While reading this short piece you have asked for, please remember that:
Written by Michele Armellini & Arturo Filippo Lorioli
1) WWI ends with a "mutilated victory" for Italy. After taking high casualties, Italy receives meagre compensations, while every other winner gets a fat slice of the pie and colonies.
2) This is a period of unrest and unemployment. War profiteers and draft-dodgers are rich and happy, while veterans are unemployed and widows hungry. A largely uncultured and strongly religious populace is more scared than inspired by leftist strikes and general turmoil.
3) The fascists come to power, helped by the situation at 2) above, by the weakness of a state without a serious tradition (Italy was then 50 years old!), and by the insipience of the political class. Other European countries face similar dire straits in this period, but they have a tradition to rely upon, a more advanced social structure, and usually a higher self-esteem and clearer identity as a nation. But note that notwithstanding all the above, totalitarian regimes of various hues will abound in Europe for the next decades.
Note the date: 1922. It means that most draftable age classes in 1940 will have known only fascism throughout their whole life! Those boys will have read rewritten schoolbooks, they will have paraded for hours with their smart black uniforms since age 7, they will have been thoroughly trained to obey. By contrast, Hitler came to power only in 1933.
4) Fascism delivers. Huge and actually useful public works programs (roads, railroads, land reclamations etc.) like those in the USA, very advanced welfare and social security laws (more advanced than in many other countries of the time, and actually often more advanced than in many countries today), real repression of the Mafia... In a few words, a bit of progress and a reasonable welfare. Most classes are better off in Italy than their equivalent in Great Britain.
5) On the down side, Fascism takes away freedom of speech, curbs the opposition, asks everybody to shout its slogans and parade, expects everybody to conform. It issues the odious racial laws, even if these stopped short of physical violence until 1943. Oh, and of course it cuddles those war profiteers, industrialists and landowners.
6) On the whole, this means the people overwhelmingly support the regime because of 4) above. Italians close their eyes on the drawbacks at 5), and eat out of the advantages. Who cares about freedom of speech? And remember, violence against opposers mainly came in the very first years, 2) above. There are no extermination camps in Italy. Some opposers are jailed, but many are just sent to islets. Delators and secret police exist, but they are nothing if compared to the NKVD.
7) But real opposers are a tiny minority and they tend to emigrate (the usual resort for a nation which sent tens of thousands of workers abroad). Others are lukewarm supporters, but they will keep their mouths shut. Others still, the large majority, support fascism, even without being true believers, as long as 4) is here. Some real fascists exist, but they are another minority.
8) Italy proudly sets out to gain its place under the sun. This redresses the injustice of the WWI peace treaties, 1) above. Italians believe these are not aggressions; there were provocations and border accidents, just like before many other wars Great Britain, France and the USA started in the last 50 years, ending up with colonies and protectorates. They think there's nothing wrong in having colonies, since every great power has them. And for them, Italy is bringing civilization, roads and schools; now the other European states will respect Italy. Sanctions? The leadership answers: See, they are even afraid of Italy! Mussolini is always right! Italians think they had to protect the Albanians because they needed it; and that the Blackshirts had to help the Falangists in the SCW out of political, moral and religious reasons.
So Italians support the regime which keeps them well-fed, 4) above, and proud as per 8), but this is a "bought" support, rather than a convinced one. And whereas 4) is a must, 8) is a luxury and it couldn't replace 4).
9) The war has been raging for a year and the Germans, powerful allies who, in the eyes of the Italians, are actually imitating Italy, are winning everywhere. The leadership is confident that probably the war will be a short, glorious affair. Italy has a grudge against France, and a few previously-Italian territories to wrestle back. People are not really enthusiastic about the idea of another war, but having been used to obey - and to reap fat rewards - for such a long time, they just go along. Italians believe that the armed forces are strong and efficient, and, given the situation under 4), 7) and 8) above, the soldiers and officers are quite motivated and the morale is rather high. Those who could be half-hearted have been creamed-off. Leftists have emigrated, real anti-fascists are in jail or interned in France after they have fought on the wrong side in the SCW. Anti-fascism, because of 5) and 7) above, has no effect within the armed forces. The war begins, and things immediately start to go awry.
10) At home, bombs drop, food is rationed, well-being disappears and, as the support was largely based on it, the support begins to melt away. People start to grumble. This is not what they have been promised.
11) On the front, soldiers are unaware of 10) above, since the censors are busy, the newspapers are optimistic, and they are seldom if ever given leave. Of course they realize they are not always well-led, and that they have cardboard boot soles. But they tend to go on fighting with dignity, and, especially in 1942, with a sort of grim determination, if not with elan. The pining about inferior weaponry began only after the war; several items actually weren't all that bad, and at the time, the soldiers either did not realize the situation or accepted it and simply tried to make do with what they had.
The very poor logistical organization, on the other hand, had a major impact on what has been wrongly considered a morale issue. For example, while Germans and British alike had realized that in the desert all arms had to be motorized, in many instances Italian infantry divisions were on foot, and higher-echelon assets were insufficient. This, coupled with strategic mistakes, was one of the reasons of the vast numbers of Italian prisoners, rather than morale problems.
Also, after the initial successes against the Italians, and the arrival of the much better organized Germans, the British troops found it difficult to believe the Italians could improve. So it happened that, after a failed operation, a British commander would justify it by reporting he had faced tough Germans, not Italians... even if the latter had indeed been the case.
12) The war only gets worse. At home, it's every man for himself, and morale is very low. Now, the few survivors are home again, coming back from the desert and Russia, and this is the moment their morale really shatters. They see they, and their sacrifices, aren't supported by the country anymore. They see the many failures of the fascist regime. Also, by now they know better about the balance of forces.
13) The nation's and the soldiers' determination to carry on with the war obviously receives another blow with the landing in Sicily. Almost everybody realizes there's nothing to gain any more, and the Allies' terror bombings on the cities - albeit much smaller in scale than the ones over Japan and Germany - have a major morale effect. The USA are perceived as an extremely powerful enemy, not the least because of their wealth. All of a sudden, fascism is no longer in fashion. The army is affected like the nation, because of 12) above.
14) The move comes from the King. He's not popular and imposing as the Duce, but he's respected and he's the only one above Mussolini; however, his power and authority would probably wane if he doesn't act. With a botched and questionable operation, he demotes Mussolini as Prime Minister. Italians are elated. This means the war is over, at last!
The new government continues under-the-counter dealings with the allies; meanwhile, everybody is trying to cover his own back, and the higher you climb the more frantic they are. When push comes to shove, the King disappears, thus largely losing what standing he still had, and he is followed in a cascading effect by generals, colonels, majors etc., down to the barracks cats. Those few veterans left, who still had some fighting left in them, wonder why they shouldn't do the same, too. Of course the Germans jump in. A few units try to obey the last ambiguous orders to "defend themselves from any (read German) hostile act", but with no further orders nor supplies they are overwhelmed in a few days. Most other units melt away at the cry "everybody home!".
15) This, 14) above, is Italy's and Italian armed forces' disaster, a low ebb that marks the nation. In the last two years of the war, a number of Italians try to wash away that shame; and note that they do that by fighting on both sides.
In fact, the true anti-fascists, still a very small number of men, believe that Italy is better than what appeared to be during 14) above, they think it was Fascism that had made it so, they decide it's time to fight for their ideas and they go on the mountains as partisans. Or, if they aren't in Northern Italy, they join the regulars in the CIL, Italian Liberation Corps, fighting alongside the allies.
Others join the RSI, Italian Social Republic, the rump northern state headed by Mussolini. Most of these men don't believe at all in victory any more, but they can't accept to turn their coats. Others are drafted; but draft-dodging and hiding in the countryside has become a popular sport.
From the second half of 1944, many young men try to stay out of the fray.
16) The partisan war is very bloody, and vicious as any civil war, even with the small numbers involved. Given 15) above, both parties are rather strongly motivated again (anybody with weak motivations has plenty of ways to keep himself out of trouble by now). The RSI troops perform reasonably
well in their thankless engagements; partisan formations' performances range from the abysmal to the adequate, but they are successful in their main task of pinning enemy resources; the CIL puts up a fairly good show.
And that's it.