Italian Camicie Nere assault in Greece (XX0081)

The Greek Campaign, 1940-41

Italy invaded Greece from Albania on 28 October 1940. The operation had been decided with little planning and against the assessment of the army staff, on the assumption that Greece would collapse quickly. It did not. Within a fortnight the Greek army had halted the advance in the Pindus mountains, and by December it had counterattacked into Albania and taken roughly a quarter of the country.

Why It Failed

The invasion was launched with around 140,000 men at the beginning of the mountain winter, without adequate transport, winter equipment or artillery, across terrain with almost no roads. Greek mobilisation was faster than expected and the defenders knew the ground. Italian units suffered heavily from frostbite and exposure as much as from combat. The front stabilised only in spring 1941, after substantial reinforcement.

The German Intervention

The campaign ended not through Italian success but through the German invasion of April 1941, which overran Yugoslavia and Greece in three weeks. The diversion of German forces to the Balkans, and the subsequent airborne operation against Crete, have long been argued to have delayed the invasion of the Soviet Union — a claim historians treat with considerably more caution today than in the immediate post-war period.

The Blackshirt Units

The MVSN, the Voluntary Militia for National Security, was the armed formation of the Fascist party, organised in 1923 and deployed in Albania and Greece in legions attached to army divisions. Its units were raised on political rather than military criteria, were generally less well trained and equipped than regular army formations, and their operational record in the campaign reflects that.

Giuseppe Rava’s Original Work

Giuseppe Rava reconstructs the Italian soldier of the Greek campaign from photographs and surviving equipment: the grey-green uniform inadequate to the mountain winter, the Carcano rifle, the ammunition pouches and the mountain terrain of the Albanian front that determined the course of the fighting.

This is a limited edition fine art print, hand-signed by the artist, produced in SRA3 format on fine art paper. Ships worldwide.