WI - Fascist Italy begins WWII?

Italy invades Greece in 1939. Britain & France back Greece. Germany backs Italy. The question is what direction do the Germans head?
I also see the Italian fleet getting beaten up badly.
Also, what do the Balkan countries do? And Stalin?
 
Italy invades Greece in 1939. Britain & France back Greece. Germany backs Italy. The question is what direction do the Germans head?
I also see the Italian fleet getting beaten up badly.
Also, what do the Balkan countries do? And Stalin?
I'm not sure - what do you think they might do?
 
Italy invades Greece in 1939. Britain & France back Greece. Germany backs Italy. The question is what direction do the Germans head?
I also see the Italian fleet getting beaten up badly.
Also, what do the Balkan countries do? And Stalin?

Need a POD where Germany delays or doesn’t feel secure going into Poland and where Mussolini feels he has to escalate with Greece a year earlier than OTL.

The sequence of events would be:
-Italy invades Greece and struggles against Greek resistance.
-Germany goes in to back and bail out Italy.
-The Brits and French would be crazy not to take advantage of Germany directing its forces to Greece. Golden opportunity to do some damage from Germany’s west.
-Soviets goes into the war on Germany and Italy’s side to prevent Brits and French from defeating Germany and becoming strong in Central Europe.

It’ll be a Second World War with Germany starting out by bailing Italy out rather than the victories in Poland, Norway, and Western Europe. Wonder what that will do to the German populace’s morale.
 
Have the League of Nations actually care about Abyssinia and have Britain and France care about the whole "war against one is a war against all' thing.
 
Italy invades Greece in 1939. Britain & France back Greece. Germany backs Italy. The question is what direction do the Germans head?
I also see the Italian fleet getting beaten up badly.
Also, what do the Balkan countries do? And Stalin?

Germany would only get involved in the sense that it would take the opportunity to attack Poland while France and Britain were involved in another war.
it would then be a case of two wars merging when the Allies entered war on the side of Poland.
Greece would back Albania
France and Britain would back Greece
Germany would attack Poland
France and Britain would declare war on Germany
 
The Italians were actually more likely to invade Yugoslavia than Greece up through autumn 1940.

I was about to say... Italy had a lot of issues with Yugoslavia, had war plans for this, the Italian army was organized for war with Yugoslavia. Conversely Greece had been close to Italy had in the 1930s. The invasion of Greece OTL made little sense in political & economic terms. One of the stupidest things Mussolini did in his life.
 
Italy was making aggressive noises advancing its claims towards Tunisia in Summer 1939.
Mostly hot air to see if they could wrest concessions from France/Britain, but it's a starting point, maybe?
 
Only problem is that you need the Italian forces to be in better shape. The High command was consistent in its warnings that the rebuild/reequip would not be finished till 1942. OTL Italy joins in 1940 only because of a miscalculation that the war would be over in weeks and the needed to be active to get spoils.
Now Yugoslavia/Greece somehow starting it and so WW2 being a spreading of that initial war is plausible.
 
Britain and France never give the Poles any guarantees and thus the Poles opt to give Germany Danzig and an extraterritorial railroad to link Germany with East Prussia.

In 1940 Italy supports Croat Nationalists seceding from Yugoslavia and France says no to this. Italy and France thus duke it out, with the remainder of Europe being dragged into it.


Alternatively, Britain and France could take action over the Abyssinian War.
 
Only problem is that you need the Italian forces to be in better shape. The High command was consistent in its warnings that the rebuild/reequip would not be finished till 1942. OTL Italy joins in 1940 only because of a miscalculation that the war would be over in weeks and the needed to be active to get spoils.
Now Yugoslavia/Greece somehow starting it and so WW2 being a spreading of that initial war is plausible.

Yep, Italy in OTL was not in any shape to start a potential conflict with the Entente after Abyssinia and Spain, even Benny know that and entered WWII because he thought that's was basically over.
For Jugoslavia you need a war in 1934 maybe due to the consequences of the murder of Alexander I or butterfly away Abyssinia and Spain (or at least limit italian partecipation) and by late 30's Benny try an adventure in Jugoslavia that escalate beyond control
 
In 1934 King Alexander I of Yugoslavia governed his country as a personal dictatorship (6th January Dictatorship) after ethnic riots had lead to assassination of Croatian leader Stephan Radic in 1928. Radic's death triggered a crisis that bright Yugoslavia near to civil war and the King assumed extraordinary powers to avoid an escalation. Supported by Italy and Hungary, a terrorist and fascist paramilitary organization of Croatian separatists called Ustasha started a terror campaign in Yugoslavia: thanks to secret bases in Hungarian and Italian soil, they killed hundreds of Serbian officials and bombed many trains and public offices. Also the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, a group of Macedonian bulgarophili nationslists, had support from both powers to commit terroristic attacks in Yugoslavia. After an other attack in 1932, King Alexander called personally Mussolini and told him "If you want to have serious riots in Yugoslavia or cause a regime change, you need to kill me. Shoot at me and be sure you have finished me off, because that's the only way to make changes in Yugoslavia". Fearing Italian ambitions and German and Hungarian rearmament, Alexander was a strong proponent of Little Entente, a France-sponsored alliance between Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece and Czechoslovakia. But in 1934 Alexander was assassinated together with French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou, an other strong supporter of Little Entente, in Marseille, during a state visit to enforce the alliance itself. The assassin was a member of IMRO trained by Ustasha, probably in a base in Hungary or Italy, and Yuogoslavia accused Mussolini to be responsible of the attack, asking for extradition of Ante Pavelic, Ustasha leader living in Italy. But new French Foreign Minister, Pierre Laval, wanted to ally with Mussolini and said to Belgrade that France didn't want start a crisis for Yugoslavia's sake. Privately Laval asked to Mussolini to not extradite Pavelic to avoid a confession that implicated Mussolini himself and Il Duce assured him about it. Shortly after the Little Entente, with its main supporter and one of its founders, collapsed, with Romania allied with Axis side, Czechoslovakia forgotten at Munich and Yugoslavia and Greece that tried in vain to preserve their neutrality.
But what if the assassination fails?
King Alexander survives and continues to escalate with Italy, while violence in Croatia explodes. Between 1935 and 1937 Italy is greatly busy in Ethiopia and Spain so no war, but in 1938 Germany takes Austria and Czechoslovakia and Mussolini wants to demonstrate his force. In HL he invaded Albania but in this case the perennial crisis with Yugoslavia is an opportunity too tempting to pass up.
So 7 April 1939 Italy invades Yugoslavia but the war is a disaster. The Little Entente declares war to Italy while Hungary and Bulgaria sides with Rome. Germany decides to save the Mussolini's face and enter in the conflict, that Hitler thinks will be brief and limited, "a good occasion to train our brave German soldiers against some inferior slaves" he says to his Generals. France, on Barthou's pressure, respects the Little Entente Alliace better then the France-Czechoslovakia Pact and declares war to Berlin, followed by United Kingdom. Because Germanu annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia only three weeks before, violating the Munich Agreement, a Czechoslovakian Goverment in Exile is immediately settled in Paris. United States and Japan declares themselves neutral to start to hate each other while Soviet Union too stay neutral, at least for the moment, because, real words of Comrade Stalin, "this war is a beautiful opportunity to push Fascist Nations against Capitalist Nations and leave them killing each other". However, with no Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Moscow remains with free hands for the incoming world war.
 
The Italians were actually more likely to invade Yugoslavia than Greece up through autumn 1940.

I was about to say... Italy had a lot of issues with Yugoslavia, had war plans for this, the Italian army was organized for war with Yugoslavia. Conversely Greece had been close to Italy had in the 1930s. The invasion of Greece OTL made little sense in political & economic terms. One of the stupidest things Mussolini did in his life.

For Jugoslavia you need a war in 1934 maybe due to the consequences of the murder of Alexander I or butterfly away Abyssinia and Spain (or at least limit italian partecipation) and by late 30's Benny try an adventure in Jugoslavia that escalate beyond control

Italy might act against Yugoslavia instead of Ethiopia, there was daylight between France and Great Britain over Germany (or at least perceived as being after AGNA signed in summer of 1935), France had signed a treaty with USSR in addition to their Little Entente arrangements, Mussolini might have acted to secure Italian position? (meaning in the Balkans, and of course Adriatic)

then the question arises whether Germany could move on Austria earlier? (1936), would the sides be reshuffled for WWII?
 
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I think this question illustrates how totally inept the Italian leadership was. Can anybody tell me what Mussolini's strategic goals were? If you go to war you better make damn sure that;
  • The rewards are better than the risks
  • The gains will outweigh the means used to win
Italy missed on both points in their war with Ethiopia. The only positive to come out of that conflict would be getting troops battle experience. But even that was mostly a joke based on the lack of a quality opponent.

So let's take the OP's original premise and look at what area Italy could take that would enrich them economically or otherwise. Other then the Persian Gulf or Suez I don't think there was any way they could jump that would help them more then hurt them. They weren't strong enough to take on GB so they were basically stopped before they started.

The only thing they could have done to be in a position to actually accomplish a meaningful goal would have been to reorganize their military training/leadership in the early 1930's and develop a competent fully trained, combined force that was designed for the mission they set out to achieve (Whatever that may have been).
 
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