AHC/WI: Mussolini not Hitler's puppet?

How could Mussolini ally with Hitler without becoming his de facto puppet, and how would such a change affect the war?

EDIT: Changed the title. I apologize if the profanity was a bit much.
 
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Perhaps if he'd embraced neutrality he would have become more important as the war drew on rather than less important. He might still have remained closely allied with Hitler without getting involved in the war proper. Italian volunteers could have fought along with the wehrmacht in Russia or elsewhere. Italian industry, unmolested by allied bombing, might have been used to supply some of Germany's needs, both military and domestic and the perception/illusion of Italy as a powerful state might have continued throughout the war.
There are no sideshows in Africa or the Balkans to worry either side, especially if countrys like Yugoslavia and Greece stay out of it along with Turkey. At the end of it all Italy rides it out and stays fascist after the war. Perhaps fascism doesn't become quite so unfashionable post war if it isn't so closely tied to the Nazis.
Or maybe I'm talking rubbish.
 
Mussolini only really became Hitler's puppet in 1943, when he became head of the Italian Social Republic. If you mean he defies him then he ends up dead two years early and a more willing fascist gets the job. No real change to the war, he might have a slightly improved image in the present day though.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Diplomatic isolation is going to drive Italy into the Germans' arms one way or t'other.

Unless Mussolini is serious about going to war with Germany, he's going to be licking Ade's bootheels.
 
Diplomatic isolation is going to drive Italy into the Germans' arms one way or t'other.

Unless Mussolini is serious about going to war with Germany, he's going to be licking Ade's bootheels.

not so sure about that. neutrality, like in the case of spain, might have guaranteed a survival of fascism well beyond the end of WWII. mussolini wanted a share of Hitler's conquests, but maybe if he hadn't declared war, he would have died in his bed, loved by his countrymen, as Indro Montanelli once famously stated, instead that hanging in piazzale loreto with bullets in his chest
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
not so sure about that. neutrality, like in the case of spain, might have guaranteed a survival of fascism well beyond the end of WWII. mussolini wanted a share of Hitler's conquests, but maybe if he hadn't declared war, he would have died in his bed, loved by his countrymen, as Indro Montanelli once famously stated, instead that hanging in piazzale loreto with bullets in his chest
Mussolini's regime couldn't survive without momentum/making war. People were already tired and disillusioned with Fascism by the time WWII started. Mussolini was pressured to launch his own Parallel War in order to keep pace with the victories of Germany, which he thought would galvanize the nation, and we all saw how that worked out. In fact, Mussolini had done nothing but hop from one adventure to the next throughout the '30s. Mussolini tried staying neutral, fucked up in Greece, and needed the Germans to bail him out.

Franco could afford to stay neutral because his regime was never dominated by fascists.
 
Mussolini's regime couldn't survive without momentum/making war. People were already tired and disillusioned with Fascism by the time WWII started. Mussolini was pressured to launch his own Parallel War in order to keep pace with the victories of Germany, which he thought would galvanize the nation, and we all saw how that worked out. In fact, Mussolini had done nothing but hop from one adventure to the next throughout the '30s. Mussolini tried staying neutral, fucked up in Greece, and needed the Germans to bail him out.

Franco could afford to stay neutral because his regime was never dominated by fascists.
if we take intervention as necessary for the survival of the regime, it should have been at least postponed until 1942. the lack of military technology would have still been there, but three years of preparation might have avoided the fuckups (Greece, Egypt) that costed Germany precious time against russia and therefore Italy might have become a much more valuable ally instead of a sort of puppet state
 
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