I always felt Speer in charge would be interesting has his organization skill in the construction of Nuremberg parade grounds and other party things combined with his management of armaments production (except for aircraft Goering held that jealously) despite worsening conditions shows that when he gets his way he can do surprising things. But then again he is a Nazi so perhaps he gives the Reich the boost it needs to last to the 80's with his good management.
Why do you think I chose Speer to succeed Hitler in the first place?
. Actually I did choose him for the reasons you mentioned, but also because of how high profile he is but at the same time how much of an enigma to history he is; thought he would be an interesting alternate choice for succeeding Hitler ultimately. Rather then merely going with the cliche Goring/Goebbels/Himmler/Heydrich succession scenario (chose your poison of those of course).
Anyway, onto what I believe is the longest update in the timeline's history so far; Chapter 27.
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PART 27
Viva Roma Imperiale!
"It was once said by a great man that came before me that the ideology of Fascism was a religion, and that the twentieth century would be known in the annals of history as the century of Fascism, one cannot now these days deny the prophecy of these words; nor can one deny the strength of Fascism as it stands today without frankly looking quite idiotic. The truth of the matter is that not only is this century truly the century of Fascism; but it will also be the century of Italy as well"
-Italian Prime Minister Italo Balbo
We have discussed at great lengths various topics of the early years of the Cold War, from internal politics in the Greater German Reich to the Wars in Africa, from political power plays to shows of brute force; all the way to acts incomprehensible to the sane human mind. But we have not yet discussed in great detail one matter in particular, and that matter would be the other main geopolitical power of Europe; that of course being the Kingdom of Italy.
In order to get to the point where Italy was at the end of the 1950's, and understand how it got there, we must go quite a ways back; all the way back to the years before the Second World War.
Figure 1: Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister (and later "Il Duce) of Italy from 1922; until his death of testicular cancer in 1953.
The ambitions of Italy under Prime Minister Benito Mussolini in the years leading up to the break out of the Second World War were largely nationalistic (and particularly expansionist) in nature, these ambitions stemmed from the country's long history of irredentism (Italian: Unredeemed) over territories that had been previously possessed by Italian nations in years, decades and centuries prior; but ultimately were lost to the control of other powers for a myriad of reasons depending on the territory in question (or merely over territories that were otherwise perceived to be rightfully Italian, in spite of whatever the actual history behind them was). These ambitions would ultimately manifest themselves in the form of two separate but heavily tied political concepts, known as "Spazio vitale" (English: Vital Space) and "Mare Nostrum" (English: Our Sea), both of which (while different in their specific aims) each ultimately sought the creation of an "Italian Empire" through the territorial expansion of the Italian state into not only the long irredentist claimed territories on the European continent, but also into other Mediterranean basin and Northern African territories as well, a series of expansions which would then (at least in theory) reestablish Italian dominance in the Mediterranean Sea, lost since the fall of the Roman Empire; and thus subsequently secure Italy's place as a international great power. It was the desire to accomplish these aims on the part of the Italian government (and in particular on the part of Mussolini himself) that ultimately would drive Italy towards aligning itself politically with the growing power that was Germany, and subsequently towards directly entering the Second World War itself; all in the hope of realizing these long standing ambitions.
The timing of Italy's entrance into the war is key to note however, as their entrance was purposely conducted to occur just as France was in the middle of it's surprising and abrupt collapse during the Battle of France, the precarious looking position of the Allies at this point (and Mussolini's own delusions over the strength of his military forces) left Italy to believe that she could sneak into the war and gain a seat at the victory's table with minimal effort and loss of life on her part; as it appeared at the time that the Allies were merely weeks away from being forced to surrender to the Axis. However, as those weeks quickly dragged on into months, and eventually dragged on even further into years, the undertrained, ill-equipped and improperly commanded Italian military found itself completely and utterly unprepared to fight a long war against their British and other Allied counterparts, and while Italy would eventually find her spot at the victory table when the war finally did come to an end in 1946, that victory would not only come at the cost of several prominent humiliations on the battlefield (in particular the ill-fated Invasion of Egypt, as well as the so called "Greek Disaster"), but also the entirety of their overseas colonial empire as well; the territory of which would ultimately be divided between France, Britain and a restored independent Ethiopia. The result of the war was however not entirely terrible for Italy, as despite the (admittedly huge, at least in regards to internal and international prestige) loss of their colonial empire, the Kingdom did in fact actually make several significant territorial gains in Europe itself (including the annexation of most of Dalmatia, Savoy and Crete; as well as the annexation of parts of former Yugoslav controlled Slovenia and Serbia); expanding Italy's influence in Europe greatly (even if it was ultimately forced to play second fiddle to Germany within the structure of the Axis alliance system).
Figure 2: Italian troops conduct military exercises with allied German forces in southern Bavaria; circa 1956
As the world finally returned to a relative (albeit tenuous) peace in 1946, Italy would soon find itself turning it's attention inwards, with the government in Rome shifting it's focus towards consolidating and securing their control over the country's newly acquired territorial holdings (as well as establishing regular and stable civilian governments in these holdings in addition) , this aim was however considerably much easier to accomplish for the Italians then it was for their northern neighbor Germany, as the territorial holdings that Rome had to control and police were much smaller in overall size (more particularly in regards to population rather then merely just the combined size of the controlled land itself) and scale then the large, open and heavily populated lands of the Ukraine, Baltic's, Caucasus and Western Russia were for the Germans to similarly police and consolidate, the Italians were also helped tremendously by the fact that there was a considerable lack of any real strong or vocal nationalist and or anti-Fascist resistance movements operating within the territory of Italy proper or it's other European and Mediterranean holdings (the lone exception to this being the Albanian National Liberation Army, which continued to wage a campaign of low-scale guerrilla warfare against Italian authorities until the early 1980's); all of which made the job of securing their holdings just that much easier for the Kingdom to accomplish. The Grand Council of Fascism (in coordination with the regular parliament) also introduced legislation around the same time to expand the overall aim and reach of the already instituted Italianization policies, ultimately paving the way for the immigration of 375,000 ethnic Italian settlers (including 35,000 who had departed from the former Italian Libya) to the country's holdings in Montenegro, Dalmatia, Albania and Crete.
In addition to the above measures, Mussolini and the Italian government also moved to rectify the mistakes made on the battlefield during the Second World War and ensure that said mistakes would never be made again in the situation where the Kingdom was drawn into yet another war, in order to accomplish this goal, a series of large scale reforms to the Royal Italian Army, the Regia Marina (Italian: Royal Navy) and the Regia Aeronatuica (Italian: Royal Air Force) were soon ordered by the government in Rome and subsequently passed through parliament with minimal opposition in June of 1948, the reforms, to be implemented over a six-year period, not only called for a large scale restructuring and simplification of the command structure of all three forces (making the process of sending orders and reports up and down the chain and thus subsequently simplifying, speeding up and making less complicated the way operations were conducted), but they also called for for a significant reform of the way each force trained both new recruits and newly promoted officers as well, each together and the way their implementations were laid out were designed specifically with the idea in mind of fixing the two main issues that had plagued all three branches of the Italian army during he war; while subsequently ensuring that all three branches would produce a core of well trained and well disciplined officers and soldiers (with the other main issue that had plagued Italy during the war, that being the quality of their arms and vehicles; being much more easily dealt with thanks to the country's close political relationship with the Reich; which ensured a steady supply of quality armaments through the armaments deals that Rome had signed with Germany). The rapidly escalating "Cold War" developing internationally between the Reich (and her allies, of which obviously included Italy) and the United States (and her allies) only made the need for reforms to the armed forced even more urgently necessary for Rome then they already were before, effectively ensuring that their implementation would ultimately be a smooth process; lest Italy wanted to fall behind on the military front to the superpowers (at least farther then she already was).
Figure 3: Prime Minister Italo Balbo, who assumed control of the country in the wake of Mussolini's death in 1953.
Politically things were fairly stable in Italy for the first several years after the end of the war, even in spite of the slight hit in popularity that Mussolini and the Fascist Party took as a result of the failures on the North African Front during the war, the hold of the so called "Duce of Fascism" and his cohorts over the country appeared to be strong as ever heading into the new decade of the 1950s; and only just getting even stronger as the years passed. However, all was not entirely well, as unbeknownst to the majority of people in and out of the country(outside of a few specific individuals privy to the information within the governments of Italy and Germany), Benito Mussolini was not in fact as healthy as the media (or himself) made him out to be, in actuality the man who had ruled Italy with a iron fist since 1922 was actually suffering a multitude of developing health problems (including and not limited to testicular cancer, lung problems, joint swelling and arthritis) that had been plaguing him since the late years of the year, and had only been getting worse (and thus degrading the condition of his health even more) as the years continued to pass by on the calendar, the Italian government had secretly hired a team of the best doctors from all around Europe to try and battle Mussolini's worsening health, but even their best efforts could not stop the cancer from ultimately becoming the end of one Benito Mussolini; who would quietly pass away on March 5th, 1953 (through his true cause of death would not become known to the world until 1992, when the Italian government admitted that it was cancer that had been the cause of Mussolini's death; rather then the heart attack that Italian state media reported it as at the time).
After Mussolini's death, the Chief of Staff of the Regia Aeronautica, Air Marshal Italo Balbo (who had been Mussolini's designated heir apparent since as early as 1936), was quietly named the new Prime Minister (a post which was formally resurrected due to Balbo refusing to take on the title of Duce) during an emergency joint session of the Italian Parliament and the Grand Council of Fascism on March 7th, 1953; a decision which would subsequently be reaffirmed by Umberto II later that same day. Balbo's ascension to power interestingly enough threw a bit of a complicated wrench into Italy's relationship with the Germans (and thus the Cold War itself), as Balbo (in addition to being a noted Anglophile) was one of the only members of the Italian Fascist Party who did not express support for either the country's alliance with the Nazis or the passing into law of the so called "Manifesto of Race" race laws in 1938, Balbo in private circles was even noted by some of his close friends and political subordinates as actually being somewhat of a Germanophobe in truth (that is, someone who dislikes or fears Germany, through it Balbo's case it was more the former rather then latter), despite his own beliefs however, the world situation (and Germany's dominance) was something that was very clear to the Italian Prime Minister; who subsequently and purposely avoided doing anything that would risk damaging relations with the Reich. Instead choosing to move towards increasing Italy's own political independence (while at the same time maintaining close relations with Germany), and stabilizing the situation in Albania; Balbo also made another move in particular. One that would affect things greatly later on down the line.
Figure 4: Umberto II, King of Italy since his father's death in 1948.
Balbo would however quickly get his first real test as Prime Minister when tensions began to deteriorate between Italy and it's closely allied state Croatia in the months after Mussolini's death, this deterioration stemmed from the issue of Dalmatia and control of the Adriatic Coast (the entirety or part of which both nations respectfully claimed as their integral territory), part of Dalmatia had been ceded by Zagreb to Italy after the invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941 and the establishment of the independent Croatian state, but in the aftermath of Mussolini's death, the Poglavnik (Croatian: Leader) and Prime Minister of the NDH, Ante Pavelić (who was a close friend of Mussolini's, but in turn despised Balbo), reneged on this cession and reasserted Croatia's claims to the entirety of the Adriatic coastline; and soon turned to Berlin in an attempt to get the Germans to force the hand of the Italians regarding the issue. Balbo was similarly not fond of Pavelić as the Croatian was of Balbo himself, and the Italian Prime Minister had long considered the original decision to install Pavelić (whom Balbo considered a danger to the Tripartite Pact, as well as an outright psychopath all together) as the leader of Croatia back in 1941 as an idiotic mistake on the part of Mussolini and Hitler, a mistake he saw an opportunity to rectify with the recent deterioration in relations, after consulting privately with Speer (who shared Balbo's lack of fondness for Pavelić, and similarly had been also looking for an excuse to dispose of him), Balbo met up with his top military commanders to draw up an invasion plan; which Balbo subsequently codenamed "Operation: Dragoon".
After preparing and organizing the assets needed to conduct the invasion, Balbo would subsequently set his plan into motion on June 14th, 1954, using a staged false flag attack on an Italian radio station near the border between Dalmatia and Croatia as a casus belli to justify the invasion and mobilize public support for war; before formally declaring a state war early the next day. The plans for Operation: Dragoon were designed by the military with the idea in mind to hit Croatia with as much force as possible before her own forces could react, allowing for a quick movement of forces to main objectives and subsequently a minimal loss of life on the part of Italy's own forces, in order to accomplish this and ensure a speedy and successful operation, the plans would ultimately call for a three sided assault from three separate Italian armies (assisted from the air by the Luftwaffe and the Regia Aeronautica) on Croatia, the first army (totaling 250,000 troops) would move in from Slovenia and Trieste and then make their way southwards down the Croatian controlled half of the Dalmatian coast to cut off forces from other parts of the country, before moving towards the capital city of Zagreb, the second army (totaling 45,000 troops) would move in northwards from Dalmatia, with the majority of the force moving continues northwards towards Banja Luka, with a small contingent of the second instead heading westwards along the coast to link up with the first army and their push on Zagreb, the third army (totaling 35,000 troops) on the other hand would move in from Montenegro and Albania towards Sarajevo; while also finishing the process of cutting off Croatia's access to the sea while they moved towards the city. In addition to the prepared ground troops, 400 tanks, armored cars and other military vehicles (the majority of which were assigned to the First Army, sans the supply trucks assigned to the others) were also prepared for the invasion as well.
Figure 5: Italian troops move to engage Croatian forces during the Italian-Croatian War; circa 1954
After finishing the final few preparations, the Italian invasion of Croatia would fully commence in the early morning hours of June 16th, 1954, with Italian forces moving across the country's many borders with the NDH; and subsequently beginning the long march towards their varying objectives. Croatian forces had been long aware of the extensive Italian (and German) preparations for the invasion, so it was fully expected by Zagreb when it finally did come, who thought it had adequately prepared for what was to come, however, the Croatians would soon find out that their forces were in fact incredibly ill-prepared to deal with the more experienced, better trained and better equipped Italians, who would quickly overwhelm the weak defensive positions of the Croat forces near the border; subsequently causing a very decisive breakthrough for their own forces as the defending Croats found themselves heavily struggling to combat the invasion. In hindsight one can see that the final result of the Italian invasion was never really in great question, as it was only barely the end of June before Italian forces already found themselves at the gates of Zagreb and Sarajevo; having overrun most of the country and pushed Croatian forces back extensively with fairly minimal loss on their part (especially when compared to the staggering casualties suffered by Croatian forces). The subsequent military coup d'etat against Pavelić on July 8th, 1954 would be the final nail in the coffin for the crumbling Ustaše regime, with Zagreb formally suing for peace and asking for a ceasefire with Rome a mere two days later; and offer which Rome would accept. The formal end of the Italian-Croatian War would subsequently come a mere month later, when the Treaty of Zagreb was signed on August 28th, 1954 in the Sabor building in downtown Zagreb; formally ending the conflict between Croatia and Italy.
While the Croatian War ultimately did not result in much of anything outside of the disposing of Pavelić from power and more or less ending any notion in the Croatian government or among the Croatian people of ever controlling the Dalmatian coast (at least for the time being), the war did succeed in one thing ultimately, and that was existing as a showcase of Balbo's power and strength; and solidifying the former Libyan Governor General's spot as Prime Minister once and for all. With his own power base secure and the Croatian problem finally dealt with, Balbo would soon turn his attention back towards firstly domestic politics and continuing the consolidation and Italianization of the country's European holdings (as well as dealing with the continuing Albanian insurgency); as well as expanding and increasing Rome's support of fascist movements operating internationally as well. Perhaps most importantly however (depending on who you ask of course), Balbo would soon end up turning much of his focus towards ensuring the success of Italy's atomic weapons program; codenamed "Operation: Oriana" (Latin: Rising Sun). The weapons project (albeit technically started under Mussolini in 1951) was more or less Balbo's personal pet project, as the Italian Prime Minister had long personally advocated for Italy to pursue a nuclear arsenal of it'sown in order to accomplish his own long term goals of achieving Italian political independence from the Reich and expanding Italy's own strength as a great power, and while he had convinced Mussolini to start the project itself, Operation Oriana in truth did not actually get the funding and support from the government it needed to succeed until Balbo's ascension to power; who subsequently upon said ascension to power immediately began throwing great amount of both his own effort and whatever amount of the country's resources he could spare into ensuring the ultimate success of the project.
This extensive effort on the part of Balbo and the Italian government, the scientists designated to the project, and the military forces assigned to protect it from theoretical sabotage by ACT or other anti-government forces (including Germany, among many other theoretical threats) would ultimately payoff in success for Rome when Italy finally became the fourth nation (the United Kingdom having become the third back in 1956 after successfully testing it's first weapon in the Australian outback) to possess nuclear weapons when it successfully tested it's first device, codenamed "Sol" (Latin: Sun); on the German controlled Arctic island of Nova Zembla at 2:37 PM local time on September 2nd, 1959.
