ABSTRACT
Assessing the performance of entire armies throughout a war is a daunting task which offers much scope for laborious research, particularly if people tried to obtain numerical indices. Clearly, it is not enough to know who won, because there are many examples of a larger number prevailing over superior quality. The ineffectuality of Mussolini’s army was demonstrated by its inability to defeat enemies who were less numerous and worse armed: the British troops in Egypt in 1940 and the Greeks. The Italian soldiers’ attitude shows that indoctrination may fail to achieve its purpose even when it is prolonged, pervasive and coupled with a total suppression of opposite opinions. As Robert Waelder has explained, extreme coercion can produce genuine conversion through the following process: when one is forced to pretend that one believes, one feels impotent, degraded and afraid that one day a slip of the tongue or an inadvertent gesture will bring a cruel punishment.
