Today in class we talked about the Italian defeat in North Africa and many of the different amjor players in that area. We did not spend much time on this but I have a couple of questions about this subject. The first is why did the Italians seem to face such an easy defeat but once Rommel arrived in North Africa the war for the area no longer seemed to favor the Allies all the time? Did he have better resources, more troops, or just a better commander? Or was it a combination of all three?
Also I was thinking after class today why Germany would want to spread itself out so much? It was having a war in the western front and about to have one in the eastern front, so why would they then want to go south to Africa? Or did they have enough troops and resources to effectively do this?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
The Italian economy and military were inferior to Germany, France, and G.B. Rommel is generally portrayed as an excellent commander so I'm guessing there must be some truth to that. I don't know about troop strength but I'd say that the German military leadership and equipment were superior to Italy. For example, IIRC the Italian air force was largely comprised of biplanes when the war began and the rest of their military was pretty antiquated WWI technology.
Rommel didn't earn his legendary status without compiling an impressive record. Certainly, his expertise in desert warfare helped the Germans to fare better in Africa than Italy did. Nathan mentioned the other reasons as well. Germany was simply stronger than Italy.
It seems that after the Italians were pushed back that Germany would have to come in and help, so the british would not push up from the South. I think the Germans just wanted to make sure the fighting in the south was going to stay in Africa and not enter Europe.
Italy’s army was a poor excuse for a military it lacked good leadership and training. While, it could defeat lesser trained armies it could not stand up to the discipline and the leadership of the British army. Plus, I think the German and British armies had better morale then the Italian army and sometimes that can mean the difference between defeat and victory, take Crete for example even out numbered the German army achieved victory.
Post a Comment