Are Italians cowards

Answer 1

If you refer to the Second World War, well, the situation is as follows.

1) For cultural and historical reasons, Italians are relatively more individualist and more hostile to authority than the average of the other European countries. This is the reason why the Italian society is quite difficult to organise in terms of bureaucracy, taxes and so on. This also reflects on armies - the good functioning of an army rests on its organization and the respect of authority. But an Italian army will always have a slightly greater percentage of people who disobey orders than, say, a German or a Northern European army. Those countries, for cultural reasons, are inhabited by people who tightly stick to the rules and the orders they are ordered to follow. More discipline. This has been hypothesized to originate from both the fact that Italy is a young country, which used to be fragmented into many small States (as opposed to countries that have been there for centuries, such as France, the UK, Scandinavian Countries, with a subsequently higher sense of citizenship and belonging to a Nation) and the fact that Northern European country have a Protestant heritage, which implies being adamantly accurate in everything one does in their profession. But this is not the place to discuss such matters ;)

2) The Italian army was very ill-equipped, especially if compared to the German army, which was backed by a technologically advanced industry. At that time, Italian economy was significantly poorer than the German one. Still nowadays, in spite of being one of the most industrialized countries in the world, Italian economy is much weaker than that of Germany, that had its first industrial revolution in the middle decades XIX century.

3) Most Italians did not actually trust or believe in Mussolini and in Fascism. They were against it, even though they did nothing (either because they couldn't, because in a totalitarian state any dissent is repressed, or because they believed the best thing for them was to just go on pretending to support the regime). However, since they were not fanatical fascists, they were not as emotionally and psychologically committed as probably were most Germans (many of which had been brainwashed by Hitler's Propaganda. Of course, not all Germans did actually believe in Nazism as well). You can't fight well in a war if you don't believe in what you are doing.

I am Italian, with a passion for history. Hope I've been helpful ;)

Answer 2

Absolutely. Look at Costa Concordia cpt Francesco Schettino, a typical Italian. Such a pussy, running from a sinking ship like a rat, and refusing to return on board.

They all stay with they mammas until they are 50, are racist, incompetent and their economy sunk like a CC cruiser, but all they can do is flee to triviality, vulgarity and banality of their petty little lives, just like Concordia cpt, uncapable of anything great, but a showoff that sunk the ship (or look at Berlusconi, another Italian bafoon).

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I think the bafoon who writes this things haven't any idea of how are italians. Search on wikipedia Pietro Calamai, the capitain of Andrea Doria.

Come in Florence and you see how we are racistes.

Our economy sunk for our stupid politicians and for USA banks.

"They all stay with they mammas until they are 50": I'm 23 and I'm studying and working and I don't live with my family, and I know many people that do the same.

Feed stereotypes is offensive, especially for intelligence.