@lukedalton ,
It can go either way with such an ATL Red leader; they could triumph instead, and the Entente powers in their weakness be unable to wage a Coalition War against the new Red Italy, or as OTL with collapse and repression of the Reds.
My cookbook definition of a successful revolution is "when the army joins the rebels." There is never a completely clean break of course, and classically the army can be a vehicle of reaction-in-the-name-of-the-revolution, as with Napoleon taking supreme power eventually in France. But ATL Italy will have suffered debacles a plenty to make common soldiers quite disgruntled, not to mention their class links to the commoners--this usually can be nullified by the mystique of the military, but if a respectable leader arises from the ranks or among the officers to put Red revolutionary goals in terms appealing to the soldiers, and they have a lot of grievances, it can boomerang. Or of course just turn into a civil war with the rebels defeated ultimately.
No doubt there are differences in degree between Italy's debacles here and the condition of Russia in early 1917 OTL, but I don't think you can just categorically assume the loyalty of the army or even its greater sympathy for reaction--that is the way to bet, generically, but it sometimes stands on a knife edge and OTL Italy's only asset post-Great War was its having stood on the Entente side and thus winning at the peace negotiations much she lost on the battlefield.
A Red Italy might therefore fail to get territories won OTL--probably stand a fair chance of holding OTL or even more gains across the Adriatic, but not gain say Tyrolia; if Reds manage to consolidate control over the peninsula, then bye bye foreign recognition of colonial claims in Libya and other African and Greek holdings; the right wing Italians might flee to the former and be recognized as rulers in the name of an exilic conservative regime by European powers, and be dependent on their good will, while being quite politely but firmly asked to renounce claims in Greece and Ethiopia and perhaps even replaced as rulers (if not most of the European colonist population) in Eritrea. Depending on the popularity of the Reds in Sicily and Sardinia the Reds might lose there too and the latter island, reverting to the origins of the monarchy, be the seat of the royalist-reactionary shadow regime. Maybe Sicily becomes the seat of a rival dynasty though I don't see the Entente powers favoring that particularly.
-----
I glanced back at the earlier posts, it seems clear reaction triumphs in Italy from that, therefore no Red Italy, much as I would like to see it. I suspect the Entente powers will uphold most "Chartist" Italian claims, except maybe in Greece, and perhaps uphold a Yugoslavian regime to check ambitions across the Adriatic though probably with only limited success there--parrying attempts to advance claims much beyond Trieste in the north, but Albania probably remains an open door for later adventures since the Entente would have little traction there and would probably seek for the Albanians to join with Yugoslavia, which they will resist. Italy will probably still be granted Tyrol once it becomes clear the Reds are not going to win.
EDIT:
Apparently the Quote function does not work with edits, forgive me for not editing in your source post, Persephone, it is right up there.
So yeah, you did mean Benny, and he stays Red, and is apparently defeated. His being the Duce of the Reds certainly takes some of the sting out of that side losing for me. As fascist dictators go, he was far from the worst OTL but his willingness to completely betray classic leftist principles (which of course other successful Reds often do) causes me to despise him on either side. A disgrace to his namesake Benito Juarez.
I think Persephone the author might possibly mean someone other than Mussolini, and on the rival faithfully Socialist/Communist side perhaps? Someone obscure or even totally ATL (say someone who lived OTL but was killed in the Great War) who might have more traction winning substantial sectors of the Army over to the Red side? So civil war becomes actual and hot, pressuring the *Fascists and conventional conservatives together and perhaps accepting D'Annunzio as a figurehead indeed, forcing the monarch to line up with him to achieve the victory of reaction? Thus the reactionary regime must be more ruthless than the OTL Fascists even in purging society for post-civil war "order."the rabble-rousing of a certain Marxist journalist and war veteran
It can go either way with such an ATL Red leader; they could triumph instead, and the Entente powers in their weakness be unable to wage a Coalition War against the new Red Italy, or as OTL with collapse and repression of the Reds.
My cookbook definition of a successful revolution is "when the army joins the rebels." There is never a completely clean break of course, and classically the army can be a vehicle of reaction-in-the-name-of-the-revolution, as with Napoleon taking supreme power eventually in France. But ATL Italy will have suffered debacles a plenty to make common soldiers quite disgruntled, not to mention their class links to the commoners--this usually can be nullified by the mystique of the military, but if a respectable leader arises from the ranks or among the officers to put Red revolutionary goals in terms appealing to the soldiers, and they have a lot of grievances, it can boomerang. Or of course just turn into a civil war with the rebels defeated ultimately.
No doubt there are differences in degree between Italy's debacles here and the condition of Russia in early 1917 OTL, but I don't think you can just categorically assume the loyalty of the army or even its greater sympathy for reaction--that is the way to bet, generically, but it sometimes stands on a knife edge and OTL Italy's only asset post-Great War was its having stood on the Entente side and thus winning at the peace negotiations much she lost on the battlefield.
A Red Italy might therefore fail to get territories won OTL--probably stand a fair chance of holding OTL or even more gains across the Adriatic, but not gain say Tyrolia; if Reds manage to consolidate control over the peninsula, then bye bye foreign recognition of colonial claims in Libya and other African and Greek holdings; the right wing Italians might flee to the former and be recognized as rulers in the name of an exilic conservative regime by European powers, and be dependent on their good will, while being quite politely but firmly asked to renounce claims in Greece and Ethiopia and perhaps even replaced as rulers (if not most of the European colonist population) in Eritrea. Depending on the popularity of the Reds in Sicily and Sardinia the Reds might lose there too and the latter island, reverting to the origins of the monarchy, be the seat of the royalist-reactionary shadow regime. Maybe Sicily becomes the seat of a rival dynasty though I don't see the Entente powers favoring that particularly.
-----
I glanced back at the earlier posts, it seems clear reaction triumphs in Italy from that, therefore no Red Italy, much as I would like to see it. I suspect the Entente powers will uphold most "Chartist" Italian claims, except maybe in Greece, and perhaps uphold a Yugoslavian regime to check ambitions across the Adriatic though probably with only limited success there--parrying attempts to advance claims much beyond Trieste in the north, but Albania probably remains an open door for later adventures since the Entente would have little traction there and would probably seek for the Albanians to join with Yugoslavia, which they will resist. Italy will probably still be granted Tyrol once it becomes clear the Reds are not going to win.
EDIT:
I'm not "overestimating" Benny. In fact, I've avoided mentioning him at all so far because his entire political persuasion ITTL is radically different than it was in OTL. As for "leaving" the socialists, it wasn't that he made the conscious choice to leave, but that he was expelled during the war for his views. ITTL, as a result of the changes in the wider socialist movement following the Bolsheviks' triumph in the 5th Congress, his more militant and nationalistic brand of socialism becomes more prominent and accepted than it was IOTL.
Apparently the Quote function does not work with edits, forgive me for not editing in your source post, Persephone, it is right up there.
So yeah, you did mean Benny, and he stays Red, and is apparently defeated. His being the Duce of the Reds certainly takes some of the sting out of that side losing for me. As fascist dictators go, he was far from the worst OTL but his willingness to completely betray classic leftist principles (which of course other successful Reds often do) causes me to despise him on either side. A disgrace to his namesake Benito Juarez.
Last edited: