Why are Italians shit at fighting? Didn't Napoleon use them in his wars? What happened?
>>300411
But Napoleon was Italian
Italy used all of its warrior points during roman era
>>300461
>Italians
>Roman
>>300464
Romans are quite Roman t.b.h f.am.
>>300411
Lombards.
>>300411
Depending on your definition of "italian", they weren't. Pre-unitarian states routinely held back or even btfo far stronger opponents (lombard league vs hre, Venice vs turks, Venice vs Cambrai league, etc.). The kingdom of Italy was utter shit, but the problems were more related to a severely lagging back economy compared to their opponents and a Habsburg tier level of national disunity. And even then, plenty of italian units distiguishing themselves, like the Arditi, Alpini, Bersaglieri, etc.
>>300464
Romans were Italic peoples.
>>300411
A professor in my uni pointed out that Italian army tended to assume an "honourable death" cult.
It was the spirit of sacrifice of the troops that made their courage and leaders tended to look out for such a scenario.
For example: our military finds its ideological roots in the battle of Al Alamein, which was a complete disaster.
I blame catholicism
>>300657
>A professor in my uni pointed out that Italian army tended to assume an "honourable death" cult.
It's not the first time I hear this, but it sounds so much bullshit to me. There's plenty of logistical, technological, political, even lignuistic issues to consider before going down this road.
>>30067
I know, but do you really want to hear again about inadeguate industries, bad logistic etc? It's all well known!
The concept of being bad at war is nonsense to me
>>300718
>It's all well known!
Top kek, no it isn't. Also yes I want to talk about that. I love me some economic history. Also it would be nice to have a discussion about the actual linguistic issues in the italian military, all the stories of officers from one region being totally unable to communicate with conscripts from a different region are hilarious.
>>300411
Italians are a bit two individualistic
this means they can make great works and also be efficient in small groups (like organized crime syndicates), but it also means large-scale organizations fuggetaboutit.
>>301129
That's a misconception, pre-unitarian states worked perfectly well. The issue is that in the century of the italian kingdom (in which all the stereotypical italian shit at war stories happen), italianity was more fiction than fact. Even nowadays italians are fierce localists, imagine before a century and a half of remarkably oppressive italianization policies.
>>301164
some pre-unitarian states yeah
but then you got guys like the Florentines
