WI: Italy Did Great in WWII?

CECBC

Banned
What if Italy, through a combination of better training, planning, equipment and a massive amount of luck really kicked ass in World War Two?

What would they do, and would it change the outcome of the war?
 
Hmm

What if Italy, through a combination of better training, planning, equipment and a massive amount of luck really kicked ass in World War Two?

What would they do, and would it change the outcome of the war?
The Italians don't need luck. All they need to do is to stay neutral, at least until it's clear who's going to win.
They get to sell stuff to the Germans, take bribes for staying out of the fighting in the early stages from the UK/France/USA, get to hang onto their colonial empire (for now) and, if they time joining in on the winning side right, get a seat as a big player at the post-war settlements table (and maybe a permanent seat on the UN security council, if the Allies win).
Plus they likely don't get their country turned into one rolling set of battlefields, from practically one end of the country to the other.

It probably doesn't change the outcome of the war by much, unless France decides to fight on with a neutral Italy in mid-1940, and that messes up Hitler's arithmetic for invading Russia. If that does happen mind you, things could get 'interesting'...
 

CECBC

Banned
The Italians don't need luck. All they need to do is to stay neutral, at least until it's clear who's going to win.
They get to sell stuff to the Germans, take bribes for staying out of the fighting in the early stages from the UK/France/USA, get to hang onto their colonial empire (for now) and, if they time joining in on the winning side right, get a seat as a big player at the post-war settlements table (and maybe a permanent seat on the UN security council, if the Allies win).
Plus they likely don't get their country turned into one rolling set of battlefields, from practically one end of the country to the other.

It probably doesn't change the outcome of the war by much, unless France decides to fight on with a neutral Italy in mid-1940, and that messes up Hitler's arithmetic for invading Russia. If that does happen mind you, things could get 'interesting'...

An interesting perspective, and I do tend to agree with you. Neutrality would have been by far the best option for Italy (and for all the Axis countries, actually) but it really wasn't really what I had in mind for the question. Still, it's an interesting idea to think about. :)
 
If Italy won WW2 they would have controlled most of the Mediterranean Ocean and the North Coast of Africa.
We wonder if they would still have controlled Iraq?
 
The Italians don't need luck. All they need to do is to stay neutral, at least until it's clear who's going to win.
This is more or less what they did, really. They only entered the war once they felt it was obvious that France was doomed. With France gone, what did they have to wait for? They had no way of knowing that Germany and Japan would pick a fight with America, nor that Hitler would choose to invade the Soviet Union before resolving the Western Front. Mussolini would hardly expect reward if he did nothing until Britain's will was clearly broken, or until Moscow had already fallen.
 
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The Italians don't need luck. All they need to do is to stay neutral, at least until it's clear who's going to win.
They get to sell stuff to the Germans, take bribes for staying out of the fighting in the early stages from the UK/France/USA, get to hang onto their colonial empire (for now) and, if they time joining in on the winning side right, get a seat as a big player at the post-war settlements table (and maybe a permanent seat on the UN security council, if the Allies win).
Plus they likely don't get their country turned into one rolling set of battlefields, from practically one end of the country to the other.

It probably doesn't change the outcome of the war by much, unless France decides to fight on with a neutral Italy in mid-1940, and that messes up Hitler's arithmetic for invading Russia. If that does happen mind you, things could get 'interesting'...

Yeah, all they needed to do was repeat the strategy of WWI and wait out for a clear winner to pounce in. And given how frosty Italian-German relations initially (dduring Dolfuss' assassination), Mussolini just needed more support from the Allies...
 
This is more or less what they did, really. They only entered the war after it was because they felt it was obvious that France was doomed. With France gone, what did they have to wait for? They had no way of knowing that Germany and Japan would pick a fight with America, nor that Hitler would choose to invade the Soviet Union before resolving the Western Front. Mussolini would hardly expect reward if he did nothing until Britain's will was clearly broken, or until Moscow had already fallen.

Indeed, Mussolini played his cards exactly as suggested in the earlier posts.
I guess the OP means how and what would have happened if they joined as IOTL and kicked arse.
 
I mean, technically this could just make them a secondary Germany. Famous round the world for their military successes in a war that was doomed to fail once Germany invaded Russia and Japan attacked Pearl Harbour. It would change the cultural perception of the Italians a lot, and they'd be villains/anti-heros in more epic war movies. People would geek out about Italian uniforms, medals and tanks in the same way they do about German memorabilia. Mussolini would be seen as less of a buffoon too. People would talk about WWII and say "we'd all be speaking Italian" about certain battles and make wild AH scenarios where Italian troops march through the streets of Washington DC.

They don't even need to get close to winning in reality, just enough "falling with style" defeats to convince people that Italians are totally badass.

What the nature of those successes would be and what they'd need to do to prepare for them is another matter though. Totally wiping the floor with Greece and Yugoslavia without German help would be a start, though frankly while Greece gets a lot of kudos for holding back the Italians in OTL if the Italians had actually won it would probably have been seen as just a case of the weak being beaten by a stronger nation. That would have the prestige of the German invasion of France, which shocked the world. Maybe the Italians could play a far larger role in France, but I think success in Africa and perhaps at sea would have to be where they win their spurs.

Being good enough at tank warfare and having good enough generals to replicate the success of Rommel and the Panzercorp without Rommel and the Panzercorp or perhaps in a way that make Rommel and the Panzercorp seem like minor players in the North Africa campaign, perhaps even getting a little further. Breaking through Egypt and reaching the very doors of Jerusalem seems a suitably epic point for a highpoint of military success, whereupon they will suffer a defeat from overextension and overconfidence. A Stalingard style battle in the Middle East might get the gritty war movies and generals memoirs rolling off the press once the war is over.

How far south they could reach into Africa might be another matter. The deserts are sort of in the way, so I'd imagine they'd need significant naval success to launch invasions further down.

Maybe a stronger Italian navy could fight more naval battles, maybe out in the Atlantic. They'd still get trashed eventually, but the prestige they'd have from a few bigger engagements would do more to improve the notion Italy "did great".

You'd need some quite big PoD's in the military and industrial pre-war history of Italy to get any of this, in particular they need better hardware and they need a component officers, generals and military doctrines to rival that of Germany.
 
There was moment were almost happened that Mussolini end up at Allies !

Chancellor Hitler first visit to Italy, went not so as Hitler expected and almost became a diplomatic disaster
But what if it ended in diplomatic disaster ?

Mussolini would go hostile attitude toward Third Reich, special after Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss (pro Italian) was murder by Nazis.
And "The enemy of my enemy is my Friend" for France and Britain, Italy is ideal candidate for Ally.

What Irony after WW2, Italy get occupied zone in south Germany and parts Austria and Yugoslavia...
 
There was moment were almost happened that Mussolini end up at Allies !

Chancellor Hitler first visit to Italy, went not so as Hitler expected and almost became a diplomatic disaster
But what if it ended in diplomatic disaster ?

Mussolini would go hostile attitude toward Third Reich, special after Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss (pro Italian) was murder by Nazis.
And "The enemy of my enemy is my Friend" for France and Britain, Italy is ideal candidate for Ally.

how about Chancellor Goering? called "an escaped mental patient" by Mussolini.
 
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