Hoi4: What if Italy was actually COMPETENT 

​@@baroku94Germany made all members of the axis sign the "pact of steel" essentially saying if anyone attacks or is attacked the other members must also declare war. Hitler kept musolini under the impression that war wouldn't start till at least 1946-48. He thought he had more time so was completely unready for war

I am familiar with Italy's performance during WW2. and WW1 for that matter. It was honestly embarrassing. Yes they were *hopelessly* unprepared, but they did not let that stop them going on the offensive. The fact that they had to get bailed out of the invasion of Greece that they started by Germany really showcases that (note that Hitler very specifically told Mussolini not to do it and he did it anyway), since at the time Greece was an absolute mess which was arguably even worse prepared for war than Italy. Mussolini bears a huge part of the blame for this, as his ego repeatedly dragged italy into fights they could not win and got them slaughtered. Not to the level Luigi Cadorna got them slaughtered in WW1, I grant you, but that is a high bar to clear. Few commanders in all of history can compete with Luigi for throwing away the lives of their troops in suicidal offensives. The number of unforced errors Mussolini made during that campaign are worth noting. One of which was starting his offensive in October. October, for context, is the middle of Italy's harvest season. That means that Mussolini had the choice of either conscripting his workforce for his military campaign (thus dealing a significant economic blow as he would lose out on a major portion of the year's harvest due to lack of manpower) or sending the young men to work the fields (thus weakening his military due to loss of a major portion of his conscripts). Italy was on the offensive. They could have delayed until after the harvest to avoid making this choice. Greece was not in a position to attack them at the time. The Italian military was not inherently incompetent. even the much memed upon tankettes make sense when you consider that most of Italy's land boarders are through mountain passes where heavy tanks are completely impractical. However, their leadership in general and Mussolini in particular were either comically incompetent or grossly negligent, routinely neglecting logistics and morale and rendering their army inefficient from the top down.

​@@FuelDropforthewin Essentially all of the Italian generals (except for a few like Giovanni Messe) were purely hired for ideological loyalty. Mussolini had essentially wanted to make a loyal army but it would have been too much of an investment on Italy's generally weak economy (that was still recovering from the great depression) to make a strong one (when there was no war in the near future). Similiar to other dictators, loyal generals tend to lie about the situation to make it seem better than it actually was. Mussolini probably didn't know the full extent of the situations with the Italian forces until they were essentially out of the war (not that anything would probably have been done at that point anyways.

Sounds like something an Italian would say

Bro, le doppie dove le hai lasciate? Comunque non penso che dire che l'Italia era forte, sia poco controversiale oggi, capisci?

Tri state area*

fuck it perry - we doin this lmao

@@namethefifth7315 Beat me to it

Behold! My compitence-anator!!!

@@rustyblade-zr6ph he should have made that

It probably depends on whether or not the Battles of Khalkhin Gol are mandatory or not.

the only major change would be the war lasting longer, no matter what japan would have to declare war on the west due to severe lack of resources and embargos

@@Nomsyyyy well, it seems you lack the imagination, without Japan triggering usa maybe they stayed out of it for years and that would give time to operation barbarossa without a powerful D day, and also Stalin having a 2 front wars in Siberia would not be fun for him

@@FelipeTempestad17 i think youre someone whose history knowledge only comes from hoi4, even before ww2 the second sino japanese war was going on. during the second sino japanese war several close calls came with american vessels shipping to china in turn already damaging relations. the reason japan struck in 1941 was due to a severe lack of rubber, steel and oil. without these they wouldnt win the second sino japanese war as it was in a stalemate. all that would happen would be the war lasting longer and maybe just maybe a victory in stalingrad due to having less resources to put against the germans. no matter what the allies wouldve went in on japan or vise versa. please learn your history * EDIT fixed a minor spelling mistake *

Literally nothing would change. The soviets always had a pretty large force on the Japanese border even at the worst points of Operation Barbarossa. The Japanese were always tied up in China and I don't think they could even break through the soviet line.

Interim military governments have a historical tendency to interpret the term "interim" very loosely.

Return of the German HRE would be baller!

@@AnimeFreak40K Especially if it means Kaiserin Victoria Louise... namely because I've been asking for that one every time he does this

@@nightspawnson-of-luna4936 Oh, I have too! My 4th bullet/suggestion is exactly the HRE w/Kaiserin Victoria!

DNVP

Or; a better interesting option, what if the Republicans won the CW, Spanish Democracy survives, and then they join the Allies?

After the civil war, Spain had little to no industry, manpower and also quality equipment so it would likely be a speed bump for the allies

I'll expand on tis and ask "What if Spain joined the Axis and took control of Gibraltar?" Would that mean that the Siege of Malta and the african campaign would be easier for the Axis?

Well, spain was pretty weak after thier own little civil war...

They'd be crushed, as they were extremely weak after the civil war, which would open a new front for Germany and Italy.

This series is abt historic realism, not gameplay

It would be Italy pulling an Italy from 1915 😂

Thank you! That myth needs to die.

@@TheSkyGuy77Bruh that’s not what happened in 1915,study more from books and less from memes

Probably yes. Moreover Mussolini himself from a side was enthusiastic of Hitler, but at the same time he was angry, frustrated and repressed by the fact that Germany became the leader in the alliance. Mussolini rised Hitler as dictator. He was the master... (that son of a b...) So many of his actions in war and some initiatives such like that in Greece was made because Mussolini wanted to show that we Italians wasn't the Germans lacchè (servitors). But of course by not spending for war nor preparing the FFAA for the fight, they condemned our forces to submit to foreign initiative. Because that's a fact: Fascist Italy never put a single cent on financing WW2 efforts. Not even half of a cent. And that's give you the picture of the "competency" of the fascists on this matters. So in the end Mussolini had a series of complains against Hitler and the Nazi and historically speaking he tried to sign an alliance, an anti-nazi alliance, with the Britts. But of course Churchill refused because accordingly to him, we "invaded something"... the Britt talked about we invaded something and that wasn't legal... I mean, the biggest colonial empire on the planet had the guts to blame us of taking back Albania, a country that WE made and inhabitated since the dawn of times. 😮‍💨 Britts... ☕

​@@danielefabbro822 Churchill was in power only from the 10th of May onwards, the Italians joined the Battle of France around 2 weeks later. I doubt the entire talks broke down in 2 weeks. Also the British issues were more with Ethiopia which by that time was an established state. See, Britain established its empire mostly on territory without centralized ruler, or land that was already colonized as part of war spoils. The only exception on this rule that I can think of is the Mugal Empire of India. In general, however, the UK followed rules that made a *casus belli* necessary, even if they stretched that definition to its limits, and the Fascist government of Italy had no proper *casus belli* for their war against Ethiopia. Hence the reluctance to join Italy.

No please no

This is not the search bar xd

Monthly population -1000%

No

Take the khmer rouge pill

Allies get stomped by the soviets and can only win by dropping their limited number of nukes on military formations

​@@spacemarine3482lmao The idea that the soviets would "stomp" the combined forces of the allies is a child's fantasy at best. The massive industrial base of the USA, as well as the existing navies of the Allies (including UK, US, captured japanese and German fleets) would make any Soviet attempt at naval superiority futile. The soviets would have to keep significant garrisons all over their shorelines to not risk an allied naval invasion, even if only temporary. Even being charitable and assuming a Soviet offensive could overrun the allied armies in mainland Europe, anything across the water would be a huge challenge, not to mention that the allies had a far superior Air force in comparison, meaning that traditional bombing campaigns would be on the Allies' favor, damaging Soviet industrial base and people's war support without much means of counter by the red air force. The only significant risk would be the development of Nuclear weapons by the soviets, but even then, in the early years of post WW2 they were tactical weapons rather than the Destructive MAD weapons they would become in later decades, meaning even if they managed to appropriate the materials and technology to develop nukes during a war against the allies, they still wouldn't be a master key to end the war.

@@joelfilho2625 Ya no while not nearly as vast the Red Airforce still would have been more than a match to disrupt bombings for at least a few years before attrition would take it's tool. As for the Allies they would be stuck trying to sell a war that no one would have wanted while the soviets just got another massive propaganda line of the western capitalists traitors are finally coming to destroy the revolution after an attempted genocide. Also the soviets don't need to worry to much about the naval situation considering their is no trade or objectives for them to purpose that require one other than an invasion of the UK which they would recognize as impossible. You also vastly overstate the capabilities of the Western armies the soviets had a father greater number of men and far more experienced formations. All the soviets need to do is take France and the war becomes unwinnable for the allies as the populations get tired of the war and unrest begins to build.

This operation didn't happen because England and US didn't have the means to make it happen. The plan was based on nuking 200 Soviet cities with 300 nuclear bombs. There was absolutely no way they could accommodate such a large scale nuclear operation. It's not as if they chose not to do it,they couldn't.

@@spacemarine3482 Soviets could barely handle Germany by themselves, let alone the US + UK.

America, who has told European powers in the Monroe doctrine to not create (any more) allies in South America and North America, would have probably immediately invaded Mexico or launched a coup. (Which is why it didn’t happen in rl)

Mexico would occupy British Belize, leading to Winston Churchill spontaneously combusting and the UK surrenders to the Axis.

Ribbentropp is by far a biased source, like almost all german generals post-war memoires.

There is a passage that is interesting in this sense: the "molibdeno list" (it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_del_molibdeno unfortunately it's just in ita or Spanish), where italy was asking an incredible amount of materials to Germany in order to enter in the war with them. Of course it was an excuse to avoid the immediate entrance. When Italy entered Mussolini was actually convinced that the war was basically already won, and he was worried about entering to late to get something

Pretty sure it was Galeazzo Ciano,I think Ribbentrop did a bet with him too about Poland not joining the Allies

The allies would abandon them

@@cpdangertv3868 Yep! the UK and France had no intention of actually living up to their geantees and threats, and where shocked when mustache man and fat boy called their bluff.

They basically did and got overthrown by their own people. The allies wouldn't be able to do anything and wouldn't even want to. One: appeasement was still the order of the day. And two: while the Austrian government was taken out by a coup it was very much one by popular support. When mustach man went into Austria, it was originally to set up a German friendly puppet state. However upon his motorcade being met with cheering Austrians welcoming him with tears in his eyes he was moved into annexing them outright. This was against the will of his advisors who were vehemently against outright annexation fearing that with it being directly prohibited by the treaty of Versailles would provoke an immediate war with the allies.

@@simonnachreiner8380 True, from what I remember the Germans wasn't really planning into fully annexing Austria, but it had really popular support from the Austrians

Yes

In my playthrough with italy it happened, Iran and turkey sided with the axis. In Africa i was able to land troops from the north and wiped out uk from egypt and the Suez channel (blew it just afterwards), then germany started an offensive in Russia from Poland, while me with turkey and Iran started an offensive from the South (more a position war just to distract troops while germany was advancing) in two years we conquered moscow, in three soviet union was no more. Very interesting run that was.

Haven't seen many people do a Trotsky run. At least not recently that I remember. Would be cool.

@fidoruh Yeah the only time I've ever seen it is in ahistorical runs I've played

why do you hate play Italy?

Considering the fact that Soviets relied on Allies lend lease, with Great Britain's fall they would simply fall apart. USSR's ability to manufacture tanks and such contrasted with their complete inability to feed and clothe their soldiers.