Word: po
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...this strategy is adopted military history may take a running broad jump back to Napoleonic times, when domination of Spain and the Po River Valley of northern Italy bulked large in the campaigns of the French...
What happened to the Army of the Po? Fortnight ago this superbly mechanized force of eleven divisions began its maneuvers by dashing from the Venetian plains across northern Italy to resist an attack of imaginary Red invaders theoretically pouring through passes in the Alps (TIME, Aug. 14). But after repairing bridges theoretically destroyed by Red bombs, plunging 230 real miles in 60 hours, the Army of the Po unexpectedly halted, went home two days ahead of schedule. Explanations...
France. Experts guessed that Italian generals had discovered that the German theories of Blitzkrieg (lightning war) were untenable, that a high-speed onslaught such as the Army of the Po was practicing would result in another Guadalajara traffic...
London. Other reports were that the Italian masses were growing restless under continued war strain, that the Army of the Po, like many a careless motorist, had just run out of gas. London heard that Il Duce, after piloting his own plane over the troops, had suffered a heart attack. The hard-driving dictator, now 56, did not show up for the concluding review, same night ostentatiously appeared at an open-air opera. But the rumors persisted. For answering a query about them, Herbert-Roslyn ("Bud") Ekins, United Press man in Rome, got the most drastic punishment ever dealt...
Whatever had really happened to the Army of the Po, its fate reminded all Europe that the difference between maneuvers and real war is that maneuvers can be called off if the troops get stalled, the tanks run out of gas, the weather gets bad, the people get restless, the boss gets sick, the theories prove wrong, and the generals begin to quarrel...