Book Review - Mussolini's War by John Gooch

 Mussonlini's War: Fasicst Italy from Triumph to Collapse 1935-1943 by John Gooch

London: Penguin, 2020                                                              ISBN 9780141980294

This is a tale of woe: a case of a country that didn't have the means to undertake a war of conquest, but owing to a prideful dictator and generals who were too scared to say no (and who were fond of glory), embarked not only on colonial expansion in Africa, but also fought in Europe and Russia. The result, as John Gooch shows in this wonderful book, was never in doubt. Italy could never have won, even if they had limited their greed to the Balkans, let alone Greece, Russia and their African empire.

Mussolini's War is at base a military history of Fascist Italy, which shows quite clearly that it was not necessarily the military efficiency of Italy that was the problem (although it was a problem), it was the paucity of Italy's economic and natural resources that crippled all efforts by Italy on the battlefield. This paucity combined lethally with the personality of Mussolini, who was determined to re-create Italy as a great power, not only with his African empire, but also as a power to effect changes in the body politic of Europe.

Gooch begins this book with the invasion and conquest of Abyssinia, and shows that even in this military adventure, the Italian military and economy struggled to keep the army in the field. His adventure in Spain drained the well even further, without much to show for it. Economists explained to Mussolini and the generals that the country could in no way take part in a general European war until at least 1944, as it would take that long to get enough equipment made to equip the army. Mussolini not only agreed with that assessment, but assured his generals that nothing would happen in Europe until at least then, because it would take Germany that long to equip as well. Of course, Hitler could not contain his aggression, and war came much earlier in 1939.

At first Italy kept aloof from the conflict, based on its inability to equip itself. However after the quick German victories, Mussolini began to worry that an Italy that hadn't participated would be left out of any reckoning after a German victory. This led Italy to get involved in the Balkans, where they had already taken Albania after a war that didn't go entirely their way. Greece and Yugoslavia not only exposed the poor equipment of the Italian army, but also the lack of an effective officer corps. Needing Germany to help finish the job did nothing for Mussolini's ego, and led directly to him offering troops for Hitler's invasion of Russia.

The lack of equipment for Italian troops was chronic from the start, and never got better - the industrial capacity of Italy could from 1940-1943 barely keep pace with losses of Army equipment, let alone build up the Air Force and Navy. Italy spent almost its entire war going cap-in-hand to Germany to ask for raw materials and equipment to enable it to fight. The lack of equipment actually crippled Italy's ability to fight effectively : its armies couldn't maneuvre owing to the lack of transport, and when it did fight it struggled with ancient artillery and a lack of automatic weapons. The Air Force did not have enough aircraft to complete the tasks assigned to it, and the Navy didn't even have enough fuel oil to participate in the War at all in 1943.

The logistic problems did not end there - the capacity of the ports in North Africa was too small to enable proper re-supply of the Italian forces in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, and Italy had no means to supply its East African colonies. Abyssinia was left to its own devices, and was destroyed by the Allies, and in North Africa Italy once again suffered Germanic take-over of their military effort. While Italy supplied most of the men in North Africa, men were not enough, especially when faced with the increasing all-arms co-operation that the Allies were perfecting.

While we may think of Italy as "Germany - lite", Gooch explains that, in the Balkans, Italy was not beyond massacring the local populace and burning whole villages. Both in the Balkans and Greece Italy was a ruthless conqueror, depriving Greece of food and leaving thousands to starve, and ruling its Balkan provinces with a first of iron. While it can be shown that Italian rule was not quite as disastrous for local populations in these areas as was German, it was far from benevolent.

Mussolini's adventurism finally caught up with him in 1943, when the Allies attacked Italian soil for the first time. While the Generals and the King had been sanguine about their relationship with Germany up until now, they realised that their future lay in surrender and a change of sides, something that would have been impossible with the Duce at the helm. Once they had got rid of him, the problem then became how to deal with a Germany that was determined to fight on in Italy, no matter what the government thought.

As a well-researched and well-written account of all these events, I think it would be hard to find a book in English that would surpass Mussolini's War. As someone who thinks they know quite a bit about World War II, I learnt a lot more from reading this book. While the maps in this book are merely serviceable, the other apparatus in this book are excellent - comprehensive notes, wonderful bibliography and good index. Recommended.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell