Monfrox wrote:Stormhound wrote:
They were entirely outnumbered, and tanks hadn't been invented yet.
17,000 men are not going to be able to defeat over 120,000 men, 80,000 - 100,000 of whom are armed with firearms. In the end, the Ethiopians suffered more casualties than the Italians.
So then why the hell did they even try to go to war in the first place?
I'm not spending the night teaching you about colonialism.
They thought their tactical and technological superiority would be the decisive factor. Turns out the rest of Europe is like a group of whiny children who don't want the others to have a piece of the cake. The Ethiopians had apparently stockpiled on modern weapons.
Monfrox wrote:Stormhound wrote:
That doesn't negate the fact that they defeated the Ethiopians.
Italy had already lost it's colonies before it surrendered. The reason Badoglio wanted to surrender in the first place was because the Allies had seized Sicily, and were planning to invade the mainland. Next to none of the Fascists had liked the Germans in the first place, for good reason, so staying true to an alliance was rather meaningless.
It does because it was pointless. Just like Germany's conquest of Europe and North Africa and Japan's conquest of the Pacific. All were eventually lost.
They didn't change sides in the two wars they had with Ethiopia, Mon. That means your original point is invalid and you should feel bad. Their surrender in WW2 had nothing to do with losing their colonies, they had already lost them before they did.
Monfrox wrote:It still had sided with the Trip Alliance prior to it's involvement. That's still a switch.
Not exactly, considering they were never part of the Continental Powers. This about WW1 and the claim that the Italians switched sides every war. When the war began, they were neutral. In 1902, they had been having meetings with France. They had gained independence from Austria less than half a century ago. Not exactly on the best of terms.
Monfrox wrote:It's totally relevant.
The USA and USSR participated in the Cold War because that's what it was. A Cold War. Neither side directly engaged each other outright. But since they, like Italy in the SCW, had no real direct engagements with each other, there was no WW3 which would've been a different case altogether.
The Italians had direct engagements. They helped break the Republican blockade, their air force participated as well, and volunteers from the army had been sent.
Point still stands that they were allied with Franco's regime and didn't just go and join the Republicans.
Ironically, Hitler, on the other hand, intended to support the Reds later on (he tells Speer that he will "put them on the back burner," and that "The whole thing will start all over again. But with us on the opposite side. .")
