What If Italy fights smart in 1940

[Buba]

Great info!
So Egypt is likely to revolt against the British - or at least sabotage etc.

 

[ATP]

Hmm - OK - the Italian Corpo Armatta Motorizata dashes across the Western Desert, running rings around the 7th Armoured. Supply is by truck and coastal ships. There are not enough British troops to plug the narrows at El Alamein, hence the Italians get into the delta.
But I imagine that the British demolish the port in Alexandria. Getting it running to support a large(ish) force will take months. Clearing mines and wrecks (I envision sinkings) from the Suez canala - that's also many months.
So, the Italians will not be going anywhere from Egypt until mid 1941?
What about the Egyptians? Hostile? Or only annoyed? With Italian track record in Libya I'd not imagine anybody tossing flowers at Mussolini's troops ...

I think,that Matildas do not come yet.
But you are right about logistic,british reinforcments would made italian in 1941 in Palestine or Synaj.No more easy victories.
About Libya - i read book wrote by polish dude who go through Africa on bicycle - Nowacki,i think - and,according to him,it dependent on tribe.Some fought italians valiantly,other supported them.

 

[sillygoose]

Question would be if he tried to insist on any military or economic concerns. If so how well could Britain get around them. The empire would be an assistance here as forces based in many of the colonies would be outside German control or realistic supervision.

From what is public he made neither demands, however I can't seem to find any actual proposed terms other than Martin Allen's cited one, which turned out to be a forgery he made. Its strange that no terms are easily available to find given how many discussions were had through intermediaries about peace in 1939-41.

I don't know. They agreed a deal for sharing out much of eastern Europe and then multiple trade deals to help both sides. Stalin also aided German ships using the NE route to the Pacific, albeit only a few made that route.

Supposedly Stalin and the British talked in 1940, which headed off Operation Pike. Certainly there were a ton of issues with trusting Stalin, but the British were pragmatic enough to want to peel Stalin off of Hitler's continental block.

Given that they would also be blamed for the depression and the suffering of much of the country during this period then the failure to maintain peace and security the Tories are going to take a hit. However they had a lead of nearly 300 seats in the 1935_United_Kingdom_general_election. As such it could go either way. Or you could end up with a hung parliament with a coalition needed. One wide card is that Hitler might insist on Mosley being released from custody and being allowed to stand and a number of right wing elements could end up supporting him.

1935 was quite different from 1940 in the event of a British defeat and loss of colonies. I thought Mosley and Hitler disliked each other? And Mosley was so unpopular as to be politically irrelevant, including as a potential Hitler ally.

Without actual fighting then costs are a lot cheaper. Even with the building up of the home defence and development of new equipment and doctrine. Ships aren't being sunk and Britain bombed while the ending of the blackout would in itself give a boost to British economic efficiency. Without fighting in N Africa and if say Italy also added Palestine and Sudan to its empire then it has to garrison them rather than Britain. Which it could find less than pleasant once the Arabs realise that their probably going to have less power than they had under Britain.

The territories lost aren't in themselves great sources of funds and assuming there is peace then Britain should be able to use the Suez Canal.

Yes Germany will seek to control economic activity on the continent but Britain has no trade with it anyway, other than some neutrals such as Spain and Sweden. Which will be a lot easier now. Britain will probably have products that Germany or other states on the continent will need anyway.

Fair enough, but you also have to weigh that against the loss of maybe Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, colonies adjacent to Italian East Africa, etc.
Palestine would not likely be lost given that it would be impossible to conquer. Agreed about the occupation of the colonies, but how many men was it really and how many were actually British or colonial troops?

I'm not sure Italy had plans to go full annexation of Egypt, especially if the Egyptian army helps the Italians. Neutralization with trade deals with Italy would probably be more viable. Because you're right, Italy has a limit to what it could occupy and Sudan is easily a 'bridge too far'.

The Suez could probably be used, but potentially at a cost since it would not be under Britain's control any more, same with their cotton supplies. What impact would having to pay tolls play? Or having to skirt that by going around South Africa instead?

In peacetime Britain had major trade with the continent and post-war would badly need it since they'd be very low on cash and no US eternal free cash and resources to prop them up. Certainly Britain and Europe would need to trade with each other (France needed British coal for instance) question is what the terms would be. Once they get locked in to that trade would they be able to give it up in the event of war again?

I'm not sure the costs are that much greater. British shipping costs were a lot cheaper than US ones for instance and prior to the war there was a lot of trade with the colonies and places like Argentina which were replaced by N America during wartime simply because it took less shipping and hence also escorts.

Nations, when under direct threat can spend a lot on defence for a prolonged period. It will be costly but a hell of a lot less costly than waging a war, let alone one on multiple fronts.

Why were British shipping costs that much cheaper? AFAIK Argentina was increasingly become tied in with Germany economically.

Latin America during World War II - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Especially if the Axis had won the combined interests of Italy, Spain, and Germany would ensure they have much more political and economic leverage there.

How long could Britain maintain massive austerity after losing the 1939-40 war?

He's got to decide before an Italian conquest of Egypt prompts the replacement of Churchill and Britain making peace. He's also concerned on the defence of Spanish possessions, especially the Canary's if he goes to war with Britain. It would probably only take a small pause and he could easily lose the opportunity.

Ok

Except that I was talking about what you say happened OTL.

Ok

Do they make peace with occupied nations such as France, the Netherlands etc? Difficult not to do so if they make peace with Britain. If so they would struggle to continue demanding massive occupation costs on those states or seizing food from them.

There will be an invasion of the USSR because its one of two major desires of Hitler, along with the removal of the Jews, one way or another from Europe. He's been proclaiming his crusade against the Bolsheviks and the Slavs and the need for 'living space' and the resources of the European USSR for ~20 years now. Plus to get the economic security he desires he also need to seize control of those lands and remove most of their population.

Given that the armistice terms with France said there would be a peace deal worked out once hostilities with Britain were concluded I'd imagine they would be. I don't see how Britain would make peace without Belgium and the Netherlands being restored to a point I'd imagine that would be a necessity to make a real deal with them, though that may mean a pro-German government. Given the value of being able to have access to their colonies, I'd imagine the advantages would outweigh the costs of ending the occupation and payments.

Historians can't even agree on the issue of whether Hitler had a plan or was acting opportunistically by attacking the USSR. His proclamations weren't about going to war with the Soviets, it was about the ideological struggle and a lot changed once he got in power. Plus it would be quite hard to get the average German or even the generals to allow another war after just having won in Europe. The war with Poland had been pretty popular due to the outstanding issues between the countries, but the average German saw the Soviets as their ally at this point. Trying to engineer an incident would be tough and trying to organize Europe after winning would be a multi-year task, especially when it came to reestablishing trade with the world. Contrary to the situation during the war, having defeated Britain the Axis would have access to all the resources they could ever need from the colonies of defeated nations, plus dominance over Europe's trade and economic organization. So even the material need to attack the Soviets is gone, while the annexed territories in Poland would take years to colonize if that was fully pursued. So Lebensraum would already be available. Also according to the Hossbach memo Hitler's Lebensraum goals were Austria and Czechoslovakia, plus reacquiring Danzig, not invading the USSR. In fact when discussing war in late 1937 the only war he saw on the horizon was conflict with France and Britain over Czechoslovakia and Austria.

The so called Madagascar plan, to send the Jews to die there was one proposal. How seriously he considered it I don't know. However that would still leave many Jews in Soviet occupied territory, as well as his delusion that Jews were behind the USSR.
He relied on propaganda and repression to keep people in Germany happy. Their economic condition was a relatively low priority for him.

Apparently it was the plan:

Madagascar Plan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I didn't realize the plan originated with the French and was taken up by the Polish before the Germans realized it might be viable if they won the war.

Hitler relied on repression to keep the German people happy? That is not the state of the scholarship on the subject:

Hitler's Beneficiaries

A "provocative" account of great "intellectual significance," illuminating the economic workings of the Third Reich—and the reasons ordin...

www.goodreads.com

In fact part of the reason Jews were targeted is to ensure handouts to the German public.

He wanted a German empire dominated by a Aryan population which would rule all others. Other nations and people would have a clearly subordinate role at best and given the desire for a much larger German population others would have to be removed in large numbers to achieve that.

A Europe led by Germany yes, though the plans for removing people and killing them in large numbers only started under Himmler in July 1941 and none were actually ever adopted as far as surviving documentation shows. Maybe there were documents destroyed that showed otherwise, but given that they were able to reconstruct Himmler's proposals between 1941-42 for the East we seem to know what was being discussed and what was or wasn't actually adopted and acted on. Himmler certainly had his own ideas of things that involved mass deportations and colonization in the East, which went beyond what Hitler was documented to have talked about, so what would actually be adopted is conjecture, especially if the war was won in 1940 and there was no invasion of the USSR. It seems like there was plans to create a Polish state in the general government, but couldn't find anyone willing to risk collaborating on a high level with Germany or had the support of the public.

Since Germany managed to extend the war into a 6th year without holding most of the Soviet grain-fields for more than a couple of years and for much of that time the nature of the regime and the level of conflict meant that access to its resources weren't unlimited that is obviously inaccurate.

Only through mass killing and death as well as losing more and more population back to the Allies. Even then by 1944 Germany itself was getting rations well below 2000 calories per day. Germany was on a severe diet by 1942. They muddled by, but again the Holocaust had direct roots in the lack of food. Also remember until December 1941 Hoover's food relief programs (and a Jewish American program) in occupied Europe fed millions of people, which is why things got really ugly in 1942. Occupied Europe was starving by 1942, which is why so many died under German occupation in the east; starvation killed more civilians than direct violence.

Not really. They ran out of other materials long before they started running short of men so they could have reserved more assets, especially experienced men and horses for agriculture.

They started running out of men in 1916. The Somme+Verdun+the Brusilov offensive did some real damage to the army and effectively wiped out the pre-war trained army that remained. Those three campaigns cost Germany over 1 million casualties and doesn't even cover all the battles of the year. They really could not have reserved any horses or men from 1914-16 and certainly not after. Remember Germany+Austria were badly outnumbered by Russia+France+Britain+Italy and their colonies.

The problems were seriously worsened in the last year or so of the war with Ludendoff's emphasis on war production above all else.

Except that last bit meant that they couldn't use those men elsewhere, either in the west or releasing them for civilian work because they were needed to hold down the new eastern empire so it was a minimal gain.

Nope, the problems were entirely between the 2nd half of 1916 and the first half of 1917. That was the Turnip Winter and Coal Famine. The last year of the war actually saw an improvement in the food situation. The uprisings of 1918 were not caused (though morale had been hurt due to the Turnip winter) by food shortages, they were caused by internal politics, coal shortages (pretty important in winter), and war weariness.

The 1918 campaign in the east ensured that those men would send some food back, just not as much as planned, that those 1 million soldiers wouldn't need to be fed by Germany, that some other resources could be seized, and the Russians would remain out of the war. Ultimately on balance it was worth it because the soldiers used were the oldest and least combat capable...and least capable of hard farm labor.

Well it was tense as the Walsh staged a late fight-back and we wasted too many chances earlier in the game but we won. Got two tough matches coming up against Ireland, in a fortnight and then the French who are the current favourites.

After that its the women's 6 Nations so another few weekends screaming at the TV to come yet.