After the deposition and arrest of Mussolini, was a German invasion of Italy a certainty?

After the deposition and arrest of Mussolini, was a German invasion of Italy a certainty?

  • Yes

    Votes: 27 90.0%
  • No

    Votes: 3 10.0%

  • Total voters
    30

raharris1973

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Not if Duce sucessors hadn’t switched sides

I get how this could work in principle. But wouldn't it be highly likely that whatever the Rome regime *says* its deposition and arrest of Mussolini can only mean its trying to get out of the war pronto. An analogy that comes to mind is that in Yugoslavia one King joined the Axis. He was overthrown by a nationalist coup. Although the new King and government were careful in their statements, not saying they quit the Axis, Hitler figured "they're just waiting to screw me over, so it's time to squash them".
 
Much depends on what the Italian govt. actually was going to do, and or what they said they were going to do and how well they concealed their true intentions. If they told the Germans "This man is an incompetent ass, we will run the war more efficiently without him" and actively took steps in that direction, they may have been able to continue in the Axis. Or, had they decided to switch sides, they had done the same but made more effort at allaying German suspicions. Their failure to do either very well led to the German occupation.
 
I get how this could work in principle. But wouldn't it be highly likely that whatever the Rome regime *says* its deposition and arrest of Mussolini can only mean its trying to get out of the war pronto. An analogy that comes to mind is that in Yugoslavia one King joined the Axis. He was overthrown by a nationalist coup. Although the new King and government were careful in their statements, not saying they quit the Axis, Hitler figured "they're just waiting to screw me over, so it's time to squash them".
Good Analogy. Subtly is not a roman strength.
 
Much depends on what the Italian govt. actually was going to do, and or what they said they were going to do and how well they concealed their true intentions. If they told the Germans "This man is an incompetent ass, we will run the war more efficiently without him" and actively took steps in that direction, they may have been able to continue in the Axis. Or, had they decided to switch sides, they had done the same but made more effort at allaying German suspicions. Their failure to do either very well led to the German occupation.

That ship sailed as the Italian negotiators were communicating with Bagdoglios government in Rome via radio, using a code the Germans had broken. Hitler was reading the messages concerning armistice/surrender negotiations and the instructions from Bagdoglio & the Foreign Minister within 48 hours of radio transmission.

Although the radio communications to and from Eisenhowers SACMED HQ & the other senior Allied HQ were secure when using either the US SIGABA or the Brit TYPEX encryption, the Germans had penetrated enough lower level codes, like the Brit convoy code, that they could guess Allied plans for invading Italy next. Putting that analysis along side the messages between the Italian negotiation team and government & there was not much to conceal. This was one of the situations where the Brit deception operations did not mislead the Germans very far.
 
German troops were already being strategically deployed throughout Italy (not just in the south) even prior to Benny's arrest
 
German troops were already being strategically deployed throughout Italy (not just in the south) even prior to Benny's arrest

The original concept was to bolster each Italian corps with a German division, and as in Sicily have a mobile corps or two of German armored or mechanized units.

However, the occupation of southern Italy and the battle there were not inevitable. Intially on discovering the Italian capitulation Hitler & co favored withdrawal from the south and defending only the industrial north. Specifically the Po river basin and Genoa. Thats one of the reasons the favorite Rommel was placed in command of the northern Army Group. Kesselring was to conduct a evacuation of the south. However Kesselring was able to persuade Hitler to approve a holding action in the south. I'm not precisely sure how, or what the support for that was. It did confuse the Allies. Operation AVALANCHE was planned on the basis of this withdrawal. ULTRA decrypts had revealed the conversation about defending the north, but the last minute reversal was not understood by SACMED or Clarks Fifth Army until literally the last minute. The movement of the 16th Pz Div from the Foggia region to Salerno was not clearly understood & neither was the intent for the two mechanized divisions gathered at Naples.
 
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