Stresa Revived - an Allied Mussolini TL
- Thread starter Onkel Willie
- Start date
Yup. Japan pulling troops to defend the Home Islands made that inevitable.
Seeing how the post-War division of powers goes ITTL will be interesting - having another nation there to divide Europe will probably make for some VERY interesting results.
Possibility:
(Short version only)
We'll meet again
Don't know, where, don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day,
Keep smiling through
Just like you always do,
Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away.
So will you please say hello,
To the folks that I know,
Tell them, 'I won't be long',
They'll be happy to know, that as you saw me go,
I was singing this song.
e'll meet again
Don't know, where, don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day.
Don't know, where, don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day,
Keep smiling through
Just like you always do,
Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away.
So will you please say hello,
To the folks that I know,
Tell them, 'I won't be long',
They'll be happy to know, that as you saw me go,
I was singing this song.
e'll meet again
Don't know, where, don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day.
(Short version only)
As expected, Japan fell before the use of A-Bomb, but the invasion of Hokkaido was a bit surprising. So the fact the Allies freed Bohemia for first. And above all, the fact Italy went nasty with the use of chemical weapons. The cold war risks to be more tense, and a WWIII albeit improbable could be possible without the nuclear taboo... Yet it would be rather interesting.
Chapter XIII: Ricostruzione Nazionale, 1945-1952.
Here's the first post-war chapter for you, mainly focusing on post-war reconstruction 
. Foreign developments will be in the next chapter.
In 1945 the Second World War had finally ended with the defeat of Japan, which had been preceded by the defeat of Germany in 1944. Approximately 55 million people had died, including more than 5 million Jews murdered by the Third Reich, and many survivors were left homeless. In many cases, surviving Holocaust victims returned only to find that other people had moved into their homes and had taken many of their possessions. In some cases, such as in Poland, returning Jews even experienced anti-Semitic violence. Non-Jewish refugees were also to be found everywhere, looking for protection, shelter, food and also medical care: the complete collapse of basic medical services in many places, due to war devastation, caused outbreaks of disease. In the meantime, the European economy had collapsed with 70% of industrial infrastructure destroyed, and a lot of other infrastructure being in ruin as well: entire cities had been destroyed, especially in Germany, which was the economic engine of Europe.
And there was the elephant in the room of what to do with Germany. Germany was divided into five occupation zones controlled by the US, Britain, France, Italy and the Soviet Union – France in the southwest, Britain in the northwest, the United States in the south, the USSR in the east, and the Italians in Austria. German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line were hived off to Poland while East Prussia was divided between Poland and the Soviet Union. Additionally, millions of Germans living in these territories or in the Czech Sudetenland were expelled and experienced hardship: thousands froze to death while being transported by slow and ill-equipped trains and many ethnic Germans, primarily women and children, were seriously mistreated by Czech and Polish authorities. In total some ten million German refugees arrived in Germany from countries across Central and Eastern Europe while many German POWs became forced labourers to provide restitution to the countries occupied by Germany. Additionally some factories were removed as war reparations, but in 1947 the Truman administration decided that Europe couldn’t be rebuilt without the German industrial base on which it had previously been dependent. The Anglo-French-American zones became the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.
The Soviet zone had less luck: due to their own economic devastation the Soviets decided that reparations, even though they would alienate the German workforce from communism, were more important than alliance building. Eventually even they saw relaxation of punitive measures (Soviet soldiers, for example, were restricted to their bases and so rape of German women finally became a thing of the past). In 1949, the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic. The Allied Control Council essentially became a symbolic organization: it couldn’t do anything because Cold War tensions paralyzed it.
Europe became divided. The Eastern Bloc was composed of those states “liberated” by the Red Army: East Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria all became communist regimes based on the Stalinist model. Croatia became a pseudo-fascist Italian puppet state headed by Ustashe leader Ante Pavelic. Slovenia became a separate country and, surprisingly, was allowed its democracy (albeit on the condition that it accepted Italy dominating its foreign affairs). Members of Italy’s Slovenian minority, which had been subjected to compulsory Italianization, were given the choice of staying in Italy or giving up their Italian citizenship and migrating to Slovenia. Croatia included Bosnia-Herzegovina and the period 1944-1946 saw deportations of ethnic Serbs, with Serbs being severely mistreated by Croatian authorities. Croatia agreed to cede Dalmatia to Italy, further strengthening Italian control of the Adriatic Sea, and oriented its iron ore exports to Italy. Kosovo was annexed to Italian Albania, giving Italy control of deposits of lead, zinc and chrome. The communist “Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” in the meantime was only composed of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. Outside communist regimes and some dictatorial regimes on the Mediterranean Sea most of Europe was a part of the free world. Italy, Spain and other regimes in southern Europe fared a separate but generally pro-Western course.
Austria, which was the Italian occupation zone of Germany, was a different case. Mussolini immediately reinstated the Federal State of Austria as it had existed until 1938 and hoisted Kurt Schuschnigg right back into the saddle. The new regime conducted a denazification campaign that was very rigorous in its initial phases with 1946 seeing the search of over 100.000 homes and 10.000 arrests in Vienna alone. Several tens of thousands of arrests took place across the country, but in most cases it was determined that the suspects had merely joined the Nazi party for career reasons. The vast majority of the country’s civil servants were reinstated once the Italians decided that maintaining a military administration down to the local level was much too expensive. True Nazis and Nazi leaders, on the other hand, were thrown in jail and the now illegal NSDAP was virtually decapitated. Austrofascism was reinstated and the country became a conservative Catholic autocracy once more, but not independent. Austria was now under Italian influence, economically, militarily and politically. Its factories and hydroelectric capabilities would be an asset to Italian reconstruction.
By far the greatest contributor to Italian post-war reconstruction was the black gold that came from Libya. Major oil deposits had been discovered in 1943 in a geological survey ordered by Italo Balbo, the Governor-General of Libya, but no development had been done due to the war. To that end Mussolini created the Ministry of Oil in 1945 and took the portfolio himself (in addition to his cabinet posts as Prime Minister, Minister of War and Minister of the Interior). In that year, Agip (Azienda Generale Italiana Petroli – General Italian Oil Company) was given the exclusive rights to exploit it and it purchased the necessary drilling equipment in Texas, using Marshall Aid to do so. In 1947 the first crude oil started to flow at 65.000 barrels a day, which was about equivalent to 10.000 tonnes: a day’s worth of production in 1947 equalled the entire annual production of 1940. It was exported at a price of little over one dollar a barrel and Agip’s Libyan operation therefore made a turnover of about 23.7 million dollars (356 million in 2011 dollars) from Libyan oil. By 1948 daily oil production had doubled to 130.000 barrels, some 20.000 tonnes, while the price of oil reached 2 dollars a barrel. That meant Libyan oil production in 1948 was worth about 95 million dollars, or 1.8 billion 2011 dollars, and 50% of Agip’s profits went into the state’s coffers through taxes. The petroleum industry became the largest sector of the colonial economy by far, perhaps to the neglect of others. Mussolini said that the black gold was the cornerstone of “ricostruzione nazionale” or national reconstruction. That year also saw Mussolini’s 65th birthday and, as part of his cult of personality, it was declared a national holiday.
While the discovery and exploitation of oil was a national triumph that was celebrated during the 25th anniversary of the March on Rome in October, the death of King Victor Emmanuel III in December 1947 at age 78 cast a shadow over that. Two ceremonies were held: one was a state ceremony filled with fascist and royal symbolism while the second was a church ceremony in the Pantheon in Rome, where the King was interred alongside his father Umberto I and his grandfather Victor Emmanuel II. Mussolini, despite being a vitriolic atheist and considering religion a mental illness, attended the service and gave a eulogy. Victor Emmanuel’s son succeeded him as King Umberto II and his wife Marie José, sister to Leopold III of Belgium and aunt to the future King Baudouin, became Queen Consort. Opinions on Victor Emmanuel are mixed: fascists, if they had an opinion on him at all, were moderately positive, while anti-fascists considered him a puppet of Mussolini.
In the meantime, Mussolini decided to launch a major propaganda campaign to promote emigration to Italian Libya, in particular the Libyan provinces of Tripoli, Misurata, Benghazi and Derna, which had become part of metropolitan Italy in 1939. The campaign had the greatest effect in southern Italy, which was still the poorer part of Italy despite serious investments. Between 1947 and 1955 the size of the Italian community swelled from 120.000 to 250.000 while the Arab population reached 1 million. The Italian population was 20% of the entire colonial population, but in Tripoli and Benghazi it was 51% and 46% respectively. A few thousand Jews that had found refuge in Italy from the Nazis had become Fascist Jews also answered Mussolini’s call to settle Libya. Its Jewish population reached 37.000 compared to 30.000 before the war, almost 3% of the population (along with foreign Jews, Italy’s Jewish community reached 50.000, with some going to Libya and others to Israel though most remained in Italy).
Libyans were actively involved in the development of their country as they had been allowed to join the National Fascist Party, and in particular the “Muslim Association of the Lictor” created especially for them, since 1939 (the “Arab Lictor Youth” was its youth organization). Since the late 1930s Libyans, also known as “Italian Moslem Arabs”, had equal rights with Italians in the existing legal system (these Italian laws were in full contrast with the colonial policies done by the French and British authorities in their African empires, where the colonial populations were separated and segregated from the white colonists). They were allowed to pursue careers in the administration or the Regio Esercito, which decided to form the 3rd and 4th Libyan Division as well as the 1st Libyan Armoured Brigade (only equipped with WW II vintage armoured cars and obsolete tankettes, but still one of the few colonial armoured units in Africa). The Regia Marina now also manned a destroyer squadron with Libyans.
As a result, support from the Libyan population not only continued but increased as their prosperity grew. In the late 1940s and the 1950s Libya saw massive infrastructural works: oil money allowed for the completion of the 1040 kilometre Tripoli-Benghazi railroad along the coast. Construction also began on an 1100 kilometre railroad toward the border fortress town of Ghat in the southwest on the border with French Algeria through Sabha, Germa and Awbari. A 550 kilometre railway from Sirte via Waddan joined up with the Tripoli-Ghat railroad at Sabha. An 800 kilometre railway into Cyrenaica, the strategic oil producing region of Libya, ran from Benghazi to Al-Jawf. That lay in the Kufra basin, one of the most heavily irrigated oases of the Sahara desert, which is dominated by depressions on three sides that make it dominate east-west traffic across the desert. Besides Cyrenaican oil, its function as a traffic hub in North Africa and a well-watered oasis made it a strategic asset. The railroad strengthened Italian control of its colony. The last major railroad built was the 500 kilometre stretch of track that extended the Tripoli-Benghazi line toward the border town of Bardia, location of a fortress, via Derna and Tobruk. All-in-all, in combination with existing track, Libya’s railroad network would reach ~ 4.400 kilometres by 1955.
The educational system was also radically expanded: in 1939-’40 the Italian population (10% of the population at the time) had 81 elementary schools while the Libyans (over 85% of the local population at the time) had 97. There were also three secondary schools for Libyans in 1940 – two in Tripoli and one in Benghazi. Between 1947 and 1955, the number of elementary schools for Italians was increased to 207 and the number of schools for Libyan children expanded spectacularly to 785 for a total of 992 schools. Education became virtually free apart from token tuition fees, and it became mandatory in Libya for all children aged 6-12 in 1949 and that was extended to the age of 14 in 1956. By the mid 1960s the Libyan populace would be 90% literate as a result, as well as being educated in the Italian language, arithmetic, history, geography, topography, music, and handicrafts. The number of secondary schools, in the meantime, increased from a mere three to 19 while a military academy and a large number of vocational schools were also opened. Italy also built two dozen new villages as a reward for Libyan military performance in WW II, each of which had its own mosque, elementary school, library, small hospital and “social centre” containing sport grounds, a theatre and a cinema. Libya started to change: it moved away from the largely illiterate society of farmers, fishermen, artisans and nomads. During the 1950s it became a sedentary, urbanized society with a middle class of office clerks, civil servants, shop owners, teachers and military officers.
Of course Italy itself also underwent tremendous development in the post-war era. The Milan-Turin-Genoa industrial triangle – which was a centre of automotive, machinery, aerospace and naval production – recovered and grew. It wasn’t for nothing that the cheap and practical Fiat 500 became incredibly popular upon its introduction in 1957 and even turned into a symbol of the post-war Italian economic miracle. More exclusive car brands like Maserati, Lancia and Alfa Romeo also resumed production and Mussolini was often seen driving such sports cars. With hobbies like fast cars, fencing, playing the violin, writing political essays, and keeping pet lions, he seemed much more like a celebrity and a dynamic, multi-talented figure rather than a dull politician (propaganda practically made him out to be superhuman and exceptionally virile). In the meantime, Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Lancia started to participate in car racing almost as soon as the war was over to promote their cars, such as the Lancia Aurelia which sported the world’s first full-production V6 engine. With car ownership radically increasing in the 1950s, it’s no coincidence that the “autostrada” (highway) was propagandized as a symbol of the economic miracle (besides the fact that in the 1920s Italy had been the first country to build a highway). In a few years time between 1948 and 1951 the highway network increased from 400 km to 2000 km in a period of frenzied construction. And of course oil money was used to fund a literacy campaign, such as in Libya but on a much grander scale. By 1960, the Italian population would be 97% literate. Besides that, Italy also got free universal healthcare and university education was made accessible to all classes, albeit only for men given the emphasis on traditional gender roles (women were to be housewives and mothers to large families; sexual behaviour deemed deviant, such as homosexuality and prostitution, was combated aggressively and the former was labelled a social disease). The country’s television audience also exploded: in 1955 television had reached only 100.000 households, mostly the homes of party big wigs able to afford them, but in a decade that number increased tenfold.
With the discovery of sizeable natural gas deposits in the Po Valley, industrialization spread into Emilia and Mussolini’s birth region of Romagna. Natural gas could be used to produce fabrics, glass, steel, plastics and paint. Besides that, via the Haber process, natural gas could be used to produce ammonia for fertilizers and it’s no coincidence that the Po Valley indeed became a centre of fertilizer production. Besides that, natural gas has applications in chemical industry, petrochemical industry, electricity production, metallurgy, pharmaceuticals and electronics and these sectors indeed emerged. The Milan-Turin-Genoa triangle expanded into an industrial region covering much of Emilia, Romagna, Veneto, Lombardy and Liguria. Mussolini also used Libyan oil money to modernize underdeveloped southern Italy, using dirigist economic policies to set up Palermo, Catania, Messina, Naples, Bari, Brindisi and Taranto as centres of petrochemical industry. That increased employment, and there was also a land reform that organized a large number of small holdings into a smaller number of larger holdings by encouraging poor peasants to immigrate to Italy’s colonies, Libya in particular.
While Italy’s economy experienced growth rates up to 10% from the late 1940s well into the 1950s, its political influence also expanded. Austria, Croatia and Slovenia were a part of the Italian sphere of influence from the get-go and Greece had been Finlandized since 1940, when it had been bullied by Italy into granting the Regia Marina basing rights. Mussolini briefly considered joining the European Coal and Steel Community, but ultimately decided to focus on the Mediterranean Sea and form his own “fascist bloc.”
. Foreign developments will be in the next chapter.Chapter XIII: Ricostruzione Nazionale, 1945-1952.
In 1945 the Second World War had finally ended with the defeat of Japan, which had been preceded by the defeat of Germany in 1944. Approximately 55 million people had died, including more than 5 million Jews murdered by the Third Reich, and many survivors were left homeless. In many cases, surviving Holocaust victims returned only to find that other people had moved into their homes and had taken many of their possessions. In some cases, such as in Poland, returning Jews even experienced anti-Semitic violence. Non-Jewish refugees were also to be found everywhere, looking for protection, shelter, food and also medical care: the complete collapse of basic medical services in many places, due to war devastation, caused outbreaks of disease. In the meantime, the European economy had collapsed with 70% of industrial infrastructure destroyed, and a lot of other infrastructure being in ruin as well: entire cities had been destroyed, especially in Germany, which was the economic engine of Europe.
And there was the elephant in the room of what to do with Germany. Germany was divided into five occupation zones controlled by the US, Britain, France, Italy and the Soviet Union – France in the southwest, Britain in the northwest, the United States in the south, the USSR in the east, and the Italians in Austria. German territories east of the Oder-Neisse line were hived off to Poland while East Prussia was divided between Poland and the Soviet Union. Additionally, millions of Germans living in these territories or in the Czech Sudetenland were expelled and experienced hardship: thousands froze to death while being transported by slow and ill-equipped trains and many ethnic Germans, primarily women and children, were seriously mistreated by Czech and Polish authorities. In total some ten million German refugees arrived in Germany from countries across Central and Eastern Europe while many German POWs became forced labourers to provide restitution to the countries occupied by Germany. Additionally some factories were removed as war reparations, but in 1947 the Truman administration decided that Europe couldn’t be rebuilt without the German industrial base on which it had previously been dependent. The Anglo-French-American zones became the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.
The Soviet zone had less luck: due to their own economic devastation the Soviets decided that reparations, even though they would alienate the German workforce from communism, were more important than alliance building. Eventually even they saw relaxation of punitive measures (Soviet soldiers, for example, were restricted to their bases and so rape of German women finally became a thing of the past). In 1949, the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic. The Allied Control Council essentially became a symbolic organization: it couldn’t do anything because Cold War tensions paralyzed it.
Europe became divided. The Eastern Bloc was composed of those states “liberated” by the Red Army: East Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria all became communist regimes based on the Stalinist model. Croatia became a pseudo-fascist Italian puppet state headed by Ustashe leader Ante Pavelic. Slovenia became a separate country and, surprisingly, was allowed its democracy (albeit on the condition that it accepted Italy dominating its foreign affairs). Members of Italy’s Slovenian minority, which had been subjected to compulsory Italianization, were given the choice of staying in Italy or giving up their Italian citizenship and migrating to Slovenia. Croatia included Bosnia-Herzegovina and the period 1944-1946 saw deportations of ethnic Serbs, with Serbs being severely mistreated by Croatian authorities. Croatia agreed to cede Dalmatia to Italy, further strengthening Italian control of the Adriatic Sea, and oriented its iron ore exports to Italy. Kosovo was annexed to Italian Albania, giving Italy control of deposits of lead, zinc and chrome. The communist “Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” in the meantime was only composed of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. Outside communist regimes and some dictatorial regimes on the Mediterranean Sea most of Europe was a part of the free world. Italy, Spain and other regimes in southern Europe fared a separate but generally pro-Western course.
Austria, which was the Italian occupation zone of Germany, was a different case. Mussolini immediately reinstated the Federal State of Austria as it had existed until 1938 and hoisted Kurt Schuschnigg right back into the saddle. The new regime conducted a denazification campaign that was very rigorous in its initial phases with 1946 seeing the search of over 100.000 homes and 10.000 arrests in Vienna alone. Several tens of thousands of arrests took place across the country, but in most cases it was determined that the suspects had merely joined the Nazi party for career reasons. The vast majority of the country’s civil servants were reinstated once the Italians decided that maintaining a military administration down to the local level was much too expensive. True Nazis and Nazi leaders, on the other hand, were thrown in jail and the now illegal NSDAP was virtually decapitated. Austrofascism was reinstated and the country became a conservative Catholic autocracy once more, but not independent. Austria was now under Italian influence, economically, militarily and politically. Its factories and hydroelectric capabilities would be an asset to Italian reconstruction.
By far the greatest contributor to Italian post-war reconstruction was the black gold that came from Libya. Major oil deposits had been discovered in 1943 in a geological survey ordered by Italo Balbo, the Governor-General of Libya, but no development had been done due to the war. To that end Mussolini created the Ministry of Oil in 1945 and took the portfolio himself (in addition to his cabinet posts as Prime Minister, Minister of War and Minister of the Interior). In that year, Agip (Azienda Generale Italiana Petroli – General Italian Oil Company) was given the exclusive rights to exploit it and it purchased the necessary drilling equipment in Texas, using Marshall Aid to do so. In 1947 the first crude oil started to flow at 65.000 barrels a day, which was about equivalent to 10.000 tonnes: a day’s worth of production in 1947 equalled the entire annual production of 1940. It was exported at a price of little over one dollar a barrel and Agip’s Libyan operation therefore made a turnover of about 23.7 million dollars (356 million in 2011 dollars) from Libyan oil. By 1948 daily oil production had doubled to 130.000 barrels, some 20.000 tonnes, while the price of oil reached 2 dollars a barrel. That meant Libyan oil production in 1948 was worth about 95 million dollars, or 1.8 billion 2011 dollars, and 50% of Agip’s profits went into the state’s coffers through taxes. The petroleum industry became the largest sector of the colonial economy by far, perhaps to the neglect of others. Mussolini said that the black gold was the cornerstone of “ricostruzione nazionale” or national reconstruction. That year also saw Mussolini’s 65th birthday and, as part of his cult of personality, it was declared a national holiday.
While the discovery and exploitation of oil was a national triumph that was celebrated during the 25th anniversary of the March on Rome in October, the death of King Victor Emmanuel III in December 1947 at age 78 cast a shadow over that. Two ceremonies were held: one was a state ceremony filled with fascist and royal symbolism while the second was a church ceremony in the Pantheon in Rome, where the King was interred alongside his father Umberto I and his grandfather Victor Emmanuel II. Mussolini, despite being a vitriolic atheist and considering religion a mental illness, attended the service and gave a eulogy. Victor Emmanuel’s son succeeded him as King Umberto II and his wife Marie José, sister to Leopold III of Belgium and aunt to the future King Baudouin, became Queen Consort. Opinions on Victor Emmanuel are mixed: fascists, if they had an opinion on him at all, were moderately positive, while anti-fascists considered him a puppet of Mussolini.
In the meantime, Mussolini decided to launch a major propaganda campaign to promote emigration to Italian Libya, in particular the Libyan provinces of Tripoli, Misurata, Benghazi and Derna, which had become part of metropolitan Italy in 1939. The campaign had the greatest effect in southern Italy, which was still the poorer part of Italy despite serious investments. Between 1947 and 1955 the size of the Italian community swelled from 120.000 to 250.000 while the Arab population reached 1 million. The Italian population was 20% of the entire colonial population, but in Tripoli and Benghazi it was 51% and 46% respectively. A few thousand Jews that had found refuge in Italy from the Nazis had become Fascist Jews also answered Mussolini’s call to settle Libya. Its Jewish population reached 37.000 compared to 30.000 before the war, almost 3% of the population (along with foreign Jews, Italy’s Jewish community reached 50.000, with some going to Libya and others to Israel though most remained in Italy).
Libyans were actively involved in the development of their country as they had been allowed to join the National Fascist Party, and in particular the “Muslim Association of the Lictor” created especially for them, since 1939 (the “Arab Lictor Youth” was its youth organization). Since the late 1930s Libyans, also known as “Italian Moslem Arabs”, had equal rights with Italians in the existing legal system (these Italian laws were in full contrast with the colonial policies done by the French and British authorities in their African empires, where the colonial populations were separated and segregated from the white colonists). They were allowed to pursue careers in the administration or the Regio Esercito, which decided to form the 3rd and 4th Libyan Division as well as the 1st Libyan Armoured Brigade (only equipped with WW II vintage armoured cars and obsolete tankettes, but still one of the few colonial armoured units in Africa). The Regia Marina now also manned a destroyer squadron with Libyans.
As a result, support from the Libyan population not only continued but increased as their prosperity grew. In the late 1940s and the 1950s Libya saw massive infrastructural works: oil money allowed for the completion of the 1040 kilometre Tripoli-Benghazi railroad along the coast. Construction also began on an 1100 kilometre railroad toward the border fortress town of Ghat in the southwest on the border with French Algeria through Sabha, Germa and Awbari. A 550 kilometre railway from Sirte via Waddan joined up with the Tripoli-Ghat railroad at Sabha. An 800 kilometre railway into Cyrenaica, the strategic oil producing region of Libya, ran from Benghazi to Al-Jawf. That lay in the Kufra basin, one of the most heavily irrigated oases of the Sahara desert, which is dominated by depressions on three sides that make it dominate east-west traffic across the desert. Besides Cyrenaican oil, its function as a traffic hub in North Africa and a well-watered oasis made it a strategic asset. The railroad strengthened Italian control of its colony. The last major railroad built was the 500 kilometre stretch of track that extended the Tripoli-Benghazi line toward the border town of Bardia, location of a fortress, via Derna and Tobruk. All-in-all, in combination with existing track, Libya’s railroad network would reach ~ 4.400 kilometres by 1955.
The educational system was also radically expanded: in 1939-’40 the Italian population (10% of the population at the time) had 81 elementary schools while the Libyans (over 85% of the local population at the time) had 97. There were also three secondary schools for Libyans in 1940 – two in Tripoli and one in Benghazi. Between 1947 and 1955, the number of elementary schools for Italians was increased to 207 and the number of schools for Libyan children expanded spectacularly to 785 for a total of 992 schools. Education became virtually free apart from token tuition fees, and it became mandatory in Libya for all children aged 6-12 in 1949 and that was extended to the age of 14 in 1956. By the mid 1960s the Libyan populace would be 90% literate as a result, as well as being educated in the Italian language, arithmetic, history, geography, topography, music, and handicrafts. The number of secondary schools, in the meantime, increased from a mere three to 19 while a military academy and a large number of vocational schools were also opened. Italy also built two dozen new villages as a reward for Libyan military performance in WW II, each of which had its own mosque, elementary school, library, small hospital and “social centre” containing sport grounds, a theatre and a cinema. Libya started to change: it moved away from the largely illiterate society of farmers, fishermen, artisans and nomads. During the 1950s it became a sedentary, urbanized society with a middle class of office clerks, civil servants, shop owners, teachers and military officers.
Of course Italy itself also underwent tremendous development in the post-war era. The Milan-Turin-Genoa industrial triangle – which was a centre of automotive, machinery, aerospace and naval production – recovered and grew. It wasn’t for nothing that the cheap and practical Fiat 500 became incredibly popular upon its introduction in 1957 and even turned into a symbol of the post-war Italian economic miracle. More exclusive car brands like Maserati, Lancia and Alfa Romeo also resumed production and Mussolini was often seen driving such sports cars. With hobbies like fast cars, fencing, playing the violin, writing political essays, and keeping pet lions, he seemed much more like a celebrity and a dynamic, multi-talented figure rather than a dull politician (propaganda practically made him out to be superhuman and exceptionally virile). In the meantime, Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Lancia started to participate in car racing almost as soon as the war was over to promote their cars, such as the Lancia Aurelia which sported the world’s first full-production V6 engine. With car ownership radically increasing in the 1950s, it’s no coincidence that the “autostrada” (highway) was propagandized as a symbol of the economic miracle (besides the fact that in the 1920s Italy had been the first country to build a highway). In a few years time between 1948 and 1951 the highway network increased from 400 km to 2000 km in a period of frenzied construction. And of course oil money was used to fund a literacy campaign, such as in Libya but on a much grander scale. By 1960, the Italian population would be 97% literate. Besides that, Italy also got free universal healthcare and university education was made accessible to all classes, albeit only for men given the emphasis on traditional gender roles (women were to be housewives and mothers to large families; sexual behaviour deemed deviant, such as homosexuality and prostitution, was combated aggressively and the former was labelled a social disease). The country’s television audience also exploded: in 1955 television had reached only 100.000 households, mostly the homes of party big wigs able to afford them, but in a decade that number increased tenfold.
With the discovery of sizeable natural gas deposits in the Po Valley, industrialization spread into Emilia and Mussolini’s birth region of Romagna. Natural gas could be used to produce fabrics, glass, steel, plastics and paint. Besides that, via the Haber process, natural gas could be used to produce ammonia for fertilizers and it’s no coincidence that the Po Valley indeed became a centre of fertilizer production. Besides that, natural gas has applications in chemical industry, petrochemical industry, electricity production, metallurgy, pharmaceuticals and electronics and these sectors indeed emerged. The Milan-Turin-Genoa triangle expanded into an industrial region covering much of Emilia, Romagna, Veneto, Lombardy and Liguria. Mussolini also used Libyan oil money to modernize underdeveloped southern Italy, using dirigist economic policies to set up Palermo, Catania, Messina, Naples, Bari, Brindisi and Taranto as centres of petrochemical industry. That increased employment, and there was also a land reform that organized a large number of small holdings into a smaller number of larger holdings by encouraging poor peasants to immigrate to Italy’s colonies, Libya in particular.
While Italy’s economy experienced growth rates up to 10% from the late 1940s well into the 1950s, its political influence also expanded. Austria, Croatia and Slovenia were a part of the Italian sphere of influence from the get-go and Greece had been Finlandized since 1940, when it had been bullied by Italy into granting the Regia Marina basing rights. Mussolini briefly considered joining the European Coal and Steel Community, but ultimately decided to focus on the Mediterranean Sea and form his own “fascist bloc.”
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Hope the Cold War continues forever. The USSR is far less damaged ITTL, and like your TL where Stalin heeds his advisors of an impending war, the frontlines stabilized at around the frontlines ITTL. I really do hope the Cold Watcontinues, without a WWIII.
Sort-of an Italy-wank.
From the looks of it, I think aamultipolar Cold War is right next door.
Sort-of an Italy-wank.
From the looks of it, I think aamultipolar Cold War is right next door.
I would rather not see her book and I would rather OOC know that she lives a peaceful life in either the Netherlands or West Germany ITTL.
Happy ending for her
Looks like Italy is getting a firm start on making the third and fourth shores firmly Italian. Picking the winning side in the war and oil wealth tend to allow that
I wonder what the fates of Malta and Montenegro will be ITTL, given they're the sole places outside of Italian control in the region.
For that matter, what of Tunisia? It had a very large Italian settler base for the time - would it go independent as OTL, or would Italy offer to take it off French hands?
Concerning Austria, what are the odds ITTL, if the cold war ends similarly, we see it rejoin Germany? Here we have a democratic West Germany and communist East Germany as per OTL, but now Austria (South Germany) under Fascist control.
I wonder what the fates of Malta and Montenegro will be ITTL, given they're the sole places outside of Italian control in the region.
For that matter, what of Tunisia? It had a very large Italian settler base for the time - would it go independent as OTL, or would Italy offer to take it off French hands?
Concerning Austria, what are the odds ITTL, if the cold war ends similarly, we see it rejoin Germany? Here we have a democratic West Germany and communist East Germany as per OTL, but now Austria (South Germany) under Fascist control.
I wondering how Mussolini would have budged so easily over Montenegro - I guessed he would have been opposed to the Soviets gaining a Mediterranean access, and surely not.in the Adriatic. Plus if there was the intention to cancel the Serbian gains from 1918, Montenegro should have become indipendent again.
Unless Italy took Cattaro TTL. OTL Italy took the port at the time of the Yugoslavian split, and having it would be a fair compromise.
It's probable if Tito will be in power in Commie Serbia, he will not break with Stalin.
Assuming Italy took Dalmatia at the extension of the ancient Venetian borders, plus Ragusa and Dubrovnik, the Croatians should have Karlovac as their only harbour... it would be usable to host a Croatian fleet?
Unless Italy took Cattaro TTL. OTL Italy took the port at the time of the Yugoslavian split, and having it would be a fair compromise.
It's probable if Tito will be in power in Commie Serbia, he will not break with Stalin.
Assuming Italy took Dalmatia at the extension of the ancient Venetian borders, plus Ragusa and Dubrovnik, the Croatians should have Karlovac as their only harbour... it would be usable to host a Croatian fleet?
I doubt a three way Cold War would last very long, once the red scare kicked in the fascist bloc would merge into the west
Chapter XIV: Birth of the Fascist Bloc, 1952-1956.
Update .
After Italian oil started flowing from Libyan wells the goal of a “fascist bloc” came within reach since Italy became the Mediterranean’s dominant economy by far, besides being the dominant naval power. In fact, Italy decided to finish the incomplete Littorio-class battleships Roma and Impero, which were commissioned in 1947 as the last battleships to ever be commissioned worldwide. In 1946, as a stopgap solution, the Regia Marina acquired British aircraft carrier HMS Colossus, a cheaply built carrier without armour, with few anti-aircraft guns and with a 25 knot (46 km/h) top speed. She was renamed Sparviero and in 1950 the Aquila, Italy’s first purpose designed aircraft carrier, was laid down: she was a 32 knot 31.000 tonne carrier that could carry 90 turboprop planes (which would be replaced by A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft) and had 120 mm, 37 mm and 20 mm anti-aircraft guns. She was commissioned in 1953 and her sister ship Falco entered service in 1955.
Francoist Spain’s policy of economic autarky, adopted on the urging of domestic economic pressure groups, hadn’t produced any serious growth. Rather, with war devastation and trade isolation, Spain was much more economically backward in the 1940s than it had been a decade earlier. Inflation soared, economic reconstruction faltered, food was scarce, and, in some years, Spain registered negative growth rates. In 1950, Italy and Spain signed the Pact of Madrid, which was in fact three agreements: 1) firstly, Spain and Italy formed a defensive military alliance by which they pledged support if the other was attacked. 2) Italy agreed to supply Spain with military equipment, which initially boiled down to Italy selling a lot of its surplus equipment from WW II at bottom prices. 3) In 1951, Italy gave Spain a $300 million dollar low interest loan (the equivalent of $2.8 billion in 2015 dollars) to invest in economic development. Spain, though more of a conservative authoritarian regime, adopted fascist economic views as explained in “The Doctrine of Fascism” essay attributed to Mussolini but largely written by Giovanni Gentile: in short the means of production were nominally left in the hands of the civil sector, but directed and controlled by the state. Spain experienced its own economic miracle from the early 1950s, in part because of large numbers of tourists.
After Spain, others were drawn to Italian success as well. The Portuguese Estado Novo regime headed by Antonio de Oliveira Salazar was corporatist and nationalist, like Fascist Italy, but also conservative and Catholic like Spain. Portugal and Italy signed a Treaty of Friendship in 1948 in which they agreed to economic cooperation. Turkey had become a democracy but it was dominated by the military and the Republican People’s Party (CHP) created by Ataturk became increasingly attracted to fascism. The CHP’s Kemalist core principles of republicanism, nationalism, statism, populism, laïcité and revolutionism proved remarkably adaptable to fascist ideas. Rejecting communism as well as reactionary conservatism, the CHP from the late 1940s strived to follow a “third path”: even though it was once opposed to Islamism it now incorporated a few elements of it into its politics; they also adopted the Italian corporatist economic model, linking together employer and employee syndicates in associations that would work alongside the state to set national economic policy. The CHP assimilated both moderate Islamists as well as moderate socialists. In 1950, the short-lived multiparty period that had begun in 1946 ended when the military staged a coup d’état and reinstalled the CHP as the only legal political party. Turkish general and statesman Ismet Inönü was reinstated as “National Chief.”
In October-November 1952, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the March on Rome, representatives of Portugal, Spain, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Greece and Turkey met in the Italian Riviera town of San Remo. At this conference hosted by Mussolini these seven powers, who shared such ideological similarities, tried to merge their myriad of existing bilateral treaties with Italy into one multilateral treaty concerning defence and economic cooperation. During breaks in talks these representatives were invited as guests to the bombastic choreographed events, the enthusiastic celebrations and the endless military parades in Rome in honour of three decades of fascist rule. They were impressed, even intimidated, by demonstrations of Italian organization and military strength and it was all topped off by an awe inspiring fleet review in the Gulf of Naples. None of the attending delegations could claim to have a navy as powerful as the Regia Marina, which was the prime navy of the Mediterranean and had distinguished itself in WW II. Besides that it was the world’s fourth navy behind the US Navy, the Royal Navy and the French Navy. The seven powers formed the San Remo Pact, which in fact was two agreements: 1) a defensive military alliance and 2) a common market shielded from the world by protectionist measures. The Rome Manifesto was signed which explained that the San Remo Pact strived to be an alternative to democratic bourgeois capitalism as well as totalitarian communism, both of which were considered equally exploitative and materialistic in different ways. A joint decision making body was established in the shape of summits held once every two years, which alternated between the capitals of its members. Of course room was left for emergency meetings.
A third bloc in the Cold War was a fact and it had major influence on non-member states as well: Fulgencio Batista’s regime in Cuba, the military dictatorship in Venezuela, the Peronist regime in Argentina and later Alfredo Stroessner’s Paraguayan regime took notes from Fascist Italy to varying degrees, with especially the latter being extremely successful in creating a long-lasting cult of personality. All of them adopted nationalist rhetoric and a mixed, corporatist economic model. Buenos Aires and Asuncion maintained cordial relations with Rome while Havana remained more oriented to the US due to its geographic proximity. Paraguay and Argentina became observer countries of the San Remo Pact, and were later joined by Bolivia after Italy had mediated a border dispute dating back to the Chaco War in the 1930s. This observant status meant they engaged in military and economic cooperation with the Pact, but didn’t have a say in its summits. The reeling Argentine economy of the mid 1950s was revitalized due to economic cooperation with Italy and Peron decided to become a full member in 1956, followed by Paraguay in 1959. In the meantime budding (pseudo)-fascist movements spread across the South American continent in the 1950s: the military juntas in Columbia and Bolivia established in 1958 and 1964 respectively were inspired by fascism. The popularity of fascism wasn’t limited to South America: several Asian regimes, such as Chiang Kai-shek’s in South China and Syngman Rhee’s in South Korea, modelled themselves along fascist lines, as did Apartheid South Africa. The regime of the Shah Mohammad Pahlavi of Iran also drew inspiration from fascism. In 1953 the Shah joined the San Remo Pact after he had alienated the British by siding with leftist Prime Minister Mossadegh after the latter had nationalized Iran’s oil.
In the meantime, countries across Western Europe saw the establishment of fascist parties and they enjoyed electoral success during the 1950s. In 1951, the British Union of Fascists headed by Oswald Mosley won 13% of the vote, becoming the second largest opposition party after Labour. Winston Churchill’s Tories had to form a coalition with the Liberals to have a majority. It was the greatest success of the BUF, with coalition governments being rare in British political history, but the Liberals rose against them. The Liberals would remain an influential force in British politics, but the BUF was destined to wane from the late 1960s throughout the 70s and 80s and finally lost its one remaining seat in parliament in the 1992 UK general election. Other “democratic fascist” parties followed similar paths.
A major fascist subculture also existed in Western countries during the 1950s and 60s as an alternative to the rather pessimistic beatniks and the leftwing hippie subculture. During the Vietnam War fascist groups attracted many who were proponents of the war against communism in Vietnam, in contrast to the anti-war hippies. The hippies were accused of being communist by the fascists, while hippies began using the word “fascist” as a slur against all their opponents. Fascists responded by wearing the term as a badge of honour even more than they already did. Fascist movements in the Western world declined from the mid 1970s. The exception was the US: until the 1990s the “National Fascist Party of the United States of America” (NFPUSA) founded in 1953 persisted as an alternative to the Mob for Italian Americans as well as a non-racist radical right alternative to the Ku Klux Klan, growing to 500.000 members nationwide during its peak in the early 1960s. While the Communist Party of the United States and its sympathizers suffered under the Red Scare and McCarthyism, there was no corresponding “Black Scare” toward fascism. These days the fascist party is a shadow of its former self, with 70.000 members and some city council seats (mostly in areas with sizeable Italian American communities, such as New York and Chicago). Besides the Greens the NFPUSA is the only party to run for the Presidency and gain some votes on a national level.
Due to being anti-communist Mussolini maintained a pro-Western stance. Despite taking a separate course he therefore enjoyed the support of the United States, which needed the Italian vote in the United Nations Security Council. Italy was one of its six permanent members alongside the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France and the Republic of China (South China). Italy was one of the proponents of intervention in Korea when North Korea invaded the south in 1950, contributing a sizeable force: an infantry brigade, a tank battalion and a fighter squadron. Mussolini portrayed himself as a champion of anti-communism and that necessitated a sizeable Italian contribution.
In return for its support the Italians purchased American equipment cheaply: A-4 Skyhawks for its aircraft carrier Aquila and her sister Falco, F-86 Sabres and F-100 Super Sabres for the Regia Aeronautica’s early jet squadrons, loads of surplus WW II M4 Shermans and M24 Chaffee light tanks, and the new M48 Patton. Of course Italy began to produce its own equivalents once its armaments industry was back on its feet. It developed the Agusta Bell line of helicopters and continued production on the Macchi C.205, considered nearly equal to the P-51 Mustang, after which Fiat developed the G.91 jetfighter that entered production in 1957. Fiat also developed a 47 tonne tank with 50-150 mm armour and a 105 mm rifled gun, the Fiat M47/54. Piaggio, in the meantime, developed a swept wing version of the P.108 heavy bomber known as the P.109, which had upgraded turboprop engines, an upgraded fuselage, radar, sonar buoys, and was mostly built from duralumin like its ancestor. They had a top speed of 800 km/h, a maximum range of 3.700 kilometres and a 3.5 tonne payload.
Another foreign policy move was a failure, namely the initiative to form a cartel of oil exporting states in 1955. Many oil exporting states were Arab or Asian and therefore former colonies or protectorates of the West. With Nasser’s Egypt taking the lead, many of the representatives invited to Rome (some of which also attended the Bandung Conference the same year) heckled continued Italian colonial rule over fellow Arab and Muslim nations – i.e. Libya, Eritrea and Somalia – and the initiative became a near fiasco. Venezuela, Iran, Ecuador and Portugal remained (Ecuador had recently become an oil exporter after Agip prospectors had struck oil in 1952 while the Portuguese had discovered the Benfica oilfield in Angola near Luanda in 1954, which was just becoming operational in 1955). Italy, Ecuador, Iran, Portugal and Venezuela formed the Petroleum Exporting States Association or PESA in 1956. In 1958 Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia formed the competing OPEC, which was soon joined by other Arab states.
The aging Mussolini was left with vindictive feelings toward Nasser, who he saw as the culprit for the failure of PESA to become an all-encompassing cartel of oil exporting countries. He wanted to take revenge and above all prove who was boss of the Mediterranean or “Mare Nostrum,” i.e. Italy and not Nasserist Egypt as far as Mussolini was concerned. Nasser provided him with the necessary casus belli in October 1956 when he nationalized the Suez Canal, which until then had been jointly owned by Britain, France and to a lesser extent Italy.
.Chapter XIV: Birth of the Fascist Bloc, 1952-1956.
After Italian oil started flowing from Libyan wells the goal of a “fascist bloc” came within reach since Italy became the Mediterranean’s dominant economy by far, besides being the dominant naval power. In fact, Italy decided to finish the incomplete Littorio-class battleships Roma and Impero, which were commissioned in 1947 as the last battleships to ever be commissioned worldwide. In 1946, as a stopgap solution, the Regia Marina acquired British aircraft carrier HMS Colossus, a cheaply built carrier without armour, with few anti-aircraft guns and with a 25 knot (46 km/h) top speed. She was renamed Sparviero and in 1950 the Aquila, Italy’s first purpose designed aircraft carrier, was laid down: she was a 32 knot 31.000 tonne carrier that could carry 90 turboprop planes (which would be replaced by A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft) and had 120 mm, 37 mm and 20 mm anti-aircraft guns. She was commissioned in 1953 and her sister ship Falco entered service in 1955.
Francoist Spain’s policy of economic autarky, adopted on the urging of domestic economic pressure groups, hadn’t produced any serious growth. Rather, with war devastation and trade isolation, Spain was much more economically backward in the 1940s than it had been a decade earlier. Inflation soared, economic reconstruction faltered, food was scarce, and, in some years, Spain registered negative growth rates. In 1950, Italy and Spain signed the Pact of Madrid, which was in fact three agreements: 1) firstly, Spain and Italy formed a defensive military alliance by which they pledged support if the other was attacked. 2) Italy agreed to supply Spain with military equipment, which initially boiled down to Italy selling a lot of its surplus equipment from WW II at bottom prices. 3) In 1951, Italy gave Spain a $300 million dollar low interest loan (the equivalent of $2.8 billion in 2015 dollars) to invest in economic development. Spain, though more of a conservative authoritarian regime, adopted fascist economic views as explained in “The Doctrine of Fascism” essay attributed to Mussolini but largely written by Giovanni Gentile: in short the means of production were nominally left in the hands of the civil sector, but directed and controlled by the state. Spain experienced its own economic miracle from the early 1950s, in part because of large numbers of tourists.
After Spain, others were drawn to Italian success as well. The Portuguese Estado Novo regime headed by Antonio de Oliveira Salazar was corporatist and nationalist, like Fascist Italy, but also conservative and Catholic like Spain. Portugal and Italy signed a Treaty of Friendship in 1948 in which they agreed to economic cooperation. Turkey had become a democracy but it was dominated by the military and the Republican People’s Party (CHP) created by Ataturk became increasingly attracted to fascism. The CHP’s Kemalist core principles of republicanism, nationalism, statism, populism, laïcité and revolutionism proved remarkably adaptable to fascist ideas. Rejecting communism as well as reactionary conservatism, the CHP from the late 1940s strived to follow a “third path”: even though it was once opposed to Islamism it now incorporated a few elements of it into its politics; they also adopted the Italian corporatist economic model, linking together employer and employee syndicates in associations that would work alongside the state to set national economic policy. The CHP assimilated both moderate Islamists as well as moderate socialists. In 1950, the short-lived multiparty period that had begun in 1946 ended when the military staged a coup d’état and reinstalled the CHP as the only legal political party. Turkish general and statesman Ismet Inönü was reinstated as “National Chief.”
In October-November 1952, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the March on Rome, representatives of Portugal, Spain, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Greece and Turkey met in the Italian Riviera town of San Remo. At this conference hosted by Mussolini these seven powers, who shared such ideological similarities, tried to merge their myriad of existing bilateral treaties with Italy into one multilateral treaty concerning defence and economic cooperation. During breaks in talks these representatives were invited as guests to the bombastic choreographed events, the enthusiastic celebrations and the endless military parades in Rome in honour of three decades of fascist rule. They were impressed, even intimidated, by demonstrations of Italian organization and military strength and it was all topped off by an awe inspiring fleet review in the Gulf of Naples. None of the attending delegations could claim to have a navy as powerful as the Regia Marina, which was the prime navy of the Mediterranean and had distinguished itself in WW II. Besides that it was the world’s fourth navy behind the US Navy, the Royal Navy and the French Navy. The seven powers formed the San Remo Pact, which in fact was two agreements: 1) a defensive military alliance and 2) a common market shielded from the world by protectionist measures. The Rome Manifesto was signed which explained that the San Remo Pact strived to be an alternative to democratic bourgeois capitalism as well as totalitarian communism, both of which were considered equally exploitative and materialistic in different ways. A joint decision making body was established in the shape of summits held once every two years, which alternated between the capitals of its members. Of course room was left for emergency meetings.
A third bloc in the Cold War was a fact and it had major influence on non-member states as well: Fulgencio Batista’s regime in Cuba, the military dictatorship in Venezuela, the Peronist regime in Argentina and later Alfredo Stroessner’s Paraguayan regime took notes from Fascist Italy to varying degrees, with especially the latter being extremely successful in creating a long-lasting cult of personality. All of them adopted nationalist rhetoric and a mixed, corporatist economic model. Buenos Aires and Asuncion maintained cordial relations with Rome while Havana remained more oriented to the US due to its geographic proximity. Paraguay and Argentina became observer countries of the San Remo Pact, and were later joined by Bolivia after Italy had mediated a border dispute dating back to the Chaco War in the 1930s. This observant status meant they engaged in military and economic cooperation with the Pact, but didn’t have a say in its summits. The reeling Argentine economy of the mid 1950s was revitalized due to economic cooperation with Italy and Peron decided to become a full member in 1956, followed by Paraguay in 1959. In the meantime budding (pseudo)-fascist movements spread across the South American continent in the 1950s: the military juntas in Columbia and Bolivia established in 1958 and 1964 respectively were inspired by fascism. The popularity of fascism wasn’t limited to South America: several Asian regimes, such as Chiang Kai-shek’s in South China and Syngman Rhee’s in South Korea, modelled themselves along fascist lines, as did Apartheid South Africa. The regime of the Shah Mohammad Pahlavi of Iran also drew inspiration from fascism. In 1953 the Shah joined the San Remo Pact after he had alienated the British by siding with leftist Prime Minister Mossadegh after the latter had nationalized Iran’s oil.
In the meantime, countries across Western Europe saw the establishment of fascist parties and they enjoyed electoral success during the 1950s. In 1951, the British Union of Fascists headed by Oswald Mosley won 13% of the vote, becoming the second largest opposition party after Labour. Winston Churchill’s Tories had to form a coalition with the Liberals to have a majority. It was the greatest success of the BUF, with coalition governments being rare in British political history, but the Liberals rose against them. The Liberals would remain an influential force in British politics, but the BUF was destined to wane from the late 1960s throughout the 70s and 80s and finally lost its one remaining seat in parliament in the 1992 UK general election. Other “democratic fascist” parties followed similar paths.
A major fascist subculture also existed in Western countries during the 1950s and 60s as an alternative to the rather pessimistic beatniks and the leftwing hippie subculture. During the Vietnam War fascist groups attracted many who were proponents of the war against communism in Vietnam, in contrast to the anti-war hippies. The hippies were accused of being communist by the fascists, while hippies began using the word “fascist” as a slur against all their opponents. Fascists responded by wearing the term as a badge of honour even more than they already did. Fascist movements in the Western world declined from the mid 1970s. The exception was the US: until the 1990s the “National Fascist Party of the United States of America” (NFPUSA) founded in 1953 persisted as an alternative to the Mob for Italian Americans as well as a non-racist radical right alternative to the Ku Klux Klan, growing to 500.000 members nationwide during its peak in the early 1960s. While the Communist Party of the United States and its sympathizers suffered under the Red Scare and McCarthyism, there was no corresponding “Black Scare” toward fascism. These days the fascist party is a shadow of its former self, with 70.000 members and some city council seats (mostly in areas with sizeable Italian American communities, such as New York and Chicago). Besides the Greens the NFPUSA is the only party to run for the Presidency and gain some votes on a national level.
Due to being anti-communist Mussolini maintained a pro-Western stance. Despite taking a separate course he therefore enjoyed the support of the United States, which needed the Italian vote in the United Nations Security Council. Italy was one of its six permanent members alongside the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France and the Republic of China (South China). Italy was one of the proponents of intervention in Korea when North Korea invaded the south in 1950, contributing a sizeable force: an infantry brigade, a tank battalion and a fighter squadron. Mussolini portrayed himself as a champion of anti-communism and that necessitated a sizeable Italian contribution.
In return for its support the Italians purchased American equipment cheaply: A-4 Skyhawks for its aircraft carrier Aquila and her sister Falco, F-86 Sabres and F-100 Super Sabres for the Regia Aeronautica’s early jet squadrons, loads of surplus WW II M4 Shermans and M24 Chaffee light tanks, and the new M48 Patton. Of course Italy began to produce its own equivalents once its armaments industry was back on its feet. It developed the Agusta Bell line of helicopters and continued production on the Macchi C.205, considered nearly equal to the P-51 Mustang, after which Fiat developed the G.91 jetfighter that entered production in 1957. Fiat also developed a 47 tonne tank with 50-150 mm armour and a 105 mm rifled gun, the Fiat M47/54. Piaggio, in the meantime, developed a swept wing version of the P.108 heavy bomber known as the P.109, which had upgraded turboprop engines, an upgraded fuselage, radar, sonar buoys, and was mostly built from duralumin like its ancestor. They had a top speed of 800 km/h, a maximum range of 3.700 kilometres and a 3.5 tonne payload.
Another foreign policy move was a failure, namely the initiative to form a cartel of oil exporting states in 1955. Many oil exporting states were Arab or Asian and therefore former colonies or protectorates of the West. With Nasser’s Egypt taking the lead, many of the representatives invited to Rome (some of which also attended the Bandung Conference the same year) heckled continued Italian colonial rule over fellow Arab and Muslim nations – i.e. Libya, Eritrea and Somalia – and the initiative became a near fiasco. Venezuela, Iran, Ecuador and Portugal remained (Ecuador had recently become an oil exporter after Agip prospectors had struck oil in 1952 while the Portuguese had discovered the Benfica oilfield in Angola near Luanda in 1954, which was just becoming operational in 1955). Italy, Ecuador, Iran, Portugal and Venezuela formed the Petroleum Exporting States Association or PESA in 1956. In 1958 Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia formed the competing OPEC, which was soon joined by other Arab states.
The aging Mussolini was left with vindictive feelings toward Nasser, who he saw as the culprit for the failure of PESA to become an all-encompassing cartel of oil exporting countries. He wanted to take revenge and above all prove who was boss of the Mediterranean or “Mare Nostrum,” i.e. Italy and not Nasserist Egypt as far as Mussolini was concerned. Nasser provided him with the necessary casus belli in October 1956 when he nationalized the Suez Canal, which until then had been jointly owned by Britain, France and to a lesser extent Italy.
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So Communist China is just Manchuria, and Sinkiang is communist? And Tibet independent?
Three-way Cold War- my favorite. Nasser will be done here.
Wondwr how the six-day war will end up here... I think Israel still wins...
Mossadegh's up and running! So no Iranian Revolution, I guess?
Would Ferdinand Marcos toes the fascist line ITTL?
Three-way Cold War- my favorite. Nasser will be done here.
Wondwr how the six-day war will end up here... I think Israel still wins...
Mossadegh's up and running! So no Iranian Revolution, I guess?
Would Ferdinand Marcos toes the fascist line ITTL?
Cold war isn't three way.Italy and the fascist bloc is more of a subfaction in the Western Camp.About China,I wouldn't be surprised if the KMT flipped and became full fledged fascist?