Spot on material here. I was aware of Italy's embarrassments in North Africa for some time, from Adwa to WWii. Then consider how influential Italian naval design was on modern aircraft carriers & battleships. And along comes Adm. Somerville wrecking their fine Regia Marina with a handful of balsa-wood biplanes.

If only irony won battles.

Something Hannah Arendt wrote, almost a throwaway comment, in her Eichmann in Jerusalem, changed how I saw Italy's war record & the world in general.

Annoyed at the bureaucratic sluggishness Italians applied to rounding up & deporting Jewish citizens, the SS tried to inculcate them with the same vociferous antisemitism found in Nazi ideology. It didn't work. The Italians weren't having it. They were, wrote Arendt, "an ancient & civilized people".

Hmmm.

Folks who once conquered the world get kicked out of North Africa by a guerrilla leader who looks a lot like Anthony Quinn. So now they're out of that business. And why not? When you have limoncello, the Fiat Spyder, Venice & the Uffizi what need to go around making war on other people? Sure, they gave it a go. Didn't want to hurt the Duce's feelings. But ultimately it was no, grazie!

You take care of your people, celebrate your civilization & generally mind your business. Perhaps that is what truly being civilized means?