Yeah, I think if there was a "south China" industrialisation would make Chiang's empire terrifyingly powerful.
Stresa Revived - an Allied Mussolini TL
- Thread starter Onkel Willie
- Start date
Yeah, I think if there was a "south China" industrialisation would make Chiang's empire terrifyingly powerful.
Chapter XV: The Suez Crisis and the Birth of Neo-colonialism, 1956-1958.
And I give you the Suez Crisis. Enjoy 
.
British economic and military interests in the region were seriously threatened and Prime Minister Anthony Eden was under pressure to do something from Conservative MPs, who directly compared the events of 1956 to the Munich Agreement in 1938. Popular opinion was to hit the Egyptians hard and fast, although Eden was worried about being denounced as an aggressor in the UN Security Council or getting the majority of the UN General Assembly against him. Additionally, at this point Canada wasn’t affected by the events while to New Zealand and Australia the Panama Canal was much more important: all three weren’t very interested in supporting a war against Egypt. Britain’s non-white dominions supported Egypt’s actions as admirably anti-imperialistic, and compared Arab Nationalism as similar to Asian nationalism. French Prime Minister Guy Mollet, in the meantime, was outraged about Nasser’s move and was determined to not let him get away with it. Mollet even held up a copy of Nasser’s book “The Philosophy of the Revolution” during an interview and called it “Nasser’s Mein Kampf.” The French parliament decided on military action and condemned the lackadaisical attitude of the Eisenhower administration, which merely proposed diplomacy.
A 23 nation conference attended by the canal’s main users led to two proposals: the American-British-French supported international operation of the Suez Canal while Ceylon, India, Indonesia and the USSR would go no further than international supervision of the canal. Italy was the only country that flat-out refused a compromise from the outset, condemned Egyptian actions as illegal and abandoned the negotiations, while engaging in secret talks with Britain, France and Israel. A secret summit with Mussolini, French Prime Minister Mollet and the British and Israeli ambassadors to France in Paris led to the formation of an anti-Egyptian four power coalition.
Especially Mussolini was keen on revenge and had, in fact, been massing forces at Tobruk for days while being pushy toward France and Britain concerning the need for military aggression (he got them to abandon the idea to deploy ships with gun calibres no larger than 5 inches to limit civilian casualties). The 1st through 3rd Libyan Infantry Divisions, the 1st Libyan Armoured Battalion, the 1st Bersaglieri Regiment and the Ariete Armoured Division stood poised to strike. All-in-all this boiled down to 65.000 men, 500 tanks and 400 aircraft. The Regia Marina deployed in force with all four Littorio-class battleships, aircraft carrier Falco equipped with its first A-4 Skyhawks, heavy cruisers Zara, Pola, Trento and Bolzano, eight light cruisers and a destroyer screen. France deployed battleships Richelieu and Jean Bart with an escort.
The Royal Navy deployed its last commissioned battleship HMS Vanguard and the extremely aging but prestigious HMS Warspite, an indication of how serious they took this and an attempt to gain American support. After the official surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay in September 1945, by which time she’d seen thirty years of service, Warspite had leisurely steamed back to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for maintenance and necessary repairs. From there she had conducted a good will tour and visited several American cities on both the western and eastern seaboards of the United States before finally returning home to Portsmouth in January 1946. Upon arrival she was put in reserve as a training vessel and the admiralty decided not to restore her again since the effort wouldn’t be worth it: time had taken its unavoidable toll, the ship had endured shellfire, bombing, ramming and mines, and aircraft carriers had displaced battleships as the most important capital ships. In May 1947 the admiralty finally made the decision to scrap her after much deliberation, which provoked an outrage among Pearl Harbor veterans and the American public since Warspite was still viewed as “the ship that saved Pearl Harbor.” The wave of negative publicity and outright demands from the “Pearl Harbor Veterans for Warspite” lobbyists to retain her in some form startled the admiralty, who hadn’t expected this reaction. The decision to scrap her was quickly reversed and instead Warspite travelled to Belfast for a complete renovation. During the trip she encountered her sister ship Barham, which was ignominiously headed to Faslane for scrapping, and they greeted each other one last time. By the mid 1950s Warspite was among the oldest capital warships in active service, along with the Andrea Doria and Conte di Cavour class-battleships, which were also World War I veterans.
Warspite was restored to fighting shape, but apart from that mostly just sat in port since the Royal Navy had little use for her, at least until 1956. Apart from the usefulness of her big guns, she was mostly sent into action to gain American sympathy, which had a modicum of success. At least some viewed Nasser as a closet communist who was in bed with Khrushchev, including the vocal American fascist movement which vilified Eisenhower for failing to support his European allies. Overall, the attitude of the Eisenhower administration toward Nasser didn’t change and Warspite therefore didn’t prove a trump card in mobilizing anti-Nasserism in the US. She was finally retired in 1957 after an illustrious 42 year career and was turned into a museum ship at Portsmouth, where she remains until today and has recently seen her centenary.
65.000 Italians were joined by 175.000 Israeli, 45.000 British and 34.000 French troops who were opposed by 300.000 Egyptians. Otherwise highly motivated British forces suffered from the economic and technological limitations imposed by post-war austerity: due to the Cyprus Emergency parachutist training had been neglected in favour of counterinsurgency tactics and the Royal Navy suffered from a shortage of landing vehicles. The RAF had just introduced two long-range bombers, the Vickers Valiant and the English Electric Canberra, but owing to their recent entry into service proper bombing techniques hadn’t been established yet. Despite this, General Sir Charles Keightley, the commander of the invasion force, believed that air power alone was sufficient to defeat Egypt. By contrast, General Hugh Stockwell, the Task Force’s ground commander believed that methodical and systematic armoured operations centred on the Centurion battle tank would be the key to victory. French soldiers were well motivated but they too suffered from post-war austerity and in 1956 the French were heavily involved in the Algerian War. The “Regiment de Parachutistes Coloniaux” was extremely experienced and battle hardened and had distinguished itself in Indochina and Algeria, but other French troops were described as “competent, but not outstanding.” The French Navy also suffered from a shortage of landing craft. Israeli forces were outstanding with ingenious and aggressive commanders while superior pilot training gave them an unbeatable edge in the air. The IDF, however, suffered from deficiencies like doctrinal immaturity, faulty logistics and technical inadequacies. Ironically, the Italians were now much better prepared for war than France and Britain, since its oil money had saved its armed forces from austerity measures; instead, Italy’s defence budget had increased annually in the 1948-1956 period. By the mid 1950s, in fact, the Regia Marina wasn’t that much smaller than the Royal Navy.
The commanders of the four power anti-Egyptian coalition, however, needn’t worry too much. In the Egyptian Armed Forces, politics rather than military competence was the main criterion for promotion. The Egyptian commander, Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer, was a purely political appointee who owed his position to his close friendship with Nasser. A heavy drinker, he would prove himself grossly incompetent as a general during the Crisis. In 1956, the Egyptian military was well equipped with weapons from the Soviet Union such as T-34 and IS-3 tanks, MiG-15 fighters, Ilyushin Il-28 bombers, SU-100 self-propelled guns and AK-47 assault rifles. Rigid lines between officers and men in the Egyptian Army led to a mutual “mistrust and contempt” between officers and the men who served under them. Egyptian troops were excellent in defensive operations, but had little capacity for offensive operations, owing to the lack of “rapport and effective small-unit leadership.”
War finally erupted on October 29th when Israel started Operation Kadesh, its invasion of the Sinai Desert, and the same day the Regia Aeronautica started to bomb targets selected because they’d cripple the Egyptians. Israeli armour, preceded by parachute drops on two key passes, thrust south into the Sinai and routed local Egyptian forces in five days. Feigning to be alarmed by the threat of fighting along the Suez Canal, the UK and France issued a twelve-hour ultimatum on October 30th to the Israelis, Italians and the Egyptians to cease fighting. When, as expected, no response was given, Operation Musketeer was launched. Vanguard, Warspite, Richelieu and Jean Bart used their guns for coastal bombardment at Port Said and pulverized coastal defences, after which Egyptian units stayed away from the coast. By then the Regia Aeronautica and the Israeli Air Force had suppressed most Egyptian airfields, winning the battle for air superiority in two days. A strategic Italian bombing campaign with P.109 heavy bombers severely hindered the Egyptian military by destroying most of its fuel stocks.
On November 5th, The British 45th Commando and 16th Parachute Brigade landed by sea and air near Port Said while the French seized Port Fuad, opposite Port Said. Anglo-French air attacks neutralized what little remained of the Egyptian Air Force and their ground forces quickly seized major canal facilities. Egyptian attempts to sink obstacles in the canal and render it unusable were stopped dead in their tracks by air attack. The 3rd Battalion Parachute Group captured El Cap airport by airborne assault, the Commando Brigade captured all its objectives, and elements of the 16th Parachute Brigade and the Royal Tank Regiment set off south along the canal bank on November 6th to capture Ismailia.
By far the most effective operation was the Italian ground offensive that started on October 31st, preceded by two days of strategic bombings and accompanied by tactical air support. Italian battleships followed the army along the coast, using their 15 inch guns to pulverize Egyptian forces that were too much trouble, while Aquila and Falco functioned as mobile airbases. In four days from October 31st to November 3rd, the Regio Esercito spectacularly advanced about 170 kilometres from the Libyan border to Mersa Matruh, bringing the Egyptian Army to the brink of collapse. As the Italians advanced further eastward and started to bomb El Alamein on November 5th 1956, pressure mounted on the Egyptians. Then on November 6th Italian amphibious and parachutist landings took place at key locations in and around El Alamein to the rear of Egyptian frontline units, which were counterattacking at Mersa Matruh and failing miserably. A military coup placed Nasser under house arrest. His more moderate former comrade Muhammad Naguib saw the end of two years under house arrest and was reinstated as President. A ceasefire was signed and the frontlines froze as of November 7th 1956. Nasser, in the meantime, was placed under house arrest himself until cardiovascular disease and diabetes made him so sick, despite getting the best medical care, that he was released on health grounds in 1976, twenty years later. He died in 1980, aged 62.
The intervention against Egypt was a total military victory for the Anglo-French-Italian-Israeli alliance, crushing the Egyptian armed forces and affecting a leadership change. The international response, however, was mixed. Along with the Suez Crisis, the US was also dealing with the Soviet crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Vice President Nixon later explained: “We couldn't on one hand, complain about the Soviets intervening in Hungary and, on the other hand, approve of the British and the French picking that particular time to intervene against Nasser.” Besides that, President Eisenhower believed that the US couldn’t be seen acquiescing to this attack on Egypt without causing a backlash in the Arab world.
The attack on Egypt greatly offended many in the Muslim world. In Pakistan, 300.000 people turned up for a rally in Lahore to show solidarity with Egypt while in Karachi a mob chanting anti-British slogans burned down the British High Commission. In Syria, the military government blew up the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline that allowed Iraqi oil to reach tankers in the Mediterranean to punish Iraq for supporting the invasion, and to cut Britain off from one of its main routes for taking delivery of Iraqi oil. King Saud of Saudi Arabia imposed a total oil embargo on Britain and France, but it was rendered ineffectual because Italy and its PESA partners picked up the slack. The Soviet Union also solidly backed Egypt, but Khrushchev shied away from military intervention.
Khrushchev preferred to make his point symbolically rather than jeopardize the ongoing thaw in US-Soviet relations, never mind risking nuclear war with a country that had ten times as many nuclear weapons as well as superior delivery systems. He demanded sanctions against the four invading powers, but as permanent members of the UNSC Britain, France, Italy and South China vetoed his motion (Chiang Kai-shek remembered Italian support for him in the Chinese Civil War and now returned the favour, even though he was sympathetic to the Egyptian position; Sino-Soviet support for Egypt, however, greatly uncomplicated his position toward Nasser). Commonwealth members Australia and New Zealand, Iraq, Italy’s San Remo Pact allies of Portugal, Spain, Croatia, Greece, Turkey and Iran, PESA members Ecuador and Venezuela, and the pro-fascist regimes in Argentina and Paraguay expressed their support for the intervention. Apartheid South Africa, ruled by the Afrikaner minority, was opposed to Nasser but believed it would benefit economically from a closed canal and politically from not opposing a country’s right to govern its internal affairs.
The prospect of becoming an observer country to the San Remo Pact with all the benefits that entailed, such as investment opportunities in South America, changed Prime Minister Strijdom’s mind. It would prove to signal fascist support for neo-colonialism and white minority regimes in Africa, such as military support for Spain so it could keep Spanish Morocco, Ifni and the Western Sahara. In 1956, Italy deployed 10.000 men to Spanish Morocco in order to discourage the recently independent Kingdom of Morocco from taking military measures.
France was reaffirmed as a great power and Britain retained its superpower status due to their military success against Egypt. They engaged in neo-colonialism, decolonizing more slowly and methodically while creating a middle class to administrate the country and (hopefully) have friendly post-independence rulers in charge. At times they played ethnic and religious groups against each other, with Sudan being a good example: the British heavily favoured the Christians in the south and promised them a separate country. Rather than be ruled by the Muslim Arabs, South Sudan chose to remain a British protectorate under the name Juba when Sudan became independent in 1956. Juba remained under British rule for another decade and in 1966 became independent together with Uganda and Kenya. Britain also tried to keep some of its holdings by offering them devolved government within the context of the United Kingdom. Over the course of the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s a number of possessions were given devolved government. They became British Overseas Territories which meant that they were under the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the United Kingdom but weren’t part of it. The Maltese people liked the security of British rule and voted for this option in 1964 and Cyprus, fearing Turkish irredentism, did the same and both remain British Overseas Territories until today. In 1958, Britain merged Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla, Montserrat, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago into the West Indies Federation, a customs union with freedom of movement. The early years were rocky since the larger islands were worried about mass immigration from the smaller islands while the smaller ones feared their economies would be overwhelmed. The British had, however, implemented a strong federal government, federal taxation and freedom of movement. This initially went against the wishes of many locals, but it helped the federation survive its fragile earlier years. The West Indies Federation today has a population of 5.1 million people and economically it’s a major player in the Caribbean. It remains a British Overseas Territory under a Governor-General (the background was the desire of the smaller islands to have a check on the larger ones). Many Pacific Islands also chose such a course and Singapore preferred major autonomy inside a reformed British Empire over being subsumed by Malaysia or getting picked off by Indonesia.
Lastly, the Royal Navy chose to maintain a presence in the Trucial States. Britain maintained its dominance in the Middle East for another decade through CENTO, mainly because of Britain’s prestige as a “superpower.” This superpower status faded as Britain decolonized. The Central Treaty Organization, which included Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, the Trucial States and Britain was de facto dissolved in 1968 when Iraq and Jordan abandoned it. Even after that, Britain maintained its presence on the Persian Gulf via its continued naval presence in the Trucial States.
The USSR, in the meantime, was affected too. Khrushchev’s position was gravely weakened due to his lack of a more serious response to the Suez Crisis. Khrushchev sought to find a lasting solution to the problem of a divided Germany and of the enclave of West Berlin deep within East German territory. In November 1958, calling West Berlin a “malignant tumour”, he gave the United States, United Kingdom and France six months to conclude a peace treaty with both German states and the Soviet Union. If one was not signed, Khrushchev stated, the Soviet Union would conclude a peace treaty with East Germany. This would leave East Germany, which was not a party to treaties giving the Western Powers access to Berlin, in control of the routes to the city. This ultimatum caused dissent among the Western Allies, who were reluctant to go to war over the issue. Khrushchev, however, repeatedly extended the deadline and his failed political gambles resulted in a coup by a triumvirate of Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich who replaced him with Bulganin as Secretary General in 1959. Though the Soviet Union did not return to terror and purges, under these Stalinist hardliners it became much more repressive. Khrushchev was made ambassador to Albania, far away from the Kremlin, and served in that capacity for another decade during which he became an embittered recluse. He was allowed to retire and return to Moscow in 1969, where he died in 1971.
In the meantime, the US had threatened to financially cut off Britain which would have provoked a further devaluation of the pound sterling and jeopardized Britain’s post-war economic recovery. In the end they couldn’t afford to alienate their most important ally and did nothing. American actions against Britain and France remained solely limited to words since any serious measures would cause a split in the Western World, something that the Soviets were hoping for. Eisenhower’s language singled out Italy since its contribution to the invasion was greater and because the Italians had conducted human rights violations by strafing columns of fleeing civilians a few times. Rome strengthened its relations with Israel, even though Mussolini had serious reservations toward Zionism, and compensated for lack of relations in the Arab world through intensifying its cooperation with Imperial Iran. Mussolini responded to Eisenhower’s denunciatory talk with political brinkmanship, threatening to totally break off relations. Furthermore, he summoned the American ambassador to his office in the Palazzo Venezia and angrily lectured him, stating: “American interference in the Mediterranean Sea – the Mare Nostrum we have fought and bled for and require for our security and prosperity – would be the equivalent of us colonizing or intervening in Latin America. This would violate the Monroe Doctrine. Mr. Ambassador, tell me, would your government tolerate that?” The Duce concluded by stating, in subtle terms, that the US government could shove any further criticisms where the sun doesn’t shine. Mussolini’s response confounded Eisenhower. Italy, for all of its power and influence, was still too weak to stand alone in the Cold War without US backing against the Soviet bloc so its behaviour was irrational.
The rationale behind Mussolini’s behaviour became clear soon enough. Like Stalin, Mussolini had noticed how, from 1942, Western scientific journals had suspiciously stopped publishing papers on the topic of uranium fission despite their progress in that area until then. In July 1942, Enrico Fermi – who was one of Italy’s and one of the world’s leading nuclear physicists – wrote a letter to Mussolini explaining the potential power of an atomic bomb. In early 1943, Il Duce decided to launch his own atomic bomb program known as Project Jupiter, even though he lacked the resources for it, and appointed Fermi as its chief researcher. A lot of theoretical work was done, but there were little practical results due to lack of money and a strong industrial base, besides the fact that in 1943 most of Italy’s resources were devoted to fighting in the north of the country. After the war in Europe ended, support for Project Jupiter increased only marginally because the country was rebuilding and because the war in Asia was still ongoing. Funding saw a major increase in 1945 after the American announced they had the bomb and showed the footage of the Trinity test, but in the end the project saw its greatest progress when oil money became available. From then on Project Jupiter became the main expense of the defence budget.
By the early 1950s its existence had correctly been deduced by the CIA and Soviet intelligence due to large Italian uranium imports, although both incorrectly assumed Italy would need at least another two decades to get the bomb. Fermi told Mussolini he’d have a bomb in 1960, but Il Duce wanted it sooner and applied pressure to speed things up. Fermi did what he could and settled for a smaller amount of fissile material to bring forward the test date. Besides that, he decided to emphasize the gun-type design, which was easier to make but also more inefficient than the spherical implosion-type bomb that used plutonium rather than uranium-235. In early July 1958, three weeks before Mussolini’s 75th birthday, Fermi reported that a bomb was ready for testing to which the latter reportedly said “this is the best birthday gift you could have given me.” The bomb was shipped to a test site in the centre of the Libyan Desert in secrecy for the “Jupiter-1” test and on July 12th 1958 seismographs in neighbouring countries detected a tremor. The Soviets and later the US detected radioactive fission products, traced them back to their origins and, based on the strength of the tremors, correctly deduced that a 10 kiloton nuclear explosion had taken place in Italian Libya. On July 28th, the start of a week of celebrations in honour of Mussolini’s 75th birthday, the Duce bombastically announced that Italy had become the world’s fourth nuclear power (after the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain).
The following year, Italy conducted a test with an implosion-type weapon that produced a yield of 23 kilotons. A tritium boosted bomb was detonated in 1960 with an explosive force of 45 kilotons, after which a few more boosted fission devices with yields up to 150 kilotons were tested. In 1967 Italy tested its first hydrogen bomb, known as Jupiter-11, which exploded with a force of 2.2 megatons. In 1959, Italy had only one atomic bomb available in the event of war and by 1960 that had increased to only four. By 1970 Italy would have 175 nuclear weapons and its stockpile peaked in 1975 at 300. Mussolini had joined the nuclear weapons club and now the fascist bloc could go toe to toe with NATO and the Warsaw Pact. It was the crown to his life’s work.
.Chapter XV: The Suez Crisis and the Birth of Neo-colonialism, 1956-1958.
British economic and military interests in the region were seriously threatened and Prime Minister Anthony Eden was under pressure to do something from Conservative MPs, who directly compared the events of 1956 to the Munich Agreement in 1938. Popular opinion was to hit the Egyptians hard and fast, although Eden was worried about being denounced as an aggressor in the UN Security Council or getting the majority of the UN General Assembly against him. Additionally, at this point Canada wasn’t affected by the events while to New Zealand and Australia the Panama Canal was much more important: all three weren’t very interested in supporting a war against Egypt. Britain’s non-white dominions supported Egypt’s actions as admirably anti-imperialistic, and compared Arab Nationalism as similar to Asian nationalism. French Prime Minister Guy Mollet, in the meantime, was outraged about Nasser’s move and was determined to not let him get away with it. Mollet even held up a copy of Nasser’s book “The Philosophy of the Revolution” during an interview and called it “Nasser’s Mein Kampf.” The French parliament decided on military action and condemned the lackadaisical attitude of the Eisenhower administration, which merely proposed diplomacy.
A 23 nation conference attended by the canal’s main users led to two proposals: the American-British-French supported international operation of the Suez Canal while Ceylon, India, Indonesia and the USSR would go no further than international supervision of the canal. Italy was the only country that flat-out refused a compromise from the outset, condemned Egyptian actions as illegal and abandoned the negotiations, while engaging in secret talks with Britain, France and Israel. A secret summit with Mussolini, French Prime Minister Mollet and the British and Israeli ambassadors to France in Paris led to the formation of an anti-Egyptian four power coalition.
Especially Mussolini was keen on revenge and had, in fact, been massing forces at Tobruk for days while being pushy toward France and Britain concerning the need for military aggression (he got them to abandon the idea to deploy ships with gun calibres no larger than 5 inches to limit civilian casualties). The 1st through 3rd Libyan Infantry Divisions, the 1st Libyan Armoured Battalion, the 1st Bersaglieri Regiment and the Ariete Armoured Division stood poised to strike. All-in-all this boiled down to 65.000 men, 500 tanks and 400 aircraft. The Regia Marina deployed in force with all four Littorio-class battleships, aircraft carrier Falco equipped with its first A-4 Skyhawks, heavy cruisers Zara, Pola, Trento and Bolzano, eight light cruisers and a destroyer screen. France deployed battleships Richelieu and Jean Bart with an escort.
The Royal Navy deployed its last commissioned battleship HMS Vanguard and the extremely aging but prestigious HMS Warspite, an indication of how serious they took this and an attempt to gain American support. After the official surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay in September 1945, by which time she’d seen thirty years of service, Warspite had leisurely steamed back to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for maintenance and necessary repairs. From there she had conducted a good will tour and visited several American cities on both the western and eastern seaboards of the United States before finally returning home to Portsmouth in January 1946. Upon arrival she was put in reserve as a training vessel and the admiralty decided not to restore her again since the effort wouldn’t be worth it: time had taken its unavoidable toll, the ship had endured shellfire, bombing, ramming and mines, and aircraft carriers had displaced battleships as the most important capital ships. In May 1947 the admiralty finally made the decision to scrap her after much deliberation, which provoked an outrage among Pearl Harbor veterans and the American public since Warspite was still viewed as “the ship that saved Pearl Harbor.” The wave of negative publicity and outright demands from the “Pearl Harbor Veterans for Warspite” lobbyists to retain her in some form startled the admiralty, who hadn’t expected this reaction. The decision to scrap her was quickly reversed and instead Warspite travelled to Belfast for a complete renovation. During the trip she encountered her sister ship Barham, which was ignominiously headed to Faslane for scrapping, and they greeted each other one last time. By the mid 1950s Warspite was among the oldest capital warships in active service, along with the Andrea Doria and Conte di Cavour class-battleships, which were also World War I veterans.
Warspite was restored to fighting shape, but apart from that mostly just sat in port since the Royal Navy had little use for her, at least until 1956. Apart from the usefulness of her big guns, she was mostly sent into action to gain American sympathy, which had a modicum of success. At least some viewed Nasser as a closet communist who was in bed with Khrushchev, including the vocal American fascist movement which vilified Eisenhower for failing to support his European allies. Overall, the attitude of the Eisenhower administration toward Nasser didn’t change and Warspite therefore didn’t prove a trump card in mobilizing anti-Nasserism in the US. She was finally retired in 1957 after an illustrious 42 year career and was turned into a museum ship at Portsmouth, where she remains until today and has recently seen her centenary.
65.000 Italians were joined by 175.000 Israeli, 45.000 British and 34.000 French troops who were opposed by 300.000 Egyptians. Otherwise highly motivated British forces suffered from the economic and technological limitations imposed by post-war austerity: due to the Cyprus Emergency parachutist training had been neglected in favour of counterinsurgency tactics and the Royal Navy suffered from a shortage of landing vehicles. The RAF had just introduced two long-range bombers, the Vickers Valiant and the English Electric Canberra, but owing to their recent entry into service proper bombing techniques hadn’t been established yet. Despite this, General Sir Charles Keightley, the commander of the invasion force, believed that air power alone was sufficient to defeat Egypt. By contrast, General Hugh Stockwell, the Task Force’s ground commander believed that methodical and systematic armoured operations centred on the Centurion battle tank would be the key to victory. French soldiers were well motivated but they too suffered from post-war austerity and in 1956 the French were heavily involved in the Algerian War. The “Regiment de Parachutistes Coloniaux” was extremely experienced and battle hardened and had distinguished itself in Indochina and Algeria, but other French troops were described as “competent, but not outstanding.” The French Navy also suffered from a shortage of landing craft. Israeli forces were outstanding with ingenious and aggressive commanders while superior pilot training gave them an unbeatable edge in the air. The IDF, however, suffered from deficiencies like doctrinal immaturity, faulty logistics and technical inadequacies. Ironically, the Italians were now much better prepared for war than France and Britain, since its oil money had saved its armed forces from austerity measures; instead, Italy’s defence budget had increased annually in the 1948-1956 period. By the mid 1950s, in fact, the Regia Marina wasn’t that much smaller than the Royal Navy.
The commanders of the four power anti-Egyptian coalition, however, needn’t worry too much. In the Egyptian Armed Forces, politics rather than military competence was the main criterion for promotion. The Egyptian commander, Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer, was a purely political appointee who owed his position to his close friendship with Nasser. A heavy drinker, he would prove himself grossly incompetent as a general during the Crisis. In 1956, the Egyptian military was well equipped with weapons from the Soviet Union such as T-34 and IS-3 tanks, MiG-15 fighters, Ilyushin Il-28 bombers, SU-100 self-propelled guns and AK-47 assault rifles. Rigid lines between officers and men in the Egyptian Army led to a mutual “mistrust and contempt” between officers and the men who served under them. Egyptian troops were excellent in defensive operations, but had little capacity for offensive operations, owing to the lack of “rapport and effective small-unit leadership.”
War finally erupted on October 29th when Israel started Operation Kadesh, its invasion of the Sinai Desert, and the same day the Regia Aeronautica started to bomb targets selected because they’d cripple the Egyptians. Israeli armour, preceded by parachute drops on two key passes, thrust south into the Sinai and routed local Egyptian forces in five days. Feigning to be alarmed by the threat of fighting along the Suez Canal, the UK and France issued a twelve-hour ultimatum on October 30th to the Israelis, Italians and the Egyptians to cease fighting. When, as expected, no response was given, Operation Musketeer was launched. Vanguard, Warspite, Richelieu and Jean Bart used their guns for coastal bombardment at Port Said and pulverized coastal defences, after which Egyptian units stayed away from the coast. By then the Regia Aeronautica and the Israeli Air Force had suppressed most Egyptian airfields, winning the battle for air superiority in two days. A strategic Italian bombing campaign with P.109 heavy bombers severely hindered the Egyptian military by destroying most of its fuel stocks.
On November 5th, The British 45th Commando and 16th Parachute Brigade landed by sea and air near Port Said while the French seized Port Fuad, opposite Port Said. Anglo-French air attacks neutralized what little remained of the Egyptian Air Force and their ground forces quickly seized major canal facilities. Egyptian attempts to sink obstacles in the canal and render it unusable were stopped dead in their tracks by air attack. The 3rd Battalion Parachute Group captured El Cap airport by airborne assault, the Commando Brigade captured all its objectives, and elements of the 16th Parachute Brigade and the Royal Tank Regiment set off south along the canal bank on November 6th to capture Ismailia.
By far the most effective operation was the Italian ground offensive that started on October 31st, preceded by two days of strategic bombings and accompanied by tactical air support. Italian battleships followed the army along the coast, using their 15 inch guns to pulverize Egyptian forces that were too much trouble, while Aquila and Falco functioned as mobile airbases. In four days from October 31st to November 3rd, the Regio Esercito spectacularly advanced about 170 kilometres from the Libyan border to Mersa Matruh, bringing the Egyptian Army to the brink of collapse. As the Italians advanced further eastward and started to bomb El Alamein on November 5th 1956, pressure mounted on the Egyptians. Then on November 6th Italian amphibious and parachutist landings took place at key locations in and around El Alamein to the rear of Egyptian frontline units, which were counterattacking at Mersa Matruh and failing miserably. A military coup placed Nasser under house arrest. His more moderate former comrade Muhammad Naguib saw the end of two years under house arrest and was reinstated as President. A ceasefire was signed and the frontlines froze as of November 7th 1956. Nasser, in the meantime, was placed under house arrest himself until cardiovascular disease and diabetes made him so sick, despite getting the best medical care, that he was released on health grounds in 1976, twenty years later. He died in 1980, aged 62.
The intervention against Egypt was a total military victory for the Anglo-French-Italian-Israeli alliance, crushing the Egyptian armed forces and affecting a leadership change. The international response, however, was mixed. Along with the Suez Crisis, the US was also dealing with the Soviet crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Vice President Nixon later explained: “We couldn't on one hand, complain about the Soviets intervening in Hungary and, on the other hand, approve of the British and the French picking that particular time to intervene against Nasser.” Besides that, President Eisenhower believed that the US couldn’t be seen acquiescing to this attack on Egypt without causing a backlash in the Arab world.
The attack on Egypt greatly offended many in the Muslim world. In Pakistan, 300.000 people turned up for a rally in Lahore to show solidarity with Egypt while in Karachi a mob chanting anti-British slogans burned down the British High Commission. In Syria, the military government blew up the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline that allowed Iraqi oil to reach tankers in the Mediterranean to punish Iraq for supporting the invasion, and to cut Britain off from one of its main routes for taking delivery of Iraqi oil. King Saud of Saudi Arabia imposed a total oil embargo on Britain and France, but it was rendered ineffectual because Italy and its PESA partners picked up the slack. The Soviet Union also solidly backed Egypt, but Khrushchev shied away from military intervention.
Khrushchev preferred to make his point symbolically rather than jeopardize the ongoing thaw in US-Soviet relations, never mind risking nuclear war with a country that had ten times as many nuclear weapons as well as superior delivery systems. He demanded sanctions against the four invading powers, but as permanent members of the UNSC Britain, France, Italy and South China vetoed his motion (Chiang Kai-shek remembered Italian support for him in the Chinese Civil War and now returned the favour, even though he was sympathetic to the Egyptian position; Sino-Soviet support for Egypt, however, greatly uncomplicated his position toward Nasser). Commonwealth members Australia and New Zealand, Iraq, Italy’s San Remo Pact allies of Portugal, Spain, Croatia, Greece, Turkey and Iran, PESA members Ecuador and Venezuela, and the pro-fascist regimes in Argentina and Paraguay expressed their support for the intervention. Apartheid South Africa, ruled by the Afrikaner minority, was opposed to Nasser but believed it would benefit economically from a closed canal and politically from not opposing a country’s right to govern its internal affairs.
The prospect of becoming an observer country to the San Remo Pact with all the benefits that entailed, such as investment opportunities in South America, changed Prime Minister Strijdom’s mind. It would prove to signal fascist support for neo-colonialism and white minority regimes in Africa, such as military support for Spain so it could keep Spanish Morocco, Ifni and the Western Sahara. In 1956, Italy deployed 10.000 men to Spanish Morocco in order to discourage the recently independent Kingdom of Morocco from taking military measures.
France was reaffirmed as a great power and Britain retained its superpower status due to their military success against Egypt. They engaged in neo-colonialism, decolonizing more slowly and methodically while creating a middle class to administrate the country and (hopefully) have friendly post-independence rulers in charge. At times they played ethnic and religious groups against each other, with Sudan being a good example: the British heavily favoured the Christians in the south and promised them a separate country. Rather than be ruled by the Muslim Arabs, South Sudan chose to remain a British protectorate under the name Juba when Sudan became independent in 1956. Juba remained under British rule for another decade and in 1966 became independent together with Uganda and Kenya. Britain also tried to keep some of its holdings by offering them devolved government within the context of the United Kingdom. Over the course of the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s a number of possessions were given devolved government. They became British Overseas Territories which meant that they were under the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the United Kingdom but weren’t part of it. The Maltese people liked the security of British rule and voted for this option in 1964 and Cyprus, fearing Turkish irredentism, did the same and both remain British Overseas Territories until today. In 1958, Britain merged Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla, Montserrat, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago into the West Indies Federation, a customs union with freedom of movement. The early years were rocky since the larger islands were worried about mass immigration from the smaller islands while the smaller ones feared their economies would be overwhelmed. The British had, however, implemented a strong federal government, federal taxation and freedom of movement. This initially went against the wishes of many locals, but it helped the federation survive its fragile earlier years. The West Indies Federation today has a population of 5.1 million people and economically it’s a major player in the Caribbean. It remains a British Overseas Territory under a Governor-General (the background was the desire of the smaller islands to have a check on the larger ones). Many Pacific Islands also chose such a course and Singapore preferred major autonomy inside a reformed British Empire over being subsumed by Malaysia or getting picked off by Indonesia.
Lastly, the Royal Navy chose to maintain a presence in the Trucial States. Britain maintained its dominance in the Middle East for another decade through CENTO, mainly because of Britain’s prestige as a “superpower.” This superpower status faded as Britain decolonized. The Central Treaty Organization, which included Iraq, Jordan, Pakistan, the Trucial States and Britain was de facto dissolved in 1968 when Iraq and Jordan abandoned it. Even after that, Britain maintained its presence on the Persian Gulf via its continued naval presence in the Trucial States.
The USSR, in the meantime, was affected too. Khrushchev’s position was gravely weakened due to his lack of a more serious response to the Suez Crisis. Khrushchev sought to find a lasting solution to the problem of a divided Germany and of the enclave of West Berlin deep within East German territory. In November 1958, calling West Berlin a “malignant tumour”, he gave the United States, United Kingdom and France six months to conclude a peace treaty with both German states and the Soviet Union. If one was not signed, Khrushchev stated, the Soviet Union would conclude a peace treaty with East Germany. This would leave East Germany, which was not a party to treaties giving the Western Powers access to Berlin, in control of the routes to the city. This ultimatum caused dissent among the Western Allies, who were reluctant to go to war over the issue. Khrushchev, however, repeatedly extended the deadline and his failed political gambles resulted in a coup by a triumvirate of Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich who replaced him with Bulganin as Secretary General in 1959. Though the Soviet Union did not return to terror and purges, under these Stalinist hardliners it became much more repressive. Khrushchev was made ambassador to Albania, far away from the Kremlin, and served in that capacity for another decade during which he became an embittered recluse. He was allowed to retire and return to Moscow in 1969, where he died in 1971.
In the meantime, the US had threatened to financially cut off Britain which would have provoked a further devaluation of the pound sterling and jeopardized Britain’s post-war economic recovery. In the end they couldn’t afford to alienate their most important ally and did nothing. American actions against Britain and France remained solely limited to words since any serious measures would cause a split in the Western World, something that the Soviets were hoping for. Eisenhower’s language singled out Italy since its contribution to the invasion was greater and because the Italians had conducted human rights violations by strafing columns of fleeing civilians a few times. Rome strengthened its relations with Israel, even though Mussolini had serious reservations toward Zionism, and compensated for lack of relations in the Arab world through intensifying its cooperation with Imperial Iran. Mussolini responded to Eisenhower’s denunciatory talk with political brinkmanship, threatening to totally break off relations. Furthermore, he summoned the American ambassador to his office in the Palazzo Venezia and angrily lectured him, stating: “American interference in the Mediterranean Sea – the Mare Nostrum we have fought and bled for and require for our security and prosperity – would be the equivalent of us colonizing or intervening in Latin America. This would violate the Monroe Doctrine. Mr. Ambassador, tell me, would your government tolerate that?” The Duce concluded by stating, in subtle terms, that the US government could shove any further criticisms where the sun doesn’t shine. Mussolini’s response confounded Eisenhower. Italy, for all of its power and influence, was still too weak to stand alone in the Cold War without US backing against the Soviet bloc so its behaviour was irrational.
The rationale behind Mussolini’s behaviour became clear soon enough. Like Stalin, Mussolini had noticed how, from 1942, Western scientific journals had suspiciously stopped publishing papers on the topic of uranium fission despite their progress in that area until then. In July 1942, Enrico Fermi – who was one of Italy’s and one of the world’s leading nuclear physicists – wrote a letter to Mussolini explaining the potential power of an atomic bomb. In early 1943, Il Duce decided to launch his own atomic bomb program known as Project Jupiter, even though he lacked the resources for it, and appointed Fermi as its chief researcher. A lot of theoretical work was done, but there were little practical results due to lack of money and a strong industrial base, besides the fact that in 1943 most of Italy’s resources were devoted to fighting in the north of the country. After the war in Europe ended, support for Project Jupiter increased only marginally because the country was rebuilding and because the war in Asia was still ongoing. Funding saw a major increase in 1945 after the American announced they had the bomb and showed the footage of the Trinity test, but in the end the project saw its greatest progress when oil money became available. From then on Project Jupiter became the main expense of the defence budget.
By the early 1950s its existence had correctly been deduced by the CIA and Soviet intelligence due to large Italian uranium imports, although both incorrectly assumed Italy would need at least another two decades to get the bomb. Fermi told Mussolini he’d have a bomb in 1960, but Il Duce wanted it sooner and applied pressure to speed things up. Fermi did what he could and settled for a smaller amount of fissile material to bring forward the test date. Besides that, he decided to emphasize the gun-type design, which was easier to make but also more inefficient than the spherical implosion-type bomb that used plutonium rather than uranium-235. In early July 1958, three weeks before Mussolini’s 75th birthday, Fermi reported that a bomb was ready for testing to which the latter reportedly said “this is the best birthday gift you could have given me.” The bomb was shipped to a test site in the centre of the Libyan Desert in secrecy for the “Jupiter-1” test and on July 12th 1958 seismographs in neighbouring countries detected a tremor. The Soviets and later the US detected radioactive fission products, traced them back to their origins and, based on the strength of the tremors, correctly deduced that a 10 kiloton nuclear explosion had taken place in Italian Libya. On July 28th, the start of a week of celebrations in honour of Mussolini’s 75th birthday, the Duce bombastically announced that Italy had become the world’s fourth nuclear power (after the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain).
The following year, Italy conducted a test with an implosion-type weapon that produced a yield of 23 kilotons. A tritium boosted bomb was detonated in 1960 with an explosive force of 45 kilotons, after which a few more boosted fission devices with yields up to 150 kilotons were tested. In 1967 Italy tested its first hydrogen bomb, known as Jupiter-11, which exploded with a force of 2.2 megatons. In 1959, Italy had only one atomic bomb available in the event of war and by 1960 that had increased to only four. By 1970 Italy would have 175 nuclear weapons and its stockpile peaked in 1975 at 300. Mussolini had joined the nuclear weapons club and now the fascist bloc could go toe to toe with NATO and the Warsaw Pact. It was the crown to his life’s work.
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Perhaps, but the Kuomintang also got more aid in WW II, as well as aid from the fascist bloc.
Northern Korea and Hokkaido, yes. To elaborate, the KMT was more successful ITTL and the PRC is limited to Manchuria mostly with a Korea-style armistice going on.
Two things, fermi is dead in 1954 and Mussolini would never have lived this long, he was in bad shape at the end of the war
Mussolini was in bad shape in large part due to stress and depression over how badly the war was going. I've read his biography by Nicholas Farrel and nothing in that book indicated anything more than constipation issues, and certainly nothing more serious. As far as Fermi goes, the butterfly effect could easily give him a few more years.
From Civiltà Uno --
You have an embassy from Mussolini:
Oh boy.
You have an embassy from Mussolini:
Le nostre parole sono supportate da ARMI NUCLEARI!
Oh boy.
Germany during WW2 getting the bomb is totally ASB; an advanced industrializated nation like Italy getting a bomb in the 60's is greatly in the realm of the possibility
Is Italy really that advanced right now though? It didn't sound like they were wanked in economic terms ITTL, they just hit the jackpot in diplomacy.
nbcman
Donor
The Italy in this timeline got the bomb in the late 1950s as the 4th nuclear power. It is a technologically and industrially more advanced country than Nazi Germany in the mid 1940s trying to be the first nuclear power.
Between oil and Marshall plan there is more money, plus even OTL during this period there were plans for acquire nuclear weapons and delivery system...and Benny (and heirs) will be ready to sink a lot of money in the projects, probably in cooperation with Israel
Thank you for confirming my thesis
Oh for Christ sake, we are not talking about Italy getting the bomb during the war, but obtain almost 20 years later more or less on par with power like France...sure a little too quick i give you that but frankly only of some years (Italy and France will be more or less on par); on the other hand all european powers are less devastated by the war so have more capacity.
From the 70's Italy, as Germany, Japan or any top tier western nation always had the capacity to build a nuclear weapon.