Kingdom of Italy
Greeco-Albanian Boarder General Vito Antonio Scalleta emerged from his tent and felt repulsed by his still smelling body, dropping an entire pidegon out of the sky for comedic effect. After a few snappy salutes, he talked with a nearby officer.
"Ah, Officer Tomasino. I am incredibly pleased at yesterday's battle results."
"How the hell can you even muster up the oxygen to say that Vito when you've fumbled and lost nearly 90% of your starting force?"
"I assure you that I will get reinforcements from the mainland, I already hear the Naval fleet is to either land troops on Greek Islands to draw forces away from my area of the front to enable a fierce punch through or to prevent the Greek fleet from launching a sortie and bombarding us along the Adriatic sea. I also woke up this morning to take a piss and discovered that an armored coloum of the finest Italian tanks, twenty one Fiat 3000s from the great war, five M11/39 medium tanks and four tanks of my own design."
One of the Vito designed tanks lumbered into position, the machine barely holding together with all the toothpaste and prayers to hoowdy doody they could cram in between the rivets of the machine. The small engine sputtered as much as it could, seemingly wanting to be killed by a power shortage to prevent it from moving the 4 ton machine. What stood out from the relatively plain design was a large gun that jutted out from the front of the machine, currently raised in a fixed height.
"General, is that a 75mm mountain gun you inserted into one of our tracked troop carriers?"
"No, it's a tank."
"it's a piece of shit that won't move very fast."
"That's a damn lie, I saw it move at least. In fact, I brought my grandmother over to race the machine, and she just barely beat it, so it can go around 5 miles per hour. That's a really fast tank according to me."
"General, you do know you're a complete dumbass right?"
"Thank you for noticing, I was wondering if anyone would say anything, so reliving to finally get it off your chest, don't it? Now inform the men to prepare to launch another assault on the Greek positions!"
"You must be insane, You only have 2,000 troops, 140 mounted soldiers 30 big guns and the same amount of armored support."
"And we're probably going up against a motley crew of militiamen, farmers with guns and anger issues, and the occasional child suicide bomber."
"May I be quick to remind you that it was that force which forced our offensive to stall, and because of your insistence on Napoleonic era military tactics in this age of firepower and automatic weaponry."
"They are good tactics, such as marching in a long line and attempting to lure the enemy's ammunition out of hiding! My strategy seems to be working, as we'll gradually gain reinforcements, the enemy will run out of ammunition and then we'll be able to charge in with our bare fists wearing nothing at all for protection and win in hand to hand combat!"
"So why the hell are the tanks for? Will they play any role in today's attempt to invade?"
"They are here to strike fear with the enemy, knowing that we have armored goofballs inside armored coffins of doom! My military plan for today will be two fold, the armored forces shall engage in a pincer movement, covering the flanks of our army as the Calvary and tanks move as a single unit. Then I shall mount on my ride and run back and forth along the enemy's military positions, taunting them with my thick gangster accent about how fat their momma is. When the enemy has exhausted all their ammunition, I shall give the order for a general charge with the sharpened stick and pointy shooty thingies."
"That plans has so many goddamn flaws, will there even be an artiller-"
Several loud booms were heard outside, causing many of the staff to dive into a nearby ditch, which also happened to be the latrine. After the shit covered Vito was fished out of the murky waters, sounds of rifle fire careened in the air, with bullets nipping at General Scalleta's shoes, ripping off one of his tas-those damn things at the ends of shoelaces that phineas and ferb did an episode on. As Vito dried himself off, he yanked a pair of binoculars that was hanging off the walls of the tent before going back outside to get a better look at the situation.
"General, the Greek Army is counterattacking, orders sir?!"
Vito froze up, he had not expected nor even planned for an operation to counter a Greek assault, he assumed the Greeks would be bloodied after the previous engagement. To think the Greeks would be cheeky enough to attempt a counter assault was a ridiculous assumption in Vito's mind, yet his eyes were not lying, nor deceiving him. Taking a drop of blood from his finger, he tasted it and realized he had not be drugged or placed on some psychedelic drug trip involving willy wonka, northern Siberian watch dealers and american leader Calvin Coolidge's gravestone, what was occurring was real. In a hurry he turned to the officer.
"Withdraw all units except 80 volunteers, 5 mounted soldiers, 1 big gun and a single Fiat 3000 tank. Their orders shall be to fight a rearguard action to the last man. The fate of Operation FUCK GREECE is in those troops' hands. May god have mercy on our enemy, for those soldiers shall show no quarter,and fight to the last bullet."
In a big slow motion moment, Vito handpicked each of the 85 soldiers, some of the more competent men and whistled for his aide to approach his side.
"Yes General?"
"Officer, what is your name?"
"Chef Boyardee sir."
"You are now in command of these 85 soldiers and what equiptment is left here, we are withdrawing with the remaining troops back to Albania to allow an easier time for supplies to arrive and for my own strength to build up. I expect every single one of you to fight to the last, Now let me give you a rousing spe-"
Before another sylabul was spoken by the general, sheets of flame rained down upon the base, mowing dozens of Italy's best soldiers down akin to a lawnmower and grass.
"General your rear gaurd's all dead."
"What? how the fuck did that happen?"
"They were standing in formation, listening to your speech and a machine gun hosed them down with bullets while you were talking."
"Son of a bitch, to hell with formalities, tank fucker, hold the line, all other units, retreat!"
The gunner of the Fiat 3000 groaned before climbing into his machine and heading the opposite direction as the rest of the army. This gunner was a mad man, but he was the only option left at this point.
"Come on you Greek fuckers, let it rip!" the gunner roared as his main cannon shot off a piping hot 37mm shell directly for a pair of Greek gyros manning a machine gun nest, blowing them sky high and resulting in some rare greek deaths so far on this campaign. While this was occurring, the majority of the Italian forces began to march into Italian controlled Albania a few dozen at a time. The lone tank shot once more, killing a pair of Greek soldiers that were rushing past.
The gunner felt relived of his services to Il Duce, and squeezed the trigger once more, sending yet another shell into a hill, missing completely in the heat of battle. The gunner suddenly felt sharp pain in his leg, turning down to notice the removal of his right foot completely by a greek AT round that left a hole in the Great War era vehicle's armor. Undeterred by this, he grabbed another shell from the back before being decapitated by a Greek artillery round which removed the turret clean off. The last stand of the Italian tanker had come to an end, after fighting for a solid 9 minutes and allowing fifteen hundred of the original 2,000 soldiers force and Vito to escape into Albania,where reinforcements had begun arriving to stabilize and clean up Vito's mess in the Balkans.
Kingdom of Italy
RomeBenito Mussolini calmly removed the safety off his side arm and fired into the shoulder of the poor messenger boy which delivered news of Italy's recent disaster regarding the Balkan Adventure the armed forces were on. When the boy flinched back, Mussolini ended his life with a blunt smack of the revolver/handgun/whatever the fuck Mussolini's using. He handed the bad news exceptionally well, there were no reports of military officials purged and was even going to be involved in a top level meeting with two high ranking generals which promised solutions to the situation regarding the Greeks.
General Emio De Bono entered the room, smiling from ear to ear at the dead corpse that layed motionless on the floor of Mussolini's personal office.
"Il Duce. To what do I owe the honor of such a high level meeting?"
"Turns out the fucker in Italy actually was as incompetent as I was warned about. However, Because I don't want him near me, and would prefer not for him to rile up the Susseni tribesmen in Lybia, he shall retain his position as Supreme Commander in Albania, however you shall be sent as reinforcements for our precarious position."
"Why not send him to command the forces in Italian East Africa?"
"Because I feel like him being close to me where I can leash him if need be but further enough away to rid myself of aching headaches if a suitable compromise."
"But, Il Douche-"
"What the fuck did you just say? It's motherfucking Il DUCE, not Il douche! If I wasn't out of bullets, I'd kill you right now for that remark. But regardless of your protests, prepare to move to Albania with 70,000 reinforcing soldiers with 9,000 of those mounted, 120 tanks and 80 more big artillery pieces. No more complaints from you, just go right now!"
"Yes, Il Duce."
"Much better now motherfucker. I'm motherfucking Benito Mussolini Il Duce, the Ceaser of the Italian Riech!"
"Riech is a german word."
"Fuck off, that's an order."
"Yes, Il Duce."
Above Athens High above the city of the former Athenians and modern day Greeks, the seat of Greek political might and historical importance could be faintly mapped out in between the wispy looking Cirrus clouds. In between these clouds lurked a squadron of Italian medium bombers ominously. Taking another gander at his atmosphere, pilot Albino Luciani noted a total of 14,885 feet above sea level. He paid no attention in bombing school, and so decided to wait a bit longer before unloading his pride and joy down onto the city. Tucked into the belly of the fuselage draped plane that smelt like burnt noodles were a baker's dozen of death comprising of 250 pound bombs, all ready to drop down death on the greekies.
Luciani talked on the radio to his fellow pilots.
"Excuse me, are we all in position for the deliverance of care packages to the greek children?"
"Lead Plane, this is 05, we're having issues with the engine and are loosing altitude."
"Plane 05, you are to get back in formation and have your mechanic leave the plane and fix the damn issue on the wing, got it?"
"Yes, papa bless, we're going to do that n-and the fucker just got caught in the engine, we'll see you in two to three years from the outside of a Greek prison, over and out!"
With a muted look of horror, Luciani raced to the window from the safety of his seat, noticing the trail of reddish black smoke from the declining bomber as it disappeared from sight.
After a short emotional scene, Luciani gave the all clear signal to the other planes remaining, dropping little grey bricks that explode when impacting the ground, causing several explosion to be seen from the cockpit amidst the wispy clouds as Athens was bombed from the air by a total of 19 planes.