I know he didn’t have the same iron grip but he was ousted in a war he was losing terribly. In a TL where he successfully lead Italy against the nazis and probably gaining the support of the US and Co I can’t see his rule being tenuous.
What would the post war era look like for a Neutral or Allied Fascist Italy?
- Thread starter ImperialxWarlord
- Start date
They can try but I don’t think it’ll ever be anything major or independent. Nor can I see the British doing that to snub the US. And if they try it won’t work. I can see Italy being aggressive in their foreign policy but it’ll never be a third way IMO. But I do agree Libya will remain theirs. Especially once oil is found. What’s AOI?
Garrison
Donor
There's the central problem, I cannot see any scenario where that happens, no matter how hard Mussolini tries to spin things.
Why is that so hard to imagine? Why is the idea that an Italy which has had more time to prepare for a war, joins when the side has clearly turned against Germany, and probably has other allies fighting with them on their front to some degree so hard to imagine?
Garrison
Donor
Because those preparations are unlikely to help. Italy's industrial and resource base is too small and there's an incredible degree of inefficiency and the senior military ranks are dominated by officers chosen for their political loyalty, the issues of the Fascist system in Italy are systemic, they aren't likely to be fixed by simply waiting a year and I was primarily thinking in terms of a neutral Italy rather than one that commits to joining the war.
I’m aware of these issues but they’ll be fighting a Germany that’s fighting on two fronts and likely not expecting a third. And I imagine some degree of help from their allies would also be there.
Independent it will, even OTL France acted fairly independently (as much as it could). AOI is Africa Orientale Italiana, Italy's recent amalgamation of its East African colonies.
Fascist Italy wasn't a tinpot despot. They had a large economy and large military before WW2, being neutral would make it stronger. They would have some geopolitical leverage and they would probably use it like De Gaulle used his.
Yeah. I imagine that even though they’ll be aligned with the US and Co they’ll go against the trend. Someone somewhere mentioned maybe allying with England, Israel, and France against Egypt. Not sure why but it’s interesting. Ah, didn’t know what that meant lol. I can’t see them staying in Ethiopia forever but not sure about the rest.
Why would Italy stay neutral when it’s ideological enemy was communism? There’s more to be gained by aligning with the US and Co. They would definitely act independently like the French but not to the point of neutrality.
A neutral fascist Italy is a question I once did look at previously. As I noted then (two and a half years ago as I write this), a neutral fascist Italy would have had more resources than Salazar’s Portugal or Franco’s Spain with which to keep its African colonies.
Given that Mussolini’s anticommunism would have made him a valuable Cold War ally – all the West’s ruling classes supported him against the threat of the Bolshevik Revolution spreading from Russia – it is virtually certain he would have become an American ally in the Cold War. Communism had such a strong history in Italy that I could easily see the West wanting to maintain the dictatorship even after Mussolini does die or decline physically. It is implausible that Mussolini could have lived to see the end of the Cold War unless that occurred much earlier – he would have turned seventy-five in August 1958 – but it is certainly possible his regime could have survived after his death or decline. An Italian colonial war in Africa to hold Libya, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland would I feel have been less difficult for Mussolini than Salazar’s colonial war proved. Although one could argue that the terrain was more difficult than Salazar had to face, distances between different colonies were smaller, and political ties with the West probably stronger, especially as Italy’s largest and most important colony was oil-rich Libya. In fact, I could imagien a survivng fascist Italy in control of Libya try to develop ties with the Gulf monarchies – perhaps trying to serve as their major ally in the West after Baḥrain, Kuwait, Qaṭar and the United Arab Emirates ceased being British protectorates.
Unless:
- Britain, France and the United States saw mass protests against supporting an Italian colonial war or demanding intervention in favour of the colonised Africans, or
- Internal protests against Mussolini or a successor are strong enough to overthrow the regime, or
- The ruling class fails to stay unified over the question of succession to Mussolini and this leads to a liberalisation
In a political environment like that of the 1980s, a regime like a surviving fascist Italy would likely have been openly viewed as a model by (Western) ruling classes eager to maintain their profits and to increase their wealth under conditions of crisis. This would make its collapse post-1978 quite unlikely, even if it was the only surviving dictatorship of its type: witness such cases as China, North Korea, Belarus and Cuba today and one imagines than if any of the older right-wing dictatorships did make it to October 1978, they could survive indefinitely as the three dictatorships above have.
Yeah I generally agree with all of this. Although I don’t think the US and Co would care about any colonial war unless it was exceptionally brutal and used chemical weapons or something. If Italy’s enemies are socialist or communist idk if the west will care about a colonial. War.
But I think like you said the major factors needed for a surviving fascist Italy has to be close ties to the west, Libya’s oil, and reforms like we’ve see in modern authoritarian states.
Why would they lose their African colonies but absorb some rather useless Greek islands? Maybe east Africa after a few decades (well after anyone else if Portugal could keep going into the 70s) but definitely not Libya.
I think in the long run they’d have to give up on Ethiopia. Somalia? Maybe. Eritrea from what I’ve read seemed to be content as part of Italy, but they could lose that too. Their holdings in the Mediterranean would probably be kept indefiitely.
Yeah I don’t think Ethiopia would be under their rule for very long and not sure about Somalia and Eritrea. Libya is probably non negotiable for them once they hit like there. I just don’t see why they’d keep minor holdings in Greece.
There's no way for them to hold on in North Africa once the wave of Arab independence happens. Maybe they keep an enclave, or they are able to puppetize postcolonial Libya, but once independence rips through the Arab world, it'll hit Libya too, nominally at least. As or the Greek islands, they are places where Italy had interests and ambitions, and were largely ruled by Venice once upon a time.
I don’t see why it would be so impossible for them to hold NA but possible to hold east Africa. Libya is right there, has an significantly smaller population based heavily in coastal cities, and iirc the Italians wanted to import people to Libya to make it a settler colony and Italianize it. Once the Italians find that oils there’s no way they’re letting it go. And I just still don’t get why they’d keep islands that have no strategic or economic importance.
I don't think Italy could hold onto its East Africa holdings at all. Libya is likely gone too. Italy may gain no additional colonies, but it would still be holing the Dodecanese, islands no less useless to them than any of those they might gain if Greece went Communist. Maybe Italy gives up the Dodecanese too, but that might end up depending on the fate of Greece i the alternate World War II. But, if France was not able to hold onto any part of Algeria, Italy was not going to hold onto Libya or anything else in Africa. Keeping Albania is interesting, but I'm not even sure that's going to be possible.
