Afiero, Massimiliano/Riccio, Ralph Luck Was Lacking, But Valor Was Not. The Italian Army in North Africa, 1940-1943

The book begins by examining a number of factors that were critical to the Italian army's performance in the desert, including an assessment of the Italian soldier, leadership, training, organisation and structure, equipment, the supply situation in North Africa, the Italian air force's ability to support ground operations, and an evaluation of German-Italian cooperation in North Africa.

This is followed by a description of the Italian forces' combat operations in the North African desert, beginning with the early advance from Libya to Egypt in September 1940 and ending with Italy's final surrender to the Allies in Tunisia in May 1943. The extensive appendices deal with organisation and equipment and include tables comparing Italian, British and German tanks and artillery in this theatre of war. Overall, this volume provides an overview of Italian ground operations in North Africa, from the initial defeat by the British Desert Army in early 1941, through the chequered fighting of 1941 and 1942 as the combined German-Italian forces battled the British, to the decimation of the Italian forces in the battles for El Alamein in late 1942, and finally the retreat to Tunisia and the surrender of all Axis forces in North Africa in May 1943. This is the first work in English to deal systematically with the Italian army's contribution to the war in North Africa, challenging the conventional wisdom that the German Afrika Korps was the Axis' superior force in the desert.