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"The Franco-Mussolini switch" "What's that, is it even a thing?"

It's the name I just gave to a thing I've seen proposed at least five times between AH.com, the idea of "Switch the roles of Italy and Spain in WWII" having Spain become an Axis member (like Italy) or Italy stay neutral (like Spain).

"What's the new take"-

It is this, swapping the domestic political paths of Italy and Spain much earlier in the interwar era.

Spain persists uninterruptedly through the 20s and 30s under a rightist, authoritarian modernizing regime. For example, Miguel Primo de Rivera ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Primo_de_Rivera ) stays alive and in power at least another ten years, or if he dies in office, his regime continues under a carbon-copy successor.

What will this Spain look like and what will its capabilities be by 1940?

Meanwhile in Italy the Fascist regime falls, ideally around the time of the Global Depression (the # 1 favorite Fascist collapse scenario is the Matteotti affair (1924) blows up and topples the Fascists. Others recently mentioned on the board are the assassination attempt of 1926 being successful, or an assassination taking place in 1933 by authorial fiat). Not just Mussolini but the Fascist regime end, political space opens up to the left in Italy. This spawns revolutionary radicalism and anti-clericalism, but also a rightist reaction. The result is a brutal Italian Civil War by the middle or later thirties, with the Germans and Soviets becoming involved directly and by proxy.
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