What do we think?
If an earthquake or volcanic eruption inflicted damage on the scale of the 1903 Sicily earthquake hit Italy in April or May 1940, could this preoccupy Mussolini and keep him from joining WWII, at least at that time?
I ask this because an earthquake has been brought up before as a deus ex machina to keep Italy out of WWI. Some fairly knowledgeable posters thought it could do the trick. Could a natural disaster serve as a similar device to keep Italy out of WWII ?