What if the Italian army had managed to reach the Nile in WW2 ?

Cairo is bad enough, but WI they manage to reach Suez canal?

zarkov said:

Well Comrades of this community. Let's take a back seat and look at the facts. In 1940 the Italian army was a joke.

So let's change the cards a bit.

1. The German Army is more sucessful in invading Frace and it manages to kill more Allied troops in Dunkerque. Let's 2/3 of the troops are captured and killed.
2. We have Mussolini invest more in technology and we have the Germans sharing theirnewer designs with the Itlian Army before WW2.
3. We have a more sucessful Itlian army with better trained troops, that manage to push pass Sidi Barni, Al-Eliamein and Cairo.
4. The Itlian Army manages to reach the Nile Delta on the 5 November 1940

Now we have that. There are three questions I would like to ask.
1. What effect would this have on the war ?
2. What Strageic option would the Axis have in furthering their goals ?
3. What effect would this have on the British Parliment and Army?

Also if you want to add anything to this thread, this would be very helpful. Thankyou

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In this the Italian army would need the full cooperation with the navy and airforce to protect its supply lines to Libya.
If it got as far as the nile it would need to establish airbases to ward off any British counterattack. Also the Italians need better tanks and lots of them.

The navy would need to double its size and construct the Christofo Colombo class battleships and at least complete the Aquilla and a few aircraft carriers as well as having airbases to support.

Even though carriers like the Aquilla wouldnt be needed since the Italians could cover most of the mediterean from land bases. And mussolini believed that Italy was a unsinkable aircraft carrier. But it would still be ideal to have at least a couple so as to provide extra support.

Also the airforce would need to upgrade its aircraft and get rid of those Tri engined bombers and biplane fighters. The Regia Aeronautica was lacking in close support techniques, unlike the German luftwaffe so it would need to upgrade its tactics and provide better cover for the army as well as the navy in order to drive the royal air force from the skies.

Also the Reiga Marina would need to take a more offensive role in trying to lure the Royal navy away no matter what the odds were against the Italians.
If you want to press that far you got to make sure the British dont even get a "look in" and that means confrontation between both British and Itailan navies.

Also the submarines should adopt a German wolf pack approach to cut off British convoys.

zarkov said:

Well this is a good answer. However, what would happen once the Italian army reaches the Nile. Then what will it do, assuming of course we have Rommel come to Notrh Africa.

Waht will the British Government do once the Italian army has reached the Nile ?

What about the US Government ?

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Well assuming the Italian invasion of the british colonies in the middle east has been successful as to reach the banks of the Nile.

However Italy could have Rommel to come in and give a helping hand but as far as Mussolini is concerned he would have wanted the conquest of egypt and the places so far described to be Italian victories.

if the Germans did come in it would have swiped the Britian off the middle east and cut her off from India and the far east.

But if this plan were to succeed the Italians would be in for a lot of setbacks such as the British wouldnt give up without a fight and you got to count Montgommery coming in and he would have given the Italians a headache no matter how strong thier miltary was.

Plus you got to account for the following
Its one thing to sweep through on a glorious offensive and conquer.
But its another to actually hold onto the terrortory in having to account if Britian tries to launch a offensive from India going through the Italian somiland. Also there could be uprisings in the conquered terrortory from resistance groups which would be British sponsored.

As for the Americans im not sure what thier reaction would be if they were neutral.
If in the war then they would have worked alongside the British to rid the Italians out of the middle east.

Also the Italians should have worked on a campagin to annex Malta as well as Gibratlar as they would still prove a pain in the neck for the Italian or axis convoys.

The key to a successful North African campaign is to invest immediately Malta, and do everything and more to take it. When i say immediately, it means immediately: the 10th of June is the declaration of war, and round-the-clock bombings start the same day. The fleet is deployed to counter any attempt to reinforce Malta, either from Gibraltar or from Alexandria. Losses are irrilevant, provided that the main strategic goal is achieved.
The French theatre is an irrilevant side show, and this perception must be clearly understood by the Italian command, and shared by Mussolini. An effort should be made to secure landing fields in Tunisia, again to increase the pressure on Malta. A landing (possibly coupled with the launch of paratroopers) should be attempted not later than the early days of July.

If this strategic approach is followed consistently, it would be possible to manage to supply the Italian army in Lybia without excessive losses (and in any case, logistic bases should be created in lybia before the war starts).
Having Italo Balbo not struck down by friendly fire over Tobruk would also help. Obviously in this scenario there is no Greek front: Greece is a remote sideshow, and completely unnecessary to achieving the main goals: Aexandria and Suez.

I would say Gibraltar cause as mentioned before The Italians and Germans would have problems with getting convoys (for example) past it.

I also think that Spain would get a little more friendly if the British don't pose any real threat anymore.

Agreed. Gibraltar should be next goal, and this time it should not be too difficult to convince Franco to help.
The interesting question is what the fleet at Alexandria would do: the most reasonable option would be to leave through the Red Sea (depending on when this happens - but it should be in any case before November 1940 - there would be a few Italian subs in the red sea, not to mention the heavy batteries in the Dahlak islands). It might be possible to levy some toll from the departing ships (another option would be to transfer some torpedo planes to Erythrea).

The other option is obviously steaming toward Gibraltar: it would be quite interesting to see the fleet forcing the gauntlet of the channel of Sicily with airfields in Sicily, Tunisia and Malta in Italian hands.

However, I do believe that by November 1940 Churchill would not be PM anymore, and the new government would be sueing for peace.

zarkov said:

1. The German Army is more sucessful in invading Frace and it manages to kill more Allied troops in Dunkerque. Let's 2/3 of the troops are captured and killed.
2. We have Mussolini invest more in technology and we have the Germans sharing theirnewer designs with the Itlian Army before WW2.
3. We have a more sucessful Itlian army with better trained troops, that manage to push pass Sidi Barni, Al-Eliamein and Cairo.

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I'm just going to seperate out point 4 for the moment as IMHO it's the lesser of the four PODs... I'm a bit late to the party but there are some interesting bits here. The two key pieces are that the BEF is cut up more and the Italian Army is better equipped.

zarkov said:

Now we have that. There are three questions I would like to ask.
1. What effect would this have on the war ?
2. What Strageic option would the Axis have in furthering their goals ?
3. What effect would this have on the British Parliment and Army?

Click to expand...

The Italian tank situation can be fixed with either better tanks or better command, or both. The Battle of France was won with better command so we know that's an option. Mussolini liked tanks so there are no political problems from encouraging a more optimal development. Let's also assume that Italy didn't follow the tankette trend, and neither did it base the M11/39 on the Vickers 6-ton.

Instead it continued the development of the Fiat 3000 rip off of the French FT-17, and we can see what might have occurred with the French Char D1-3 + B1 series of developments. Alternatively you could just have them lining immediately up with the German industry, but it seems more appropriate for them to follow the French model.

What we can do is have the strategic clique as exemplified by Gens Baistrocchi and Pariani ('La Guerra di Rapido Corso' or the war of rapid course) achieve dominance within the wider military community at a point, say, in the late 20's. We can also have Italian tank commanders training more with their German counterparts.

So the Italians move away from the Anglo-French tactical philosophy and go more into the German while retaining a better base design. The two influcenses cross-pollinate and this in turn leads to Italy making it's own technical innovation, frinst adopting the larger turret approach of the German tanks.

The other thing you need of course is better economics and *ahem* lets just ignore that one and get on with the fun stuff...

So when O'Connor faces off Graziani (though actually it might well not be Graziani) in Operation Compass he's confronting an evolved line of Fiat 3000 tanks commanded by officers grounded in La Guerra di Rapido Corso. He's beaten and, with 4th Indian stuck in Italian East Africa, and with the rest of 2nd NZ diverted to follow it's Second Echelon to the UK following the Dunkirk disaster, all Wavell has is the green 6th Australian with no armor and incomplete anti-tank weapons.

At this stage of the war it's a better thing to maintain armies in the field than fight potentially disastrous battles so Wavell retires 6th Australian across the Canal and 4th Indian across the Red Sea, setting up for the second round. Greece gets no help and, interestingly, maybe Italy needs no assistance there which frees German forces up for certain other things... Crete doesn't happen and Malta (as per Lord Kalvan) withers on the vine.

Is the DAK despatched? What of Turkey and Spain? Can Italy sustain further conquest? A lot of questions and at this point I'll pull up short and think about things more.

Croesus

OK, after further thought...

Tenth Army stops at the Canal. Malta remains unsubdued (although is on borrowed time), the Italian commander is rightfully concerned about lengthy supply lines, there are a lot of prisoners that need to be dealt with, Greece/Albania is draining troops let alone Italian Barbarossa obligations and there is still a strong RN presence in the Med. So time is spent consolidating gains and negotiating with the Vichy Army of the Levant. The Vichy are already providing air facilities for Axis air forces vs Iraq and Italy is looking at least for the French to not help Eighth Army in Palestine/Syria.

Eighth Army is in a bit of trouble. IMHO it's not in Wavells character and not in keeping with the attitudes at the time for 6th Australian +/- 4th Indian to stand and fight with their backs to the Nile/Suez. They can get into the Sinai but then face complications with Vichy Lebanon/Syria. Wavell has a fairly secure situation in Palestine with 7th Australian + 3 Brigades (2 FF, 1 4th Indian) but a less secure situation in Iraq with 10th Indian + 2 Brigades (1 18th Indian, 1 4th British Cavalry). He doesn't have to look over his shoulder at Japan yet, and does at least have internal lines of communication plus command of the Indian Ocean. But he's not sleeping well at night.

DAK is committed to the theatre. Reinforcing success is great when you can do it and even though the Italian victory looks good, the more hardened staff officers will have doubts about the Italian capacity for holding. So Rommel goes in, and to a much improved military situation. He has half-finished lines to fall back on at Alamein if things go bad around the Canal and so can direct his planning staff to look at the problem of assault crossing of the Canal... and wouldn't he have just *loved* that

Geopolitics gets interesting. Germany still gets involved in Greece, but to a lesser extent, and maybe even leavening the force with Hungarian/Rumanian troops. The screws go on Turkey. The pro-German coup in Iraq could very well advance. The Vichy French *will* fight and a bit of work needs to go into this campaign given the tighter constraints on the British side. Franco Spain is also another matter.

Croesus

I did a bit of searching to see if Zarkovs thread was new.

Napoleon XIV has 'WI Mussolini Develops Secret Weapons', which is certainly related. From it Talonbear01 writes: "Instead of thinking of new secret weapons, imagine if the Italian simply had better equipment at the start."... the outrageously named Prunesquallor writes: "what you've got to remember was the Italian system of weapons procurement and manufacture, the worst easily of any of the bigger powers. This was what screwed them up."... Redbeard develops this: "But like other have already said the problem for the Italians wasn't getting the ideas, but having the industry to build them."

Magnum has 'The Uber-Italians' where David Bar Elias delivers a telling blow with: "I'd recomend Henrik Krog's "Italian Surge." Basically, Italy starts off in the 1920s with the goal of energy independence. Their army is reformed from the observers that the Italians send to observe the South American conflicts in the 1930s. Musso never adopts Hitler's anti-semitism (although the Italians still ally with Germany militarily), which allows for millions of Jews to pour into Italy (and it's colonies)"... yet Superdude counters "I thought it was pretty implausible. Everything went right for the Italians."... Basileus then puts the boot in with "Not implausible, impossible. Italian Fascism was a threat grave, but not serious, for Western democracy."

Arizona Ranger has 'Il Duce At Sea: Italian Navy More Potent' where Gremlin writes:"So we need an Italy that is in a better economic postion to expand its fleet without taking resources from other areas - Libyan oil!"... Amerigo Vespucci cautioned with "You'd have to POD the depth of the oil as well. In OTL, the Libyan oil was too deep for extraction until the late 1950s."

Trajen777 has 'Italy is a Major Power in WW2' [and from his POD boy is it ever]. MarkA appealed for commonsense with "Italy was in no economic shape to do the things you suggest."... Arctic Warrior notes "I think Italy could have done better, but it was very much dependant on the Fascist system."... Jolo contributes "I suppose the only possibility for Italy to solve her problems would be to have *really* big advances in terms of using ceramics and other modern materials to build amor, composite materials, and the likes. That would be pretty unlikely, but not the first time such "sudden advances" happen."

There are of course others but none that substantially support Zarkov's thread. My take;

Italy had the technical capability, but not the economic capacity. Exploiting Libyan oil is held up as the basis for advancing economic capacity, but there are technical issues around this. A 'sudden advance' could yield gains here, but there there is doubt about how well the Fascist system could support such advances.

The historical view on the positivity of Fascist economic policy isn't unanimous... though I think that's a moot point really. Italy was a basket case and had a lot of issues to work through; even if Fascist policy was excellent I can't see it riding out the shocks delivered by the Depression.

But this doesn't conclusively eliminate a 'sudden advance' in Libyan oil exploitation. Then again, neither does this support the major power suggestion. There is of course a middle ground, that a sudden advance in oil exploration technology yielded up a minor, but reasonably substantial, boost to the economy and, while not changing the general thrust of Fascist economics, does permit Mussolini to cream off more funds into the war industry. This general scenario satisfies Zarkov's need for a qualitative boost without making the more hard-boiled commentators (incl. myself) roll their eyes.

Ordinarily this would lead to asking 'where is the money best spent'... but this is Fascist Italy we're discussing, so comes down to 'who does Mussolini favour?'. This point is very arguable, but I'll take the simpler option of spending on the army: if he covets land, he needs soldiers, not sailors or airmen. So it goes into tanks and guns. The extra money loses a bit of momentum as x amount is sucked out of the system via corruption, but enough remains to advance changes within the command, doctrinal, personnel and logistical structures. Not enough to move Italy out of minor power status, but things are certainly looking better.

The basic premise seems to work: a fitter Italian Tenth Army defeats British Eighth Army and exploits to the Nile/Suez. There are implications for the Greek/Albanian actions, plus Malta/Crete to be worked through and I want to revisit the role of DAK. Still miles away from looking at Spain/Gibralter. One important step is to start reflecting through the potential impact of Zarkovs idea on the prologue period of Max Sinisters comprehensive '1941: Hitlers Mediteranean Strategy'.

Croesus

Isn't Nile =/= Suez?

Kang Seung Jae said:

Isn't Nile =/= Suez?

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Correct. Suez is east of the Nile.

Even tough it is connected to the Nile, I belive it is not considered a part of it.

Oddball said:

Correct. Suez is east of the Nile.

Even tough it is connected to the Nile, I belive it is not considered a part of it.

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Oh ok, I stand corrrected, I usually though they were two separate entities, the Nile is the river and the Suez is a canal which connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.

I think that the Italians reaching the Nile wouldn't have much of a stragetical meaning, except maybe forcing the US to come into the war faster.

Now, if the Italians reach the Suez, you have a situation where Britain could fall faster, or where Japan has freer mobility around Asia.

Italian Success..

It's an interesting idea. I do think Malta is critical and I suspect that any coherent and co-ordinated action in the summer of 1940 would have succeeded in taking the island which would have transformed the supply situation.

Let's go back a step or two. IF Dunkirk doesn't happen and/or the BEF is lost, there would probably have been a political convulsion in London with Churchill being forced out and a new Government seeking terms with Berlin and Rome so this scenario would be irrelevant.

For the British, North Africa was the only active theatre from the summer of 1940 to the spring of 1941 but resources were stretched. We could have the South Africans voluntarily leaving the war (pro-German sentiment was strong among the Boers and it might be that Smuts could be defeated in Parliament by Malan on a motion of neutrality).

I also think we have to remember that Wavell not only defeated the numerically superior Italian forces in North Africa but also occupied the Italian colonies in Ethiopia and Somalia and might even have driven the Axis out of North Africa completely in early 1941.

I think that if the Germans had sent troops in number to North Africa in the summer of 1940 and had been able to train and equip the Italians better, Wavell would have had a very hard job holding them back.

If this Axis force had been able in the autumn of 1940 to reach the Nile, it's possible nationalist officers in Egypt might have risen in support and help throw out the British giving the Axis a free run to Cairo. From there, I suppose the Sinai would have been crossed and with strong pro-Axis elements in Syria (Henri Dentz), Iraq and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who is to say the Axis couldn't have swept the Middle East in the early months of 1941 ?

Unfortunately, Hitler was committed to the conquest of Russia and I think however pleased he might have been at the thought of Jerusalem as an Axis city, the fall of Moscow would have pleased him more.

Italian Victory

Italians can hold in Egypt only if :

Graziani is not in command ( and he was the regime's favourite general )

The Navy ( we had a good, but badly led navy ) destroy the British fleet at Punta Stilo or during the invasion of Crete .

There is no war in Greece

The excellent Macchi 205 are conceived earlier so that Italian aereonatic can resist to the English one ( although we had a great superiority at the beginning of the war )

However we must also remember that in 1940 Italian army fought with First World War's tactics and had a first world war equipment

Early Italian success

If the Italians did succeed in reaching the Nile in 1940 or early 41 there would have been no DAK, as they wouldn't have been either needed or wanted. This would almost certainly have seen the seen 8th Australian headed for the ME rather than broken up between Singapore, Darwin, and the islands. Thus around about May 41, or possibly earlier, you have all 4 2nd AIF divisions in the ME, plus 1st Aust Armd being hustled into existence.

Additionally, WSC wouldn't have hung onto all the trained divisions and materiel in England that he did historically. He knew as early as January 41 that the Germans were going for the USSR in May and held back a lot of tanks and aircraft that ended up going as supplies to the Soviets. This would make a big change, as the Greek campaign and commitment wouldn't have gone ahead, but Crete may have been properly garrisoned instead of virtually ignored until the extremis of the debacle in Greece.

Alberto said:

Italians can hold in Egypt only if :

Graziani is not in command ( and he was the regime's favourite general )

The Navy ( we had a good, but badly led navy ) destroy the British fleet at Punta Stilo or during the invasion of Crete .

There is no war in Greece

The excellent Macchi 205 are conceived earlier so that Italian aereonatic can resist to the English one ( although we had a great superiority at the beginning of the war )

However we must also remember that in 1940 Italian army fought with First World War's tactics and had a first world war equipment

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All excellent points.

• Graziani was a poor-to-average general, who had just two successes in his CV: the "pacification" of Lybia and the command of the southern front in the Ethiopian war of 1935-36 (both of which did nothing to justify his fame as "desert warrior"). Graziani was always a political general, and a reasonable (but very harsh) colonial administrator. Not unsurprisingly, he was removed from both Lybia and Ethiopia once a reasonable pacification was achieved). He did not have a clue on how to handle a major campaign against an European army
• the war against Greece ranks among the most stupid decisions by Mussolini. Even more so, since it started at the end of October 1940, when the situation in Lybia was already compromised. Admittedly, a case might be made for an amphibious operation to take Crete (which might have been a good advance base against Alexandria): this should have been tried in August or September 1940, once Malta had fallen.
• Italian navy handled quite badly the critical first 6 months of the war. It's true that the fuel reserves were quite low (enough for just two-three months of operations), and that land-based torpedo planes and bombers were not performing as anticipated against ships. However, the strategic perspective of the war was not dictating the need for a "fleet-in-being": it should have been quite obvious to everyone that a war protracting beyond end 1940 (or spring 1941 at latest) was as well as lost, and that therefore all available resources should have been immediately used to force UK to sue for peace (taking Malta and reaching the Nile would have been enough for that)