The First Year of Renaissance
Part 9: Conclusion
And thus the year 1936 quietly drew to a close for Italy. Little of note occurred in December; no technology was improved, there was no change in Abyssinia, there were no new trade deals nor any new procurements. December was spent just waiting for the new year. It is necessary now to link all the activities and events of the year back to Mussolini’s strategic ideas in a more thorough and holistic way that has been done so far. This is important as it is a transition year; the physical legacies of the old school of thought remained in varying strength, but the ideas of the new strategy began being pushed to the fore with ever increasing strength and confidence even though their physical manifestations were to take a long time yet to materialize.
Abyssinia
Abyssinia was, of course, the most blatant of the legacies of the old school. It was a war that began under Mussolini the showman, the propagandist, rather than Mussolini the calculating strategist. From a hopeful beginning it quickly bogged down into a static frontline and then descended a slope of humiliation as the Abyssinians invaded Somalia and inflicted a sharp defeat on Bennati’s corps, of which only half was saved to fight again another day. Given Mussolini’s ambitions, the performance of the army against a minor African army was most dissatisfying. The faults apparent in this African adventure, however, went deeper than just the army.
The army was not aggressive enough in its operations, of course. This was not due to the performance and doctrine of the soldiers, however, as much as the generals in charge. A quick study reveals that the divisional commanders were universally competent; names such as Tellera, Nicolosi and Giorgis became synonymous with either victories or, in Giorgis’ case, dependency even in the face of incoming defeat. The great fault line of the Italian officer corps in Abyssinia lay at the level of the corps commanders. These were unremarkable men for the most part, neither good nor bad, but among there number were those who were truly incompetent. Moizo demanded an army’s worth of regiments for just his corps; Bennati lost Somalia without lifting a finger to stop it. At the level of army command, Grazioli was competent enough operationally but could not handle his obstinately craven subordinates, whose failures were the root of the campaign’s stalling.
To dig deeper, one will find that the logistical situation was not sufficient. Grazioli’s army in Eritrea consisted of a total of fifty-four regiments including headquarters units, but the port at Ed has a supply throughput sufficient only for a third of that number. This limit was in spite of the skills of Grazioli and many of his subordinates, who were trained logisticians and nearly wizards at the job.
Finally, the greatest mistake was to be there in the first place. Abyssinia had no value. It held little in the way of strategic resources, and was insignificant geostrategically. There was nothing to gain from Abyssinia save combat experience. By this point, however, a retreat was impossible due to the incredible blow such a move would be for both international prestige and the morale of the armed forces, the Regio Esercito in particular. Abyssinia had to be conquered, but then it would simply be abandoned.
The Old Navy Versus the New Navy
The other major strategic issue of the first year was the structure and role of the navy. This was, overall, a more contentious issue than Abyssinia as not only had some flag officers staked their reputations on the success of the old navy but could not accept that the concepts behind the new navy were workable, both for reasons of prestige and strategy. The old guard followed Mahanian theory slavishly, in the vein of the Royal Navy during the First World War. Navies were there to fight big, decisive, mid-ocean battles which would decide who commanded the sea. All the fruits of this command would then fall into the laps of the victors without any further work. Having a wider view of war than did the admirals, Mussolini could not agree with this.
He believed that the era of big warships was waning. Furthermore, the era of big naval battles was passing its zenith. Naval battle would obviously still occur, but no fleet was going to risk its entirety in one battle; naval warfare was to become a campaign like those on land. Naval warfare would cease to be about fighting for and at arbitrary points of sea but would take place in direct relation to operations on land. Fighting on land would define where the battle on the seas will take place, and for what purpose.
Also like those on land, it would be influenced drastically, and even more dramatically than land warfare, by the advent of air power. Given the skyrocketing costs of naval vessels, navies were quickly becoming concentrated into less and less more and more powerful warships. The loss of a single one—due to a stick of explosives from a relatively cheap bomber—would be a major blow to any fleet. Navies required organic air power to counter this threat and indeed to project such a threat onto the hostile fleet, thus making battleships somewhat obsolescent except in exceptional and perhaps unfortunate cases.
Thus the Italian navy began its ponderous shift toward aircraft carriers.
Conclusion
The implications of the deepest lessons of Abyssinia fuse with the direction of the new navy to create a maritime strategy that was intimately linked with geography and all its political and strategic implications. The army was only to be dedicated to fight for regions of sufficient geostrategic value. The navy was only to be dedicated to fight to allow the army to do its job. The air force was to support the other two branches in their endeavors as much as possible, in whichever way it deems best.
In theory it seemed an attractive system. It had yet to be put into practice, however.
