Hailu was already pretty opportunistic and not even the Italians trusted him whereas Seyoum was more sympathetic to the Patriots, even smuggling some three thousand Italian rifles to them during the late '30s and opening East African Campaign. Gugsa is a more notable Tigrayan proxy and Afawarq Gebre Iyasus was very sympathetic to the Axis in general on the basis of ideology, even pushing for temporary Italian rule to develop Ethiopia before she broke away like America from Britain.
The Footprint of Mussolini - TL
Yes, I noticed that I confused Seyoum and Gugsa in my post above and edited accordingly, my bad. Hailu was indeed an opportunist, but I suppose he may do well ITTL.
Gojjam was pretty restive during the Italian occupation (my grandpa fought there as a guerrilla) and the terrain is difficult to maneuver so I'd suppose it'd be expected that he'd be more thoroughly supported by the Italians ITTL.
Yes, sounds likely.
Out of curiousity, do you know under which unit your grandpa fought?
Gojjam is probably gonna be looking like a hellhole under continued Italian colonial rule. He fought with Ras Imru's Army of Gojjam and after that disintegrated on the northern front, went back to Gojjam proper and fought there until the Liberation.
That brings up the question - what happened with Ras Imru ITTL? I was thinking the Italians might install him as the new Emperor of a puppetized Ethiopia or use him to govern the Amhara territories.
I expect him to be still interned in Italy.
I think that under TTL's circumstances, a puppet Emperor of Ethiopia is out of question. Vittorio Emanuele, and Umberto after him, bear that dignity, and it would be extremely unbecoming to the newfound Great Power status of Fascist Italy to renounce that (remarkably, Italy needs Ethiopia in order to give its monarchs an Imperial title with any pretense of - made up - sense). Acutally ruling Ethiopia, or parts thereof, could theoretically be "outsourced" to an Ethiopian noble - but then, i'd suppose the proud, defiant Imru would not be a likely choice. Hailu himself may be regarded as a better option, otherwise Seyoum might be respected enough to do the job, if he agrees to that.
The Italians were willing to grant Hailu the status of Negus, but only for Gojjam. It wouldn't be surprising if he ended up governing the rest of the Amhara territories. I don't think Seyoum would be selected, owing to him administering Tigray and at odds with Gugsa in eastern Tigray due to old family disputes going back to Yohannes IV.
Damn. I knew there were going to be nukes at play, but I thought it would just be a few of the key cities like Baghdad, Cairo, and Riyadh with maybe the occasional tactical nuke. Here, Israel and the Roman Alliance went full Judgement Day on the UAR and completely destroyed it as a country. Sadly, I don't think there's going to be any effort to rehabiliate the Arab people with the RA and Israel looking for a series of partitions that Sykes-Picot look lenient. So most Arabs will still hate Jews which will reinforce the stereotype of all Arabs being Nazis and making them the most hated race in modern times. Even with the Troubles making a more racially progressive America, I don't think anyone is going to get a second glance when being racist towards Arabs, with any positive depictions in Hollywood probably being seen as sympathetic towards Neo-Nazism.
As horrific as Samson is, many will justify it as being done in the prevention of a Third Holocaust, which can be a pretty strong argument. The real kicker is De Gaulle's decision to nuke the desert Algerians which was completely overproportional and was done for sole imperialistic purposes rather than for a moral cause. I predict that this is going to cause a strong break in relations between France and the Anglo world with America and Britain distancing itself from France as radical imperials while De Gaulle uses this as justification for having France be an independent Great Power that is more aligned towards the Roman Alliance. I can't see the French Left taking this easy and there has got to be mass protests and riots in the nation. What complicates this is that when word gets out that Aflaq had Nazis in his inner circle, it's going to kill any opposition to De Gaulle as being seen as pro-Nazi. French politics is going to be very interesting moving forward.
On Britain's side, I think this is going to force them away from Italy with the sentiment of Mussolini as their southern friend being killed, possibly being the end of Mosley's Fascists. This will make Britain deepen their special relationship with America, and I think the imperialism of the future peace agreement will force even the Conservatives to shift towards more of a Commonwealth than holding onto the Empire tightly, though several territories like Hong Kong, El Salvador, and the Caribbean islands may still remain.
On the topic of Italy's involvement with Ethiopia, I don't think it's going to cause the collapse of the Fascist movement. As it's been stressed before, Fascism here works on a technical level since Italy owns the Mediterranean as their lake, is rising as a superpower equal to America and the Soviets, won the second world war and expanded the empire greatly, and they are seen as morally righteous for saving the Jews. While Fascist Italy is undoubtedly no paradise with many cruelties domestically, Mussolini and his successor can always point to the glories of New Rome. Ethiopia can't be Italy's Afghanistan because while the Soviets were either in deadlock or losing the Cold War, Italy has seen win after win while at the moment they have at least cordial relations with the West and can always point to the USSR as the greater evil. So I don't think the Ethiopian insurgency will cause the Empire to collapse since Italy won't be held back by moralities and inflict many atrocities to keep the population in line. I do think that it will cause the regime to weaken, especially with the fall of the USSR preventing any more close relations with the West along with potential economic troubles. I believe that in the future Fascist Italy will still exist in a PRC style, or a "Democracy" will rise up with the Fascists being the dominant party for many years like the PRI in Mexico.
Overall great story and I can't wait to nominate this for the Turtledoves.
As horrific as Samson is, many will justify it as being done in the prevention of a Third Holocaust, which can be a pretty strong argument. The real kicker is De Gaulle's decision to nuke the desert Algerians which was completely overproportional and was done for sole imperialistic purposes rather than for a moral cause. I predict that this is going to cause a strong break in relations between France and the Anglo world with America and Britain distancing itself from France as radical imperials while De Gaulle uses this as justification for having France be an independent Great Power that is more aligned towards the Roman Alliance. I can't see the French Left taking this easy and there has got to be mass protests and riots in the nation. What complicates this is that when word gets out that Aflaq had Nazis in his inner circle, it's going to kill any opposition to De Gaulle as being seen as pro-Nazi. French politics is going to be very interesting moving forward.
On Britain's side, I think this is going to force them away from Italy with the sentiment of Mussolini as their southern friend being killed, possibly being the end of Mosley's Fascists. This will make Britain deepen their special relationship with America, and I think the imperialism of the future peace agreement will force even the Conservatives to shift towards more of a Commonwealth than holding onto the Empire tightly, though several territories like Hong Kong, El Salvador, and the Caribbean islands may still remain.
On the topic of Italy's involvement with Ethiopia, I don't think it's going to cause the collapse of the Fascist movement. As it's been stressed before, Fascism here works on a technical level since Italy owns the Mediterranean as their lake, is rising as a superpower equal to America and the Soviets, won the second world war and expanded the empire greatly, and they are seen as morally righteous for saving the Jews. While Fascist Italy is undoubtedly no paradise with many cruelties domestically, Mussolini and his successor can always point to the glories of New Rome. Ethiopia can't be Italy's Afghanistan because while the Soviets were either in deadlock or losing the Cold War, Italy has seen win after win while at the moment they have at least cordial relations with the West and can always point to the USSR as the greater evil. So I don't think the Ethiopian insurgency will cause the Empire to collapse since Italy won't be held back by moralities and inflict many atrocities to keep the population in line. I do think that it will cause the regime to weaken, especially with the fall of the USSR preventing any more close relations with the West along with potential economic troubles. I believe that in the future Fascist Italy will still exist in a PRC style, or a "Democracy" will rise up with the Fascists being the dominant party for many years like the PRI in Mexico.
Overall great story and I can't wait to nominate this for the Turtledoves.
Dolan
Banned
Until it was revealed that UAR worked with literal Nazis, and any sort of moving too much against RA and Israel would be seen as sympathizing with Nazis instead.
Britain will try to rebranding themselves as another great power, separate from US, and I would bet that Italy and French "success" story, in addition to Indian clusterfuck, would in turn caused Britain to hold on their Empire even more tightly.
In the end, it would be USA standing alone against Alliance of Empires.
That was... a pretty destructive attack. All that foreshadowing was warranted!
On the topic of Ethiopia: I do think it'll break free from Italy eventually, possibly joined by Somalia if Somalis' utter dislike for Italians keeps up as much as OTL. I seriously doubt it will be able to take Eritrea with it, however: not only the status as "Italy's oldest colony" would cause a great deal of the population to be European (mostly Italian, but given the sheer amount of mish-mashed refugees from WW2...), the natives probably would be way more scared of Ethiopia than angry at Italian colonialism, save spectacular fuck-ups or foreign funding of Eritrean nationalism. And let's not forget, the Dodecannese Islands still count as colonies: given how Greece and Turkey are, I wouldn't be surprised that they wouldn't be given back.
Also, now that I think about it, what's the status of the "Fascist New Cities", like Sabaudia, Littoria (nowadays Latina), Villaggio Mussolini (nowadays Arborea) and Lakki? Did they get built at all? Have new cities joined?
I could see a new city being founded in Slovenia, given the attempts to eliminate Slovenian culture as much as possible (although perhaps geography will make that impossible); and a new one being built in Lybia a bit inland, to accomodate the population growth.
On the topic of Ethiopia: I do think it'll break free from Italy eventually, possibly joined by Somalia if Somalis' utter dislike for Italians keeps up as much as OTL. I seriously doubt it will be able to take Eritrea with it, however: not only the status as "Italy's oldest colony" would cause a great deal of the population to be European (mostly Italian, but given the sheer amount of mish-mashed refugees from WW2...), the natives probably would be way more scared of Ethiopia than angry at Italian colonialism, save spectacular fuck-ups or foreign funding of Eritrean nationalism. And let's not forget, the Dodecannese Islands still count as colonies: given how Greece and Turkey are, I wouldn't be surprised that they wouldn't be given back.
Also, now that I think about it, what's the status of the "Fascist New Cities", like Sabaudia, Littoria (nowadays Latina), Villaggio Mussolini (nowadays Arborea) and Lakki? Did they get built at all? Have new cities joined?
I could see a new city being founded in Slovenia, given the attempts to eliminate Slovenian culture as much as possible (although perhaps geography will make that impossible); and a new one being built in Lybia a bit inland, to accomodate the population growth.
On the topic of Fascism "working" ITTL.
All the military might, glowing glory of victory, international rise from strength to strength ultimately does relatively little to address the underlying problems of the Fascist system.
It actually makes things worse on the longer term by forcing Italy to pour a lot of resources into the military, colonial policing into far away lands which will produce little revenue in return (and would need considerable investment to increase that, which Italy would have trouble to scrape together), and the propping up of subordinate allies such as Greece or Croatia (as opposed to domestic investment into productive stuff). This will cause some issues similar to what the late Soviet Union experienced IOTL, with an oversized military spending being a dead weight on the economy.
IOTL, the Fascist regime was insanely corrupt. While it wanted to project an image of ruthless efficiency, historically it was ruthlessly inefficient. This is different ITTL since the system is perceived as working, but corruption would still be rampant.
While the world at large is likely to be poorer overall, so Italians will not see the bounty of consumer goods elsewhere comparing as unfavourably to their situation as Soviet citizens did IOTL, at some time the Empire will be show to be something Italy can hardly afford, and cannot renounce either.
At some point, the cracks will start to show, although it may take time for that.
All the military might, glowing glory of victory, international rise from strength to strength ultimately does relatively little to address the underlying problems of the Fascist system.
It actually makes things worse on the longer term by forcing Italy to pour a lot of resources into the military, colonial policing into far away lands which will produce little revenue in return (and would need considerable investment to increase that, which Italy would have trouble to scrape together), and the propping up of subordinate allies such as Greece or Croatia (as opposed to domestic investment into productive stuff). This will cause some issues similar to what the late Soviet Union experienced IOTL, with an oversized military spending being a dead weight on the economy.
IOTL, the Fascist regime was insanely corrupt. While it wanted to project an image of ruthless efficiency, historically it was ruthlessly inefficient. This is different ITTL since the system is perceived as working, but corruption would still be rampant.
While the world at large is likely to be poorer overall, so Italians will not see the bounty of consumer goods elsewhere comparing as unfavourably to their situation as Soviet citizens did IOTL, at some time the Empire will be show to be something Italy can hardly afford, and cannot renounce either.
At some point, the cracks will start to show, although it may take time for that.
May I ask as to why the Eritreans would be scared of Ethiopia? I've seen this commonly repeated in the forum and I'm a bit confused when considering that the Eritrean Unionist movement was quite popular IOTL with the predominantly Orthodox Christian Tigrayan populace that makes up the majority of Eritrea's population. There's also the Italian plans to integrate Tigrayans under either Gugsa or Seyoum into Ethiopia proper on the basis of the Greater Tigray argument. I think that the Italian settlers and Italian-educated Eritreans will most likely steer Eritreans away from union with TTL's Ethiopia and instead with metropolitan Italy but that there might still be a movement like OTL's Unionists pushing a pro-Ethiopia line.
Derek Pullem
Donor
In the first world, poverty is a relative thing in the most part. ITTL everyone is worse off so Fascism's failings may not be obvious yet.
True, but Italy is not necessarily "First World" yet. (I think Argentina was actually richer than Italy per capita before the Italian Economic Miracle of the fifties/sixies).
IOTL, we truly became a developed economy after WWII, in no small part thanks to US aid in the form of the Marshall Plan, which is not happening ITTL. Before that, while Italy was an industrialized country, it had huge areas mired in poverty, not relative but absolute, with some places just hovering about the level of starvation. Things were improving (the Fascist regime was exploitative, but it did take some measures to improve living standards) but the pace of development would be a lot slower.
The coalition already passed Butler's education Act. If the government needs Liberal support (and on this maths it does) then reform will also have to feature remember Beveridge was actually a Liberal and briefly MP for Berwick on Tweed OTL, it would help to have him stay in the house as one of the 10 remaining Liberals.