Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 185 - The Greco-Italian War Part 1: Tooth and Nail

Episode Date: December 6, 2021

Mussolini attempts to recreate the Roman Empire, killing thousands of his own soldiers in the mountains. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Sources: https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2017/07/20/the-greco-italian-war-one-of-benito-mussolinis-biggest-failures/ https://www.historynet.com/greek-tragedy-invading-greece-wwii.htm Cervi, Mario (1971). The Hollow Legions. Mussolini's Blunder in Greece, 1940–1941

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the

Legion of the Old Crow Led by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe, and with me today is Liam. Hello, Liam. Hello. Notably, hopefully not sounding like my voice was ran through a blender. You know, it's weird. I didn't do it. Like, I just woke up not that long ago. I took one of my dogs for a walk, and somehow I just sound exhausted.

Now, there's a lot of... This isn't going to come out for several weeks after I record this, so I'm not going to go too far into current events but they're not good uh so i've been spending my morning uh talking to a lot of rightfully upset and uh emotional people so maybe that's uh kind of drew me out a bit um how are you doing oh i'm terrific i might have liver disease outstanding uh that's obviously we are doing swell yeah this is the picture of health um here in the lions led by donkeys by guests um anyway get us to the new patreon level and we can afford liam a new liver um that's honestly honestly the way America works not even that much

of a parody I do have health insurance thank god yeah what's that now there's an interesting trend on this show Liam where every conflict we talk about

whether it be a whole war, firefight border skirmish. We're always kind of asked, okay, who do you think was the worst side in this? And I don't mean like politically or morally, of course. I mean like militarily, who is the more incompetent? And generally speaking, like the heavy hitters that we've talked about, whether it be the Iran-I iraq war or whoever it's a pretty straight through line in most cases like both sides fucking suck right um you sure do joe so we're gonna do a two-parter we're doing a two-parter uh uh where that is not in debate uh and that is the first Greco-Italian war,

which means that's right. We are talking about a living cartoon character and founding father of fascism, Benito Mussolini. Great, great. I always want to fucking talk about Mussolini. I want to talk about how he hanged a lot. Yeah, he's the noted fan of Sleeping Like a Bat, Benito Mussolini. And I do go live to our Italian correspondent, Vinnie Jones.

I fucking know it's us. I hate them Italian bastards. I'll be getting a lot of use out of that. Now, most people are aware, at least fans of this show, maybe some World War II heads are pretty aware of how incompetent the Italian military is. But, you know, it kind of gets swept under the rug because of the Italian war effort was completely consumed by the German war effort. And that didn't happen in a vacuum. There's a reason for that.

a vacuum there's a reason for that uh and without a doubt uh like there's a lot of debate on who was the uh the most incompetent military in world war one and the correct answer is all of them um in world war ii that's not up for debate it is uh 100 the kingdom of italy uh which is italy's official name during this time uh i i will hear no dissent on this opinion for because we're about to we we're about to explain in depth why that is the case um now the reason that italy and their idiot leader got involved in world war ii in the first place is the same reason they've gotten involved in an incredibly badly thought out war in ethiopia a few years before and it's something that we've uh we've we've danced around a little bit

that is a vampire uh yeah uh kind of whoa whoa it's vampire that's crazy empire with extra steps uh in a concept known as italian irredentism okay yeah yeah all right we're gonna talk a little bit about that because unseated papal states territory kind of, it's actually even dumber than that. Uh, which is why normally I don't go into like political philosophy or anything on the show because one, I could not give a fuck less about it. Most of the time.

Sure. Uh, most of the time it's very boring. Um, and I just don't care about political theory. However, uh, sometimes it's so off the walls,

bonkers that it, it merits a side, uh uh in a side conversation and fascist irredentism is absolutely one of those things specifically italian fascist irredentism now there's a small bit of deflection on top of this as well because italy's economy was imploding as fascist economies generally do uh and you know like we've talked about time and time again military glory is a really good way of distracting people away from various societal failings now italian irredentism was all of the rage in nationalist circles it only grew once the fascists took over after the resurgimento or the italian or the italian unification

in my flawless italian that's enough like gerald baldy yeah yeah uh they're like the concept of irredentism was not new uh when the unification occurred and most irredentists claimed places that had an ethically italian population for the new unified kingdom of Italy. Now, most of these places had been considered Italian states before Italy was a thing. The concept of Italy was new, but people were still considered Italian, kind of. The government was a pretty big fan of this concept because it gave them power and it gave them the ability that a lot of countries don't have that is kind of building a national identity on the fly built around the unification of ethnically italian peoples right sure sure now that's bad generally uh but it actually got worse

when fascists took over specifically mussolini um most things do in fact get worse when fascists took over, specifically Mussolini. Most things do, in fact, get worse when fascists take over. Yes, I am aware. Also, the show. Yeah, yeah. It just gets worse. I said the thing. Yeah. I have an attitude about it.

That's fine. Don't you get shitty with me in my own fucking catchphrase. Now, he believed in a form of irredentism that was connected to that connected the modern kingdom of italy not to a concept of modern italy but the roman empire uh and all of its previous holdings despite the fact that you know they other than occupying the same capital city of rome obviously that would change depending on what's uh the roman empire you have to be on at some point. The two States had nothing in common.

They didn't speak the same language. They were not the same ethnicity and Romans certainly would not have called themselves Italian. They would have called themselves Roman. Yeah. Uh, the concept of Italy was not a thing, but that didn't stop,

you know, not having an education in history or not giving a fuck has never stopped. The era dentists really cared all that much about getting the facts right. Now, they generally don't. Now, this belief was generally known as Spazio Vitale or living space. In case that sounds familiar. Oh, yeah. In case that sounds familiar.

Oh, hmm. Yeah. Now, rather than thinking that Italians were a master race of humanity, they simply believe they were a custodian and superior race to all of the races that lived in the area that they considered part of this Roman Empire 2.0. And they believed, Mussolini believed, that this race of Italians were supposed to act as a custodian over these areas that would be brought up to the quote-unquote civilized world. And these colonized areas would act as a dumping ground for the quote-unquote surplus population of Italy, which would then colonize it. Yeah, it's imperialism with a fancy eagle slapped on top.

I was going to say this. This sounds like some weird ass white man's burden shit. It absolutely is. Yeah, it's like, no, no, we don't think that you're less than human. You're simply less than us. And we must lift you up to this level. I mean, you're welcome. Yeah.

Now, Mussolini believed this so much after his forces barely took over Ethiopia in the second attempt of Italy. He began to refer to Italy as the Italian Empire, though this name change was never really made official. And it never had an emperor. It stayed as the king. Victor Emmanuel, you son of a bitch. I mean, you're not wrong here. I fucking know I'm not. Emmanuel was 100% on board

with this because how it worked was these quote unquote imperial territories worked under a personal union with the Italian crown, so they didn't fall under the kingdom of Italyaly the empire fell under king emmanuel personally so like he was like yes give me more fancy titles uh he was 100 on board now he's still living in a nip away at territories in order to make this possible in a world that really really really did not want to fight another world war that's the only reason why any of this shit happened

right now we talked a little bit about this in our episode about the war of the stray dog but uh like muslimi invade the greek island of korfu which somehow ended with the league of nations getting greece to pay them indemnities to leave because like they were they were just trying to appease literally any aggressive nation uh like uh famously uh uh king or emperor sassily of of ethiopia would it would go to the league of nations personally and appeal them to stop italy from you know doing what they were doing in the league of nations like ah what are we gonna what we going to do about it and do shit right I'm stunned man absolutely stunned

what's this stunned off the show a lot the League of Nations didn't help black people who would have thought that's crazy now this also included like Italy and Britain hashing out their long-term

disagreements over somalia where they'd finally define the borders because italy was threatening war again and britain was like fine fine we'll give you whatever you want just don't drag the world into another war uh which of course neville chamberlain a bitch neville chamberlain a bitch and like you you just can't appease people with this attitude because of course this led to them having more and more acclaims like through the entirety of the balkans and mediterranean region um even with the huge support italy all right so small side note here obviously the spanish civil war occurred we'll eventually talk about it more in depth uh but one of the biggest how

everybody knows about like the condor legion with Condor Legion with Nazi Germany helping the Spaniards. So most people are aware of the Condor Legion. But a lot of people are unaware to the sheer amount of help that fascist Italy gave Franco. And it wasn't like a side hustle. This is a full-on military operation. This is for a lot of different reasons. One was Mussolini thought that making his young men go to war create a warrior spirit. More on that later. Yeah, famously it worked out and Benito Mussolini died peacefully.

Yeah, noted military powerhouse, Kingdom of Italy. Now, another part of this was actually kind of funny in retrospect. It was because he wanted to be in a dominant position over Francisco Franco when the war ended. And when obviously the fascists won the civil war. And that's when mostly pressured Franco into allowing a permanent Italian troop presence in Spain. He wanted to turn them into a client state.

What? Um, yeah. Uh, which of course Franco told him to fuck off. And so he did. He was like, oh,

okay. Um, like most, like it's not really talked about cause it's such like a side story that Mussolini tried to flex on a lot of people and everybody told him to fuck off. How embarrassing. Yeah. Now, when that didn't work,

he turned towards the Mediterranean, where his main rival would be France and their various colonies in Algeria, Tunisia, and Djibouti. Not to mention, they actually controlled the Suez Canal at the time. So this is considered more of a building feud because this is not quite World War IIi yet and even mussolini probably knew fucking with france would end with him getting his shit kicked in because you know i know we we make everybody makes jokes about france during

world war ii and the world war ii era but at the end of world war i france is considered one of the strongest countries in the world um even though they murdered an entire generation in a meat grinder of the trenches right like there's no denying how strong france is and obviously they had taken some hits but they were still around i feel perpetually embarrassed to be a francophile i believe my dad he's just like ah i'm fascinated with this culture and for the of your life, it's going to be your problem. I fully understand where you're coming from. Now, knowing he couldn't fuck with France, Moosley unrolled a map and decided to figure out,

okay, who can we beat? And his finger landed on Albania because Albania has not suffered enough. Now, this was considered something of a cakewalk for the Italians for a lot of reasons. Italy and Albania had become very, very close using Italian soft power. For instance, pretty much every officer in the Royal Albanian Army was Italian. pretty much every officer in the royal albanian army was italian um and like uh they were supposed to supply the albanian military with weapons and they simply just stopped uh so they wouldn't have weapons to fight them with so yeah so one day when all the italian is that it's an italian one

or as a famous saying in Albania goes, No fucking eye toys. Why ain't any? Now, this war only lasted a week. Famously, of course. Yeah, this war only lasted a week because that's what happens when none of your officers show up for work. When you're in Albania. Yeah, when somebody steamrolls into Albania. Now, this did not build the confidence of the Italian military, which is not exactly led by the true believers of fascism, actually.

Because, you know, even though obviously most fascist dictators, Mussolini as well, likes to surround themselves with gutless yes men. At this point, it was still full of people who had long careers in the military. They hadn't been completely replaced yet yeah uh so there were still people who were not sold into the fascist ideals of italy and one would think world war one is still a pretty fresh memory for a lot of these guys yeah and all of them are veterans of that war to include muslim himself actually right and they knew that saying hey we shouldn't invade albania was a bad idea for their career but they also figured look our military can be held to go duct tape we could probably still pull this off um so like but after the war they

tried to treat treat it as a a learning uh experience where they're like okay these are the things that didn't work in Albania right and this is how we can improve upon focus group that's what you're supposed to do right like even in the US military we have something called the centers for lessons learned where like compiles our various failures

to learn from at a later date that book is gathering dust these days but like you know hypothetically we want an afghanistan joe yeah you just have to keep there's just a thousand asterisks in there um now one of these uh these guys uh count ciano's chief assistant noted quote if the albanians had possessed a well-armed fire brigade, they could have driven us into the Adriatic Sea. Alright, so not exactly a

glowing endorsement, but we'll workshop that. The king of Italy, Emmanuel himself thought the war was pointless and it really only seemed like Mussolini wanted to show he could take over stuff too. Because if you look at the date, this is right after

Germany had taken over Austria and annexed parts of Czechoslovakia so like Mussolini is the jealous younger brother saying I can do it too this is 100% this is Mussolini's entire life until he's murdered like yeah

that's what an asshole this led to obviously by 1940 italy officially entered world war ii um and this was not actually to bolster their bro and fascism because it's important to point out that while we rightfully consider italy the junior partner in this alliance mussolini did not uh but mussolini knew it was his best way to expand to all of the places that he wanted to expand to because he was fighting with Germany and Germany was much better at war than Italy was and knew that they would handle most of the fighting like you know the battle of France is a thing Italy ends up in that one too and in a in an episode that most people just either weren't taught about because it's

hardly a thing. We're a real empire. We're a real empire. That's that, that if, if, uh, if Italy had a t-shirt,

that's what it would say. Now entering the war on any side was strongly argued against by every military leader within the Italian military at the time. Oh, that's crazy. military at the time. Oh, that's crazy. To include the King. The King is like, yo,

what are we doing here? I have enough titles, please. No more. It's unpronounceable as it is. A field Marshall Petro, but dog Leo told Mussolini that the Italian military was completely unprepared.

Divisions were not up to strength. Troops leftops lacked simple things like boots and rifles, and training had been lackluster. There hadn't been anything over a battalion-sized training exercise in like three years. Out of the entire military's arsenal of

7,970 artillery pieces, less than 250 were modern. That's not a great ratio. You want to guess where the rest of those guns came from? I don't know. Jesus Christ.

Wars in Europe were fought in like 1870. Yeah. It was a weird papal state war. They were all reparations from World War I. That's more modern than I gave them credit for. Now, furthermore, they had very few real tanks,

numbered in about the dozens. Now, these were all garbage tanks with horrible mechanical problems, and there's so few of them, they're not even really worth commenting. Are these Italian designed? Yes. Which immediately makes them bad the italians have never

once made a good tank and they're and they've continued to not make good tanks at the imperial war museum in london there's a an italian manned torpedo that is like i hate to say it's pretty but you know how weapons can be pretty right like yeah absolutely yeah you can look at them be like that's a that's a sexy piece of death engineering right there right except that uh the italians build their weapons much like they build their cars which is a beautiful b borderline non-functional now uh most of what they did have was tankettes which is exactly what it sounds like in case nobody has ever pictured one of these google it it's a literally baby tank most of these are manned by one to two men um they do not have any kind of heavy weapons on them uh normally only medium caliber machine guns

cool and their armor is so thin it could be shot through with a hunting rifle all right that sounds like i had an ideal place to start for a war let's do it dude absolutely um now mussolini knew all this this isn't like he was force-fed things by yes men he right when bad dog leo told him all these things he simply told him quote i only need a few thousand dead so i can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought. Oh, that's okay. I mean, I know that fascists are psychopaths, but like Jesus Christ, man. Yeah, he's like, the soldiers need that? Fuck the soldiers. Which is, it's funny because as a former lower enlisted person, we all joke that people actually think this way and rarely do they actually say it out loud.

Grind up the bodies for all I care. Now, most people are aware of the Italian push in Africa, which we will talk about some other time. Completely different theater. It will get its own series. But the real starting line of embarrassment was the Italians in their invasion to southern France across the Alps. their invasion to southern france across the alps oh now if you're thinking what's this italian soldiers throwing themselves in a frozen frozen mountains and dying by the thousands what is this world war one kind of yeah um remix now the french called this war effort a stab in the back to a man who's already fallen now the reason for this is because paris

had already been abandoned and declared an open city on june 9th and was already being occupied by the 14th and italy declared war in france on june 10th the day after paris had been giving away knowing that the war was already over they're like all right time to call it time to clean up shop, baby. The National War effort version of a closing pitcher in baseball. Now, they believed this so thoroughly that they had no offensive plan to invade France other than just calling for a mobilization and then just rolling on vibes. Dick move. Marshall Granzani, the man put in charge of the coming offensive was so sure it would fail that he recorded all of his staff meetings to absolve himself from future guilt.

But by the time that the Italians actually launched their offensive on June 21st, which remember is like a week after Paris itself had been occupied. Most people like assume that the French would just abandon their positions. The war was over, your capital's fallen, why the fuck would you still be fighting? Rhymes. Just to put this in further historical

perspective, the Dunkirk evacuation had already started and ended. The French were on their own, and they knew this. Their government was running for their lives. The Italians had begun giving classes to their soldiers how to act around French girls, assuming that the war was over,

and they were just going to walk through the Alps and take them without a fight. So, uh, that's what they tried to do. They marched right through the Alpine Passes in no kind of battle formation, right into the guns of the French, who may have known that they were beaten, but they did not give a single fuck about that.

Who cares? Party hardy, man. You already know you're going down, you know what I mean? You're just like, alright, well, fuck it. Just because we know we lost doesn't mean we're going to let you walk in and take this shit. Like, the French government lost this battle. The French soldier did not. What are they going to

do? Shoot me? Yeah. Oh, no. Theians were stalled at every single alpine pass despite the fact that they outnumbered the french by tens of thousands in some places italians famously not very good at war those fucking old toys like it's noted that the french uh joked they didn't have to aim they just have to shoot in the general direction of the italians because there were so many of them they couldn't miss um no it's tough that's that's tough not to mention the french were you know how do you lose a war you already won yeah it's it's not even an uno reverse card because the card doesn't

need to be played like just hang out the border until the instrument of surrender is signed and just like jump across like look here we are we conquered france now the majority of italians at the side the majority of italian casualties were not caused by the french because there just were not that many of them most of the lines in the South had been evacuated to fight the Germans. But the weather on the other hand was solidly anti-fascist action because they were invading through the Alps. It did not matter that it was June.

There's blinding snow storms and all sorts of other shit. Thanks nature. Yeah. For instance, of other shit. Thanks, nature. Yeah. For instance, soldiers had such a hard time breathing in the snow filled, hyper cold air

that they put on their gas masks because it helped them, which is just incredible. Not to mention they got lost in the driving snowstorms. They wandered off of cliffs. Good. Eventually, they're able to push through by sheer force of numbers and capture the town of Menton and a few small villages numbering in like eight.

They're all very, very small. Right. And a few days later, an armistice was signed. That's all the Italians captured in their southern French offensive. This cost them a thousand men. Jesus Christ. As well as two thousand more not a good day to be no uh the the french suffered like 60 dead correction 40

how do you lose a war you've already won uh despite winning mousseline and remember winning oh well let's not call it winning. I mean, it's... Being on the winning side. They technically won the best kind of victory. Now, remember, the whole reason that Mussolini got involved is because we simply have to throw a whole bunch of Italians into the wood chipper, at which point we can enter into the negotiation table and plead our case

to claim all of these areas. Hang on. I was a big boy. Sure. He was so embarrassed by what happened that he didn't even bother to demand the various territories that were the reason why he got involved in the first place. He showed up,

but like it was pretty much just like a wallflower at a club. Like the Italians are here. They have nothing to say now during all these glorious italian military victories italian propaganda kept continuously pointing a finger at the greeks charging them with being allies of the french and the british and helping their war effort in some ways and this is where things get kind of complicated because they were they didn't have much of a choice now the greeks wanted british help because they saw italy getting ready to go to war and they knew what that meant but they didn't actually get

it the brits had promised greek security during the italian ethiopian war which had long been over but not beyond that this meant uh during the the meantime the the brits had been pretty much leaving the uh the greeks on their own security wise while fucking with them politically. Like, for instance, backing the restoration of the Greek monarchy and sitting an Anglophile named George II on its throne. This is a man so doomed in his job that he would go into exile on three separate occasions before the throne was abolished once again. Yeah. As well as proceed over a civil war, which would kill a hundred

thousand people. George II, not a good king. No, apparently not. Admittedly, he did do something good, and I do not, in fact, have to hand it to the monarchy, but this is something I kind of do. Without George, there's a very good chance Greece joins the Nazis. Now, because they had their own

fascist leader, their own fascist leader right proto-fascist leader known and known as ianus metaxas now he came to power by cooing himself while he was prime minister uh like he was put into power as prime minister and then took all of the power uh with the support of the king um now, the difference is, is he wasn't that popular. The people of Greece were pretty happy with the king and the military was loyal to the king. So Greece just went with the foreign policy choices of the king because as Metaxas was in charge on paper,

he did not have the power to go against the king. So therefore, they were British allies. So without the king, there's a really good chance metaxas allies themselves with the nazis in some capacity now following this and knowing italy was going to fuck around again metaxas tried to get an alliance with the british to shore up their defenses and he was promptly told to go fuck himself after albania was taking over g, Greece began to see the writing on the wall, realizing that, yeah, we're next again. So they began defensive preparations all across the border.

And kind of confusingly, the new Italian ambassador to Greece was friendly in trying his hardest to mend ties between the two nations during this time. So there was kind of like, we're seeing what Italy's doing, but also the ambassador is like no no we're cool we we have nothing against greece like this has nothing to do with greece you're fine

and now as two-faced politically as this is the ambassador actually had no idea he was completely left in the dark about all of italy's plans um this is because they wanted him to also not look like he was hiding anything and because the country full of just dick moves man and the italian government was incredibly inefficient mostly because of layers of power due to fascism uh something we would see again in the germans um but he was like in the very near future there's war plans going on and while he was just going about his day, smiling, making friends, nobody in Greece had anything bad to say about him. He was actually pretty well liked.

It has nothing to do with anything. I thought it was funny. Now, France fell, obviously, big problem. And Greece caved to more and more British pressure. Because at this point, the war isn't going to be over by Christmas. Britain's in for the long haul. So they began to force Greece into giving them more and more allowances, meaning by British pressure,

the Italian propaganda ended up becoming true. And one of the reasons is that is the British force, the Greeks to give them their entire merchant Marine for British uses in the war effort. Okay. This of course is a massive violation of greek neutrality and kind of makes it open season on their entire navy which of course is what ital was is what the italian air force and navy did um now each time metaxas got mad at this it was

smoothed over by the ambassador who had no idea about the coming war and was pointing out that like well you know the merchant marine is working with the British we're at war with the British and Metaxas really didn't have much of an argument to that because that was true Italy invaded Egypt while Germany pushed into Romania in the eventual preparation

for Operation Barbarossa the final boss of this whole thing now Mussolini is pretty upset about this as Nazi power began to spread Nazi power thing. Now, Mussolini was pretty upset about this. As Nazi power began to spread, Nazi power spread into places where Mussolini claimed for Italy. Like, for instance, the Balkans.

Because remember, he claimed the entirety of the Balkans in the name of his imaginary Roman Empire 2.0. Suck a dweeb. Yeah. Nazi's bad, but suck a dweeb. Yeah, let him fight. now yes mussolini was pretty goddamn mad that at no point of any of this was he enlightened at all to german war plans like

hitler didn't even tell him about barbarossa uh he was not included in any of these plans because he considered mussolini kind of shitty at his job and not to to give Hitler any points here, he was not incorrect. So, Mussolini figured, well, Germany isn't telling me about their war plans. I'm going to start planning war plans and not tell him. So, he planned the invasion of Greece. See how he likes it.

That's exactly what it was. It was like, well, it's not a me, it's a you thing, I guess. He wanted to invade Greece to own Hitler. Not that Hitler had any designs over Greece yet, but it was more like, okay, well, you can take over all this shit without telling me. I can take over this shit without telling you. He figured he could do this without telling Hitler

and then proved to Hitler that this German-Italian alliance was one of equals and not one of just Germany and a literal ball of chain in the shape of a boot. We're not a client state. We're not a client state. That's really what it was, is them treading above water trying to show them they can hang with their big

brother or whatever. And remember, Mussolini was in charge first, and Hitler looked up to him for some time. And that power dynamic began to change rapidly, and Mussolini was in charge first, and Hitler looked up to him for some time. And that power dynamic began to change rapidly. And Mussolini was like, oh, no, I'm losing my fascist street cred or whatever, because I keep getting owned whenever I go to war. I'm not owned. I'm not owned. Another person surprised by Mussolini's plans was his own commander, Badaglio.

Once again, the Italian military was not ready, and by Badaglio's estimation, it would take another three months to fix with full German support and make them ready for war. They didn't have enough soldiers for the war either, as Mussolini had a tendency of mobilizing the reserve to help with harvests,

which he had just done with over a half a million italian soldiers christ now this could this is was a very normal thing for some places to do when they had a labor shortage and also because they didn't feel like paying people a lot uh and they could just use conscripts for that but it also took away you know a solid half million soldiers for any possible future war effort for about a month month or two now knowing all of this and knowing that none of it would bother if he complained but dog leo didn't even bother bringing it up at this point instead he silently hoped that the king the only person that could legally

tell muslim no at this point would stop the war but he didn't because the king thought it'd be pretty fucking cool if he was also king of greece god damn it dude victor emmanuel you son of a bitch yep at which point musolini gave badoglio 16 full days to plan a full-scale invasion of greece at this point badoglio ran around uh to various units in the in the italian military trying desperately to find a reason to postpone the invasion this included telling like uh people in logistics to like purposely slow down supply trains to buy him more time which failed because mostly didn't give a shit about any of that he didn't care if his uh supplies were all failing miserably he's like don't them. I don't give a shit.

Now, this did buy a couple more days for the invasion, but it does not matter. Now, this war is figured to be such a cakewalk that during a meeting of the Grand Council of Fascism, yes, that is actually what it was called. Jesus Christ. It's like

what is the opposite of the Justice League? The Legion of Doom. That's what I said. The Grand Council of Fascism. Oh, okay. I thought you were seriously asking. Now, Mussolini and his generals believed that the Greek people would not bother defending the government, which was pretty unpopular.

And that part was true. People did not like Metaxas that much. government which was pretty unpopular and that part was true people did not like metaxas that much they didn't think that the british would bother helping the greeks because you know they had a lot of shit going on and uh like nobody mentioned really that uh any kind of invasion of greece would be over incredibly rough terrain where there was very very very few roads all of those roads happen to be dirt and you know it was the fall so it was gonna rain a lot thank god the italians are famously good at evading stuff yep uh nobody cared to mention all that uh in case anybody's gonna keep a scoreboard that's a solid oh and three uh now there's a there's a bit of unification within Greek society already from the

pressure that the Italians are putting on, especially bombing the Greek Navy, because these ships are manned by Greeks. So that's slowly bringing people closer to Metaxas, who didn't really have their favor yet. And that's when we fully enter on the

grand unifying theory of fuck that guy, where people rallied around Metaxas because the Italians invaded. They literally shot themselves in the foot. There's also another... Standing work. There's another fun side story here. Mussolini reportedly sent aside tens of millions of lira to bribe various Greek politicians and generals to open up the road to Athens. Effectively just buying people off, thinking that they're disloyal.

They're very easy to purchase. Fashion-wise, yeah. Yeah. Now, all this is given to Italian agents and spies to spread around before the invasion. And then... They just keep the money. And then it all vanished. Nobody knows what happened to it.

What's for certain is nobody turned, not until after the occupation. There was no divisions of Greek soldiers that turned around and started marching towards Athens or threw their weapons down in Moss or anything like that. The collaborationists, like most collaborationists, occurred after the Greek already,

the Greeks already lost. Um, so fucking funny. Yeah. Like just Millie, like bribery, right? Right.

Now, after Bedoglio told him repeatedly that, uh, Mussolini should tell Hitler about these plans, you know, just in case, maybe, um, Mussolini repeatedly told him to fuck off, you know, just in case, maybe.

Mussolini repeatedly told him to fuck off. And then he caved. He wrote a letter to Hitler that said, quote, Sorry, Daddy. I'm sorry. Now, the attitude of these letters would rapidly change over the next couple of weeks. This is his first letter. Quote, In regards to Greece, I am resolved to put an end to it without delay and very soon greece is to be the mediterranean as to norway is to the north sea and it must not escape the

same fate now obviously nazi germany famously invaded norway so like this is saying without saying we're gonna invade greece but it didn't say we are going to invade greece and hitler operating under like i really hate to give this much credit to hitler and everybody can be mad invade Greece. But it didn't say we are going to invade Greece. And Hitler, operating under like... I really hate to give this much credit to Hitler, and everybody can be mad at me for it. It's fine. But Hitler figured he was talking to a rational ally and realized

that invading Greece right now would be a very bad idea. Because at this point, Mussolini was aware of Barbarossa. Italian units would take part in Bar barbarossa to a limited extent so is hitler figuring all right going to be greece i need the manpower for barbarossa no he's thinking it anybody with two fucking brain cells to rub together would know that getting involved in another front would be a very stupid idea right now because of all the

massive amount of manpower material being deferred to Barbarossa right right right that's yeah so like he's like you know he's probably not going to Greece that'd be fucking stupid okay no I got all right cool roll tide and eventually Hitler was let in on

the plan not because Mussolini told him but because that his minister of the Italian minister of foreign affairs, Galezzo Siano, let the entire war plan slip during a game of golf with the German ambassador while in Rome. Because apparently the

foreign minister just really sucks at his job and just lets top secret shit slip left and right. But of course, the German ambassador ran back and told hitler like uh hey guy now hitler found out he absolutely lost his fucking shit reportedly like stomping around his office screaming and cursing for like hours then he jumped on a train and immediately rushed to italy to talk to Mussolini about it.

And mostly, and by talk to him, he was like, don't fucking do it. Now, meanwhile, in Greece, the ambassador is forced to go knock on the door of the Greek dictator Metaxas and hand him an ultimatum that had just shown up at his office, completely unaware of what was happening in Rome. Now, this ultimatum pretty much boiled down to give up Greek sovereignty and accept total occupation or go to war. This is somewhat even funnier because the two of these guys were just having drinks the night before.

My taxes famously answer with, quote, I cannot make a decision to sell my house on a few hours notice. How do you expect me to sell my country no get the fuck out will they celebrate the day he says no too i don't know that much about greece i'm sorry uh i'll say metaxas is a uh complicated character in greek history oh they all are um yeah uh he's not exactly championed but he is also he gets a little bit of uh uh grass is always greener treatment because the person that takes over after him was really bad uh and then of course the occupation occurred and there's literal nazis in charge but

we'll get there now not too long after that a three-pronged italian invasion was launched with 162 000 men now that isn't that many. This is less than half of the number that Badaglio thought that they would actually need to actually prosecute this war. And since the takeover of Albania, Italy had been kind of using Albania as a mine rather than like a puppet. And by a mine means they were extracting people to conscript into the Italian military like a huge amount of the Italian invasion force was Albanian conscripts and if

you're thinking they got any training before they shipped out you must be new to the show hello welcome they did not even have a fire gun come on man the these old poor Albanian conscripts who you, do not speak Italian 90% of the time, were reinforced by reservists who were too old for regular service because Mussolini refused to cancel his harvest mobilization. So the only people available were retired Italians and 17-year-old Albanians. It's like you don't even want to win a fucking war now caught up in the

war boner of a nation the Italian foreign minister Siano jumped in a bomber aircraft to fly missions himself wanting some of that sweet sweet war glory now he flew precisely one mission nearly got blown out of the sky and immediately

ran back to rome where he was hailed as a hero never flew another mission again oh he didn't try again i guess there's something he said for learning for your mistakes i don't know i wish he would have tried again and then he didn't have to worry about landing yeah me too joe i hope this bomber mission takes you directly to the scene of the crash please listen to our nazi rocket melting episode our highest rated show actually you're welcome uh as the italians marched into greece they got bitch smacked by weather once again just like they were warned about wow it's crazy how that works endless blinding pounding icy rain flooded even the smallest brook into

raging walls of water and a few dirt roads that cross the invasion route were turned to useless tracks and morasses of mud that none of the vehicles could get through and this is normally we're like even back then uh military's like well we have pack animals pack animals will uh we'll be able to get through this mud because at the time they're more reliable than a lot of the vehicles that these nations have for military use. But they didn't have enough pack animals either because the Italians didn't think they would need them. And they were also diverted for harvest purposes. Wow. What a great country for planning.

Further, the Italian supply system, which hardly functioned in peacetime, completely disintegrated. That's a contradiction right there. Right. Now, the reason for this is actually kind of hilarious and great when it comes to fascist aesthetics. Now, the main shipping route for this invasion would be through Durazzo, Albania, which is the closest nearby. So, since the invasion of Albania, Italy had been rapidly attempting to make it look like the Las Vegas

version of Rome by slapping a whole bunch of cheap, shittily built marble structures up. So the port had been completely clogged with Italian ships loaded down with marble, leaving no room for war supplies jesus christ fucking morons we may have not had bullets for our soldiers but we told we turned tarana into

the fucking strip you guys look this one has a water slide in it now what do you mean where are we gonna get our food who needs food we have the bellagio keep up now uh at one point they did like jenga the ships around and got 30 000 tons of supplies offloaded onto the port small problem like we already talked about there's no pack animals there's no vehicles they just sat there sitting there yeah all of the food rotted and the ammunition set out in the sun. Nobody fucking off. What a shame. Now, a funny story about a port full of ships in a time of war.

That's what we call a target rich environment, Liam. And this is where the mostly destroyed Greek Navy sailed out for probably the funniest battle of all time. The Greek Navy, which remember, had been mostly taken over by the British. A lot of their ships are already being sunk before the war even started. So they relied on

their ace in the hole, we'll call them, which was a submarine fleet of four ships from World War One. Ah, yes, the proud fight and suck it, dweebs. these rickety shit buckets of natal warfare limped their way into the port and immediately destroyed 27 000 tons of italian supplies in a single week

those fucking that's fucking funny like it's literally shooting fish in a barrel but it's an italian guy in a boat in a port now as things began to look really bad for the italians they got worse because now the italians for some reason figured through all their brilliant intelligence gathering operations that the greeks would be able to muster only around 30 000 men i don't know why they thought that there's no evidence that this is even remotely accurate uh because instead greece is able to muster 230 000 which which is double the invading force that's's a lot of dudes. Now, to be completely clear, they're about as battle-ready as the Italian conscripts, the Albanian conscripts.

They were very, very raw. They had terrible equipment, and that's terrible equipment compared to the Italians. Oh, that's tough. But this is the mental game involved. They were fighting on their own turf, and it's noted they had a fanatical morale like for instance

CL Salzberger of the New York Times who was on scene noted quote rickety trucks bounce to the front over impossible roads bearing Hellenic fishermen and farmers they rode to their death and glory with garlands over their ears and rifle muzzles stuffed with flowers

shouting, On to Rome! Antiquated mountain artillery was trundled around ridgecombs shelled with fascists in the valley. Greek Army infantry guard patrols attacked with their knives in their teeth, biting the scared Italian infantrymen. I visited a forward prisoner's cage

that included dozens of frightened fascists with tooth wounds in their shabbily bandaged necks. They were literally fighting the Italians tooth and nail. And that is like the morale aspect of war, which is more important than people think it is. But also like the practical side of this, which they were fighting in Greece, their supply lines were much shorter. Yeah, they were like two blocks that way yeah and because of the shit state of the italian artillery even though the greeks were using pretty bad artillery themselves it gave them an advantage now in the italian's deepest penetration to greece the third julia alpini division

make your jokes advanced 25 miles in five days into the Metzivon Pass in the Pindus Mountains. Now, once inside the pass, they were trapped in an ambush that lay waiting for them because you see the Greeks knew there's only one way through these mountains and they have to take it. We have it. Hi, guys. So they simply waited high up in the mountains for the third to walk right on through where they were surrounded by a Greek force that outnumbered them by around 10,000 for weeks. Fuck. The Greek encirclement was complete. And once the encirclement was complete, all the men, women and children from outlying villages that were not in the battle formations began to ferry them up supplies and human chains, and occasionally they picked up a weapon themselves to take a shot at the fascists.

God bless them, man. My son Theodorus also shot at the Italians. By the time that the Italians were able to break through and out of the Greek trap, they had left one fifth of their entire invasion force dead on the mountains and countless others bitten. Why do we all have bite wounds? Can you imagine the indignity? I mean, I understand like all war is indignant, but losing

to a guy who bit you and then slashed your jugular. Alexandros, did you bring a gun? Don't need one. Got my teeth. That adds weight, baby. Little known fact about the Greek health system. Great dental plan. On the morning of November 14th, an international group of war correspondents

was nearing the front lines when suddenly an Italian soldier ran past. Quote, they're crazy. It's just a Greek guy hanging off the end of his arm. quote, they're crazy! Right after he got bitten. It's just a Greek guy hanging off the end of his arm. What's up, I'm Stavros. Nice to meet you. If you know what I mean.

An Italian reporter said, quote, they say the Greeks are coming. Within the first week of the war, the Italians were already losing. Yeah, that sounds like Italy. By mid-November, Greek General Alexandros Papagos, strong Greek name, began to plan something. Now, Papagos is a guy that has an interesting history himself, and he had actually already been fired for an embarrassing Greek military defeat at the hands of the Turks in the 1920s but was eventually brought back in by the

king when things began to get kind of fashy Alexandros rides again when Greek when Greece had to lean heavily towards the Metaxas sides of things Papagos was known to be a monarchist so like

you know he's politically he's on our side he got uh brought back into the fold and by world war two he was the greek commander-in-chief second only to the king himself and soldiers were incredibly loyal to him which is always good like i know like having strongmen bad actually i get it but soldiers will do incredible things for people that they're loyal to i i will say anyone who's willing to charge into battle and just start biting dudes is a rifle you know that's wait i feel like that's that's all you need i could i could capture rome with like a hundred dudes who are willing to bite their way there and it's like uh later on the the brit get involved and they note that like they would rather have 50 greeks and a thousand

italians on their side yeah that sounds about right now with the italians on their heels and rapidly running out of supplies papa ghost knew that it was time to punish them and launched a counter-offensive uh because you know this is when you launch a counter-offensive is immediately after the initial offensive fails before they can dig back in and rebuild. Operation cannot possibly fail a second time. Yeah, the limited forward Italian positions crumbled immediately upon the Greek counteroffensive and their withdrawal pretty much lost all kind of semblance of control and turned to a confused route as all order and discipline broke down and Italian simply ran back towards Albania in a dead sprint. Now I am shocked and amazed that that would happen.

Uh, it's an, there's an interesting Italian captain named for, uh, Fernando Campione, uh, who wrote extensively during this time. And this is like the most,

uh, the, the most like the most, uh, the, the most Italian, um, uh, perspective of the war that I could find. And he, this is of the confusion of,

of the retreat, uh, that he described quote, another infantryman is lying on the road. His hands are contracted. A shell splinter tore through the right side of his stomach where the clotted blood has formed a huge, dark, filthy stain on his

jacket another soldier whose man just ground some alcohol swaying and staggering in his drunkenness carrying his in his arms stolen tuna fish weighing several kilograms so there's just like death with destruction and complete chaos everywhere as the Italian military

in Greece rapidly crumbles now the italian supply situation was so bad in its ports now they decided that they'd have to rely on air support uh and airdrop in supplies to the italian military now the uh the italian air force is not good yeah and uh they immediately missed these supply drops and just fired crates full of supplies directly at the Greeks out of the line. Oh, thanks, guys. And the Greeks are badly in need of supplies, too. So they're like, oh, fuck yeah, bullets.

Whoa. Because there's like firsthand accounts during the counteroffensive even when they're winning winning, Greek soldiers have seven bullets between them. They're like, no suppressive fire. Make that shit count, homie. Why do they even have bullets? More knives, more bite wounds. The only thing they're handing out is mouthguards. They're like, all right, Alexandros.

Now remember what we talked about. Go for the neck, buddy. Now the Greek forces like almost triple the size of the invading italians not only pushed the enemy completely out of greece they kept going and invaded albania oh all right yeah sure why not meanwhile the albanians were probably like cheering for the the italians to lose like oh shit the gree Greeks are coming in now. Get the fuck off our lawn. Spoils of war. Just to let you know how this is going for the Italians.

These are the journal entries for the foreign minister during the offensive. And it's kind of funny in how downplayed they are. December 7th. News from Greece confirms the reports that the situation is serious. December 17th. Again, a bad withdrawal in Albania. December 19th, the Siena division was broken to pieces. December 27th, the usual story in Albania, and this

displeases Il Duce. January 11th, 1941, we are not getting very good news. Is that what's on snacks? My favorite part is this displeases Il Duce. Oh, it's on snacks. My favorite part is this displeases the Duce. Um, now by the time the Greek offensive stopped,

uh, which pretty much only stopped because they, they just ran out of bullets. Uh, they had driven, they had driven the Italians back 50 miles and punched 30 miles into Albania. Italian soldiers tossed down their weapons and surrendered

rather than fight by the tens of thousands. An elderly Greek woman watching as 26,000 Italian prisoners of war walked by said, quote, I feel sorry for them. They're not warriors. They should carry mandolins instead of rifles. Oh, and then she

sank her teeth into the column. Fucking burn. You know, Grandma Alexandros. Fucking. Always up for a fight. Grandma with a diss track on the Italian POWs. Now, meanwhile, in old Italia, Mussolini was having none of this shit. He was losing it, screaming screaming and yelling blaming everyone but himself

he fired visconti proska the man who was in charge of the the offensive under the uh the uh bad dog leo and he fired his replacement immediately afterwards because he found out that instead of commanding the defense of albania he was composing music soundtracks for films do we know if they were bangers? I'm gonna assume that they were fine I don't know I ask the important questions on this show he actually wrote WAP honestly

Straight Fire? yeah, Wet Ass Proska Wet Ass Prisoners of War featuring an audio clip that's just more bites just the sound of greek teeth matching um now but doglio pointed out that remember when i told you all this would happen uh you remember how you didn't listen to me uh so of course mussolini never taking blame upon himself for anything uh turned the Italian press against Badaglio

until Badaglio finally resigned, which like, good. I'm glad he finally got out of there. Now you don't have to deal with this shit anymore. Now at this point, Mussolini in his office and only to his aid, broke down into a fat, sobbing, good old cry. Good.

Hang yourself next. Saying that he needed to call Hitler and hope that he could mediate a truce. Go running back to Daddy Hitler. Now, at this point, Mussolini wasn't looking for military assistance. He figured that Germany would be able to mediate a ceasefire before the Greeks

took over all of Albania. Oh my God. He said, quote, there is nothing more to be done. It is ridiculous and grotesque, but it is the way it is. It do be like that.

Sometimes. Seattle talked him out of the idea. However, writing bitterly quote, I would rather put a bullet in my head than telephone ribbon drop the nazi foreign minister understandable i would also not want to talk on the phone to the nazi foreign minister by december muesli broke down again telling his ambassador germany to call hitler for military help but it turned out none of this actually mattered hitler knowing muslims a fucking idiot

had ordered the invasion of greece a whole month before independent of any italian um like negotiation or knowledge and uh this they were ready to go before the italian military is ready to admit that they needed help well all this is going on the the Italian soldiers are forced to dig into the Albanian mountains and hills as winter fell on them and temperatures dropped to below 20. Unpleasant. Our friend Captain Fernando wrote of the grim conditions, quote, This shit sucks all caps.

I am fucking cold. Quote, The major in command drags himself with his feet, affected by the beginning of frostbite. His serious and maced livid face betrays the tragedy of the days and nights have passed in the cold and snow. He said that 40 men are frozen to death daily.

Good. Don't be a fascist. Yeah. You want to freeze to death in the mountains? Don't invade Greece. Stay on your own side, dickheads. When warned that his soldiers were freezing to death, Mussolini said something that is honestly so fucked up. Wow, Mussolini said that?

I get it. Yeah, I know. But this is so fucked up, it's even fucked up for something that a fascist dictator would say about his own soldiers. He said, quote, The snow and cold are very good it it is in our way it is in a way our good for nothing men and this mediocre race will improve uh it sounds like something an ncaa football coach would say kind of yeah like you like how

he makes cowards of us all right before your 19 year old sophomore dies at Maryland. Yeah. And like it's like I said, it's very rare that as like a lower enlisted person former lowerly enlisted person that you hear someone say things that you assume that they believe but never would never say out loud. Right. Even for Mussolini, that's grim and I don't say that often like

even Hitler didn't say this about the Germans like towards the end of the war in his bunker. He blamed like the inferiority of the Germans for not wanting to win and this, that, and the other thing. But normally it wasn't like, the German soldiers are freezing, my Fuhrer. It's like, yeah, fuck them. I don't give a shit. Let them play in the dark. Yeah.

But the military successes of the Greeks didn't mean that they were any better off. Greek soldiers were subsisting in a near starvation diet of literally a handful of bread and olives per day. An American correspondent noted their uniforms seemed two sizes too big for them because they were

just starving and losing all of their weight. Greek amputations from frostbite reached a horrifying 11,000. Ammunition was beginning to run low as british had to find the right ammunition because the greeks used like an amalgamation of british weapons french weapons uh captured italian weapons they could get their hands on yeah yeah and like the british had to run and find like five different kinds of ammunition and ship it across the aegean and then move it across.

To get sunk and so on and so forth. Right. Right. Make it through an active war zone and then move it up. Hardly existing roads, which remember were flooded and then like collapsed and all sorts of other things. And they would use mules and also just hand carried strapped on the peasants

backs. So like there's the Greek supply line is not doing great. Now, the Greeks suffered another mortal blow here when the leader of their nation, Metaxas, suddenly died of tonsillitis after an operation

on January 29, 1941. Now, Metaxas had nothing nice to say about his politics or even who he was as a person, for that matter. But he was a unifying force for the Greek military,

even more so than the king at this point. Yeah, I mean, fascist bad, strongman bad, and I'm not going to say hand it to him, but the Greeks literally chased the italians out of their country with uh with with teeth wounds so like right that's fairly impressive and there's something to be said about you know the a unifying force in a time of war i mean we've

been talking about that in almost every series we've talked about and like it's it's important to see the contrast the guy who will take over next and his successor alexander koi ritz um was the head of the national bank of greece he had no political experience whatsoever um and he was appointed uh which they're like i understand that in emergency times people have to take over what they have to take over. But in the middle of a war is not a great time for on-the-job training for a politician. But attacks is dying actually had another pretty big impact on the war. During all of this time, noted bastard and fan of the show, Winston Churchill, wanted to supply Greece with not only weapons, but thousands of British soldiers. For obvious reasons.

Greece falling is bad, but if Greece wins and keeps the Italians at bay, we have a Southern theater of war that's now open against the Germans. Right. Right. But Metaxas really didn't want British soldiers on Greek soil. He's like, no,

this is a Greek war. We'll fight it. But Metaxas is dead now also give us our navy back please yeah also like give us our fucking navy back i i do not blame greece for wanting to keep british people away um famously yeah now at this point uh koryritz who is kind of a figurehead he has no we'll talk about him more next episode but he's very he's in power for a very very small amount of time we'll talk about it um and he the government's pretty much taken over by the king uh because he's he's shown to be completely

incompetent and weak at his job and the king and other politicians in greece is like no no we we need british soldiers at this point because British soldiers come in, they bring British supply lines, right? This could only benefit Greece at this point. And arguing about it or not, eventually 58,000 Commonwealth troops landed

under the command of Henry Maitland Wilson, a man so large he was nicknamed Jumbo, the same nickname as LBJ's dick. Do we not have an LBJ clip? We do not have an LBJ clip, no. Joe! Ask me about my pecker, Joe.

As the winter began to turn to spring. Don't ask me about my pecker. The war was about to start, this time with the British and German help. Great. And that is where we'll pick up next time. And unfortunately

this is like as happy as the story gets as this episode. We know how this one ends, unfortunately. We always do, buddy. Anyway, that's part one. Liam, thank you for joining me as always. You're welcome. liam thank you for joining me uh as always uh we're welcome everybody uh

thank you for listening to the show listen to liam's podcast well there's your problem and 10 000 losses thank you joe you gotta come on that i will uh whenever you talk about my miserable sports teams and uh until next time don't uh if fascists wander into your yard bite out their