The ideal Axis strategy

[Aida1]

before June 1940, Hitler did not have any allies

errm, Slovakia and, oh yes, the Soviet Union?

The USSR was not really an ally. The agreement of 1939 did not go as far as that.

[Aida1]

Needless to say, Italy was burden. Without her, Hitler no Need to send troop to Libya and the Balkan. Neither the Regia Marina nor Regia Aeronautica provided any Bonus to Hitler 's war effort.

Bullshit, as usual. Italy was the reason the North African campaign was fought: which, after the fall of France and until Japan entered the war, was the only major theatre for Commonwealth land forces. With Italy neutral and thus their Army essentially unused, you think that the Brits would have quietly waited for their turn while your super Germany defeated the Soviet Union?

Hitler sent two, later three divisions to North Africa. If he lost the war because of a few dozen thousand troops... and it is questionable that he wouldn't have been involved in the Balkans, since the decision to invade Yugoslavia was a German decision, Italy had not attacked that country.

The Regia Marina definitely provided a bonus to Hitler's war effort, as a good part of the Royal Navy was stationed in the Mediterranean for three years to fight it.

You are overlooking a lot of things here. Hitler had a mostly continental strategy so would not have gotten involved much in the Mediterranean if Italy remained neutral.

[Terry Duncan]

A post from Berto was removed by this moderator for rudeness and bad language.

Berto,

The rules forbid bad language as well as rudeness, people do not come here to rtead such things. Please familiarise yourself with the rules and follow them.

app.php/rules

Terry Duncan

[ljadw]

Needless to say, Italy was burden. Without her, Hitler no Need to send troop to Libya and the Balkan. Neither the Regia Marina nor Regia Aeronautica provided any Bonus to Hitler 's war effort.

Bullshit, as usual. Italy was the reason the North African campaign was fought: which, after the fall of France and until Japan entered the war, was the only major theatre for Commonwealth land forces. With Italy neutral and thus their Army essentially unused, you think that the Brits would have quietly waited for their turn while your super Germany defeated the Soviet Union?

Hitler sent two, later three divisions to North Africa. If he lost the war because of a few dozen thousand troops... and it is questionable that he wouldn't have been involved in the Balkans, since the decision to invade Yugoslavia was a German decision, Italy had not attacked that country.

The Regia Marina definitely provided a bonus to Hitler's war effort, as a good part of the Royal Navy was stationed in the Mediterranean for three years to fight it.

You cannot get away from the fact that Italy was only a burden. It contributed nothing to the German war effort.

There's no such fact I can't "get away from", since said "facts" are only the fantasies of Nazis trying to blame their defeat on Italy, and of the idiots who believe them. You did not provide a single argument to counter my points, in which I have explained how Italy contributed a lot to the German war effort.

Ridiculous.Italy is not blamed for the German defeat but it contributed nothing substantial either. Italy does not involve itself in the war and Germany is not worse off. No draining away of resources to support Italy has Germany always in a better situation.

Italy contributed a lot to the Axis :
its DOW in June 1940 had as result that the British ship transports to NA and the regions east of Suez and that the transports to NA and Britain had to go via South Africa,decreasing the volume of British shipping .
a neutral Italy would have given Britain the opportunity to attack the weak southern belly of Europe before 1943 obliging Germany to occupy and defend Yugoslavia,Greece, Vichy France and even Italy .
a neutral Italy could always becme a hostile Italy .

[Yuri]

Bullshit, as usual. Italy was the reason the North African campaign was fought: which, after the fall of France and until Japan entered the war, was the only major theatre for Commonwealth land forces. With Italy neutral and thus their Army essentially unused, you think that the Brits would have quietly waited for their turn while your super Germany defeated the Soviet Union?

Hitler sent two, later three divisions to North Africa. If he lost the war because of a few dozen thousand troops... and it is questionable that he wouldn't have been involved in the Balkans, since the decision to invade Yugoslavia was a German decision, Italy had not attacked that country.

The Regia Marina definitely provided a bonus to Hitler's war effort, as a good part of the Royal Navy was stationed in the Mediterranean for three years to fight it.

You cannot get away from the fact that Italy was only a burden. It contributed nothing to the German war effort.

There's no such fact I can't "get away from", since said "facts" are only the fantasies of Nazis trying to blame their defeat on Italy, and of the idiots who believe them. You did not provide a single argument to counter my points, in which I have explained how Italy contributed a lot to the German war effort.

Ridiculous.Italy is not blamed for the German defeat but it contributed nothing substantial either. Italy does not involve itself in the war and Germany is not worse off. No draining away of resources to support Italy has Germany always in a better situation.

Italy contributed a lot to the Axis :
its DOW in June 1940 had as result that the British ship transports to NA and the regions east of Suez and that the transports to NA and Britain had to go via South Africa,decreasing the volume of British shipping .
a neutral Italy would have given Britain the opportunity to attack the weak southern belly of Europe before 1943 obliging Germany to occupy and defend Yugoslavia,Greece, Vichy France and even Italy .
a neutral Italy could always becme a hostile Italy .

This is an incorrect assessment of Italy's contribution. The contribution was huge, no, no, contribution was colossal.
Without Italy's help, Franco's victory is doubtful, if not possible.
Italy either approves of the Anschluss or goes to the camp of Germany's opponents, the third is not given here.
Without Italy's help, Germany could not have consolidated continental Europe.
Italy's anti-British stance moved Pro-British Romania into the camp of Britain's opponents.
Bulgaria was in the same place as Romania, and Turkey wagged its tail, they say, neither yours nor ours.
And whether Churchill needed a Catapult when Italy was neutral, especially if Italy was friendly to Britain.
So Italy's contribution is only colossal, I don't agree to anything less.
German forces in North Africa are only a catalyst for the process, not a self-sufficient component. All the hard work was done by Italians.
And there was no 21st Panzer division in Africa, there was the light 5th division, which was only renamed the Panzer division only in August 1941.
How many Germans were there in North Africa? In North Africa, from February 1941 to may 1943 (that is, for more than two years), both the Wehrmacht and non-Wehrmacht sent 130,000 people. On the Soviet-European front, the Wehrmacht lost so many people in 10-15 days.
At the same time, Italy sent 250,000 to Russia, and this was the best part of the Italian army.

[Aida1]

Bullshit, as usual. Italy was the reason the North African campaign was fought: which, after the fall of France and until Japan entered the war, was the only major theatre for Commonwealth land forces. With Italy neutral and thus their Army essentially unused, you think that the Brits would have quietly waited for their turn while your super Germany defeated the Soviet Union?

Hitler sent two, later three divisions to North Africa. If he lost the war because of a few dozen thousand troops... and it is questionable that he wouldn't have been involved in the Balkans, since the decision to invade Yugoslavia was a German decision, Italy had not attacked that country.

The Regia Marina definitely provided a bonus to Hitler's war effort, as a good part of the Royal Navy was stationed in the Mediterranean for three years to fight it.

You cannot get away from the fact that Italy was only a burden. It contributed nothing to the German war effort.

There's no such fact I can't "get away from", since said "facts" are only the fantasies of Nazis trying to blame their defeat on Italy, and of the idiots who believe them. You did not provide a single argument to counter my points, in which I have explained how Italy contributed a lot to the German war effort.

Ridiculous.Italy is not blamed for the German defeat but it contributed nothing substantial either. Italy does not involve itself in the war and Germany is not worse off. No draining away of resources to support Italy has Germany always in a better situation.

Italy contributed a lot to the Axis :
its DOW in June 1940 had as result that the British ship transports to NA and the regions east of Suez and that the transports to NA and Britain had to go via South Africa,decreasing the volume of British shipping .
a neutral Italy would have given Britain the opportunity to attack the weak southern belly of Europe before 1943 obliging Germany to occupy and defend Yugoslavia,Greece, Vichy France and even Italy .
a neutral Italy could always becme a hostile Italy .
[/quote

Very funny. Seems to me Germany was forced to occupy Greece,yugoslavia and Vichy France and at some point even Italy. Italy was historically a burden so a neutral Italy was better.

[gebhk]

Italy's anti-British stance moved Pro-British Romania into the camp of Britain's opponents.
I would suggest it was the fall of France, the Invasion of Poland and loss of most the territories she acquired after WW1 that prodded Romania into the Axis camp rather than any attitude of Italy one way or another.

[Berto]

Very funny. Seems to me Germany was forced to occupy Greece

I'll give you that.

yugoslavia

Oh! Who forced the Germans to do so?

and Vichy France

And how is Italy at fault with that? If anything, Italy provided the troops for the occupation of Corsica and Provence, thus freeing up German troops that could be used elsewhere.

Italy was historically a burden so a neutral Italy was better.

If you feel better telling yourself that...

[Aida1]

Very funny. Seems to me Germany was forced to occupy Greece

I'll give you that.

yugoslavia

Oh! Who forced the Germans to do so?

and Vichy France

And how is Italy at fault with that? If anything, Italy provided the troops for the occupation of Corsica and Provence, thus freeing up German troops that could be used elsewhere.

Italy was historically a burden so a neutral Italy was better.

If you feel better telling yourself that...

You could have noticed that i answered a posting by ljadw which pretended that Italy being neutral , Germany could have been forced to occupy and defend certain countries. What was funny about this is that Germany was forced to occupy them anyway. And Germany was forced to occupy these countries because otherwise its flank would be threatened.
Italy was a burden in every sense of the word. It needed resources that Germany was not rich in itself and the armed forces of Italy were inferior.

[ljadw]

If Italy remained neutral, Britain could have started attacks on the southern coasts of Europe already in 1940, tying a lot of German forces .
Other points :
the majority of Axis forces in Yugoslavia and Greece were Italian.They spared a lot of German divisions .There were only a few German divisions in the Balkans in June 1941 but a lot of Italian divisions .
To say that Italian armed forces were inferior,is something meaningless: inferior to whom ?

[gebhk]

The USSR was not really an ally. The agreement of 1939 did not go as far as that.

We can debate the semantics, in reality the USSR was an ally where Germany needed one the most - by providing the massive and steady stream of the raw materials that Germany needed to prosecute the war. I would also suggest that from the Polish perspective in 1939, it mattered little how far the agreement of 1939 did go.

[Berto]

Italy was a burden in every sense of the word. It needed resources that Germany was not rich in itself

While the Commonwealth was absolutely not forced to divert substantial resources to Africa and the Mediterranean for three years, right?

[ljadw]

The USSR was not really an ally. The agreement of 1939 did not go as far as that.

We can debate the semantics, in reality the USSR was an ally where Germany needed one the most - by providing the massive and steady stream of the raw materials that Germany needed to prosecute the war. I would also suggest that from the Polish perspective in 1939, it mattered little how far the agreement of 1939 did go.

This is a big exaggeration : Germany did not need the raw materials of the SU to prosecute the war : on June 22 1941, it no longer received these raw materials and still prosecuted the war .Besides, the SU provided also raw materials to Britain , France, China and Japan . Thus ....
And for Poland : as they ,justifiedly, refused any Soviet intervention, they can not blame the Soviets :without the Soviet intervention,the Germans would have occupied the whole of Poland .

[Aida1]

Italy was a burden in every sense of the word. It needed resources that Germany was not rich in itself

While the Commonwealth was absolutely not forced to divert substantial resources to Africa and the Mediterranean for three years, right?

You are conveniently forgetting all the resources Germany had to pour into Italy from 1943 onwards which it could ill afford.

[Aida1]

The USSR was not really an ally. The agreement of 1939 did not go as far as that.

We can debate the semantics, in reality the USSR was an ally where Germany needed one the most - by providing the massive and steady stream of the raw materials that Germany needed to prosecute the war. I would also suggest that from the Polish perspective in 1939, it mattered little how far the agreement of 1939 did go.

An ally does do much more than just provide raw materials. An ally actively participates in the war.