Did Italy do anything of importance during WWII?

Question

As far as I know, all they did was lead a very weak campaign in North Africa, which only made any headway due to German support. Am I wrong?

Answer 1

Yeah, they surrendered.

Answer 2

They also conquered Ethiopia, though that was before WWII.

I think the biggest contribution they made to the Axis war effort may have been to slow down the Western Allies in the liberation of Europe.  After taking North Africa, we went up the boot of Italy before getting around to D-Day.  Italy was slow to conquer because (though Churchill called it the "soft underbelly of Europe)" it was rugged and mountainous.

Answer 3

If anything, they hindered their German allies. Outside of taking over Eithiopia (not exactly a hard task at the time) on their own, the Italians really got their a s s es whooped.

They took over Albania, and tried to take Greece next. Not only did they fail to take Greece on their own, the Greeks were just killing them and had taken over the southern half of Albania from the Italians. Since  Mussolini had done that on his own without consulting Hitler, Hitler had no choice but to send German units to bail the Italians out. The valuable time and man power Hitler had to aid  Mussolini with showed in it delaying Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union. A delay that ultimately turned the tide of the war with a vastly bitter winter up in "Mother Russia."

Answer 4

No, they hindered Hitler  invading greece and being repelled so he had to delay operation Barbarossa aginst soviet union

Answer 5

They also sent 235,000 men to fight in the Soviet Union as the Italian 8th army. It was destroyed in Feb of 1943. When the surviving Italian troops were eventually evacuated to Italy, the Fascist regime tried to hide them from the populace, so appalling was their appearance after surviving the "Russian Front."

The disaster in Russia was a fierce blow to the power and popularity of the dictator. Both sank as the gloomy news soon reached the public in Italy. Survivors blamed the Fascist political elite and the Army Generals. The survivors said they both had acted irresponsibly by sending a poorly prepared, ill-equipped, and inadequately armed military force to the Russian Front. The German commanders were accused of sacrificing the Italian divisions, whose withdrawal was supposedly delayed after the Soviet breakthrough, in order to rescue their own troops.

Germany invaded the Soviet on June 22, 1941, not in November.

Answer 6

Italian actions - by accident - may be the single greatest reason the n***s lost the war.

It all goes back to the Anchluss of about 1936, or the union of Austria and Germany.  Hitler was desparate for international approval for this, but he could only get it from Mussolini.  In return, Hitler promised M. he would follow him to the ends of the earth, help him at any time possible.

Unfortunately for the Germans, H. kept his word.  He wasted a lot of time helping M. whenever he fouled up, in Africa, and in Greece.  This delayed H's invasion of Russia until NOVEMBER.  

Well, once H. decided he had to invade Russia in November, his goose was cooked.  It was inevitable that he would face a long and costly Russian winter, which eventually did him in.

The n***s lost so many troops in what the Russians call 'The Great Patriotic War', he was easily, easily beaten by the Allies.

See how the Italians set off the chain of events that led to H's defeat?  Without Italian 'help', very likely H. would have won.

Answer 7

Many people have commented how Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union was postponed because, Hitler felt as though he had to help Italy in the Balkans.

This may be correct, but it did not stop the fact that, when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union on June 22nd 1941 they did so in the belief that she would defeat the Soviets before the onset of winter.  It was this over confidence that was Germany's undoing and not her post-ponement of the intial invasion.

This over confidence in the Soviets weakness, and the hesitation and un-willingness to mobilise fully was why Germany was defeated on the eastern front.  Had Germany ignored Italian pleas for help, its by no means certain she would have defeated the Russians.

I guess its people who claim, Germany lost the war because of the weather in Russia, who may believe this, but the fact is the Germans underestimated the Russians considerably, and did not have the resources at their means because of their own mistakes over the handling of the German economy.  Lets not forget, the severe rain storms in Autumn crippled the German advance, and they prayed for cold weather initially to freeze over the mudden roads.  Had they invaded 1-2 months earlier, they would have still found conditions extremely tough, and their supply lines would have been over stretched.  They would have fought an enemy willing to surrender Moscow, and fight on to the death.  Soviet factories were well out of the range of German aircraft, and the Russians often in their history have shown a willingness to trade space for time.  

Getting back to the Italian involvement in the war.  Italy were important allies for the Germans.  Although Italian soldiers are often thought of as pretty terrible, and were used as scapegoats by the Germans for setbacks on the eastern front, the average Italian soldier fought o.k.

Italian soldiers were often let down by poor officers which led them to suffer unneccessary defeats.  The Germans used the Italians as scapegoats precisely because their own propoganda needed a reason for why the Germans were not "victorious".  

The Italian navy tied down British shipping in the Mediterranean, as the bulk of the Royal Navy was placed in defence of the British isles, and oceanic merchant shipping.  This gave the Italians some what of a numerical superiority in warships in the Med.  This meant, shipping sent to North Africa came under threat, as well as from German and Italian aircraft stationed on Italian soil.  However the Italian navy rarely went to sea, as they feared the Royal Navy, due the grand tradition and history of British naval personal.  Had they been more active, they could have been far more problematic for the British.

The Italians are often blamed, for asking for German support in North Africa, which tied down German forces and supplies which could have been better served elsewhere.  In reality, German forces and supplies sent to this region would not have effected the situation on the eastern front, which in turn decided the outcome of the war, and therefore this line of arguement is rather a mute point.

Moreover what is largely ignored or forgotten is that in the final year of the war, Northern Italy actually provided around 12% of the total war production of the German empire.  This was quite considerable.  Even after the Italians switched sides, Italian factories in the Industrial heartland of Northern Italy provided war goods for Germany.

Had the Italians not been allied with Germany, then Germany would not have had access to these resources, and would not have had access to Italian airfields to launch strikes against allied shipping in the western med.  An invasion of France would have occured sooner, as the Germans would never have fought in Africa.  Therefore in the simplest form, the Italian involvement in the war, lengthened the war.

Lastly, lets not forget, when German panzers smashed through the French defences, they were able to do with such ease, partly because French forces had to defend the frontier bordering Italy.  With a neutral Italy, the French campign would have been harder for the Germans.  The French would have still crumbled, but probably not so quickly,which would have only benefited the British in their retreat back to the British isles.

Answer 8

The most important thing they did from my viewpoint was to switch sides to the allies after Mussolini was executed.

Answer 9

What was important was they were part of the Axis and had to be dealt with by the Allied forces.  What about all the battles in Italy itself, like Palermo and Messina?

Answer 10

Audie Murphy (not one to pull punches) told interviewers in Italy that he wished to congratulate Italy for coming into the war on the side of the Germans as he felt that it shortened the war by at least six months.  I believe this was in a biography of Murphy but I can't remember the title.

In fairness, it was a terrible time in which France and even Norway (and others) took some part on Germany's side.  And the war probably never would have happened had the allies made humane choices following WWI.  The treaty of Versailles guaranteed a secong world war, Bertrand Russell told England and us; but hey, they didn't have computers back then.

Answer 11

The best thing was coming over to the Allies side, and also executing Mussolini.