The Footprint of Mussolini - TL
No offense, but don't you know how Alliances work? If the Arabs had only attacked Israel and Italy had choosen to come to their help, then the other RA members could have stayed neutral. But with Turkey attacked as well, that triggers the RA equivalent of NATOs Article 5. The other RA members are committed to either declare a state or war to exist between them and the URA or break the Alliance.
Ones fellow Allies not having a choice in the matter of coming to your help or not is the whole point of joining an Alliance in the first place.
When you color in everyone they're fighting, the Arab's chances really don't look good.
No, not really when they are fighting Brits, French, Israelis and RA. Alfaq made real blunder when he went warring with so many powers. UAR is practically dead now. Not way that any UK, France, RA and Israel will allow it to live. And just wait full rage when they let know fate of Omani Jews if they don't already suspect that something terrible has happened.
Tunisia, we do not know of the whole country has fallen. There were riots against the bey, the Bey was assassinated, and the Baathists seized the airwaves, but the wider country may be in civil war between the Baathists and Bey Loyalists. And unlike in Oman and the Gulf States Anti UAR forces would likely get aid quickly. As I have said before the large Italian minority in Tunisia will demand the Fascists send aid immediately, even if they are busy fighting the invasion of Libya.
Also Beirut was said to be spared the fate of so many cities in the Middle East; so I am guessing it is not subjected to carpet bombing or prolonged urban warfare. So it might be an early target that gets liberated fairly easily with aid from the Lebanese Resistance.
Also Beirut was said to be spared the fate of so many cities in the Middle East; so I am guessing it is not subjected to carpet bombing or prolonged urban warfare. So it might be an early target that gets liberated fairly easily with aid from the Lebanese Resistance.
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I am actually thinking they will survive, but take quite a few hits. My guess is that the Alliance with the UAR is unpopular with many elites and the conservative Muslim populace; though not without its supporters. Basically once the UAR starts to love and Saudi Arabia is facing invasion or an equivalent to the fall of Sicily the King will be overthrown with one of his brothers taking the throne and making peace.
They may get off without a regime chance because the West does not want to ignite some holy war by being seen as imposing rule over Mecca and Medina. And the West won't want Turkey doing there what they did Jerusalem. And if it can take a major player out without further bloodshed i expect most will be for it.
But wile the Saudis remain in power they do take losses. One they become a neutral nation, not to join any further alliances. The have to concede land from border disputes to a restored North Yemen, Kuwait, Qatar, the OTL UAE, and maybe even lose land to Israel. Oman gets nothing because even if they get treated as conquered by UAR there was too much collaboration and the high profile genocide for them to be seen as getting any perk.
They may have to make certain deals on their oil too.
So I see the Saudi's surviving, at least until the end of the Cold War shakes things up again, but greatly reduced in power and prestige.
^ This really, because after all, Israel did give the Jordanian branch the boot anyway, so the only alternative I see, may as well be just trying to colonize Arabia anyway.
No. The West and RA may be allies, but they are not friends. And the Italian may not be crazy for the notion either; seeing it as provoking too many or giving the Turks too much influence. And I don't see Turkish troops in that area either to make a claim.
Mecca and Medina in a neutral nation would be the preference for most of the victors I expect. After all they may be allying with conservative Muslims to prevent a return of Arab nationalism along with promoting non Arab national identities post war.
Deleted member 109224
Wouldn't Sudan still be an Anglo-Egyptian Condominium at this point?
@PatrickMtz didn't Aflaq capture Latakia already?
@PatrickMtz didn't Aflaq capture Latakia already?
Corpses and Glory
Corpses and Glory
Extract from ‘The War that Ended a World’, by Francis Gautman
Extract from ‘The War that Ended a World’, by Francis Gautman
Internationally, few placed their heads above the parapets in support for Aflaq, but that wasn’t to say the planet united against him. A UN intervention was vetoed by Brazil, who while sympathizing with Israel did not support the more pro-colonial aspects of the Anglo-French movements to restore their ownership of the Suez. India and other Third-world nations generally agreed, expressing support for Israel but keeping quiet on the rest of the Roman Alliance and colonial powers’ ambitions. In Europe, the newly formed EDC was specifically not used as France knew using Swedish or Dutch troops to die in Algeria to maintain land there was monstrously unpopular and could sabotage the entire project. However, Adenauer was able (with endorsement by Rommel) to successfully convince the German Parliament to approve a small detachment of German troops to fight in Turkey, attempting to further make up for the Holocaust as well as proving to Germans that they had become a significant military power again. They would serve alongside the Austrian army, which had been fiercely built up by the Fascists in the years since the war. The Roman Alliance made a collective declaration of war upon the Arab powers, though far-flung members like Thailand would see little to no actual fighting. Cuban and Argentine soldiers saw conflict in Morocco, fighting alongside the Spanish. Greece made an agreement with the Roman Alliance that they would join the war with a significant amount of troops in return for full membership of the Roman Alliance and the evacuation of Crete by Turkey with the exception of a few military bases. This was hailed by the Greek government as final proof of collaboration’s wisdom, though the threat of invasion should their troops turn out less than loyal was obvious. Chiang’s China likewise declared war on the UAR and her allies, but this meant little to anyone since South China was struggling to stand upright at the time. A small detachment was sent to Libya to help guard the border against the UAR, but it never even saw action apart from the scattered remnants that remained of the UAR at the fall. America gave moral, economic and political support but refused to outright join the war due to war fatigue among the population and the need to monitor the situation in the South. This led to some protests among Jewish and Italian groups, who both formed a mass protest in the weeks after the war began to demand intervention. Life stopped for more than a third of New York, as they devoured the news from abroad as readily as if the fighting was on 42nd Street. A young Meir Kahane addressed the 200,000 strong gathering in Times Square to declare, “Love has its place, as does hate! Peace has its place, as does war! Mercy has its place, as does revenge!” The speech was widely publicized and made the young Kahane a celebrity in New York. Jewish and Italian volunteer brigades were formed, of which Kahane was a member. Kahane reputation would be among those who were offered and accepted to volunteer for Operation Cyrus. He would successfully apply for full Israeli citizenship after the war, becoming the leader of the Lehi Party in the 1970s during a time of great flux in Israeli politics.
The Soviet bloc gave Aflaq all the material and moral support they could want. Aflaq was never in want of supplies or anything else of the sort, with jet fighters equal to anything the West could throw at them. The material ran across North Iran (frequently targeted for sabotage by Mujahedeen fighters) into the UAR. North Iran was angered that so many resources that could help them defeat their rebel forces were being sent to prop up someone they were certain would turn on them. The Soviets made a lot of money off the trade, which Khrushchev used to help modernize the Soviet economy and strengthen his claim on power. The harsh austerity of the latter years of Stalin were finally being relieved and Soviet citizens dared to be hopeful of better days. However, no one in power was so foolish as to think the UAR would win. They knew the Arabs were totally outgunned against most of Europe and Israel. Their hope was that there would be a long and brutal war that bled the West dry and made the UAR a dependent satellite. It had been agreed by the Central Committee that when the UAR asked for peace (which they assumed would happen by the end of the year), they would step in and threaten nuclear war to demand the conflict stop. After a white peace or something close to it, things would settle down into an uneasy calm that would give the Soviets even more time to rebuild and spread their influence in the Middle East and Africa. In the meantime, they merely threatened that ‘Any use of Weapons of Mass Destruction by the West on a people without them will be answered by a nation that does.” This seemingly guaranteed that WMDs would not end the conflict before it began. In theory, this was a good plan, and both Malenkov and Molotov agreed with it. It recognized Soviet weakness while ensuring it played a major part on the world stage behind a nuclear paper tiger. What they had failed to take into account was Aflaq’s own plans and the spot they’d find themselves in.
While the Arabs were generally united, the same could not be said of the West. Israel was trapped fighting for their lives in the Middle East while Mussolini’s main attention was on protecting Italian (and French and Jewish) settlers in Tunisia while halting the advance of Nasser in Egypt. Eden’s proposed build-up in the Middle East hadn’t come soon enough and now the Gulf protectorates were sitting ducks to Arab onslaught – leaving confusion in the ranks about where to send the British army. De Gaulle stated that Algeria and Tunisia were his main priorities, but he found combatting the shadowy FLN in Algeria to be a nightmare. Franco, eternally suspicious of Jews and indifferent to the fate of Israel, would devote the entirety of his forces to Morocco, with Salazar and the Latin American Fascists fighting alongside due to distance constraints. Turkey’s wide frontier with the UAR would ensure that they would be the meeting point for many of the Roman Alliance armies without an obvious stopover in Africa or the Middle East. Thus, German, Austrian, Croatian, Bulgarian and Turkish soldiers - the Turks having refused Greek troops on their soil under any circumstance – would move towards the once Syrian border with the intention of marching all the way down the Mediterranean Coast and linking up with Israel, which would immeasurably help the logistics of the notorious region.
This was the birds-eye view of the situation at the beginning of the war, but it doesn’t take into account the internal divisions many of these countries faced. Britain, for example, was divided on the level of cooperation that should be undertaken with the Roman Alliance. Eden, in his speeches, would harken to war-time nostalgia of aligning with ‘The might of Rome’ and spoke favorably of Mussolini in his speeches. Moseley would go as far as to call Mussolini, “The greatest friend Britain has ever had”. For them, the war was an attempt to reassert the might of the British Empire, which had been questioned since the rise of the Americans, Soviets and Italians after the War. By contrast, Gaitskell was adamant that Britain should use the war to promote democracy in the Arab world and not to re-impose the old colonial order, which he considered a busted system. He wanted the Ba’athists removed, but wasn’t averse even to keeping the UAR together, as long as the resulting state was tolerant and democratic. In the UAR, Nasser dreamed of Egypt and not the Syria-Iraq conglomeration being the chief power of the Arab world. He would tell his subordinate Anwar Sadat that, “A united Arabia without Egypt at her head is like a man without a head – and a man without a head is running the country now!” Nasser’s desperation to prove Egypt’s individual prowess (and hopefully get himself at the top of the Arab pecking order) led him to launch a massed invasion of Libya, rather than follow Aflaq’s orders to devote the vast majority of his forces to steam-rolling Israel.
Extract from ‘The Fourth Shore: How Italy Changed Libya and Libya Changed Italy’ by Angelina Prima
What was telling about Egypt’s invasion of Libya was that it was significantly bigger than what Italians were expecting. By contrast, it was significantly less than what Israelis were expecting on their own border – being able to reassert the old frontier in about three weeks with barely any fighting anywhere but Gaza. Most historians now believe Nasser did not want to take out Israel at first, as he knew Aflaq would get most of the reputational benefit since it was the primary location where his armies were fighting. Nasser would be at best a supporting player. But if he successfully seized Libya and marched into Tunisia and Algeria, perhaps even taking the Sudan, he would be the only person who could take the glory. With that, regardless of whatever else happened in the war, he could claim to have been a great hero of the Arab world. To this day, Nasser is loathed by the remaining, fringe Pan-Arabist movement who feel that if he had put his ego second, he could have helped wipe out Israel right at the start of the war. To say the least, this analysis is ignorant of countless realities, many of which were devastatingly proven later in the war.
Thankfully for the Italians, their communities were primarily in the west of Libya and were thus safe for most of the war. Unfortunately, the areas the UAR did take were not all vacant. Furthermore, their violence was not equal to all members of the population. Egyptian troops had expected to be greeted by local Arabs as liberators, and were promised as such by their commanders. Instead, they faced resistance equally intense as the settlers. Gradually, they began to hate these ‘fake Arabs’ and treated them as occupied enemies. The treatment of Libyan Arabs helped bury any lingering sense of connection in the community to their neighbouring kin. Still, they were afforded better treatment than the remaining settlers. European settlers, be they Italian, Albanian, Slovenian or elsewise were placed into concentration camps. The intention was to hold the settlers hostage and exchange them for payment at the end of the war. The settlers and their children would be exiled back to Europe (even if they were born in Libya) and from there on relations would go smoothly. By contrast, there was one sole exception to this rule: Jews. As the destruction of Israel was non-negotiable, it was believed that the destruction of Jews was almost an essential co-condition to ensure it could never arise again. This despite the fact that many of the Jews who were killed were Haredi who did not recognize the Israeli state – but it was believed that their children may become Zionist and that was reason enough. Most Jews in Libya (who made up nearly 7% of the population) were likewise in the more developed urban centres out west, but many were still out there in the east. This was, tragically, one of the few things Nasser generally agreed with Aflaq on. In the opening days of the war, the ‘Anti-Zionist Decree’ as it became known was sent to commanders straight from Baghdad. It demanded that ‘Arabia be permanently purged of Zionist influence’. To all observers, it meant only one thing: the green light for a third Holocaust.
Things would most infamously come to a head in Tobruk. Despite stern resistance, the town fell to the Egyptians on April 20th. Most of the civilian population had already been evacuated, but 976 Italian soldiers of all races had surrendered after running out of ammunition. An Italian speaking Egyptian approached the men and assured them that, ‘We have no hatred for Italy or Libya, only for the Zionists that manipulate them’. With that the man asked that the Jewish soldiers (of which records show there were roughly fifteen) identify themselves. Instead, to the commander’s astonishment, all 976 soldiers, even those who were obviously Arab or Italian stood up and declared one after another ‘I’m a Jew!’ They knew the fate that awaited them. That evening, all soldiers were shot for ‘fermenting Zionist propaganda’. The story was reported secretly back to the Italians from sympathetic Libyan inhabitants. The legendary declaration would earn Tobruk its status as a ‘Hero City’ alongside Trieste. The story would be used to help whitewash racism claims against Italy by empathizing a near mythic unity across races in the Italian state. Nasser cooed over his victory, saying that Benghazi was next on his list. Of course, he would never reach that far.
Extract from ‘The Arab Tragedy: 1944–1956’ by Abdul Nazim
Despite its relative distance from the decisive fighting in Israel, Tunisia would prove a particularly bloody stand-off during the Second Arabian War. The main problem was that Italian, French and Jewish settlements (who made up roughly ten percent of the population) were dispersed so widely and in such an uncoordinated fashion that attempts to rescue them by French and Italian intervention were not an easy mission. They required large-scale sweeping operations over areas that weren’t always obvious. Sometimes locations of Italian and French settlers had to be taken from the word of locals passing refugees. Air support was sent in where possible, but requirements were in place all over the country and could not easily be spared. In the vacuum following the assassination of the Bey, law and order in the country completely broke down. Tunisia would host some of the most appalling atrocities committed in the entire Second Arabian War due to the lack of any coherent command structure on both sides. In the rural areas, Ba’athist mobs banded together to try and obliterate any Non-Arab presence in the land. Isolated settler and Jewish houses in the desert were attacked and burned down with the families still inside (age and sex being no protection into what had rapidly fallen into a race war). Other small settlements were the victims of mass shootings and rapes by Ba’athists. Settlers were generally less likely to attack Arab villages as they were numerically inferior – they mainly planned to hold out until rescue by one of the European powers. This wasn’t to say they were innocent, of course. Where settlers outnumbered a nearby Arab village, that village was typically burned to the ground as a ‘defensive measure’. Many Arabs who had worked for the Bey and came to the Europeans for protection were lynched as well – sometimes even if they produced proof. All in all, it’s estimated that some 10,000 ethnic Europeans who lived in Tunisia would be killed by the conflict. Another 800 or so Jews would die as well (many evacuating to Djerba Island which found itself rapidly overcrowded). It would leave Tunisia bitterly scarred and divided in the coming years.
A significant proportion of that came in Tunis, which had descended into a gigantic firefight. The Europeans, Jews and Bey loyalist Arabs had been held up in roughly half of Tunis with the help of the French and Italian air forces. In scenes reminiscent of the Boxer Rebellion, the group held up in the old city of Tunis and the port, waiting for help. Street to street, merciless combat tore the Tunisian capital apart. The sheer numbers of the Ba’athists was slowly overwhelming the settlers, but salvation would soon arrive. On April 9th, French and Italian battleships swarmed into the harbor, with troops quickly deployed to give the beleaguered population some support. Most of Tunis would be flattened by the bombardment, ironically leaving the recently threatened port-side of the city as the most well-preserved remnant. On April 15th, the French, Italian and Israeli flags (despite the Israelis not having been involved) were flown over the Medina to show that the capital had been cleared. It’s estimated that some twenty thousand Arabs (both civilian and Ba’athists) were killed in Tunis alone, with many more rendered homeless and at the mercy of Italian soldiers (who treated the natives with Fascist savagery).
Planes continued to roam the country to detect outposts of settlers, but they were growing scarce, either as a result of multiple villages banding together or the former residents having been killed. Italian and French troops would continue pouring into the country from the west and south, until the entire country was declared secure on May 27th. More accurately, it began a series of retaliations against ‘Ba’athists’ by both the settlers and soldiers. Ruthless bombing raids by both the French and Italians (though particularly the latter) sent the death toll of Arabs in Tunisia up to 70,000. Victor’s justice would soon be in effect, and the bitterness of the racial slaughter that came beforehand would ensure stern reprisals from French troops who came in (the Italians maintaining a small but noticeable presence for no other reason than twists De Gaulle’s arm in negotiations), with Arabs who couldn’t prove loyalty to the Bey being treated like criminals. One other important factor in the quelling of the Tunisia situation was that it freed up more men for both Italy and France. This would be particularly useful in the coming battles in Egypt and Algeria.
Extract from ‘Tears of the Pharaohs: The Tale of Egypt’s Tragic Twentieth Century’ by Talal Hussein
Nasser had been confident after the seizure of Tobruk that a successful conquest of Libya was imminent. His subordinate, Anwar Sadat, was much more subdued. He was confused why there seemed to be so little activity from the Italians, even taking Tunisia into account. Nasser dismissed Sadat’s concerns and continued to pour men and supplies into Libya. Yet as Nasser’s men readied for a march on Benghazi, the news reached Cairo that something strange was happening in the Mediterranean. The Royal Navy and Regia Marina were sailing eastwards … directly to Egypt herself. The British had been thrown into disarray with the quick collapse of their forces in the Gulf, and were forced to co-ordinate with the Italians (also seriously distracted in Tunisia and Libya) to prepare a counterattack. Both Eden and Mussolini could agree that it would be foolish to waste the immense naval advantage the West had. Mussolini, though friendly to Israel, would always put Italian interests and territory first, hence his focus on the North African theatre. Eden likewise was adamant about restoring control over the Canal to split the UAR firmly into two, separate camps. The emergency coalition government of Israeli (what could be described as a triumvirate of Ben-Gurion, Begin and Shamir) consulted with Defence Minister Dayan, who concluded that they could spare some troops from the Syrian theatre to support the anti-Nasser operation. Plans by the British to launch an invasion from Sudan were shelved when Pro-UAR riots broke out in Khartoum in early April. The country had remained a colony due to hostility between Egypt and Britain which led to growing resentment especially in the Arab segment of the country that the British had to be thrown out. Black Sudanese soldiers - who were mostly Christian and southern - were recruited by the British to take some of the load since so many British troops were needed for the operation. Unfortunately, sectarian and ethnic tensions proved immense, and many Arabs in the north thought that the British were planning to eliminate Arab influence in Sudan. Thus, even Nasser’s small invasion on April 28th from Egypt into Northern Sudan would prove to cut deep into the country, taking Abri by the end of the week. Yet even this great victory would prove illusory when the Italians and British prepared their next big move.
On April 30th, Operation Augustus began with the Regia Marina sailing right into the heart of Alexandria and pummeling the shore. Thousands upon thousands of Italian and Greek troops poured out of transports while paratroopers landed behind the Egyptian lines and caused chaos. Meanwhile, the British smashed Port Said with their own battleship turrets while paratroopers landed over the length of the Suez Canal. As their retreat was cut off in the Sinai, Israel unleashed her reserves in a lightning attack that flooded into the Sinai desert. The Egyptians were quickly expelled from Gaza and were soon forced to flee to Sharm al-Sheikh at the south-most tip. Fifty-thousand troops were trapped with no way out and would eventually surrender at the end of June. It was only the end of April, but the Suez Canal had already been wrested from the control of Nasser. Yet Nasser didn’t care – like Aflaq, he believed that as long as the Arabs were ready to bleed, they could outlast any conflict. What he cared about far more was pulling his troops out of Libya as urgently as he had sent them in, fearing that they were about to be cut off. By mid-May, the last of Egypt’s holdouts in Libya had been destroyed or fled. Alexandria was taken after many bitter days. Mussolini knew full well how bloody a full invasion of Egypt would be, but as Ciano recorded, he seemed almost excited by the idea as he felt there was a linear correlation between corpses and glory. He certainly found blood in Alexandria. He had likewise made an agreement with the British that only Italian troops would seize Cairo – a move Eden accepted readily to spare the inevitable loss of men. Over complaints from his generals that a safer landing could be found elsewhere than trying to storm Egypt’s second-largest city directly, Mussolini said that they, “Should not so much think of the situation now, but the Italian schoolboy a hundred years in the future, who wants to know the mighty deeds his ancestors accomplished”. The Italians faced universal rejection and had to fight for every street. They responded by launching a devastating naval and aerial campaign that leveled the residential area. The UAR was certainly not squeamish about recruiting child or women soldiers, seeing it as a war of racial-existence where a loss would mean the end of the Arab race as a whole. It was hoped that the killing of women and children would demoralize the Italians. Unfortunately for Nasser, the Italians had no qualms about shooting back. The experience was, however, emotionally crippling for the Greek conscripts to the conflict who had no love for Italy, but were forced to kill women and children they did not know for a country they did not like. Suicide and drug-usage rates among Greek soldiers were miles higher than any other nation in the fighting, which would cause a series of social problems in the country when they returned home. In some ways, the Second Arabian War was as damaging for many Greeks as it was for the Arab world. It would become the latest chapter in the unfolding Greek tragedy that even their ‘liberation’ would result in their agony. In the suicide note of one Greek soldier by the name of Tzannis Tzannetakis, he bitterly wrote, "The Fascists have committed the ultimate sin against us: they have made us like them." Mussolini boasted that soon he would march through Cairo. Unfortunately for the dictator, he had many more corpses to go before his men would reach the Pyramids.
Retaking the Suez Canal, the British proceeded to open the waterways once again – an Egyptian sabotage campaign to block the route was cleared by the end of May. Thus, Italian and British transports made their way through the narrow strip. The British supplied men to Sudan to attempt to hold back the Egyptian advance while the Italians continued to build up men and ships in Eritrea (overwhelmingly Libyans). If Eden knew what the true purpose of this build-up was, one can only wonder what he would have done. Eden hoped that taking the Canal alone would be enough to make Egypt quit, but he did not understand Nasser, who was ready to fight to the last man. The Egyptian was certain that the political will did not exist in the West for a full victory, especially after the emotionally and materially devastating Chinese War. While this may have been true if the war continued on the same trajectory it had before, as was horrifyingly demonstrated, it would not remain on the same trajectory for long.
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