Italy neutral in WWI, how does this affect Italy as a power

Hypothetically, if Italy had been neutral during WWI, how would this have affected Italy? Would their economy have been signicantly stronger or larger? Could their population be much larger by WWII? Could they have still come to acquire the territory they received from AH in the OTL? Could they have built up a large MIC complex by selling to both sides in WWI?

Yes, much larger in stronger. The avoid the cost/debt of the war. The can sell their products at very high margins to either the Entente or CP or both. Prices being 6 times prewar levels were not uncommon.

The likely are a major leak point of the UK blockade, and will make a large margin on reexporting.

They don't cripple their working age men. Call it a million people not killed or crippled.

They will have a major industrial expansion. After the war, more factories. Yes, to much bigger MIC, but small compared to what USA can build.

The will have 3-5 million more people by early 1940's, and Libya is likely Italian majority. Their other colonies will have a lot more Italians. Now they may gain a little less land than OTL from A-H, so this will mean some of the extra Italians are A-H citizens.

The might have been able to negotiate for extra land from A-H.

BlondieBC said:

The might have been able to negotiate for extra land from A-H.

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Hmm. Denmark was neutral, and did get a revision of the Schleswig-Holstein border.

The situation in Italy is different. Denmark had ruled all of Schleswig-Holstein for centuries before it was taken by Prussia and Austria in 1865.

The Italophone areas of Trentino and Istria had never been ruled from Italy in many centuries.

Of course this assumes Allied victory. Italian neutrality benefits the CPs. Austria-Hungary may destroy Serbia sooner, and will have more force to throw against Russia.

The Allied blockade of Austria remains awkward; unless Albania joins the Allies.

Hmm. Denmark was neutral, and did get a revision of the Schleswig-Holstein border.

The situation in Italy is different. Denmark had ruled all of Schleswig-Holstein for centuries before it was taken by Prussia and Austria in 1865.

The Italophone areas of Trentino and Istria had never been ruled from Italy in many centuries.

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yes but some concession from A-H are the fondamental prerequisite for Italy remain neutral. In the end after long and very difficult negotiations the final offer was Albania, Trentino (with a border favorable to A-h from a defensive pow and after a monetary payment), the land west of the isonzo (Gradisca included). The problem in OTL (among others) was that the long negotiation so given plenty of time to the entente to fight a diplomatic offensive and that A-H want to give this after the war and in this case trust between the two nations was not very high.

Of course this assumes Allied victory. Italian neutrality benefits the CPs. Austria-Hungary may destroy Serbia sooner, and will have more force to throw against Russia.

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Regarding Serbia, the CP offensive will go as OTL, the big change will be that the rescue of the Serbian army now will almost certainly fail and Russia will face more troops as there is no italian front. Romania will probably stay neutral.

The Allied blockade of Austria remains awkward; unless Albania joins the Allies.

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South Albania was under italian control due to the fact that the country was in total anarchy, the rest was conquered by A-H so Albania is a non-issue

France scooped up all Italian workers that were interested in working in France for French wages, so it would probably even be more so than IOTL. Less need then for Chinese and Indo-Chinese workers, laborers, and drivers as the Italians would fill those roles and make bank doing it.

Thats a lot of remittance payments to Italy, which will help bolster their economy and potentially create a mini version post war boom similar to what the US experienced IOTL after WW2. Of course this won't last, but Italy will be elevated for at least a decade after WW1. They will also probably focus more on colonial expansion and if WW2 is avoided or they stay out of WW2, they will really take off with Libyan oil is discovered/becomes recoverable in the 1950s.

Regarding the effect in Italy, well no pubblic debt who we had finished to pay in the 70's but more probably more budget surplus to reinvest or maybe even buy some colonies after the war.
No 600.000 death and a million of crippled (plus other 500.000 civilian death to famine) to burden the future.
Fascism will be butterflyied away, there will be still a faceoff between socialist, proto-fascist and the goverment, but without WWI consequence the goverment will remain reasonanble strong and after a period of violence things will go back to normal.
With the army not fighting the war in Europe, Libya and somalia will be pacified in the early 20's and there is the small possibility that a goverment in Rome will decide to use the chaos at the time in Abyssinia for a limited expansion

Presumably, a slightly stronger economy, a slightly larger population, but most importantly no Benny the Moose. Perhaps Italy stays neutral in WW2 or maybe even joins the allies.

But whatever happens, Italy will still be the least of the Great Powers by a long margin.

LordIreland said:

Presumably, a slightly stronger economy, a slightly larger population, but most importantly no Benny the Moose. Perhaps Italy stays neutral in WW2 or maybe even joins the allies.

But whatever happens, Italy will still be the least of the Great Powers by a long margin.

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Not necessarily, Italy is probably the only nation who can reasonable keep her colonial empire intact in modern time as italians will become more numerous in Libya and Eritrea (Somalia will be probably given independence) and north african oil can be a serious booster for the economy and for influence expecially if the OPEC is formed and they try to ignite an oil crisis.

So, would Italy be much more capable in WWII?

Jiraiyathegallant said:

So, would Italy be much more capable in WWII?

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Depends by a lot of factors:

- There will be a WWII? With Italy neutral the CP have some good possibilities of win so things will change a lot.
- Italy will partecipate? Skippping the First Great Massacre and having seen what happened to the other nations, even the victors, can make a lot of politicians and even the King a lot less enthusiastic to go to war. Much will depend by the fate of A-H and by the stance of Germany
- One of the factor of the italian abysmall performance in WWII was that Italy modernizated the military pretty quick so by the time of the war his equipment was outdated, but in general a more rich Italy can divert more money on the armed forces and the industry (plus no binary division nonsense and without Benny a little more coordination between service).

Rich Rostrom said:

Hmm. Denmark was neutral, and did get a revision of the Schleswig-Holstein border.

The situation in Italy is different. Denmark had ruled all of Schleswig-Holstein for centuries before it was taken by Prussia and Austria in 1865.

The Italophone areas of Trentino and Istria had never been ruled from Italy in many centuries.

Of course this assumes Allied victory. Italian neutrality benefits the CPs. Austria-Hungary may destroy Serbia sooner, and will have more force to throw against Russia.

The Allied blockade of Austria remains awkward; unless Albania joins the Allies.

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Italian neutrality results in a CP win 19 times out of 20. I was working on negotiating border adjustments for staying neutral, it is one of the possible POD to keep Italy neutral.

Jiraiyathegallant said:

So, would Italy be much more capable in WWII?

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Yes, easily.

Bigger economy. Bigger population. Libya is Italian majority.

To take small example, Italy was building pretty good battleship early in the war, roughly the equal of the QE ships. If Italy stays out of the war, they likely build several more of these ships, so their navy is more powerful. These ships will be showing their age by the WW2 time frame, but they will increase the capacity a lot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caracciolo_class_battleship

I would say there are pretty good odds all 4 are finished, no 0. And prewar, they were building about 1 BB per year, so we might be looking at another class of 4 in the early 1920's before the naval treaty. (Assuming their is one to keep it easy to discuss.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battleships_of_Italy

So if you look at this list, we now have 2 Andrea Doria, 2-3 Conte di Cavour, and 4 Caracciolo for a total of 8 BB. A much more respectable capital fleet. Assume the Italians build 4 new BB in the early 1920's and a couple of carriers, we end up with quite a respectable navy in 1930.

8 BB - 15" guns.
4 BB in reserve.
2 medium armored carriers.

Add 4 more Littorio class ships in the late 1930's, and Italy has one of the most powerful BB navies (12 BB with 15" guns) in the world. All this without the need to make the Admiralty better/smarter in any way. Just giving them larger budgets.

And to land, the Italians might well gain colonies. They will have nice trade surpluses and tax revenue in the war. Germany will need to pay its internal debts. France is wrecked. I would not rule out the purchase of Colonies such as Tunisia or even some smaller Colony in sub-Sahara Africa (Djibouti or the like).

Or take Libya. If the cities of Libya are Italian majority, you could easily have Italian militia units of ok quality in Libya. The ports are much larger. The rail network is more developed. All this helps a fight. Add in Tunisia with an Italian majority, and Italy is even stronger.

So handwavium, we somehow enter a WW2 like battle where the Italians are fighting the UK for control of the Med. To totally cut the Med, they only have to take Malta. They have surface superiority, they have air superiority. The operation becomes very doable, and Libya is a much easier to defend part of Metropolitan Italy.

lukedalton said:

Depends by a lot of factors:

- There will be a WWII? With Italy neutral the CP have some good possibilities of win so things will change a lot.
- Italy will partecipate? Skippping the First Great Massacre and having seen what happened to the other nations, even the victors, can make a lot of politicians and even the King a lot less enthusiastic to go to war. Much will depend by the fate of A-H and by the stance of Germany
- One of the factor of the italian abysmall performance in WWII was that Italy modernizated the military pretty quick so by the time of the war his equipment was outdated, but in general a more rich Italy can divert more money on the armed forces and the industry (plus no binary division nonsense and without Benny a little more coordination between service).

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Agreed.

You have to work through these and some other questions. This single POD can give you a lot of TL's. Simple things like the difference between a pro-CP neutrality (helps CP cheat on blockade) versus pro-Entente neutrality (Government tries to enforce blockade and keeps large portion of army in threaten position to A-H) is huge. A-H survival is also huge. You can end up with an Italy fighting a long partisan war to keep control of many Southern Slavic lands. You can end up with an Italy facing a strengthened and hostile A-H. You can end up with a lot of extra colonies or none.

You could skim my TL for one possible take, but basically I end up with an Italian navy similar to what I put in the previous post. Only the UK, Germany and the USA will be stronger. Japan is not stronger at the end of the war. Italy will gain Tunisia and a few other colonies. I have not worked out the details, but they will directly or indirectly come from France. I am consider border adjustments in Italy favor with Egypt and Sudan. The TL is on hold now.

I could have written the Italy part many other ways as to how Italy benefits, but it always benefits greatly. And the CP win barring really second strange butterfly or POD. The interplay gets complicated, and you may get lost if you look at my TL since it is a secondary impact, but it basically plays out like this.

1) In June 1915, A-H has about 12 more divisions to use (a full army). Either things go worse for Russia or Serbia falls faster in most ATL's.

Note: I cancelled Gallipolli, so it did not work out directly that way in my ATL. The UK sent the Gallipoli forces to Flanders so the Germans sent units to Flanders and A-H sent units to Poland, so the Ottomans did a lot better. I enjoy complicated butterflies because life is often that way.

2) The blockade is much looser. Hard to quantify, but important. CP has a lot more of something.

Note: I pegged 50K tons per month, with Italy making about a 2:1 profit for its trouble.

3) In 1916, Conrad avoids the blunder that setups the Brusilov Offensive. He had a tendency to attack on the least important front, but with only one front, it is hard to make this mistake.

Note: This may be the largest win for CP. No Brusilov means Romania stays out of war means 1 million more tons of cereal means A-H does not fall apart in late 1918.

4) By 1917, we are looking at closer to 1 million more A-H men due to not fighting Italy. Probably 500K more not fighting Romania. In a war of attrition, the numbers win out even with the USA entering the war on time. Russia will fall apart faster than OTL, which means a hard attack by the German on France in 1917 or a very hard attack in 1918.

I spent a lot of words to try to explain that if Italy stays out, nothing looks the same in Europe compared to OTL. It will immediately butterfly everything.

Will the Serbian army still get away through Albania?

Would Italy try to avenge the Adowa defeat and take Abysinnia whilst the rest of Europe is engaged in war?

euromellows said:

Would Italy try to avenge the Adowa defeat and take Abysinnia whilst the rest of Europe is engaged in war?

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No, the army will be used to finally subdue Libya and Somalia.

Will the Serbian army still get away through Albania?

No, without italian logistical help and with italy (now neutral) still keeping south Albania things are too much difficult; the A-H navy can even be tempted to make a sortie.

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You could skim my TL for one possible take, but basically I end up with an Italian navy similar to what I put in the previous post. Only the UK, Germany and the USA will be stronger. Japan is not stronger at the end of the war. Italy will gain Tunisia and a few other colonies. I have not worked out the details, but they will directly or indirectly come from France. I am consider border adjustments in Italy favor with Egypt and Sudan. The TL is on hold now.

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I have read and is a good work and i think to have discussed italy in your thread. The problem is that this kind of neutrality is achievable only with hindsight, basically the italian goverment and king know that this war regardless of who win will left everybody so depleted, so ruined and almost broken (financially and in spirit) that the only winning move is not play.
At the time even if the majority of the italians were in favor of neutrality, a very active minority campained for the declaration of war and the entente basically promised us all what we asked, with this and the fear of our geostrategical nightmare: a A-H empire plus Germany triumphant and dominant in Europe with control of the balkan and not very kind with the 'supposed' traitor (aka us) at one side not even Giolitti (one of the most influential prime minister, great supporter of the CP alliance and neutralist) can go to the king with a proposal to mantain a CP friendly neutrality in exchange of nothing, without being feathered and tarred. The best possibility are short negotiation and A-H who accept to give something to Italy, otherwise even if Italy wise up and don't enter the war, her neutrality will be surely pro-entente and this can still create lot of bump for the CP.

If Italy stays neutral 8assume that as given)

x no losses
x stronger economy
x more to invest in libya (and other colonies)
=
stronger Italy afterwards

I can see that concessions from Austria Hungary are a prerequisite for Italy to stay out of the war.

But how much dioes Italy want and how much is AH willing to give...

Trentino would be Italian minimum

Maximum (reasonable) would also include the Litorale (Küstenland)

but in Görz the Slovenes are majority, so it would be a no, In Istria Croats have the majority, so thats again a no.

Triest is mainly Italian, but too important to AH, so again a no

Would the Trentino be enough to keep italy out of the war?

Could the CPs offer Albania to Italy?

Mikestone8 said:

Will the Serbian army still get away through Albania?

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Probably Yes.

If you look at the battle, it is the Bulgarians who can cut the route of retreat. So you need a Bulgarian buff more than A-H buff. Now to get them out of the ports of Albania, the RN will have to come in force, otherwise the A-H navy cuts them off.

lukedalton said:

I have read and is a good work and i think to have discussed italy in your thread. The problem is that this kind of neutrality is achievable only with hindsight, basically the italian goverment and king know that this war regardless of who win will left everybody so depleted, so ruined and almost broken (financially and in spirit) that the only winning move is not play.
At the time even if the majority of the italians were in favor of neutrality, a very active minority campained for the declaration of war and the entente basically promised us all what we asked, with this and the fear of our geostrategical nightmare: a A-H empire plus Germany triumphant and dominant in Europe with control of the balkan and not very kind with the 'supposed' traitor (aka us) at one side not even Giolitti (one of the most influential prime minister, great supporter of the CP alliance and neutralist) can go to the king with a proposal to mantain a CP friendly neutrality in exchange of nothing, without being feathered and tarred. The best possibility are short negotiation and A-H who accept to give something to Italy, otherwise even if Italy wise up and don't enter the war, her neutrality will be surely pro-entente and this can still create lot of bump for the CP.

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Well for threads like this where the only ask for the effects without giving specific POD, I try to just give effects. For all I know, the author could have some POD in mind years or decades before the war starts, such as the classic Mr. XXX dies falling down the stairs.

The Geostrategic issues are serious. With a CP win, A-H may be revitalized and be unchallengeable by Italy for generations. Just as Italy was never strong enough to challenge France for Corsica and SE France IOTL.

If we wait until June 1914, it is hard to avoid Italy entering the war without fixing A-H performance in Galicia. And any major change in Galicia has more very powerful impacts that really make it more the true POD. With A-H looking like it would collapse, it is just too tempting.

But if one allows for better A-H performance, i see a different dynamic than you do. Italian powers that be wanted to regain the "Italian" lands, but they also had a sense of risk/reward. Without a prospect of an easy win, the Italians likely sit on the side. IMO if the decision is just delayed until late summer to enter the war, Italy will never again find the risk/reward ratio right to enter the war. So I see the what ifs as more how do we delay the decision to enter the war from March/April 1915 to the July/Aug 1915.

So in sort, I see several types of POD that can keep Italy out of the war.

1) One well before the war, such as "appropriate" compensation related to Bosnia, war with Ottomans goes worse, etc.

2) A-H land concessions.

3) Galicia battles goes much better than OTL, such as Wiking's Conrad Turns East.

4) Other combinations of military success that make the CP look like it is winning. Besides what I used in my TL, I think the Germans doing better in France could easily have done this one. For example, the French get an army cutoff that has to surrender.

I can see that concessions from Austria Hungary are a prerequisite for Italy to stay out of the war.

But how much dioes Italy want and how much is AH willing to give...

Trentino would be Italian minimum

Maximum (reasonable) would also include the Litorale (Küstenland)

but in Görz the Slovenes are majority, so it would be a no, In Istria Croats have the majority, so thats again a no.

Triest is mainly Italian, but too important to AH, so again a no

Would the Trentino be enough to keep italy out of the war?

Could the CPs offer Albania to Italy?

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Basically the maximum that A-H will give to Italy is what offered in OTL for her neutrality (but friendly with the CP) aka:
Trentino (with defensive border favorable to A-H and after monetary payment)
Italianity of Trieste will be protected and an italian university will be build.
Land east of Isonzo go to Italy (Gradisca included but not Gorizia)
Albania go in the italian sphere of influence and get an Italian prince.
Now the trick are the speed of negotiation and their development, in OTL they were long and nasty enough to easy permit to the entente to wage a diplomatic offensive that greatly helped derailed them plus the fact that between Italy and A-H trust was not much.
In the end this offer are enough to keep Italy out of the war due to the greatly neutralist majority and the diplomatic face saved