In many ways, the Italians get a lot of bad press from WW2. Its true that much of the army was poorly led, trained and equiped, but even Rommel thought that the armoured formations were quite good even though the tanks were rubbish.
The air force seems to have had more elan, and some quite good aircraft, and the navy, in general, seems to have been very modern and had good moral.
It would appear that bad leadership was responsible for much of the poor performance, and especially in the army, a lot of officers treatment of the troops was indifferent to say the least.
“O Lord God, let me not be disgraced in my old days.”
'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers'