Italian Neutrality in WW2 - What happens to East Africa?
- Thread starter PolishMagnet
- Start date
The Entente started before WW2 founding the ethiopian resistance, sure it was also due to Mussolini cozy up with Adolf too much but if that happen and Italy simply decide to remain neutral in the war nothing will stop the entente to do the same here and all your long laundry list fail to take in consideration several important thing:
-both Churchill and Roosevelt pressed Benny for remain neutral, even promising a place at the peace conference
- before the US dow to the Axis, the Anglo-Soviet were in a terrible situation both strategically and tatticaly and even think about adding Italy to the list of problem
- between wage war with the only fresh power left and selling Ethiopia, the second option will be the only real possible, hell it's probable that both London and Paris will see Rome as a possible ally to suppress colonial trouble.
- Everyone will be too spent to even thing to try something of funny in the italian sphere, except the USA but it's more probable that they willl see Italy more as an ally against the URSS. Hell any British or France prime minister that during or immediately after the war send that kind of ultimatum will lose his job in a picosecond.
This is not a video game where players can continue to fight without any consequences, France, UK and URSS had lost millions of people and see their nation devastated, they are not in the mood for this kind of idiocy
Gigi Gold
Banned
Fry from Futurama: "I'm good at video games and bad at everything else. What if life were more like a video game?"
the idea that God is a gamer is frightening beyond any level of understanding
What was the reason for Italy even wanting to colonize Somaliland, Eritrea, and Abyssinia other than a strategic location on the Horn of Africa?
There were generally five reasons for Colonization?
There were generally five reasons for Colonization?
- The Search for New Markets. I don't see a new market here to buy Italian goods
- The Need for Raw Materials. I don't see any raw materials here to send back economically to Italy...the shipping costs would eat up the budget
- The Need to Invest Surplus Capital Elsewhere. Don't see that here
- A Desire to 'Civilize' African People. European colonization did nothing here
- The Quest for National Glory. THIS
- Desire to Export Surplus population. Libya would have been better
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I mean yeah, but try telling that to Mussolini. His victory in Ethiopia also skyrocketed his popularity.
In terms of a Post-War world in which the results are broadly similar, it seems crazy that the allies would intervene.
Fascist regimes, or regimes which were arguably similar enough were part of the allies, Greece and Brazil.
The US and UK may not like Mussolini's continued occupation of Ethiopia, but they're not going to go to war over it. The UK especially is in a terrible spot, Churchill is soon to be voted out, and either way the Soviet Union is clearly the bigger threat. Why entangle yourself with Italy for questionable benefits when Stalin could suddenly stream across the border. He probably won't, but clearly some viewed Anglo-American and Soviet conflict as inevitable. Italy, like Spain and Portugal is destined to be an ally in case of WWIII.
Of course, if it continues to occupy bits of Europe, like Albania, Yugoslavia, Greece, etc. that absolutely will cause problems.
At the same time, I think an Italy that invades Yugoslavia and/or Greece cannot realistically remain neutral. I'm imagining at most, it gets Yugo territories from Germany, but doesn't participate in conflict itself, or, perhaps more realistically, if we want a neutral Italy, Yugoslavia remains pro-Axis and Germany is firm it doesn't want to give Italy territory unless it joins the war, which it doesn't do. As a result, probably Bulgaria remains neutral as well, which is interesting.
If I were trying to write a neutral Italy scenario, getting rid of Mussolini would be well, a Godsend. If we could get Balbo in power he's not joining Germany. It wouldn't surprise me if Italy opportunistically jumps ship to nab Yugoslavia (if it remains pro-Axis, then probably joined by Bulgaria) and Austria to restore Austro-fascism.
Let's say the latter is the case, no adventurism in Europe, maybe Mussolini is still in charge, maybe not, Germany is defeated and partitioned broadly similarly to IOTL. To be simple, let's Italy doesn't jump in, or does so soo late it's perceived like Argentina and the war is basically done.
Italy won't be admitted to the UN initially, but eventually will.
The first post-war crisis is going to be fascinating, maybe the Arab Israeli War. IOTL, Italy ran a naval academy for Zionists, the original leadership of the Israeli Navy was trained in Fascist Italy. Still probably thinking the UK is a Mediterranean rival, Italy probably backs Israel full tilt, when IOTL only Czechoslovakia would sell Israel anything at huge markups, Italy may well be happy to donate significant amounts of kit and arm/train/send Jewish refugees from continental Europe to fight. This probably fuels further conflict with the British who in turn back the Arabs more strongly and send more support to Ethiopian rebels.
Long term, though, Britain will probably realize that if it wants to hold onto influence in its Empire, as will France, they need to be a united block with Italy and Portugal. Maybe they make up, maybe they don't.
Long term I think Italy's best bet is to gradually dominionize East Africa, and give Somalia and Eritrea big chunks of land from Ethiopia, and just not bother about Ethiopia proper and withdraw. Eritrea might, if sufficient Italians remain, end up as a constituent part of Italy. Since Eritrea and Ethiopia don't get along, and it was such a 'model colony,' it wouldn't surprise me if the Eritreans are actually generally okay with Italian indirect rule, as they may well prefer Rome to Adis Ababa. Somalia, if given tons of territory by Italy, might be less successful as a settler colony, but may well be somewhat content to remain a pro-Italian dominion for similar reasons, Rome is considered a better master than Adis Ababa.
Fascist regimes, or regimes which were arguably similar enough were part of the allies, Greece and Brazil.
The US and UK may not like Mussolini's continued occupation of Ethiopia, but they're not going to go to war over it. The UK especially is in a terrible spot, Churchill is soon to be voted out, and either way the Soviet Union is clearly the bigger threat. Why entangle yourself with Italy for questionable benefits when Stalin could suddenly stream across the border. He probably won't, but clearly some viewed Anglo-American and Soviet conflict as inevitable. Italy, like Spain and Portugal is destined to be an ally in case of WWIII.
Of course, if it continues to occupy bits of Europe, like Albania, Yugoslavia, Greece, etc. that absolutely will cause problems.
At the same time, I think an Italy that invades Yugoslavia and/or Greece cannot realistically remain neutral. I'm imagining at most, it gets Yugo territories from Germany, but doesn't participate in conflict itself, or, perhaps more realistically, if we want a neutral Italy, Yugoslavia remains pro-Axis and Germany is firm it doesn't want to give Italy territory unless it joins the war, which it doesn't do. As a result, probably Bulgaria remains neutral as well, which is interesting.
If I were trying to write a neutral Italy scenario, getting rid of Mussolini would be well, a Godsend. If we could get Balbo in power he's not joining Germany. It wouldn't surprise me if Italy opportunistically jumps ship to nab Yugoslavia (if it remains pro-Axis, then probably joined by Bulgaria) and Austria to restore Austro-fascism.
Let's say the latter is the case, no adventurism in Europe, maybe Mussolini is still in charge, maybe not, Germany is defeated and partitioned broadly similarly to IOTL. To be simple, let's Italy doesn't jump in, or does so soo late it's perceived like Argentina and the war is basically done.
Italy won't be admitted to the UN initially, but eventually will.
The first post-war crisis is going to be fascinating, maybe the Arab Israeli War. IOTL, Italy ran a naval academy for Zionists, the original leadership of the Israeli Navy was trained in Fascist Italy. Still probably thinking the UK is a Mediterranean rival, Italy probably backs Israel full tilt, when IOTL only Czechoslovakia would sell Israel anything at huge markups, Italy may well be happy to donate significant amounts of kit and arm/train/send Jewish refugees from continental Europe to fight. This probably fuels further conflict with the British who in turn back the Arabs more strongly and send more support to Ethiopian rebels.
Long term, though, Britain will probably realize that if it wants to hold onto influence in its Empire, as will France, they need to be a united block with Italy and Portugal. Maybe they make up, maybe they don't.
Long term I think Italy's best bet is to gradually dominionize East Africa, and give Somalia and Eritrea big chunks of land from Ethiopia, and just not bother about Ethiopia proper and withdraw. Eritrea might, if sufficient Italians remain, end up as a constituent part of Italy. Since Eritrea and Ethiopia don't get along, and it was such a 'model colony,' it wouldn't surprise me if the Eritreans are actually generally okay with Italian indirect rule, as they may well prefer Rome to Adis Ababa. Somalia, if given tons of territory by Italy, might be less successful as a settler colony, but may well be somewhat content to remain a pro-Italian dominion for similar reasons, Rome is considered a better master than Adis Ababa.
Yes, Albania would avoid Hoxha's regime. And it would be probably more prosperous and it would has more developed justice system and lesser of corruption. In other hand Albanian language probably would be replaced by Italian in cities and Albanian would be ratherly rural language.
T
True. That was in part because it avenged Adawa. And it was also the first step on the path to reclaiming the Roman Empire.
A fair few spoke Russian, French and some would have spoken Turkish or other languages, but speaking a language reasonably well does not necessarily grant the ability to conduct important business in it.
Gigi Gold
Banned
Be interesting if they had been fluent enough to do so. Hitler also showed in the Mannerheim recording that he could speak normally if he wanted to.
Fascist rule inherited an already extant position in Eritrea and Somalia and a potential for revenge in Ethiopia; even before that, though, generally speaking Italian colonialism was the most settler-oriented of the various post-1800 ones, and clamored for more virgin lands to partially absorb emigration. Those were the priorities.
Mussolini developed coherently to these priorities, trying to grow those places into areas worth settling, and maneuvred into a showdown with Ethiopia.
I also agree with those who have pointed out, by the way, that neutral Italy needs to do something fairly dumb (possibly Greece but definitely not Jugoslavia) to actively end up on the Allies' bad side. OTL Mussolini kept contact with Churchill all along (the content of said conversation having been "lost" in the chaos of the death throes of Fascism) and when Italy duly followed Germany and wardec'd the USA, the reaction was more along the lines of "whenever you want, come back" (haven't been able to find the precise words, but it's not the more famous "the hand that held the knife" from 1940).
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