As Europe’s financial crisis threatens to engulf Italy, a country that may be too big to save, top euro-zone officials have taken aggressive steps in recent days to whip errant members into shape.

From sending an international team to babysit Italy’s economic measures to threatening Greece with expulsion from the euro zone, French and German leaders are pushing as never before, and European Union officials have joined in. But their exhortations have provoked chest-puffing backlash from Italy and Greece, and analysts warn that heavy-handed pressure may do little to solve Europe’s short-term problems.