The Ljubljana Gap Strategy

Maybe it's too much to hope for two excellent Slovenia threads in a row, but I wanted to return to a classic WWII POD:
The Ljubljana Gap Strategy. For those not familiar, there was a significant debate among the Allied Command as to how the Invasion of Italy would end. The plan was to turn right at Venice and open a third path to Berlin. As a battle plan, it was iffy -- Slovenia's mountains offered the Germans some decent defensive positions, especially compared to the plains of France and Poland. But politically, the implications are stunning: Western forces would have rolled through Ljubljana, Vienna, Prague, and Dresden on their way to Berlin. It was probably too late to avoid the division of Germany, but you could end up with a Neutral Slovenia, a NATO Austria, and a Czechoslovakia divided into a capitalist Czechia and a communist Slovakia.

There are countless, globe-spanning implications to this POD. This thread is open to all of them...
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... but since I started this thread, I'll start off the discussion with one of the most obscure implications: Istria. The western half was mostly Italian, but they mass-migrated to Italy after Italy lost. Many "mainland" Croats migrated to Istria to replace them. Many "native" Istrians act more like they are their own nationality than as if they truly see themselves as Croats, and speak dialects that could just as easily be classified as "Slovene" after a couple decades of integrationist schooling. With Tito having much less bargaining power ITTL, I can see the Soviets being quite willing to hand this to Slovenia -- giving this remarkably lucky little nation a "frontier" to settle!
That's just something that caught my fancy, though, so if others feel like discussing "important" things like Prague Spring, I won't be put off. ;)
 
... but since I started this thread, I'll start off the discussion with one of the most obscure implications: Istria. The western half was mostly Italian, but they mass-migrated to Italy after Italy lost. Many "mainland" Croats migrated to Istria to replace them. Many "native" Istrians act more like they are their own nationality than as if they truly see themselves as Croats, and speak dialects that could just as easily be classified as "Slovene" after a couple decades of integrationist schooling. With Tito having much less bargaining power ITTL, I can see the Soviets being quite willing to hand this to Slovenia -- giving this remarkably lucky little nation a "frontier" to settle!
That's just something that caught my fancy, though, so if others feel like discussing "important" things like Prague Spring, I won't be put off. ;)

I don't know how much support Tito had in Slovenia or in Istria, but I would have expected that Tito might well have MORE bargaining power, not less. Surely a Ljubljana Gap strategy would start by massively supplying Tito's partisans - first with weapons, then with OSS/SAS/Chindit type special forces. Even once regular military starts moving in, the Partisans are still going to be covering forces, scouts, advance guard, etc.

I doubt the Western Allies would even try sending regular army forces in until the Partisans have softened up the Germans in the area.

There are several points during the invasion of Italy where things could have gone much better for the Allies if certain generals had had more guts/foresight (and possibly luck). If the Allies can get all of Italy before D-Day, this plan might be possible. Actually, doing much better is a prerequisite, as they hadn't gotten that far north when Germany surrendered IIRC.
 
istrians and slovenians didnt realy like each other that much, some of the worst crimes in Istria were done by slovenian partisans, its all ok now, theres olnly a few crazy people that make a fuss about borders and crap, but in 1945 they probbably wouldnt want to go live together, unless heavily armed, in fact most istrians ran as far as they could
and the "dialect" is far from similar, istrians speak a form of veneto, wich is an old italic dielect, slovenci speak, wel.. slovenian, so i dont think any number of years of integrationism or any amount of land to settle would help

olnly way is that someone else instead of Tito empties all of Istria, wich is realy not likely

in regional terms there is little else that can happen to Slovenia but get swaloved up by Yugoslavia, as did in OTL
Istria on the other hand was diferent, it was used as a bargaining chip against Titos demands in Bulgaria, and there were plans for Istria to become a free republic, as it had a longlasting antifashist movement, on wich the potential indipendance was based, and was a region of italian majority, as oposed to the rest of Yugoslavia, but that newer happened

another important thing is the "migration" you speak of
istrians of italian ethnicity did not mass migrate after Italy lost, they fled after partisan forces started ethnic clensing in the whole area, and mostly noone migrated into the area later on, most of it is still empty, althou slovenians were free to do so, there were even goverment incentives to resettle the area and so on
 
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How would that happen anyway? If you think about pushing from Italy you need a much faster Italian campaign so Wallies don't get to the north by 1945.

Other way is amphibious landing in NE Adriatic which would be tricky for various reasons, chief among them being the fact that Adriatic was controlled by Axis and likely outside of fighter range and you have to cross Karst ledge, not an easy task. Then you'd have to cross few mountain massifs to start romping about. Of course you could land further south but lower you go more terrain you have to cover.
 
Perhaps if you remove Operation Dragoon (Which IIRC drastically weakened the Italian Front) the Allies will have enough "oomph" to pull such an operation off?
 
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