IN WWII, after Dunkirk, the French military fought a losing battle with some elan. Before Dunkirk, abandoned French equipment slowed the Germans more than the French military. As a matter of fact, they gave the Italians who attacked a small holding force along the south coast a bloody nose. The Italian Army in North Africa was generally abysmal. Italians were only too glad to go into captivity en masse, not that I blame them. Italians would yell their GI captors;"Don't feel sorry for me, I am going to America, you are going to Italy".The best thing they did for the Axis was to possess trucks at El Alamein for the Germans to steal and get away. A prewar estimate by the German general staff,was that if the Italians are our enemies, we can defeat them with two divisions, if they are our allies, we will need to prop them up with 12 divisions.