Western Allies' Military Strategy/Campaigns if Italy remains Neutral.

Some considerations on Italian neutrality:

1) The Brits have effectively more merchant tonnage from summer 1940 to mid-1943 because they can ship through the Med rather than having to around Africa. Big help in the naval tonnage war.
2) The Brits have considerably less actual merchant tonnage because they don't get to seize about a third of the Italian merchant marine that historically the Italians didn't get to safety in time.
3) The Brits don't lose the men and equipment that they historically lost in the attempt to rescue Greece and to defend Crete. Not sure where they use all of that, but presumably the men and material would be available if the Japanese tried something.
4) The Brits don't experience the Italian innovations in using frogmen against warships, and presumably are less likely to adopt them for use against the likes of the Tirpitz.
5) The Brits don't sink Italian battleships with a torpedo-bomber raid. The Japanese historically developed the concept of doing a similar raid on Pearl Harbor at least partly independently from the Brits, but seeing the concept actually work had to make accepting the risks of such a raid seem more palatable.
 
Another potential butterfly is no Taranto Raid, wasn't it the success of that raid that convinced the IJN that the Pearl Harbour strike was feasible?
 
Post-Munich, no one is making treaties with Hitler. Period. It's easy to wax philosophical at a distance of over 70 years, but following Dunkirk the betrayal of the Munich Accords was only one year old in people's minds. And following the start of Barbarossa, the Blitz would stop anyway. And in 1941 there WAS no political alternative to Churchill. Everyone else was either tarred by the brush of appeasement or too inexperienced.

The British did have the option of "cleaning up" more remote Vichy French colonies around the world at least. Eventually even French North West Africa, since the Germans didn't have the means to respond.

Mussolini's offer to mediate over Czechoslovakia led to Munich. Mussolini's offer to mediate over Poland (after the invasion started!) nearly resulted in Chamberlain's expulsion when he referred to it on 9/1/39.:mad:

Appeasement and defeatism in the UK were dead by this time. Britain had two choices: fight, or die.

A cabinet meeting at the end of May 1940 was apparently a close thing. Halifax had been in contact with the Italians and it was discussed in cabinet. Churchill was not in a strong position and had to be skilful in out manoeuvering Halifax and the appeasers.
 
Expect the Allies to put pressure on Turkey to allow Lend-Lease convoys through the Bosporous, and German pressure on them to refuse.

Without the losses taking Crete, the Germans would be more willing to undertake large airborne operations.
 
Explain please. Presumably no Italian invasion of Greece (though I'm not entirely sure that follows). That equals no German pressure on Yugoslavia to allow German troops through to attack Greece. If there was a Yugoslav coup it would be for internal Yugoslav reasons, with no incentive for the Germans to get involved. Without the need to bail out the Italians, the Germans had no incentive to get involved militarily in the Balkans. The Balkans were already economically in the German orbit and Hitler recognized that there was little to be gained by military occupation.

Easy. Yugoslavia was expected to be part of the Axis supporting Barbarossa. The Serbian-backed coup was perceived as a "betrayal" by Hitler that had to be punished. The incentive to secure Yugoslavia for the Axis/Germany was based on the fact that Hitler felt he could not allow any threat to his lines of communication to his only source of chrome, the most crucial metal needed for Germany's making of weapons.

Hitler's only source was Turkey, and the rail lines ran from Turkey to Germany through Greece (for a very short distance), Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia to Germany. By war's end, Germany's strategic supply of chrome was exhausted. If not for the Allied strategic bombing campaign, it would have been exhausted long before (approximately late Summer 1944). There was X amount of war materiel Germany could produce in WWII. They just about reached it by the time Germany fell.

DaleCoz said:
The most useful deployment of paratroopers would be to secure a few key railroad bridges. Securing some of the ones the Soviets blew would have helped German logistics considerably in late 1941. Most of the winter gear that the Germans belatedly attempted to send to the front in fall 1941 was trapped on the wrong side of a blown (and not yet rebuilt) railroad bridge during the time it would have been most useful.

Good point. But an even more successful opening round of Barbarossa isn't going to change the issues of rail conversion (as opposed to simple repair) from the Russian rail gauge. Turning the pace of advancement for operable German rail lines in Russia downwards by 80%. Not to mention Mud will still arrive on time, and Winter after that. With the Germans completely unprepared for a long war.

DaleCoz said:
The approximately 270 Ju-52s the Germans lost in taking Crete would have probably been more useful than the paratroopers. The Germans relied heavily on transport planes to fill in logistics gaps, and never had enough of them. Granted, even with the extra planes air transport couldn't have moved the bulk of material the Germans needed, but I could see the extra planes letting a few panzers divisions keep moving for another two or three days when they would otherwise have had to stop. Would that ever have been crucial? Was there ever a point in the campaign where the panzers stopped due to lack of supplies and the ability to go another 50-60 miles would have made a major difference?

WEATHER was the big killer. The Ju-52s could help, but they have to be supplied too. At the distances involved, even the Luftwaffe became grounded, or were operating too far from their own line of ground operations. It might have helped on the approach to Moscow, but it also would have meant the Germans would be even more overextended when the Soviet counteroffensive hit.

DaleCoz said:
I'm reasonably sure that if you plotted out the campaign step-by-step with the different beginning forces and different personalities on the German side you would discover that neither Stalingrad nor Kursk were likely to happen in anything like their historical form.

A prediction as difficult to make as measuring the path of a flitting butterfly.:)
 
Several people have mentioned French North Africa. I suspect that what would happen there would be a bit ambiguous. Without the Italians as part of the disarmament teams and without Italian and potentially German forces in Libya ready to enforce disarmament terms, I suspect that the French in North Africa would be more apt to hide armaments and that the Germans would be less aggressive in policing that.

Historically General Weygand was in charge in North Africa for a while, and made efforts to keep French forces there somewhat more powerful than they would otherwise have been. The Germans got suspicious of him and forced him out historically. I'm not sure they would have been aggressive enough to do that with no access to North Africa.

As the balance of power in the world shifted against the Germans, I could see the French getting more aggressive in rearming in North Africa, with the US sending duel-use technology like trucks and radios and maneuvering to get the French back in the war, at least in North Africa, while the Vichy government tries to stay out until the balance shifts decisively against the Germans.

Neither FDR nor the US Congress would authorize the sending of one slingshot to the French as long as Vichy is still in power. It would be seen as risking that one day those weapons/materiel would be used to help blow the legs off of American kids (paraphrasing Ike here). At the time, FDR didn't even trust DeGaulle!:( Again, we are looking from a distance of 70 years.

Less aggressive policing by the Germans? Two words: Informants and Gestapo.
 
A cabinet meeting at the end of May 1940 was apparently a close thing. Halifax had been in contact with the Italians and it was discussed in cabinet. Churchill was not in a strong position and had to be skilful in out manoeuvering Halifax and the appeasers.

He was skillful in outmaneuvering the appeasers. But it was Halifax who was not in a strong position. It was Churchill who was revealed as a modern day Cassandra regarding Hitler, and the appeasers as a pack of fools. Halifax's installment as Prime Minister was a pipe-dream of Chamberlain's, and even Halifax himself recognized the unworkability of a Peer as a PM in the twentieth century, especially in wartime.

Though I acknowledge that had Chamberlain fallen at the start of the war Churchill's position would have been far weaker. Churchill was in a position THEN to go into the House, break Chamberlain, and take his place as Prime Minister. But THAT would have led to exactly the circumstances you describe.:(
 
Expect the Allies to put pressure on Turkey to allow Lend-Lease convoys through the Bosporous, and German pressure on them to refuse.

Without the losses taking Crete, the Germans would be more willing to undertake large airborne operations.

Turkey would never do it. Between the Luftwaffe, Barbarossa, the narrowness of the straits, and the Turks determination to stay out of the war, it's a non-starter.
 
Turkey would never do it. Between the Luftwaffe, Barbarossa, the narrowness of the straits, and the Turks determination to stay out of the war, it's a non-starter.

Indeed in these Turkey joins the Axis TL's people never give a reason for the Turks acting in German intrests instead of their own. The only way Turkey can join the Axis in a realistic manner is if the Soviets attack them first.

On the main point without Italy joining WW2 the Germans will still have concerns over Greece which could host British troops and majorty Serb Yugoslavia is largely pro-Russian and is not a reliable ally.

Also as has been pointed out German logistics, will be the main factor in their troop deployments to the east. Extra troops are worthless if they cant be kept in supply. And there are limits to what German logsrics can support.
 
It seems very unlikely that Greece will agree to host British troops without an actual state of war with Italy first so it is likely that Greece will get to stay out of the war.


In addition to Turkish interests there was Turkish lack of military ability. The air force consisted of outdated and obsolete aircraft of many lands, the navy had an outdated battle cruiser and a few destroyers, the army's tanks could form a single battalion and including the obsolete material there were a total of six artillery pieces and eight machine guns(!) for each division...and rifles enough for two thirds of the infantry.
 
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