Italian Invasion of France, 1940
Drink: Five Days In France
Ratings:
Strength: 2/5 (musket)
Skill: 2/5 (national guard)
Rank: 4/5 (knight of the realm) (1/5 if you don’t like campari)
[ingredients:]
- Campari
- Lillet blanc
- perrier
- shaved ice
[preparation:]
- Fill a highball glass with shaved Alpine ice.
- Add one part Campari and one part Lillet, pilfered from a local bistro.
- Top with a splash of Perrier (or San Peligrino if Perrier is on the war ration list).
- Garnish with a twist of lemon, orange, bergamot, or whatever citrus fruit is growing on your villa balcony.
Background
Since the fall of Rome, the Italians have been associated far more with la dolce vita than the canes pugnaces. Throughout the middle ages and Renaissance, Italian warmaking consisted mainly of Serie A matches between Milano and Roma, and F-1 gondola races between Venice and everyone else. Italian energy was poured into discovering pasta, painting frescoes, raising beautiful women who peak at 60, and otherwise reviving classical art, learning, and culture. The world was better for it.
Italian talents
When your capital city is synonymous with the world’s most famous Empire, however, you cannot abandon the warpath forever. After some dabbling Italy finally fell off the wagon with World War I, were infamously routed at the Battle of Caporetto in 1917, and were embarrassed on the international stage by Haile Selassie. By the 1930s, many Italians were no doubt longing for the good old days when mastery of chiaroscuro and a guy with a notebook of helicopter sketches were the benchmarks of national greatness. Unfortunately, Mussolini was at the helm.
Everyone, including Mussolini, was shocked by the rapidity with which the Germans invaded France in 1940. Worried that the war would soon be over, Mussolini ordered his unprepared army to invade France. He wanted Italy to have done something so that he would get a seat at the bargaining table for the inevitable armistice.
Tables, and table seating, are traditionally very important in Italy
Italy declared war on the very-much-already-invaded France on June 10th, 1940. On June 16th, France proposed an armistice with Germany. On June 20th, they proposed an armistice with Italy, probably because the French already had the paperwork filled out and it was only a matter of changing the recipient’s mailing address. On June 20th, Mussolini’s invasion of France began.
Theatre of War
The French Riveria is lovely in June, which may be why 300,000 hairy chested, well coiffed, stylish Italian soldiers took part in the invasion. They were opposed by about 170,000 French soldiers. The resulting party was extremely chic, but not without tragedy. Hundreds of lives were lost in the collapse of an overcrowded discotheque balcony, a fashion show fire, and numerous Vespa crashes. A heated argument over whose Post-War avante-garde film movement would turn out better (New Wave or Neo-Realism) resulted in an Italian soldier nearly choking a French soldier to death with his large gold crucifix. Nearly two thousand Italian soldiers suffered Speedo-related frostbite when they were locked out of their Alpine resort sauna.
A few skilled Italian troops managed to capture two French positions, but the invasion from a military perspective was a middling failure. The Italian force lacked the proper weapons, training and equipment to assault the cold, fortified French positions. Trying to capitalize on the Maginot-Line-avoiding German invasion, the Italians somehow ran into the southern end of the Maginot Line. Italian gains amounted to a few miles of Alps, a nameless hamlet or two, and half the tourist town of Menton. The Italians suffered approximately 5,500 casualties, while the French suffered 274. Innumerable local women were whistled at by soldiers on both sides. The French-Italian armistice paperwork was processed on June 25th.
Mussolini got his seat at the treaty table, where the Italians were awarded nothing more than the land they had taken, including the newly-dubbed Little Italy section of Menton. Some terrific Italian-French fusion restaurants opened in Menton, and no shopkeeper could keep cigarettes on the shelves. The good times continued until the Italians switched sides in 1943, at which point the Germans occupied the area, shut down the discotheques and night clubs, and basically forced the good life underground.
August 21st, 2010 at 3:02 am
Ever since the Roman conquest of Gaul, the Italians have simply had no luck against the French at all. Beginning in the late fifteenth century with the invasions of Italy by Charles VIII, the French have simply done one number after the other on Italy. However, the failure of the Italians to capitalize against an already defeated French military was the ultimate humiliation. I suppose after losing all those earlier wars to England, Germany, Russia and Spain, the French could at least take solace in the fact that they would always have the Italians to pick on.