Morale and the Italian Army during the First World War (Hardcover)

Vanda Wilcox

ISBN 10: 1107157242 / ISBN 13: 9781107157248

Published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2016

About this Item

Hardcover. Italian performance in the First World War has been generally disparaged or ignored compared to that of the armies on the Western Front, and troop morale in particular has been seen as a major weakness of the Italian army. In this first book-length study of Italian morale in any language, Vanda Wilcox reassesses Italian policy and performance from the perspective both of the army as an institution and of the ordinary soldiers who found themselves fighting a brutally hard war. Wilcox analyses and contextualises Italy's notoriously hard military discipline along with leadership, training methods and logistics before considering the reactions of the troops and tracing the interactions between institutions and individuals. Restoring historical agency to soldiers often considered passive and indifferent, Wilcox illustrates how and why Italians complied, endured or resisted the army's demands through balancing their civilian and military identities. The first book-length study of morale in the Italian army during the First World War. Vanda Wilcox reassesses Italian policy and performance from the perspective both of the army as an institution and of the ordinary soldiers who found themselves fighting a brutally hard war. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781107157248

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Morale and the Italian Army during the First World War (Hardcover)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1107157242
• ISBN 13: 9781107157248
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Italian performance in the First World War has been generally disparaged or ignored compared to that of the armies on the Western Front, and troop morale in particular has been seen as a major weakness of the Italian army. In this first book-length study of Italian morale in any language, Vanda Wilcox reassesses Italian policy and performance from the perspective both of the army as an institution and of the ordinary soldiers who found themselves fighting a brutally hard war. Wilcox analyses and contextualises Italy's notoriously hard military discipline along with leadership, training methods and logistics before considering the reactions of the troops and tracing the interactions between institutions and individuals. Restoring historical agency to soldiers often considered passive and indifferent, Wilcox illustrates how and why Italians complied, endured or resisted the army's demands through balancing their civilian and military identities.

About the Author

Vanda Wilcox completed a D.Phil. at the University of Oxford in 2006 before moving to Rome, where she now teaches at John Cabot University. She has published on Italian military leadership, training and battlefield performance as well as the popular experience and memory of the First World War in Italy. A member of the International Society for First World War Studies since 2003, she is now working on the imperial and colonial aspects of Italy's war experience.