The future of Italy's colonies if Italy remains neutral in World War II?

CaliGuy

Banned
What would the future of Italy's colonies be if Italy remains neutral in World War II? Specifically, I am talking about Libya, Italian East Africa, Albania, and whatever other territories Italy manages to acquire (Italy acquired Albania in 1939 and thus I am leaving the door open to the possibility of further Italian expansion in this TL).

Also, a good PoD for this is no Fall of France in either 1940 or later.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
For what it's worth, I am especially curious as to what happens to Italian East Africa in this TL considering that Italy partitioned it into several parts:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...200px-Italian_East_Africa_(1938–1941).svg.png

1200px-Italian_East_Africa_%281938%E2%80%931941%29.svg.png


Indeed, do these separate parts eventually become separate, independent countries, or what?
 
libya will be keep and be majority Italian by 2017 , Albania is a possibility and East African colonies will be likely be lost
 

CaliGuy

Banned
libya will be keep and be majority Italian by 2017 ,

You mean due to the large-scale oil exploration bringing a lot of Italians into Libya?

Albania is a possibility

Not a very appealing possibility for Italian settlement, is it?

Also, does Italy expand anywhere else in the Balkans in this TL?

and East African colonies will be likely be lost

Agreed; however, what do the borders in East Africa look like after independence?
 

BlondieBC

Banned
You mean due to the large-scale oil exploration bringing a lot of Italians into Libya?

Not a very appealing possibility for Italian settlement, is it?

Also, does Italy expand anywhere else in the Balkans in this TL?

Agreed; however, what do the borders in East Africa look like after independence?

The oil exploration will likely bring Italians, but I would not rule out cheaper third world workers to do the dirty work. But this is not the reason. Italians will continue to settle in the cities. The non-Italian birth rate will be suppressed via resource usage issues. And a certain percentage of non-Italian population will flip ethnic identity each generation. While I can't prove a number to you, it looks like to me you get low single digits percentages of the total minority population flip to higher status majority population per decade. Well, if allowed by the ruling class. A lot of it will be mixed marriage. If you have both Italian and North African ancestry, it will simply be more convenient to be Italian.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
The oil exploration will likely bring Italians, but I would not rule out cheaper third world workers to do the dirty work. But this is not the reason. Italians will continue to settle in the cities. The non-Italian birth rate will be suppressed via resource usage issues. And a certain percentage of non-Italian population will flip ethnic identity each generation. While I can't prove a number to you, it looks like to me you get low single digits percentages of the total minority population flip to higher status majority population per decade. Well, if allowed by the ruling class. A lot of it will be mixed marriage. If you have both Italian and North African ancestry, it will simply be more convenient to be Italian.
Please keep in mind, though, that the different religions of Italians and Libyans can discourage intermarriage. Indeed, I don't think that there was much intermarriage in Algeria during the 132 years that France ruled over it.

Also, what do you think will happen to Italian East Africa as well as Albania in this TL?
 
What would the future of Italy's colonies be if Italy remains neutral in World War II? Specifically, I am talking about Libya, Italian East Africa, Albania, and whatever other territories Italy manages to acquire (Italy acquired Albania in 1939 and thus I am leaving the door open to the possibility of further Italian expansion in this TL).

Also, a good PoD for this is no Fall of France in either 1940 or later.
By 1939 around 13% of Libya and 10% of Eritrea were Italian. I foresee the Italians going to painstaking ends to retain these regions, especially if the Italian percentage continues to grow.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
By 1939 around 13% of Libya and 10% of Eritrea were Italian. I foresee the Italians going to painstaking ends to retain these regions, especially if the Italian percentage continues to grow.
So, in other words, Italy--rather than Ethiopia--is the one who has to aggressively fight Eritrean separatists in this TL?
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Please keep in mind, though, that the different religions of Italians and Libyans can discourage intermarriage. Indeed, I don't think that there was much intermarriage in Algeria during the 132 years that France ruled over it.

Also, what do you think will happen to Italian East Africa as well as Albania in this TL?

The designer of the Algerian flag was French woman married to an Algerian. Significant portions of the Algerian freedom movement were person of mix ancestry who were not accept in French society. The key is does Italy accept mixed races as Italians or push them into being Libyans. The same is true for ambitious young men and women. If you learn Italian and try to adopt Italian customs, are you accepted as an Italian.

Go back a 1000 years. There were probably more Germans than Slavs in Europe. The Germans tended to find reasons to exclude people from their race. The Slavs tended to accept you if you learned the Slavic language. And this shows on the modern maps.

Albania goes Italian, as much like Libya.

Baring some really odd decisions, the Italians lose East Africa which is probably a single state, at least at first. It takes a huge amount of work ($$$) to convert a large African colony into a settler colony.
 
You mean due to the large-scale oil exploration bringing a lot of Italians into Libya?
Yes

Not a very appealing possibility for Italian settlement, is it?

Also, does Italy expand anywhere else in the Balkans in this TL?
Albania not as appealing as Libya
I'm not sure if Italian expansion into the Balkans would be tolerated

Agreed; however, what do the borders in East Africa look like after independence?
independence states or one large state depending on what the Italians want
 

CaliGuy

Banned
The designer of the Algerian flag was French woman married to an Algerian.

I did not know that! :)

Significant portions of the Algerian freedom movement were person of mix ancestry who were not accept in French society. The key is does Italy accept mixed races as Italians or push them into being Libyans. The same is true for ambitious young men and women. If you learn Italian and try to adopt Italian customs, are you accepted as an Italian.

What was Mussolini's attitude in regards to this?

Go back a 1000 years. There were probably more Germans than Slavs in Europe. The Germans tended to find reasons to exclude people from their race. The Slavs tended to accept you if you learned the Slavic language. And this shows on the modern maps.

Didn't the Germans successfully manage to Germanize a lot of Poles and the entire Baltic Prussian population due to the Ostsiedlung, though?

Albania goes Italian, as much like Libya.

How many Italians would have been willing to move to Albania, though?

Baring some really odd decisions, the Italians lose East Africa which is probably a single state, at least at first. It takes a huge amount of work ($$$) to convert a large African colony into a settler colony.

Agreed.

However, does this single state survive (perhaps as a federation)? Or does it descend into civil war and break up?
 
So, in other words, Italy--rather than Ethiopia--is the one who has to aggressively fight Eritrean separatists in this TL?
Actually with around 28% (and growing) of the population being Catholic, and Italy being able to claim that it's protecting the Eritreans from Ethiopian irredentism (or from total economic failure, should Italy grant independence to the separate Governorates of Italian East Africa), I can see the Italians having a fairly large degree of local support.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Actually with around 28% (and growing) of the population being Catholic, and Italy being able to claim that it's protecting the Eritreans from Ethiopian irredentism (or from total economic failure, should Italy grant independence to the separate Governorates of Italian East Africa), I can see the Italians having a fairly large degree of local support.
Interesting.

Of course, Eritrea would also be a bit larger in this TL (as per the map above); indeed, would these formerly Ethiopian subjects be OK with permanent Italian rule?

Italian Albania sounds fascinating from a Cold War perspective alone...
Well, yeah, it would definitely be much less of a Hellhole in comparison to our TL. :)
 
But yeah, assuming Italy retains its foothold in the Balkans by way of Albania, could we rule out future designs on the region? For instance, if Yugoslavia still collapses at some point, might Italy try to expand into Kosovo on the pretext of protecting ethnic Albanians? Might they still try to obtain at least portions of Dalmatia, a la Russia's annexation of Crimea? I know the Soviet Union (if it survives) and the United States might not be enthusiastic about this, but assuming Yugoslavia does violently collapse, would the superpowers try and stop them?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
But yeah, assuming Italy retains its foothold in the Balkans by way of Albania, could we rule out future designs on the region? For instance, if Yugoslavia still collapses at some point, might Italy try to expand into Kosovo on the pretext of protecting ethnic Albanians? Might they still try to obtain at least portions of Dalmatia?
Yes, certainly.

Indeed, what would be especially interesting is if Italy would be able to partition Yugoslavia together with Hungary while Britain and France are still busy taking care of Germany. Indeed, in such a scenario, Italy could acquire Kosovo, Slovenia, and Croatia while Hungary acquires Vojvodina and a Serb rump state is created in the remainder of Yugoslavia.

However, would Mussolini and Horthy actually be bold enough to try pulling off something like this?
 
Yes, certainly.

Indeed, what would be especially interesting is if Italy would be able to partition Yugoslavia together with Hungary while Britain and France are still busy taking care of Germany. Indeed, in such a scenario, Italy could acquire Kosovo, Slovenia, and Croatia while Hungary acquires Vojvodina and a Serb rump state is created in the remainder of Yugoslavia.

However, would Mussolini and Horthy actually be bold enough to try pulling off something like this?

Oh, as edits to my comment conveyed, I was referring to Italian actions in the context of some future breakup of Yugoslavia decades after the Second World War, not territorial acquisitions made during and perhaps immediately after that conflict.

Should Italy take that much territory at that time, I see Croatia and Slovenia going independent just as soon as fascism falls in Italy, or even possibly before, along with colonies elsewhere that haven't been Italianized (see: Portugal's loss of its own colonial empire in the 1970s). The only exceptions would be region with a notable ethnic Italian (Dalmatia) or Albanian (Kosovo) presence.
 
But yeah, assuming Italy retains its foothold in the Balkans by way of Albania, could we rule out future designs on the region? For instance, if Yugoslavia still collapses at some point, might Italy try to expand into Kosovo on the pretext of protecting ethnic Albanians? Might they still try to obtain at least portions of Dalmatia, a la Russia's annexation of Crimea? I know the Soviet Union (if it survives) and the United States might not be enthusiastic about this, but assuming Yugoslavia does violently collapse, would the superpowers try and stop them?
Don't forget that the Queen of Italy was Montenegrin Royalty, a personal union with a "freed" Montenegro would likely be on the cards should something of the sort happen.
 
A lot of Italians were immigrating to Libya and the population of Arabs was very small (even today it's only 6.28 million), and at the rate the Italian population was growing (very much at the encouragement of Mussolini's government), it would have become majority ethnic Italian. It could actually be integrated into the far larger Italy quite easily, and the oil there provides a MASSIVE incentive to do so. It's probable that it stays part of Italy. The effects of the oil reserves on the Italian economy would be interesting. They were quite deep so without an early and extreme wank of drilling technology they are most likely not discovered before the same time as in OTL, the late 1950s.

Italian East Africa is a different story. Too big and far away to be held, much like French Indochina was for the French. Most likely an ugly insurgency a la Algeria followed by eventual independence.
 
The key is does Italy accept mixed races as Italians or push them into being Libyans. The same is true for ambitious young men and women. If you learn Italian and try to adopt Italian customs, are you accepted as an Italian.

I don't know how much that was true back then, but quite a few arabs could have passed for southern Italians, which itself was an integration advantage compared to the French in Algeria.

Yes
Albania not as appealing as Libya
I'm not sure if Italian expansion into the Balkans would be tolerated

Much depends on how the rest of the Balkans go.

Remember that Albania wanted a foreign prince as king to be taken seriously in the international arena and being stuck between Yugoslavia (or parts of it) and Greece, both with border disputes, they might have wanted another power to balance them out and remain a willing protectorate of some sort.
 
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