Italian Invasion of Egypt successful?

What if during WWII, the Italian Empire was successful in the Invasion of Egypt and captured the Suez Canal?
 
That would require an incredible amount of POD for them to manage that but I would imagine that a large number of Commonwealth units will be forming up to kick them out again some time in early 41

The retention of the Suez would be secondary only to the security of the United Kingdom

Also for this to happen it has to happen in late 1940 at the latest so operations like the East African Campaign will be put on the back burner and adventures in the Battle for Greece would not happen here - I suspect that activities vs the Vichi French would be muted as well as the Commonwealth forces concentrate on the Suez / Egypt
 
Well, I guess Britain would have to use the good old African route to access India until Egypt is recaptured.
 

nbcman

Donor
It would take a POD of having the Italians ready to invade in June with sufficient transport and supplies built up in Cyrenacia while keeping sufficient force in Tripolitania to guard against the French. The Italians could have invaded with a smaller and more mobile army IOTL in July / August, but Marshal Graziani wanted a larger force which meant the advance had to be delayed to bring up more supplies as well as to only advance at the speed of their marching infantry through the Western Desert. Maybe if Marshal Balbo wasn't killed in late June the Italians would have advanced sooner and in a more forceful fashion.
 

BooNZ

Banned
It would take a POD of having the Italians ready to invade in June with sufficient transport and supplies built up in Cyrenacia while keeping sufficient force in Tripolitania to guard against the French. The Italians could have invaded with a smaller and more mobile army IOTL in July / August, but Marshal Graziani wanted a larger force which meant the advance had to be delayed to bring up more supplies as well as to only advance at the speed of their marching infantry through the Western Desert. Maybe if Marshal Balbo wasn't killed in late June the Italians would have advanced sooner and in a more forceful fashion.

Yes, the Italian army was bloated with large numbers of low quality and poorly equipped troops. A much smaller, better equipped force would have been more effective in North Africa theatre with its logistical challenges. As outlined above, this force would need to be decisively led and do its work in the opening months of the war. Clearly it would be a very different beast to the OTL Italian stallion.

As far as impact, the capture of the Suez gives the Italians undisputed control of the Eastern Mediterranean and the British may conclude it is no longer possible to hold Malta and/or Cyprus. If Greece proceeds per OTL, no RAF or threat of the RN means the Italian air force and navy can better mitigate the Italian Army's shortcomings, so no Germans in the Balkans. If Franco then decides to join the fray, then the British will be ejected from the Mediterranean altogether.

The impact on 'neutrals' decision making is unpredictable. If Vichy France is inspired and wants Utu for Mers-el-Kébir, it has significant military forces in Syria and Mediterranean ports no longer vulnerable to Royal navy interdiction. At that point you more-or-less have Europe united against the British. Can FDR sell lend lease with the British in such dire shape? Does uncle Joe contemplate liberating Persia and Iraq? How difficult would it be for the Germans to work with El Duce if the Italian military performance is actually credible?
 
Well say they need a 3:1 advantage so they need about 90,000 men. That leaves 110,000 men the Italians had could have been used as line of communication troops to keep the supplies going (some could start building a railway), and to guard the French border. They would have to take the weapons and vehicles away from the 110,000 and give them to the 90,000, and ensure that entire units were fully equipped, as far as possible with the same basic weapons (e.g. the same rifles). They would have to organise the divisions to have four regiments on the German model (three infantry and one artillery) instead of two. They would have a plan to invade Malta as soon as war was declared, using neutrality as a way of getting inside the harbour before the war started (like the Germans did in Copenhagen). They would have had more ships based in their east African bases so they could effectively counter British trade in that reason, and a better plan to defend their East African colonies. Basically they would not have had a snap decision made in a hurry to be in the war before it was won, but planned early entry into the war, making the best use of what they had, despite acknowledging that they weren't ready for a war at least until 1943.
 
IIRC the Italian commander in East Africa had been requesting reinforcements for months, but Rome only agreed to them in April or May 1940 and most of what was sent had to turn back or was captured by the British in transit.

Again IIRC in spite of that and believing that the British forces in The Sudan and British East Africa were stronger than they actually were the Duke of Aosta wanted to go on the offensive as soon as war was declared. The Italian High Command didn't give him permission immediately and when it did only allowed him to capture some towns on the border.

With a POD of September 1939 I think the Italian forces in East Africa could have been sufficiently prepared for a successful invasion of The Sudan between June and September 1940 to compliment the invasion of Egypt from Libya.
 
I think the POD itself is only half the point. How to get there adds up as well. Assume a september 1939 to join the war if Things look favorable to the Germans.
All efforts would be made to reinforce the forces in Abyssinia and Libya and provide supplies for an extended campaign. That would be painfully obvious in the case of Abyssinia. Good chances are that preparations are made to take Malta.
Now what, the British/French can send forces to counter, but the Italians have not declared war. They expect the German attack so they will rather defend France. Guess the strategy would be not to apper to be losing which is no different from OTL.
Now, the question is how bad the reinforcements would be. If they are succesful, its possible the med is Sealed off as an Axis/Vichy lake before they turn on Greece, Yugoslavia provided they even need to?
Lose Malta, Alexandria and Suez, then the Axis supply base for the middle East is undisputed, obviously with the caveat that going ahead from there is NOT easy.
 
That would require an incredible amount of POD for them to manage that but I would imagine that a large number of Commonwealth units will be forming up to kick them out again some time in early 41

The retention of the Suez would be secondary only to the security of the United Kingdom

Also for this to happen it has to happen in late 1940 at the latest so operations like the East African Campaign will be put on the back burner and adventures in the Battle for Greece would not happen here - I suspect that activities vs the Vichi French would be muted as well as the Commonwealth forces concentrate on the Suez / Egypt
I certainly agree the British would try, if still in the war, but if the Italians get this far, where would the commonwealth forces form up? Supply.
 
Not going to happen. But assuming it does, the Italians will be for quite some time barely able to hold on to their new conquest. They will establish new supply lines, one of which directly to Alexandria by sea, but they will also have a lot of engineering to do to clean up that port, and the Canal. They will also have lots of restive Egyptians on their hands. I don't see them further dashing forward in any direction, not immediately.

The main Royal Navy forces will probably have left the Eastern Med, leaving minor assets in Cyprus, because battleships take a lot of resupplying and this is now pretty difficult. The ground forces will have withdrawn to Palestine and Sudan, both difficult logistical places. The connection with India is already going around the Cape, so that is not a problem, but staging a counteroffensive from Sudan and Palestine won't be easy. Italian East Africa goes on the back burner, save that the British will want to sanitize the coastline, and to boost port handling capacity at Port Sudan, Aden etc.
The strongest effect is the psychological one. The British have Germans in Calais, U-Boote around their island, and now the key link of the empire is gone. That's a lot to swallow, instead of a nice fat victory in the desert.

On the continent, the fact that the Italians focused on Egypt means they're leaving the Balkans alone - which is extremely good news for the overall Axis strategy. The Germans have two more Panzerdivisionen, the Fallschirmjäger, a couple mountain divisions and a few infantry divisions that they aren't using in the Balkans, and 1.5 Panzerdivisionen and other odds and ends (all of them with lots of motor vehicles, plus a horde of supply trucks) not used in the desert. So, bad news for the Soviets, too.

The Taranto strike doesn't happen either, which means the residual Royal Navy assets in Malta and Cyprus may be under significant pressure to leave - if the Italian admirals are emboldened by this all, which is however not a given.

I could go on but you get the idea... Churchill got it too, even though without our hindsight, and in fact he started sending reinforcements to Egypt while the blood on the Dunkirk beach was still fresh. That's but one of the reasons why this won't happen.
 
In the unlikely event of the Italians pushing the British out of Egypt and the Sudan between June and September 1940 that butterflies away all the British naval losses in the Mediterranean between June 1940 and the end of 1941.

According to one of my spreadsheets they included.
17 submarines
1 aircraft carrier (Ark Royal)
1 battleship (Barham)
7 cruisers
20 destroyers​

Then there is the Illustrious knocked out for several months in January 1941, Warspite and Formidable knocked out for several months during the Battle of Crete and finally Queen Elisabeth and Valiant sunk in Alexandria.

The heavy losses the Italians suffered are avoided too. However, the Italian surface fleet is effectively trapped in the Mediterranean. They can't go further west than Sardinia unless Franco brings Spain into the war. They can't go into the Red Sea and Indian Ocean until the Suez Canal is reopened. Even then I doubt that the Italian ports in East Africa were capable of supporting cruisers let alone battleships.

Therefore I reckon the British would base a cruiser squadron and a flotilla of destroyers at Aden while the rest of the Mediterranean Fleet and possibly all of Force H would reinforce the Home Fleet.

In this situation it might be harder for Scheer, Hipper and The Twins to break into the Atlantic via the Denmark Strait. Instead of Victorious being sent to attack Bismarck with a scratch air group it might be possible to send Formidable and Illustrious with four times as many aircraft as Victorious had embarked.

Illustrious, Formidable, Barham, Queen Elisabeth, Valiant and Warspite plus a reasonably large force of submarines, cruisers and destroyers are at Singapore at the end of November 1941.
 
How could the Italians take Egypt with their "self propelled coffins" vs British Matildas?

"The 7th sailed from Liverpool on 21 August 1940 for Egypt, their new Matilda Mk 2s sailing at the same time in a fast merchant ship. The small convoy, escorted from Cape Town by the appropriately named Australian cruiser "Hobart", arrived at Port Said on 24 September."

http://www.4and7royaltankregiment.com/1940-1941.html

So the Matildas wouldn't arrive until end of September. So the offensive having to be in July/August makes some sense. Although the British with what ever mobile forces they had were able to harass the Italians and take Fort Capuzzo in June. The Italians have tankettes and M13/39s their motorcycles and crappy trucks so a mobile meeting engagement somewhere in Egypt doesn't seem like it will end well even in July 1940.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Capuzzo

This site below talks of 68 cruisers and 172 light tanks in the middle east on June 10th. 68 cruisers would be a tough force for the Italians to beat with their M13/39s and tankettes.

http://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/british-tanks-in-egypt-spring-autunn-1940.68869/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_M11/39
 
Last edited:

BooNZ

Banned
For the Italians to capture the Suez, the POD needs to be early enough for some systemic changes to be made the Italian military and for the Italians to then act decisively when the time comes. The most obvious flaw in the Italian set-up is the tradition of maintaining excessive numbers of poorly equipped infantry, a tradition that pre-dates WW1. It would have been easy enough for the Italians to cull a dozen or more divisions and use the surplus equipment to fully upgrade/ equip a handful of 'elite' divisions - certainly sufficient numbers to take the Suez in 1940.

Given the Italian participation in the SCW alongside the Germans and well established Italian aeronautical and automotive traditions, it is remarkable how poorly the Italians were served in terms of effective manpower and equipment. Given the British situation in 1940, the Italian capture of the Suez should have been a formality - not mission impossible.
 
For the Italians to capture the Suez, the POD needs to be early enough for some systemic changes to be made the Italian military and for the Italians to then act decisively when the time comes. The most obvious flaw in the Italian set-up is the tradition of maintaining excessive numbers of poorly equipped infantry, a tradition that pre-dates WW1. It would have been easy enough for the Italians to cull a dozen or more divisions and use the surplus equipment to fully upgrade/ equip a handful of 'elite' divisions - certainly sufficient numbers to take the Suez in 1940.

Given the Italian participation in the SCW alongside the Germans and well established Italian aeronautical and automotive traditions, it is remarkable how poorly the Italians were served in terms of effective manpower and equipment. Given the British situation in 1940, the Italian capture of the Suez should have been a formality - not mission impossible.

Italy's industry and military was ill prepared for WW2 - Mussoloini jumped in at what he thought was the last minute to get a seat at the Victors table - not to fight a number of long and hard campaigns

IMO by reducing the number of divisions and making them individually stronger and more mobile and self sufficent (smaller overall force requiring less logistics) etc still does not answer how this Italian Africa Korps can over come Wavells 30,000 on the field - no mere formailty Im afraid.

Someone mentioned Matila IIs earlier but as far as I am aware and as has been pointed out they would not arrive till later but the 'British' when fighting the frontier campaign were using mostly refitted armoured cars and kitbashed armoured trucks with weapons no bigger than Bren guns and .55 calibre Bolt action Boys ATRs........and yet these performed better than the Italian Tankettes.

A good POD would be the 1937 "10 year plan" not started or significantly changed - as this had sought to prepare the Italian army for "Wars of Rapid Decision" actually made the army worse prepared for war by 1940 as it had only achieved the changing of Trianry divisions to Binary divisions and unnessisarily increased the number of Staff beyond what was required.

These changes might have created a more modern army in 10 years but after 3 the principle tactic of the Italian army was the frontal assault backed with heavy artillery support at the exclusion of all other tactics.

Also while the 'Italian Africa Korps' is smaller - than the force used OTL the Italians ability to provide logisitics is still dire.

Coupled with this was the politisation of the officer class and the Blackshirt Militias further diluting the ability to supply quality weapons and equipment to the front line formations.

A lot has to change for this 'POD' to take effect
 

BooNZ

Banned
Italy's industry and military was ill prepared for WW2 - Mussoloini jumped in at what he thought was the last minute to get a seat at the Victors table - not to fight a number of long and hard campaigns
Agreed, but if Italy is fighting a battle of attrition to reach the Suez it has already lost.

IMO by reducing the number of divisions and making them individually stronger and more mobile and self sufficent (smaller overall force requiring less logistics) etc still does not answer how this Italian Africa Korps can over come Wavells 30,000 on the field - no mere formailty Im afraid.
I said should have been a formality - 30,000 in the field is not a huge number and a handful of well equipped Italian divisions would still heavily outnumber what the British had available. Soon after Rommel made those British look very ordinary - again.

Someone mentioned Matila IIs earlier but as far as I am aware and as has been pointed out they would not arrive till later but the 'British' when fighting the frontier campaign were using mostly refitted armoured cars and kitbashed armoured trucks with weapons no bigger than Bren guns and .55 calibre Bolt action Boys ATRs........and yet these performed better than the Italian Tankettes.

A good POD would be the 1937 "10 year plan" not started or significantly changed - as this had sought to prepare the Italian army for "Wars of Rapid Decision" actually made the army worse prepared for war by 1940 as it had only achieved the changing of Trianry divisions to Binary divisions and unnessisarily increased the number of Staff beyond what was required.

These changes might have created a more modern army in 10 years but after 3 the principle tactic of the Italian army was the frontal assault backed with heavy artillery support at the exclusion of all other tactics.

Yes, it is hard to imagine the Italians getting their preparations even more wrong. Given the Italian military had actual combat experience alongside the Germans, I don't think it is unreasonable to conclude the Italian military reforms should have been far more effective than they were. Again, the Italians would not need to re-equip their entire military, just a handful of elite divisions - better tanks, aircraft and logistics would be gravy.

Also while the 'Italian Africa Korps' is smaller - than the force used OTL the Italians ability to provide logistics is still dire.
Agree, but with the limited scale of any early engagements, the Italians should be able to take the Suez with whatever supplies they have stockpiled east of Tobruk. If the Italians need to wait to be resupplied before they have reached the Suez, they have already lost.

Coupled with this was the politisation of the officer class and the Blackshirt Militias further diluting the ability to supply quality weapons and equipment to the front line formations.
Yes, one does get the impression the Italian military was more suited for political purposes than combat.

A lot has to change for this 'POD' to take effect
Yes, but there is a natural nexus between most of the Italian flaws (politicization, leadership, organization, training and equipment allocation). I think a successful military reorganization (vigorous hand wave), could have led to substantive improvements across all of those areas, without being contrived. However, I am sure there are probably very substantial reasons why this did not happen OTL.
 
Top