On my first visit to Rome, I was amused to see something I recalled from a photo of Hitler's visit to Rome when the bromance between him and Mussolini was going strong, and everything falling to shit for both of them was a few years in the future.
On one of the high walls of a Roman building that had been exposed when Il Duce demolished a lot of poor people's homes so he could do some major excavations of the Forum, he had put up a series of four marble slabs engraved with maps showing the expansion of the Roman Empire, along with a fifth map showing the new Roman Empire that Mussolini wanted to create.
In the photo I vaguely recall, Mussolini is doing his usual gesticulation, while Hitler has his usual sourpuss expression. Hardly surprising in this case, since Mussolini's message was clear: the Italians were a great people back when the Germanic tribes were all running around in animal skins, living in hovels and slaughtering each other with bronze weapons.
Four of the maps are still on the wall. For some strange reason, the fifth has disappeared, even though there are still fascist monuments scattered around Rome and in other parts of Italy.
I've always thought that it would have been far more educational if Mussolini had showed Hitler a few more maps in the historical sequence, with the mighty, invincible Roman Empire shrinking back to piddling obscurity and poverty in a relatively short space of time.
Too bad Italy during ww2 had abysmal manufacturing capacity. They were simply not prepared for a large scale conflict. They didnt even have the slight technological superiority the germans had. Hell their tanks are a meme now for how bad they were yet American tanks were much the same, though Americans had the production capacity to keep them rolling off the line.
Why the hell are Americans so horrendous at geography?
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On my first visit to Rome, I was amused to see something I recalled from a photo of Hitler's visit to Rome when the bromance between him and Mussolini was going strong, and everything falling to shit for both of them was a few years in the future.
On one of the high walls of a Roman building that had been exposed when Il Duce demolished a lot of poor people's homes so he could do some major excavations of the Forum, he had put up a series of four marble slabs engraved with maps showing the expansion of the Roman Empire, along with a fifth map showing the new Roman Empire that Mussolini wanted to create.
In the photo I vaguely recall, Mussolini is doing his usual gesticulation, while Hitler has his usual sourpuss expression. Hardly surprising in this case, since Mussolini's message was clear: the Italians were a great people back when the Germanic tribes were all running around in animal skins, living in hovels and slaughtering each other with bronze weapons.
Four of the maps are still on the wall. For some strange reason, the fifth has disappeared, even though there are still fascist monuments scattered around Rome and in other parts of Italy.
I've always thought that it would have been far more educational if Mussolini had showed Hitler a few more maps in the historical sequence, with the mighty, invincible Roman Empire shrinking back to piddling obscurity and poverty in a relatively short space of time.
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LloydAsher
3 years ago
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Too bad Italy during ww2 had abysmal manufacturing capacity. They were simply not prepared for a large scale conflict. They didnt even have the slight technological superiority the germans had. Hell their tanks are a meme now for how bad they were yet American tanks were much the same, though Americans had the production capacity to keep them rolling off the line.