DISCLAIMER: edits in red to ensure more realistic historical facts. Thanks to all who suggested some variations !
Italian military preparations
Prime Minister Badoglio, backed by the King, opened to the new reform of the Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni, with the reinstatement of the Camera dei Deputati to be held on June 1942. This measure opened again to the organization of several small bourgeois parties like the former Liberals circles and the Catholic Popular Party. New elections would be held the next year, despite some resistance from Balbo. He's instead then very relieved when the King himself tells him that the move is just a façade for the moderate antifascists and that the Blackshirts can still (and have to) crash the heads of the left-wingers.
Italy was slowy de-fascistizing itself, growing more and more moderate and conservative leaning, with strong influence from the Catholic establishment. The worrying siding of both France and Yugoslavia with Germany created an almost full encirclement of Italian metropolitan borders (Switzerland excluded). During the preparation for the boost of the fortifications on the
Vallo Alpino, an assassination attempt was executed in
Franzensfeste/Fortezza when Minister of War Balbo was visiting an Alpini barracks, leaving Balbo lightly injured (an Alpini conscript put himself between the bullets and the Minister). The attack was claimed by the
Befreiungsausschuss Südtirol, a terrorist organization aiming to detach South Tyrol from Italy and willing to join the Third Reich.
The repressive machine led by Balbo as Minister of Interior rushed to South Tyrol: in a couple of weeks over 10.000 persons were arrested and deported to Italian Lybia, all the former
Optanten were strictly guarded and several were stripped of Italian citizenship and deported to the Third Reich. Additional “
Operazioni di Polizia” were carried out in Italian Karst, Istria, and Fiume, where thousands of Slovenes and Croatians were rounded up and deported to Italian Somaliland.
Escalation was behind the corner, when the TIGR (the Slovene resistance organization) managed to derail a train in
San Pietro del Carso/Pivka, effectively disrupting the rail communication between Trieste and Fiume. Formal protests for the treatment of both the South Tyrolean and the Slavic minorities arrived from the German and the Yugoslavian embassies in Rome. Balbo scoffed the letters.
Ciano, instead, was more and more worried about the diplomatic encirclement: he could not commit to the British because the King and Emperor asked to stay out of the War, and the prospected advantages were indeed scarce (promises on Tunisia and Djibouti were not appealing). Moreover, the German preparations for Barbarossa involved Italians as contributing with at least a motorized Army Corps. Ciano, after meeting Ribbentrop, clearly stated that Italy would have not been ready until late 1942 for War, and in that time frame will definitely throw its weight against the Soviets at the side of the Reich.
The reality was indeed a mixed bag: the
Regio Esercito slightly recovered its resources stockpile and finished its reorganization; the strategic focus was finally defined:
Alpes were to be the main defensive line, manned by
- Gruppo d’Armate Ovest holding French Border
- 3 Alpini divisions, 6 Mountain infantry divisions and 4 Infantry divisions
- Around 200k manpower strong
- Commanded by HRH Umberto II (sided by General Guzzoni) – HQ in Bra
- Gruppo d’Armate Centro holding Swiss and Tyrolean border
- 2 Alpini divisions, 3 Mountain infantry divisions and 4 Infantry divisions
- Around 150k manpower strong
- Commanded by General Ambrosio – HQ in Trento
- Gruppo d’Armate Est holding Eastern border
- 1 Alpini division, 2 Mountain infantry divisions 3 Infantry divisions + 1 Bersaglieri division
- Around 120k manpower strong
- Commanded by General Grossi – HQ in Cervignano
These troops would have to balance the possible tide of German invasion through Tyrol passes and Carnia passes, hold the Isonzo valley to avoid penetration on Po Valley. Fall back lines in case of invasion from the East were recognized to be on Tagliamento, Livenza, Piave and finally on Adige. In case of invasion from the South Tyrol, the fortifications of Franzensfeste, Bozen and Salorno would have to slow the advance, with the retreat line on Adige and the holding of all the major passes towards Lombardy (Stelvio, Tonale, the access to Brescia from Giudicarie and Vallagarina to Verona from Rovereto).
Strategic mobile reserves were then deployed in Piedmont and Veneto to counter any possible German breakthrough. Additional troop garrisoned Sicily and Sardinia and a understrength Army, the 3rd, with HQ in Rome acted as additional strategic infantry reserve.
- In Albania, preparations were made for the Comando Albania (around 80k strong) to defend the access to the ports of Vlore and Shkoder and to repel any attack from Kosovo or Montenegro. The troops under the command of General Visconti Prasca (HQ in Tirana) were to stay on absolute defensive stance.
- Comando Nord Africa (under the orders of General Gariboldi from Tripoli HQ), was split between the 5th Army (in Tripolitania, around 70k strong) to counter any French ambition and 11th Army (in Cyrenaica, around 40k strong) to guard the Egyptian border. The grand strategy would have been to try to seize Tunisia in case of French invasion of Italy with the fast moving of troops from the 11th Army. No actions or plans were studied for British intervention.
- Comando Africa Orientale, led by Duke of Aosta Amedeo, was 260k strong, primarily composed by local colonial troops (190k) and for the remaining part by metropolitan troops (70k). The strategic goal was to seize Djibouti in case of French declaration of war and then to link with the Italian troops in Lybia.
In terms of equipment, the focus on mountain war stopped the motorization of the troops with the remarkable exception of P.40 Medium tank starting to be mass produced by Ansaldo and Fiat substituting the lightly armed M13/40. Focus was put more and more on divisional and regimental artillery and in reinforcing natural barrages with casemate and antitank guns.
Royal Navy, in case of entry in war against Germany, France and Yugoslavia would have to deal with the interruption of supply flow to French North Africa and to keep open the communication in the Adriatic. The sheer superiority in terms of tonnage and ships after the semi-destruction of
Marine Nationale, and assuming not to have to fight against Mediterranean Fleet. New Chief of Staff Inigo Campioni pushed strongly in the direction of collaboration with Regia Aeronautica due to the lack of Italian carriers more than in OTL, being slightly more effective than in OTL.
Regia Aeronautica was in the worst shape: the program of renewal was deeply undergoing, and the strategic focus was to defend the industrial capabilities of Po Valley and keep air superiority overall Eastern Mediterranean and Africa.
Suddenly, it’s war !
Barbarossa start on 22nd June was disrupted by the no notice aggression of Italian forces at the Lybian-Tunisian frontier. On June 29th, French Troops, with 15 divisions from Algeria and Tunisia,
mainly composed of colonial troops and a few èlite units (e.g. Légion Etrangère), launched themselves against the forces of Italian 5th Army.
The French, still thinking how to bring the war on British soil, thought that the Italians would have been a piece of cake in Northern Africa to bring the war towards Egypt and Suez. Germans military advisors strongly disagreed but even so OKH planned to detach a couple of Panzergrenadier divisions in North Africa under the command of General Rommel. The overwhelming numerical superiority of the French allowed to overcome the lightly fortified border in Brega and to overtake Gadames fort on July 6th.
The French vanguard was stopped close to Zuara (50 km into Lybia), where a major pitched battle saw the Italians suffering heavy casualties but stopping the French advance.
Despite the several reports from italian intelligence about the French buildup in airbases scattered from Corsica to Rhone-Alpes and an alert dispatched by the British directly to Minister Balbo, the Italian readiness is not as effective at expected, allowing the air bombings from France and Corsica to deliver a strong blow at soil to the Regia Aeronautica in northern Italy,
infamously caught completely off guard by the sneak attack despite the early warnings from the intelligence. Responsibilities on the disaster are still to be understood, but the Air Marshal Ettore Muti seems to be unreachable in the past few hours after the bombings and then disappears. French troops begin a slow push around the Western Alps in the first weeks of July, being blocked by heavy artillery fire and the stiff resistance of the
Alpini on Moncenisio and Monginevro pass.
Reports of Yugoslavian commandos infiltrating in Isonzo Valley were dispatched to the command of
Gruppo d’Armate Est on July 2nd, unfortunately, being quickly dismissed.
Also in this case, the Italian military seems to underestimate the threat, thinking that the infiltration is more like an operation to supply the TIGR partisans and aimed to disrupt italian communications. General Grossi dismisses the issue, calling just for some retribution on local ethnic Slovenian population. A few days after, on July 7th, Yugoslavian 4th and 7th armies attacked on all the front line, supported by TIGR partisans, obtaining tactical successes like the seizure of
Postumia/Postojna and the surrendering of Zara after a street by street gunfighting.
The Germans still thought that the French were fool in involving the Italians, despite Laval’s assurance on the war remaining a Franco-Italian affair and that the Italians will just wave up white flag after few casualties in Africa, the situation wasn’t so good:
- the French did not manage to rout the Italians from Tripoli within the first two weeks and not even to gain any meter of Italian metropolitan soil,
- the greedy Yugoslavians joined in invading Italian Istria and Karst without German permission,
- Italians were fighting back heavily; they have a strong navy to be used upon to transform Mediterranean in an actual Mare Nostrum. Moreover, not being anymore a Neutral state, Italy would not act as a proxy for German supplies purchasing.
In a matter of fact, the French opened a new front directly bordering Germany in the South. OKH and Hitler obviously shit their pants when King VE III removed Badoglio appointing Balbo as Prime Minister of the new
Governo di Unità Nazionale on July 14th that also included Liberals, Populars and Radicals. The new government is still a fascist-military thing, with some token ministers from the other parties, including the rising star of the Popular Party, Alcide De Gasperi at the helm of the MinCulPop - Ministero della Cultura Popolare. First official act of Balbo’s government was to sever diplomatic relationship with Germany, considered as an allied country to Italian invaders. The Germans already got wise: they knew that the British and the Italians were already discussing about the deployment of a British Army Corps in Italy to both repel the French and the Yugoslavians, and possibly, to try to invade Tyrol and Carinthia.
Despite Barbarossa was going very well at the moment and the Soviets were suffering what were thought to be unbearable losses, the Germans diverted part of their reserves to amass manpower in Austria.
Mass scale revolts surged in Italian-held Southern Tyrol in the end of July, effectively draining Italian garrison troops towards the repression of the rebellion. On 29th July, carpet bombing of Milan, Turin, Genoa and Trieste was carried out, while surgical dive bombings disrupted Italian railways network between Firenze and Bologna, north of Verona and in Alessandria by the
Luftwaffe.
Some counter actions by the Regia Aeronautica went through bombing Innsbruck and Salzburg as a retaliation. German troops flooded through Brennerpass and Reschenpass, that after a couple of days of resistance were overcome
by overwhelming artillery fire. Tarvisio border crossing was stormed from three different directions (Coccau by the Germans, Fusine by joint German-Yugoslavian forces and Predil by the Yugoslavian). German pushed also through the Isonzo Valley taking quickly
Plezzo/Bovec on the first day and reaching
Tolmino/Tolmin on the third day, forcing the Italian retreat from
Idria/Idrija.
Balbo, officially relayed through Ciano the declaration of War to Germany, France and Yugoslavia and on August 1st, the Kingdom of Italy formally joined United Kingdom in an alliance.