France gets the Northern Half of Italy after World War II

Is it possible for France to get Northern Italy or at least Lombardy, Liguria and Piedmont after World War II I heard that the french wanted the Northern part of Italy..
 
Well, Italy switched sides before the end of the war, so taking territory from your new ally doesn't seem to be a good thing. Especially the centre of Italian population and industry.

The French really weren't in a position to really make demands, anyhow.
 
Well, Italy switched sides before the end of the war, so taking territory from your new ally doesn't seem to be a good thing. Especially the centre of Italian population and industry.

The French really weren't in a position to really make demands, anyhow.

France got Tenda and Briga after the war, remember..
 
France got Tenda and Briga after the war, remember..

That is vastly different than France getting the entire centre of Italian industry, which would not only bring the problem of the huge amount of Italians there, but also be very unacceptable by any great power, especially the US.
 

Cook

Banned
They definitely did want it; that is to say De Gaulle wanted it, he sent French forces about the same time as Tito was trying to claim Trieste.

Churchill was not going to tolerate De Gaulle and Tito kicking off another round of border changes and the inherent guarantee of a future war that they would have entailed, the Americans weren’t particularly interested either way and had no love at all for De Gaulle and the Free French and Italy’s status was already somewhere between co-belligerent and ally. The Royalist Army and the partisans had just taken part in the campaign to see off the Germans, they could hardly be expected to stand idly by even if General Alexander’s forces didn’t threaten to use force against the French.

Churchill had put it in no uncertain terms to Alexander that he was to use force to expel the French is they resisted, which would have made things interesting.
 
France got Tenda and Briga after the war, remember..

Briga, population 56 in 2004, and Tende, population a few hundreds in 1947, which had already been swapped between France and Italy several times? Hardly a landgrab, honestly. Good ol' Musso's plans were far less modest! ;)

As for attempts to seize more of Northern Italy and Alexander being ordered to expel French troops, I'd be curious to read whatever source you have available, Cook. That certainly is intriguing.
 
They definitely did want it; that is to say De Gaulle wanted it, he sent French forces about the same time as Tito was trying to claim Trieste.

Are you sure he wanted to annex it into France?
Claiming an occupation zone in Italy would be very much in character for De Gaulle, but annexing an area populated by ~ 20-30 million Italians.

Is there an online source?
 
Is it possible for France to get Northern Italy or at least Lombardy, Liguria and Piedmont after World War II I heard that the french wanted the Northern part of Italy..

I don't know where you find this idea...

France didn't want the northern part of Italy, they asked for minors borders ajustments in the Alp and maybe on the coast...

You have also the french speaking region of Val d'Aoste, but you have the probleme to have a land connection with the rest of France in winter when the mountains pass are closed...
 
I don't know where you find this idea...

France didn't want the northern part of Italy, they asked for minors borders ajustments in the Alp and maybe on the coast...

You have also the french speaking region of Val d'Aoste, but you have the probleme to have a land connection with the rest of France in winter when the mountains pass are closed...

So for this was created the gallery of Mont Blanc.

Anyway also i'm on the advice France could take Val d'Aoste, but not more.
 
So for this was created the gallery of Mont Blanc.

Anyway also i'm on the advice France could take Val d'Aoste, but not more.

The gallery of Mont Blanc was finish in 1965...

I think that the reason behind keeping Val d'Aoste in Italy, already in Napoleon III times, was the isolation if this region from the rest of France during winter times. Even if Val d'Aoste is a french speaking region, it belong naturally to Italy per the rule of the naturals borders...

Otherwise, France need to annex all of the eastern slopes of the Alps to the sea...

The last time, France want to annex northern Italy was during Napoleon 1st times and the Kingdom of Italy was recognized as a distinct political being in the Empire... Prince Eugene de Beauharnais was even its vice-roy...
So it had a unique position in the Empire and on the long run, keeping northern Italy was not possible in case of a continuing Bonaparte dynasty or as a independant state under a King of Italy distinct from the Empire...
 
I frankly doubt that an annexation of Northern Italy was on the cards by the French government, as it was the annexation of Tenda and Briga was controversial for some like Georges Bidault.

Nevertheless there was some momentum behind an annexation of the Aosta Valley, the Susa Valley (including Bardonèche and Suse), the Chisone Valley (Sestrières) and parts of the current Imperia Province including Vintimiglia. The claim to these valleys was based on several factors. A not so unimportant one was a desire to push the border to ther other side of the Alps watershed for both military and strategical reasons. Another one was a desire to show that France was indeed part of the winners and a victorious nation. The final one was the presence (which still exists) of significant communities of French and Occitan speakers in these valleys. The whole of the Aosta Valley was Franco-Provencal speaking (a language closely related to French) and had been subject to forced Italianisation by the Mussolini government. The population was on the whole favourable to an annexation to France or to Switzerland. The others valleys I mentionned before were Occitan speaking and the population was at the time in favour of an annexation to France as it would have meant bigger food rations for them ...

The lack of direct land connections with the valleys at winter time was a reason in dropping the claim, American pressure was another one. The two transalpine tunnels were jointly built by both France and Italy during the 1960s and 1980s. If France has the valleys, she will have to build them by herself at her own cost.

It is however quite plausible for the annexations listed before to happen in a different situation. Had France fought on the country would have been in a much better position to push for that kind of things post war and might very well have had its wishes granted by the Allies. Had Italy not switched sides in 1943 the same could have happened too and possibly to a larger extent (all of Imperia).

I can easily foresee any Aosta department gaining a special status similar to the three departments which constitute the Alsace-Moselle. Some laws might be different and there might be a status for Italian. If the entire Imperia province is taken (unlikely) it will likely get a similar status.
 

Cook

Banned
Are you sure he wanted to annex it into France?
Claiming an occupation zone in Italy would be very much in character for De Gaulle, but annexing an area populated by ~ 20-30 million Italians.


I didn’t mean all of Northern Italy; I said de Gaulle sent forces into northern Italy to claim part of it. The initial premise did include the part option. Sorry if that was unclear.
But he was fully intending to annex the land he grabbed, as did Tito around Trieste, it was only the threat of force in both instances that prevented it.
 
Ah, a very interesting episode indeed, with lots of players! Thanks, Dunois!

I'll take it with a pinch of salt as Notre.Savoie's website seems to have an avowed political agenda of its own, but it is indeed quite intriguing.
 

Cook

Banned
Gotta find me these two books now. :D

Simon Ball's seems really interesting.



I don’t think the incident was very significant; certainly both books brush over it very lightly but cover the confrontation in Trieste in a great deal more detail. James Holland’s Italy’s Sorrow, which I am just finishing, goes into heavy detail concerning Trieste but doesn’t mention a confrontation with the French at all, perhaps because of the atrocities committed by Tito’s Yugoslav Partisans in Trieste.

Ball and Hastings both go into more detail concerning the forced expulsion of de Gaulle’s forces from Syria by the British when, following 7 A.I.F.’s victory over the Vichy Forces, the Free French tried to re-assert themselves there.

Simon Ball’s book by the way is very good.
 
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