[October 28, 2015] Today is the 75th anniversary of start of the Greco-Italian War. I know that many people laugh off the suggestion that the battle for Greece was anything but a minor and inconsequential part of the global war against the Axis powers … but that would be too simplistic and wrong.
When Italy’s fascist dictator Mussolini ordered his troops to attack Greece, he was showing a common characteristic of both a narcissistic leader and a socialist’s ideological weakness. He did not have a full grasp of how much the Greeks would resist and his decision to invade anyway has confused historians to this day. Mussolini expected a quick and easy campaign lasting only a few weeks.1
When the Italians attacked through the country of Albania, the Greeks were waiting for them and ready to repel the fascist’s forces. Within a month the Greeks has not only stopped the assault on their country they pushed the Italians back across the border into Albania. Everyone was surprised about the attack, except maybe the Greeks, and that included Adolf Hitler. To save his ally, Hitler adjusted his timetable and created a second front against the Greeks in March 1941 when his forces attacked.
That it may seem like a foregone conclusion that the Greek defense eventually collapsed, Hitler was later to blame this foray into Greece as a reason for the failure of his invasion of the Soviet Union.2 Although some dispute Hitler’s complaint, the allocation of German military resources to Greece did have serious consequences for the Axis war effort in North Africa.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.” – Sun Tzu
It has been said that the Italian attack on Greece in 1940 was a strategic failure because it disrupted the German-Italian efforts to capture Europe, Africa, and the Soviet Union. There are many lessons to learn from this. Two of them are: 1) senior leaders should take great care in knowing themselves, their resources, and capabilities and, of course, knowing their enemy and 2) senior leaders should not be so tied to an ideology that it distorts their thinking.
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