Germany spreading itself out thinner while the Italian Armistice seems more competently handed this time around. Between additional reinforcements in Italy and the Balkans the Soviets are probably at least somewhat happy. Looks like Thessaly will have to wait a little while longer while the Greeks focus their offensive resources in Anatolia. Turkey not looking so good as with a new Greek offensive in the west while Wallies continue to make progress in the Southeast, especially in Batman...
. If Diyabarkir falls that would be a big blow in the Van region to Turkey.
The big prize is the Ergani mines to the north of Diyarbakir. If these fall they will account for a significant portion of the entire German chrome consumption. As for crossing the Olympus line, there may be 9 Greek divisions in Ionia but this is not accounting for 18 Allied divisions in Thessaly...
Considering the movement of German soldiers near allied lines and using impero as a decoy I'd think the Italians would have a smoother capitulation than otl and allied movements would be quicker than otl, but northern Italy would get occupied by the Germans for a bit. I'd like to see if Greece tries to immediately rush to get Thessaloniki right after as the Italians leave Albania and Yugoslavia, and I'd think it'd be the point where the first Greek and Serbian partisan activities around north Macedonia and Serbia would work, which would also be interesting. It does seem that the war would be shorter due to German overstretch at least in certain parts of the world.
Germany in OTL ended up deploying 700,000 men and 25 divisions in the Balkans. TTL on one hand it has active fronts in the Balkans and Anatolia, on the other
I also expected Greece to get into turkey, but tbf idk if they should, as the allies would be overstretched if four fronts would all get a lot of activity soon. Even the power of American industry has it's limits.
American industry at this time had produced material for 16 divisions... just for spares and could had further increased production, after all original plans called for a 214 division army, not the 100 divisions actually mobilized while the British had their own manpower problems to absorb much more American Lend Lease. On the other hand there is an obvious bottleneck in shipping. My assumption is that between the Irish participation in the war, early Allied control of Dakar and a relatively larger Greek merchant marine the Allies have about 10% more shipping to Europe than in OTL.
Accidentally this is one of the reasons that Greek industry is utilized to its utmost and further expanded, American industrial colossus or no American industrial colossus. It makes more sense particularly before the opening of the Mediterranean to ship 100 tons of machine tools in 1941 that allow production of 10 tons of munitions every month than straightforward ship 100 tons of munitions.
Btw T. E Lawrence running around in Kurdistan and leading the Kurds to liberate the towns in Turkey is going to make things very interesting. He'd prob be seen as the bane of turkey at some point, Turkic nationalists would really hate this man. Also are the lines in eastern Anatolia just a steady movement upwards and westwards?
Steady is a big word. The southern from from the Mediterranean to Iraq is a rough 600km on a straight line. Neither side has sufficient manpower for a 600 km continuous front so at points it will be leaking like a sieve. Besides this there is also a question of supply. The railroad map from OTL
below is pretty indicative I think. Laurence will certainly not be much loved in Turkish historiography. What Arab and Kurdish historiography think? I note the man will be only 57 in 1945 if he survives...
I thought the Germans controlled the Trepca Mines during WW2? Is the Italians controlling it a butterfly I don’t remember? Or was there an Italian garrison there I never knew about?
Yugoslavia was conquered by Italy in 1940 not Germany. To the victor go the spoils... and to Italy thanks to a better negotiating position tooling and licenses that had not in OTL. You'll not that Italy got license building both the DB601 and DB605 engines half a year early for example.
Regardless you seem to be hinting at the Italian-Albanian resistance being a thing again, and that it’s possibly going to be stronger since Italy hasn’t called her troops in Albania home. I wonder if that’s where we’ll find our troops for Zogu? If there’s more of them as a result of a more organized surrender they could single handedly put him back on the throne in all likelihood. If it’s a more organized resistance I wonder if Azzi still takes control, or if Rosi is? Azzi is an interesting figure and I could see him staying or returning to Albania to help form Zogu’s army if it’s a constitutional monarchy. He was pro democracy, something that got him in trouble for a while back at home
There are roughly 120,000 Italian soldiers in Albania and Epirus at the time of the armistice. Even in OTL the Italians were able to evacuate by sea 43,000 men... What happens TTL... why we shall see.
The questions that come up here is: How many German troops are there in Italy? How many Italians have managed to regroup in Italy? What positions have the German taken? And do the Italian formations have the will to fight the Germans?
And aren't these all interesting questions?
Each of them is important to the outcome of this surrender. Things seem more smooth than OTL but still if the Italians in Italy just surrender or abandon their lines it would be the same.
I think it's no great spoiler to say that not every Italian soldier will care to go on fighting if he thinks the war is over and he can just go home.
I didn't see Germans in occupied Yugoslavia though, maybe the Italians there just give their arms to the resistance... well which one then huh? It would be a major inflow of weapons for either party.
More than likely the German defense line will be far norther than OTL maybe even at the Po valley although more likely or maybe southern from than at Pisa-Florence- Rimini. On the other hand as the current situation is the WAllies can't provide to Italy the same troop numbers they did OTL while still fighting the Turks in the east. Of course that also applies to the Germans as the have an active front in the Balkans. Or maybe they threw caution to the wind and just took more divisions from the Soviet front which seems very likely and very stupid at the same time.
The Germans have 5 more divisions than OTL in the Balkans... which they have not taken from their East Front. The Western Allies wrapping up the North African front in 1942 had some... unintended consequences. They have also taken an earlier interest to having the Croatians of NDH clean up their act as far as their military efficiency goes, murderous thuggery is not something bothering the Wehrmacht any. Plus of course the Bulgarian and Turkish armies.
On the allied side you do have obviously Greece, 18 divisions by 1943, the Yugoslavs, larger Polish and Free French armies plus the British being better off, not losing 50,000 at Gazala for example, and being forced to actively recruit in the Middle East, Jews, Arabs, Assyrians and Greek Cypriots much more aggressively than OTL...
Prob yeah Albania prob be a constitutional monarchy, and I'd like to see what enver Hoxha and the Communists do considering they won't have that much power in Albania.
Hoxha has about 20,000 partisans. Balli Kombetar maybe 30,000, the Royalists in theory something like 8,000, outright collaborationists from TTL Greek Epirus about 13,000...
Tbf I'd really like to know what's happening in Yugoslavia in general since it's ripe for a multi year civil war to occur.
As of August 1943? About 210,000 partisans, 36,000 Chetniks (counting active Allied ones only), 185,000 NDH troops... plus over half a million Bulgarians and Italians, plus now Germans.
Well for me Albania will follow on Yugoslavia's footsteps towards a civil war as they have a strong communist party and a strong fascist/nationalist party. Maybe something like OTL Greek civil war which could easily be linked with the Yugoslavian situation but have less relevance as Albania is pourer and less important than Yugoslavia. Of everything depends on if Greece gets involved and if so how much. I could see spare unused war material being given to Albania but Yugoslavia has a priority as they have fought alongside the Greeks in the Macedonian front.
The Greeks, Yugoslavs and Italians all will have an interest in Albania... to some extend from the minimum of not finding someone else use it as a springboard to threaten them. How it plays out...
Yeah I think that'd happen. If the Serbs manage to at least hold on Albania should be alright but I could see the Montenegrin corridor be heavily fought over to prevent the Albanian communists from being supplied. I do see the Greeks caring about it tho, and I could see them deal with the Communists along with the British. It'd be interesting to see how the Albanian monarchies fare ittl, but I do see them trying to modernise to prevent the Albanians from hating their neighbours.
The Greeks have a communist party of their one and more importantly have spent several years fighting Nazis. If it comes to an Albanian civil war the Greek public won't be exactly happy to learn its government is supporting former collaborators that were killing Greek civilians just a couple years ago...
Well there have been no major changes in the Pacific theater TTL so things wouldn't change dramatically. Of course things could change in 1944. Till now the Burma road is offline, the Japanese keep huge parts of China and the Americans have just started their island hoping in the Solomon islands. With this rate of events the Ichi Go offensive would be unavoidable as the supply lines to China are blocked and the airlift from Nepal (I think) is very limited for China's size. With this offensive not being stopped then the KMT are crippled, the Soviets take Manchuria and give it to Mao and the rest are the same as America would see the Yugoslavia conflict as priority. Well all that is how I see things of course.
The Japanese navy has suffered heavier attrition (as has the USN and RN as well) and the Americans were able to switch more capital ships to the Pacific earlier, no need to send USS Washington to Torch for example, but otherwise the only notable changes in the mainland are that Burma are Alexander's and Montgomery's show and there have been no Chindits.
Is there a difference to OTL or the same even took place around that time as well ?
Not really. Sweden feels confident enough to do so. Do they gradualy get more confident than OTL earlier too? Different question.
