Soviets capture Italy

What if the soviet union conquered the italian peninsula in the war , what would happen to the pope and the Vatican ? How will this affect the cold war ?
 
Can't say about the pope and Vatican, but overrunning Italy won't be worth the trouble unless they also overrun all of Germany.
 
This could have happened if not for Churchill stressing the importance of opening a front in Italy. Roosevelt was against this idea, so we could have seen a Soviet "liberation" of Italy if Roosevelt had his way.

The Vatican is an independent sovereign state, so the Soviets might have left it alone.

But whether they took the Vatican or not, the Pope might flee and set up shop elsewhere in exile (Avignon?).

Not sure he would remain in the Vatican if surrounded by hostile Communists who would suppress the church in Italy.
 

ben0628

Banned
The Allies agreed how to divide Europe in Potsdam, the occupation of Italy is impossible.

Potsdam didn't occur until after the war in Europe was over. The original poster asked whether or not the Soviets could conquer Italy during the war?

Personally, I feel that as soon as the Soviets get into the Balkans, Mussolini would be removed from power and Italy would sue for peace (if their not already invaded by Wallies)
 
You'd have to finagle things so that the Soviets cope with Barbarossa a lot better and hence are able to rebound and crush the Germans much faster, before the Allies can get in gear. Even then, the geography of the matter means the WAllies are liable to get there first...
 
So we have to imagine that the Soviets, despite being on their uppers, decide to anger the west by going after territory that it definitely wasn't gifted at Yalta, and furthermore, they manage to somehow actually cross the Alps to make it happen? I think Hiroshima just got moved down the target list for a nuke.
 
PODs would affect he result. IE Barbarossa is less damaging and US gives lend lease to USSR, Russia takes Italy and Germany, Britain lands in France to prevent a USSR to the English Channel scenario. In this event, the USSR is much stronger and likely the hatred between German and Russian is a lot less, as the Germans did not have the success to start their insane occupation polices against the Russians. (It's hard to get mad at the Germans being cruel to Jews in Eastern Poland when you are a Russian from east of Moscow.) So, this ATL USSR would be an economic powerhouse and likely less cruel. They would be occupying Germany without it being bombed into dust. Italy might get destroyed in the process of "liberation" as it is a peninsula and they will fight.

In this event, the USSR either breaks up sooner (as Europe SSR will be outproducing the Russian SSR from the get go), or the Russians contrive a means of economic extraction that is efficient enough to avoid this, which might leave a USSR in the modern day. We would probably view them as a backward EU of sorts, so transnationalism and one-wordlism won't have the cache that it does today.

As for the Roman Church, it depends upon whether the Italians get defeated decisively before Rome, or if Italy keeps fighting. If it is a quick defeat, then the Pope stays put. Stalin likely won't mess with him as he has many Catholic subjects in Poland, Germany, and Italy and he will want to succesfully attain economic concessions. Stirring the pot on religion isn't going to happen, simply because ATL does not have the crushing, civilization destroying defeats that OTL has.
 
The problem is, occupying Italy either means occupying Yugoslavia and using that as a jumping-off point for a maritime invasion, or going directly over the Alps. Neither is going to be quick or easy.
 
How? Theres the question of why it happens this way. I'm looking at maybe the US remains out of it, or if somehow a British periprial strategy is still in operation when the Red Army rolls across the Rhine.
 
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