Military history of Italy

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History of Italy

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Ancient Italic peoples / Prehistoric Italy (Terramare · Villanovan · Etruscan) Etruscan civilization Magna Graecia Ancient Rome (Kingdom · Republic · Empire) Late antiquity and the Middle Ages Italian Renaissance Foreign domination Italian Wars Risorgimento Monarchy and Mussolini Italian Republic

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Military history Cultural history Economic history Social history

The military history of Italy chronicles a vast time period, lasting from the overthrow of Tarquinius Superbus in 509 BC, through the Roman Empire, Italian unification, and into the modern day. The Italian peninsula has been a centre of military conflict throughout European history, going from being where nearly all of Europe, North Africa, and parts of Asia were ruled from, to being Europe's battleground, then balancing back out to be a unified nation again.

[edit] Ancient Italy

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[edit] Rome

Main article: Military history of ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a state whose history was often closely entwined with its military history over the roughly 13 centuries that the Roman state existed. During this period the Roman military went under extensive structural changes from a small citizen militia based on social class and dealing mainly with small-scale local warfare to a professional army of up to half a million soldiers. From early campaigns on the Italian peninsula the Roman army went on to campaign as far abroad as Britannia and Asia Minor.

[edit] Middle Ages

Throughout the Middle Ages, from the collapse of a central Roman government in the late fifth century to the Italian Wars of the Renaissance, Italy was constantly divided between opposing factions fighting for control. At the time of the deposition of Romulus Augustulus (476), the Heruli Confederation governed Italy, but it was displaced by the Ostrogoths, who fought a long war with the Byzantine army in Italy (the Gothic War). The Byzantine came out of the war victorious only to find Italy invaded by a new wave of barbarians led by the Lombards.

The Lombards diminished Byzantine territory to the Exarchate of Ravenna, the Duchy of Rome, the Duchy of Naples, and the far south of Apulia and Calabria. They established a kingdom centred on Pavia in the north. During the interregnum called the Rule of the Dukes (574 – 584), the dukes of the Lombards invaded Burgundy, but were repulsed by the Merovingian king Guntram, who in turn invaded Italy and took the region of Savoy. The Lombards were forced to elect a new king to organise their defence. For the next two centuries, the Byzantine power in the peninsula was reduced by the Lombard kings, the greatest of which was Liutprand, until it consisted of little more than the tips of the Italian toe and heel, Rome and its environs being practically independent under the popes and the Neapolitan coast under its dukes.

In 774, Charlemagne of the Franks invaded and conquered the Lombard kingdom. In the south of the peninsula, the Duchy of Benevento remained independent of Frankish dominion, however. During the period of Carolingian strength, Charlemagne's descendants governed the north of Italy in relative peace, except for the brief period of the rebellion of Bernard and the constant raids from the Slavs to the east and the Saracens to the south. Pirates harassed the Adriatic and Ligurian coasts and the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. The south was very different, as the Lombards were at the height of there power there. Warfare between Lombard and Greek, especially the Greek city-states of the Tyrrhenian, was endemic. The Greek cities fell out of the orbit of Constantinople and Byzantine possessions shrank to their smallest mark as the Lombards and the Saracens increased their predations. In 831, the Arabs conquered Palermo and in 902 they conquered Taormina, ending the conquest of Sicily. They likewise established their presence on the peninsula, especially on the Garigliano and in Bari. The story of the incessant conflicts of the states of the Mezzogiorno is chaotic until the arrival of the Normans in the early eleventh century (1016). Under their leadership, the Christians of the south found themselves eventually united, the Arabs expelled, and the whole Mezzogiorno subjugated to the Hauteville dynasty of kings of Sicily (1130).

The second half of the Middle Ages in Italy was marked by frequent conflict between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy, the latter eventually emerging victorious in that it ultimately prevented political unification of northern Italy under Imperial rule. Imperial invasions were led by more or less all medieval Emperors, the most notable episodes being the end of the Investiture controversy by the pilgrimage of Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor at Canossa in 1077 and the no less than five major invasions staged by Frederick Barbarossa against the Lombard League, culminating in the sack of Milan in 1162, after which every building in the city was demolished, except the curches. The lasting conflict led to the emergence of the Guelph and the Ghibelline parties in northern Italy, supporting respectively the Pope (and the independent cities) and the Emperor, though siding with a party was often dictated by other political considerations (more or less each city has belonged to both parties).

The victory of the Guelph party meant the end of Imperial overlordship over northern Italy, and the formation of city-states such as Florence, Venice, Milan, Genoa or Sienna. While Venice was turning to the seas, supporting, and acquiring large loot from, the 1204 Fourth Crusade's sack of Constantinople, the other city-states were struggling for control of mainland, Florence being the rising power of the time (annexation of Pisa in 1406).

Sicily was invaded in 1266 by Charles I, duke of Anjou; the Angevines were however toppled in the 1282 Sicilian Vespers, and Peter III of Aragon invaded the island. This set the background for later French claims over Naples and Sicily.

Disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire and the Hundred Years War in neighbouring France meant that Italy was more or less left in peace during the fifteenth century; this allowed its cities to grow rich and to become attractive preys for its neighbours during the sixteenth century.

[edit] Italian Wars

Italy in 1494, before the invasion of Charles VIII of France.

The relative peace that had prevailed in Italy following the Treaty of Lodi was shattered by the beginning of the Italian Wars in 1494. Ludovico Sforza, seeking allies, suggested to Charles VIII of France that the latter press his claim to the throne of Naples; Charles obliged and launched an invasion of the penninsula. The French march to, and capture of, Naples was accompished with relative ease—the Italian states being shocked at the brutality of French tactics and the efficacy of the new French artillery—but Charles was forced to withdraw from Italy in 1495, after a hastily-constructed alliance fought him at the Battle of Fornovo. Charles died in 1498, but the conflict he started would be continued by his successors; the Italian Wars would last until 1559, involving, at various times, all the major states of western Europe (France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, England, Scotland, the Republic of Venice, the Papal States, and most of the city-states of Italy) as well as the Ottoman Empire, and rapidly becaming a general struggle for power and territory among the various participants, marked with an increasing degree of alliances, counter-alliances, and regular betrayals.

In 1499, Louis XII of France launched the Second Italian War, invading Lombardy and seizing the Duchy of Milan. He then reached an agreement with Ferdinand I of Spain to divide Naples. By 1502, combined French and Spanish forces had seized control of the Kingdom; disagreements about the terms of the partition led to a war between Louis and Ferdinand. By 1503, Louis, having been defeated at the Battle of Cerignola and Battle of Garigliano, was forced to withdraw from Naples, which was left under the control of the Spanish viceroy, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. Meanwhile, Pope Alexander VI attempted to carve a Borgia state from the Romagna through the efforts of Cesare Borgia.

In 1508, Pope Julius II formed the League of Cambrai, in which France, the Papacy, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire agreed to attack the Republic of Venice and partition her mainland territories.^[1] The resulting War of the League of Cambrai was a kaleidoscope of shifting alliances. The French defeated the Venetian army at the Battle of Agnadello, capturing extensive territories; but Julius, now regarding France as a greater threat, left the League and allied himself with Venice.^[2] After a year of fighting over the Romagna, he proclaimed a Holy League against the French; this rapidly grew to include England, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire.^[3] The French were driven from Italy in late 1512, despite their victory at the Battle of Ravenna earlier that year, leaving Milan in the hands of Maximilian Sforza and his Swiss mercenaries; but the Holy League fell apart over the subject of dividing the spoils, and in 1513 Venice allied with France, agreeing to partition Lombardy between them.^[4] The French invasion of Milan in 1513 was defeated at the Battle of Novara, which was followed by a series of defeats for the French alliance; but Francis I of France defeated the Swiss at the Battle of Marignano in 1515, and the treaties of Noyon and Brussels left France and Venice in control of northern Italy.^[5]

The election of Charles of Spain as Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 led to a collapse of relations between France and the Habsburgs which resulted in the Italian War of 1521, in which France and Venice were pitted against England, the Papacy, and Charles's Habsburg possessions. Prosper Colonna defeated the French at the Battle of Bicocca, driving them from Lombardy.^[6] A series of abortive invasions of France by the allies and of Italy by the French continued until 1524, when Francis personally led a French army into Lombardy, only to be defeated and captured at the Battle of Pavia; imprisoned in Madrid, Francis was forced to agree to extensive concessions. Released in 1526, Francis repudiated the terms of the agreement, allied himself with Venice, the Papacy, Milan, and England, and launched the War of the League of Cognac. In 1527, Imperial troops sacked Rome itself; the French expedition to capture Naples the next year failed, leading Francis and Charles to conclude the Treaty of Cambrai. Charles then concluded a series of treaties at Barcelona and Bologna which eliminated all his opponents save the Florentine Republic, which was subdued by the Siege of Florence and returned to the Medici.

The remainder of the Italian Wars—which flared up again in 1535—was primarily a struggle between the Habsburgs and the Valois; while Italy was, at times, a battlefield, the Italian states played little further role in the fighting. The French managed to seize and hold Turin, defeating an Imperial army at the Battle of Ceresole in 1544; but the warfare continued (primarily in northern France) until Henry II of France was forced to accept the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, in which he renounced any further claims to Italy.

[edit] Foreign domination

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[edit] Italian Unification

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[edit] World War I

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[edit] Interwar period

In 1922, Benito Mussolini brought the fascist party to power in Italy with his March on Rome on 28 October. Mussolini repeatedly stated his dream of the Mediterranean Sea becoming an "Italian lake" and valued war, saying "Though words are beautiful things, rifles, machine guns, planes, and cannnon are still more beautiful" ^[7].

The Second Italo-Abyssinian War was to be Mussolini's way of making up for Italy's embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Ethiopians in the First Italo-Abyssinian War in 1896, and was also a chance to build Italian empire in the last unoccupied region of Africa and divert the populace from economic woes. General Emilio de Bono put on record that preparations for the invasion of Ethiopia (Abyssinia) had been going on since 1932 as roads were being built from Italian Somalia into Ethiopian territory, though Mussolini constantly claimed that he was not a "collector of deserts" and would never think of invading. Ethiopians protested this build-up to war which eventually lead up to a border clash at Walwal. Mussolini called this clash "unprovoked aggression" by Ethiopia and invaded on 3 October 1935, led by De Bono. In only three days the Italians had captured Adwa where the former disgraceful defeat had happened. In December Pietro Badoglio replaced De Bono as commander of the invasion because of De Bono's cautious advance. On 31 March 1936, a desperate final counter-attack by Haile Selassie, king of Ethiopia, was carried out, though word of the attack had already gotten to the Italians, giving them victory in the Battle of Maychew. Only a few days later the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa was conquered, allowing Italy to annex the country on 7 May, proclaiming Victor Emmanuel III Emperor of Italian East Africa.

A piece of Republican Spanish propaganda against the "Italian invasion", pointing out the huge numbers of Italian regular troops in Spain, more than just a group of volunteers.

On 17 July 1936, Francisco Franco and the rest of Nationalist Spain's forces began a rebellion against Republican Spain that was to last three years, called the Spanish Civil War. Franco was fairly sure that he would be able to secure German and Italian help for the spread of Fascism to Spain, sending emissaries out on 20 July to achieve this. Both did indeed pledge support, sending in the Corpo Truppe Volontarie from Italy and the Legión Cóndor from Nazi Germany, as well as weapons and aircraft. Mussolini was very devoted, eventually sending in 37,000 men and huge amounts of planes to ensure that this "campaign against communism" would succeed. The foreign press started to heap pressure on Mussolini when Italian troops suffered a minor defeat at Guadalajara, which led to Mussolini sending in normal troops rather than militia to fight in Spain, eventually ruining the Italian economy with the expense of a war Mussolini though would end any day. This war also distracted Italy, allowing Germany to carry out the annexation of Austria with the Anschluss, a move that otherwise may have been a breaking point between the two powers, due to Austria's alliance with Fascist Italy. The war was supposed to be a staging ground for Italian tactics, potential time to fix any creases out of the system, but Italy continued during World War II to use the same tactics as long before that, unlike Germany's new revolutionary war tactics.

As Germany was invading Czechoslovakia, Mussolini decided to accompany that invasion with his own invasion of Albania. Albania had long been nearly a puppet state of Italy, several of its military officers actually being Italian themselves ^[8]. However, King Zog was currently in fairly serious debt and wanted help from Italy, so Mussolini sent foreign minister Gian Galeazzo Ciano with a list of demands, which Ciano described as impossible to accept. Once King Zog declined, Mussolini said that he must accept these demands by 7 April 1939, or Italy would invade. The invaders had already disembarked to invade before that time. General Alfredo Guzzoni would lead two Bersaglieri divisions with a battalion of tanks in the invasion, where most resistance was extremely minor, though various organizational problems in the Italian military showed themselves. King Zog fled the country to Greece, granted asylum in Athens, then eventually to get to London. On 12 April, the Albanian parliament voted to unite their country with Italy, giving Victor Emmanuel III the Albanian crown.

On May 22, 1939, the Pact of Steel was signed by Galeazzo Ciano and Joachim von Ribbentrop of Germany, effectively allying the two powers. Despite the fairly good relations the two forces had had, many Italians were against this alliance, thinking of it as more of a submission to Germany, knowing that Italian interests were likely not to be favored in the relationship. The alliance also technically forced Italy to join in any war that Germany had entered, so that Germany could at any time present the paper and force Mussolini to enter, though they did not end up using this right.

[edit] World War II

Italy still rightfully hesitated at entering the war that Germany had just begun by invading Poland in September 1939, given their extreme lack of the materials necessary to conduct modern warfare. Like Germany and Japan, Italy did not produce its essential materials at home, depending almost entirely on foreign sources of oil, rubber, and other vital resources. The small amount of these materials that Italy had before World War II was depleted in the Spanish Civil War. Carlo Favagrossa, Under-Secretary for War Production, warned that Italy would not be ready for such a war until October 1942.

[edit] France

However, as the war looked increasingly bad for the allies, with the impending German conquest of Belgium, the Netherlands, and France, Mussolini could no longer hold himself back and declared war on the allies on 10 June 1940. To Mussolini it seemed that the war was already nearly over, and he wanted to make sure that Italy at least got a position at the peace tables at the end and obtained such lands as Corsica, Nice, and more North African territory. The Italian offensive against France did not actually begin until ten days after the declaration of war, and Italian troops were very slow to capture territory, while Germany had already taken hold of Paris. By 25 June, the armistice with France had already been arranged, though Italian troops made virtually no progress into French territory.

[edit] Africa

Mussolini's entry into the war was at least bad news for the United Kingdom, as the Regia Marina would now oppose them in Mediterranean waters. Italian armies in Libya and East Africa could also potentially have knocked British troops completely out of Egypt, having half a million men in Africa compared to the United Kingdom's fifty thousand.^[9] However, British troops took the initiative in Africa while Italy was still having trouble pacifying Ethiopia and General Wavell kept up a constantly moving front of raids on Italian positions that proved to be successful. On 14 June a successful surprise attack was made on Fort Capuzzo by the British, though it was not meant as a permanent gain as the British were using far more mobile tactics at the time. By mid-September, casualty listings indicate that Italy had lost 3,500 troops where the United Kingdom had only lost slightly over 150, despite Italy's land numbers and air superiority at the time.

On 13 September Italy began a very slow advance eastward with six divisions, eventually setting up camp at Sidi Barrani. However, the chain of camps the Italians set up were too far apart from one another, allowing Wavell to make a surprisingly crippling blow to Italy right at the start of their campaign. Richard O'Connor led the attack, a move around to the rear of the Italian camp which surprised the Italians and immediately captured four thousand of them. This attack could have effectively annihilated the Italian army in North Africa, but British commanders didn't foresee such a large victory, instead thinking of the operation as a large-scale raid. Therefore, no infantry division was available to press home the British opportunity, so the remaining Italian troops managed to escape safely to Bardia, which was captured three weeks later.

The Italian campaign in East Africa was perhaps even less successful. The Italians captured small parts of Sudan, Kenya, and British Somaliland, then took up a defensive posture against an expected counterattack. This counterattack came from the Indian 4th Infantry Division, which drove into Ethiopia with help from an amphibious assault and forces in Kenya, capturing Eritrea in February, Somalia in March, and Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, in April.^[10] Forces in Italian East Africa were somewhat cut short by the Regia Aeronautica's forced presence in the Battle of Britain at the time, leaving only 150 planes in Ethiopia.

Campaigning in North Africa then fell to Erwin Rommel over any Italian generals, as many Panzer units came into the theatre from Germany as the Afrika Korps. However, the bulk of the Axis army in North Africa was still Italian. Rommel was at first very successful, reaching the Egyptian border again in less than a fortnight as he caught Wavell off-guard. Another British offensive was crushed, and Rommel made his way to El Alamein. This made Mussolini believe the end was near, as he flew to Africa, planning to enter the capital of Egypt triumphantly, only to wait three weeks, then fly back to Rome. Field Marshal Montgomery won at El Alamein in October 1942 for the British, however, partly due to a serious lack of supplies for the Axis. This victory coincided with Operation Torch, America's landing in French North Africa, and the Battle of Stalingrad's outcome, destroying axis morale.

[edit] Greece

With very little preparation after this disaster in Africa and the ensuing retirement of Rodolfo Graziani, Mussolini then decided on an invasion of Greece as his next move to keep in pace with Germany's recent occupation of Romania. After large propaganda campaigns and even the sinking of a Greek light cruiser, Mussolini then handed an ultimatum to Ioannis Metaxas, Prime Minister of Greece, which would initiate the Greco-Italian War. Hitler was against Mussolini's invasion, (as it would require German troops' help later on), but Mussolini continued without German knowledge, as he felt that the Nazis had invaded countries too many times without telling Mussolini beforehand.

Mussolini was very unsure of what date to invade, as he changed his mind many times, even five times in one segment of fifteen minutes. ^[11] Eventually he decided on 28 October, the anniversary of the March on Rome, though staff headquarters was not aware until they heard the date on London radio. In about two weeks, the Italian army was already retreating back into Albania, for conditions at this time of year were very detrimental to mountain warfare and general organization problems continued throughout the military. Franco of the recently victorious Fascist side in the Spanish Civil War was pondering entrance into World War II, but Italy's failure in Greece put him off of the idea. Hitler then came in to rescue Mussolini's troops, gaining him the upper hand in all politics and military operations for the rest of the war.

[edit] Soviet Union

Mussolini was actually in the middle of negotiating a commercial treaty with the Soviet Union when Hitler declared war on his former ally in fighting Poland. However, Mussolini was taken once again by Hitler's promise of quick victory and would eventually send a total of 200,000 troops as the Italian Eigth Army to the Russian front for Operation Barbarossa, organized as the CSIR, Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia. To begin with, three whole divisions were sent, though only one division at all motorized, but having no tanks.

After some large initial losses in the "Celere" Division, Mussolini sent four new infantry divisions and elements of the three Alpini (alpine) divisions in the Italian military to officially make his forces an army. The alpine troops were useless, however, as they threw away their specialized gear early on as the Caucasus was the next mountain range they could possibly encounter which was well beyond the furthest Axis advance during the war. A Soviet offensive near Stalingrad wiped out the majority of the Italian troops, with only the alpine division "Tridentina" escaping the encirclement in enough numbers to really continue the war. By the end of February 1943, all Italian troops were being withdrawn, a huge blow to public opinion of the Fascist government in Italy.

[edit] Italian Republic

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[edit] Lebanon Intervention (1982-1984)

In 1982, after the Sabra and Chatila Massacre, Italian forces deployed in Lebanon, together with United States and France, a force of around 3000 troops, led by then Brigadier General Angioni, whose in the end was the most successful of the three deployed forces, raising the confidence of Italian leadership and people in the Armed Forces, recovering the low esteem in the public opinion caused by the defeat in World War II and paving the way to the subsequent increase in overseas missions for the Italian military.

[edit] War on Terrorism

The ‘War on Terrorism’ is a campaign by the United States, supported by several NATO members and other allies, including Italy, with the stated goal of ending international terrorism. The ‘War on Terrorism’ (in its current context) is the name given by the George W. Bush administration to the efforts launched in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. by al-Qaeda.

As part of Operation Enduring Freedom in response to those attacks, Italy deployed naval warships including the Italian aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi, from which Italian Harriers were available to provide close air support. Italian forces have contributed to ISAF, the NATO force in Afghanistan, and a Provincial reconstruction team and 5 Italian soldiers have died under ISAF. Italy has sent 411 troops, based on one infantry company from the 2nd Alpine Regiment tasked to protect the ISAF HQ, one engineer company, one NBC platoon, one logistic unit, as well as liaison and staff elements integrated into the operation chain of command. Italian forces also command a multinational engineer task force and have deployed a platoon of Italian military police. Three AB 212 helicopters also are deployed to Kabul.

[edit] Multinational force in Iraq

The multinational force in Iraq, also known as the 'Coalition' or 'US-led coalition', refers to the nations whose governments have military personnel in Iraq. The Italian Army did not take part in initial combat operations of the 2003 Second Gulf War, despatching troops only after May 1, 2003 - when major combat operations were declared over by the U.S. President George W. Bush. Subsequently Italian troops arrived in the late summer of 2003, and began patrolling Nasiriyah and the surrounding area. On 26 May, 2006, Italian foreign minister Massimo D'Alema announced that the Italian forces would be reduced to 1,600 by June. As of June 2006 32 Italian troops have been killed in Iraq - with the greatest single loss of life coming on November 12, 2004 - a suicide car bombing of the Italian Carabinieri Corps HQ left a dozen Carabinieri, five Army soldiers, two Italian civilians, and eight Iraqi civilians dead.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

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• Hart, B. H. Liddell. History of the Second World War. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1970.
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• Smith, Denis Mack. Italy: A Modern History. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1959. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 5962503
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[edit] External links

• Timeline of Italian history