Armoured Warfare And Hitler's Allies 1941 – 1945 (Images Of War - Rare Photographs From Wartime Archives)

The strongmen of Eastern Europe rallied to Adolf Hitler’s cause célèbre throughout the late 1930s and on into the early 1940s, each of them with their own cause or reasoning behind their need to do so. For some like Fascist Italy it was about making sure that their own territorial gains were recognised or militarily supported by the Reich as in their ongoing campaigns in Greece and North Africa, as much as it was about their getting a fair  share of the ' European spoils of war'. For others it was all about settling long standing territorial grievances or old scores from the past and the present, as in the case of Finland. For others still it was a mixture of both. At its peak while not nearly as wide spread as the Allied Powers, the Axis Forces were none the less made up of several powerful territories who were by 1941 all willing to support the Reich in achieving its goals during its Eastern Campaign. The best trained, experienced and armed were undoubtedly those battle hardened troops from Fascist Italy and the often underrated forces of Finland. The other combat groups were all of varying degrees of strength and capabilities and came from Hungary, Romanian and Slovakia. All together these forces  were in excess of 1 million men and included armoured divisions like the Hungarian 1st and 2nd, Italian 3rd Mobile, Romanian 1st and Slovak Fast armoured.