John Gooch (1) (1945–)

This is a magisterial account of the wars Mussolini took Italy into; their early successes and later failures. The detail in the book is at times overwhelming; who met with whom, where and on what date; and, perhaps more importantly, the numbers discussed at those meetings. For it quickly becomes plain that Italian generals were juggling scarce resources to try to deliver results that Mussolini felt should be readily achievable through the application of dash, fighting spirit and patriotic fervour.

Gooch pulls back the curtain on foreign relations across the Axis powers. My own reading a little while ago uncovered a little-known truth, that relations between Axis powers were not always conducted in a spirit of co-operation and shared aims. Perhaps the best illustration of this was Mussolini's relationship with Vichy France - Italy declared war on France at almost the exact time that German forces were marching into Paris, and a state of war existed between the two states for four days before pressure from Germany forced a cessation of hostilities. At the same time, more could have been said about pre-war foreign relations. At one point, Mussolini considered that an attack could come from Germany, and he had been in discussions with the Austrian leader Dolfuss over supporting Austria against Germany in the years leading up to the Austrian Anschluß, and so might not see Germany immediately as a natural ally - as it so proved.

Mussolini's impetus towards war and his attitudes to conquest are plainly shown in this book. For the glory of Italy (and Fascism, and, of course, il Duce himself), Mussolini was happy for Italian forces to operate in four theatres at once - Abyssinia, Libya, the French border and Albania - and once Italy became embroiled in the wider European war, he was prepared to add Greece and Russia to that list. Such ambition would be breath-taking for a greater power. For Italy, always struggling with the allocation of resources, the end was always inevitable.

I was brought up in a post-war British generation that was fed an account of the Second World War from our fathers and through the media. The Italians were always portrayed as ineffective fighters, always ready to surrender at a moment's notice. This book gives the lie to that. But it also tells the story that Italian soldiers in the field were hampered by a lack of supplies and indecision from their commanders. (Except, strangely enough, the supply of winter clothing to troops on the Eastern Front. Italy was, unusually, in advance of Germany in that matter.) Under such circumstances, they could well be excused for making a rational decision to surrender when they felt their leaders had abandoned them.

Buoyed up by early success in Abyssinia (albeit against far inferior forces) and by more convincing success in the Spanish Civil War, Mussolini's ambitions to create a new Roman Empire far outstretched the nation's ability to deliver. Interestingly, Mussolini had hopes that Japan's engagement in the Axis alliance would be fruitful for his ambitions in East Africa. He visualised the Italian and Japanese navies working together in the western Indian Ocean to secure Italy's territorial ambitions - once Egypt had fallen and the Suez Canal was under Italian rather than British control. Instead, Italy found itself working with Nazi Germany, first in the Spanish Civil War, then as a co-belligerent in the Balkans and Russia, then as a supplicant, looking to Germany for more men and materials to shore up Italian forces in North Africa, and finally as a country occupied by German forces after Mussolini's fall from power.

Hitler had a low opinion of Mussolini; apparently, he could deliver a cutting impersonation of his Italian opposite. Their ideological similarities should not be over-estimated; whilst both believed in the Fascist ideal of the Strong Leader, Mussolini's Fascism was more based on ideas that came out of the Futurist movement in the immediate post-World War I years, concentrating on the glory of mechanised war and the dash and brio of decisive action. This is one area where Gooch is weak; Mussolini had distinct antecedents in the development of his Fascist ideology, such as Gabriele D'Annunzio. The policies Mussolini developed during the 1920s drove much of his ambition towards war, especially in his thinking regarding Yugoslavia, where the Italian ambition in the 1920s had been to regain the "irredeemed territories" on the eastern side of the Adriatic. (As a soldier and adventurer, D'Annunzio had led the Italian occupation of Fiume - now Rijeka - and marshalled Italian volunteers to carry that through who later formed the nucleus of Mussolini's Blackshirts. D'Annunzio had a low opinion of Mussolini, who as a journalist had little track record as a Man of Action except for his metaphorical leaping onto D'Annunzio's coat tails...)

As with so many books of this sort, there are copious maps, and there are key places mentioned in the text that do not appear on any of them. I was struck by how often Hitler and Mussolini met "on the Brenner Pass", which must mean at the railway station at Brennero. There must still be some sort of conference room there, which I must try to find out more about should I ever go there again. But it's not marked on any of the maps in this book. I also found the chapters a bit long, but comparatively easy reading unless you try to keep a detailed track of all the generals and all the battlefields. Gooch displays a fair degree of scorn of the abilities of Spain's General Franco; whilst I was interested to see that in the account of the North African campaigns, there is no mention at all of the activities of the Long Range Desert Group, which means that either the Italians had no idea where these hit-and-run raids were coming from, and so discounted them in situation reports; or that the wider effect of the LRDG was not as great as we like to think it was.

But overall, this is a fine book that provides a much needed new perspective on Italy in the 1930s and 40s.… (mehr)

If, like me, you've read about most of the campaigns covered in this fine study over the years, why make the return visit? For one, Gooch is basically the English-speaking authority on the Italian military of the period, so one can safely assume that you're getting a solid analysis. Two, by examining the whole period in question from the strategic-operational perspective, one gets to trace Mussolini's relations with his flag-grade officers, how he used them, and vice-versa. Three, one can always learn something new. For example, Gooch treats how the moral corners that the Italian military learned to cut in its colonial wars, colored Italian behavior in its Balkan operations. Also, while Gooch has a lot to say about Italian admirals and generals (many of whom left diaries and post-war apologies), the airmen tend to waft through this book like ghosts; a commentary on failure of Italian aviation to have an operational impact when involved in a fair fight.

Be that as it it may, in the final analysis, this work reinforces the reality that Italy had no business being involved in World War II until it absolutely had to, let alone jumping in as early as possible to try gain what what it supposedly deserved. But, at the end of the day, Mussolini made all his decisions through the prism of politics; not economic reality or military necessity.

One further thought is to note that I read this book, in part, because I thought it would make the author's own "Mussolini and His Generals" (2007) redundant. But with Gooch's "The Italian Army and the First World War" one really has something of a trilogy.… (mehr)

John Gooch is probably the leading scholar of the Italian military in English so he was the ideal person to write this history of Italian military participation in the Great War. What is particularly valuable here is that Gooch goes into some depth as to what passed for the Italian military tradition in 1914, a history that had seen more failure than success and had produced an army that was more of a bolster to the Italian royal house than an effective operational force. The most striking thing is the potential that was revealed when General Luigi Cadorna, an officer who was a better courtier than a leader of men, was replaced by Armando Diaz, who achieved a virtual miracle in reforming an army capable of taking the offensive in the wake of the defeat of Caporetto; Gooch does not scoff at the battle of Vittorio Veneto. The problem came after the war, as social conflict undid the Italian political system and military officers found common ground with Benito Mussolini in regards to bolstering Italy's security concerns in the Balkans. That is another story though.… (mehr)