Harsher Peace for Italy after WWII?

Italy came out of WWII with fairly light 'punishment,' at least compared to Germany. All Italian colonies were ceded away, but only very small parts of the Italian 'core' was lost. Italy even recovered part of Trieste later.

What other territory could plausibly have been lost, and what would have been the longer term effects?

The Aosta valley has a very large french population, perhaps cede that to France.

France might also take the Roya River valley in the south of the Franco-Italian border. This would straighten out the border a bit, and I assume this sparsely populated region had at least a couple ethnic french living there in need of protection.

A few of Italy's small western mediterranean islands to France? Asinara between Corsica and Sardinia isn't especially significant to Italy for its population or resources, and France might claim it to better control the strait of Bonifacio.

The Yugoslav border could have been moved a bit further west. The population just west of the OTL Yugoslav Italian border has a plurality of italians, but large slovene, croatian, and german minorities. All of Trieste at least could have been Yugoslav.

Sicily and/or Sardinia as independant western friendly republics, if it seems that the Italian mainland might be leaning a bit far to the left.

Maybe even Sardinia as an autonomous part of Spain, in exchange for the spanish joining the allies?

TTL's Italy would have about 55 000 square kilometers and 7 000 000 people under OTLs 301,338 km^2 and 60,674,003 people.
 
Bits of Italy could be picked off at the edges. France could move into Aosta and parts of western Piedmont, as you note, Trieste and its hinterland might well have ended up with Yugoslav Slovenia had things worked differently, and South Tyrol might also have ended up with Austria. I don't see any justification for broader territorial changes, on account of the relative homogeneity of the Italian peninsula away from these edges.

This could obviously create an anti-Western Italy. Would collaboration with France in the EEC be possible? How quickly would Italian-Yugoslav relations be normalized?
 
Bits of Italy could be picked off at the edges. France could move into Aosta and parts of western Piedmont, as you note, Trieste and its hinterland might well have ended up with Yugoslav Slovenia had things worked differently, and South Tyrol might also have ended up with Austria. I don't see any justification for broader territorial changes, on account of the relative homogeneity of the Italian peninsula away from these edges.

This could obviously create an anti-Western Italy. Would collaboration with France in the EEC be possible? How quickly would Italian-Yugoslav relations be normalized?

Given the OTL level of political meddling in Cold War Italy, I'm not sure it matters whether they'd be inclined to be anti-Western, they'd just get CIA'd regardless.
 
Remember that Italy switched sides. It didn't make them 'winners' but it got them out of the 'loser' category.

So, if Mussolini catches the proposed coup and stomps on it, so the Allies have to invade against formal Italian opposition, they'd do worse in the peace.

OTOH, Benny the Moose was a mosquito to Hitler's lion, and joined the war for spoils, not for total world domination. The West wasn't mad at him (and his Fascists) in the same way that they were against Hitler and the Nazis.

Could they lose a touch more land in the North Adriatic to Yugoslavia? Yes. But basically, once they were stripped of their colonies it was pretty much Italian heartland, and no one was going to be taking that away.

Besides, in a few years, when the Soviets had become the bigger threat, the West would want Italy as a base to stop the Iron Curtain from moving further. It's entirely possible that if borders hadn't been finalized that they'd get something close to OTL. Or even, given how pro-Soviet Tito was in his early years, they might get some clawed back there, even if they were supposedly finalized.
 

Cook

Banned
As one of the founding signatories of the Tripartite Pact, it's entirely conceivable that Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin might have agreed to a partitioned Italy.
 
You need to remove the Italian Civil War somehow. As long as there is a friendly regime to deal with, and as long as the general populace is fighting alongside you, punishing them harshly is not a great move. The problem is, while the former can be solved easily, the latter is harder, because any brutal crackdown will probably involve the German and lead to the Resistenza popping up on schedule.
 
There was a noticeable political movement in Sicily for independence - the Movement for the Independence of Sicily. One of their leaders was Salvatore Giuliano, a bandit with a certain flair for PR. I think (not sure about that) he also advocated for Sicily to join the USA as the 51st state.

If theis independence movement gets stronger (for example, if Mussolini goes way too far in repressing the Mafia and generates more resentment in Sicily), maybe - just maybe - the Allies could take the MIS and Giuliano more seriously, and after the was make Sicily independent. I don't think Sicily is going to join the US, unless Italy is taken over by the Communists.
 
Top