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Italian Armed Forces in the Modern Age (Military History)

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  1. Introduction
  2. Italian military history presents certain special features, particularly for non-Italian scholars. Once a subject that was almost the exclusive prerogative of the military, which followed the traditional guidelines of the histoire bataille, the influence of Fascism in the 1920 and 1930s and Italy’s defeat in World War II delayed the development of the nation’s military history along modern and wider approaches, as happened in other countries. However, facing a growing academic interest in the postwar years, the first national conference on military history was held in 1969, which gathered together the military and the academics, although in the decades to follow divergences grew to the point of leading to two different approaches. On the one side, the military, mostly related to the historical branches, kept following the traditional guidelines with only a few deviations, while, on the other side, the academics developed the study of military history in stressing social, political, and economic aspects. Consequently, a certain degree of uncertainty still exists in Italy about what military history actually is, or should be. As a result, two main sources for Italian military history are found today: publications of the historical branches, which remain predominant and focus mainly on operational and technical matters, and academic or academic-related publications, which, a few exceptions apart, focus mainly on social, political, and economic matters. In this context, non-Italian scholars find the subject to be challenging, beyond those barriers posed by the need to possess a knowledge of the language and the difficulty in gaining access to the sources (documents in particular). Others have been deterred by the rather poor Italian reputation on the battlefield. Unsurprisingly, only a few individuals have ventured into the study of Italian military history. Yet, it would be a mistake to blame Anglo-Saxon historians entirely for such little attention, as some have done. Italians have themselves proved quite reluctant to delve into foreign histories and examine the work of foreign historians, as evidenced by the scarce number of Italian works either translated or written in a foreign language or by the almost nonexistent attention paid by Italians to non-Italian armed forces and events not related to Italy (apart from Raimondo Luraghi’s studies on the American Civil War). More recent exceptions, mostly focusing on World War I, suggest that putting those different views together can be hard to do, but it is not impossible. This bibliography is arranged generally by time periods; whenever necessary it is broken down into General Overviews, Reference Works, and specific issues subsections. Cross-references are sometimes necessary, although they have been avoided as much as possible. For example, the Italian colonial wars, apart from the specific section, are also dealt with in the Italian-Ethiopian War subsection under Fascism and Armed Forces (mostly because the latter was a fascist war more than a colonial one). Specific sections for Military Thinking and Doctrine, Intelligence, and Effectiveness of the Italian Armed Forces are also included. Readers will notice the relatively large number of official histories that have been cited here. In many cases, these are the most relevant works available on the history of the Italian armed forces, and they are also little known abroad so an awareness of them is called for.
  3. General Overviews
  4. Few general overviews are available, and only one covers all three branches of service. This reflects the traditional separation and, indeed, rivalry among the Italian armed forces, which remains an enduring characteristic. Although dated by today’s standards, Ceva 1981 still represents the only attempt to give a comprehensive coverage of the history of the Italian armed forces, and it is the ideal starting point for anyone with an interest in the subject. Of the three services, the army is the one dealt with best, first with the overview provided in Rochat and Massobrio 1978, which needs both updating and a supplement, and more recently with Bovio 1996. Much less developed and analytical are the works on the navy (Fioravanzo 1961 provides a good overall survey), and the air force (Abate 1974 and Pelliccia 1996 are the best available). The navy is also well summarized in Sullivan 1988. Noticeable is the almost complete lack of any English-language (or other language) comprehensive work on either the Italian armed forces or any of their services, apart from a few, very unreliable works. Therefore, scholars can approach the subject from two possible ways, either horizontally by selecting from different periods all the available works on the armed forces, or a chosen individual service, or vertically by selecting a given time frame and restricting themselves to studying the Italian armed forces (or individual services) in that period. Apart from Isnenghi 2008–2009, included because it provides good, comprehensive coverage from military, social, political, and economic points of view, in spite of the fact that it is not a work on military history (despite the title), other works dealing with those subjects have not been included, mostly because they deal only partially with the subject of military history.
  5. Abate, Rosario. Storia della aeronautica italiana. Milan: Bietti, 1974.
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  7. A popular history published for the fiftieth anniversary of the Italian air force, comprehensive and partly well documented but uneven in its coverage and lacking any attempt at a critical approach.
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  9. Bovio, Oreste. Storia dell’esercito italiano, 1861–1990. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1996.
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  11. A solid, well-documented work on the history of the Italian army from the unification to the end of the 20th century, which, in spite of its being an official history, is adequately objective and provides full coverage.
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  13. Ceva, Lucio. Le forze armate. Turin, Italy: Unione Tipografica Editrice Torinese, 1981.
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  15. The only available work covering the history of the Italian armed forces as a whole and not as single services. The volume starts from the pre-unification period and covers the post–World War II years up to the 1970s. An update, particularly in the field of military production and economy, is needed.
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  17. Fioravanzo, Giuseppe. La marina militare nel suo primo secolo di vita, 1861–1961. Rome: Ufficio Storico Marina Militare, 1961.
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  19. This is the only overall work covering in depth the history of the Italian navy from the unification to the one hundredth anniversary; as an official history it lacks analysis and criticism and offers mostly a starting point to the subject.
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  21. Isnenghi, Mario, ed. Italiani in guerra: Conflitti, identità, memorie dal Risorgimento ai giorni nostri. 5 vols. Turin, Italy: Unione Tipografica Editrice Torinese, 2008–2009.
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  23. Volume 1 deals with the Risorgimento, Volume 2 covers the period from unification to World War I, Volume 3 World War I (two books), Volume 4 Fascism and World War II (two books), Volume 5 the postwar period. Each book includes an overall view and a discussion of key figures, social groups, historical places, and the media.
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  25. Pelliccia, Antonio. La Regia Aeronautica: Dalle origini alla seconda guerra mondiale, 1923–1943. Rome: Ufficio Storico Aeronautica Militare, 1996.
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  27. A classic official history providing a brief overview of the development of the Italian air force in the twenty years leading up to Italy’s surrender in 1943. Along with Abate 1974 a good starting point.
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  29. Rochat, Giorgio, and Giulio Massobrio. Breve storia dell’esercito italiano dal 1861 al 1943. Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1978.
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  31. A short history of the Italian army from the unification to Italy’s surrender in September 1943; still valid, but it needs to be updated and supplemented with other titles on the subject.
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  33. Sullivan, Brian R. “A Fleet in Being: The Rise and Fall of Italian Sea Power, 1861–1943.” International History Review 10.1 (1988): 106–124.
  34. DOI: 10.1080/07075332.1988.9640470Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  35. A short overview that describes the politics and strategy of the Italian navy from its birth to the Italian surrender on 8 September 1943, highlighting the predominating “fleet in being” concept. Recommended.
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  37. Reference Works
  38. This section includes a series of works dealing with specific subjects, but covering a wider time frame, thus making them useful reference works. It is worth noting that the predominance of works dealing with the Italian army is due mostly to the fact that both navy and air force reference works deal, in most cases, with ships and aircraft, making them more suitable for specific technical references. Montanari 1996–2007 gives a good overall view of the Italian wars and of the Italian armed forces, with an emphasis on the army, while Stefani 1984–1989, Ilari 1989–1992, and Botti 1991–1995 provide specific analysis of three different aspects of the Italian army and, in Ilari 1989–1992, the armed forces. More specific are del Negro and Caforio 1988 and Rochat 1991, although they provide a valid supplement both to the other studies and to the general overviews. Nassigh 1998 and Ceva and Curami 1989 both deal with more technical subjects, confined to either a given place or a time frame, but both provide useful and valuable information on these relevant issues. Likewise, Labanca 2007 offers a wealth of local and specific histories on recruitment in Italy, along with several more general, relevant essays. Unfortunately, the most interesting topics seem to be ones that are missing, such as the command and control system in the Italian armed forces and the related issue of command and leadership, not to mention training and the evolution of tactics and of operational planning. In this respect, Stefani 1984–1989 is a bit disappointing since the author does not deal with these matters in detail and, after the first volume, the remaining two volumes, in spite of the title, largely provide an overall view of the Italian wars and campaigns. It is worth noting that, apart from Sweet 1980, no major reference works are available in any language other than Italian.
  39. Botti, Ferruccio. La logistica dell’esercito italiano, 1831–1981. 4 vols. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1991–1995.
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  41. Volume 1 deals with the army of Piedmont, Volume 2 with the period 1861–1918, and Volume 3 with the interwar period. Volume 4 (split in three parts, including a photo book) covers World War II and the postwar period. It describes the development of army logistics from procurement to field supplies.
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  43. Ceva, Lucio, and Andrea Curami. La meccanizzazione dell’esercito fino al 1943. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1989.
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  45. Two books (text and documents) on the history and the development of army mechanization, focusing both on industries and vehicle production and on their field use. There is, however, no detailed analysis of the evolution of Italian armor, its employment, and its doctrines.
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  47. del Negro, Piero, and Giuseppe Caforio. Ufficiali e società: Interpretazioni e modelli. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1988.
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  49. Collection of essays divided into three parts. Part 3 (relevant here) deals with the Italian officers; it treats the army officers in pre- and post-Unification Italy and in World War I, the peculiarities of both navy and air force officers, and the relationship between the officer corps and Fascism.
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  51. Ilari, Virgilio. Storia del servizio militare in Italia. 5 vols. Rome: Rivista Militare, 1989–1992.
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  53. A six-book (Volume 5 is split in two) history on recruitment to the Italian armed forces, in particular national general conscription; includes a comparison with other states. Includes details on manpower availability.
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  55. Labanca, Nicola, ed. Fare il soldato: Storie del reclutamento militare in Italia. Milan: Unicopli, 2007.
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  57. Collection of essays on recruitment to the armed forces (mostly the army) from the period of unification to the end of compulsory drafting in 2000, in large part focusing on local or specific issues. Most relevant are the essays by Filippo Cappellano on the evolution of recruitment in Italy and by Marco Mondini on the relationship between recruitment and Italy’s modernization.
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  59. Montanari, Mario. Politica e strategia in cento anni di guerre italiane. 3 vols. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1996–2007.
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  61. The Italian wars seen from a political and strategic point of view; Volume 1 deals with the Risorgimento, Volume 2 (two books) with the colonial wars and World War I, Volume 3 (two books) with the interwar period and World War II.
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  63. Nassigh, Riccardo. La marina italiana e l’Adriatico: Il potere marittimo in un teatro ristretto. Rome: Ufficio Storico Marina Militare, 1998.
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  65. Detailed study of the role played by the Adriatic Sea in Italian naval strategy and of the evolution of Italian naval involvement in the area from World War I to World War II.
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  67. Rochat, Giorgio. L’esercito italiano in pace e in guerra: Studi di storia militare. Milan: RARA, 1991.
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  69. Collection of essays, published earlier elsewhere, dealing with various aspects of the Italian army from the unification to World War II. A useful complement to Rochat and Massobrio 1978 (cited under General Overviews). Also see: Giorgio Rochat, Ufficiali e soldati: L’esercito italiano dalla prima alla seconda guerra mondiale (Udine, Italy: Gaspari, 2000).
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  71. Stefani, Filippo. La storia della dottrina e degli ordinamenti dell’esercito italiano. 3 vols. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1984–1989.
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  73. Five books on the history of army doctrine and regulations that span from the Piedmontese army to the end of World War I (Volume 1), from the interwar period and World War II to 1943 (Volume 2, two books), and from 1943 to the post war period (Volume 3, two books); the latest volumes provide only an overview of the campaigns.
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  75. Sweet, Joseph Timothy. Iron Arm: The Mechanization of Mussolini’s Army, 1920–1940. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1980.
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  77. An analysis of the reasons why the Italian army failed to mechanize before World War II, putting the matter in its overall economic, social, and political context. Albeit not without flaws (particularly the lack of Italian army records), it is still a solid work.
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  79. Bibliographies
  80. Bibliographical research on Italian military history can be as troublesome as research in the Italian archives (not only the military ones; for an understanding of the difficulties, interested readers may consult the essay by Silvia Trani and Pier Paolo Battistelli, “The Italian Military Records of World War Two,” War in History 17.3 (2010): 333–351). Most bibliographies include only books, particularly those in Italian, while single papers, essays, and journal articles are rare. They are even more scarce if the papers, essays, and journal articles are written in languages other than Italian or have been published abroad. Coverage of non-Italian works is fragmentary and all too often tied to the occasional contributions of some non-Italian scholars. No scientific journals in Italy treat to a significant degree military history, and non-Italian journals only rarely contain essays on Italian military history. The few Italian journals that have dealt with military history subjects on a more or less regular basis (such as Storia Contemporanea and the army historical branch’s Memorie Storico Militari [since 1984 Studi Storico Militari]) either no longer exist or are published only occasionally. The lack of journals does not affect the actual updating of bibliographies or reviews, for updating of bibliographies has been practically nonexistent and that of reviews is still mostly confined to academic journals, without any distinction made for the actual content of the reviewed works. Of the bibliographies included here, the most useful are Cernuschi 2010, Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito 1990 (the army historical branch), and, to a degree, Centro Interuniversitario di Studi e Ricerche Storico Militari 1987, all providing comprehensive coverage, including articles and essays, although in different ways. Both Rochat 1985 and del Negro 1997 give an overall view of the development of different approaches to military history in Italy from the 1960s to the 1990s. Brown and Lovett 1982 offers a good starting point, although highlighting the need for a more comprehensive work on the Italian military. The more interesting works are Ceva 1982 and Sullivan 2003; the first is an attempt to compare Italian- and English-language works on the war in North Africa, while the second is a detailed and well-reasoned analysis of works that deal with the Italian role in World War I. It is recommended that scholars check the bibliographies of the works dealing with their research subject, which are often the best and the most immediately available source and also often the more up-to-date and comprehensive.
  81. Brown, Benjamin F., and Clara M. Lovett. “Army, State and Society in the History of Modern Italy: A Review Essay.” In The Military and Society: Reviews of Recent Research. Edited by the Institute for Research in History, 33–41. New York: Haworth, 1982.
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  83. An overview of the books on the subject, mostly useful as an introduction. To the contrary of what is stated here, only a small portion of Italian military records from World War II are available on microfilm from the US National Archives.
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  85. Centro Interuniversitario di Studi e Ricerche Storico Militari. Bibliografia italiana di storia e studi storico militari, 1960–1984. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1987.
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  87. Bibliography arranged alphabetically by author and title, with indexes for authors and subjects. Journal essays and non-Italian language books (mostly a selection) are included, but not in a comprehensive manner.
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  89. Cernuschi, Enrico. La marina italiana nella seconda guerra mondiale: Una bibliografia critica, 1944–2009. Rome: Rivista Marittima, 2010.
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  91. An updated, short, but comprehensive bibliography listing also many articles and essays published in magazines and journals that are otherwise hard to find. Unfortunately, the bibliography is also hard to get.
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  93. Ceva, Lucio. Africa settentrionale, 1940–1943: Negli studi e nella letteratura. Rome: Bonacci, 1982.
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  95. More than just a bibliographical work, this study compares the different sources (including those in the English language) dealing with the different aspects of World War II in North Africa. Its main drawback is, apart from the lack of an update, the lack of German-language sources.
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  97. del Negro, Piero, ed. Guida alla storia militare italiana. Naples, Italy: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1997.
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  99. A series of bibliographical essays (with listings of books) broken down by historical periods from the Middle Age to the period after World War II. The bibliography is updated to 1996, although only selectively (in particular from 1992 to 1996).
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  101. Rochat, Giorgio, ed. La storiografia militare italiana negli ultimi venti anni. Proceedings of a conference held in Lucca, 19–21 October 1984. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1985.
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  103. A collection of essays, of different quality and coverage, analyzing Italian military historiography from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s by themes and subjects, also raising the issue of what military history should be.
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  105. Sullivan, Brian R. “Italy.” In Researching World War I: A Handbook. Edited by Robin Higham and Dennis E. Showalter, 99–128. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003.
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  107. Overall view of the historiography dealing with Italian participation in World War I, with a comprehensive (and updated) bibliographical listing of the major works. Recommended.
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  109. Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito. Catalogo bibliografico: Le opere edite dall’Ufficio Storico fino al 1990. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1990.
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  111. A useful listing of every publication by the Italian army historical branch since 1875, broken down by historical periods. It includes a list of the articles published in the journal of the army historical branch (Memorie Storico Militari, Studi Storico Militari).
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  113. Pre-Unification Italy
  114. Modern Italian military history starts with 1796 and the arrival of Napoleon’s armies in Italy, which launched a revolutionary period that lasted twenty years and influenced deeply the future developments of the Italian armed forces. All the states of pre-unification Italy were affected by this revolution, although the fact that Italy remained divided into a number of states (also a national issue) would remain as a legacy that would affect the character of the future Italian army. This fragmentation, and the fact that Piedmont and its army would play the leading role in Italy’s unification accounts for the difficulty in composing a military historiography on the pre-unification states and on the armies and navies of the age of Napoleon. Following Italy’s unification, Italian military historiography focused almost exclusively on the army of Piedmont, while the history of the Risorgimento—the wars that led to unification—were unavoidably seen from the point of view of the victor. Fascism exacerbated this situation, as shown here by the semi-official history of the army of Piedmont (Brancaccio 1922–1925), which is only partly counterbalanced by the history of the armies of Tuscany (Giorgetti 1916), the only pre-unification state that has merited an account. As a result, not until well after the end of World War II did the first modern military history of the Risorgimento, Pieri 1962, appear. It is still acknowledged as a major milestone of modern Italian military historiography. However, in the 1970s this work came to be criticized mostly because of its focus almost exclusively on the military and political aspects of warfare, in contrast to the now more acclaimed social and military aspects, as in, for example, della Peruta 1988. In spite of a renewed interest since the 1980s in both the pre-unification states and the Risorgimento—the latter in particular with its much celebrated 150th anniversary in 2011–2012 (which, however, failed to produce any relevant work on military history)—the historiography of both is still quite fragmented, mostly concentrating on the local level and with a focus on single battles or events. Exceptions are works such as Menziani 2005, albeit limited to a ten-year period of history only; Crociani, et al. 2004; and Ilari, et al. 2007 (two out of several titles in the series), a series of works on Italy under Napoleon. Romiti 1950 focuses on the development of the Italian navies. Readers will note that Giuseppe Garibaldi and his “redshirts” are not included here, mostly because a bibliographical survey of the famed commander in the fight for unification would take up too much space and would focus mostly on the many biographies of the “hero of the two worlds.”
  115. Brancaccio, Nicola. L’esercito del vecchio Piemonte: Gli ordinamenti. 3 vols. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1922–1925.
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  117. A basic study based on official records, with the first volume dealing with the history of the army of Piedmont and Volumes 2 and 3 dealing with the organization of the army, basically a schematic list of units.
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  119. Crociani, Piero, Virgilio Ilari, and Ciro Paoletti. Storia militare del regno italico, 1802–1814. 2 vols. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 2004.
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  121. A military history of the Regno Italico based on published and unpublished sources. Volume 1 consists of two books. It starts with the political context and deals with the military administration, army staff, and army units and formations. Volume 2 includes a history of the navy and of military operations on land and at sea.
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  123. della Peruta, Franco. Esercito e società nell’età napoleonica. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1988.
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  125. A study dealing with the political and social impact of conscription and recruitment for the army, mostly during the Italic kingdom, also dealing with the short- and long-term consequences. See also: Frederick C. Schneid, Soldiers of Napoleon’s Kingdom of Italy: Army, State and Society, 1800–1815 (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995).
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  127. Giorgetti, Niccolò. Le armi toscane e le occupazioni straniere in Toscana, 1557–1860. 4 vols. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1916.
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  129. A study of the armies of Tuscany based almost exclusively on published sources and characterized by a certain degree of detail, still the best (if not the only one) on the armies of Tuscany. Napoleon’s wars and the Risorgimento are dealt with in Volumes 3 and 4.
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  131. Ilari, Virgilio, Piero Crociani, and Giancarlo Boeri. Storia militare del Regno murattiano, 1806–1815. 3 vols. Invorio, Italy: Widerholt Frères, 2007.
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  133. This military history of Murat’s kingdom deals in detail with headquarters, corps, and formations of Murat’s army, also including the constabulary, the navy, and local formations. A history of the central Mediterranean region during Napoleon’s wars, seen from various aspects, is included. See also: Virgilio Ilari, Piero Crociani, and Giancarlo Boeri, Le due Sicilie nelle guerre napoleoniche, 1800–1815. 2 vols (Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 2008).
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  135. Menziani, Alberto. L’esercito del ducato di Modena dal 1848 al 1859. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 2005.
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  137. A detailed research work of the army of Modena, based on documents that had previously been unexamined, that describes the organization of the army, the daily life of the soldiers, and the few clashes engaged in by the duchy’s army in the wars of Italian unification.
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  139. Pieri, Piero. Storia militare del risorgimento: Guerre e insurrezioni. Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1962.
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  141. The basic reference work on the military history of the Risorgimento and one of the first academic military histories in Italy. Although focusing on wars, insurrections and battles, the volume also deals with the armies involved. A recommended starting point for scholars.
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  143. Romiti, Sante. Le marine militari italiane nel Risorgimento, 1748–1861. Rome: Ufficio Storico Marina Militare, 1950.
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  145. A comprehensive history of the navies of the pre-unification Italian states, mostly focused on the Neapolitan navy; describes the last battles against the Barbary pirates, Napoleon’s wars, and Italy’s unification, focusing on the confrontation with the Austrian navy.
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  147. Unification to World War I
  148. The period following Italy’s unification marked the formative years of the Italian armed forces, and, as such, it has been studied in detail. Italy’s war against Austria in 1866 and the first defeats suffered by the Italian armed forces at Custoza and in the naval battle of Lissa influenced military history from the latter years of the 19th century until 1911–1915. However, following the Italian-Turkish war of 1911–1912 and Italy’s entry into World War I in 1915, interest in the unification period declined. Not surprisingly, military historians, mostly academic ones, again took into account the military aspects of Italy’s unification only in the 1970s, a time characterized by a stress on the political connotations consequent to the development of the “extended” military history, that is, military histories that dealt with political, social and economic matters. As a consequence, the pioneering work of Pieri 1962 (cited under Pre-Unification Italy), an analysis of the reorganization of the army in the 1870s that still bears the imprint of the traditional guidelines of military history, was criticized not for its actual contents (the book was judged to be both useful and accurate) but rather for having omitted the political problems underlying the choices that led to the new army organization. Politics entered into the role of the army, and of the armed forces in general, as a domestic issue with the armed forces deployed to prevent rebellions and insurgencies. They did so in the case of brigandage in southern Italy, which has been the subject of a multitude of books and analyses that are all too often lacking in depth and quality, although their appearance reflects a certain degree of nostalgia for the pre-unification Italian states. Modern Italian military history, and in particular studies on the period up to the beginning of World War I, have emerged since the 1970s mostly following guidelines that place the political and social aspects of the Italian armed forces in the forefront.
  149. General Overviews
  150. The interesting fact about general overviews on the history of the Italian armed forces in the period of unification is that these are mostly provided by non-Italian historians. The best and most comprehensive work is Gooch 1989, which has been translated into Italian and widely used as a reference book. Whittam 1977 has also been translated into Italian in an expanded edition and in spite of widespread criticisms, both in Italy and abroad. Thus far, Italian historians have focused mostly on specific aspects of the Italian armed forces, as shown by del Negro 1979b and this author’s review of Whittam 1977 (del Negro 1979a), which has set a standard still valid today. It is not by chance that the only Italian works cited in this section are, in fact, collected essays (and sometimes essays that have been published partly or entirely in more than one place; see, for example, Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito). The fact that Italian historians privileged the use of the Italian armed forces as a domestic political instrument of social control and repression, while neglecting the military-related aspects of organization and training, seems to have influenced the belief that the failures on the battlefield of the Italian armed forces could be attributed to politics. In spite of the importance of Italy’s war against Austria in 1866, no comprehensive analysis has appeared apart from one book (Geoffrey Wavro, The Austro-Prussian War: Austria’s War with Prussia and Italy in 1866 [Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1966]), which is published in English and does not rely on Italian sources.
  151. del Negro, Piero. “Army, State and Society in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century: The Italian Case.” Journal of Italian History 1 (1979a): 315–328.
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  153. Critical review of Whittam 1977, highlighting the focus on the domestic role that the Italian army did play and its lack of an independent role due to the effective political control of the military.
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  155. del Negro, Piero. Esercito, stato, società: Saggi di storia militare. Bologna, Italy: Cappelli, 1979b.
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  157. Collection of essays dealing with the relationship among the army, the political power, and society, from pre-unification Italy to the end of World War I. Most relevant essay is: “La leva militare in Italia dall’unità alla grande guerra,” pp. 168–261.
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  159. Gooch, John. Army, State, and Society in Italy, 1870–1915. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1989.
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  161. A comprehensive analysis of the role of the Italian army in Italy from the seizure of Rome to the Italian entry in World War I based on primary sources. A basic reference work (also translated into Italian) and the best starting point for further studies on the subject.
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  163. Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito. L’esercito italiano dall’unità alla grande guerra, 1861–1918. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1980.
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  165. Collection of essays dealing with different aspects of the Italian army from unification to World War I, some published elsewhere (either partly or as a whole), divided in two main parts: Part 1 deals with the 19th century (with essays by Mazzetti and Minniti), Part 2 with the 20th century, including the Italian-Turkish war and World War I.
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  167. Whittam, John. The Politics of the Italian Army, 1861–1918. London: Croom Helm, 1977.
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  169. The book represents the first attempt to produce a historical overview of the Italian army and its politics for English-language scholars, but it suffers from a lack of sources. An expanded version was published in Italy in 1979.
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  171. Reference Works
  172. One of the most important engagements of the Italian army in the years after unification, apart from the war of 1866, was the fight against brigandage in southern Italy. It is a tricky issue that is first dealt with in Cesari 1920, although the author does so almost exclusively from the traditional military history aspect in stressing campaigns and skirmishes. More recently, this issue has received a much more detailed analysis, and one that is wider in scope, in Túccari 1982, among others. Readers will note that a wealth of books dealing with the history of brigandage have been published particularly since the 1990s, and many of these have described the counterinsurgency war as a brutal repression carried out in an occupied part of the country (if not a different country altogether). Although the theme cannot be dismissed, sadly most of these books can be. Apart from the classic Pieri 1962, not much attention has been paid to the reorganization of the army in the 1870s or to the more traditional military history–related issues. Minniti 1984 deals with the final decades of the 19th century, while Mazzetti 1974 focuses on the role played by the army in the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary. Ministero per I Beni Culturali e Ambientali 1989 offers a detailed series of analyses mostly focused on the social role of the army, an issue already dealt with in the works cited under Unification to World War I: General Overviews. See also works cited under Colonial Warfare.
  173. Cesari, Cesare. Il brigantaggio e l’opera dell’esercito italiano dal 1860 al 1870. Rome: Ausonia, 1920.
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  175. Although outdated by today’s standards, it is still the best and most comprehensive reference work available on the deployment of the army against the brigandage insurgency in southern Italy after unification.
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  177. Mazzetti, Massimo. L’esercito italiano nella Triplice Alleanza: Aspetti della politica estera. Naples, Italy: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1974.
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  179. Mostly focused on foreign policies, the book deals with Italian strategic planning and military cooperation with Germany and Austria-Hungary in highlighting the role of the Italian army.
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  181. Ministero per I Beni Culturali e Ambientali. Esercito e città dall’unità agli anni trenta. Proceedings of a conference held in Spoleto, 11–14 May 1988. Rome: Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, 1989.
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  183. A collection of essays focusing on the army and its structure based on territory and on the relationship between the military and local urban societies. Includes essays on social aspects of the officer corps in Italy.
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  185. Minniti, Fortunato. Esercito e politica da Porta Pia alla Triplice Alleanza. Rome: Bonacci, 1984.
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  187. A collection of essays previously published in the Storia contemporanea journal. The book analyzes the politics of the Italian army from the point of view of the military, or military-related, publications in the last decades of 19th century.
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  189. Pieri, Piero. Le forze armate nell’età della destra. Milan: Giuffré, 1962.
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  191. This work covers the years from 1861 to 1876 in dealing with the formation of the Italian army and navy after Italy’s unification and the basic reorganization of the army following the seizure of Rome. A basic reference book, to be updated by more recent works (see under Unification to World War I: General Overviews).
  192. Find this resource:
  193. Túccari, Luigi. Il brigantaggio nelle province meridionali dopo l’unità d’Italia, 1861–1870. Lecce, Italy: Istituto per la Storia del Risorgimento Italiano, Comitato di Lecce, 1982.
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  195. An analysis of the development of brigandage and of the deployment of the army to fight the insurrection. The book is detailed and gives an overall view, focusing on the most relevant local realities.
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  197. Navy and Air Force
  198. The early years of the Italian navy, built mostly on the basis of the Neapolitan one, have been dealt with quite fully, much to the contrary for that of the army. Gabriele and Friz 1968 is a valid source for the early years, followed by Gabriele and Friz 1982 for the years up to the beginning of World War I. Several histories are available of the naval battle of Lissa, which have not been included here being mostly (if not exclusively) traditional battle histories that lack treatment of the actual background that led to the Italian defeat and, much more important, to its consequences in the years that followed. Ungari 2010, although lacking technical details and providing no actual overview of the development of the Italian air force in the period before World War I, offers, on the other hand, a good analysis of the political reasons that influenced this development.
  199. Gabriele, Mariano, and Giuliano Friz. La flotta come strumento di politica nei primi decenni dello stato unitario italiano. Rome: Ufficio Storico Marina Militare, 1968.
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  201. A well-documented official history on the early years of the Italian navy, its formation, and its development as one of the leading navies in the Mediterranean region; for a more recent work, see: Mariano Gabriele, La prima marina d’Italia, 1860–1866: La prima fase di un potere marittimo (Rome: Ufficio Storico Marina Militare, 1999).
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  203. Gabriele, Mariano, and Giuliano Friz. La politica navale italiana dal 1885 al 1915. Rome: Ufficio Storico Marina Militare, 1982.
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  205. The development of the Italian navy between the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century; the book includes an analysis of the naval construction programs, the relationships between the navy and Italian industries, and an overview of navy command reorganization, including personnel training.
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  207. Ungari, Andrea. “The Italian Air Force from the Eve of the Libyan War Conflict to the First World War.” War in History 17.4 (2010): 403–434.
  208. DOI: 10.1177/0968344510378458Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  209. A study analyzing the problems facing the development of aircraft and of an air force in Italy during the years just prior to the outbreak of World War I. Army and political opposition and their influences are highlighted, but no technical details are provided on the growth of the industry and the actual development of aircraft.
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  211. World War I
  212. The military historiography on World War I probably is best illustrative of the issues related to the development of Italian military history. World War I presents certain peculiarities characteristic of Italian military history writing; first of all, although part of an alliance, Italy fought almost exclusively alone without any real attempt to forge any kind of coalition warfare. Also the Italian army fought in a limited and restricted area and waged the kind of war most suitable to it (mountain warfare, employment of significant infantry and artillery forces, lack of in-depth maneuver) while lacking any real need for any interservice cooperation in spite of the growing importance of the air force and of the availability of a relatively powerful navy. The relative isolation of Italy and of her armed forces in World War I, along with the lack of any real need to face the complexities of modern warfare and of the need for interservice cooperation, have produced (among other consequences) an almost complete isolation of Italian history writing on the subject. On the one hand, Italians have dealt exclusively with Italian matters and with the Italian front (no attempt has been made in Italy to produce a general and comprehensive analysis of World War I, relying rather on translations mostly of English-language books), while, on the other, English-language scholars have, at least until recently, happily ignored both subjects. Furthermore, the fact that Fascism, with its bombastic propaganda, largely exploited the history of World War I to its advantage led to a delay in history writing that, for Italian scholars and academics, in the end proved advantageous. The whole subject has been recently analyzed without the many hurdles that might have had to be overcome without the defeat of Fascism, and studies have been undertaken according to the more recent guidelines for academic interpretation of military history. The final result is a series of works of excellent quality, of which no other period can boast, and they draw increasing interest from non-Italian scholars as well.
  213. General Overviews
  214. In contrast to other periods and themes, a good deal of high-quality and comprehensive overviews on Italy during World War I are available, all of which are quite recent. Due to the rejection of war issues and of military history in general in the period immediately following World War II, the development of an academic historiography was delayed in Italy until quite recently. Pieri 1960 and Faldella 2004 give comprehensive, coverage of the war mostly from the point of view of the army and focusing exclusively on the Italian front. Rochat and Isnenghi 2000 provides a comprehensive history as well, with a focus that is wider than just the military operations. Pieropan 2001 is a useful (and much needed) work of synthesis based on both Italian and Austro-Hungarian official histories, both hard to find and hard to synthesize given their massive bulk. For scholars without a knowledge of Italian, Rochat 2007 provides a useful synthesis, while the comprehensive bibliographical analysis provided in Sullivan 2003 (cited under Bibliographies) facilitates in-depth research, together with the more comprehensive, and wider in its scope, bibliographical survey of Visintin 2008. Brief overviews of the Italian war, generally within the context of the war in the Balkans or in the Mediterranean, are available in English, but they have not been included here given their lack of depth.
  215. Faldella, Emilio. La grande guerra. 2 vols. Milan: Longanesi, 2004.
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  217. A history of the battles and campaigns fought by the Italian army in World War I. More detailed than Pieri 1960, although outdated it is still a useful complement. Originally published in 1965.
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  219. Pieri, Piero. L’Italia nella prima guerra mondiale, 1915–18. Turin, Italy: Unione Tipografica Editrice Torinese, 1960.
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  221. Overall and concise history of World War I, focusing on the Italian front and Italy’s role in the war; although it does not focus exclusively on military matters, these represent the bulk of the volume. Several reprints. For a first approach (the first work on the subject after World War II), see: Piero Pieri, La prima guerra mondiale, 1914–18: Problemi di storia militare (Turin, Italy: Gheroni, 1947). (Reprint: Udine, Italy: Gaspari, 1999.)
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  223. Pieropan, Gianni. 1914–1918: Storia della grande guerra sul fronte italiano. Milan: Mursia, 2001.
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  225. A massive operational history of the war on the Italian front compiled from the seven-volume Italian official history and from the Austrian (or Austrian-Hungarian) one. Mostly a reference work, very useful for any analysis of the subject.
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  227. Rochat, Giorgio. “The Italian Front, 1915–18.” In A Companion to the First World War. Edited by John Horne, 82–96. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
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  229. Short introduction to the war in Italy and on the role the Italian army played on the Italian front during World War I, particularly useful for English-language scholars. Translated by Paul O’Brien.
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  231. Rochat, Giorgio, and Mario Isnenghi. La grande guerra, 1914–1918. Scandicci, Italy: La Nuova Italia, 2000.
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  233. A recent and updated history of World War I by two prominent Italian historians, focusing on the history of Italy during the war and the role the army played in it. Not exclusively a military history book, it deals with social, political, economic, and other nonmilitary issues. Recommended.
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  235. Visintin, Angelo. “La grande guerra al confine orientale nella storiografia degli ultimi due decenni.” Qualestoria 36.1 (2008): 9–54.
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  237. A comprehensive and updated bibliographical analysis of the war on the Italian front, which includes not only military history issues, but also political and social ones. Recommended. Entire issue available online.
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  239. Reference Works
  240. The basic problem with reference works on World War I is the sheer number of available sources and their dispersion. The Italian army official history is made up of seven volumes split into thirty-seven books, published since 1927 and with the last volume published in 1981 (the history has a grand total of almost 5,000 pages). The semi-official history of the navy consists of eight books, published between 1935 and 1942 and hard to find even in Italy. Since the 1990s, a growing interest in the Great War, particularly in the areas where it was fought, has led to an ever-increasing production of local histories, and of histories of battles and units, by some very active publishing houses. Some of these works are impressive and carry a certain interest, but their fragmentary nature rules out their consideration here. Political developments in the 1960s and 1970s led, at first, to efforts to highlight the morale issue within the Italian army and the sharp repression by the officer corps, which was seen mostly through the lens of a class struggle. Discipline and mass execution have been dealt with quite extensively, at first by Forcella and Monticone 1968, which is quite representative of the attitude toward war and military matters in Italian scholars and academics at the time of publication; the more recent works of Pluviano and Guerrini 2004, along with Wilcox 2005, have the advantage of a well-researched and more scholarly approach. The same applies to Morselli 2001, which provides a valid account of the battle of Caporetto (by any measure a milestone of Italian military history). Two works stand out, Cappellano and di Martino 2008, one of the few attempts to bring the Italian military history back to its more “technical” nature, and Thompson 2009, an excellent work that is probably the best volume in the English language on Italian military history matters. Wilcox 2009 is possibly the only study dealing with issues of command and leadership in the Italian army.
  241. Cappellano, Filippo, and Basilio di Martino. Un esercito forgiato nelle trincee: L’evoluzione tattica dell’esercito italiano nella grande guerra. Udine, Italy: Gaspari, 2008.
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  243. An excellent study of the evolution of the tactics of the Italian army (with an emphasis on field fortifications) during World War I that is based on documentary sources. A not to be missed complement to the more general histories of the Italian war and of the Italian army.
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  245. Forcella, Enzo, and Alberto Monticone. Plotone d’esecuzione: I processi della prima guerra mondiale. Bari, Italy: Laterza, 1968.
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  247. Collection of essays by two authors dealing with the issue of discipline in the Italian army and with the reaction against the collapse of morale among the troops, especially after the defeat at Caporetto. See also Paul O’Brien, “Summary Executions in Italy during the First World War: Findings and Implications,” Modern Italy 11.3 (2006): 353–359.
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  249. Morselli, Mario. Caporetto, 1917: Victory or Defeat? London: Frank Cass, 2001.
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  251. A volume, based both on Italian and on Austrian-German sources, dealing with the most prominent battle (and one of the most famous defeats) fought on the Italian front. A good analysis and a definitive starting point, not only for English-language scholars. For a more concise and general history in English, see: John MacDonald and Željko Cimpric, Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign: The Italian Front, 1915–1918 (Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2012).
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  253. Pluviano, Marco, and Irene Guerrini. Le fucilazioni sommarie nella prima guerra mondiale. Udine, Italy: Gaspari, 2004.
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  255. A more recent, and much less politically influenced, analysis of Italian military justice during World War I. Based on documents, the authors analyze some ninety-five cases of summary executions, in which some 300 were killed, and the six cases of “friendly” fire against Italian troops. Recommended.
  256. Find this resource:
  257. Thompson, Mark. The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915–1919. New York: Basic Books, 2009.
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  259. Good overall view of the war on the Italian front, mostly a view from the “ground” level (that is, the individual soldier); it provides an insight into the many issues relevant to the Italian army, including tactics, morale, leadership and command, and organization and strategy (also the Italian army’s lack of preparedness).
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  261. Wilcox, Vanda. “Discipline in the Italian Army, 1915–1918.” In Warfare and Belligerence: Perspectives in First World War Studies. Edited by Pierre Purseigle, 73–100. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2005.
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  263. A comprehensive, although brief, survey dealing with the issue of discipline within the Italian army, providing a useful and well-studied overview and not only for English-language scholars.
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  265. Wilcox, Vanda. “Generalship and Mass Surrender during the Italian Defeat at Caporetto.” In 1917: Beyond the Western Front. Edited by Ian F. W. Beckett, 25–46. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2009.
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  267. A study focusing mostly on the issue of command and leadership in the Italian army during the defeat at Caporetto, one of the very few works (if not the only one) to deal with this subject and its consequences for the troops. See also the bibliographical review: Salvatore Sechi, “Il morale delle truppe durante la prima guerra mondiale,” Studi storici 11.4 (1970): 794–818.
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  269. Navy and Air Force
  270. Although they are important, in particular the air force, both services have been neglected until recently mostly because of their more “technical” nature. Morabito 2001 is one of the few single-volume histories available, in this case one produced before World War II. More recently, Favre 2008 offered another history of naval (or navy-related) operations, effectively accompanied by di Martino 2011, an excellent work that fills a noticeable gap in the history of the Italian air force.
  271. di Martino, Basilio. L’aviazione italiana nella grande guerra. Milan: Mursia, 2011.
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  273. An updated, comprehensive, and well-documented analysis of the Italian air force during World War I, also including the naval air force. Recommended.
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  275. Favre, Franco. La marina nella grande guerra: Le operazioni navali, aeree, subacquee e terrestri in Adriatico. Udine, Italy: Gaspari, 2008.
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  277. Highly detailed and well-documented history of the naval (and navy-related land and air units) operations in the Adriatic Sea during World War I; provides an excellent companion to the other books in this section.
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  279. Morabito, Nicola. La marina italiana in guerra, 1915–1918. Cornaredo, Milan: Il Castello, 2001.
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  281. An outdated, but still comprehensive, history of the Italian navy during World War I by one of the leading Italian historians of the time. One of the few accounts on the topic available. Originally published in 1933.
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  283. Colonial Warfare
  284. Following the Italian defeat at Adwa in 1896, a series of studies on the military aspects of Italian colonialism were produced in the 1930s by the army historical branch on the military history of Eritrea (to the end of the 19th century) and Italian Somaliland, which also aimed to include the history of the Italian-Ethiopian war (only the first volume on preparation for the war was produced). In the 1920s an official history of the Italian-Turkish war in Libya was produced, but since then the military aspects of Italian colonialism have been neglected to the point of turning Italian colonial warfare into some sort of a “black hole.” In the 1960s, the Italian Foreign Office, which inherited what was left of the duties of the Ministry of the Colonies, produced a series of hagiographic volumes on Italy’s activities in Africa, with only Vitale 1960–1964 dealing with the military aspects of Italian colonialism. The very successful series of books on the history of Italian colonialism started in the 1970s by Angelo del Boca still serve as a much-acclaimed reference point in spite of the fact that both del Boca 1976–1982 and del Boca 1986–1988 are flawed both by the lack of sources (military records could not be used) and by an express political bias, which is also to be found in the general overview given in Labanca 2002. Since the 1980s, only the war against Ethiopia, the “fascist” war par excellence, has been studied in depth, while the otherwise important history of the pacification of Libya and the creation and employment of colonial armies in Libya, Eritrea, and Somaliland have been almost forgotten. A very welcome exception to this rule is the collection of essays in Rochat 1991 and, to a more analytical extent, Gooch 2005, while both Goglia 2006 and Quirico 2002 offer studies of the Italian native colonial armies. Pedriali 2008 is another rare exception to the otherwise widespread lack of interest, providing a detailed, documented study on an important, but otherwise neglected aspect of colonial history. For the Italian-Ethiopian war of 1935–1936 and the subsequent pacification of Ethiopia up to World War II, see Italian-Ethiopian War.
  285. del Boca, Angelo. Gli italiani in Africa orientale. 3 vols. Bari, Italy: Laterza, 1976–1982.
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  287. A history of the Italian colonization of East Africa from 1860 to 1922 (Volume 1), from 1922 to 1936 (Volume 2), and from 1936 to 1945 (Volumes 3 and 4, postwar volume). Although not focused on military issues and lacking sources from military archives, it is still the best available history.
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  289. del Boca, Angelo. Gli italiani in Libia. 2 vols. Bari, Italy: Laterza, 1986–1988.
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  291. A history of the Italian colonization of Libya and a complement to del Boca 1976–1982; volumes cover the period from 1911 to 1922 (Volume 1) and from Fascism to the postwar period (Volume 2). The same remarks about del Boca 1976–1982 apply.
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  293. Goglia, Luigi. “Popolazioni, eserciti africani e truppe indigene nella dottrina italiana della guerra coloniale.” Mondo contemporaneo 2 (2006): 5–54.
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  295. An analysis of the Italian approach to colonial warfare and, in particular, to the native African populations, seen both as enemies and as fellow native troops, based on books written by army officers and army manuals. It stretches beyond the Italian colonies.
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  297. Gooch, John. “Re-conquest and Suppression: Fascist Italy’s Pacification of Libya and Ethiopia, 1922–1939.” Journal of Strategic Studies 28.6 (2005): 1005–1032.
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  299. In spite of its reliance on mostly secondary sources, this is the best short account and analysis of the Italian campaigns of pacification in Libya as well as in East Africa after its seizure in 1936. The evolution of the tactics used against the Senussi insurgency in Libya is also included. Recommended.
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  301. Labanca, Nicola. Oltremare: Storia dell’espansione coloniale italiana. Bologna, Italy: Il Mulino, 2002.
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  303. General history of Italian colonialism and its evolution since the very beginning to Fascism, covers several issues (economy, propaganda, colonization, administration, collective memory of Italy’s colonialism) but hardly touches on the military ones. Useful as a general introduction.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Pedriali, Ferdinando. L’aeronautica italiana nella guerre coloniali: Libia, 1911–1936. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Aeronautica Militare, 2008.
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  307. A well-documented history of the employment of the Italian aircraft and air force, at first, in the Italian–Turkish war of 1911–1912 and, then, in the post–World War I pacification of the country up to the creation of the colonial air force. Recommended, not only for specific interest.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Quirico, Domenico. Squadrone bianco: Storia delle truppe coloniali italiane. Milan: Mondadori, 2002.
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  311. An overview of the history of the Italian colonial troops from the 19th century to the beginning of World War II, a popular history based on secondary sources but also the most comprehensive and readily available one.
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  313. Rochat, Giorgio. Le guerre italiane in Libia e in Etiopia dal 1896 al 1939. Paese, Italy: Pagus, 1991.
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  315. Collection of essays previously published elsewhere dealing with various aspects of Italian colonial warfare. Although fragmentary, it is still useful in treating the defeat at Adwa, the pacification in Libya, the use of poison gas during the Italian-Ethiopian war, and the mass reprisals in East Africa. (Reprint: Udine, Italy: Gaspari, 2009.)
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Vitale, Massimo Adolfo. L’Italia in Africa. Vol. 1, L’opera dell’esercito, 1885–1943. Rome: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, 1960–1964.
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  319. An official history lacking depth and analysis. Of three volumes, Volume 1 is the only relevant work, covering the army organization and recruitment in the colonies from 1885 to 1943. Volumes 2 and 3 provide a brief overview of the history of the wars in East Africa (to 1934) and Libya.
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  321. Fascism and Armed Forces
  322. The historiography on Fascism and the armed forces could provide an interesting clue as to the real extent of the involvement of the latter with the former. In theory one would expect to find a series of studies outlining the relationship between the two in the years of fascist rule in Italy, which included one major war (World War II), one major colonial war (Ethiopia), involvement in a civil war (Spain), and colonial warfare in Libya and East Africa. However, a comprehensive series of studies does not exist; rather, some studies dealing with fragments of Italian military policy and, above all, with the Italian wars or the Italian involvement in the wars of the period. Furthermore, the military (or military-related) aspects of Italian history during these years were barely touched by the controversy among historians that revolved, for most of the time, around Renzo de Felice’s monumental biographical work of Mussolini. Rather, attention was focused on the ideology and foreign policy of Fascism. It is hardly surprising, once again (see under Unification to World War I), that the best and most comprehensive studies have been produced outside of Italy, most notably Gooch 2007 and Mallet 1998 (both cited under Fascism and Armed Forces: General Overviews), with the lack of studies on the air force being outstanding. It should be noted, on the other hand, that the Italian historical branches have produced in recent years a series of valuable, and in some cases quite interesting, official histories on the Italian-Ethiopian War (Longo 2005, Pedriali 2000, Pellegrini 2003) and on the Italian involvement in the Spanish Civil War (Bargoni 1992, Pedriali 1992, Rovighi and Stefani 1992–1993), culminating with the outstanding work of Saini Fasanotti 2010 (cited under Italian-Ethiopian War) on the pacification of Italian East Africa after 1936. It is worth noting that these topics have also been much studied abroad, both in the United Kingdom and in the United States, although due to the lack of sources and the unavailability of these official histories, most of these studies constitute simple overviews and attempts to provide some analysis.
  323. General Overviews
  324. Gooch 2007 is the most up-to-date, best-researched, and most valuable work in providing an adequate overview of the interwar period and of the relationship between Fascism and the armed forces. Both Mazzetti 1974 and Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito 1954 provide a useful complement, while Minniti 2000 is largely an analysis of Italian prewar planning at the operational and strategic levels. Mallet 1998 is the best study on the role of the Italian navy as an instrument of Italian foreign and military policies, counterbalanced by Pellegrini 2003 (see under Italian-Ethiopian War), while Ilari and Sema 1989 is the only study available on the fascist militia and on overall fascist policies and attitudes toward the armed forces and the war. These are matters that have been largely forgotten, and they have been the subject of little study over the years, apart from the debate (mostly political) on Italy’s war aims and expansionism detailed in Finney 2010.
  325. Finney, Patrick. Remembering the Road to World War Two: International History, National Identity, Collective Memory. New York: Routledge, 2010.
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  327. A comprehensive and detailed analysis of the historiography on the Italian expansionism, useful to put the whole matter in context. See in particular chapter 3, “On Complicity: Italian Foreign Policy, Fascist Ideology and the Axis”[pp. 110–148]).
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Gooch, John. Mussolini and His Generals: The Armed Forces and Fascist Foreign Policy, 1922–1940. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
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  331. Richly documented and well-studied analysis of the role of the Italian armed forces during the fascist dictatorship and of the regime’s foreign policy, largely the best work devoted to the matter. Recommended.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Ilari, Virgilio, and Antonio Sema. Marte in Orbace: Guerra, esercito e milizia nella concezione fascista della nazione. Ancona, Italy: Nuove Ricerche, 1989.
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  335. Overview work on the fascist attitude toward the army and the militia (the “blackshirts”), this is the only work available on the topic and a basic source (the volume deals with the fascist militia up to the end of World War II, including the period after the Italian surrender).
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Mallett, Robert. The Italian Navy and Fascist Expansionism, 1935–1940. London: Frank Cass, 1998.
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  339. A detailed and well-researched analysis of the role of the Italian navy in the confrontation with the French and the British navies from the Italian-Ethiopian war to World War II. The book was much criticized in Italy; for details see Pellegrini 2003 (cited under Italian-Ethiopian War).
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Mazzetti, Massimo. La politica militare italiana tra le due guerre mondiali. Salerno, Italy: Beta, 1974.
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  343. Overall analysis of Italian military policy between the two world wars, still a good starting point although lacking depth and documentary sources and being also quite outdated.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Minniti, Fortunato. Fino alla guerra: Strategie e conflitto nella politica di potenza di Mussolini, 1923–1940. Naples, Italy: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 2000.
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  347. Updated and highly documented study of the military planning by the fascist regime in the period leading up to World War II. It also deals in detail with the planning for the war in northern Africa. Recommended.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito. L’esercito italiano tra la 1ª e la 2ª guerra mondiale, novembre 1918–giugno 1940. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1954.
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  351. Although an outdated official history of the army between the two world wars, the volume contains a wealth of details and information that make it still a valid reference work to be consulted whenever necessary.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Reference Works
  354. Few reference works deal with the interwar period or the history of the armed forces during the fascist dictatorship in Italy, and the few that are available focus on specific matters. Montanari 1982 is a good study of the actual condition of the Italian army before World War II, while Sadkovich 1987 provides an overview of the development of the Italian air force in the period. Sullivan 1992 is an attempt to assess how Italy viewed her potential enemies before World War II, which, like the other cited works, clearly suffers from a lack of sources, documents in particular.
  355. Montanari, Mario. L’esercito italiano alla vigilia della 2ª guerra mondiale. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1982.
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  357. A well-documented official history of the Italian army in the period leading up to the Italian entry in World War II, it updates (but does not replace, focusing on a more limited time frame) Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito 1954 (cited under Fascism and Armed Forces: General Overviews).
  358. Find this resource:
  359. Sadkovich, James J. “The Development of the Italian Air Force Prior to World War II.” Military Affairs 51 (1987): 128–136.
  360. DOI: 10.2307/1987515Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  361. Brief overview of the subject, lacking in-depth research but providing a useful complement to Montanari 1982. Examines the development of the Italian air force prior to World War II and the reasons behind its “lackluster performance” during the war.
  362. Find this resource:
  363. Sullivan, Brian R. “The Impatient Cat: Assessments of Military Power in Fascist Italy, 1936–1940.” In Calculations: Net Assessment and the Coming of World War II. Edited by Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, 97–133. New York: Free Press, 1992.
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  365. General overview of the role of the Italian military in fascist Italy from the end of the war against Ethiopia to Italy’s entry into World War II, with an emphasis on how Italy perceived her potential enemies. Good introduction for English-language scholars.
  366. Find this resource:
  367. Italian-Ethiopian War
  368. The Italian-Ethiopian war of 1935–1936 is perhaps one of the most studied of Italian wars, at least of the fascist period. Other than del Boca 1976–1982 (cited under Colonial Warfare), a general review, several works have been produced both in Italy and abroad dealing with the war as a whole or with certain aspects of it, in particular the use of chemical warfare against the Ethiopians. In this context, the release of the Italian army historical branch official history, Longo 2005, is quite welcome in spite of its limits, just as is the release of the other official histories (Pedriali 2000, Pellegrini 2003) for both the navy and the air force. Sullivan 1993 provides an interesting analysis of the war, extending to the beginning of World War II, while Carrier 2008 examines the reasons behind the failure of Italian pacification efforts after 1936, although, until the publication of Saini Fasanotti 2010, virtually no major research works on the history of the Italian pacification and counterinsurgency war in East Africa in 1936–1940 had been produced. Labanca 2005 offers an interesting, and different, point of view of the war, Italy’s most successful and her only real victory (as was told to one of the authors by his modern history teacher at university), not to say the only successful war waged by fascist Italy.
  369. Carrier, Richard. “Blindness and Contingencies: Italian Failure in Ethiopia, 1936–1940.” In The US Army and Irregular Warfare, 1775–2007. Edited by Richard G. Davis, 107–118. Washington, DC: Center for Military History, US Army, 2008.
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  371. An analysis of the Italian failure in the pacification and counterinsurgency war in East Africa following the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, using published sources.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Labanca, Nicola. Una guerra per l’impero: Memorie della campagna d’Etiopia, 1935–36. Bologna, Italy: Il Mulino, 2005.
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  375. A comprehensive analysis of the memoirs of the veterans of the Italian-Ethiopian war; also useful in providing an interesting outline of how the last war of colonization was perceived by the Italians.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Longo, Luigi Emilio. La campagna Italo-Etiopica, 1935–1936. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 2005.
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  379. The Italian army official history of the war against Ethiopia, covering not only the military aspects, but also the political subjects as well as the much-debated issues such as chemical warfare. Operational history is mostly based on published works.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. Pedriali, Ferdinando. L’aeronautica italiana nella guerre coloniali: Africa orientale italiana, 1936–1940. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Aeronautica Militare, 2000.
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  383. A detailed, well researched history of the role of the Italian air force in the Italian-Ethiopian war and in the following pacification of the country and counterinsurgency war up to the beginning of World War II. A subject otherwise hardly dealt with, it is recommended in this respect.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Pellegrini, Ernesto. Le implicazioni navali della conquista dell’impero, 1935–1941. Rome: Ufficio Storico Marina Militare, 2003.
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  387. A reply to Mallett 1998 (see Fascism and Armed Forces: General Overviews), the volume deals with the role of the Italian navy in the period from the Italian-Ethiopian war to the early years of World War II, in the war itself, and in the confrontation with the British and French navies.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Saini Fasanotti, Federica. Etiopia, 1936–1940: Le operazioni di polizia coloniale nelle fonti dell’esercito italiano. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 2010.
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  391. A recent and unusual (given the topic) study of the pacification and counterinsurgency operations by the Italian army in Ethiopia after the Italian–Ethiopian war up to World War II. Recommended, mostly because it is a work based for the first time on army records. See also: Matteo Dominioni, Lo sfascio dell’impero: Gli italiani in Etiopia, 1936–1941 (Bari, Italy: Laterza, 2008).
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Sullivan, Brian R. “The Italian-Ethiopian War, October 1935–November 1941: Causes, Conduct and Consequences.” In Great Powers and Little Wars: The Limits of Power. Edited by A. Hamish Ion and Elizabeth J. Errington, 167–201. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993.
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  395. An overview of the Italian involvement in East Africa from the Italian-Ethiopian war in 1935–1936 to the Italian defeat in Ethiopia in 1941 following Italy’s entry in World War II, dealing with the relevant issues related to this distant overseas theater of war.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Spanish Civil War
  398. Given its strong political characterization and the major involvement of the fascist militia (see under Fascism and Armed Forces: General Overviews), it is hardly surprising that the role played by Italy in the Spanish civil war was studied at first outside of Italy. Coverdale 1975 is still a useful source, although now largely outdated, while Rovighi and Stefani 1992–1993 provides a well-researched and comprehensive account, supplemented by Bargoni 1992 for the navy and Pedriali 1992 for the air force. Sullivan 1995 offers an interesting summary, but it is noteworthy how no study deals with the actual consequences of the Italian involvement in the Spanish civil war on the development (or lack of) of Italian tactics and weapons. In fact, no detailed studies deal with the impact of the experiences of the war, in particular, the employment of tanks and aircraft alongside German ones and against Soviet ones, and on the lessons learned (if any at all) by the Italian military. Also, unlike the Italian-Ethiopian War, no studies of collections, nor analyses of memoirs, have been done to determine if, and to what extent, the Spanish civil war actually influenced the attitudes and actions of the Italians (and, above all, the members of the fascist militia) in the years before World War II.
  399. Bargoni, Franco. L’impegno navale italiano durante la guerra civile spagnola, 1936–1939. Rome: Ufficio Storico Marina Militare, 1992.
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  401. The official history of the Italian navy’s involvement in the Spanish civil war and of the Italian blockade of the western Mediterranean based on the documents from the navy historical branch.
  402. Find this resource:
  403. Coverdale, John F. Italian Intervention in the Spanish Civil War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.
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  405. A classic work on the Italian intervention in the Spanish civil war, focusing on not only military issues. The book covers only the early war years and is now largely outdated although it is still a valid introductory work for English-language scholars.
  406. Find this resource:
  407. Pedriali, Ferdinando. Guerra di Spagna e aviazione italiana. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Aeronautica Militare, 1992.
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  409. Official history of the involvement of the Italian air force in the Spanish civil war based on the records of the air force historical branch. A well-researched and documented work, it is a much needed complement to Rovighi and Stefani 1992–1993.
  410. Find this resource:
  411. Rovighi, Alberto, and Filippo Stefani. La partecipazione italiana alla guerra civile spagnola, 1936–1939. 2 vols. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1992–1993.
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  413. An official history of the Italian army in the Spanish civil war based on the records of the army historical branch. Volume 1 covers the years 1936–1937, Volume 2 the years 1937–1939 and both include one book of text and one of documents.
  414. Find this resource:
  415. Sullivan, Brian R. “Fascist Italy’s Military Involvement in the Spanish Civil War.” Journal of Military History 59 (1995): 697–727.
  416. DOI: 10.2307/2944499Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  417. An overview of the Italian involvement in the Spanish civil war, including the consequences of that involvement. A useful introductory work for English-language scholars.
  418. Find this resource:
  419. World War II
  420. Some basic issues of World War II have clearly influenced Italian military history writing, which has demonstrated an inability to deal properly with its complexities. Italy fought in World War II, at least until her surrender in 1943, in a coalition war and in different theaters of operations, each with its own peculiar characteristics. The war in North Africa from 1940 to 1943 was a modern, largely mechanized, and highly mobile manner of warfare that, following the arrival of German troops in 1941, also became the main theater of war for the Italian-German alliance. The Mediterranean region, and, in particular, its central area and the island of Malta, witnessed a large-scale naval and air war, which was also fought beginning in 1941 by the Italians and the Germans against the British and Commonwealth, and later Allied, air and naval forces. The war in the Balkans, at first the ill-fated Italian attack against Greece and then the war against the partisans (mostly in Yugoslavia) presents different issues, as did Italian participation in the war on the eastern front, most notably following the decision to send an entire army there in 1942. Economic warfare, and, in particular, war production (including armored fighting vehicles and motor transports) and the procurement of raw materials with which to wage war (most importantly, oil) also played a major role, much more than did such matters in World War I. It is important also to mention the growing technological gap, as well as the tactical and operational one, between Italy and both her German ally and her enemies. These issues have not been dealt with in a comprehensive and exhaustive way. Once again, the most comprehensive volume available has not been produced in Italy (see Knox 2000, cited under World War II: General Overviews), while the Italian works mostly focus on the strategic, operational, and political aspects of war. Only one of the official histories, Santoni 1983 (cited under World War II: Reference Works), stands out for the quality of its overall view of the war on land, sea, and air and, while a few adequate works on the navy are available, it is worth noting that no scholarly researched work on the Italian air force has yet appeared. For all the gaps in contributions to the Italian military history of World War II, the period following the Italian surrender in 1943 and issues surrounding it remain even less well studied.
  421. General Overviews
  422. Apart from the recently published Burgwyn 2012, no adequate overview of the Italian war in 1940–1943 exists, let alone one for 1939–1945. Surprisingly enough, in spite of the relevance of the so-called parallel war period of 1940–1941, before the German intervention in the Mediterranean, no scholarly Italian works exist apart from Knox 1982. A central reference work for the period 1941–1942, Ceva 1975, is, however, quite inadequate given the limited use of sources, although Ceva 1995 provides an adequate survey of the entire war period. Rochat 2005 is a good synthesis, mostly focusing on the army and on strategy, but its approach is quite uneven and fails to deal with grand strategic issues, such as coalition warfare, or with many of the technical details (otherwise dealt with in Knox 2000). Rodogno 2006 is a well-documented survey of Italian occupation policies during the war. In this context, L’Italia in guerra will appear as one more lost opportunity; although it includes some relevant and interesting essays, the structure of the work reveals once again how hard it is for Italians to deal with the more complex issues of interservice warfare and with the (otherwise much appreciated abroad) approach to grand strategy. It is worth noting that, apart from Schreiber, et al. 1995, no in-depth studies on German-Italian coalition warfare are available, the Mediterranean arena apparently constituting one of Germany’s forgotten fronts in recent studies of World War II.
  423. Burgwyn, H. James. Mussolini Warlord: Failed Dreams of Empire, 1940–1943. New York: Enigma, 2012.
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  425. An overall view of the Italian war from June 1940 to the September 1943 surrender, including all the theaters and detailing battles as well as the political background to the conflict. This is the most recent and comprehensive work to analyze the Italian conduct of war in World War II.
  426. Find this resource:
  427. Ceva, Lucio. La condotta italiana della guerra: Cavallero e il comando supremo, 1941–1942. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1975.
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  429. One of the few main reference works dealing with Italian strategy and policies in the years 1941–1942 as gleaned from the papers of General Cavallero, the Italian chief of general staff. This reliance also constitutes the main shortcoming of the volume, lacking as it does more in-depth research.
  430. Find this resource:
  431. Ceva, Lucio. “Italy.” In The Oxford Companion to World War II. Edited by Ian C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot, 456–475. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
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  433. One of the most comprehensive surveys of Italy in World War II, including details on the armed forces and on Italian strategy (largely referring to Ceva 1975 and Rochat 2005). A good starting point for English-language scholars.
  434. Find this resource:
  435. Knox, MacGregor. Mussolini Unleashed, 1939–1941: Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy’s Last War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
  436. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511583575Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  437. The work deals with Italy’s “parallel war” mostly from the political and strategic points of view, and it relies largely on German and Italian microfilmed documents from the NARA. It is otherwise the only real scholarly work available on the subject, covering the topic in depth.
  438. Find this resource:
  439. Knox, MacGregor. Hitler’s Italian Allies: Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime and the War of 1940–1943. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
  440. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511613487Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  441. Despite the critical approach and the lack of in-depth archival research, the only work giving an analysis of the Italian armed forces during World War II that is highly recommended.
  442. Find this resource:
  443. L’Italia in guerra. Proceedings of the conferences held in Milan and Turin in 1990–1995. 6 vols. Rome: Ufficio Storico Marina Militare, 1991–1996.
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  445. Collections of essays with each volume covering one year of the war from 1940 to 1945 as well as postwar 1946; these are of different quality and depth, some quite interesting. Issues dealt with (in a different way from year to year) cover military operations, armed forces, society, politics, strategy, and economics.
  446. Find this resource:
  447. Rochat, Giorgio. Le guerre italiane, 1935–1945: Dall’impero d’Etiopia alla disfatta. Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 2005.
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  449. Although not without flaws, particularly the uneven coverage, this is the most recent and the only comprehensive work dealing with the Italian wars from Ethiopia to the end of World War II. Useful as a first approach to the subject, but it requires an in-depth study.
  450. Find this resource:
  451. Rodogno, Davide. Fascism’s European Empire: Italian Occupation during the Second World War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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  453. A deeply researched, comprehensive analysis of Italian occupation politics in the Balkans and France during World War II, also including (among political and economic matters) the military point of view. Translated by Adrian Belton. See also: Elena Aga Rossi and Maria Teresa Giusti, Una guerra a parte: I militari italiani nei Balcani, 1940–1945 (Bologna, Italy: Il Mulino, 2011).
  454. Find this resource:
  455. Schreiber, Gerhard, Bernd Stegemann, and Detlef Vogel. Germany and the Second World War. Vol. 3, The Mediterranean, South-East Europe, and North Africa, 1939–1941. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995.
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  457. English translation of the standard German official history of World War II, Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Vol. 3, Der Mittelmeerraum und Südosteuropa (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1984); albeit not focused on the Italian armed forces, it is the best available source on the German-Italian coalition warfare during the so-called parallel war and it sets the whole period in context. Translated by Dean S. McMurry, Ewald Osers, Louise Willmot, and P. S. Falla.
  458. Find this resource:
  459. Reference Works
  460. Not surprisingly, most of the reference works listed here are official histories, themselves of various quality and in some cases largely outdated, although still much needed. Apparently the widespread dispersion of the battlefields and issues centering on politics in postwar Italy contributed to the widespread failure to generate a number of works, and of the same scholarly quality, comparable to those dealing with World War I. Once again, the historical branches focused on battles and campaigns, varying in degrees of depth and quality. There is no scholarly history of the army as a whole. Ferrari 1992 provides one of the few insights into its actual mobilization, while only Cappellano and Pignato 2007 provides an analysis of the evolution of tactics during the war. Petracarro 1991 reveals how, in spite of the interest shown by non-Italian historians on the actual role played by the Italian army in North Africa, heavy reliance on British, American, and German sources makes an in-depth analysis quite hard. A selection of works by the army historical branch has been included here, all concerning the major campaigns; Montanari 1980 is the only detailed work on the Italian-Greek war (but also check L’Italia in Guerra, cited under World War II: General Overviews, for an analysis of its political and strategic background by the same author), while Montanari 1985–1993 is the best Italian source on the war in North Africa, still largely ignored by non-Italian scholars. Schlemmer 2005 is the most up-to-date analysis of the Italian war on the eastern front, while Schmider 2002 is the most comprehensive work on the war against the partisans in Yugoslavia. Santoni 1983 is not only the best work on the Sicilian campaign, but possibly also the best official history, while Torsiello 1975 is the only available well-researched work on the events that followed the Italian surrender in 1943, although it can be considered largely inadequate by today’s standards.
  461. Cappellano, Filippo, and Nicola Pignato. Andare contro i carri armati: L’evoluzione della difesa controcarro nell’esercito italiano dal 1918 al 1945. Udine, Italy: Gaspari, 2007.
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  463. A relevant and well-researched study, one of the few in this field, that describes the evolution of the anti-tank tactics in the Italian army from the end of World War I through World War II, focusing on North Africa.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Ferrari, Dorello. “La mobilitazione dell’esercito nella seconda guerra mondiale.” Storia contemporanea 6 (1992): 1001–1046.
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  467. A comprehensive analysis of army mobilization, covering mostly the early war years; it should be read along with Ceva 1975 (cited under World War II: General Overviews) and Ilari 1989–1992 (cited under Reference Works).
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Montanari, Mario. La campagna di Grecia. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1980.
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  471. A four-volume official history describing in detail the operations during the Italian-Greek war in 1940–1941, although lacking any real approach to the political and strategic issues both before and during the war.
  472. Find this resource:
  473. Montanari, Mario. Le operazioni in Africa settentrionale. 4 vols. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1985–1993.
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  475. A four-volume set of the official army history of the North African campaign, the most popular but also the most detailed work available. The books focus on strategy and operational levels, scarcely dealing with tactics. Volume 3 (on El Alamein) has been translated into English.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Petracarro, Domenico. “The Italian Army in Africa, 1940–1943: An Attempt at Historical Perspective.” War & Society 9.2 (1991): 103–127.
  478. DOI: 10.1179/072924791799733353Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  479. A brief treatment of the role played by the Italian army during the North African campaign, lacking depth but offering a good starting point for English-language scholars.
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Santoni, Alberto. Le operazioni in Sicilia e in Calabria, luglio–settembre 1943. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1983.
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  483. Worth mentioning as the only official history of the Sicilian campaign giving a combined view, not only from the army, but also from the navy and air force points of view (and including the English-language sources). Recommended.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Schlemmer, Thomas. Die Italiener an der Ostfront 1942/43: Dokumente zu Mussolinis Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2005.
  486. DOI: 10.1524/9783486702842Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487. A short, but otherwise well-documented critical analysis of the Italian army in the eastern front campaign. Translated into Italian (Invasori, non vittime. La campagna italiana di Russia 1941–1943. Bari: Laterza, 2009. ISBN 9788842079811), it should be read along with the other Italian works on the subject. English-language scholars should see also: Hope Hamilton, Sacrifice on the Steppe: The Italian Alpine Corps in the Stalingrad Campaign, 1942–1943 (Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2011).
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Schmider, Klaus. Partisanenkrieg in Jugoslawien, 1941–1944. Hamburg: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 2002.
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  491. The first comprehensive overall analysis of the war waged by the Axis against the partisans in Yugoslavia in 1941–1944, mostly focused on the German side but also detailing the Italian role and putting it in context. A necessary complement to Rodogno 2006, cited under the World War II: General Overviews.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. Torsiello, Mario. Le operazioni delle unità italiane nel settembre–ottobre 1943. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1975.
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  495. The only major work published to date on the events following the Italian surrender on 8 September 1943 (but including only the army), based on the Italian army sources but without the German ones.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Navy
  498. Dealing with the history of the Italian navy in World War II means striking a very sensible chord, given the rather dramatic course of its historiography. Between the 1950s and the 1960s (the last volume was published in 1978), the navy historical branch produced a series of twenty-one volumes on the history of the navy during World War II, all of which failed to explain its actual failures. Also in the 1950s doubts were raised by an Italian author who claimed that the failure of the navy was due to betrayal, a point dismissed in the 1970s thanks to the publication of Alberto Santoni’s work based on the “Ultra” intelligence documents from the British archives. Nevertheless, the navy historical branch kept reprinting some of the books of its official history without either updating or reviewing them, and it failed to produce any other work dealing with this matter (actually, no other work on the role of the intelligence in the war in the Mediterranean has been produced in Italy other than Santoni 1983, cited under World War II: Reference Works). Concerning an issue that still engenders hot debate, it is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the matter to consult and compare two different works at the same time. Giorgerini 2001 is a popular and highly readable history written by a highly esteemed historian who also wrote for the navy historical branch, and it is also a well-reasoned and balanced work that is not without critical remarks on the navy. A more scholarly approach is given in Sadkovich 1994, one of the best researched and more comprehensive works on the Italian navy in World War II, although the author’s eagerness to reassess the actual performance of the navy has led to several (quite deserved) criticisms. O’Hara and Cernuschi 2009 is an excellent work dealing with the navy and Italy’s surrender, complemented by the highly researched Mattesini 2002. For an overview, see Cernuschi 2010, cited under Bibliographies.
  499. Giorgerini, Giorgio. La guerra italiana sul mare: La marina tra vittoria e sconfitta, 1940–1943. Milan: Mondadori, 2001.
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  501. A popular and readable account of the operations of the Italian navy, mostly focused on the Mediterranean and on the issues of the convoys to North Africa. See also: Giorgio Giorgerini, Uomini sul fondo: Storia del sommergibilismo italiano dalle origini a oggi (Milan: Mondadori, 1994).
  502. Find this resource:
  503. Mattesini, Francesco. La Marina e l’8 settembre. Rome: Ufficio Storico Marina Militare, 2002.
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  505. A two-volume official history based on navy records of the events following the Italian surrender on 8 September 1943. Volume 1 deals with the naval operations following Mussolini’s downfall and before the surrender and Volume 2 focuses on the surrender itself.
  506. Find this resource:
  507. O’Hara, Vincent P., and Enrico Cernuschi. Dark Navy: The Italian Regia Marina and the Armistice of 8 September 1943. Ann Arbor, MI: Nimble, 2009.
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  509. An in-depth analysis not only of the events related to the Italian navy after the Italian surrender, which are dealt with analytically and critically, but also of the actual events leading to the surrender itself. Highly recommended.
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  511. Sadkovich, James J. The Italian Navy in World War II. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994.
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  513. A work that has been much criticized, but also a richly documented critical analysis of the role of the Italian navy in World War II. Recommended, but to be read along with other sources, such as Giorgerini 2001.
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  515. Air Force
  516. The history of the Italian air force in World War II is still to be written; several books are available, including some fine ones, mostly dealing with the units and with the different types of aircraft employed (most notably the torpedo bombers), but the only overall, comprehensive work available is still the semi-official history, Santoro 1957. Licheri 1976 gives a more up-to-date view (up to the end of the war in its reprints), while Sullivan 2006 provides a brief but quite exhaustive coverage, adequate not only for English-speaking scholars. One of the best works that has appeared thus far is Pedriali 2010, covering the air war in the Mediterranean during at the crucial time of the creation of the Tunis bridgehead, while Labanca 2012 introduces the important issue of the air bombing of Italy (listed here although anti-aircraft defenses were mostly a responsibility of the army and of the fascist militia). Not directly related to the Italian air force but otherwise relevant is Gundelach 1981, which describes in detail the role played by the German air force in the Mediterranean and offers a comparison with the actual performances of the Italian air force, an issue raised in Italian historiography, although it is worth noting that most of the many works available on the air war in the Mediterranean (not only German, but also British) have been largely neglected by Italian historians.
  517. Gundelach, Karl. Die deutsche Luftwaffe im Mittelmeer, 1940–1945. Cirencester, UK: Peter Lang, 1981.
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  519. Not a work on the Italian air force, but the best and most comprehensive study on the air war in the Mediterranean from the point of view of the Axis that also highlights the different performances of the German and Italian air forces. See also: Alberto Santoni and Francesco Mattesini, La partecipazione tedesca alla guerra aeronavale nel Mediterraneo, 1940–1945 (Rome: Ateneo & Bizzarri, 1980).
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  521. Labanca, Nicola, ed. I bombardamenti aerei sull’Italia: Politica, stato e società, 1939–1945. Bologna, Italy: Il Mulino, 2012.
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  523. First attempt to study the otherwise largely neglected issue of the bombing of Italy and of the air defense system; most relevant are the essays by Paolo Formiconi on the air defense, Nicola Labanca on the army and the anti-aircraft artillery, and Erich Lehmann on the failure of the Italian air force to provide defense.
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  525. Licheri, Sebastiano. L’arma aerea italiana nella seconda guerra mondiale: 10 giugno 1940–8 settembre 1943. Milan: Mursia, 1976.
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  527. A survey of the role of the Italian air force in World War II based on secondary sources, in particular Santoro 1957. A useful update for this work, but still inadequate as a scholarly work. Volume has been expanded to include the 1943–1945 period, reprints 1983 and 2000.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Pedriali, Ferdinando. L’Italia nella guerra aerea: Da El Alamein alle spiagge della Sicilia. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Aeronautica Militare, 2010.
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  531. A detailed study of the role of the Italian air force in the air war in the Mediterranean in the period from late 1942 to summer 1943, covering the campaigns in Tunisia and Sicily. Recommended.
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  533. Santoro, Giuseppe. L’aeronautica italiana nella seconda guerra mondiale. Milan: ESSE, 1957.
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  535. First published in 1950 (reprints 1962 and 1966), it is a semi-official history of the Italian air force written by a former air force officer with support from the air force historical branch. A good starting point for any subsequent research.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Sullivan, Brian R. “Downfall of the Regia Aeronautica, 1933–1943.” In Why Air Forces Fail: The Anatomy of Defeat. Edited by Robin Higham and Stephen J. Harris, 135–176. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006.
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  539. An analysis of the reasons for the failure of the Italian air force in World War II; although based on secondary sources, outdated in most cases, the overview includes technical aspects (like production, aircraft types, intelligence, etc.) and offers interesting and valuable points of view.
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  541. Post-Italian Surrender
  542. There are multitudes of books on several aspects of the Italian war after the 1943 surrender. Every bibliography of the Italian Resistenza, the partisan movement, will include hundreds of them (mostly at the local level), while every enthusiast could easily list several books on the many military formations fighting for Mussolini’s “Salò’s republic” on the side of the Germans. After an initial dearth, many books on the Italian armed forces and formations fighting on the Allied side have been produced too, and they include those who fought against the Germans outside of Italy. Since the 1990s, a growing interest in the stories of former prisoners of war of Germany has led to several works on this subject. In theory, no shortage of works on the 1943–1945 period of the Italian war and the Italian armed forces should exist, but, in reality, that is not the case; in spite of the large number of books, no real account of the warfare waged by the partisans in Italy has been produced, not to mention the warfare waged against the partisans (for example, the only relevant work on the German occupation of Italy is one that has been translated from German). Battaglia 1964 is included here simply as a reference, being not a military history. Piffer 2010 is, on the other hand, a well-researched, detailed work on the relationships between the Italian partisans and the Allies. Some works have been produced dealing with the armed forces on the Allied side, most notably Conti 1975 and Lodi 1975, but there is no comprehensive and scholarly analysis of their actual role and of the many related issues. Worth noting, even British and American historians seem to have forgotten Italian partisan warfare and the actions of the Italian co-belligerent forces, apart from O’Reilly 2001 (criticized, but still valuable for this particular aspect). Lamb 1994 offers a succinct overview of an otherwise very complex period seen from every point of view (the German occupation, the partisans war, the Italians on both sides), and, as such, it is not very successful. The relationships between the Italian and Allied militaries have also been neglected, apart from the official history of Loi 1986 and the collected essays in Mola 1986, while, on the other hand, several works have been produced on the history of those Italians who fought against the Germans outside of Italy; Dradi Maraldi and Pieri 1990 is the most comprehensive, work on the subject.
  543. Battaglia, Roberto. Storia della Resistenza italiana. Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1964.
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  545. The classic account of the warfare waged by the partisans in Italy in 1943–1945, mostly focused on political issues and barely dealing with the military side; it is also quite outdated but still a starting point.
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  547. Conti, Giuseppe. “Aspetti della riorganizzazione delle forze armate nel regno del Sud, settembre 1943–giugno 1944.” Storia contemporanea 1 (1975): 85–120.
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  549. Well-documented, early study on the reorganization of the Italian armed forces under Allied control in southern Italy after the Italian surrender up to the seizure of Rome. There is, unfortunately, no equivalent for the period 1944–1945.
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  551. Dradi Maraldi, Biagio, and Romano Pieri, eds. Lotta armata e Resistenza delle forze armate italiane all’estero. Proceedings of the conference held at Cesena, 27 September–3 October 1987. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1990.
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  553. Collection of essays dealing with the status of the Italian armed forces after the surrender and the German reaction, focusing on those units that joined the partisan movements outside of Italy (Albania, Greece, and Yugoslavia). The Italian prisoners of war in Germany are also included.
  554. Find this resource:
  555. Lamb, Richard. War in Italy, 1943–1945: A Brutal Story. New York: St. Martin’s, 1994.
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  557. A first approach to the issues of the civil war in Italy and of Italian cooperation with the Allies and the Germans. Interesting, but mostly based on secondary sources and not always successful in describing events.
  558. Find this resource:
  559. Lodi, Angelo. L’aeronautica italiana nella guerra di liberazione. 3 vols. Rome: Ufficio Storico Aeronautica Militare, 1975.
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  561. A revised and expanded version of the first official history of the Italian air force by the same author, released by the air historical branch in 1950. The first volume deals with the surrender, Volume 2 with the Balkan air force, and Volume 3 with the fighter and seaplanes units in Italy.
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  563. Loi, Salvatore. I rapporti fra alleati e italiani nella cobelligeranza. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1986.
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  565. An official history based on the Italian army records dealing with the relationships between the Italian “kingdom of the south” and its armed forces and the Allied headquarters. There is no other equivalent history based either on British or American sources.
  566. Find this resource:
  567. Mola, Aldo Alessandro, ed. La cobelligeranza italiana nella lotta di liberazione dell’Europa. Proceedings of a conference held in Milan, 17–19 May 1984. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1986.
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  569. Conference was held in conjunction with the renewed interest in the role of the armed forces, now seen as a part of the Resistenza. Includes essays by Pierluigi Bertinaria on the army (includes a historiography), Virgilio Ilari on the resistance, and on the Italian forces fighting with those of the Free French and in the Balkans.
  570. Find this resource:
  571. O’Reilly, Charles T. Forgotten Battles: Italy’s War of Liberation, 1943–1945. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2001.
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  573. A well-researched study of the role of the Italian armed forces and the Resistenza in the Italian campaign, including an overview of the forces on the German side. Author’s pro-Italian “partisan” attitude led to severe criticism, paralleling the anti-Italian attitude of others.
  574. Find this resource:
  575. Piffer, Tommaso. Gli alleati e la resistenza italiana. Bologna, Italy: Il Mulino, 2010
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  577. Detailed study, based on American and British records, of the relationship between the Allies and the Italian resistance. Dispels myths well rooted in the Italian historiography and provides a first scholarly study of the military aspect of the Italian partisan war.
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  579. Post–World War Two and Early NATO
  580. There are some worthwhile studies on the Italian armed forces in early postwar Italy, a period that saw Italy join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), although no general, comprehensive history has appeared as yet. Although Cerquetti 1975 and Boldrini and d’Alessio 1974 provide a politically influenced vision of the role of the armed forces, they are still useful in the description and analysis they offer of the view, popular at the time of publication, that saw the armed forces as an instrument aimed at domestic purposes, an attitude that also influenced the historiography on post-unification Italy (see under Unification to World War I). Nuti 1990, Nuti 1989, and Nuti 1991 offer a more detached and comprehensive view, along with Jean 1989. Giorgerini 1989 is a popular and readable account of the history of the Italian navy both during and after World War II. Ilari 1979 is a kind of pamphlet, subsequently reviewed and expanded in Ilari 1994; both are useful to understand the intricate relationship between the military and politics in postwar Italy, although Ilari’s works can hardly be described as scholarly. He is, on the other hand, one of the very few academics who has paid attention to issues concerning the reorganization of the armed forces after the end of World War II.
  581. Boldrini, Arrigo, and Aldo d’Alessio. Esercito e politica in Italia. Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1974.
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  583. Overview history, focusing mostly on the political issues related to the reorganization of the armed forces after the end of World War II and on their role within the NATO alliance.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Cerquetti, Enea. Le forze armate italiane dal 1945 al 1975: Strutture e dottrine. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1975.
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  587. Although influenced by a clear leftist political attitude, this is a solid technical work dealing with the organization and doctrines of the Italian armed forces in the postwar period and the role Italy has played within the NATO alliance.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Giorgerini, Giorgio. Da Matapan al Golfo Persico: La marina militare italiana dal fascismo alla repubblica. Milan: Mondadori, 1989.
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  591. A well-written account of the history of the Italian navy from the battles in the Mediterranean to its new role in peacekeeping and peace enforcing missions at the end of the 20th century. Recommended, not least because it is one of the few comprehensive works covering both periods.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Ilari, Virgilio. Le forze armate tra politica e il potere, 1945–1976. Florence: Vallecchi, 1979.
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  595. The role played by the armed forces in the politics of postwar Italy, with an emphasis on the reorganization of the Ministry of Defense and the development of national defense policies.
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  597. Ilari, Virgilio. Storia militare della prima repubblica, 1943–1993. Ancona, Italy: Nuove Ricerche, 1994.
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  599. A comprehensive overview of the role played by the armed forces in Italy from the 1943 surrender to the political overturn of 1993, written in a journalistic style and in some places open to criticism for the use of sources, but otherwise offering a unique inside view.
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  601. Jean, Carlo, ed. Storia delle forze armate italiane dalla ricostruzione postbellica alla “ristrutturazione” del 1975. Milan: Giuffré, 1989.
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  603. Collection of essays written in most cases by armed forces senior officers; volume deals with the Italian defense policy, the high commands and the ministry of defense, the doctrines of the armed forces, the military expenditures and the defense related industries. Recommended.
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  605. Nuti, Leopoldo. L’esercito italiano nel secondo dopo-guerra, 1945–1950: La sua ricostruzione e l’assistenza militare alleata. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1989.
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  607. An official history, based on army records, on the reorganization of the Italian army following the end of World War II, with an emphasis on the technical support provided by the Allied powers. Recommended.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. Nuti, Leopoldo. “Gli alleati e le forze armate italiane, 1945–1948.” In L’Italia e la politica di potenza in Europa, 1945–50. Edited by Ennio di Nolfo, Romain H. Rainero, and Brunello Vigezzi, 575–599. Milan: Marzorati, 1990.
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  611. Accurate overview of the early years of the reorganization of the Italian armed forces, which emphasizes the role of the Allied powers and describes the Italian attitude and policies toward them.
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  613. Nuti, Leopoldo. “The Italian Military and the Atlantic Pact.” In The Atlantic Pact Forty Years Later: A Historical Reappraisal. Edited by Ennio di Nolfo, 247–259. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1991.
  614. DOI: 10.1515/9783110857894Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  615. Overview of the development of the Italian defense politics in 1945–1948 and the attempts to obtain assistance from the Allies, with a focus on the strategic thinking within the Italian army staff in 1948 in particular with regard to the threats it was prepared to face.
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  617. Military Thinking and Doctrine
  618. In a way, military thinking and doctrine is one of the few topics in the military history of Italy in the modern age that seems to have been dealt with in an adequate way, although mostly thanks to a few select historians and particularly to the late Ferruccio Botti. Botti 1995–2006 is a good introduction to the subject starting from the 18th century and continuing up to World War I, and it is a work that should be read along with Botti and Ilari 1985 to complete the panorama from the period after World War I to the period after World War II (this is also the only work to deal with the development of military thinking in Italy after World War II). Ferrante 1982 is a useful and worthwhile complementary work on the navy, as is Botti and Cermelli 1989 for the air force. The critical approach in Gooch 1986 constitutes one of the few attempts that have been made to outline, in a single critical analysis, both the development of military thinking in Italy and the failure of such thinking to influence the actual effectiveness of the armed forces.
  619. Botti, Ferruccio. Il pensiero militare e navale italiano dalla rivoluzione francese alla prima guerra mondiale. 3 vols. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1995–2006.
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  621. Four books (Volume 2 is split in two parts) describing the evolution of the military and the naval theories among leading Italian writers from the French revolution to World War I, with an emphasis on the influence exercised on them by the development of military thinking in Europe.
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  623. Botti, Ferruccio, and Mario Cermelli. La teoria della guerra aerea in Italia dalle origini alla seconda guerra mondiale, 1884–1939. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Aeronautica, 1989.
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  625. A volume describing the viewpoints of Italian air force theorists up until World War II, including (but without any real emphasis) those of Giulio Douhet, among others. This is the only comprehensive work on the subject, and the single source that does not put Douhet in the spot. On Douhet see also: Thomas Hippler, “Democracy and War in the Strategic Thought of Giulio Douhet,” in The Changing Character of War, edited by H. Strachan and S. Scheipers, 167–183 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
  626. Find this resource:
  627. Botti, Ferruccio, and Virgilio Ilari. Il pensiero militare italiano dal primo al secondo dopoguerra, 1919–1949. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 1985.
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  629. Outlines the development of air and land warfare doctrine in Italy between the two world wars and the experiences drawn from Italy’s wars in Ethiopia and Spain until 1945, along with the “nation in arms” concept, and of the new role given to the armed forces thereafter.
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  631. Ferrante, Ezio. Il potere marittimo: Evoluzione ideologica in Italia, 1861–1939. Rome: Rivista Marittima, 1982.
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  633. Brief overview of the evolution of naval warfare theories in Italy from unification to the beginning of World War II. See also the short synthesis: Ezio Ferrante, Il pensiero strategico navale in Italia (Rome: Rivista Marittima, 1988).
  634. Find this resource:
  635. Gooch, John. “Clausewitz Disregarded: Italian Military Thought and Doctrine, 1815–1943.” Journal of Strategic Studies 9 (1986): 303–324.
  636. DOI: 10.1080/01402398608437271Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  637. Gooch opens in noting that the theories of Clausewitz were largely disregarded among Italian theorists (although they were not unknown) and then proceeds to analyze the development of Italian military thinking up to World War II, highlighting how Italy failed to provide adequate means (the armed forces) for her goals.
  638. Find this resource:
  639. Intelligence
  640. Until not long ago the study of military intelligence in Italy focused mainly on the political role of the secret services, and, in particular, on their role after World War II. The technical aspects of military intelligence during the wars of the 20th century had been largely forgotten, not because of the alleged lack of sources (as claimed by some both inside and outside of Italy), but simply because the matter held no interest either for military of for non-military historians, being mostly technical and not directly related either to battles and campaigns or to military-related social and political issues. Recent interest in the subject has produced some fine works, although a comprehensive analysis of the actual effectiveness of Italian intelligence and of its influence on decision-making is still to be written. Cappellano 2002 constitutes a good work on Italian intelligence during World War I (but see also the author’s essay in Vialardi di Sandrigliano and Ilari 2006), as does Conti 2009 for World War II, although it should be complemented by Cappellano 2008. For the rest, there are good histories dealing with the organization of the intelligence services, in particular the army (Pasqualini 2006–2007, and the author’s essay in Vialardi di Sandrigliano and Ilari 2006), supplemented by Pasqualini 2013 on the naval and the air intelligence forces, coming along with the other works on the navy (Donnini 1998, Orlando 2003).
  641. Cappellano, Filippo. L’imperial regio esercito austro-ungarico sul fronte italiano, 1915–1918: Dai documenti del servizio informazioni dell’esercito italiano. Rome: Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito, 2002.
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  643. An analysis of how the Italians saw the Austrian-Hungarian army during World War I in facing their opponent through the lenses of their army intelligence, a basic study that is still worthwhile.
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  645. Cappellano, Filippo. “Il SIM e la prima controffensiva britannica in Africa settentrionale.” Mondo contemporaneo 1 (2008): 123–148.
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  647. Researched analysis of the actual capabilities of the Italian army intelligence in the early war years and of its shortcomings, with particular attention to how Italian intelligence influenced the success of the British offensive in the western desert in 1940–1941.
  648. Find this resource:
  649. Conti, Giuseppe. Una guerra segreta: Il IM nel secondo conflitto mondiale. Bologna, Italy: Il Mulino, 2009.
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  651. A study, in part, on the records of the army intelligence, outlining its activity during World War II mostly at a high level and with an emphasis on the period 1941–1943. Translated in English as: “Mussolini’s Spies. Italian Military Espionage 1940–1943” (New York: Enigma Books, forthcoming 2013).
  652. Find this resource:
  653. Donnini, Mario. “Il servizio informazioni segrete della marina.” Bollettino d’Archivio dell’Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare 13 (June 1998): 111–133.
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  655. A basic outline of the organization of the naval intelligence service from the records of the navy historical branch.
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  657. Orlando, Salvatore. “Il servizio informazioni della marina militare: Organizzazione e compiti, 1884–1947.” Società italiana di storia militare: Quaderno (1999): 183–203.
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  659. Overview of the organization of the navy intelligence up to its reorganization after World War II, complementing Donnini 1998.
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  661. Pasqualini, Maria Gabriella. Carte segrete dell’intelligence italiana, 1861–1918: Carte segrete dell’intelligence italiana, 1919–1949. Rome: RUD, 2006–2007.
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  663. An official history dealing with the organization of the army intelligence (Servizio Informazioni Militare, Servizio Informazioni Esercito) through the two world wars, based on official documents but lacking any evaluation of the actual effectiveness of the services.
  664. Find this resource:
  665. Pasqualini, Maria Gabriella. Breve storia dell’organizzazione dei servizi d’informazione militare della Regia Marina e della Regia Aeronautica 1919-1945. Rome: Commissione Italiana di Storia Militare, 2013.
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  667. A follow up of the two previous volumes by the same author (Pasqualini 2006-2007), here dealing with the navy and air force intelligence services up to 1945. Largely based on Italian, British and American documents, this pioneering work describes the evolution of the organisation of these agencies along with proving an essential overview on their actual effectiveness on the field.
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  669. Vialardi di Sandrigliano, Tomaso, and Virgilio Ilari, eds. Storia dello spionaggio: L’intelligence militare italiana, l’intelligence elettronica, l’intelligence cinese. Proceedings of a round table held in Biella, 23 September 2005. Biella, Italy: Associazione Europea degli Amici degli Archivi Storici, 2006.
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  671. Includes: Felippo Cappellano, “L’azione del servizio informazioni dell’esercito italiano verso l’Austria-Ungheria fino al 1915,” pp. 53–67; Maria Gabriella Pasqualini, “Problematiche costanti nel servizio di informazioni militare italiano dal 1861 al 1949,” pp. 29–51.
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  673. Effectiveness of the Italian Armed Forces
  674. A reasoned and well-balanced assessment of actual Italian military capabilities is hard to obtain, first of all because Italians were, until recent attempts to rediscover a degree of national patriotism, the first to blame themselves (or one another) for their own failures. Biases for the lackluster performances of the Italian military are common among Anglo-Saxon historians, and one can easily find more than one reference to those sentiments in the works cited here. An attempt to summarize and reconsider this issue was made by historians such as Gooch, Andreski, Davies, and Lopasic (Italian Military Efficiency: A Debate), who focused mainly on reasons that included poor morale and inadequate preparations for war. These causes were traced to the social and economic fabric of the Italian state, and they were more or less the same reasons cited by Italian historians (see del Negro 2002) to explain the country’s military failures. These reasons serve to underpin Millett and Murray 1988 and Sullivan 1997, analyses produced by three different historians. Some points, however, need to be clarified; first, Italian debacles are hardly unique compared to those suffered by other belligerents while, at the same time, the Italians are somehow blamed for not being able to perform like the armed forces of other countries. Second, viewpoints are all too often based on inadequate sources, obviously generating inaccurate or generic analyses (see Sadkovich 1989). Researched accounts based on all the available sources almost invariably produce a reconsideration of actual Italian capabilities; see Morselli 2001, Wilcox 2009, Thompson 2009 (all cited under World War I: Reference Works), and, with caution, Sadkovich 1994 (cited under World War II: Navy). World War II, in particular, which offers a wealth of possibilities for comparisons, clearly suffers from the lack of researched accounts. It is worth noting that, so far, not a single work on the war in North Africa has been produced using German, Italian, British, and Commonwealth sources. Myths, or simply incorrect accounts, have been relied upon instead of the actual events, which, as reported in Ceva 1982 (cited under Bibliographies), carry all possible consequences. The persistent view of Italian military weakness can also simply be considered one of the consequences of the relative isolation in which Italian military history has been produced, which, so far, has made it hard to reconcile differing views.
  675. del Negro, Piero, ed. Lo spirito militare degli italiani. Proceedings of the Conference on the Military Spirit of the Italians held at Padua, 16–18 November 2000. Padua, Italy: Centro Interuniversitario di Studi e Ricerche Storico Militari, Commissione Italiana di Storia Militare, 2002.
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  677. Collection of essays of various quality, not always related to the topic, stretching over a wide time frame. See those by Nicola Della Volpe on evaluation of postal censorship and by Marina Rossi on the morale of the Italians on the eastern front in World War II, the latter based on Soviet sources.
  678. Find this resource:
  679. “Italian Military Efficiency: A Debate.” Journal of Strategic Studies 5.2 (1982): 248–277.
  680. DOI: 10.1080/01402398208437112Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  681. A critical approach that failed to generate further research or a debate, in particular from the Italian side. Includes, among others, essays by Stanislav Andreski, “Causes of Low Morale of the Italian Armed Forces in the Two World Wars” (pp. 248–256), John Gooch, “Italian Military Competence” (pp. 257–265), Alexander Lopasic, “Italian Military Performance in the Second World War: Some Considerations” (pp. 270–275).
  682. Find this resource:
  683. Millett, Allan R., and Williamson Murray, eds. Military Effectiveness. 3 vols. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988.
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  685. An essay on the Italian armed forces, seen from political and strategic to tactical levels, is included in each of the three volumes; Volume 1 (The First World War) includes an essay by John Gooch (“Italy during the First World War,” pp. 157–189), Volume 2 (The Interwar Period) contains a contribution by Brian R. Sullivan (“The Italian Armed Forces, 1918–40,” pp. 169–217), and Volume 3 (The Second World War) includes a chapter by MacGregor Knox (“The Italian Armed Forces, 1940–43,” pp. 136–179). Mostly relying on secondary sources.
  686. Find this resource:
  687. Sadkovich, James J. “Understanding Defeat: Reappraising Italy’s Role in World War II.” Journal of Contemporary History 24.1 (1989): 27–61.
  688. DOI: 10.1177/002200948902400102Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  689. From a much criticized author, an overview of the actual Italian effort during the war mostly based on facts and figures from secondary sources. An interesting starting point, but showing the limits of insufficient or absent archival research.
  690. Find this resource:
  691. Sullivan, Brian R. “The Italian Soldier in Combat, June 1940–September 1943: Myths, Realities and Explanations.” In Time to Kill: The Soldiers Experience of War in the West, 1939–1945. Edited by Paul Addison and Angus Calder, 177–205. London: Pimlico, 1997.
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  693. Overview analysis of the attitudes of Italian soldiers during World War II that offers interesting remarks but is also highly dependent on secondary sources that are not always reliable and that are, in some cases, largely outdated.
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