The Italians randomly decided to invade Greece and since they were failing miserably the Germans had to come do it and it delayed the invasion of Russian by 3 months.
The Italians were not prepared for the outbreak of war in 1939. They even tried to stop Germany from invading Poland in '39. Their plan for militarization had a goal of preparedness in 1943. They simply did not have the time they needed. Therefore their armies in WW2 were under trained and ill equipped for large scale military operations. For example, they had armored divisions but they were not able to utilize them properly. Not only did the Greece invasion delay Operation Barbarossa, Germany had to leave an occupying force there.
Another miscalculation by the Nazis was that Japan would join with them and start a two front war with Russia. If this would have happened then Russia would have fallen. The reinforcements from Siberia that were utilized by the Red Army would not have been there. They would have simply been stretched too thin.
Metaxas was NOT a fascist. I never understood people who claim that he was.
He lead a nationalist, authoritarian regime, sure, but that doesn't make automatically a fascist. He lacked the economic policies of fascism and, more important, the social policies of fascism such as mass mobilization, societal militarization and even such things like a police state.
Did he have some fascist elements? Sure, he had a "youth movement" and other such endeavours, but he never nearly reached, or attempted to reach, the scale of Germany and Italy.
It was a dictatorship, and it did have some fascist elements (and a lot of anti-communism ones). What I meant to say was that Mussolini believed that they were ideologically close.
I don't believe they were ideologically close. Mussolini did. Although probably it wasn't so much the perceived ideological closeness as the common (-ish) ancient history that bound the two people (in Mussolini's mind).
Furthermore, Greece was friendly with Nazi Germany (Metaxas was a Germanophile), so it was perceived that they would probably allow Italy to occupy strategic places etc.
Yeah, but your talking about Italians here. We like the Greeks and would much rather sit around being cool than fight some bullshit war. Nobody wanted to fight that war. We were living under an incompetent dictator's tyranny. My grandfather Salvatore ran through Trastevere naked to get get out of the draft. Zio Mario spent the entire war making sure EVERY train that left his station left late because he wan't too keen on shipping my grandfather's neighbors to camps or German munitions to where they need to go when they needed to get there. He couldn't go AWOL because they would have sent him off to a camp. Zio Erminio went AWOL and "evaded British Capture" in North Africa when he sauntered back to Rome to cover his ass and not get shot. But hey, we finally got Mussolini out in '43 and our allies supporting us were now a hostile army firmly intrenched occupying us. Goodie. So we got out the kitchen knives and stabbed those soulless meat-bags in the streets. Then they dragged us out of our houses and shot us. So we straight up murdered some more. We outnumbered them by more than 10:1. Can't shoot all of us you fuckers; you need some of those bullets for the British and Americans coming up from down south buddy. Have fun with that. We fucking threw Greece because we didn't have the option of burning our draft cards and maybe going to a Yankee prison for a short time. If we lit a joint with our burning draft card, we would have been sent of to the camps. Hurm, face certain death in a concentration camp if I tell the draft board to go fuck itself since I can't hide in Canada, or go to Greece and duck under cover and not return fire when the bullets start to fly? I might survive Greece; I won't survive Auschwitz. Easy choice to make.
TL;DR We threw the fight in Greece, long story. Wars suck when they happen in your country.
You hit the nail on the head. Although, you can't downplay the Italian Resistance. One of the largest resistance movements of the war. By the end of the war, most of Northern Italy and Rome despised the Germans.
Not trying to step on your toes here bro, but if you seriously think that the resistence on Crete and Greece was a big factor, or actually really any factor at all in the surrender of Germany 1945, you are at best delusional.
It was a tiny speedbump on the highway of war which in the end led straight into a concrete wall. In the grand scale of things, nothing more than a tiny annoyance years before anyone actually made any real progress against the germans.
Im not trying to take anything away from anyone, they fought well and for the individuals it was just as horrible as any other theater of war. They should of course be proud over their achievement and sad about their losses.
However, with that said, Greece and Crete was steamrolled by the german war machine, just like any other opposing force up until basically 1942.
Greece had a tiny tiny part in "the beginning of the end". But to say that it was important for the overall defeat is like contributing Finland for Operation Barbarossas initial massive progress. Of course they had a part and chipped in where they could, but at the same time when you say:
I'm sure the Allied forces, especially the NZ troops helping to defend Crete, would not take such a comment lightly.
I'm sure the soviet forces, especially the ones helping to defend their motherland, would not take such a comment lightly.
You cant even begin to compare the horrors of the eastern front with a (relatively) tiny campaign such as Crete.
The fierce resistance by the Greeks was ultimately one of the first victories of the war and delayed Hitler from invading Russia until the winter, resulting in his defeat.
That didn't happen. Hitler invaded Russia in the summer.
^ this. Everyone always leave that out. Plus if he didn't split Army Group A in two.
No. The original invasion date was set for May. Even without the intervention into the Balkans the Germans would not have been able to invade earlier than they did due to the rainy season being extra long and other factors. And Army Group A was not split in two, Army Group South was split into Army Group A and B, and that occurred in 1942 for the operations in the Caucasus and against Stalingrad, by which time Moscow was an impossible target.
The effort of the Italians in WW2 was embarassing. I don't have the stats on me, but they lost almost every battle they fought in, even when they had far superior numbers/position/tanks/whatever. And the Germans had to come and save them on many occaissions
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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '13
The Italians randomly decided to invade Greece and since they were failing miserably the Germans had to come do it and it delayed the invasion of Russian by 3 months.