I don't want this to turn into Italian bashing but while doing some reading the other day it occurred to me that having Italy as an ally was a mixed blessing to Germany. Certainly when Germany and Italy agreed to be allies nobody then could have known how it would turned out, and would have seemed a good idea at the time.

For myself here are the pros. The Italians threatened the flank of the French, so they would have to divert at least some of their forces to cover them. The Italians had a much stronger, and better balanced fleet than the Germans and could have been a severe threat to the RN. Italy provided troops for some of Hitler's campaigns and that was certainly a plus. Mainly Italy forced Britain to divert desperately needed ships and troops to the Mediterranean sea.

The cons are that Italy had a habit of biting off more than they could chew forcing the Germans to come to their aid. By attacking North Africa and the Balkans Italy drained troops away from Europe and Russia. Germany finally had to put resources into defending Italy itself.

Did these pros outweight the cons, or would Germany have been better off by themselves.

BTW all this is assuming that Italy stayed out of the war and didn't go onto the Allied side. I can't really imagine that happening, but it's food for thought.

That's a good question. In the assumption that Italy was neutral the entire time, it would have been a very different war.

If Italy were entirely neutral, that would've changed the war for several reasons, some of which that you have pointed out. My main point is that it may have saved thousands of lives, in that after the Allies invaded Italy, it became a meatgrinder for both sides. Also, the southern landings on France would have been much harder, if they would even occur. However, one must assume that since Italy was neutral, Britain would have been able to keep more men and ships up north.

Also, one must think about North Africa. Would the Germans have been able to fight so hard for it if they didn't have Italian ports or airfields? Would they have even fought in North Africa? Or would they have taken the Russian route for the Suez Canal?

(More to come, I have to get back to class now. Good topic by the way!)

Here is what I think if Italy had stayed Neutral.

Germany would not have even bothered with North Africa, nor with the invasion of Greece. Germany only had interest in Greece because it was an interest of Italy.

So, the forces that were tied up in North Africa and the Invasions of Greece and Crete could then be used other places. Include the Luftwaffe and Naval forces in the Med and there are a good deal of units that are free to be used in other ares of Europe.

I have asked before I wonder how different Barbarossa would have been if Rommel and Guderian both cut loose in Russia.

One thing is for certain without Italy the allied invasion could only come in France and Germany would had better chances to strengthen their defensive positions along the channel.

I think Germany would have been better overall if Italy had stayed Neutral during the war.

Good question!

An interesting one for sure.

As you say, the extra material supplies offered by Italy were of grest use to Germany, but their blunders also had huge concequences.
I see it something like this:

Italy were responsible for the balkans campaign, which had 1 major consequence, it delayed the start of operation Barborossa, as Hitler had to make sure his southern flank was secure and neutralise the threat from Greece before he could invade Russia.
We know that the Germans came within the suburbs of Moscow in their initial drive on Russia before 'General Winter' helped to throw them back. Now what if they had an even one extra month to play with? It is clear that the Russians had a major advantage in the winter climate; weapons that didnt seize, tanks that didnt sink and better cold weather clothing. An extra month could have meant that Moscow had fallen, and would a dispirited Russian army have been able to make the same counter-offensive of winter 1941-42 with the loss of their capital, and with the germans holding it, would it have fallen? This could therefore have changed the entire outcome of the war, as a German victory in the east would mean that allied landings in France would have had a much greater force to fight against, added to the fact that the Germans would also have no units tied up in Italy protecting their 'soft underbelly'. In theory we could be living in a vastly different world today!

However, German troops in Russia would have had less combat experience without the Balkans campaign, and it can be argued that the Russians knew of their winter advantage and would have counter-attacked regardless of Moscow falling (which they also may have held on to regardless of the weather!)

Another angle is the subject of North Africa, would Germany have invaded? I doubt it. Hitler had no interest in Africa at all, and was reluctant to supply Rommel as it was, therefore I doubt they would have dabbled with the continent if it weren't for Italy's empire building ideas. However, there is the possibility that instead of commiting his forces here, he could have pushed on the middle east and secured himself the oil fields there, giving him a major advantage of good fuel supplies (a constant problem for Germany), though I imagine he would have been dislodged from here by the mighty desert rats just as he was from North Africa!

Other possibly overlooked aspects of Italy's involvement are things like Mussolini's ability to fuel and encourage Hitlers crazed ideas, thereby affecting the oucome of the war.

In conclusion, I beleive that Italy's involvement in the war probably worked against the Germans, their addition of manpower was useful, but their troops were not renown as being the most combat able, their armour and aircraft were also not up to the standard of German or allied equipment. Therefore their ability to disrupt Hitlers plans and commit Axis manpower in undesirable areas, along with opening the 'soft underbelly' up for invasion probably helped bring about Germany's downfall.

My 2 pence anyway!

(I should say I know next to nothing about the Italian navy and so have not taken that into account)

Cheers fo an interesting topic,

James

Well, I was going to add more, but seeing as James pretty said the same as I was going to say, I'll just applaude him... Thanks for your time!

Definitely an interesting question !

So for starters, with no North African campaign, we wouldn't have all those cool DAK and 8th Army modeling subjects. Bummer.

The Germans would have had more assets available for the campaign in the USSR, but not enough that it would have mattered.

With Italy, Greece, and presumably Albania neutral, I wonder if the British would have sought (i.e. forced) their way into Europe via that route rather than invading through Italy?

With no North African campaign, Montgomery would not have risen to such prominence in the British Army, at least not as early. Inferior generals might have lasted longer.



Well, I am not sure that's really true. There's not much evidence that the Balkan campaign really added even one day to the start of Barbarossa. And if the German army of 1941 had merely moved at the same pace as napoleon in 1812, they would have been in Moscow long before winter...heck, before autumn set in. The Germans did a pretty good job of defeating themselves even before 'general Winter" joined in.

This is the one major area where I think the Italians, or the lack of the Italians, may have influenced the war.

Off the top of my head I can think of one battleship sunk, Barham, three badly damaged, Warpsite, Valiant, and Queen Elizabeth, two carriers sunk, Ark Royal and Eagle, and a large number of cruisers and destroyers sunk and damaged in the Med. How many German ships sunk in the Med, any? While Germany couldn't be defeated as a country at sea, Britain couldn't be defeated any other way. If all the ships that the RN had committed to the Med had been switched to the Atlantic the Battle of the Atlantic would have been a non issue. The attack on the French fleet that the RN conducted to keep them from falling into Axis hands might not have happened either, which was the cause of major animosity between Britain and France.

One big difference if Italy is out is in the field of experience for Allied ground troops. Without the impetus of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, the Allied ground would have no combat experience to draw on, unless they opened some other kind of second front.

In terms of the final outcome of the war, I don't think it would have made the slightest difference. Some timings may have changed, but not much else.
France managed to hold Italian forces off in the South with the Chasseurs Alpins that were already in position, so this would have had no effect on the Battle of France.
Hitler invaded the Balkans partly because of the defection of Yugoslavia, the government sympathetic to the Axis being replaced by one sympathetic to the Allies. So he would have had to do this anyway, although perhaps Greece would have remained neutral.
If Italy were neutral, would the British have become involved in Abbyssinia? Don't know, this was a sphere of British influence inveded by Italy in 1935, driving the Emperor Haile Selassie (sp) into exile. Also, could Britain continue to countenance Italian holdings in North Africa which threatened their own? What I'm trying to get at is would Britain itself have brought Italy into the war anyway somehow?
The German involvement in North Africa was initially two weak divisions which became the DAK, later followed by others; a drop in the ocean compared to Russia, these units effect if redeployed would have been negligable. But the main drain on Germany in North Africa was the lengths needed to supply these units, with a drain on shipping and air power imposed by Malta. Without Italy, the Germans would have had to fly from the South of France. Also the life of the RN in the Med would have been a lot easier, but they wouldn't have had anyone to fight anyway. Despite the importance of the North African campaign to the British, to Hitler it was always a sideshow.
Someone else has mentioned the Battle of the Atlantic would probably have swung in the Allied favour much sooner. Not sure about this, the main problem to the Allies was lack of specialised escort vessels like corvettes. The capital ships released from the Mediterranean would hardly have been used on convoy duty, although they may have been deployed to the Far East earlier, as may the forces used in Africa & the Balkans. The loss of the Barham, while tragic was the loss of an obsolescent vessel.
The effect of no North African campaign would be that the Americans would have pushed for the opening of the "Second Front" in Europe up to 2 years before D-Day. Would an invasion in 1942 been successful? Probably not, as some of the prerequisites would not have been obtained, viz complete air superiority over Europe in daylight, dislocation of German lines of communication & war production. An unsuccessful large scale invasion attempt may have discouraged other attempts; or conversely hothoused developments to achieve the prerequisites.
Direct Italian intervention in Russia would have been more than outweighed by the German units released from the Italian Front & the Balkans. But the presence of these extra units would have had little effect on the overall conduct of the war, on a front where divisions & corps were small change.
On the personal front, would personalities like Rommel, Monty, Patton, Bradley, Kesselring, Mark Clark or Alexander featured as strongly? Probably they would all have achieved fame or notoriety at some stage, but much later on.

I personally doubt Italy would have ever stayed neutral or allied themselves with France even if the allies had promised them whatever they wanted. The simple reason being mussolini was a bitter ww1 veteran who felt cheated by the allies after Italy sided with the allies in promise for land in the Balkans.

I feel the Italians, basicly mussolini, saw a great oppertunity to ally himself with Hitler who was also a fascist. Both had common goals, intrest, and he same ennemies. They both hated France and Britain due to the versaille treaty.

With this asside, i feel it is clear that war was indeed eminent for the Italians and the Germans were simply the best ally.

Hitler himself was a military geniuous, but hightly disorganized. The blitzkrieg demonstrates his ability to develop military tactics, but his rapid urge to conquer all of europe at once demonstrates his weakness. Stalin wasn't ready to declare was because Russia was not doing well, but Hitler urger to attack believing it would be an easy victory. Similarly Mussolini was eager to conquer the land of the balkans the allies had promised Italy in first worl war.

So weather italy was thier or not doesn't seem to have much of an influence for me because Hitler himself made tremendous mistakes which led to Germany's defeat.

my thoughts for the night!

Being of Italian heritage, I would have to say that their involvement was a detriment. They got Hitler involved / distracted frm his focus of Barbaroosa. It is a well documented fact that Barbaroosa was delayed from a late April early May start until late June. Would the 4 -6 weeks have made a difference. I tend to lean towards YES. I think MOscow would have fallen. It woud have done serious damage to the Soviet credibility, but I am positive that the end result would have beenthe sme. The big hurt would have been to the Americans as they would have had virtualy no combat experience to draw from. It is quite possibletat D-Day would have failed due to this and the probabilty that the Atlantic wall would have been more heavily defended and built up. As Russian production had moved ffar enough away as to not be affected by German air, and the vast human resources, eventually Russia would have overcome the invader. Of course the war may have lasted 2 or 3 years longer

Without the entry of the Italians into the war, we would be saying 'Rommel? who?' if he hadn't had his moment of fame in the Western Desert he would have served the rest of his career as an obscure divisional/corps commander in the USSR. He wasn't that famous after France 1940.

David

Mussolini certainly did involve himself greater than the Italians were able to do. . More Itailan military resources were used in Russia than in North Africa. Let's face it, the Italian manufacturing infrastructure just didn't have the resources to support their military. The first Italian armoured division "Ariete" wasn't ready for action until 1941. This was the first of 4 divisions, only three would be completed (2 only saw action) as there wasn't enough vehicle production to maintain the first 3 as Italy is resource poor. Since the Itailans had been fighting from 1935 the people were tired and weren't as focused upon the prizes and glory that Mussolini wanted. Aircraft development in Italy would have gone in a different direction without the agreements on the building of the Daimler-Benz inline engines. Maybe Italy would have done more oil exploration in North Africa and found the oil that was under their feet! That's another factor eliminating a North Africa campaign or maybe the rationale for starting another one with the British as the agressors. There was a growing descent among the general population towards the Fascists that they were not focusing on the development on Italy domestically, and primarily putting thier focus for international reputation of Mussolini.
Much of the Commonwealth troops used in North Africa and the Balkans were ANZAC, Indian and South Africans. These could have helped out with the early campaigns in the Burma and Pacific theates, as well as the available naval and air assets. The Japanese would have faced a stronger and better equipped British Commonwealth military than they did. Before Pearl Harbor only the smallest trickle of forces and equipment was reaching the Far East, most of that was obsolete with the best troops going to North Africa. Although the fighting in North Africa helped with the development of ground equipment and tactics.

Mike T.

I read once in a biography about Mussolini that Hitler seriously considered abandoning Italy and the Fascist because they were not ready for war.Especially not on an industrial levelItaly was not an industrial nation whatso ever.Hitler also new the sorry state of the the Italian army.Most of their generals were third rate at best along with the troops and armor.But Hitler had a comradship going with his fellow dictator in the south.He stuck with him to the end despite his misgivings. I also doubt whether Italy could have remained neutral with a powerful force like the Nazis lurking to the North.Rommel was a superb tactican, he would have emerged somwhere.Probably the eastern front.

Had italy stayed out of the war then the Royal Navy would not have attacked the Italian fleet at Taranto which proved to the Japanese that a fleet at anchor can be succefully attacked by carrier aircraft. Had it not happened then the Japanese just might of changed their plans for Pearl Harbour. I still think old adolf would have gone after Suez and the Mideastern oil fields just to cut off British supplies.