There's a joke in there somewhere but I'll let sharper wits than mine have at it. My dad was a lowly shavetail lieutenant in Italy 1943-44, and he tells the story of having to wait outside an Italian colonel's bivouac while the colonel shaved and put on his good uniform before he surrendered what was left of his regiment to my dad.
I hasten to add that dad has always said that the Italians individually were very brave men, they were doomed by bad leadership, bad planning, and incredibly bad equipment (such as the awful Carcano rifle and the Breda, possibly the single worst machine gun in the war).