John Gooch is probably the leading scholar of the Italian military in English so he was the ideal person to write this history of Italian military participation in the Great War. What is particularly valuable here is that Gooch goes into some depth as to what passed for the Italian military tradition in 1914, a history that had seen more failure than success and had produced an army that was more of a bolster to the Italian royal house than an effective operational force. The most striking thing is the potential that was revealed when General Luigi Cadorna, an officer who was a better courtier than a leader of men, was replaced by Armando Diaz, who achieved a virtual miracle in reforming an army capable of taking the offensive in the wake of the defeat of Caporetto; Gooch does not scoff at the battle of Vittorio Veneto. The problem came after the war, as social conflict undid the Italian political system and military officers found common ground with Benito Mussolini in regards to bolstering Italy's security concerns in the Balkans. That is another story though. ( )