"Italy: "bad/hurt"" Topic

You were asked – TMP link

Did the Germans' alliance with Italy help, hurt, or make no difference to Germany in WWII?

46% said "bad/hurt"
32% said "good/help"
17% said "indifferent/no difference"

Somewhere I once came across a prewar exchange between Churchill and Ribbentrop. Ribbentrop, who was then Ambassador, was sparring with Churchill about the possibility of war, and Ribbentrop said something to the effect of, "this time it won't be so easy – we will have the Italians on our side."

"That's only fair," Churchill replied, "we had them last time."

I certainly don't believe that from a military point of view, that the Italians did a lot to aid Germany. But Italy itself was a bear to take down. Allies fought for 18 months to get from Sicily to the northern areas. That was a huge drain on allied forces. Allies went from Normandy to Berlin in 10 months.

If Italy were neutral, and nobody ever considered landing in the north and driving quickly into Austria and Germany, then imagine how much quicker all those troops could have been put to use in France.

So while Italy didn't contribute much, they tied up a lot of resources which could have been put to better use elsewhere.

Their terrain did. The Italians themselves had switched sides long before the Allies reached Rome.

VIVA IL DUCE!!

Well he didn't viva in the end.

He got a suspended sentence it would seem.

Historians argue just how wicked he truly was, but he certainly sounds a most unpleasant type. Italian express trains beat UK for punctuality to this day without him.

There are a number of ways to look at this.

From what perspective?
Fighting France? USSR? Balkans? Mediterranean? North Africa? East Africa? Italy itself?

East Africa had a massive troop contingent of both european and locals, something like a quarter million altogether.It was a threat to most of East Africa in particularlyl the southern exit of Suez. Given a better naval attack aircraft contingent it would have locked up Suez if they could have been a better threat and thouhgt of a mining campiagn.

Their treatment of the natives stopped cold the threat of leading any kind of rebellion against colonial rule.

Ultimately, East Africa was a loss. Only a matter of how much resources and delay they could cost? It took the South African/British and Indian troops far into 1941 to wrap up.

The results gained by their contribution against France were negligible. I even suspect the French had greater fear of having their fleet taken over by the Italians than by the Germans. It may have contributed to the french navy spreading itseld out all over north africa.

Yugoslavia and Greece are peculiar cases. If the Italians had stayed out,,, the relations between the Yugoslavia and Greece and germany would not really have been affected. I even suspect a limited support from each government. Having Italy jump in as it were probably prompted adverse reactions against the axis. Each case requiring German troops and in numbes that were substantial enough to have deleayed the invaasion of Russia, denied troop numbes to Russia and even have to decimated a number of elite units such as the paratroops. The wear and tear on the mechanised equipment may have never been appropriately investigated. Yugoslavia and greece are both big negatives in the ledger.

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North Africa, while theoretically an imbalance favouring the Italians turned into an initial shamble. German intervention was necessary to provide time for a change in attitude and to prevent a collapse. Again a German negative in the ledger.

The fighting in Italy itself, many people have over looked that the last twelve months of the war, the Allies quite often had less formations and troops present in Italy than the Germans did. This is a huge negative in the ledger against Germany.

Industrially, it mat have been the biggest hit of all. Italian industry was turned to producing for the Italian military. What they did make was actually of normal good and comparable quality to what anyone else could make. Indeed a number of products like the Daimler Benz engine were even liscenece produced in Italy.

If Italy had stayed out of the war, their industyr would have been available to supplememnt the Germans without any interruptions That would have been a massive win for the Germans. Instead it became a drain on German resources to support and supply them. If oil from Libya was free to be shipped north and railed into Germany, would the dependancy on Romaina oil and synthetics have been so great. From an industrial and resource level an absolute negative for the Germans.

Only as a political or proaganda did the Italian participation benefit.

Overall, pulling a Franco and staying out would have been all round the mst beneficial.

Sorry for all the p errrors. Vision has been going the past few years.

This is a massive contribution from Troopwo. Brilliant.

Forget Mussolini, would Franco entering the War in 1940 have been more significant?

The Western entrance to the Med is surely now closed, or at least much more hazardous, as Stukas are now based in Spain. I have this recurring idea that, however the war was decided outside Dunkirk, Moscow or Stalingrad….in the end that meeting at Hendaye, between Der Fuhrer and El Caudillo, kept Britain and the Commonwealth in the war.

The rest just followed almost automatically.

A neutral Italy, supporting Germany, great thinking….

I suspect Franco was too cagey.
Spain had just suffered a decade of an incredibly bloody civil war. he was probably more concerned with establishing his power base and some kind of near normalcy.

His demands would have been staggering.

introducing masses of foreign troops into the country would have been a destabilizing eeffect. A Spanish attack on Gibraltar would have succeeded but at an incredible cost. The problem being that if he won,,,then what? Spanish troops and forces were more useful keeping the population in check than in walking patrols over hundreds of miles of vulnerable unguarded coastlines..

The Spanish would certainly have been effective at neutralizing Gibraltar, but they would've required a massive infusion of supplies from Germany, which already had to sequence its major efforts to avoid straining its logistics. The Italian threat to Suez already neutralized the value of the canal as a route to India on the day they declared war, because of the aerial threat to shipping in the Eastern Med: the loss of Gibraltar MIGHT make the Med an Axis lake, but it might just have been offset by British seizure of the Canaries, Majorca and Minorca. So it's not a slam-dunk either way.

For Franco, of course, it would have meant a second maximum-effort war within years of the first, with his country still devastated and impoverished, and the certainty that he would have to be Hitler's pawn if he won. So he set a prohibitively high asking price, encouraged his own fascist extremists to go fight the Russians, and presumably breathed a sigh of relief on VE Day.

My thoughts on the Italian air effort in east africa would have been for a specialised wing of Sparviero or caproni as torpedo bombers. The threat out of Sicily essentially closed the western Med routes. the ability to have turned off the taps at the India ocean side would have starved Egypt by cutting off support through india, Australia and the round africa routes. No suppluy from the east and Egypt is under siege and a game changer.

Agree with you on Spain. Entering the war would have been too potentially a new peninsular war in an already ravaged country. Too many oppurtunities for a British landing and establishing a solid defense and too far away from German logistics for an efficient defense.

And remember – the vibes between Hitler and Franco were pretty bad – the Fuhrer (not noted as a humorist) said 'meeting that man (Franco) is worse than a visit to the dentist'

Hitler actually said of his meeting with Franco,

"I would rather have three or four teeth removed.."

I suspect that Franco deliberately made his demands to enter impossible for Hitler to meet.

Been doing a bit more thinking about this.

Italy stays out of the war like Franco.
neutral but axis aligned.

Benefits of uninterrupted production.
Make out like a bandit selling to Germany while replacing a lot of first war kit at some one else's expense.
Additionally, a lot of the spare first war kit gets pawned off to Romania and Bulgaria, boosting their army considerably while ridding themselves of non standard Austro-Hungarian surplus.

Resources, freee flow and sale to Ggermany including petroleum out of libya.

The threat of Italy being neutral but joining the war forces the UK to maintain large garrisons in East Africa, Kenya and Uganda, Anglo Egyptian Sudan, Egypt, Aden, and of course Malta.

The outstanding succes of the british army in Egypt was the result of a lot of training pre-war by the armour brigade and division. Without going to war, there is no idea of their quality and potential against the Italian numbers. This would result in the dulling of their edge as it were by time and cycling replacements out to more vital sectors. Additionally, there would be a strengthening of the egyptian garrison simply because of the fear of the unkown quality of the Italian forces.

Yugoslav and greek neutrality and even cooperation with the axis would have been a strong possibility. There was already some local support, and having the Germans at a far distance would have kept relations at a better level.

I wonder how I am doing with these ideas.

Surprisingly the two aspects I have not touched has been the Italian Expeditionary Corp in Russia and the Italian submarine contribution to the Atlantic war.

The Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia was an absolute boon to the Germans at least until late 1942. Like all the other east front axis, the lack of anti tank equipment was devastating. Mind the Germans were equally short.

The Italian subarine contribution to the Atlantic war is ignored. They did make a fair contribution, even as far as the Indian ocean and trips to Japan. I wonder if anyone has looked at the total numbers? Anything contributing to the U-boat campaign in '41 and '42 was a boon for the Germans.

These two aspects while maybe not war winners on their own can be seen as positive contributions for the Germans.

The occupation of the balkans, Greece and the Agean I have rather mixed views. big numbers for sure, but often local sympathies, locally raised forces and just as often German forces keeping a wary eye on all of the previous mentioned.

Italian subs from may 40 to september 43 sunk in atlantic sea 598k ton of allied ships. Results in mediterranean sea were modest.
Rgds
Lorenzo

Ironically, the East African argument asserts that Italy would tie down more British troops for a longer time by NOT fighting, than by fighting and being quickly mopped up.

I think East Africa only ended in Nov of '41.
A year and a half of operations being required.

Like I said, sometimes the threat of the enemy is greater than the actual appearance. The army in Libya in the start just about collaped. Yet the same army holding fixed positions at the french-tunisian border held pretty solidly. No way to know what you are actually up against until the shooting actually starts.

like I said, their mere presence and threat may have tied up more troops than by actually going to war.

Case in point, do people realize that the USSR kept an army on the border with China, (1960-91) that was about the same size as the US Army facing the german border in 1944-45?

Nobody realised that Libya contained huge oil reserves…….first production well opened in 1959.
Had the Italians known, they may have had reason to stay neutral (Axis aligned) but cashing in on Germany's thirst for oil.

I don't blame the Italians – I think it was Paul Fussell who described their attitude toward WWII as "sensibly declining to be murdered"- but their behavior does illustrate how brittle an apparently strong regime can be. It's interesting to get your hands on the literature of the 1920s and 1930s – I'll Duce had no shortage of apologists.

I find the willingness of the Italians on how they fought even more of a challenge. In some aspects fighting like lions and in other happy to get out of the war.

The immediate north african reaction was that the Italian artillerymen died at their guns fending off Matildas. Meanwhile the infantry surrenedered by the acer.

Equally, there were examples on a mountain deefense and counterattack in Eats Africa whee the same position was lost and retaken by counter attack nine times.

There are a number of similar stories in some air fighting. The Italian aircraft pressed the attack to some extremes while in other air battles it was noted how a few stood off and put on an aerobatic display.

Just like any other nation, they were not afraid of the consequences of losses. There was simple a need to justify taking those losses.