alternatehistory.com

Since this topic keeps coming up in in other threads, maybe it would be good to have a single thread for it.

Italy's opportunistic declaration of war on Britain and France, followed by its invasion of Greece, made the Mediterranean a theater of conflict in World War 2, which continued until the Axis forces in Italy surrendered in April 1945.

What if the Mediterranean remained out of the conflict? What would the effects on other theaters?

There are several ways this could have happened. The most obvious and the most likely is Italy staying neutral. Even if Italy still invades Greece, it would be treated like the Thai -Indochina or Bolivia -Paraguay war, the British and the Germans would have no reason to get involved if Italy was neutral.

Second would be Italy entering the war but the British and the French stomp on them and overrun Libya quickly. Its been suggested in other threads that this could happen if France fights on from North Africa, and this is the most likely way this could have happened. Maybe the British could have taken out Libya more than a year later than they captured Tripoli OTL (January 1943), though I don't think the logistics would have really allowed for this. If the Allies decide not to follow up with an invasion of Italy itself, or of Greece, this keeps the Mediterranean quiet. A large reason for the OTL invasion of Italy is that the Allies had already committed substantial forces to the Mediterranean that could not be redeployed quickly enough after the fall of Tunis to do something elsewhere while the weather cooperated.

Third and least likely would be an Axis curbstomp where the Italians take Malta and Egypt in 1941-2 because the Italian forces as everyone knows are qualitatively the best in the world, and they also built a railway in Cyrenaica, a sort of Balbo lives scenario.

So what happens in these situations? I think the most likely result of any of them would be a really important Norwegian campaign in 1943.
Top