Knox called the Italian attacks into the Alps a fiasco, which had morale implications for the Italian generals and noted that the campaign was a humiliation for Mussolini. Paul Collier called the Italian attacks hapless and the Italian contribution to victory over France ignominious. Giorgio Rochat wrote that the end result of the great Italian offensive was quite miserable. Italian divisions were binary formations (divisione binaria); consisting of two regiments instead of the usual three. The Italian military requested aid from the Germans to outflank the French positions. The initial German attack was checked and the French soldiers of the Alps ... did not have to face military defeat as their government had finally succeeded in negotiating an armistice with Italy. To explain the Italian deficiency, they wrote that the Italian superiority in numbers was betrayed by poor equipment, inferior to that of their French counterparts and that the stormy Alpine weather was probably the best ally the French had.