What, no more defenders of La Belle France? Tabernac!

The fact is, most nations (if not all of them) have had a glorious and courageous period of military prowess or several such in their history, Spain definitely included. The Spanish army was considered virtually unbeatable in Europe prior to around 1588, when they began to experience some notable reverses while trying to subdue Holland, and failing to invade England. They were the great military machine of the 1500's. The British took over from them with great panache, and the Dutch had a go at the brass ring too. The Swedes were once considered deadly on the battlefield (under Gustavus Adolphus). So were the Swiss. Everybody knows the Germans are good fighters. The Norwegians wreaked havoc when the Vikings were at their peak. It goes on and on...

In World War II, the battles were won in the end by those nations who were able to control the seas and the air and deliver the most men and weapons to the battlefield.

Even the much-slandered Italians fought very bravely on several occasions, but they were woefully short of modern equipment and industrial strength in just about every area that counted, so they never really had a chance. This becomes plainly obvious if you play some of the very good historical wargames of the period. The italians lacked competitive tanks, they lacked naval airpower, their navy had no radar for nightfighting, their airforce was equipped with underarmed aircraft and many outmoded designs, and their gross national product could barely even be called that of a major power at the time. They should never have fought at all, but Mussolini was greedy and opportunistic (and jealous of Hitler's conquests), so he took them down the road to disaster in 1940. I actually think the Germans would have been better off with Italy not in the war...their forces would not have gotten spread so thin, and they might have beaten Russia.

Accordingly, everybody give Mussolini a big "thank you" for blundering into the war, thus drawing the Germans into the Balkans and the Mediterranean theatre to rescue him.

- LH