Waubonsee Community College

Mussolini's war, Fascist Italy from triumph to collapse 1935-1943, John Gooch

eng

Includes bibliographical references (429-521) and index

illustrationsplatesmaps

index present

non fiction

Mussolini's war

bibliography

1142386711

John Gooch

Fascist Italy from triumph to collapse 1935-1943

"While staying closely aligned with Hitler, Mussolini remained carefully neutral until the summer of 1940. At that moment, with the wholly unexpected and sudden collapse of the French and British armies, Mussolini declared war on the Allies in the hope of making territorial gains in southern France and Africa. This decision proved a horrifying miscalculation, dooming Italy to its own prolonged and unwinnable war, immense casualties, and an Allied invasion in 1943 that ushered in a terrible new era for the country. John Gooch's new history is the definitive account of Italy's war experience. Beginning with the invasion of Abyssinia and ending with Mussolini's arrest, Gooch brilliantly portrays the nightmare of a country with too small an industrial sector, too incompetent a leadership and too many fronts on which to fight. Everywhere--whether in the USSR, the Western Desert, or the Balkans--Italian troops found themselves against either better-equipped or more motivated enemies. The result was a war entirely at odds with the dreams of pre-war Italian planners--a series of desperate improvisations against an allied force who could draw on global resources, and against whom Italy proved helpless."--Amazon

Machine generated contents note:, 1., On the March, 2., The Reluctant Neutral, 3., First Moves, 4., Defeat, Disaster, and Success, 5., Sea, Sand, and Endless Steppes, 6., Terror in the Balkans, 7., Year of Destiny, 8., Overstretched and Overcome, 9., Endgame