all is quiet on the morning of January
21st 1941 gazelle force an anglo-indian
armored column is arresting at the kuru
gorge in Eritrea then part of Italian
East Africa the gazelles are pursuing
the forces of the Duke of Owl stop the
Italian commander in the region little
does gazelle force know that two hundred
and fifty Eritrean horsemen led by
Italian lieutenant Amedeo Guinea are
about to burst onto the scene the
galloping flu the morning mist and
straight toward
[Applause]
[Music]
hi I'm Griffin Johnson the armchair
historian today's video times Italy was
effective during the Second World War
yeah it actually happened and more than
once before we begin I want to thank our
sponsor Nord VPN for making this video
possible
the performance of the Italians in world
war ii has long been ridiculed and
subjected to excessive spaghetti and
pizza memes rather than objective
scrutiny but it is true that overall
Italy was unready for a prolonged
conflict in 1940 the country had minimal
industrial capacity a chronic fuel
shortage and was exhausted from previous
conflicts but those are topics for
another video today we're focusing on
the times that Italy displayed military
effectiveness during the war despite the
odds stacked against them speaking of
which what ever happened to lieutenant
Gilly a his horseman KVA and his men
charged into the armored cars of ghazal
force with pistols swords and hand
grenades as the defenders are cut
shrapnel Gilly a squadron regroups
watches a second charge the gazelle
artillery fires back killed
confusion after a few seconds Gilead
known as the devil commander disperses
his squadron in the gorges surrounding
character that was the last cavalry
charge ever faced by the British Army
while guiltier lost more than half of
his unit his daring display allowed the
Duke of auste to organize defenses in
Agoura dot and Karen where Italians and
their colonial troops would resist
Commonwealth forces for two months the
devil commander would go on to wage a
guerrilla war against the British in
East Africa and there are plenty more
examples of the Italians fighting
against distinctly unfavorable odds on a
larger scale that are worth considering
from the eastern front to the Battle of
the Mediterranean to the last stand at
El Alamein
[Music]
now let's take a look at Italy's
contribution on the Eastern Front during
Operation Barbarossa from September 1941
to August 1942 general giovanni messi
led the 60,000 demand strong italian
expeditionary Corps against the soviet
union
the corps was assigned to the ukrainian
section of the Eastern Front their
baptism by fire took place at the Battle
of Petra khoka during the last week of
September the 79th Infantry Regiment
established a bridgehead over the river
Dnieper pushing a Soviet contingent back
in the process when the Germans lost to
their bridgehead in nearby for nofe God
the 80th Italian regiment recovered it
with a bayonet charge once the Torino
division pushed its enemy back general
messae orchestrated a pincer movement
with the help of their sanity assault
units capturing 10,000 Soviet prisoners
suffering a mere 300 casualties in the
process the expeditionary force next saw
combat during the assault on stalino
Italian cavalry regiments used clever
tactics to rout Soviet defenders
charging only after their machine
gunners had a chance to
now and lay down suppressive fire with
the path cleared Italian divisions
prepared for their main assault on
stalino on the 20th of October for
surrounding towns were occupied as a
pre-emptive measure to block any Soviet
counter-attacks and with their flanks
secured a regimen of bears a Yeti
stormed stalino before breaking up into
small motorized units which took the
Soviets by surprise these mobile troops
were supported by mounted artillery who
were able to change positions quickly to
avoid enemy fire while raining shelves
on it's unfortunate opponents by July of
1942 the Italian expeditionary Court
Russia had grown in size becoming the
army er the Italian Army in Russia but
increased numbers did not intimidate
Soviet forces near the river Don the red
army clashed with the seborrhea Cavalry
Regiment the Sequoias had been
surrounded by the men of the 812
Siberian infantry regiments but managed
to hold them back with their howitzers
when the eight hundred and twelfth
started withdrawing the savoia second
squadron ordered an attack this
engagement became known as the charge of
ice bush M spoon the last major cavalry
charge in history
or through the Soviet line hacking down
men with sabers training them with
machine guns and bombarding them with
grenades meanwhile the 4th squadron had
dismounted and engaged the enemy from
the front while the 3rd squadron watched
their own charge on the remnants of the
Siberian regimen
by the end of the battle the savoia
regiment had lost 84 men and a hundred
horses the Soviets
suffered a staggering 1050 casualties
the engagement took the pressure off of
larger Italian units in the area
granting them enough time to fortify
against the offensive on the dawn
however this would prove futile as in
December 1942 operation Uranus and
Saturn would drive the Axis forces back
West
[Music]
now let's move somewhere a bit warmer
for our next theater the Mediterranean
which saw the Italian and British navies
in a bitter struggle for control over
indispensable supply routes cavalry
charges aren't particularly effective in
the water so we won't be seeing any more
of those one of the key moments of this
naval conflict was the raid on
Alexandria this was the most spectacular
success of the 10th mas flotilla the
commandos of the Italian Royal Navy the
operation was led by notorious Corvette
captain Prince junio valerio borghese a
Roman aristocrat this raid were lied on
the most secretive weapons of the 10th
mas the manned torpedoes
these were self-propelled torpedoes on
which two scuba divers could sit astride
their tactic was to infiltrate enemy
ports approach their ship and attach a
magnetic mine to the hole on December 19
1941 borghese submarine she-ra
approached the port of Alexandria and
launched three manned torpedoes the raid
made contact with their targets
a tanker a destroyer and the British
Royal Navy battleships HMS valiant and
HMS Queen Elizabeth however just as they
placed the explosives two of borghese's
men were captured and held on the valium
despite this the commandos did not
reveal the nature of their mission until
the last possible moment leaving the
crew with no time to do anything besides
abandon ship when the charges went off
valiant Queen Elizabeth and the other
two ships sank in the shallow waters of
Alexandria
overnight the Axis navies had gained
strategic superiority over the central
and eastern Mediterranean thanks to some
Italian human torpedoes
[Music]
superiority in the Mediterranean was a
key factor in securing supplies to the
Italian and German armies in North
Africa but as we know the Axis powers
logistical train eventually could not
keep up the theme light of the Allies
who gained the upper hand in late 1942
the Second Battle of El Alamein was an
access to feed the end of the beginning
as Churchill described it but even in
defeat the tenacity of the outnumbered
outgunned Italian units allowed her win
Ramos forces to invade total destruction
at the start of the battle the ah dat
division with the help from a badass a
navy battalion and units from the
padishah and forged a divisions held
back Montgomery's 13th por long enough
to prevent it from reaching the main
front line armored division Vittorio
then went on the attack against the one
hundred and thirty-third British worried
infantry brigade the assault virtually
an isle ated the British unit knocking
out there exposed anti-tank guns killing
60 men and capturing 300 on the 2nd of
November the 9th British armored Brigade
launched another attack but lost 70 of
its 94 tanks to box aad artillery fire
the following day general Rommel praised
the sacrifice of Italian divisions
covering his withdrawal the enormous
dust clouds could be seen south and
southeast of headquarters where the
desperate struggle of the small and
inefficient Italian tanks of 20th Corps
was being played out against a hundred
or so British heavy tanks I was later
told by major fungal that the Italians
who at the time represented our
strongest motorized force fought with
exemplary courage the last Italian unit
to fight at El Alamein was the fall gun
a division of elite paratroopers this is
when the Lyons
truly
or holding back three British divisions
and one free french Brigade with little
ammunition and almost no anti-tank guns
befall g'day Lord the attackers into a
cul-de-sac then attacked from all sides
using Molotov cocktails and grenades the
assault cost the Allies a hundred and
twenty tanks the italians retreated
slowly protecting the rear of the Africa
Corps always refusing to surrender after
El Alamein the folgen a continued
fighting in Libya and Tunisia by the end
of the North African campaign their
5,000 man strong division was reduced to
a little more than 300 men in the end
Italian armed forces were destined to
lose the war their strategic doctrinal
and logistical flaws were too
overwhelming but when they had adequate
equipment leadership and morale they
performed well
scoring victories or delaying defeat
through ingenuity and determination do
let me know in the comments if you'd
like to hear more examples of military
effectiveness from the ridiculed nations
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[Music]
give me back and subjected to excessive
spaghetti and pizza memes rather than
objective scrutiny Wow why does it do
that help fight de monetization by
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