right next to that day off that Punk wanted.

Sunshine_Bag · 9日前

Ibra will raise that average age up!

Sunshine_Bag · 9日前

The squad that was present in that second half should be what England uses going forward.

Sunshine_Bag · 10日前

Berlusconi bought AC Milan actually. You really can't say that the ultràs are more left wing with them, but they definitely are more of the working class team. Inter has traditionally been supported by the bourgeoisie, but in recent years that distinction has been dropped.

Sunshine_Bag · 11日前

I can only speak to the Italian ultrás but they have their direct origins in the traveling support that Helenio Herrera helped to organize for his famous Grande Inter of the 1960s. Part of Herrera's overall strategy included the ability for the team to "win without getting off the bus" by pure psychological domination.[1] In addition to all the managerial concepts that Herrera pioneered, he also had a direct hand in ensuring that his team's supporters would accompany the team to away matches, putting contacts into place to ensure that Inter were never actually playing without their support. It worked. Really well. Inter won the Serie A in 1963, 1965, and 1966; the European Cup in 1964, and 1965; and the Intercontinental Cup in 1964 and 1965.

Now, these proto-ultrás had existed in forms before this, Herrera was just the first one to take full advantage of the support that they could provide his team. It was from Herrera starting to pull the importance of the fans in that you can draw the lines of the groups that had followed around the Grande Torino teams and the Grande Inter teams of the 40s, 50s, and 60s to what exploded in the 1970s.

An important concept to keep in mind about Italian football (or calcio as they would prefer you to call it) is that it has deeply ingrained religious motifs into it's culture[2]. With this, calcio has seen a rise of devotion that can only be compared to a similar devotion to religion. (As a side note, in 2002 Italian head coach Giovanni Trapattoni would bring a bottle of Holy Water blessed by the Pope to the World Cup and sprinkle it on the field for luck) Another important concept to keep in mind is what is going on in Italy during the late 1960s/early 1970s as Italy is beginning it's "Years of Lead" in which it faces massive social, and political unrest. Striking was common throughout Northern Italian factories, as were clashes between students, left-wing militants, and the police. Political assassinations and bombings would claim the lives of over 2000 people from 1969-1981. So this backdrop of unrest combined with religious- esque fanaticism already in place for fans of calcio would give rise to an evolution of the British hooligans that were already starting to plague England: the ultrá.[3]

The differences between the British and Italian cousins were stark from the beginning. Where for the Brits violence was the goal, for the Italians violence was the method to achieve their goals. With this you saw the Fossa dei Leoni group form for Milan in 1968 and take refuge in a specific part of the San Siro - the stadium in Milan shared between the two top teams. Almost immediately in response Inter fans formed the Inter Boys SAN (the English word betraying who they were inspired from, and the name standing for Armed Black-and-Blue Squad). The groups quickly became not only violent, but highly political. It is hard to pin down exactly when the evolution happened beyond just simply passionate fans and those with political agendas, but Armstrong and Testa postulate that the rise of the ultra passionate fan, and the ultra violent one occurred simultaneously. The Inter Boys were heavily associated with the nascent Fascists which were left over from the end of World War II, and as more groups popped up throughout the country they also attached themselves to various lengths of the political spectrum. One thing was clear though: they could force their political message through via football. If violence was necessary for that, then so be it. The purpose of the ultrás could be seen as "a reassertion of masculinity at a time where the economic and cultural context have threatened the traditional role of the Italian man." (Guschwan)

The typical person that joined the ultrás tended to be dissatisfied young men, unhappy with the current economic climate in Italy. As stated by more than a few groups, “We value anyone fighting the system, even if they have a different ideology from us,” at least at the start of their rise. As the years continued the image that the groups saw themselves entrenched in would take over their clubs, and cities. SS Lazio for instance would not create merchandise for many years as this was the role of their ultrás, while murders and assassinations of rivals would occur with depressing reoccurrence throughout every major Italian city.

[1] John Foot. Calcio: A History of Italian Football

[2] Filippo Benfante, Piero Brunello. Lettere dalla curva sud. Venezia 1998-2000

[3]Gary Armstrong, Alberto Testa. Football, Fascism and Fandom

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