What if the Italians continued to fight the Greeks without nazi interference?

[cimon]

Originally Posted by rohala

The Greek industry did not manufacture weapons under licence. In the last years of the 1930's Greek industries (incl. Army's arsenals) began manufacturing small arms spare parts for the existing models in Greek service (either with legal licence or reverse-engineered; I don'know), to the point apparently that a new family of Greek-designed small arms was planned. That effort however was never completed ,except of the few prototypes of the EPK light-machinegun.
The Schneider-Danglis was manufactured in France, as were most of Greek artillery pieces. The Greek artillery of 1940 consisted mostly of French pieces, with a number of older Krupp field guns (probably captured in 1912-1922) and small numbers of British and Skoda (Czech?) guns.
The Italians had their own mountain guns in 65mm and 75mm, and their designs were not bad. The Italian 100mm in some type of light carriage was well liked by the Greek army that it was actively sought after among the booty, and prioritized in collection and activation, despite the very few numbers available.

1)the greek army used Austrian weapons(not heavy ordnance) and ammunition.
2) if you don't know that they were produced under licence how do you insist otherwise?
3) you are confusing the 75mm Schneider with the 65mm/Daglis model
the second for mountain use,all moving parts produced in Greece and the first produced with modifications(produced in Greece) by St-Etienne which held the patent.
4) the Austrian small arms were were produced under licence in the 30's.
Greece was allready gearing up for war since Benito was not hiding his intentions and although none was taking him seriously,Greeks did!

[Rich Rostrom]

Originally Posted by MUC

The Commonwealth troops push deep into Libya, possibly taking it all actually.
Operation Compass ended, because the British deemed it important to divert troops to Greece in OTL.

And because the Commonwealth forces were exhausted from two months' continual campaigning (men and vehicles worn out), and because the advanced forces were at the very limits of supply, which had to be brought overland hundreds of miles, consuming more fuel and vehicles...
Logistics, logistics, logistics.

My scenario predicted that with the Italians standing on the defensive in Libya (per the original premise), alt-COMPASS would be somewhat less successful than OTL - ending somewhere between Tobruk and Benghazi.
That would be a very considerable victory.

Then a pause; then an advance to Benghazi and Agedabia; another pause; and then a final advance to Tripoli.

That's not necessarily the case.
I told you before: The point does not lie merely in numbers, but in the infrastructure needed to support these numbers. Albanian ports and Albania as a country could not support a bigger Italian army. And the supply chain from Italy to Albania is easy to interdict.

Which is easier to interdict: the 70 km sealane from Apulia to Durazzo, or the 500 km sealane from Sicily to Libya?

Half of the Italian Navy is out of action.

Three battleships are out of action. That isn't "half the Italian Navy", any more than the five battleships sunk or disabled at Pearl Harbor was half or even a third of the U.S. Navy.

They will have to divert forces there, when the British attack.

Unless, as per the original premise, they concentrate against Greece instead.

Either this or they simply lose all of N. Africa by summer 1941.

By fall 1941; Britain doesn't have the extra muscle to do it much faster.

Rich Rostrom, if you want us to understand your point "If Italy concentrates its resources in Albania, it can win against Greece even without German intervention"

My conclusion was that if Italy concentrated its resources against Greece, it would do better than OTL, even without German intervention. Since I noted that British support for Greece would happen before German "non-intervention", I concluded that Italy would eventually lose.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Rich Rostrom

The original premise of this thread is that Italy concentrates against Greece, rather than squandering resources in doomed or futile operations elsewhere, but receive no assistance from German forces.

I thought this part of the original premise of this thread was already proven wrong.

Italy simply could not leave Libya, because Libya was the bet of the Mediterranean Theatre of War, at least after the Italians realized that the dreams for capturing Suez were doomed.

Anyway, what most people fail to see is that the Italian attack to Greece was nothing more than a supposed distraction for the British. It takes something more than Wikipedia or "history" books that recreate propaganda as "source" in order to understand what happened then (I'm not talking personaly here - we all fall to that trap ocasionaly).

First, let's check the Italian geopolitial thought of the time: number one target for Italy was Yugoslavia, because under the Italian geopolitical thought, Italy should control the Yugoslavian shores of the Adriatic (And Albania and Corfu)= "altra sponda" (oposite shore), because this was her "Lebensraum", and would give her the necesary strategic depth, and all this was described by the term "equilibro adriatico", under the theoretical thought of Loisseau and Giomberti. Of course, in the late 1930's there was also the fascist "wet dream" of turning Greece into a client-state, but that was far lower in the agenda. Hence, there was no geostrategic reason why Italy should attack Greece (even for Corfu) before she had cleared the theatre with Yugoslavia. And of course there was no reason at all to do so while facing the British in Northern Africa. So, what happened?

The first act of the war against Greece was actualy the sinking of the Greek light-cruiser "Helle" on 15th August 1940 in the harbour of Tenos by an Italian submarine. Why did this happened? Musolini had ordered the invasion of Egypt on August 8th -one week earlier. With that torpido, Musolini hoped for an escalation with Greek responsibility. That way the British would be distracted and the italian troops would have the advandage of surprise in Egypt.
After that, why did the Italians started the war on October, i.e. the start of winter, with the front in one of the worst terrains in an area with minimum infrastructures, while they had not the necesary units, plans, and material deployed in Albania? Was the Italian Regime so stupid, as the propaganda tries to prove? What was happening then in Northern Africa? Graziani had stoped before Mersa Matruh and Musolini failed to persuade him to renew his offensive, which he planned for December. The only way for this to happen was that the British should be distracted, and use some of their ships and airforce elsewhere, and even redeploy some of their ground forces. What the Italians thought was Greece, because there was the paradigm of WWI, and because Greece was supposed to be too valuable for Britain. Should the Greek government ask for help, the British could not deny it. Note, that when this help was requested in Spring '41, the British, even though they were facing their first defeats under Rommel, deployed about 50,000 men in Greece.

Hence, it is silly to accept that the Italian regime was foolish and misleaded when it decided to launch the attack on Greece. That served as an excuse to put the blame solely on the fascist government, while this decision was dictated by mere strategy, and actually had the support of also the king and Bandoglio. The attack on Greece was a part of the operations in N. Africa. Otherwise, the Italians would have chosen another theatre and another plan against Greece, and not the actual one. Because, through Albania, no matter how many troops they would engage, at best they would achieve a very-very slow advance at a very-very high cost.

Geography is a bitch and geopolitics her puppies...

[rohala]

Originally Posted by cimon

1)the greek army used Austrian weapons(not heavy ordnance) and ammunition.
2) if you don't know that they were produced under licence how do you insist otherwise?
3) you are confusing the 75mm Schneider with the 65mm/Daglis model
the second for mountain use,all moving parts produced in Greece and the first produced with modifications(produced in Greece) by St-Etienne which held the patent.
4) the Austrian small arms were were produced under licence in the 30's.
Greece was allready gearing up for war since Benito was not hiding his intentions and although none was taking him seriously,Greeks did!

1) The Greek army used a multitude of small arms' types. Yes, among those the Austrian pieces were sort of "dominant", but with large numbers of French guns (Chauchat M1915 and Hotchkiss M1922/26 LMGs, Hotchkiss M1914 and St. Etienne M1907 MMGs, Lebel rifles) and German rifles (the Mauser kar 98 manufactured both by Belgian FN and german Mauser). None, repaet none of them were manufactured in Greece under licence. The last order of Mannlicher Schoenauer rifles were made by Breda factory of Italy.
2)Spare parts? You don't know what I was reffering to, do you. Due to France's dramatic increase of armament procurement in 1938, Greece, who wanted to procure additional Hotchkiss LMGs as well as to replenish her stocks of spare parts couldn't. As a result, as the official greek history on supplies notes, the Greek army's arsenal in Athens began to manufacture spare parts (barrels, stocks etc) to complete the stock reserve. It did so successfully. However, even though Greece seems to have had the necessary equipment to manufacture virtually all parts of small arms, there appears to be no procurement of whole arms from greek companies. Indeed, as I said in my last post, it appears that the EPK LMG was part of a lrger effort to design and build a Greek series of small arms, which however weas never completed due to the outbreak of war. Now, going back to those spare parts for the Hotchkiss LMGS, as I said, I don't know whether they were manufactured in greece under licence or the Greek Army's weapons' enigneers simply reverse engineered them. What is clear is that no complete Hotchkiss machineguns (or Mannlicher rifles or whatever) were actually built in Greece.
3)The Danglis' model was a quick-firing mountain gun, designed by Greek officer Danglis and based on the design of the then very advanced Schneider M1897 field gun. It was manufactured in France, and sold to several countires. (In 1921-1922 the Greek army was capturing from the Turks used ex-Russian Danglis' mountain-guns supplied by the Boslheviks!) The only 65mm in Greek service was the Schneider-Ducrest M.1906, a mountain gun supplied to Greece by France during the First World War. It was used initially as divisional artillery, it was then retired from service in the 1930's, they were re-bored and passed on to regimental service as infantry-escort guns, with mediocre performance in the 1940-1941 operations.
As an aside note: after the Balkan wars, Greece used exclusively mountain guns in divisional service. Field guns were concentrated in corps' level.
4)See above. Not only did Greece not manufacture Austrian guns (the last order was manufactured in Italy) but in the late '30s Greece was changing caliber to 7.92mm and gave order to Belgium and Germany. Greece never had enough rifles, and during the war captured Italian pieces were passed into Greek service.

[MUC]

Originally Posted by Rich Rostrom

And because the Commonwealth forces were exhausted from two months' continual campaigning (men and vehicles worn out), and because the advanced forces were at the very limits of supply, which had to be brought overland hundreds of miles, consuming more fuel and vehicles...
Logistics, logistics, logistics.

The magnitude of collapse of the Italian Army during Operation Compass was so great, that Italian divisions surrendered to Commonwealth battalions. The Italian were running out of reserves and the Royal Navy had the power and means to support a further advance. Thus Operation Compass without a distraction in Greece could roll up all of Libya. The British managed to transfer, supply and partially retrieve several divisions in Greece in OTL, why shouldn't they be able to do the same in Libya with the same resources?

Which is easier to interdict: the 70 km sealane from Apulia to Durazzo, or the 500 km sealane from Sicily to Libya?

Bearing in mind, that the tiny Greek navy managed in several occasions to interdict the Italian supply line in OTL, I'd say the Italy-Albania link.
Bear in mind, that it's easier to find ships in a 70 km, than in a 500 km sealane.
Furthermore, the Aoulia-Durrazo sealane is closernto Alexandria and the RN can closebthe distance staying largely out of range of the Italian airforce.

Three battleships are out of action. That isn't "half the Italian Navy", any more than the five battleships sunk or disabled at Pearl Harbor was half or even a third of the U.S. Navy.

That's more than half of the capital units of the Italian Navy.

My conclusion was that if Italy concentrated its resources against Greece, it would do better than OTL, even without German intervention. Since I noted that British support for Greece would happen before German "non-intervention", I concluded that Italy would eventually lose.

Then tell us which extra divisions you want transferred to Albania, at what timepoint and how they are supposed to be supplied.

[cimon]

Originally Posted by rohala

1) The Greek army used a multitude of small arms' types. Yes, among those the Austrian pieces were sort of "dominant", but with large numbers of French guns (Chauchat M1915 and Hotchkiss M1922/26 LMGs, Hotchkiss M1914 and St. Etienne M1907 MMGs, Lebel rifles) and German rifles (the Mauser kar 98 manufactured both by Belgian FN and german Mauser). None, repaet none of them were manufactured in Greece under licence. The last order of Mannlicher Schoenauer rifles were made by Breda factory of Italy.
2)Spare parts? You don't know what I was reffering to, do you. Due to France's dramatic increase of armament procurement in 1938, Greece, who wanted to procure additional Hotchkiss LMGs as well as to replenish her stocks of spare parts couldn't. As a result, as the official greek history on supplies notes, the Greek army's arsenal in Athens began to manufacture spare parts (barrels, stocks etc) to complete the stock reserve. It did so successfully. However, even though Greece seems to have had the necessary equipment to manufacture virtually all parts of small arms, there appears to be no procurement of whole arms from greek companies. Indeed, as I said in my last post, it appears that the EPK LMG was part of a lrger effort to design and build a Greek series of small arms, which however weas never completed due to the outbreak of war. Now, going back to those spare parts for the Hotchkiss LMGS, as I said, I don't know whether they were manufactured in greece under licence or the Greek Army's weapons' enigneers simply reverse engineered them. What is clear is that no complete Hotchkiss machineguns (or Mannlicher rifles or whatever) were actually built in Greece.
3)The Danglis' model was a quick-firing mountain gun, designed by Greek officer Danglis and based on the design of the then very advanced Schneider M1897 field gun. It was manufactured in France, and sold to several countires. (In 1921-1922 the Greek army was capturing from the Turks used ex-Russian Danglis' mountain-guns supplied by the Boslheviks!) The only 65mm in Greek service was the Schneider-Ducrest M.1906, a mountain gun supplied to Greece by France during the First World War. It was used initially as divisional artillery, it was then retired from service in the 1930's, they were re-bored and passed on to regimental service as infantry-escort guns, with mediocre performance in the 1940-1941 operations.
As an aside note: after the Balkan wars, Greece used exclusively mountain guns in divisional service. Field guns were concentrated in corps' level.
4)See above. Not only did Greece not manufacture Austrian guns (the last order was manufactured in Italy) but in the late '30s Greece was changing caliber to 7.92mm and gave order to Belgium and Germany. Greece never had enough rifles, and during the war captured Italian pieces were passed into Greek service.

I have no time (it is late )but I will answer one point in No 4.You are wrong because Austria was not allowed to produce arms of any kind at that time-1925;as a result Greece gave the specifications to Italy since the Austrian prototype was redesigned in Greece(to replace the older model) and needed a factory for production,and it was negotiated with Breda which had taken the rights of production and the bluprints that had received a number of arms as part of the reparations programme from Austria so the Greek Goverment needed at least 100000 pieces as first order and my father was one the participants in signing that contract.The reason why it was not produced localy was that the greek factory had not completed its extension yet to house such production,the main factory being fully occupied by another project.It was still a greek product some of them exist in private collections outside Greece and in USA as being the best product of its kind.That was not the only one....

The ΕΠΚ was probably the first and the most successful assault rifle in Europe,a Greek invention sturm-gevehr three years before the German prototype that had caught Hitler with such enthusiasm.Only prototypes were manufactured and fifteen of them arrived at the front but when the factory was about to be completed the war started.Had the war been continued
in another six months the EPK would be going on mass production...

[cimon]

Originally Posted by Andreas

I thought this part of the original premise of this thread was already proven wrong.

Italy simply could not leave Libya, because Libya was the bet of the Mediterranean Theatre of War, at least after the Italians realized that the dreams for capturing Suez were doomed.

Anyway, what most people fail to see is that the Italian attack to Greece was nothing more than a supposed distraction for the British. It takes something more than Wikipedia or "history" books that recreate propaganda as "source" in order to understand what happened then (I'm not talking personaly here - we all fall to that trap ocasionaly).

First, let's check the Italian geopolitial thought of the time: number one target for Italy was Yugoslavia, because under the Italian geopolitical thought, Italy should control the Yugoslavian shores of the Adriatic (And Albania and Corfu)= "altra sponda" (oposite shore), because this was her "Lebensraum", and would give her the necesary strategic depth, and all this was described by the term "equilibro adriatico", under the theoretical thought of Loisseau and Giomberti. Of course, in the late 1930's there was also the fascist "wet dream" of turning Greece into a client-state, but that was far lower in the agenda. Hence, there was no geostrategic reason why Italy should attack Greece (even for Corfu) before she had cleared the theatre with Yugoslavia. And of course there was no reason at all to do so while facing the British in Northern Africa. So, what happened?

The first act of the war against Greece was actualy the sinking of the Greek light-cruiser "Helle" on 15th August 1940 in the harbour of Tenos by an Italian submarine. Why did this happened? Musolini had ordered the invasion of Egypt on August 8th -one week earlier. With that torpido, Musolini hoped for an escalation with Greek responsibility. That way the British would be distracted and the italian troops would have the advandage of surprise in Egypt.
After that, why did the Italians started the war on October, i.e. the start of winter, with the front in one of the worst terrains in an area with minimum infrastructures, while they had not the necesary units, plans, and material deployed in Albania? Was the Italian Regime so stupid, as the propaganda tries to prove? What was happening then in Northern Africa? Graziani had stoped before Mersa Matruh and Musolini failed to persuade him to renew his offensive, which he planned for December. The only way for this to happen was that the British should be distracted, and use some of their ships and airforce elsewhere, and even redeploy some of their ground forces. What the Italians thought was Greece, because there was the paradigm of WWI, and because Greece was supposed to be too valuable for Britain. Should the Greek government ask for help, the British could not deny it. Note, that when this help was requested in Spring '41, the British, even though they were facing their first defeats under Rommel, deployed about 50,000 men in Greece.

Hence, it is silly to accept that the Italian regime was foolish and misleaded when it decided to launch the attack on Greece. That served as an excuse to put the blame solely on the fascist government, while this decision was dictated by mere strategy, and actually had the support of also the king and Bandoglio. The attack on Greece was a part of the operations in N. Africa. Otherwise, the Italians would have chosen another theatre and another plan against Greece, and not the actual one. Because, through Albania, no matter how many troops they would engage, at best they would achieve a very-very slow advance at a very-very high cost.

Geography is a bitch and geopolitics her puppies...

The original premise is utterly wrong in one major item:Italians did not invade Africa but they had colonize an important part of the the north coast countries and they had to defend it willy-nilly against the British.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by cimon

The original premise is utterly wrong in one major item:Italians did not invade Africa but they had colonize an important part of the the north coast countries and they had to defend it willy-nilly against the British.

well, Cimon,

there's no need to take everything literaly. I guess that the poster meant that the Italians invaded in N. Africa, which means that they invaded Egypt. But from that point and forth, it's just imposible to consider the N. African and the Albanian theatres as two seperate incidents: they are fully connected, as well as the German intervention in both of them. If the Italians could maintain a solid defence in NA, then maybe -just maybe- Hitler wouldn't distract his forces before Barbarossa. But since the Italian Army could not check the British, Hitler had to support his ally, not only to keep the British occupied, but also to protect the French N. Africa, which would be perfect as De Gaul's Free French base on "national ground".
Hence, German intervention in N. Africa is innevitable, and so in Greece. The only chance for Greece was to come to terms with the Italians before March '41, and at the same time let no land, naval or air British units into her sovereignity, and this is also imposible. But what is imposible too, is that the Italian Army, following the actual plan, could achieve a fast and cheep enough victory over Greece.

[Marko]

I would just like to add that unlike during the German invasion of Yugoslavia Croatian troops would fight tooth and nail against an Italian one, and so it was even OTL. Croats never saw Italians as liberators since the knew the cost of "liberation".

Yugoslavia doesn't have to take part in this war but can supply Greece with weapons and munitions.

[BlairWitch749]

Originally Posted by rohala

Yes, that was what Greece was most afraid of. Throughout the war Greece kept a substantial number of infantry companies on coast protection. During the initial Italian offensive in October the Greek 8th division in Epirus had been informed by GHQ (based on some piece of intelligence apparently) to expect an Italian amphibious landing to its rear, and had therefore detached a battlegroup from its reserve for that purpose. The 5h division i Crete was also kept on the island for the first couple of months, for fear of an Italian attack.
With the British navy progressively gaining the upper hand in the eastern Mediterranean however, the danger seemed largely to have passed by 1941.

EDIT: all of Greece is "hill country". Armor is of little use except in the eastern parts (where the Germans operated in 1941). Not the western, where Italy operated.

on examining a topographic map of greece i don't see a suitable place to land other than near patras which would probably get bottled up by the greeks destroying the corinth canal and other crossings

[Urban fox]

Mussolini had to move heaven & earth to defeat Ethiopia. The army of which consisted largely of draftees armed with swords, spears & old muskets.

During the Greek War he sent his ministers out to the front-line to prove their ''Fascist fighting spirit'' and never once allowed any coherent planning by the military high-command (itself not of a caliber to inspire confidence).Italy cant beat the Greek, they cant beat any half-serious opponent in a stand-alone war. Not under Fascism anyway...

[cimon]

Originally Posted by Andreas

I thought this part of the original premise of this thread was already proven wrong.

Italy simply could not leave Libya, because Libya was the bet of the Mediterranean Theatre of War, at least after the Italians realized that the dreams for capturing Suez were doomed.

Anyway, what most people fail to see is that the Italian attack to Greece was nothing more than a supposed distraction for the British. It takes something more than Wikipedia or "history" books that recreate propaganda as "source" in order to understand what happened then (I'm not talking personaly here - we all fall to that trap ocasionaly).

First, let's check the Italian geopolitial thought of the time: number one target for Italy was Yugoslavia, because under the Italian geopolitical thought, Italy should control the Yugoslavian shores of the Adriatic (And Albania and Corfu)= "altra sponda" (oposite shore), because this was her "Lebensraum", and would give her the necesary strategic depth, and all this was described by the term "equilibro adriatico", under the theoretical thought of Loisseau and Giomberti. Of course, in the late 1930's there was also the fascist "wet dream" of turning Greece into a client-state, but that was far lower in the agenda. Hence, there was no geostrategic reason why Italy should attack Greece (even for Corfu) before she had cleared the theatre with Yugoslavia. And of course there was no reason at all to do so while facing the British in Northern Africa. So, what happened?

The first act of the war against Greece was actualy the sinking of the Greek light-cruiser "Helle" on 15th August 1940 in the harbour of Tenos by an Italian submarine. Why did this happened? Musolini had ordered the invasion of Egypt on August 8th -one week earlier. With that torpido, Musolini hoped for an escalation with Greek responsibility. That way the British would be distracted and the italian troops would have the advandage of surprise in Egypt.
After that, why did the Italians started the war on October, i.e. the start of winter, with the front in one of the worst terrains in an area with minimum infrastructures, while they had not the necesary units, plans, and material deployed in Albania? Was the Italian Regime so stupid, as the propaganda tries to prove? What was happening then in Northern Africa? Graziani had stoped before Mersa Matruh and Musolini failed to persuade him to renew his offensive, which he planned for December. The only way for this to happen was that the British should be distracted, and use some of their ships and airforce elsewhere, and even redeploy some of their ground forces. What the Italians thought was Greece, because there was the paradigm of WWI, and because Greece was supposed to be too valuable for Britain. Should the Greek government ask for help, the British could not deny it. Note, that when this help was requested in Spring '41, the British, even though they were facing their first defeats under Rommel, deployed about 50,000 men in Greece.

Hence, it is silly to accept that the Italian regime was foolish and misleaded when it decided to launch the attack on Greece. That served as an excuse to put the blame solely on the fascist government, while this decision was dictated by mere strategy, and actually had the support of also the king and Bandoglio. The attack on Greece was a part of the operations in N. Africa. Otherwise, the Italians would have chosen another theatre and another plan against Greece, and not the actual one. Because, through Albania, no matter how many troops they would engage, at best they would achieve a very-very slow advance at a very-very high cost.

Geography is a bitch and geopolitics her puppies...

Andreas,
I am sure that count Ciano didn't make you privy to the Italian diplomatic and war Agenda;where did you get this information from?

1)The sinking of 'Elli' would not distract the British east of Sidi Barani facing the 300000 strong army(paper tiger) or the position of the duke of Aosta in Ethiopia...
2) The Italians would never move against anybody without the strong support of the Germans;The Italian army was recruited without a second thought about its equipment and support.It had grown too big for its Arsenal and stores and its equipment and support was in chaos;It was lacking all kinds of equipment and supply and worse of all they went to Albania without proper clothes and shoes;their boots had compressed paper soles(for walking in wet sub-zero enviroment).The Greek hospitals from Larissa to Athens were half full from Italian prisoners suffering from severe cases of frostbite needing amputations.Please Guess the morale of the Italian troops;That army had finished by March 41.It had taken all the defeats it could take and its grand spring counter-attack was another resounding defeat despite the high number of casualties it had suffered.550000 men more than those in North Africa and Ethiopia combined.They could not last another winter there and the 550000 were already over the Maximum Albania could take.

3)Signs and indications of Italian intentions against Greece were mounting only five years after the treaty of 1928.
4) The italians knew that a British intervension was in the cards since Greece was their usual ally in eastern Mediterranean and needed access to Greek airports in the near future.
5)Holding Greece (half as a puppet) makes British presense untainable in Eastern mediterranean.
6) The English fleet was able at anyone time to disrupt the supply of the Italian army in Albania.The assistance England gave to Greece was anything that could not be used against Germans in Africa.For example the Glauster Gladiator planes were anachronistic for modern war but they expelled the Italian CR 42 from the air over Albania but they were shot down easily later by the ME 109 of the Luftwaffe.
7) The mere numbers involved preclude Albania being a sideshow of North Africa;the main thrust of Italian expansion was against Greece,a move decided long before WWII.

[rohala]

Originally Posted by BlairWitch749

on examining a topographic map of greece i don't see a suitable place to land other than near patras which would probably get bottled up by the greeks destroying the corinth canal and other crossings

I doubt you can determine with a simple topographic map the suitable coasts.
The Greek General staff feared an Italian landing directed towards capturing Preveza (a port) and then towards Louros-Filippiada, thus cutting off the 8th division from Aitoloakarnania (the area south of Epirus).
It directed the 8th division to have at least some 4-5 infantry battalions plus 2 artillery battalions at thsi direction. However the 8th division commander did not want to divide his divisions' forces so he took the initiative to ignore those directions and concentrate on what he believed would be the main Italian effort.
The 8th division deployed a battalion on coastal defence between Kastrosykia and Preveza (~20km on Google earth) plus some artillery, and a small mobile reserve at Filippiada.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by cimon

Andreas,
I am sure that count Ciano didn't make you privy to the Italian diplomatic and war Agenda;where did you get this information from?

1)The sinking of 'Elli' would not distract the British east of Sidi Barani facing the 300000 strong army(paper tiger) or the position of the duke of Aosta in Ethiopia...
2) The Italians would never move against anybody without the strong support of the Germans;The Italian army was recruited without a second thought about its equipment and support.It had grown too big for its Arsenal and stores and its equipment and support was in chaos;It was lacking all kinds of equipment and supply and worse of all they went to Albania without proper clothes and shoes;their boots had compressed paper soles(for walking in wet sub-zero enviroment).The Greek hospitals from Larissa to Athens were half full from Italian prisoners suffering from severe cases of frostbite needing amputations.Please Guess the morale of the Italian troops;That army had finished by March 41.It had taken all the defeats it could take and its grand spring counter-attack was another resounding defeat despite the high number of casualties it had suffered.550000 men more than those in North Africa and Ethiopia combined.They could not last another winter there and the 550000 were already over the Maximum Albania could take.

3)Signs and indications of Italian intentions against Greece were mounting only five years after the treaty of 1928.
4) The italians knew that a British intervension was in the cards since Greece was their usual ally in eastern Mediterranean and needed access to Greek airports in the near future.
5)Holding Greece (half as a puppet) makes British presense untainable in Eastern mediterranean.
6) The English fleet was able at anyone time to disrupt the supply of the Italian army in Albania.The assistance England gave to Greece was anything that could not be used against Germans in Africa.For example the Glauster Gladiator planes were anachronistic for modern war but they expelled the Italian CR 42 from the air over Albania but they were shot down easily later by the ME 109 of the Luftwaffe.
7) The mere numbers involved preclude Albania being a sideshow of North Africa;the main thrust of Italian expansion was against Greece,a move decided long before WWII.

Cimon,

About the Italian geopolitical thought, there are a couple of books by Greek academics, namely Prof. I. Mazis (Geopolitics: theory and aplication) and Dr M. Botsis (The Geopolitics of Adriatic-Ionio: the case of Corfu), but I'm afraid it's only in Greek... I took the main concepts from these books, but I put a touch of my own, since Prof. Mazis' book (for the part that is relevant to our discussion) is about the theory and history of geopolitics, and Dr Botsis focuses on Corfu and the Adriatic, excluding the North Africa from his account.

1) The sinking of Helle could not distract the British on its own, but it could lead Greece to an escallation, and in the case of the Greeks asking directly for British help, there could be a distraction.

2) The Italians would never move against anybody without the strong support of the Germans, true. But they were cleared to attack Greece as a potential British outhold - the only "surprise" was the time of the attack.
The ammount of forces at the beggining of the attack in October '40 was not that large, but even when they reached up to 550,000 in '41, it can be translated as a move of the popular "indirect approach" strategic doctrine. Do not forget that Libya provided a substantian strategic depth, so less forces could engage larger British ones, while the main effort could be made in the secondary front of Greece.

3) these signs could be interpreted as "normal" sphere of power frictions. Note that the Italians only wanted Corfu, not the whole Greece.

4) Excactly!

5) Excactly!

6) Yes, but the Italians hoped for more...

7) see #2

Anyway, I don't claim to be the only one aware of the real intentions of the Italians at the time, and things were a lot more complicated than the simplified explanation I gave. Nevertheless, I think that this was true to a large extend. The problem is that the nature of the Italian attack to Greece has not been researched to a descent degree, yet, and that most analyses just recreate elements of propaganda, including the public statements of Mousolini and Churchil, which have little historic value on this context.

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by rohala

I doubt you can determine with a simple topographic map the suitable coasts.
The Greek General staff feared an Italian landing directed towards capturing Preveza (a port) and then towards Louros-Filippiada, thus cutting off the 8th division from Aitoloakarnania (the area south of Epirus).
It directed the 8th division to have at least some 4-5 infantry battalions plus 2 artillery battalions at thsi direction. However the 8th division commander did not want to divide his divisions' forces so he took the initiative to ignore those directions and concentrate on what he believed would be the main Italian effort.
The 8th division deployed a battalion on coastal defence between Kastrosykia and Preveza (~20km on Google earth) plus some artillery, and a small mobile reserve at Filippiada.

Rohala,

once more you prove to be well informed!
About the most suitable site for a potential Italian landing, it is true that a simple geophysical map of Greece proves that this was not posible. Not because there were no suitable beaches, but because after the suitable beaches there were again mountains and mountains, and no suficient road network.

[cimon]

Originally Posted by Andreas

Rohala,

once more you prove to be well informed!
About the most suitable site for a potential Italian landing, it is true that a simple geophysical map of Greece proves that this was not posible. Not because there were no suitable beaches, but because after the suitable beaches there were again mountains and mountains, and no suficient road network.

To sum up Andreas,that is absolutely correct....in a nutshell!

[Lee-Sensei]

Originally Posted by Urban fox

Mussolini had to move heaven & earth to defeat Ethiopia. The army of which consisted largely of draftees armed with swords, spears & old muskets.

During the Greek War he sent his ministers out to the front-line to prove their ''Fascist fighting spirit'' and never once allowed any coherent planning by the military high-command (itself not of a caliber to inspire confidence).Italy cant beat the Greek, they cant beat any half-serious opponent in a stand-alone war. Not under Fascism anyway...

They had to move heaven and earth to beat Ethiopia? That's an exaggeration if I ever heard one.