>>65163577
does Italy ever have a clue what its goals are in war?

they seem to change sides a lot.

Hitler was ranting in Mein Kampf about how German side was fucked from the get go because of what Hapsburgs did to Italians, but he didn't really explain, just blamed Hapsburgs, along with of course The Jews, for German's loss.

>>65164147
>does Italy ever have a clue what its goals are in war?
WWI:
Complete the process of national unification started the previous century by annexing the remaining territories with a majority ethnically Italian population
Austria Hungary had this problem of being an ethnically diverse empire in an era when nation states where the name of the game
There was an ambiguous conundrum since france did control some territories with majority Italian population but Austria was the historical enemy and in the end the allies made the better offer
The existing alliance with germany and Austria was something thag was struck at the end of six century to normalise relationships between the new nation states of germany and italy and the old empire of Austria Hungary that held territories they would be interested in annexing
WWII:
Like everything else that happened under fascism, the crackpot dictatorship ruling over italy was a face saving culture that was constantly striving to be taken seriously by other powers, hence the African empire and the war intervention
After the nazis curbstomped poland and france it did look like the war was going to be an actual blitzkrieg and the fascist wanted to, their worlds, have a couple thousands dead to show during peace talk and claim their piece of the cake. Things turned out quite differently
The changing side bit was due to the fact that while having totalitarian ambition the Italian dictatorship still was formally under the monarchy, so when the allies got the upper hand the king just said fuck you to mussolini and the country was split once nazis descended into the peninsula, with communist guerrilla doing a lot of the fighting in the north as well

>>65164147
shitaly only won something because of america.
without america they are pasta because:
industrial base a joke
population not unified and not war horny
no resources, not a drop of oil

they were baited, fed and equipped in ww1 by the entente
and bailed out by the allies in ww2

>>65164147
>they seem to change sides a lot.
Its traditional. Just look at the Italian city states era with Condottieri sometimes switching sides several times in one battle.

>>65163577
The short answer is no, but if they had entered the war on the Central Powers' side, they might have gotten more while losing a whole lot fewer soldiers.

>>65163577
Yes, Italy has and always had a problem with incompetent and corrupt leadership.
Luigi Cadorna tought until the very end that moral and determination somehow would overcome machine gun and heavy gun fire.
The only arm where this is less of a case is ofcourse the Navy but they always were hamppered by industrial bottlenecks and political meddeling

>>65164282
america cucked us out with Wilson after joining in 1918, if they weren't in we we would have got got what we actually wanted

>>65163577
yeah, they could have toppled austria-hungary right in 1915 if they had acted faster and not waited for months until actually attacking. by the time the italians went on the offensive the austrians had already assembled a large enough force to not immediately falter and mostly dug in.

>>65164408
>entered the war on the Central Powers' side
yeah getting royally fucked on sea and running into even worse mountain terrain against france or be deployed on the balkan in... again mountaineous terrain against fortified brits and greeks.

>>65164282
>industrial base a joke
>population not unified and not war horny
>no resources, not a drop of oil
thats describing austria-hungary pretty good, also the ah-empire was stuck in a 2 front war against russia and serbia on the other side and had just recently lost their best troops in catastrophic defeats, struggling to hold the line against russia. germany was fully occupied with both france and russia with no troops to spare at the moment. it was the perfect opportunity to strike for italy. i can totally understand it.