REDUX: Place In The Sun: What If Italy Joined The Central Powers?
- Thread starter Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth
- Start date
One of the few terrible modern ideas which didn't come from the US, haha.
Glad its not some new chemical weapon. At first I thought it was a DDT variant.
not much more than OTL, it's not that the rest of the entente has been that generous with coal and other resources , basically we survived with strict rationing and great increase of the internal production and ITTL what Germany and A-H can give will take the place of what given by the rest of the entente
The blockade OTL got much more ironclad after America started to squeeze at the source. ITTL they won't, so the Netherlands and Scandinavia will have much easier world-wide trade relations. Nowhere near pre-war, because there IS a blockade, but much better than OTL after the American DoW.
Well, strict rationing is what caused Germany and Austria-Hungary to implement Daylight Savings in the first place.
Also, Italy was still importing a ton of coal. Domestic coal production at the end of the war was 2 million tons, but imports were still at 5 million tons despite the drastic increase in production.
Not only that, but the blockade also locks Italy out of imports from neutral nations, primarily the US, which exported some 1.8 million tons to Italy in 1916. So Germany and A-H, now have to ship another 5 million tons of coal, about 5% of their total production annually to keep Italian industry viable, alongside all their own domestic wartime needs.
This isn't a crippling amount, but that's an extra 5 million tons of demand compared to OTL, where shortages were already severe enough that Daylight Savings was imposed.
In practice, Dutch merchants privately organized clearinghouses (the Netherlands Oversea Trust) that promised that any overseas imports would not be reexported to the Central Powers well before the US got involved. That way, they placated the Germans by not having an official policy of embargoing while also placating the Entente by not openly acting as a Central Powers clearinghouse.
Plus, the Dutch were also importers of German coal until late in the war (1917/1918) anyways, so they aren't really a practical way to evade the blockade in the quantities need for coal imports.
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Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth
Banned
This is an excellent point: Sweden in particular is a major conduit between the Central Powers and the rest of the world, and the Italian-American community within the US, plus the overall better course of the war for Germany, has made the men in Washington slightly more pro-Central Powers.
That's a very interesting point overall, cause it's not only the Italians, but also the Germans. Between them they make a big chunk of the American populace, and if anything like the Easter Rising happens in ITTL, you also have to factor in the anti-British Irish community.
That’s a good point - did the Easter Rising occur ITTL? The conditions that led to it don’t seem like they’d have been butterflied
That makes me wonder what the Pope thinks of all this. On the grounds of his claims in Latium he might feel tempted to speak out against Italy, but on the other hands this would be incredibly risky to his safety. France might try and offer him a restored Papal State if he joins them but that would be foolish to take up. Plus on top of this the Central Powers contain most of the major Catholic and Catholic-adjacent (Germany having a huge Catholic population) in Europe and this could easily become a quest to uphold thr values of the "holy" system of monarchy and opposing secularism and liberalism.
Papal support could be an important factor in Irish sympathy as well as the reaction of the Latin American world
Interesting points! But remember what's going to bypass the blockade is still going to be small amounts compared to what's needed overall. It can't bring in large enough imports of things to the point it can make a difference in the economy. You can't bring in huge amounts of niter, fertilizer, etc. Small amounts of specific materials, but there's no real ability to scale up.
The odd cargo ship might sneak in, but definitely not dozens and dozens of them - the quantity it takes for imports. The Entente might tolerate the occasional through a neutral nation, but they will stop huge numbers of ships going in rightfully (or not) since the rules of the sea are what the Royal Navy says they are
The odd cargo ship might sneak in, but definitely not dozens and dozens of them - the quantity it takes for imports. The Entente might tolerate the occasional through a neutral nation, but they will stop huge numbers of ships going in rightfully (or not) since the rules of the sea are what the Royal Navy says they are
Honestly if I were Lucien I'd have left Europe entirely and gone somewhere really far out of the way. Bolivia and The Philippines came to my mind. Also, amazing how he never slipped up and revealed his true identity once, even to his own wife. Imagine being his German child and finding out that you dad was the guy who surrendered in Verdun.
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I think I just realized another big pickle the French have put themselves in. Cordonniers/the French plan was to draw the Italians into a meatgrinder in Nice, but Giraldi/the Italians saw through this and have decided to surround and siege Nice while clearing out other French positions that cannot be supplied to the needed degree without Nice. But this means not only that the Italians are going to take more time in exchange for a larger chance for success and less suffering, but also that the French are trapped.
The entire French 8th army, 10 divisions, are currently in Nice, and they will not be able to break out. The Italians will not allow them and they do not have the logistics required once Italy completely cuts them off. Joffre will not be able to direct a offensive to break the encirclement, all available troops are being sent to Verdun. If anything the French will draw troops from the 9th army in the Alps to send to Verdun.
This means that while it might take a while, at some point (end of 1916/beginning of 1917 would be my guess) 10 French divisions, the entire 8th army, will surrender/be annihilated. Which means that the French will completely lose an armys worth of officers, experienced NCOs and veteran troops. Not to mention all of the lost equipment. All this while expanding the draft and trying to make troops of green men and boys. The loss of these trained men, along with the losses at Verdun, will make this an incredibly challenging task.
In addition, while the troops at Nice will be able to stall the Italian army, after it is gone they will need to send more men to bottle the Italians in the Alps. No matter how much they need men to send against the Germans. So when the 1917 summer offensives begin the French army will be extremely stretched out along with being very green.
It is very hard to come to another conclusion then that after Giraldi broke their lines that it would have been better for the French to surrender Nice and withdraw. As it is the Italians have trapped them and are about to deal a blow that the French will be hard pressed to come back from. Cordonnier is skilled and it might have seemed that he made the right decision to try and grind down the Italians, but he has chosen to fight a battle that should not have been fought. The downsides of pride and courage.
The entire French 8th army, 10 divisions, are currently in Nice, and they will not be able to break out. The Italians will not allow them and they do not have the logistics required once Italy completely cuts them off. Joffre will not be able to direct a offensive to break the encirclement, all available troops are being sent to Verdun. If anything the French will draw troops from the 9th army in the Alps to send to Verdun.
This means that while it might take a while, at some point (end of 1916/beginning of 1917 would be my guess) 10 French divisions, the entire 8th army, will surrender/be annihilated. Which means that the French will completely lose an armys worth of officers, experienced NCOs and veteran troops. Not to mention all of the lost equipment. All this while expanding the draft and trying to make troops of green men and boys. The loss of these trained men, along with the losses at Verdun, will make this an incredibly challenging task.
In addition, while the troops at Nice will be able to stall the Italian army, after it is gone they will need to send more men to bottle the Italians in the Alps. No matter how much they need men to send against the Germans. So when the 1917 summer offensives begin the French army will be extremely stretched out along with being very green.
It is very hard to come to another conclusion then that after Giraldi broke their lines that it would have been better for the French to surrender Nice and withdraw. As it is the Italians have trapped them and are about to deal a blow that the French will be hard pressed to come back from. Cordonnier is skilled and it might have seemed that he made the right decision to try and grind down the Italians, but he has chosen to fight a battle that should not have been fought. The downsides of pride and courage.
kham_coc
Banned
Well that's the conclusion that historians ITTL seems to have drawn - Either Nice, or Verdun could be held, but not both.
Unfortunately for the French, the prevailing mentality at this time is that no French soil is to be given up without a fight.
It's like Sun Tzu said, he who seeks to defends everything defends nothing.
I am really curious if the peace treaty will look like in the original version of this story or not. I think that a lot of it will depend on the domestic situation in Germany when the war ends. A "natural border" argument to the Meusse seems likely, but I could also see them taking Verdun and Sedan, the two big sites of German victories.
On the plus side fkr the Alsatians, annexation like those would basically necessitate splitting Alsace-Lorraine into Alsatian and Lorraniane states, which will spell good things for their autonomy movements.
On the plus side fkr the Alsatians, annexation like those would basically necessitate splitting Alsace-Lorraine into Alsatian and Lorraniane states, which will spell good things for their autonomy movements.
Huh, interesting here. Didn't think of the point with the seige of Nice being better. But yeah, all the French in the area can do is counterattack. Not sure how far the Italians can spread the line. I think they have like 25 divisions here? Not sure how thinly they can spread even with trenches to keep the blockade up. They can't support immense amounts of troops and artillery thanks to the mountains - they can only improve the road network so much. So they'll be limited in how many troops they can support by how many supplies they can bring in. Heavy artillery can only do so much when they can't get the hundreds of thousands of shells in.