Mussolini Invades Ethiopia

@abworsham4

I read that, and is one of my sources. Funny enough, KaLeu put a link to Quora asking the same question, and one of the answers just copied and pasted the article you sent me.

Ha. Now we pissed off the UFO’s !

An interesting comparison for sure! Thanks for sharing.

@ABWorsham:

Churchill proposed an invasion of Northern Norway and Sweden in 1939 to remove half of Germany iron ore. As a new leader he did not have credibility to get this invasion quickly planned before the Germans reacted.

How does the war progress if the Allied Expeditionary Force invades Norway and Sweden?

I was reading this over again. I don’t think it would be possible with an Allied invasion during 1939. Since the mountains are pretty much impassable during winter, which is from October to April, the invasion would have to be done from the start of the war in September and finished before October. This was not likely to happen. The first window of opportunity opened in November when Russia attacked Finland. But in the case of Finland, snow and ice was a necessity for a successful campaign, since that part of Finland is impassable swamps and marshes during summer. In Norway it is the other way around, since mountains are impassable during winter. And that give Britain a first possible D-day on April 8th 1940, the day before Germany did actually attack Norway.

The reason Britain did not attack on April 8th is IMHO that they got reports of a German breakout into the sea, so they ditched the infantry already onboard, and sailed to intercept the German fleet. But as w know, the Germans had then walked down the gangway in all major Norwegian ports. And they could do so because the ports were not defended. But here comes the twist. Next day Britain sailed in 25 000 troops bound for the Narvik area, but they was not able to kick out the 1900 Germans, because at that time Britain lacked landing ships and landing crafts. And you can not amphibious assault a defended coast without landing crafts, as proven in the Normandy landings 1944.

So basically the 25 000 Allied troops sat in the port of Harstad waiting for landing crafts to be build and this took 7 weeks, before they ware able to invade Narvik late in June , by then defended by 40 Germans. In the meantime 10 000 Norwegians equipped with winter gear and trained in mountain warfare, were pushing the bulk of the Germans towards the Swedish border.

I figure, if the Brits had landed in Narvik April 8th 1940 and walked down the gangway as friends, the Germans would for sure be cut of from the iron ore. But if the Norwegian socialist government had declared war, then I cant see how the Brits could have been able to break out from Narvik and cross the mountain range over to Sweden. None of the total 35 000 Brits, French and Polish soldiers in Norway 1940 had winter equipment nor training in mountain warfare. The last blizzard was in may, and they would be stuck in Narvik until then, surrounded by a Norwegian mountain division. And on the other side of the border, 320 000 Swedish soldiers, also trained in winter and mountain warfare, would wait for them, protecting the iron mines. So Churchills plan could only work if Norway and Sweden did cooperate volunterely

I’m picking Hitler for 2 reasons first I’m assuming that I’m Hitler here and don’t have him screwing everything up. So I take Moscow in August. 2nd and most importantly I don’t have to march to Moscow but ride in a truck/tank/half-track or fly after my troops have taken it.

The second Italian Facist regime : la Repubblica Sociale Italiana (RSI) was set up today, with its capital, not in Rome, but Salo, a small town in Lombardy on Lake Garda,  Northern Italy, where the RSI had his Foreign Office.  
Mussolini was its head, but it was nothing more than a German puppet, dependent on its military and financial support.
Mussolini had been rescued from captivity in a daring raid by a soon to be famous German SS Colonel, Otto Skorzeny on September 12th.
Italy had  surrendered on the 8th and the Allies had  landed at Salerno on the 9th and were fighting the Germans in the south of Italy at this time, though they had not yet captured the city port of Naples.

The US opted for imperialism.

USSR was the lesser of three evils between Germany and Japan, the only reason America backed USSR.  Also Japan and Germany threatened US imperialism and the US had to wait until an event like pearl harbor to appear to be the good guy.

USA opted for atrocities instead of invasion or truce in regards to Japan. The logic was, “make Japan surrender, take away their right to military, then try to offer them a right to a military when they are pro american.”

Problem is, Japan became isolationist after WWII, so US imperialism failed military in Japan, but economically it turned out pretty good.

Russia is a huge wrench in US imperialism, but not as bad as Germany would have been if in control of Europe (or Japan in Asia).

It is kind of sad the axis lost WWII, post war SEA would have been liberated while China would be oppressed… possibly liberated later. Europe would eventually collapse into nation-states again.

Thanks for sharing