Military power is of limited use if your leader is a fucking idiot. But arguably it was pretty impressive that they managed to fight WW2 for so long, especially considering how useless its allies were.
They had two really lucky blows. They shouldn’t have gotten lucky with the Battle of France or Operation Barbarossa, yet both were successes against all odds - not because of any exceptional fighting skill of the German military, but because France was in total military and political disarray (completely disregarding reports of a German attack through the Ardennes, and then appointing Petain to ultimate power, who just fucking surrendered), and the Soviets were led by a moron of equal magnitude who thought he had another two years to prepare and was thus caught with his pants down.
Luck is an aspect of war, of course - but hardly one that impresses.
Didn’t Italy also just switch to the winning side twice? I’m not saying that’s a bad thing and I’m glad they did in WWII (I don’t know enough about WWI to have an opinion), but it does make them seem like less of a military powerhouse.
WW1 is arguable - it’s where they get their ‘real’ World War win. They had a defensive alliance with the Central Powers, but considered the agreement null and void because they didn’t consider the start of the war to be defensive on the part of the Central Powers. Thus, in 1915, they were still neutral… until the Triple Entente lured them into joining the war on their side in May.
So they fought for three years on the ‘winning’ side - I think that qualifies as legit.
As for WW2, the Italian government was dismantled and its leader led a state-in-exile in Northern Italy. Italy only joined the Allies insofar as the previous government of Italy literally surrendered and that there were a large number of Italian anti-fascist partisans who remained in the fight against Nazism (may their heroism be forever remembered!)
Telling everyone that they are the greatest military power doesn’t make it true. That’s like me telling that I am the smartest in the world. Which is absolutely false, obviously.
