M4- Impact of the Second World War 1940-43 (econ+weakness)

Question 1

what were the four main problems with Italy’s involvement in WW2?

Answer 1

military unpreparedness
inadequate leadership
economic weakness
military defeats

Question 2

what were the issues with the Italian Army?

Answer 2

numbers
arms
morale
tactics

Question 3

how many troops had Mussolini claimed he had at the start of the war?

Answer 3

8 million

Question 4

how many troops did Mussolini actually have?

Answer 4

800,000

the Battle for Births had failed to provide him with a large army

Question 5

how many Italian Army divisions were there at the start of the war?

Answer 5

75

Question 6

how many of these divisions were adequately armed

Answer 6

35

Question 7

what weapons were the Italian troops armed with?

Answer 7

WW1 era rifles and artillery which were ineffective against the American and British weaponry

Question 8

how many tanks were there in the Italian Army?

Answer 8

1500 armoured cars and light tanks

WW2 was supposed to be a mechanised war and so Italy was massively unprepared for this

Question 9

what were the reasons for low morale in the Army?

Answer 9

again peasant conscripts did not understand why they were fighting so far from home

language barriers also played an issue with the peasant conscripts unable to understand orders from officers

Question 10

what showed that Italian troop morale was so low?

Answer 10

100,000 Italians were taken prisoner in Africa

Question 11

what was wrong with Italian tactics?

Answer 11

MASSIVELY OUTDATED

they were still doing charges against enemy positions

was suicidal in WW2

Question 12

how much of Italy’s national income was spent on rearming from 1935-38?

Answer 12

11.8%

Question 13

how much of Germany’s national income was spent on rearming from 1935-38?

Answer 13

6.9%

so Italy was investing more in their armed forces than Germany was

Question 14

what were the issues with the Italian Air Force?

Answer 14

number of fighter aircraft
the quality of fighter aircraft
lack of long-range bombers

Question 15

how many effective aircraft did the Italian Air Force have?

Answer 15

1000

Question 16

what was the main Italian fighter aircraft?

Answer 16

the Fiat CR42 biplane

was too slow and under-armed

many were grounded due to reliability

was massively inferior to the British Spitfire

Question 17

what reliability issues did the CR42 face?

Answer 17

it had no protection to sand so could not provide support for Italian troops in Africa

Question 18

did Italy have any long-range bombers?

Answer 18

NO

therefore could not attack the strongly held British positions in Egypt and Gibraltar

Question 19

what were the issues with the Italian Navy?

Answer 19

had no radar equipment
little oil
no aircraft carriers

Question 20

why was the leadership in the Italian armed forces so poor?

Answer 20

were too obsessed with the defensive traditions of WW1

they were also suspicious over the use of armoured warfare and air support (completely different to German generals who adopted Blitzkrieg)

Question 21

what were the issues with leadership in the Italian navy?

Answer 21

admirals were too reluctant to send Italian battleships to fight against the much superior British Mediterranean fleet

Question 22

why was Mussolini at fault for the poor leadership in the Italian armed forces?

Answer 22

he made all strategic decisions as he made himself Minister for War and Supreme Commander of the Armed forces

he promoted officers based on loyalty not merit and experience

he was disinterested with war and found it boring, gave very vague orders to generals

Question 23

by 1942 how many aircraft were the USA producing in comparison with Italy?

Answer 23

more in a week than Italy could in a year

Question 24

what were the main resources Italy lacked?

Answer 24

fuel
raw materials

Question 25

how much oil did Italy import from Romania?

Answer 25

1.5 million tonnes

still nowhere near enough to fuel military

Question 26

which country did Italy rely on for coal?

Answer 26

Germany

Question 27

how many tonnes of coal did Italy import from Germany a week?

Answer 27

one million tonnes

Germans did not want to give too much of their supply to Italy as they needed coal for their own military

Question 28

what was the impact of lack of coal?

Answer 28

steel production fell by 20%

dropped to 1.7 million tonnes a year

rubbish compared to Britain’s 14 million tonnes a year

Question 29

how many vehicles were Fiat and Spa producing in 1938?

Answer 29

5000 a month

Question 30

how many vehicles were Fiat and Spa producing in 1941?

Answer 30

§2500 a month

Question 31

why did Italian factories struggle?

Answer 31

they lacked the raw materials :
- oil
- steel
- iron
- rubber
- aluminium

meant that wartime production was limited

Question 32

what was the unemployment like in wartime Italy?

Answer 32

thousands of Italians remained unemployed despite the wartime economy in place

major contrast to the other European countries where unemployment had been pretty much eradicated

Question 33

what had caused major disruption to the Italian wartime economy?

Answer 33

allied bombing of Italian factories

Question 34

how many calories were adults permitted with wartime rationing?

Answer 34

around 1000 calories a day