Subject: Fighting qualities of Italians

--- John Lambshead <pjdl@nhm.ac.uk> wrote:
> Unfair comment.
> The Italian Army suffered terrible losses in WW1 and
> were as good as the 
> French or Germans.
 
Lots of people suffered terrible losses in WWI.  In
fact, the worst losses were (percentage-wise) suffered
by the Belgians.  I'd have to look up percentages.  I
doubt it was as high as some armies that fought
considerably better.
 
As good as the French.	Well, a pack of Quakers would
put up a better fight than the French.	The French
people and the French Army were completely lacking in
any military quality or fighting spirit, and used
their massive resources in as stupidly and cowardly
manner as possible.
 
As for the Germans, that's about as stupid a comment
as is humanly possible.  Germans:  Conquered Denmark,
Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Poland,
Yugoslavia, Greece, 3 Baltic states, Ukraine, big
chunks of Russia.  Italians:  Conquered Albania
(inhabited, from personal experience, mostly by
illiterate filthy cowardly bandits)
 
> Caeser would be surprised to hear that Italians
> never used lethal force.
 
Modern Italians are NOT the same as ancient Italians. 
The Latin bloodline had been diluted badly by the 4th
century AD, and then furthermore there were a series
of migrations and invasions by Germanic tribes from
the north and Muslims from the South.  That's were
much of the root of the problem lies.  Northern
Italians (Milan, Genoa, Venice) have predominately
Germanic roots mixed in with the Latin, while the
south (Naples, Sicily) has more Arabic mixed in. 
Northerners consider Southerners to be cowardly, lazy,
and stupid.  Northern Italians constitued most of the
Paras, Bersaglieri, artillery, and armor forces and
fought well.  They also dominated the officer ranks of
the regular infantry, where the enlisted ranks were
mostly of the South.  The officers considered their
men to be completely inferior and so their troops
lived down to their expectations.  
 
This is, of course, in addition to the serious issues
of bad, obsolete equipment created by Italy's
premature armament program.
 
 John

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