Forthy-four months in the Alps (1792--1796)

Eleventh of a 19-part series on the Italian postwar army, the Granatieri-Bersaglieri postwar lineage

The Italian Infantry (fanteria) postwar lineage.

In an excerpt of his book, The History of Italy, Francesco Guicciardini discusses the 1494 French invasion of the Italian peninsula in both a political and a military context. Guicciardini states that the forces available to Italian states were inferior to the French forces, and discusses how military tactics and technology are changing warfare during the renaissance. Guicciardini was born in 1483 in Florence, eleven years before the events of the invasion that he described later in his life. While still young at the time which the events took place, his work drew upon various government records available to him during his career serving the Spanish, Papal, and Florentine courts. Through his career he attained experience in governance, diplomacy, and warfare. Guicciardini’s account of the 1494 invasion of Italy by France provides historians with a good account of the nature of warfare during the period depicted because of the reliability of the author and what it says about the transformation of warfare during the renaissance.

The Italian Army (Regio Esercito) order of battle in its entirety during the Italian Armistice (8 September 1943). Part VII presents the forces in Sardegna/Sardinia.

/Résumé analytique June 1940: The Italian Army and the Battle of the Alps Emanuele Sica This article focuses on the " Battle of the Alps " of June 1940, which pitted the Italian Regio Esercito against the French Armée des Alpes. Fearing that an early capitulation of France to the German invasion that had begun in May would prevent Italy from sharing the spoils of victory, Mussolini ordered an offensive against France on 15 June 1940. Despite the battle raging in the north, the French Army successfully repelled the attacking force and the Italian assault petered out after a few days, with no significant victories and few territorial gains. Aside from the difficulties of crossing the Alpine mountain range, a geographical feature the French had strongly fortified, the Italian campaign was hindered by poor strategy, ineffective tactics, an outdated military doctrine that failed to acknowledge the importance of combined arms warfare, and appallingly inadequate materiel owing to the erosion of the Italian military industrial base in the 1930s. In fact, the Battle of the Alps set the tone for the overall disappointing military campaign of the Regio Esercito in the Second World War, as the Italian army never fully recovered from its dismal start. Nous nous concentrons, dans cet article, sur la « Bataille des Alpes » de juin 1940, qui opposa la Regio Esercito italienne à l'Armée française des Alpes. Craignant qu'une capitulation anticipée de la France devant l'invasion allemande, qui avait déjà commencé en mai, empêcherait l'Italie d'avoir une part aux butins de guerre, Mussolini ordonna une attaque contre la France le 15 juin 1940. En dépit des combats qui faisaient rage plus au nord, l'armée française réussit à repousser l'ennemi et l'assaut ita-lien tourna court après quelques jours n'ayant remporté aucune victoire importante et reçu que peu de gains territoriaux. À part des difficultés encourues à travers la chaîne de montagnes des Alpes, un élément géographique que la France avait solidement fortifié, la campagne d'Italie fut entravée par une stratégie médiocre, des tactiques inefficaces, une doctrine militaire périmée qui négligea de re-connaître l'importance des forces alliées armées et du matériel épouvantablement inadéquat à cause de la dégradation de la base industrielle militaire de l'Italie dans les années 30. En fait, la Bataille des Alpes fut un présage pour la campagne militaire décevante en tout point du Regio Esercito durant la seconde guerre mondiale, car l'armée italienne ne se remit jamais de son départ lamentable.