Il Duce’s Overreach

Nathan Pinkoski  June 7, 2021

War is a case study in how a lesser power ought not to wage war. In June 1940, a country with only two working battleships, almost no modern artillery, a mere seventy tanks, and a paltry 152 anti-aircraft guns declared war on the Allies. Economically underpowered and militarily overstretched from the beginning, Italy was utterly routed in three years. The real question is why Mussolini fought the war the way he did. If Mussolini’s decision to go to war in June 1940 was risky, then his decision to fight on nearly half a dozen fronts—so that by autumn 1942 Italians were in Yugoslavia, Greece, Libya, Russia, and even occupying parts of France—was lunacy.............To Read More....