Italian Army


The Italian Army is the land force branch of the Italian Armed Forces. The army's history dates back to the Italian unification in the 1850s and 1860s. The army fought in colonial engagements in China and Libya. It fought in Northern Italy against the Austro-Hungarian Empire during World War I, Abyssinia before World War II and in World War II in Albania, Balkans, North Africa, the Soviet Union, and Italy itself. During the Cold War, the army prepared itself to defend against a Warsaw Pact invasion from the east. Since the end of the Cold War, the army has seen extensive peacekeeping service and combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its best-known combat vehicles are the Dardo infantry fighting vehicle, the Centauro tank destroyer and the Ariete tank and among its aircraft the Mangusta attack helicopter, recently deployed in UN missions. The headquarters of the Army General Staff are located in Rome opposite the Quirinal Palace, where the president of Italy resides. The army is an all-volunteer force of active-duty personnel.

History

The Italian Army originated as the Royal Army, which dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy following the seizure of the Papal States and the unification of Italy. In 1861, under the leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Victor Emmanuel II of the House of Savoy was invited to take the throne and of the newly created kingdom.
The first war it fought was the Third Italian War of Independence, which resulted in an Italian victory and the liberation of much of eastern Italy.
Italian expeditions were dispatched to China during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 and to Libya during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912.

World War I

The Italian Royal Army's first real taste of modern warfare was during World War I. Most of the actions were fought in northern Italy, and the Royal Army suffered many casualties. This included over 700,000 dead. In particular, the frequency of the offensives in which Italian soldiers participated between May 1915 and August 1917, one every three months, was higher than demanded by the armies on the Western Front. Italian discipline was also harsher, with punishments for infractions of duty of a severity not known in the German, French, and British armies.
Nevertheless it performed well during World War 1, as even though Italy was the least supported of the three main Entente powers, the fact the Italians managed to hold the line until late 1917 meant that the industry reached the level that it could outproduce the invader, giving the Italian army the advantage of an excellent air force, and this, coupled with the advantage in artillery, and a higher level of tactical prowess compared to their enemy resulted in 1918 in the biggest Italian victories of the war, the Second Battle of the Piave, where the Italians stopped the biggest Triple Alliance attack of the Italian front, and the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, in which Italy totally destroyed the Austro-Hungarian army and so Italy's victory over the Hasburgs was stipulated on 4 November 1918, at the Villafranca Armistice.
During the Interwar Years the Royal Army participated in the Italian Invasion of Ethiopia, provided men and materials during the Spanish Civil War to fight in the Corps of Volunteer Troops, and launched the Italian invasion of Albania.

World War II

On paper, the Royal Army was one of the largest ground forces in World War II, and it was one of the pioneers in using paratroopers. In reality, it could not field the numbers claimed. Due to their generally smaller size, many Italian divisions were reinforced by an Assault Group of two battalions of Blackshirts.
Reports of Italian military prowess in the Second World War were almost always dismissive. This perception was the result of disastrous Italian offensives against Egypt and the performance of the army in the Greco-Italian War. Both campaigns were ill-prepared and executed inadequately. The Italian 10th Army initially advanced into Egypt but surrendered after being pushed back into central Libya and almost all destroyed by British forces a fifth its size during the three-month Operation Compass.
The less than optimal military leadership was aggravated by the Italian military's equipment, which predominantly dated back to the First World War and was not up to the standard of either the Allied or the German armies. Italian medium tanks performed very differently depending on level of training and tank type, M11 performed badly because of its outdated doctrine, while the M13 and M14 performed well after many changes to tactics, it was the center of all Italian armored victories like at the First Battle of Bir El Gobi and the Battle of Gazala, while the later M15 was outdated for the tanks it had to face by the time of its entry into service, for example. More crucially, Italy lacked suitable quantities of equipment of all kinds, and the Italian high command did not take the necessary steps to plan for possible battlefield setbacks or proper logistical support to its field armies. There were too few anti-aircraft weapons, obsolete anti-tank guns, and too few trucks.
The Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia fought under General Giovanni Messe, who acknowledged the limitations of his Corps in material and equipment and thus was relieved of his command on 1 November 1942. When the Soviet offensive Operation Saturn began on 12 December 1942 the Italian 8th Army was quickly crushed. Only about a third of its troops managed to escape the Soviet cauldron, including from the three Alpini Divisions Tridentina, Julia and Cuneense.
In North Africa, the Italian 132nd Armored Division "Ariete" and the 185th Infantry Division "Folgore" fought to total annihilation at the Second Battle of El Alamein. Although the battle was lost, the determined resistance of the Italian soldiers at the Battle of Keren in East Africa is still commemorated today by the Italian military.
After the Axis defeat in Tunisia, the morale of the Italian troops dropped. Once the Allies landed in Sicily on 10 July 1943, most Italian Coastal divisions simply dissolved. The sagging morale led to the overthrow of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy 15 days later.
In September 1943, Italy made an armistice with the Allies, after this Germany invaded Italy, split into the Italian Social Republic – effectively a puppet state of Germany – in the north and that of the Badoglio government in the south. The Italian Co-Belligerent Army was the army of the Italian royalist forces fighting on the side of the Allies in southern Italy after the Allied armistice with Italy in September 1943. The Italian soldiers fighting in this army no longer fought for Benito Mussolini as their allegiance was to King Victor Emmanuel and to Marshal of Italy Pietro Badoglio, the men who ousted Mussolini.

Cold War

Following the 2 June 1946 Italian institutional referendum, on 10 June the kingdom was replaced by a Republic, and the Royal Army changed its name to become the Italian Army. Initially, the army fielded five infantry divisions, created from the five combat groups of the Italian Co-belligerent Army and equipped with British material. Additionally the army fielded three internal security divisions without heavy equipment to garrison the country's two major islands:
As the status of the city of Free Territory of Trieste was disputed by the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia the Italian army moved the Infantry Division "Folgore" to Treviso and the Infantry Division "Mantova" to Gorizia in 1947. At the same time, the army began training an additional seven divisions and five Alpini brigades.
Following the creation of NATO, the Italian Army was integrated into NATO's Allied Forces Southern Europe and prepared for a feared invasion from the east, possibly via Yugoslavia. Allied Land Forces Southern Europe, was activated on 10 July 1951 to defend northeastern Italy. The command was headquartered at Verona, and placed under Lieutenant General Maurizio Lazzaro De Castiglioni. Some three infantry divisions and three brigades were the only forces initially available to this command to defend northeastern Italy. The divisions in question were the Infantry Division "Mantova" in Gorizia, the Infantry Division "Folgore" in Treviso, the Infantry Division "Trieste" in Bologna. Two of the three brigades were Alpini mountain infantry brigades – the Alpine Brigade "Julia" in Cividale del Friuli and Alpine Brigade "Tridentina" in Brixen, while the third brigade was the Armored Brigade "Ariete" in Pordenone. Exercise "Italic Weld", a combined air-naval-ground exercise in northern Italy involving the United States, Italy, Turkey, and Greece, appears to have been one of the first exercises in which the new Italian Army orientation was tested.
On 1 May 1952 the army activated one army command and two corps commands, the Third Army in Padua, and the IV Army Corps in Bolzano and V Army Corps in Vittorio Veneto, to be able to circumvent NATO's chain of command in case a war should break out between Italy and Yugoslavia for the Free Territory of Trieste. Later in 1952 the army also raised the VI Army Corps in Bologna, followed by the III Army Corps in Milan in 1957, both of which were also assigned to the Third Army.
During the early 1960s the army reduced the "Trieste", "Friuli", "Pozzuolo del Friuli", "Pinerolo", "Avellino", and "Aosta" divisions to brigades and raised the I Paratroopers Brigade in Pisa. On 1 October 1965, the Infantry Brigade "Avellino" was disbanded and, on 10 June 1967, the 1st Paratroopers Brigade was allowed to add "Folgore" to its name. It was now named Paratroopers Brigade "Folgore". With the easing of tensions between Italy and Yugoslavia, the Third Army, along with VI Army Corps, was disbanded on 1 April 1972, and its functions were taken over by NATO's Allied Forces Southern Europe in Verona. Before the disbanding of Third Army the army's structure was as follows:
  • Third Army, in Padua
  • * Anti-aircraft Artillery Command, in Padua
  • * III Army Corps, in Milan
  • ** Armored Division "Centauro", in Novara
  • ** Infantry Division "Legnano", in Bergamo
  • ** Infantry Division "Cremona", in Cuneo
  • ** Alpine Brigade "Taurinense", in Turin
  • * IV Army Corps, in Bolzano
  • ** Alpine Brigade "Orobica", in Merano
  • ** Alpine Brigade "Tridentina", in Bressanone
  • ** Carnia-Cadore Troops Command, in Belluno
  • *** Alpine Brigade "Cadore", in Belluno
  • *** Alpine Brigade "Julia", in Cividale del Friuli
  • * V Army Corps, in Vittorio Veneto
  • ** Armored Division "Ariete", in Pordenone
  • ** Infantry Division "Folgore", in Treviso
  • ** Infantry Division "Mantova", in Udine
  • ** Cavalry Brigade "Pozzuolo del Friuli", in Gorizia
  • ** III Missile Brigade, in Portogruaro
  • ** Trieste Troops Command, in Trieste
  • ** Lagunari Regiment "Serenissima", in Venice
  • * VI Army Corps, in Bologna
  • ** Infantry Brigade "Friuli", in Firenze
  • ** Infantry Brigade "Trieste", in Bologna
  • ** Paratroopers Brigade "Folgore", in Pisa
  • Army General Staff, in Rome
  • * I Military Territorial Command, in Turin
  • * V Military Territorial Command, in Padua
  • * VII Military Territorial Command, in Florence
  • * VIII Military Territorial Command, Rome
  • ** Infantry Division "Granatieri di Sardegna", in Rome
  • ** Sardinia Military Command, in Cagliari
  • * X Military Territorial Command, in Naples
  • ** Infantry Brigade "Pinerolo", in Bari
  • * XI Military Territorial Command, in Palermo
  • ** Infantry Brigade "Aosta", in Messina