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This is the second of three TL ideas I've head recently. The POD is simply that Mussolini has some common sense and doesn't enter WW II.



Italy Shall Not Fight



Chapter I: Italy Shall Not Fight, September 1939 – December 1941.


It was 1939 and World War II had begun after the German invasion of Poland. This war could be seen as a result of Germany’s national humiliation in the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 after World War I. Germany had lost territory to the hated Poles, French and British and hadn’t been allowed to unite with Austria. The army and navy had been reduced to a laughable joke, Germany had to pay crippling war indemnities and Germany had to take the blame for the entire war which all led to bitterness and resentment. The result was a national humiliation and a deep economic crisis. Nazi despot Adolf Hitler had taken over Germany after his sweeping propaganda and demagoguery had convinced the better part of the German electorate to vote for him since he seemed to be the answer to the economic crisis and because he promised he would get rid of the hated Treaty of Versailles and he had done so. He had restored Germany’s military might to a great degree, annexed Austria and the Sudetenland without bloodshed and had reaffirmed Germany’s great power status. This, however, had come at a cost since rearmament led his country slowly but surely to bankruptcy and so he needed war booty to continue going. War, of course, was in line with Hitler’s ideological imperatives anyway since he wanted to conquer Lebensraum to the east for the German people. After his annexation of rump-Czechoslovakia the British and French finally saw that he was not to be trusted and would never quit asking for more. At Poland they drew a line and when Hitler crossed it, they declared war in September 1939.

Mussolini was the fascist dictator of Italy, he had been so since his coup d’état in 1922. He had strong imperialist ambitions for Italy and had made true on these ambitions by means of a war of aggression against Abyssinia in 1935. Relations between France and Britain on one hand and Italy on the other had deteriorated after this war and Italy had grown close to Berlin. This had led to the formation of Berlin-Rome Axis, an unofficial alliance between Nazi-Germany and Fascist Italy. Mussolini was however not charmed by Hitler’s demagoguery and called him a lunatic and only an asset to Italy for as long as he did nothing crazy. In 1936 already Mussolini already predicted he would cause war, but he didn’t really know when, and if Germany would win or not (Mussolini estimated that Hitler would not). The Italian ruler condemned and ridiculed Hitler’s recklessness which bordered insanity in private and denounced Hitler’s anti-Semitism, declaring Germany a racist nuthouse. Later, Italy would provide a safe haven for many German and Austrian Jews. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was jealous of the successes of his colleague and had invaded Albania to present him with a fait accompli for once. When Hitler, however, went to war with France and Britain Mussolini was not prepared to take a chance. As German forces crashed across the western Polish border, invaded from East Prussia and with aid from Slovakian forces, Mussolini stood by idly. German forces pulled off mass encirclements and after the Soviet attack on September 17th Poland was doomed since it made their retreat to the ‘Romanian Bridgehead’ to await Anglo-French reinforcements impossible. This quick success made Mussolini more than aware of the stark contrast between the Heer and the Regio Esercito. Mussolini knew his armed forces weren’t ready for war and wouldn’t be until 1942-’43. In the meantime, Polish forces were crushed on the Vistula river and Warsaw was taken by German forces. Poland had been defeated in little over five weeks, a major military success and a blow to Britain and France. The German general staff, in the meantime, started to plan for the invasion of France. Around the same time, Operation Weserübung was launched to take Denmark and then Norway and its ice free port of Narvik to protect the flow of Swedish iron ore to Germany. Copenhagen was quickly seized by German forces and Danish air forces were quickly dispatched. Against German panzers the Danish army had little chance and in six hours, the shortest German military campaign in the war, Denmark surrendered while Mussolini watched on. In Norway, troops landed in Narvik, Trondheim, Stavanger, Kristiansand, Oslo and Egersund. The Kriegsmarine provided support, but took serious losses, including cruiser Blücher which was ironically sunk by 40 year old 28 cm Krupp guns of the Oscarsborg fortress. Nonetheless, Norway was subdued by June 10th 1940. Despite the success, Mussolini’s doubts remained and even success in France wouldn’t convince him. He would be proven right as Britain would not surrender like London had always said.

A wary Mussolini was proven right. France was attacked with a battle plan developed by general Von Manstein, one of the most brilliant German strategists. The plan was quite different from general Halder’s plan which was pessimistic to say the least. He envisioned a march through Belgium and the Netherlands toward the river Somme and then the establishment a line there to consolidate behind, an operation which would entail a total of 500.000 casualties. This was a plan that disappointed even Hitler who had accepted the idea of a long war. Von Manstein envisioned a much more daring plan which involved massing all available panzer units and march through the Ardennes which were seen as unfavourable terrain for armoured units by both sides. The long exposed flanks would then be covered by spoiling attacks toward Sedan which went against Hitler’s original orders. General Heinz Guderian’s tanks were involved although Von Manstein downplayed their role to not upset the leadership of the army which consisted primarily of infantry officers. When Hitler received word of the plan he was enthused and ordered its implementation. Germany invaded on May 10th and overran Dutch and Belgian defences quickly, including the strongest fortress in Europe: Eben-Emael. This proved that fixed fortifications were outdated. The Belgian and Dutch air forces were destroyed, mostly on the ground, in days and German forces advanced quickly which seemed to hint at German victory. By May 26th 1940 the British Expeditionary Force was confined to a pocket around Dunkirk and was evacuated by June 4th. Against the advice of his generals and seemingly against common sense Mussolini decided not to declare war although sizeable French forces were located on the Italian-French border to guard against an Italian backstab. This endlessly irritated Hitler who urged Mussolini to declare war. Mussolini knew his armed forces weren’t ready and perhaps out of jealousy or envy he hoped Hitler would fail in his ambitions. Paris fell and the government in Bordeaux evacuated to Algiers on June 26th 1940 instead of surrendering after a split decision. Large numbers of French troops and ships were sent to North Africa, including battleship Richelieu which would partake in the sinking of the Bismarck. Mussolini was proven right, neither Britain nor France surrendered and it was time for Ciano to play his diplomatic game as Germany launched the Battle of Britain. This aerial attack to knockout the Royal Air Force and strike fear into the hearts of the Brits failed and cost the Luftwaffe many pilots and planes, but the invasion scare would remain for much of 1940. Invasion was out the window and Mussolini was proven right about the long war which Italy would have lost.

Now was the time to make an opportunity out of this. Hitler, despite his anger against Mussolini, found it useful to have Italy as a neutral to trade vital resources for the war industry such as oil, foodstuffs and tungsten through. The latter tried to secretly, and unbeknownst to Hitler strike a deal with France and Britain. Tentatively, his foreign minister Count Galleazo Ciano set out feelers in London and Algiers. Envoys were sent to both Reynaud and Churchill to assure them of Italian neutrality in the conflict. They didn’t know the Italian armed forces were a paper tiger and saw Italy as a threat in being and were willing to agree to very much to keep Italy neutral in the desperate situation in the period around June-August 1940. Mussolini agreed to full neutrality in the conflict in exchange for a free hand in the Balkans. Churchill readily agreed with his country under siege, but Reynaud and future president and now brigadier-general Charles de Gaulle, the new French secretary of war, were furious because they knew what this would mean for France’s Yugoslavian puppet which had been a pawn in their containment strategy for Germany. All, however, could agree that the containment policy had failed miserably by now. Churchill and Reynaud agreed to making Yugoslavia and quite possibly Greece the proverbial sacrificial lamb in return for Italian neutrality in the war. Neither France nor Britain liked it, but it was seen as necessary at the time and it would come to haunt both Churchill and Reynaud later on. For now they were contented as Mussolini even gave his personal assurance to the French and British ambassadors in Rome:

“Italy has nothing to gain but anger and revulsion if it should stab Britain and France, its longstanding friends, in the back. Italy shall not fight in this war.”

Italy was not yet ready to capitalize on its guarantees from France and Britain. Mussolini ordered an overhaul of the armed forces, specifically the Regia Esercito and the Regia Aeronautica. All aircraft were re-equipped with radios to coordinate with ground forces and provide ample ground support instead of giving the bomber the main role like in the Douhèt doctrine. Armour was concentrated into separate armoured divisions instead of infantry support, and this was all copied from the German Wehrmacht. A number of military exercises would be conducted with the ongoing reforms in 1940 and 1941. Despite the changes in the wake of the German victory over France, the results of which were incorporated into the reforms, the Italian army remained untested in battle and the army was riddled with incompetent officers. Moreover, Mussolini was opposed in his reforms by conservative military officers and so the changes were implemented painfully slowly. In the foreign field, in the meantime, Fascist Italy scored some moderate successes as well. Diplomatic missions from the Italian embassies in Budapest and Sofia scored some successes in the latter half of 1940. Regent of Hungary admiral Miklós Horthy and the Bulgarian Tsar Boris III were both easily convinced into joining an alliance with Italy aimed against Yugoslavia against which they all had irredentist claims. This alliance between Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria was known as the ‘Little Axis’ and it angered Hitler to a great degree. Hitler saw it as Italian meddling into what he had increasingly come to see as Germany’s economic and political hinterland. The result was a deterioration of relations between Germany and Italy, but not a falling out as Italy remained nominally supportive of Hitler’s anti-communist cause. As Hitler dominated Europe already and was unable to act in Africa, he invaded the Soviet Union on May 20th 1941, starting Operation Barbarossa. Mussolini indeed remained committed to anti-communism and sent a volunteer legion which was as far as he could go without earning the ire of Britain and France. Over 30.000 Italian volunteers would fight in the Soviet Union. Here, Germany would score enormous victories. Unprepared and unknowing Soviet forces were completely overwhelmed. Stalin had specifically forbidden war preparations and so over 3.000 Red Air Force planes were destroyed on the ground in 24 hours. Hundreds of thousands were captured or annihilated in cauldron battles as Stalin issued a ‘stand or die’ order. Among them were 300.000 men captured in the Bialystok-Minsk pocket. 800.000 would perish and 3.3 million would be captured up until December.

German forces reached Moscow and actually penetrated the city’s defences, getting close to the Kremlin in the Russian winter, but Zhukov’s winter counteroffensive succeeded and drove German forces back about 50-80 kilometres in the first Soviet successful counterattack. German artillery did, however, get to the Kremlin’s famous Spasskaya tower and nearly Stalin. In the aftermath of the first German onslaught a vicious power struggle took place in the short time when Stalin was thought to be dead. When Stalin turned up he was outraged that they fought among each other instead of fighting the war and the thought of a new wave of purges even worse than the first was formed in this period. Chaos through a power struggle was avoided as a more pressing matter had to be dealt with, namely the war and Stalin led his country into the war and his near death gave him a nearly divine aura and popularity as Father of the People. In the meantime, the other dictator in Europe, Mussolini, was aiming to uphold his end of the bargain with France and Britain and make true on his claims in the Balkans. This was after the Japanese attack into Southeast Asia which would draw in the American giant which would finally silence those on Mussolini’s court who fervently argued for entry into the war.
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