This is a great show of parade vehicles and regiments. It shows the occupation of slovenia and the 1941 parade. Note the alpine troops who cross skis like and 'X' while parading. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj30i4XE594
According to the commentary it took an engineer battalion 9 days to repair the railroad bridge that linked the town to Italy, interesting statistic, at the end of the parade there is a unit in full gas protection gear.
Yes, I noticed the typical gear. I wonder whether these were made by Pirelli (they made Gasmasks for the Regia . It must have been hell to wear those in the hot Slovenian climate during the parade.
Italians occupied just the western part of the country, Germans took the eastern part where I live - Untersteiermark. Even Hitler himself visited Maribor, the capitol of Untersteiermark. Alegedly he demanded: "Make this country German again ". A small chunk at the east was taken by Hungarians. I wish Italians took the whole country; they didn't have Gestapo and such other odd habits of the Nazis. Italians made some parades and were more concerned with food, wine and womenizing. As long as the party lasted: untill 1943. Otherwise, Ljubljana looks quite different today, except the castle shown in the documentary.
All the horse drawn artillery! It nearly outnumbered the more modern stuff. Speaking of which, a more antiqued collection of vehicles you'll not find in any army claiming to be mechanised in 1941. I am certain I observed mobile snack vans, with the sides that come up. And I'm sure I saw a farm hay carrier being towed along behind a truck, or tractor. The artillery would not have looked out of place on the Isonzo in 1916. And they still goosestepped. All the swagger hasn't been knocked out of them yet.
At 17s there is a train station Logatec (Ital. : Longatico).It is interesting to note that nowadays the station is almost the same. Look at the shape of old windows and the roof. In this region houses must be built very solid becuse of strong wind Bora.
That is a great "now and then" ! The station is in a great condition , to say the least, even the Logatec sign seems to be the same one ( There were two separate sigsn and the Italian one was removed )
It is interesting that the parade took place on two not so prominent streets (Bleiweisova* and Celovska*) which border on Tivoli Park which was at that time practically forrest.On the other side houses were sparse, with lots of empty space. I suspect that this was for security reasons. Have you also noticed security on horses? More natural choice would have been Miklosiceva street but security would have been sacrificed. * Interestingly, names of the both streets have German origins: Bleiweis is a Germanic-Slovenian family name and Celovska means Klagenfurter Strasse.
Note the passive attitude of the population. No-one cheers and no one moans. They seem shocked and an interrogative.
Wonder what division? The comentary mentions the name of the commander, inspecting on horseback. Must have been a pretty good division by Italian standards, with all the Alpini present, and "Il Regimento Chemical", you certainly would not find those troops in just any I talian division. The Italians felt themselves to be very progressive with their use of chemical weapons, so the presense of these troops here is a clear indicator that the quality of these men was well thought of by the Italians themselves. Wonder how different history would have been in the Balkans if the Italians only task in WW2 was to police the region? No expensive forays into North Africa, just look after the Balkans and nail down the 'soft underbelly'. Tamino expresses the desire that Italian soldiers were a lot more welcome and civilized than Nazi thugs, so I wonder if thats a significant "what if?"
You will not find grenadiers (granatieri), line infantry (fanti) and alpini in the same division, far less a chemical battalion that was a corps or army level asset. Man on horseback is 2nd Army commander not a divisional commander. You can get back to the parent units as 3 Alpini batallions are mentioned by name as is the 2nd infantry regiment and 3rd 4th an 48th blackshirt batallions.