Fighting qualities of Italians

> --- Brian Burger <yh728@victoria.tc.ca> wrote:

> --- John Lambshead <pjdl@nhm.ac.uk> wrote:

Lots of people suffered terrible losses in WWI. In
fact, the worst losses were (percentage-wise) suffered
by the Belgians. I'd have to look up percentages. I doubt it was as high as
some armies that fought considerably better.

As good as the French. Well, a pack of Quakers would put up a better fight
than the French. The French people and the French Army were completely lacking
in any military quality or fighting spirit, and used their massive resources
in as stupidly and cowardly manner as possible.

As for the Germans, that's about as stupid a comment as is humanly possible.
Germans: Conquered Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Poland,
Yugoslavia, Greece, 3 Baltic states, Ukraine, big chunks of Russia. Italians:
Conquered Albania (inhabited, from personal experience, mostly by illiterate
filthy cowardly bandits)

> Caeser would be surprised to hear that Italians

Modern Italians are NOT the same as ancient Italians. The Latin bloodline had
been diluted badly by the 4th century AD, and then furthermore there were a
series of migrations and invasions by Germanic tribes from the north and
Muslims from the South. That's were much of the root of the problem lies.
Northern Italians (Milan, Genoa, Venice) have predominately Germanic roots
mixed in with the Latin, while the south (Naples, Sicily) has more Arabic
mixed in. Northerners consider Southerners to be cowardly, lazy, and stupid.
Northern Italians constitued most of the Paras, Bersaglieri, artillery, and
armor forces and fought well. They also dominated the officer ranks of the
regular infantry, where the enlisted ranks were mostly of the South. The
officers considered their men to be completely inferior and so their troops
lived down to their expectations.

This is, of course, in addition to the serious issues of bad, obsolete
equipment created by Italy's premature armament program.

> --- Richard Kirke <richardkirke@hotmail.com> wrote: