For whatever reason, after the Second World War, Italy loses South Tyrol to Austria, but keeps Istria, and maybe even the coastal cities the country held on the coast of Dalmatia. Assuming that everything else stays the same, with liberal Austria being on the western side of the Iron Curtain, and Tito's Yugoslavia being on the eastern side of it, how would this change affect Cold War politics in all three countries?
WI: After World War II, Italy loses South Tyrol, but keeps Istria?
- Thread starter Neoteros
- Start date
To be clear: parts of Istria can be kept, depending on the exact POD. The pre-war border, however, is out of the question, barring a completely different war for Italy.
'Whatever reason' here is pretty important in shaping the follow-up. Anyways.
For Italy, the Trieste Question was a huge problem for the PCI, so avoiding it will be a massive help.
Austria will be more or less the same, while repercussions on Yugoslavia are depending on said 'whatever reasons'.
For Italy, the Trieste Question was a huge problem for the PCI, so avoiding it will be a massive help.
Austria will be more or less the same, while repercussions on Yugoslavia are depending on said 'whatever reasons'.
I wouldn't say "within a breath"; see my analysis at https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...l-alto-adige-to-austria.397862/#post-13096369 I think it was unlikely because the USSR would not favor it once it saw how weak the Communist Party was in Austria, and the Americans in the end would see appeasing Italy--which had already taken territorial lossses--as more important (considering both the danger of strengthening the PCI and the risk of losing the Italian-American vote).
It was very unlikely that Italy could keep Istria, though. In fact, they were lucky to ultimately keep Trieste. In OTL, Slovene Partisans liberated Trieste on May 1, 1945, but there was still fighting going on the next day when New Zealand troops arrived, so there was in effect a dual occupation. Eventually, it was agreed that the Partisan adminstration should give way to Anglo-American administration of the city itself (as opposed to its Slovene hinterland) which eventually was returned to Italy. Suppose the Slovenes had gotten there well before any western troops, had establsihed firm order, and had de facto incorporated the city into Yugoslavia?, I doubt anything the western powers could do would make Tito and Stalin agree to disgorge it.
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I think a baseline requirement for Italy to keep Istria/Dalmatia is for them to be liberated by the Western Allies rather than the Soviets or Partisans.
Suppose Italy changes sides earlier or the armistice is handled better, there is no fighting south of Rome and peninsula Italy is in Allied hands by early 1944. Then if the front stalemates in northern Italy you might see an amphibious operation across the Adriatic, aimed at outflanking the German line in Venetia and/or pressuring Hungary/Romania/Bulgaria to jump ship. If the Nazis have set up their puppet Croatian state and the Ustase have blotted their copybook as thoroughly as OTL the Croats won't be popular with either set of Allies and if Tito/Yugoslavia is seen as pro-Soviet than the Italians may actually get a hearing (and the Istrian Slovenes and Croats might just decide that Italian rule is preferable to being reunited with the People's Republic of Greater Serbia).
Stalin, however, throws a diplomatic fit over the questionably ex-Fascist Italians coming out of the war with more territory than they started with, so the transfer of the South Tyrol to (officially neutral and occupied) Austria is organised as a counterbalance.
Suppose Italy changes sides earlier or the armistice is handled better, there is no fighting south of Rome and peninsula Italy is in Allied hands by early 1944. Then if the front stalemates in northern Italy you might see an amphibious operation across the Adriatic, aimed at outflanking the German line in Venetia and/or pressuring Hungary/Romania/Bulgaria to jump ship. If the Nazis have set up their puppet Croatian state and the Ustase have blotted their copybook as thoroughly as OTL the Croats won't be popular with either set of Allies and if Tito/Yugoslavia is seen as pro-Soviet than the Italians may actually get a hearing (and the Istrian Slovenes and Croats might just decide that Italian rule is preferable to being reunited with the People's Republic of Greater Serbia).
Stalin, however, throws a diplomatic fit over the questionably ex-Fascist Italians coming out of the war with more territory than they started with, so the transfer of the South Tyrol to (officially neutral and occupied) Austria is organised as a counterbalance.
Istrian Slavs had a thoroughly nasty experience under Italian rule and are highly unlikely to want to chance a repeat. There's a reason why a large portion of the Italian community in the region left post war. Relations, by and large, weren't nice, especially during the wars (both of them).
Perhaps, Italy could keep coastal Istria, gain some more of the Italian majority islands and towns of Dalmatia after the events mentioned by @Merrick, but lose - in addition to South Tyrol - the Slavia Friulana, that'd go to the Slovenian province of Yugoslavia, and perhaps even the Aosta Valley, since De Gaulle wanted to annex it.
Possibile. Though the problem about Slavia Friulana is that most of local Slovenes, unlike those in Venezia Giulia, were largely fine with being in Italy, as far as I know.Perhaps, Italy could keep coastal Istria, gain some more of the Italian majority islands and towns of Dalmatia after the events mentioned by @Merrick, but lose - in addition to South Tyrol - the Slavia Friulana, that'd go to the Slovenian province of Yugoslavia, and perhaps even the Aosta Valley, since De Gaulle wanted to annex it.
There was some vocal support for him before the War but most Italian-Americans patriotically supported the war effort. But in any event, they would all want to see Italy retain its Brenner Pass border--why, they would ask, should the now-democratic Italy have to pay the price for the sins of the Fascists? (After all, there had been plenty of support for the Nazis among Austrians, including those who lived south of the Brenner Pass...) Indeed, even as it was, the Italy-US peace treaty ran into some trouble in the Senate because of italian-Americans who thought it was too harsh on Italy.
"Opposition to the Italian treaty was headed by the Committee for a Just Peace with Italy, Inc., of which Charles Poletti, former Governor of New York, was chairman. Other members included Roger N. Baldwin, former Representative Clare Boothe Luce, Col. Robert P. Marshall, former high-ranking official of the American Military Government in Italy, John O. Pastore, Governor of Rhode Island, Judge Ferdinand Pecora, and many members of university faculties and the press. The committee, basing its campaign on an analysis of the treaty made by former Assistant Secretary of State Adolf A. Berle, Jr., inserted full-page advertisements in newspapers all over the country, declared that: it does not make sense to turn Italy over to communism by withdrawing troops while we are bolstering up Greece and Turkey against Russia; that America will pay Italy's reparations; and that Italy deserves better at our hands than this treaty because of the part that her partisans and troops played in hastening Allied victory. The committee asked Congress to declare officially the end of the war with Italy and pass such other necessary legislation as was done in the case of Germany after World War I.
"Taking a similar stand were the Sons of Italy in America, American Chamber of Commerce for Trade with Italy, American-Italian Congress, several Italian-American labor organizations and the American Committee for Religious Freedom in Italy and Evangelical Committee for Relief in Italy. The two latter groups were represented at the hearings by Dorothy Thompson and Vincent Sheean, also members of the Committee for a Just Peace with Italy."
In the end, the treaty was ratified 79-10, the arguments of Seantors Vandenberg and Barkley prevailing:
"Vandenberg read into the Record in his opening speech a letter from a representative of an Italian news service recently arrived in New York, who said that “almost all Italians who have our country's destiny at heart… and the overwhelming majority of the members of our government and of the Constituent Assembly” feel that “we cannot possibly wait any longer for a starting point on which to build up our national economy… If we had bread and jobs for everyone in Italy, I too would fall in with the Italian-Americans in urging that ratification be at least postponed. But unfortunately we cannot afford to wait… unquestionably the morale of the Italian people could be improved by the ending of the state of war and by the withdrawal of occupation troops.” Senator Barkley, who had been in Italy in April, reported that “although the Italian people would have preferred a more favorable treaty, they prefer this treaty to chaos and no treaty at all.”"
But if there was that much opposition to the treaty as it stood, one could imagine the reaction to a treaty that deprived Italy of part of South Tyrol.
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Not really thus thats why TIGR operated in that area and ofcourse why all Slovene institutions were suppressed by the Italian Government and why OVRA during the war and Gladio postwar had special interest in the area
Of corse Fascism repressed Slovenian identity everywhere no matter what. I am under the impression that GLADIO was interested in the area in purely 'defensive' (anti-communist, as opposed to anti-Slovenian) terms.
Many Italians would gladly exchange coastal Istria for Südtirol, even if, of course, that would likely require a PoD way before the armistice.
Yeah, GLADIO operated in the zone because it will be the zone from where the Jugoslavian or the Warsaw Pact troops will attack and invade Italy
A rather heavy pressure remained postwar and Slovenes didnt get minority status until after the Cold War, why would a stay behind organization need a bigger presence in just those areas than in say more important border areas like say Venice or Trieste?
But ew are drifting from the topic at hand
Why am I not surprised that being ruled by Mussolini soured the Istrian Slavs on any co-operation with Italians? Of course, if he mistreated them enough he might be able to swing Italian Istria to an outright Italian majority by 1945 - the region seems to have been about 50-55% Slav (mostly Slovenes), 40-45% Italian, so the Italians don't have to "persuade" too many people to leave (or bring in too many Italian settlers) to tip the balance.
I still think it's plausible that Italy gets to keep the Rapallo frontiers in Istria if the Western Allies occupy the area and Yugoslavia is Communist. Zadar/Zara is probably a lost cause though - it's a tiny enclave in a deeply Croatian area.
The problem for the OP is that if the Allies are feeling sufficiently generous to the Italians to favour them over Yugoslavia (an Ally themselves and a victim of Fascist aggression), they're very very unlikely to require them to cough up the South Tyrol. Everyone in the post-war was very hostile to anything that smelled of Anschluss, and if they saw the South Tyrolese as a problem they'd be more likely to turn a blind eye to ethnic cleansing than be seen to favour Germans.
Unless somehow there's a pro-Ally Austrian government-in-exile that can somehow organise a Resistance and get a seat at the United Nations table?
Uh? I am fairly sure that Slovenian was recognised as a minority language all along, including during the Cold War (my mother was a teacher then and she distinctly remembers state examinations with specifically Slovenian curricula for the relevant areas). Which does not mean that things were nice during the Cold War of course (or even after, in some ways it got worse).
Venice is not a border area. Trieste very much is, and I'd bet that GLADIO had personnel there in significant numbers.
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Even if wiki isnt always reliable; The Slovenes of these areas lacked any form of collective minority or linguistic rights until the year 2000, when the Law for the Defense of the Slovene-Speaking Minority was passed by the Italian Parliament.