Italian Stratigic Resources and Industry

Discussions on all aspects of Italy under Fascism from the March on Rome to the end of the war.
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Brady
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Re: Italian Stratigic Resources and Industry

#16

Post by Brady » 03 Aug 2019, 18:00

All this begs the Question, Why... There was certainly sufficient refining capacity to process the crude oil, and according to what I have read they had more or less enough Gas and Diesel for there military needs, but why not Fuel Oil for ships ? (why could they not secure its delivery ?)

Regarding Op Tempo, this could be because they planed (pre war estimates sighted above) on operations that never materialized, that in 40, and 41, they simply did not need to be as active as they planed, so they did not take steps to secure the delivery's of fuel to meet expected future demands in a war that they thought would not last as long as it did ?

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Re: Italian Stratigic Resources and Industry

#17

Post by DrG » 03 Aug 2019, 20:39

The fuel needs of the Army and Air Force are seldom taken into account by literature, but they were far from covered by pre-war stockpiles or from wartime production. According to pp. 232-233 of Raspin's book (if you will have the patience to wait for its arrival, you will get the answer to most of your questions), in February 1940, in order to achieve an autonomy of 8-12 months, the planned stocks of fuels were:
- Navy: 2,000,000 t of fuel oil;
- Army: 500,000 t of gasoline and diesel;
- Air Force: 400,000 t of aviation fuel.

In September 1939 these were the actual stocks (no further data is provided by Raspin for Army and Air Force, but she assumes that their stocks increased somewhat before the war):
- Navy: 1,420,000 t (1,666,674 t on July 1st 1940);
- Army: 62,500 t of gasoline and 50,000 t of diesel;
- Air Force: 65,000 t of aviation fuel.

Of course you should take into account also the civilian consumption.

Appendix 15 of Raspin's book provides the data about the stocks of fuel oil of the Regia Marina during the war, showing the crisis which it faced since the end of 1941. The French armistice had certainly caused a reduction of fuel consumption with respect to the plans, but frankly I find it difficult to believe that a Navy at war can operate optimally when it burns fuel just twice than during peacetime (as did the Regia Marina in 1940-41).


Brady
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Re: Italian Stratigic Resources and Industry

#18

Post by Brady » 04 Aug 2019, 00:34

DrG, Thank you for indulging me in this, I remain optimistic that they will allow me to borrow one of the copy's of her book that is in the united states, but its not a certainty.

Regarding fuel: 703,272 from Germany, we don't know what that was do we, was it gas or Avgas or ?

The whole thing is very interesting to ponder, as you say I hope her book has sufficient detail, and it seams it will based on the data you have shared, that all this can be made much more clear

One thing that is not clear is how the German forces Luftwaffe and the Army received there fuel needs, presumably they were net met from Italian stocks, I know there was "Deal" whereby Italy would provide food to German forces in NA, I just assumed that fuel was a separate item though possibly carried along the same logistics line as the Italian forces used

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DrG
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Re: Italian Stratigic Resources and Industry

#19

Post by DrG » 04 Aug 2019, 01:59

Brady, no problem, I am glad to help you.
Appendix 12 of the ubiquitous Raspin's book provides the breakdown of the fuel imports from Germany:
- 1940: total all oil 9,661 t;
- 1941: aviation fuel 57,189 t, naval naphta (I assume it is fuel oil) 43,940 t, total all oil 194,295 t;
- 1942: aviation fuel 109,739 t, naval naphta 209,000 t, total all oil 331,316 t;
- 1943: aviation fuel n.a., naval naphta 139,000 t, total all oil 168,000 t.

There is also a footnote that I missed, it states: "Italian oil imports from Hungary, the USSR and all other sources except Albania, amounted to about 50,000 tons in 1940 and 1941 and to about 100,000 tons in both 1942 and 1943. See 'Die Wehrwirtschaft Italiens, Anlage .18'."

By the way, if ever there is a critique we may make to Raspin's work it is that it often relied on German documents, rather than on Italian ones (which I assume were unavailable to her or simply do not exist), like in the aforementioned footnote.

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Re: Italian Strategic Resources and Industry

#20

Post by Volyn » 05 Aug 2019, 14:33

I have a few questions that are somewhat related to this topic.

1. In light of Italy's lack of natural resources and their under-performing industrial base, how were these issues not more fully addressed by the Fascists in 18 years leading up Italy's involvement in WW2?

2. When the Italians sent the Corpo Truppe Volontarie to Spain from 1936-1939, did the Italian government experience similar problems related to their industrial base's ability to maintain the CTV with military equipment and supplies over a 3 year period of conflict?

3. When the Germans and Italians signed the "Pact of Steel" on 22 MAY 1939 did the Nazi government conduct any form of prior analysis concerning the Italian economy, their industrial handicaps and its overall underdeveloped state?

4. Did the Germans assist the Italian industry in anyway in order to help them meet their wartime productions once Italy entered the war against France and Britain? If so, how?

5. Were there any government industrial policies established between the Germans and Italians that actually helped them to conduct the war?

6. What conclusions can be drawn from Italy's lack of capacity and preparation for a war they got themselves into?

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Re: Italian Strategic Resources and Industry

#21

Post by DrG » 05 Aug 2019, 16:38

Volyn, your questions are very important and complex too, I hope my answers will be useful.
Volyn wrote:
05 Aug 2019, 14:33
1. In light of Italy's lack of natural resources and their under-performing industrial base, how were these issues not more fully addressed by the Fascists in 18 years leading up Italy's involvement in WW2?
Mussolini changed several ministers during his government, the ones in charge of the economic Ministries were, more or less till the beginning of the Thrities, of liberist (laissez-faire) ideology and did not sponsor State intervention in the economy. Only the Ministry of Agriculture was involved in the promotion of larger national production since the Twenties, given the serious shortcomings of food already happened during WW1 and the cost, in terms of foreign currency, of imports. Then the crisis of 1929, which hit Italy since 1930-31, caused the collapse of most of the largest industrial groups, which were saved by their nationalization through the IRI (Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale). Despite this sudden and somewhat unwanted and unforeseen state intervention, at first each nationalized company operated like a private one, just its capital was owned by a State-run institution (IRI). It was only with the war of Ethiopia and the economic sanctions by the League of Nations (with the exclusion of USA and Germany, therefore) that a full autarchic policy was applied, and it did reach very good results. You see that Italy in WW2 was a developing country, but only a lustre before 1940 it was a fully backward country. Rolf Petri, in his book which I have already mentioned, and Maiocchi in his "Gli scienziati del duce. Il ruolo dei ricercatori e del CNR nella politica autarchica" provide several data about the successes of autarchic policy; for example just think about the production of coal, which was equal to 782,958 t in 1934 and reached 4,907,955 t in 1942, with the large development of the Arsia mines and the construction from scrap of the new Carbonia mines, opened in 1934.
2. When the Italians sent the Corpo Truppe Volontarie to Spain from 1936-1939, did the Italian government experience similar problems related to their industrial base's ability to maintain the CTV with military equipment and supplies over a 3 year period of conflict?
I have never read of limitations due to lack of resources, also because the Italian involvement was relatively limited, much smaller than in WW2. By the way, Italian international commerce was free (it even imported oil from USSR, which fought on the opposite side, in exchange for military - mainly naval - technology!). On the other hand, the Wars of Ethiopia and Spain and the modernization of industrial plants required large amounts of foreign currency and gold, which dramatically depleted the reserves of the Bank of Italy, as documented by Felice Guarneri's (who was the Minister of Trade and Currencies) "Battaglie economiche tra le due guerre". Before WW1 Italy had managed to accumulate relatively good reserves not much thanks to its exports (which were always less than its imports), but thanks to the savings of emigrants, sent back home. Given that mass emigration ended with WW1, the ties with motherland were severed by distance and time and this source of hard currencies slowly dried out. The industrial development, which was huge during WW1 and slower after it, did not provide currencies because exports were curtailed by the closure of the largest markets of the world, which were under British, French and US control.
3. When the Germans and Italians signed the "Pact of Steel" on 22 MAY 1939 did the Nazi government conduct any form of prior analysis concerning the Italian economy, their industrial handicaps and its overall underdeveloped state?
The military situation of Italy was fully known by the German high commands well before the Pact of Steel and they always hadn't the slightest interest in Italian active support. In their opinion, the Italian Army and Air Force had only the function of keeping French units away from the North, fixed on the Alps of in Tunisia. Only adm. Raeder understood the strategic importance of Italy not only in drawing away enemy naval units, but also in disrupting the communication lines of the British Empire. Thanks to the control of Sardinia, Sicily and Libya (then Tunisia), the Axis was able to close the Mediterranean route to enemy and neutral merchant ships, causing an immediate loss of 2,000,000 grt of transport capacity.
4. Did the Germans assist the Italian industry in anyway in order to help them meet their wartime productions once Italy entered the war against France and Britain? If so, how?
Industrial cooperation between Italy and Germany was nearly unexisting. It is well known that Alfa Romeo (a State controlled company, held by IRI) bought the license of the DB 601 engine and then FIAT (a listed stock company, controlled by the Agnelli family) the DB 605, but it is hard to find any other example. It is interesting, instead, that since the autumn of 1941 German technical help was provided to the Regia Marina for the recovery of 200,000 t of oil sludge from the bottoms of oil bunkers (a chemical process that required some consumption of fuel, in turn). On the other hand, Germany was always and severely late with the delivery of the planned amounts of raw materials (coal, oil, fuels, metals, etc.), to the extant that Italy kept a positive trade balance with its ally during the war, which is a military and economic non-sense, because it should be the stronger ally the one that exports more to its partners, not the opposite.
5. Were there any government industrial policies established between the Germans and Italians that actually helped them to conduct the war?
AFAIK, no.
6. What conclusions can be drawn from Italy's lack of capacity and preparation for a war they got themselves into?
At the end of the Thirties, Italy was a developing economy, with large and high quality (good schools and excellent universities, artisanal tradition, etc.) human capital which was severely underused because of the lack of foreign currency (needed to fund the acquisition of more modern industrial plants and machineries and to fund the working capital of international trade) and of foreign markets, which were closed due to the presence of protectionism and colonial empires, both official and unofficial (the latter ones were the British influence in South America and the French, then German, one in Eastern Europe). The absence of free trade, and the lack of hard currencies to take part in it, were to be solved following these steps:
1) import raw materials from countries which accept bilateral clearing, without need of using dollars, pounds or gold. The best examples were Spain, after Franco's victory, which had accumulated a relevant war debt to Italy, which was duly and precisely repaid in the following decades by providing raw materials, first of all the iron ore which was absolutely needed by the new Italian steel mills; and USSR, which exported oil and several metals in exchange for military technology (ships - the Sovetsky Soyuz class was almost a copy of the Ansaldo UP 41 project -, some aircrafts, ball bearings, etc.);
2) wait for the fall of the British and French colonial empires, and if possible accelerate their dissolution (help provided to both Palestinians and Zionists, to Indian nationalists, etc.);
3a) take part to the new world of open and free trade, following the same principles of the United States;
3b) create an Italian economic sphere, shaped upon the Grossraumwirtschaft theories of Nazi Germany.

The aim 3a was the most followed before the war and the one chosen since the Spring of 1943 by Italian industrialists, who decided to get rid of Mussolini (if not of Fascism tout court) and side with the USA, thanks to the clear passage of the command of the Allied coalition in the hands of the Americans from the much more dangerous British.
The aim 3b was followed only during the infatuation for Germany in 1939-42, and not by everybody, and was seen as the only way to survive if Germany had won the war, maybe after the signing of a peace with UK and France that would have postponed the full dissolution of their empires. Therefore, Italy would not have enjoyed any participation to world markets and would have to create its own empire, carved from some of the French and British colonies and neutral countries.

Returning to the strategy of the entry of Italy in WW2, it is by now agreed and well known that it was based on the assumption of the "guerra breve" (short war) i.e. that a peace was going to be signed by the end of 1940, maybe even in its autumn, and therefore the problem of industrial production was irrelevant, because pre-war stocks (both of raw materials and finished products) would have been enough. Somebody could argue that neutrality would have been a choice, but they forget that UK and France imposed a strict naval blockade during the first half of 1940, causing a serious economic damage (also in terms of foreign currency) and the need of importing coal only from Germany (the British offers to export coal in exchange for war materials were both unfounded, because UK hadn't coal surplus, and dangerous, because Germany was of course against the export of weapons to its enemies), and that the declaration of war on 10 June 1940 seemed the final step for the dissolution of the enemy colonial empires or, at least, for their opening to free trade (which, on an economic point of view, is nearly the same thing and maybe is even better - because the presence of the colonial empires provides a guarantee of peace and law that the independence of backwards colonies cannot provide).

Moreover, and this is the most important point of Italian economic strategy in WW2, when it was clear, more or less in October 1940, that the "short war" had become the "guerra lunga" (long war), due to the German renounce to invade England, the only way to continue fighting a modern war was by exploiting the two "lungs" of Italian economy: Spain and USSR, with Romania as a second best. And here come the worst problems. On one hand the fall of France had guaranteed the safety of the routes to Spain, which traded with Italy almost without problems until the Allied landings in Provence (the Royal Navy didn't even try to sever the sea lines between Italy and Spain, maybe fearing that the latter one would have entered war with the Axis), and to some extent even later.
On the other hand, the complete disregard by the Royal Navy for Greek neutrality, and the absence of any Greek intervention to avoid the use of its waters and even ports by a warring power, despite the several diplomatic (and not so diplomatic, like the sinking of the warship Helli on 15 August 1940) Italian actions, caused the full blockade of any Italian import from the Black Sea. Of course the position of the Greeks is understandable, due to their dependance, even in the most basic goods such as grain, from sea trade, especially from British-occupied Egypt and the Suez Canal, and they suffered their share of intimidation from the Royal Navy too, like the sinking of the small steamer Hermione by HMS Orion in August 1940. Therefore, the only source of oil for Italy was Romania (using river and railway transport), which, I repeat, was just a second-best after the USSR. When the Germans peacefully occupied this country in October 1940, Italy lost its only independent source of oil, because, just like coal before it, it had fallen into German control.
Due to the British control of the Aegean Sea and the German control of Romania, the only way to open the passage of merchant ships to the second "lung" of Italian economic strategy, i.e. USSR, was through the occupation of Greece. Ciano, through his personal emissaries (not official diplomats), had bribed several Greek high officers and had organized an Albanian unrest in Chameria (the part of Epirus just south of the Albanian border), in order to prepare a coup d'état that should have started upon the Italian ultimatum to Greece, as well documented by Franco Bandini in his "Vita e morte segreta di Mussolini". This is the reason for the ludicrously small force used by the Italian Army for the invasion of Greece: it should have been a peaceful occupation force, which should have, at best, faced little armed resistance on the border. Meanwhile, the Bulgarians should have attacked from Thrace.
The first piece of the plan which failed was the Bulgarian intervention: due to the pressure of strong Turk land forces, caused by British diplomatic actions, this country decided to step aside. Despite this first alarm bell, the Duce decided to go on anyway, due to his son-in-law's pressure and the need of oil and raw materials. Metaxas, anyway, had already understood that an Italian attack was coming (not that you require a genius to foresee it, given the mass of threats made since August 1940) and had discovered (I don't know if independently or with British intelligence help) most of the conspirators paid by Ciano. Thus, the Italian Army faced Greek forces stronger than them and the coup d'état did not happen, with some of the conspirators ending in jail and other ones pretending of being innocent. The rest is history: the defeats in Epirus and then in Marmarica and Cyrenaica, the latter ones caused by the lack of trucks and of a decent tank warfare doctrine (coupled with the mechanical unreliability of the first tanks produced, as happened everywhere in the world), were the end of the "guerra parallela" (parallel war) and the cause of German involvement in the Mediterranean. Moreover, the German attack on USSR on 22 June 1941 blocked the Italo-Soviet trade that had restarted about a month before.
Having lost any independent energetic source and most of the metals used for special alloys and steels, Italy spent the rest of the war using only a part of its industrial capacity, always depending on German surplus and will.

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Re: Italian Stratigic Resources and Industry

#22

Post by Brady » 05 Aug 2019, 18:20

The increase in indigenous coal production and the importation of what would seem like large quantities from Germany during the war would suggest that the Italian industrial base increased output of war materials during the war, the notion that only part of the Italian industrial base was being used is interesting

Were the shipments from Spain made on Spanish ships ?

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Re: Italian Strategic Resources and Industry

#23

Post by Volyn » 05 Aug 2019, 23:59

DrG wrote:
05 Aug 2019, 16:38
Volyn, your questions are very important and complex too, I hope my answers will be useful.
DrG thank you for the insightful and detailed answers, this helps put into context what Italy was actually dealing with at the time.
DrG wrote:
05 Aug 2019, 16:38
The military situation of Italy was fully known by the German high commands well before the Pact of Steel and they always hadn't the slightest interest in Italian active support. In their opinion, the Italian Army and Air Force had only the function of keeping French units away from the North, fixed on the Alps of in Tunisia. Only adm. Raeder understood the strategic importance of Italy not only in drawing away enemy naval units, but also in disrupting the communication lines of the British Empire.
This is interesting, I understand that there are many reasons for it, but there is a pattern of behavior in the Nazi government to continually misjudge and misunderstand both their allies and enemies.
DrG wrote:
05 Aug 2019, 16:38
Industrial cooperation between Italy and Germany was nearly unexisting... Germany was always and severely late with the delivery of the planned amounts of raw materials (coal, oil, fuels, metals, etc.), to the extant that Italy kept a positive trade balance with its ally during the war, which is a military and economic non-sense, because it should be the stronger ally the one that exports more to its partners, not the opposite.
It would seem that the German-Italian alliance was doomed from the start and they only hindered each other in ways they could not have conceived. It does not make sense that Germany failed to send economic and industrial advisers to Italy with the intent to help coordinate and complement each other's wartime productions in any manner.

The Germans became very versatile with using "factories" that were built underground, inside mountains, relocated to forests, etc. could portions of the German war economy have "migrated" to Italy to take advantage of the labor pool and more remote locations from US/British bombers? Also, was it ever feasible to use existing Italian factories to build German compatible munitions, vehicles, aircraft, etc?
DrG wrote:
05 Aug 2019, 16:38
Moreover, and this is the most important point of Italian economic strategy in WW2, when it was clear, more or less in October 1940, that the "short war" had become the "guerra lunga" (long war), due to the German renounce to invade England, the only way to continue fighting a modern war was by exploiting the two "lungs" of Italian economy: Spain and USSR, with Romania as a second best...Due to the British control of the Aegean Sea and the German control of Romania, the only way to open the passage of merchant ships to the second "lung" of Italian economic strategy, i.e. USSR, was through the occupation of Greece.
A couple of questions about this:

1. What were the Turkish-Italian trade and political relations at this time and was Turkey ever a viable option for Italy to receive trade support or political favors?
2. Turkey and Spain were able to survive the war as Neutrals with on-going relations with Germany during the war, could Italy have pursued a similar foreign policy and still support Germany?
3. Was the occupation of Greece necessary to receive Soviet supplies through Bulgaria?
DrG wrote:
05 Aug 2019, 16:38
Ciano, through his personal emissaries (not official diplomats), had bribed several Greek high officers and had organized an Albanian unrest in Chameria (the part of Epirus just south of the Albanian border), in order to prepare a coup d'état that should have started upon the Italian ultimatum to Greece, as well documented by Franco Bandini in his "Vita e morte segreta di Mussolini". This is the reason for the ludicrously small force used by the Italian Army for the invasion of Greece: it should have been a peaceful occupation force, which should have, at best, faced little armed resistance on the border.
This is as concise of an explanation for Italy's failures during the Greek campaign as I have read. It is not mentioned in the contemporary history of the Greco-Italian War that the Italians had expected a coup d'état to take place in conjunction with the invasion. Also, Marshal Pietro Badoglio did not seem to be very enthusiastic with the preparations for the war either, was he unaware of the planned coup d'état?
DrG wrote:
05 Aug 2019, 16:38
Having lost any independent energetic source and most of the metals used for special alloys and steels, Italy spent the rest of the war using only a part of its industrial capacity, always depending on German surplus and will.
It makes sense why Italy was stuck operating as the underachieving partner in the Axis during the war.

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Re: Italian Stratigic Resources and Industry

#24

Post by DrG » 07 Aug 2019, 01:08

Volyn wrote:
05 Aug 2019, 23:59
This is interesting, I understand that there are many reasons for it, but there is a pattern of behavior in the Nazi government to continually misjudge and misunderstand both their allies and enemies.
Honestly, I think that German evaluations of the Italian Armed Forces were not much wrong, if I have to make a critique to their attitude I it more linked to their grand strategy, which gave too little importance to the Mediterranean Sea.
The Germans became very versatile with using "factories" that were built underground, inside mountains, relocated to forests, etc. could portions of the German war economy have "migrated" to Italy to take advantage of the labor pool and more remote locations from US/British bombers? Also, was it ever feasible to use existing Italian factories to build German compatible munitions, vehicles, aircraft, etc?
Already before the armistice some Italian factories were relocated in tunnels and then more production was moved underground under German control in 1944-45: just think about the tunnels on the West coast of the Garda lake, that were turned into German factories of aircraft engines. There is a very good Italian book (despite its English title) on this topic: "Tunnel factories" by Giorgio Cocconcelli. But here we are talking about the times of German occupation, when the plants of Northern Italy were exploited mostly for German use. Before, the only German policy was that of importing workers. The Italian ones were about 100,000 at the beginning of 1941, then reached the 230,000 in this same year, decreased to 200,000 in Feb. 1943 and were 117,548 on 8 Sept. 1943 (the sharp decrease was due to Mussolini's will of avoiding their use as hostages by the Germans in case of an armistice).
Standardization of production would have been impossible for weapons, due to different calibers. In 1943 it was evaluated how to use German 88 mm ammo in the Italian 90 mm AA gun, but AFAIK this solution was not employed. For vehicles, it would have required to change completely the production lines, causing huge delays; moreover you may notice that no country in WW2 switched to the production of foreign vehicles. The Italian Breda company made negotiations to buy the license of the Panzer III, but the sum of money asked by the Germans was too high and, anyway, Breda hadn't the plants for this kind of product.
1. What were the Turkish-Italian trade and political relations at this time and was Turkey ever a viable option for Italy to receive trade support or political favors?
Except during the Greco-Turkish War, when Italy sided with Turkey due to the Greek will of annexing the Dodecanese, and some decent relations during the Twenties, Italy and Turkey had little economic ties and less than satisfactory diplomatic relations. The British pressures (whose Navy was a powerful tool in keeping the Turks on their side) and their promises of giving the Dodecanese to Turkey in case of war against Italy caused a constant anti-Italian stance by the Turkish government during WW2, and Italy had no means to change this attitude.
2. Turkey and Spain were able to survive the war as Neutrals with on-going relations with Germany during the war, could Italy have pursued a similar foreign policy and still support Germany?
Spain and Turkey did not depend upon German coal. Moreover, mere survival was not an option. In June 1940 a victory of the Axis seemed sure and, anyway, there were good hopes of accelerating the fall of the British Empire. Instead, neither Spain or Turkey had any interest in this regard. The former's aims, besides the matter of principle of Gibraltar, were all against France (and in fact Hitler avoided the Spanish offers of entering into the war in the summer of 1940, because their requests on Morocco and Algeria would have caused a break of the armistice by France), and the latter's ones were mostly against Italy (Dodecanese). These countries, devoid of any modern industrial base, had no reason of making war against UK, and had much to lose, due to their dependence on imports from the sea. By the way, Franco's choice of neutrality was caused also by some pressures, of economic nature, made by the British on his closest men (see for example: viewtopic.php?t=144851), and it should be noted that Spain was subject to a harsh naval blockade during the war (for example, since mid September 1940 UK allowed Spain to import oil just enough to cover its current consumption and have 2.5 months of stocks; in the second half of 1939 it imported 316,000 t of oil from the USA, in the first half of 1940 400,000 t, in the second half of 1940 a mere 198,000 t).
As a consequence of their military irrilevance, Turkey and Spain got little or no economic help after the war by the USA, and thus remained backward economies for decades, while the Italian economic miracle was due to the skills and plants made during the autarchy and the financial assistance of the Marshall Plan, which provided the resources needed to fund the acquisition of new industrial plants and raw materials with which start the mass production of goods, turning Italy into an export-led economy in strong development for about two decades. But both the import of raw materials and the export of goods were possible, in first place, thanks to the end of the British and, to a lesser extent, French colonial empires, whose liquidation was one of the primary aims of the USA too. As noted by Guarneri in his "Battaglie economiche fra le due guerre", pp. 1046-1047, between 1927 and 1939 Italy consumed 1,130 milion dollars (at the parity of April 1933) of its reserves of gold and foreign currencies, i.e. an average of 94 millions per year, while in 1943-1951 it got US sopport for a total of 3,537.1 million dollars, of which 375.1 millions were debts and the rest grants (in turn, Italy for the Allied war expenses on the Italian front in 1943-45, but using Italian liras, not foreign corrency), i.e. an average of 442 million dollars per year. The Italian ratio of credits and grants was probably the most generous among all the countries which received US economic help after the war.
In short, Italy had only these choices during WW2:
1) stay neutral, and let the British empire go on for God only knew how many years;
2) enter war and:
A) defeat, along with Germany, the British Empire;
B) at least cause as much damage to the British Empire as possible.
Once the point 2.B was achieved, given that it was not possibile to achieve the 2.A, the Italian war aims had reached a good point and there was space for an armistice under the good auspices of the US government, as happened (although the negotiations were made by unskilled generals and not by diplomats, causing useless harms and problems).
The outcome of the war can be summarized by the strong memo that the British Admiralty sent to the Foreign Office in October 1947 about the Italian resistance to the cession of the Vittorio Veneto battleship, as dictated by the Paris Peace Treaty of 10 February 1947. It said: "To the Italians, a reminder is required that they declared war on us and we beat them. But before their defeat, they did us irreparable harm, which we cannot and they should not forget. Because of this harm, we are now a poor nation, as poor as they, and cannot give charity gifts like the U.S. do. Apart from wealth, they never stabbed U.S. in the back, and our motives and memories are conditioned differently to those of the Americans." Needless to say that the Vittorio Veneto was dismantled in Italy and not given to the Royal Navy, anyway.
3. Was the occupation of Greece necessary to receive Soviet supplies through Bulgaria?
Maybe I haven't explained the matter clearly. The intervention of the Bulgarian Army was required to make pressures on Greece and divert part of its troops, but Bulgaria, per se, did not play any role in the logistics of supplies from the Black Sea. The key was the control of the Aegean Sea, provided by the control of Greece.
This is as concise of an explanation for Italy's failures during the Greek campaign as I have read. It is not mentioned in the contemporary history of the Greco-Italian War that the Italians had expected a coup d'état to take place in conjunction with the invasion. Also, Marshal Pietro Badoglio did not seem to be very enthusiastic with the preparations for the war either, was he unaware of the planned coup d'état?
Ciano made and extensive use of personal emissaries to make contacts with Greek high officers and politicians and to evaluate the presence of pro-Italian attitudes. An example of these latter ones: on 29 June 1940 the Greek admiral Sakellariou informed confidentially the Italian embassy in Athens that three British destroyers were anchored inthe Bay of Monemvasia, despite his Govern's official declaration that Greece was keeping belligerent ships outside of its neutral waters. The summer of 1940 was spent by Mussolini in some stop and go about a possible attack, due to the contrasting needs of opening the Aegean Sea and the German request of avoiding any operation in the Balkans. Meanwhile the Italian Army had planned the attack on Greece, known as "Esigenza G", by 20 divions and the Bulgarian concourse, but this plan was not applied due to the German pressures and the hopes in a quick end of the war thanks to a victory in the Battle of Britain and then, if needed, the German landing in England. Ciano, anyway, had gone on with his personal plan of avoding a large and expensive campaign in Greece, turning it into an Italian ally without need of a war. At the end of Sept. 1940 he sent his friend and noted journalist Curzio Malaparte to Greece with large sums of money, which he had to provide to the already known contacts, along with Nebil Dino, a very wealthy Albanian landowner, who had economic interests and several acquaintances in Greece. When, on 8 October 1940, Mussolini knew that German troops had started the occupation of Romania, depriving Italy of its only, albeit somewhat insufficient, independent source of oil, the occupation of Greece had to be carried out as soon as possible with the available force (about 8 divisions) and therefore Ciano's plan became the only option, given that there were not the time and the will (hoping in Ciano's easier solution) to carry out the more complex plan by the Army. But, when the Italian troops entered Greece on 28 October 1940, the conspirators did not make their move, even though it should be noted that in that same day the commander of the Corfu garrison went to the Italian consulate and offered the keys of the city to the consul Gloria. He spent the whole day in the Italian consulate waiting for orders, that of course did not arrive (given that no new govern took the power in Athens), therefore he returned to his barracks and the following day took over the consulate and interned the Italian personnel, forgetting his own attitude of the previous day. The Italian embassy in Athens remained active another week, waiting for the coup that did not happen, and then its personnel was repatriated. Bandini, the source of these information in his "Vita e morte segreta di Mussolini", knew personally some of the people involved in this plan or at least knowning it, like the Italian military attaché in Athens, col. Luigi Mondini.
Badoglio was probably informed by Mussolini in one of their few meetings before the attack, but it is not sure, also given the fact that they had a deep dislike of each other and that Badoglio played no practical role in the war planning. In fact, the General Staff comprised just him and a couple of secretaries: it was a mere "coordination" office among the Staffs of the Army, Navy and Air Force. But given that their Chiefs had direct access to Mussolini, who was their Minister, they routinedly bypassed Badoglio, who did not care much of this habit, given that he was already somewhat old, full of titles (Marshal of Italy, Marquis of Sabotino, Duke of Addis Abeba), and practically had never really operated as Chief of General Staff (he was appointed in May 1925, but then he was Governor of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica from Dec. 1928 to Feb. 1934, then was commander and governor in East Africa from Nov. 1935 to Sept. 1936, and on 1st Nov. 1937 he was also appointed President of the CNR, i.e. the National Council of Research). The real Supreme Command, with its offices (Badoglio, as President of CNR, held the meetings of the General Staff in its palace), personnel, etc. was created by gen. Cavallero and his second in command, gen. Guzzoni, after Badoglio's dismissal.

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Re: Italian Stratigic Resources and Industry

#25

Post by DrG » 07 Aug 2019, 15:43

I return briefly to the matter of a hypothetical Italian neutrality in 1940. After the Allied naval blockade, started in Sept. 1939 but which was complete since 1st March 1940, including on German coal transported by neutral ships from neutral ports (Dutch and Belgian, then conquered by the Germans, anyway), Italy had two alternatives for the import of coal:
1) by railway from Germany, with a large and difficult effort by both the Italian and German railways, in terms of locomotives, cars and infrastructures. So large that it would have been unsustainable in the long term, if it hadn't been for the defeat of France and then the commercial agreements with Switzerland about the use not only of its railways, but also of its rolling stock;
2) by the sea from UK, in exchange for military products and supplies.

The point 1 was the historically chosen option, with its problems both of logistical and political nature. The former were overcome only with the fall of France and thus the opening of the Swiss route. The latter was never solved, because Italy tied itself to the German will and Germany never delivered the agreed 12,000,000 t per year, even though it came close to this figure until 1943.

Point 2 was discarded by Mussolini, not only because it would have been a breach of the Pact of Steel (after all, providing weapons to the enemy of your ally is not exactly the best choice), but also because it would have made impossible any strengthening of the Italian Armed Forces (imports would have been fully under British control and exports would have been of military nature) and, after the fall of France, it would have exposed Italy to a German revenge (which was exactly the aim of the British offers).
But, just out of curiosity, let's hypothesize that Italy had accepted the British deal. In reality, we have a practically identical situation which happened in history, to be more precise in 1915-1918. Also in 1915 Italy was subject to a naval blockade, although less severe than in 1940, but this time, also due to the physical impossibility of importing coal by land from Germany or Austria (railways and trains were not technically sufficient, and the Swiss did not allow the transport on its territory and least of all using its trains), Italy entered WW1 on the Entente side on 23 May 1915. Yet, in derogation to the Pact of London (26 April 1915), Italy was allowed to declare war on Germany in 1916, because German coal was vital. In fact, Germany went on exporting coal to Italy by the sea through Dutch ports up until the Italian declaration of war on 27 Aug. 1916 (made upon British and French strong pressures), and both the Italian and German government close not one but two eyes on the presence of the German Alpenkorps on the Italian front - but in Austrian territory - in 1915.
Anyway, which were the Italian imports of coal before, during and after WW1? As reported by Douglas Forsyth, "The Crisis of Liberal Italy. Monetary and Financial Policy, 1914-1922", they were these:
Coal.jpg
The needs of the winters of 1915 and 1916 were covered with the imports from Germany and the stocks made through large cuts in civilian consumption, the winter of 1917 by cutting vast areas of forests on the Alps and Apennines, causing hydrogeological instability not yet fully recovered, and the winter of 1918 thanks to the end of the war and thus a drop in industrial consumption.

In 1940 nobody in Italy wished to repeat the harsh experience of WW1, when UK was not able to provide the necessary materials, both due to German submarine warfare and to the constant economic and financial pressures made on Italy, which ended the war with a huge foreign debt, mostly denominated in pounds or dollars.

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Re: Italian Stratigic Resources and Industry

#26

Post by Brady » 07 Aug 2019, 16:42

So the Italian industrial base was not operating at capacity during the war for a lack of strategic resources, this would include coal it would seem based on what is written above ?

I had assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that the Italian industrial base was operating at peak capacity, during the war but it’s low output, at least relative to other nations, was simply due to their not being all that much of it to begin with, it never occurred to me that it was starved of resources and that it possessed a larger capacity? What kind of percentages are we talking about, was it operating at 50% capacity? What key resources were absent, apart from it would seem coal ?

Was Spanish iron ore transported on Spanish ships or by rail during the war ?

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Re: Italian Stratigic Resources and Industry

#27

Post by Dili » 07 Aug 2019, 16:51

Depends on what industry parts, for example there weren't enough quality workers for wood to increase production of Cant bombers, also there weren't enough tools to build more high performance engines - those DB601, 605 licensed by Germany - so the bottlenecks varied. You still have Caproni building the mostly useless 3xx series until the end, but their workers could not build anything else. Inertia for various reasons was also very strong.

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Re: Italian Stratigic Resources and Industry

#28

Post by Dili » 07 Aug 2019, 17:12

The outcome of the war can be summarized by the strong memo that the British Admiralty sent to the Foreign Office in October 1947 about the Italian resistance to the cession of the Vittorio Veneto battleship, as dictated by the Paris Peace Treaty of 10 February 1947. It said: "To the Italians, a reminder is required that they declared war on us and we beat them. But before their defeat, they did us irreparable harm, which we cannot and they should not forget. Because of this harm, we are now a poor nation, as poor as they, and cannot give charity gifts like the U.S. do. Apart from wealth, they never stabbed U.S. in the back, and our motives and memories are conditioned differently to those of the Americans."
I am sorry DrG but that quote is BS of highest order, Britain was at end of the war with a much bigger population capable of production of many industrial good than at war start, they had much more factories, the country was not destroyed . They had access to various technologies from defeated countries and much bigger connection with USA way of doing things,
They also got the biggest funds from Marshall plan in favorable conditions. So much they were still paying them a couple years ago.

They were much more rich.

They never faced the fact that they destroyed themselves. it all started with grand bargain to not start a civil war, and that was roughly that Conservatives dealt with war and the Labour was free to start a big socializing scheme.

That is why despite conservatives/Churchill winning the war they lost the elections. And it is difficult to find a more destructive Government than that of Clement Attlee with their Command Economy, they even forbid the production of many types of cheese to have only one cheese type! They destroyed millions of tons of milk when people needed milk, and this wasn't like CEE/EEC did to control milk prices.
They were rationing things still in 1950 on propose, because in their view a frugal society was better. Churchill got back to power when conservatives promised to end rationing.

25 Years latter Germany, and West Germany only was already a bigger economy that Britain. It is not surprise seeing how US and British military wanted to micro manage, command economy things in Germany and what the Germans under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Erhard did.
Erhard just freed the prices contrary to what US and Britain wanted: controlled prices, control everything.

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Re: Italian Stratigic Resources and Industry

#29

Post by DrG » 07 Aug 2019, 18:53

Dili wrote:
07 Aug 2019, 17:12
The outcome of the war can be summarized by the strong memo that the British Admiralty sent to the Foreign Office in October 1947 about the Italian resistance to the cession of the Vittorio Veneto battleship, as dictated by the Paris Peace Treaty of 10 February 1947. It said: "To the Italians, a reminder is required that they declared war on us and we beat them. But before their defeat, they did us irreparable harm, which we cannot and they should not forget. Because of this harm, we are now a poor nation, as poor as they, and cannot give charity gifts like the U.S. do. Apart from wealth, they never stabbed U.S. in the back, and our motives and memories are conditioned differently to those of the Americans."
I am sorry DrG but that quote is BS of highest order, Britain was at end of the war with a much bigger population capable of production of many industrial good than at war start, they had much more factories, the country was not destroyed . They had access to various technologies from defeated countries and much bigger connection with USA way of doing things,
They also got the biggest funds from Marshall plan in favorable conditions. So much they were still paying them a couple years ago.

They were much more rich.
Dili, that the Admiralty was writing a somewhat melodramatic memo is clear, but it had well understood that not only the present situation of 1947, but much more its future evolution, were completely different than before the War. Italy turned into an economic and industrial power, UK lost its empire, had decades of economic stagnation and therefore remained obviously an important country, but comparable to France, Germany or Italy, not the world super-power it was before the War.
In 1938 the Italian GDP per capita was 3,010 USD of year 2011, the British one was 8,456 USD 2011 (Italy/UK ratio: 35.6%). In 1947 the Italian was 2,915 USD and the British 8,967 USD: it is clear and obvious that the average UK citizen was richer than an Italian one (Italy/UK ratio: 32.5%). But, honestly, war hadn't much affected both countries, in respect to per capita GDP: Italy was apparently a little poorer than before the war, UK a bit richer, but not a striking difference with the pre-war situation both for a defeated country and a victorious country. This is the evolution in the following decades:
Year: Italy; UK; Italy/UK ratio
1960: 7,067; 12,000; 58.9%
1970: 12,644; 15,715; 80.5%
1980: 20,460; 20,593; 99.4%
1990: 25,001 ; 24,002; 104.2%

Given that the aforementioned ratio had stagnated between 35% and 40% since the 1860's, the Admiralty didn't write "BS": instead it provided again a proof of its intellectual capacity, even though with a rhetoric style.

Anyway, I don't think that a secret internal memo between the two most important British institutions (the Admiralty and the Foreign Office), the pillars of the British empire and honestly some of the most admirable creations of statecraft, comparable only to the Roman and Venetian Senates, the Holy See and the Prussian/German High Command, would provide "BS" not founded on at least a minimum of serious rational analysis.

[Out of topic]Since the Nineties (and especially since the crisis of 2008), the intellectual superiority and creativity of British ruling class made the great difference which we see with Italy today: UK kept its monetary sovereignty, Italy lost it... But this is really another story, and the result of the cold (not always) war waged by Germany and France, sometimes with a bit of British help (see Libya 2011) against Italian interests.

Finally, I don't know the exact amount of US financial support to post-War UK (I am not referring to Marshall Plan alone, but also the pre-1947 programs), nor you have provided it, but the mere fact that UK was still paying for it a few years ago, as you wrote, is not exactly a great positive example. As I wrote, 89.4% of the support provided to Italy was not to be repaid: it was a gift of the USA to its new ally, and to a country that spent most of its history with strategic aims which were not in conflict with the American ones.

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Re: Italian Stratigic Resources and Industry

#30

Post by DrG » 07 Aug 2019, 19:19

Brady wrote:
07 Aug 2019, 16:42
So the Italian industrial base was not operating at capacity during the war for a lack of strategic resources, this would include coal it would seem based on what is written above ?

I had assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that the Italian industrial base was operating at peak capacity, during the war but it’s low output, at least relative to other nations, was simply due to their not being all that much of it to begin with, it never occurred to me that it was starved of resources and that it possessed a larger capacity? What kind of percentages are we talking about, was it operating at 50% capacity? What key resources were absent, apart from it would seem coal ?

Was Spanish iron ore transported on Spanish ships or by rail during the war ?
Italian industrial production was partially crippled by lack of resources, not only coal (which played a role, but was partially compensated by the increase in hydroelectric energy production), but also non-ferrous metals (all except for aluminum) and rubber (there was a synthetic plant in Ferrara, where the future Nobel prize for Chemistry Giulio Natta worked).
For example, the study on turbo-jet and turbo-prop engines started only in 1941, because before the conquest of Greece Italy hadn't any source of chromium. Only the exploitation of the "Lokris" ore in Greece provided a source of this metal, and it required months of work.
Another example is platinum, used in electronic valves: the only source was in Ethiopia (in the so-called King Solomon's mines) and the few platinum available in Italy was mined before the war or arrived with the last transport aircraft in early 1941.
As you will read in Raspin's masterpiece, its last chapter's title is "La guerra senza niente" ("War without anything"). She couldn't have found a better title.

Honestly I cannot provide precise data about the percentage of productive capacity actually used by Italian factories. According to the macro data provided by Zamagni's "Come perdere la guerra e vincere la pace" in appendix 1A.2 industrial production, with base 100 in 1938, was:
1939 111
1940 112
1941 106
1942 97
1943 88
These data are always subject to serious estimation error, therefore you should consider them with a grain of salt, but if we assume (and it would be absolutely wrong, but let's make this tentative reasoning) that in 1940 the Italian industry reached its full productive capacity and that no further plants were opened in the following years, then in 1942 we could infer that it used only 86.6% of its capacity (i.e. 97/112).

At least, I can provide an example about a single productive sector. Magini, in his "L'Italia e il petrolio" (not my favorite source, anyway), tells that Italian refineries could refine 2.3 million t of crude oil per year 1939, but surely this capacity was never used during the war, not even distantly. Even in 1939 they refined just 1.6 million t (showing how Italy was planning for a large increase in its production, but hadn't the money to buy raw materials).

Iron ore from Spain was transported by the sea, also because Spanish railways have a different gauge than Western European countries.

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