1936: Italian invasion of Saudi Arabia

WI, instead of invading Ethiopia from Eritrea they instead making a landing on the other shore of the Red Sea?

Any non-obscure reason for Italy to bully Saudi Arabia at that time ?

italy would have a bit more oil... and when italy joins the war its potentially worse for britain

Cant see Great Britain being very happy about this. AFAIK GB didnt really give a damn about Ethipia due to its lack of anything useful. However, Saudi Arabia is right next door to a very large chunk of british controlled oil. The Brits would have kittens about the Italians occupying Saudi Arabia.

Cant remember whether Saudi was much of an oil producer at this stage, but if it is, then even more reason for Britain to be potentially prepared to risk war.

However, IIRC the main reason for the Italian attack was revenge for their defeat by the Ethiopians some 40 - 50 years before. What would be the POD that would make Mussolini risk war with Britain?

LordIreland said:

Cant see Great Britain being very happy about this. AFAIK GB didnt really give a damn about Ethipia due to its lack of anything useful. However, Saudi Arabia is right next door to a very large chunk of british controlled oil. The Brits would have kittens about the Italians occupying Saudi Arabia.

Cant remember whether Saudi was much of an oil producer at this stage, but if it is, then even more reason for Britain to be potentially prepared to risk war.

However, IIRC the main reason for the Italian attack was revenge for their defeat by the Ethiopians some 40 - 50 years before. What would be the POD that would make Mussolini risk war with Britain?

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During 1930s Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was just barely created, so yeah it had yet to build anything such else oil industry. So if Italy would attack them, they would got nothing except a pissed off British men. Not that the Brits cared much about the Saudis, but they did cared about the Red Sea.

You do know that the oil, largely unexploited, is mostly on the other side of Saudi Arabia?

Quite what the reaction of the ruler of the largest Muslim population in the world to the Italian occupation of the holy places would be is a good question. Probably not good.

Why would they?

Mussolini invaded Abyssinia because Italy had a history of intereference with that country - it was seen as being in the Italian sphere of influence, bordered as it was by Eritrea and Italian Somaliland.

One of his aims was to revenge the defeat at Adowa in 1896.

Mussolini opposed the Italo-Turkish war (which led to the conquest of Libya) when he was still a socialist pre-WW1. The justification the pro-war forces in Italy used at the time was the fabulous mineral wealth of Libya. No such mineral wealth was in fact found (not until oil in the 1950s).

So maybe Mussolini remembers that. In the 1930s oil was found in Saudi and was being somewhat developed. However Saudi had no army to speak of. So if Mussolini fancies an imperial adventure, instead of invading worthless Ethiopia, he invades Saudi Arabia. Besides, he had already declared himself "Protector of Islam", and don't you think that the Protector of Islam would lay claim to protect the holy places?

Would the British be annoyed? Probably

Would they go to war for the Saudis? I think not. Remember the British were in bed with the Hashemites in Transjordan and Iraq, and Hashemites weren't exactly friendly with the Saudis at the time. I think the British attitude to an Italian invasion of Saudi would be more like "If only they could both lose". Also I have a feeling that they'd be rather less sympathy for the Saudis that the Ethiopians in the League of Nations.

So I expect the most likely outcome is the Italians conquer the country quite easily, but face constant guerilla attacks.

If we assume WW2 breaks out more or less on schedule, what happens next? With more troops tied down in Saudi, maybe Italy doesn't attack France 1940. Mussolini still wants a parallel war to make Italian gains, so I think at this point he attacks Ethiopia. Relations between Britain and Italy make get rather frosty, but it doesn't automatically lead to war. Perhaps some Italian volunteers go serve on the Russian front.

Without the drain of the Italians on their war effort, and with it being somewhat harder for the British and Americans to get at the Germans, the Germans hang on a bit longer, perhaps long enough to get nuked. The Russians get a bit further West by the time war ends.

In the post WW2 war, the right wing bloc of Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Brazil, become important members of the Western Alliance.
Mussolini dies of old age in 1960. Fascism finally ends in Italy in 1968 when the strain of fighting guerilla wars in Saudi, Ethopia and Libya leads to the collapse of the regime.

SunilTanna said:

Besides, he had already declared himself "Protector of Islam", and don't you think that the Protector of Islam would lay claim to protect the holy places?

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I think that was later, but I'm being pedantic.

Would they go to war for the Saudis? I think not. Remember the British were in bed with the Hashemites in Transjordan and Iraq, and Hashemites weren't exactly friendly with the Saudis at the time. I think the British attitude to an Italian invasion of Saudi would be more like "If only they could both lose". Also I have a feeling that they'd be rather less sympathy for the Saudis that the Ethiopians in the League of Nations.

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In terms of people I think you are right but not in terms of strategic interest. The Italians controlling Saudi offers them military bases with potential to really harm two key British assets considered vital for Britain's long term security.

The first is the fact Italy will control almost one coast of the Red Sea (give or take). This would, in theory if not in practice, allow them to threaten to Suez route.

The second would be the capability for Italy to place forces on the other side of Saudi, poised to run across into Iraq and ultimately Southern Iran. That would allow Italy to hold a knife over the source of most of Britain's oil.

Now the British could just racket up their defences in both these areas but that would be expensive. The capacity for Italy to blackmail Britain in the case of a general European war would be considerable.

Now I don't know if Britain has the political stomach to wage war in 1936 so they may well end up letting Mussolini go ahead anyway, but there is likely to be far more opposition from policy makers. This is an important difference to Ethiopia where most opposition came due to humanitarian reasons.

Ethiopia and Saudi both had slavery at the time. I'm thinking a smarter Mussolini could find some use for that.

Any sympathy for the Italians will be eroded if he uses Mustard Gas though (as he did OTL.)

Does he need mustard gas to conquer Saudi Arabia? They were even more military backward than Ethiopia.

It was once claimed by an Italian officer that "if the [Albanians] had possessed a well-equipped fire brigade, they could have driven us back into the sea."

Expect the Italians to have trouble with any offensive operation. They almost cocked Albania up, which is only across the Adriatic from Italy itself, as the harbour wasn't big enough for their supply ships.

They did badly invading Abyssinia, and they could do that across land from their other African colonies.

They'll have to attempt a landing along the Arabian coast somewhere, which you can pretty much guarantee won't go to plan.

Mussolini invaded Abyssinia because Italy had a history of intereference with that country - it was seen as being in the Italian sphere of influence, bordered as it was by Eritrea and Italian Somalialand

One of his aims was to revenge the defeat at Adowa in 1896.

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Italy was also looking for a way to connect their colonies at Eritrea and Somililand.
They probably would have tried to buy Southern Sudan if things had worked differently

Italy had gotten a Green light from Britain and France, in Advance of the Ethiopian invasion,
Something they would not have gotten for Arabia.

If Germany does not have to help Italy and invades Russia on time in May they may reach Moscow and take it.