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

Libya will remain italians, between the original plan of population settlement started just before the war and the later discovery of oil it will become too economical important and with a too large italian population to let her go; this will be aided by the small local population (less than 1,5 million in 1960...so getting much more italian there is not that difficult comparated to Algeria).
This will still bring trouble, but more of occasional terrorism than a full fledged liberation war; it will be probably a thorn in the relationships between Italy and the rest of the arab world and will bring Rome to support Tel Aviv (expecially if Benny shielded a sizeble numbers of jew refugees during the war).
Changes also in the Algerian war (and Tunisia) as i doubt that Rome will be happy with all that revolutionary near Libya, so she will support France anti-insurgency effort and Spain war against Morocco.

Eritrea, will be probably be kept...in a Dominion-like status, the locals hate and fear the Ethiopians much more than the italians, so if someone of smart offer them local autonomy to remain quiet they will probably accept.
Ethiopia will be a mess, various faction fighting the italians and probably each others with the big powers supporting their own rebels, it will be the italian Angola if someone activate his brain and finally realize that the place is worthless and don't deserve the blood of a single carabiniere.

Somalia, probably will be let go or maybe get Dominion like status, much depend on the internal italian situation.

Albania, well better remember that at the time, is still more a confederation of clan than a proper nation (that changed with Hoxa and the communist), so between italian economic penetration and colonization (yes we send colonist even there) she can hold there but it's not garanteed and violence will happen.
Tension with Greece due to territorial claim and minority on both side are bound to happen, same with Jugoslavia (even worse if something like OTL happen there)
 

BlondieBC

Banned
What was Mussolini's attitude in regards to this?

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

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

However, does this single state survive (perhaps as a federation)? Or does it descend into civil war and break up?

I am not good on internal Italian politics. But to the integration, a lot of it is not government policy but people actions. In many Muslim countries throughout history, I can simply convert to Islam and go to Friday prayers, and I will be accepted as full member of the society. It is a big portion of why Islam was so successful. The question is the reverse true. A young, athletic Libyan Muslim dreams of being the next great general. If he convert to Catholicism and attends mass, will he have the same chance of gaining a officer commission as someone who grew up Catholic? Look at Tsarist Russia with high ranking Generals with German names. How many great German generals do you find with Slavic surnames? Or for that matter, were not Prussian nobles?

I can't prove it to you, but I strongly suspect that the Hapsburg had inherited a culture that was willing to accept in new Germans that half of the minorities in Austria-Hungary IOTL would be Germanized ITTL.

I am talking about broad trends. Over 10 centuries, the Germans under performed on assimilation. At times, Germans did ok.

A lot of people moving is economic, so a lot depends on what you think the economic policies will be. So for example, lets say that to make Albania more Italian, the Italians move much of their naval base to Albania. This act would make Albania a lot more Italian in 50 years. As would building major tourist resorts on the coast. It is just not really callable without actually writing the ATL.

Who know on Italian East Africa. IOTL, Ethiopia breaks up. Cameroon with over 300 separate languages stays together. Nigeria with over 300 languages has a north/south divide. And the Congo seems to spend more time in civil war than peace.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
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.

People keep saying this in various threads, and it is sort of true. Most of the world did not drill this deep, but a well in Ohio hit 30,000 feet around 1910. You can drill the Libyan oil as soon as you want to bring over the best oil men in the world at this time, Standard Oil and its successor companies. It is how the Saudi developed their oil fields.
 
With at least Libya, I can see Italy ensuring that the coastal region (Quarta Sponda) be firmly Italian. Libya as a whole had less than 900,000 in 1939 to Italy's 44 million. In fact, if somehow all the Italian military deaths (319,200) of OTL WW2 settled in Libya. that should basically tip the scale towards full integration of the coast.
 

nbcman

Donor
People keep saying this in various threads, and it is sort of true. Most of the world did not drill this deep, but a well in Ohio hit 30,000 feet around 1910. You can drill the Libyan oil as soon as you want to bring over the best oil men in the world at this time, Standard Oil and its successor companies. It is how the Saudi developed their oil fields.

Are you sure about that well depth in 1910? In a Mining American magazine from 1918, they stated that the deepest well in the world at the time was 7359 feet in Germany. The deepest in the US at that time was planned to go to about 7250 feet. I am not sure if a 30,000 foot depths were reached until the 1960s but I believe they were reached in the 1970s.

EDIT: Also, Libya's onshore oil discoveries were never that deep.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Are you sure about that well depth in 1910? In a Mining American magazine from 1918, they stated that the deepest well in the world at the time was 7359 feet in Germany. The deepest in the US at that time was planned to go to about 7250 feet. I am not sure if a 30,000 foot depths were reached until the 1960s but I believe they were reached in the 1970s.

EDIT: Also, Libya's onshore oil discoveries were never that deep.

I remember reading about it in a news paper of the time, but it was a few years ago, so memory can slip. I looked some more, it looks like the deepest Ohio well is 13,000 or so now, so I misremember the number.

I went back and looked at the depths of the Libyan and quite a few other fields when I did research for my ATL. The Libyan oil is technically drillable in the interwar years. It is drillable technically, it just has to political will to look for it, some luck, and the desire to drill. From Wiki.

Discovered in 1956, Zelten was Libya's first major oil well, producing about 17,500 bbl/d (2,780 m3/d). In 1959, its reserves were estimated at 2.5 billion barrels (400,000,000 m3) of 38° API oil, lying at 5,500-7,600 feet. Esso Standard began production of Zelten in 1961.
 
I remember reading about it in a news paper of the time, but it was a few years ago, so memory can slip. I looked some more, it looks like the deepest Ohio well is 13,000 or so now, so I misremember the number.

I went back and looked at the depths of the Libyan and quite a few other fields when I did research for my ATL. The Libyan oil is technically drillable in the interwar years. It is drillable technically, it just has to political will to look for it, some luck, and the desire to drill. From Wiki.

I read in some other thread here that Standard Oil had the tech to drill that deep, but the understanding of geology to locate such deposits wasn't there yet, so it would have been a crapshoot.

I think Italy will eventually want to italianize it's entire empire. Including Ethiopia.

So did France and especially Portugal, for demographic reasons. We saw how it all ended.

Main thing is, there is nothing really worth having in Ethiopia apart from coffee and small mineral deposits. Now, if we talk about Somalia, there's uranium, but that was discovered only recently, I believe.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I read in some other thread here that Standard Oil had the tech to drill that deep, but the understanding of geology to locate such deposits wasn't there yet, so it would have been a crapshoot.

Main thing is, there is nothing really worth having in Ethiopia apart from coffee and small mineral deposits. Now, if we talk about Somalia, there's uranium, but that was discovered only recently, I believe.

Here is my memory. I read about 10K pages of primary sources for my ATL before starting to write. Among them was that someone (Standard Oil), drilled an extraordinary deep well in Ohio. No specific recollection on if it produced. I then went and look at the big what if onshore fields (Japan, Italy, Nigeria, ). They were all drillable technically, but it economics that generally would prevent drilling. So we get into one of these interesting scenarios. If a major power won WW1 and felt a need for an oil field, there was one for each which might be found with luck.

On other asides, it often takes 20-25 years from first prospecting to major production. Wildcatters miss so much. A good example is the big field in China that Japan missed. They were actively drilling in the correct formation, but missed the oil. The technical issue of production would have been waxed which technology of the day could have handled. It is easy to flip to an ATL where Japan is not motivated to move past the Yangtze basin. They have all the minerals they want. The same is true for Italy, which could have found and developed Italian oil.

I have read a story from the 1960's where a company missed a multi-billion dollar oil field (today money) because they stopped 10 feet short. 10 feet. .
 
You can drill the Libyan oil as soon as you want to bring over the best oil men in the world at this time, Standard Oil and its successor companies. It is how the Saudi developed their oil fields.

The Moose didn't have great relationships with US businessmen, unlike Ibn Saud, who was very friendly.

Kept Ford out of Italy, after all

Need to rewire his brain( and most of the other top Fascists) on how Autarky is not the path to trod.
 
I asked this some other place as well, without luck, but maybe someone here has a thought on this:

To what extent could/would neutral Italy accept Jewish refugees fleeing Europe, and settle them in their colonies? (maybe coupled with a mandatory language course, a pledge of loyalty and probably a 'processing fee' as well)

After all, Mussolini seemed positively pro-Jewish at one point in the 30s, commenting how well integrated Italian Jews were, banging his Jewish mistress, having Jews like this guy in the higher echelons of power, criticizing Hitlers racist ways etc.

Settling 1-2 million Jews in Libya and East Africa would have massive implications later on.
 
Assuming a neutral Italy in WW2, I'd say Mussolini would have been savy enough to widely publish and double down on his comparatively pro-Jewish policies to show how different "real Fascism" is compared to the Nazis. So there definitely should have been some refugees. Probably as soon as the U.S. joins the war.

About the oil: I don't think it matter all that much how long it'll take before drilling can start. As soon as the Italians know it's there will be drillable at some point, that'll have almost the effect of making the territory much more valuable. Also even though they wont get profits from it yet, it'll boost Italy's credit rating - and threaten to see it nosedive should they ever loose Libya.
 
Assuming a neutral Italy in WW2, I'd say Mussolini would have been savy enough to widely publish and double down on his comparatively pro-Jewish policies to show how different "real Fascism" is compared to the Nazis. So there definitely should have been some refugees. Probably as soon as the U.S. joins the war.

About the oil: I don't think it matter all that much how long it'll take before drilling can start. As soon as the Italians know it's there will be drillable at some point, that'll have almost the effect of making the territory much more valuable. Also even though they wont get profits from it yet, it'll boost Italy's credit rating - and threaten to see it nosedive should they ever loose Libya.
Why not earlier? The Germans were still trying to get rid of their Jews the old-fashioned way at that point, only no one would have them...
 
You know, one of the "good" things about Fascism, it's that it basically was whatever Mussolini felt like doing at the moment.

A Mussolini that remained neutral in World War II could very well decide not to be a racist prick. Fascism, maybe as a reaction against Adolf Hitler and Nazism, could turn into some kind of equal opportunity authoritarianism: as long as you adhere to an Abrahamic religion (Mussolini didn't have anything against Jews, and liked to portray himself as a friend to those of Muslim faith, even building and/or restoring mosques in Libya), speak the tongue of Dante Alighieri, and live by the word of the regime, no one will care about the way you worship God or the colour of your skin.

Especially Eritrea, since it's so close to the Ethiopian clusterfuck, could be turned into some kind of model colony, even more so than Taiwan was under Japan: after the fall of the regime (in the early 1970s, maybe) Eritrea and Libya could become full regions of Italy: Eritrea wouldn't be majority Italian, while Libya would be.

Contemporary Italy would probably be less racist, because of almost a century of contact between the peoples of the mainland and the black and/or Muslim peoples of Eritrea and Libya; it would be as easy to buy a pizza in Asmara or Tripoli as it would be to buy injera or shakshouka in Rome.

And Mussolini would be regarded as the best head of government in the country's history. :mad:

Fascism as an ideology wouldn't be discredited, either; plenty of nationalist movements, especially in the Middle East, in North Africa and in South East Asia, would unironically worship the D(o)uc(h)e. :mad:
 
You know, one of the "good" things about Fascism, it's that it basically was whatever Mussolini felt like doing at the moment.

A Mussolini that remained neutral in World War II could very well decide not to be a racist prick. Fascism, maybe as a reaction against Adolf Hitler and Nazism, could turn into some kind of equal opportunity authoritarianism: as long as you adhere to an Abrahamic religion (Mussolini didn't have anything against Jews, and liked to portray himself as a friend to those of Muslim faith, even building and/or restoring mosques in Libya), speak the tongue of Dante Alighieri, and live by the word of the regime, no one will care about the way you worship God or the colour of your skin.

Especially Eritrea, since it's so close to the Ethiopian clusterfuck, could be turned into some kind of model colony, even more so than Taiwan was under Japan: after the fall of the regime (in the early 1970s, maybe) Eritrea and Libya could become full regions of Italy: Eritrea wouldn't be majority Italian, while Libya would be.

Contemporary Italy would probably be less racist, because of almost a century of contact between the peoples of the mainland and the black and/or Muslim peoples of Eritrea and Libya; it would be as easy to buy a pizza in Asmara or Tripoli as it would be to buy injera or shakshouka in Rome.

And Mussolini would be regarded as the best head of government in the country's history. :mad:

Fascism as an ideology wouldn't be discredited, either; plenty of nationalist movements, especially in the Middle East, in North Africa and in South East Asia, would unironically worship the D(o)uc(h)e. :mad:

That all sounds awesome to me.

Spain and Portugal's regimes fell in the 70s due to a death of their leader. However, if they weren't internationally isolated per OTL because Fascist Italy would still be around don't be surprised if those three regimes still exist by the new millennia ITTL. Depending on how WWII goes (assuming Germany loses) we could see other countries remain Fascist or become fascist in Europe. Perhaps Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Turkey, or even Greece (which IOTL was actually Fascist) would be potential fascist countries after the fall of Nazism or the Iron curtain depending on how WWII and the Cold War go. France might see someone like de la Rocque and his French Social Party in charge after the war instead of Dr Gaulle, again depending on how WWII goes.

It's hard to predict anything outside of Italy itself after WWII without knowing how WWII goes. The international situation would certainly effect whether Italy maintains her colonies.
 
Why not earlier? The Germans were still trying to get rid of their Jews the old-fashioned way at that point, only no one would have them...
They could, but that doesn't necessarily mean they would. Given how often the divinely inspired state doctrines of authoritarian regimes, just so happen to coincinde with the momentary personal whims of the guy in charge it could go either way IMO. Just saying that once the U.S. joins the war against the Nazis, making clear that there's a difference between "real Fascism" and the Nazis clear will get somewhat more important ;) .

About colonialism: I'd picture at some point an "Algerian crisis" that threatens to break NATO and the EEC will erupt when France allies want them to leave Algeria, while the Triple Fascist Alliance keeps on offering it's help to France. IMHO given it's rather well-deserved reputation for occasional bouts of chaos, France going in either direction would both be realistic. South Africa and Rhodesia will also be shopping for new friends once the embargoes start going. Unlike France, I'd consider it almost certain that they'll align themselves with the Fascist block at least for a while.
 
Libya and Albania could and would be settled heavily and integrated into Italy proper. Eritea too, if the cards fall properly.

Somalia is probably too much of a long shot.

I wonder if they might make a move on Tunisia when France leaves - it had a sizable Italian population, and the possibility of linking the straights would be tempting.
 
I don't want to broaden the topic too severely, but since how long Italy's colonial empire would last in such a scenario would obviously depend on the postwar geopolitical situation (for instance, how much pressure the United States would put on European powers to decolonize)... how does World War II go without the Italians in the Axis? Without getting bogged down elsewhere, might the Germans do better in Eastern Europe, at least initially? Would this lead to more of Europe (say, all of Germany, which may lose less territory, Poland, Czechoslovakia, more of Southeastern Europe, etc) being in the American sphere after the war, rather than under Soviet domination?

If so, the Cold War might be somewhat lessened, at least in the Atlantic, which may mean the US applies less pressure on countries like Italy to withdraw from their colonies.
 
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