Part XXIV: Guerra Subalterna

Bernd Fischmann, "Operation Mittelmeer" in Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt (Research Institute for Military History), ed., Germany and the Second World War, vol. Ill, The Mediterranean 1939-1941 (Oxford, Clarendon, 1995)

From the outset of their entry into the war, Hitler had responded coolly to Italian requests for aid in modernizing their military. As they possessed severe doubts about the capability and "fighting spirit" of the Italians both Hitler and the OKW preferred that German weapons remain in German hands. They also feared poorly executed Italian imperial ambitions would threaten the stability and security of the "Southeastern Resource Area." So as Italian entry into the war neared, all possible efforts were taken to dissuade Mussolini from using his expected invasion of Albania to threaten Yugoslavia, long a site of Italian Imperial ambitions but also a key German supplier of natural resources, or Greece, as the invasion of the latter, while not as economically significant, could seriously complicate Germany's strategic vision for Southeastern Europe. These fears and the efforts that sprang from them thus shaped the relief which washed across certain areas of Berlin when news of the Albanian's seizure of Sazan was followed a few weeks later by a disastrous Italian landing attempt. As prudent as the Foreign Ministry's efforts seemed at the time, the events of June 28 made them redundant.

When combined with Hitler's complicated relationship with King Ahmet Zog of Albania, the small Balkan country's potential to dissuade Italy from pursuing interests that ran contrary to the Reich's created a unique situation in Germany. Even after Albania's declaration of war against Germany, press coverage remained strikingly neutral. The Innsbrucker Nachrichten going as far to note worryingly on July 2, 1940 that a former German ally of WWI, General Vehib Pasha, had handed Germany's new ally, Mussolini, a decisive defeat and that instead of an ally capable of another Gallipoli, perhaps the Germans would be placed in the same position the Entente had been in after Caporetto.(2) As prophetic as those words would later prove to be, their writers faced few repercussions as the summer of 1940 saw leading figures from both the Nazi Party and the Wehrmacht convinced that the unexpected Albanian distraction served their purposes far better than any reasonable alternative. Despite ongoing Italian difficulties, the OKW believed that the invasion of Albania would help spur reform within the Italian army while also dissuading it from overextending itself and potentially creating a situation which required German intervention and destabilized the strategic situation. These attitudes proved to be so pervasive that German agents actively funneled intelligence on Italian movements to the Albanians and contributed to their ability to marshal enough forces to seriously contest the Italians' conquest of Tirana.(3)

As foolish as this behaviour seems in hindsight, the events of fall 1940 seemed to justify it in the eyes of both the OKW and the Nazi party. Italy emerged from the Albanian campaign exhausted and incapable of invading either Yugoslavia or Greece in the immediate future. Instead, her eyes drifted south to North Africa, where Mussolini's pre-mature invasion of Egypt in September had stalled when it reached its logistical limit at Sidi Barani. Such a focus was met with considerably more enthusiasm by the OKW which had begun to look for alternatives to the invasion of Britain in September and had seized upon the potential to seriously impact the British war effort by prosecuting the war in the Eastern Mediterranean. When augmented by additional bombing raids from Rhodes, a stronger offensive towards the Suez seemed to be far more realistic than Operation Sealion.

In late September 1940, with considerable support from the Kriegsmarine the Heer proposed that a force of two armoured and one motorized division be sent to aid Graziani's forces in their efforts to capture the Suez Canal and Hitler agreed in principle. While the Third Panzer division began to prepare for desert warfare, General von Thoma was sent to Cyrenaica in October to study the situation and on October 4, Hitler made the offer directly to Mussolini during their meeting in the Brenner Pass. Mussolini's response was unenthusiastic to say the least. Eager to regain some prestige after the Albanian debacle, he opted to decline German aid for the next phase of the attack towards Matruh which he believed to be within Italian capabilities to capture on their own now that they could direct their entire focus on the region. However, noting once again his army's material needs, Mussolini left the door open for future German intervention during the third phase of the planned Italian invasion: the march on Alexandria.

Thoma's subsequent report further reinforced an adherence to the status quo as he pointed out the logistical challenges of operating in Libya. The Italians had difficulty supplying their own forces already in the country and more and more men and materiel were arriving on a daily basis. To add German panzer divisions and motorized infantry into this mix would be disastrous. He recommended that no further action be taken until Matruh was taken and this advice was taken by the OKW. No further preparations for the deployment of the Third Panzer division were taken and it was instead placed in reserve for the planned Operation Felix against Gibraltar. (4)

As catastrophic as the Oct 21 Raid on Taranto was for the Regia Marina as it had no impact on the overall logistical situation in Cyrenaica, Hitler continued to view his Italian ally's struggles with contempt and delayed authorizing a further examination of the possibilities of German intervention until November 4. (5) This mission proved to be well timed as it was well underway by the time the British launched their first major mission to reinforce Malta known as Operation Coat. Taking advantage of the Italian's temporary weakness, the British mobilized both of their Mediterranean fleets to escort a convoy that was double the size of the one which had arrived in late October. With the Regia Marina down to a pair of WWI-era battleships and unable to intervene, the responsibility for interdicting such a convoy fell to the Regia Aeronautica which once again failed, this time with heavy casualties from the reinforced RAF presence on Malta now under the command of Air Vice-Marshall Keith Park, freshly transferred from Britain. (6) When combined with the subsequent stationing of a light naval squadron of two light cruisers and two destroyers in Malta to interdict Italian convoys, Hitler finally began to give credence to the increasingly concerned tone the Kriegsmarine had taken regarding the Mediterranean. (7)

By the time German forces began to arrive it was already too late to have a decisive impact. The arrival of German transport aircraft on November 10, while helpful, proved to be completely insufficient to make up for the lost shipping to North Africa. Meanwhile negotiations for the transfer of a German bombers dithered as Hitler only tentatively raised the issue during his meeting with Ciano on November 18 before suggesting it to Mussolini directly on November 20. Embarrassed at the inability of the Regia Aeronautica to subdue Malta, Mussolini dithered and instead opted to focus his bombers on Malta as he had in Albania. Only when this concentration of forces failed to interdict the next massive Malta convoy in Operation Collar did he finally appeal to Hitler for the immediate transfer of Luftwaffe resources. Shortly thereafter on December 10, Hitler went ahead with Operation Mittelmeer and authorized of the transfer of General Hans Ferdinand Geisler and Fliegerkorps X, known for its expertise in naval bombing, to Sicily. With all of their signals, flak, bombs, and fuel it was expected that they would be able to begin operations in mid-January at which time the nearly 200 aircraft would be able to overwhelm Malta and pave the way for further reinforcements to be sent to Africa.

220px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-L06496,_Hans_Geisler.jpg

General Hans Ferdinand Geisler​

Though the fall of Bardia on December 19, added more urgency to the situation, Hitler again displayed considerable reluctance to allocate additional forces. Though he recognized the importance of holding Tripolitania for the internal stability of the Italian Fascist regime, he rejected proposals to send the 5th Light division, noted for its anti-tank capabilities, as a Sperrverband to help dissuade further British armoured offensives. Nor was he willing to allocate sufficient additional Luftwaffe resources to reinforce Geisler even though the RAF contingent at Malta was not only steadily growing in numbers but also capability. For, unlike Hitler, the British were determined not to underestimate the Luftwaffe and took advantage of German inaction in December to send two more large convoys to Malta to prepare it for the coming siege. Instead, Hitler seemed confident that the unit's existing strength would be enough and only authorized additional priority to its shipments south. (8)

By the time Fliegerkorps X began operations over Malta on New Years Day 1941, the German effort had become too little, too late. The massive convoys of November and December 1940 had transformed the island into an impregnable fortress with more than 120 Hurricanes and 60 bombers, a force almost equal in size to Giesler's. Furthermore, all of the pilots had gained at least some combat experience against the Italians, who in turn, found themselves struggling from not only casualties but maintenance issues due to the strain of mounting intensive bombing campaigns first against Albania and then against Malta. (9) Though Hitler had tasked Giesler with not only bombing Malta into submission but also attacking Wavell's advancing army in Cyrenaica, the stiff resistance put up by the RAF around Malta demanded additional resources and limited German attacks on Africa to a handful of raids as the Luftwaffe was once again forced into a battle of attrition not unlike the campaign over Britain…

Notes

1. Parallel War to Subaltern War (Italian)

2. Innsbruck is the nearest major city to South Tyrol (the area of Austria ceded to Italy in 1918) and thus its paper consistently expressed irredentist and anti-Italian views whenever possible in OTL. I figured they would be likely candidates to write something along these lines.

3. If this seems unrealistic, it might be. However in OTL Germany did not break off diplomatic relations with Greece until well after the initial Italian invasion. In TTL there's no real strategic threat from Albania due to its more isolated geographical position so the Germans are even more happy to do what they can to keep Italy occupied.

4. Thoma and the Third Panzer are from OTL.

5. I'm open to critiques here, but the Taranto raid is never brought up in German/Italian negotiations in OTL. The main concern was always Greece due to the strategic threat to Romania.

6. The increased scale of operations in TTL shows Maynard's deficiencies earlier. As its primarily a defensive battle and due to some influence from the Albanian government in Exile, which have explicit instructions from Zog, Park is sent there instead of to Training Command like he was in OTL.

7. Malta only really became an issue for the Germans once it began to seriously impinge on resupply efforts in OTL.

8. Feel free to let me know if I'm not giving the Germans enough credit here. Again, given what I see in the records, I just don't think they would be that concerned without Greece. A lot of these two paragraphs is basically from OTL.

9. The Italians had major problems with maintenance in OTL. Their largest air attack of the war occurred during the Battle of Calabria in July 1940. From that point on the numbers of aircraft they could launch steadily declined due to both fuel and parts shortages. Though fuel has not become a problem in TTL yet (that's coming!) the increased tempo of operations is putting even more strain on their forces.

January 30, 1941. Sazan, Albania.

Rab_Concentration_camp.jpg

Sazan Internment Camp circa 1942(10)​

More rain…

Giuseppe Salvatore Bellusci (11) scowled as he opened his eyes to see water dripping through the thoroughly drenched fabric of his tent. Groans from the men next to him, often accompanied by whispered cursing targeted at Mussolini and the rest of the Fascists, only aggravated his situation. Initially, he tried to take solace in the fact that he was not alone. The greatest weakness of their community had sprung from the fact that they'd been scattered across Southern Italy in so many villages. Surely, the concentration of so many politically active Arbëreshë (12), even under less than ideal circumstances, would create a kind of community that some had only dreamed of during the Italianization campaigns of the past decades.(13) It had only taken a few weeks for that attitude to fade as it was replaced with a seething hatred towards his fellow inmates. Crammed cheek to jowl with five other men in a leaky tent during the Albanian winter, he'd come to despise the fact that their snoring kept him up at night and those who did not snore consistently stole what little food the guards made available to them. He had sworn that the camp would never break him. As it turned out it had only taken eleven weeks.

Knowing that the rain probably would not stop and that the guards would send them out on a work detail anyways only made things worse. Even though his hands had finally developed callouses after weeks of dealing with painful blisters, his bones ached. At 51 he was far too old for this. Not when he'd spent most of his days being a teacher. (14) Perhaps if he had worked the fields and had been accustomed to the harsh tasks of clearing land before arriving, he could find some kind of peace in the work like some of his fellow inmates, but for him it was just torture. However it was his only alternative to not getting beaten to death and if they didn't clear enough land for the camp to expand, the commandant had already promised to cram the next shipment of internees into the same area they currently occupied.

"No rest for the wicked…" he muttered to himself as he got up from his cot.

At least the rain will help with the itching…

It was a classic no win scenario. All of them had lice by now courtesy of the camp's barbaric conditions. To try and remain dry was to deal with the aftereffects of that whereas going out into the rain brought relief from the itching but with it came the incessant cold and the soreness of working a 12-hour day clearing brush. By the time the thin soup that the Italians claimed was their meal made it to them, it was already cold or lukewarm at best and did little to change things. Next to the itching, the hunger was even worse, but at least the hunger offered a way out. Slowly but surely their bodies were breaking down under the strain of it all.

All according to plan…

Some of the older internees had already succumbed, a harrowing thought for Giuseppe given the fact that they were only a few years older than he was. All of them had been residents of San Marzano di San Giuseppe, as the closest Arbëreshë village to Taranto.(15) Had their ancestors been able to foresee that the harbor would eventually become the eventual base of the Italian navy and the site of its greatest humiliation they probably would have settled somewhere else instead of having their descendants pay for their lack of foreknowledge. Unlike the other Arbëreshë villages which had only lost the most educated and politically active, their proximity to Taranto meant that the entire adult male population had been deported to Sazan while the women and children had been parceled out to "less strategically vital" villages to the North.(16) As such their old men had been the first to get sick and had been the first to be unable to join the work details. Ostensibly the guards intervened with their truncheons to "encourage" them, but none of them ever responded positively. The guards would probably be coming to "encourage" him in the not too distant future. He was starting to develop a bit of a cough and given the nature of the camp, once you started coughing, you only stopped once the guards were through with you.

All for crimes we did not commit!

That thought brought a thin smile to Giuseppe's face as he walked out of the tent into the rain to present himself for roll call. More than a few of his fellow inmates were still recovering from the shock of being interned. Few were opponents of the regime like Giuseppe and were thus at least partially prepared, in fact, some had been convinced fascists and all of them had been extremely well assimilated. Perhaps that is what made them so dangerous in Mussolini's eyes, or perhaps advantageous. Like the Jews in Germany the Arbëreshë were a fraction of the Italian population but unlike them only a handful were educated and almost all of them lived apart from their Italian neighbours. The fact that so many of them had family that worked in Zog's American factories perfected their status as scapegoats and made them a lightning rod for the anti-Albanian resentment that had been building through the 1930s as Zog consistently out maneuvered Mussolini.(17) Unfortunately for the Duce, if the rumors among the guards were true, their deportation had solved nothing.

This fact was hardly surprising. Incompetence not espionage had always lain at the root of the Italian's failures in the war. Mussolini had chosen to ignore the fact that his military lacked the equipment and training for modern war and had instead blamed Albanian infiltrators. Was it really a surprise that disasters continued to mount? The rumors from Africa seemed a little too good to be true, but even if they were half true, the loss of half of the Tenth Army made the losses in Albania and at Taranto pale in comparison. Zog's men were also apparently continuing to add insult to injury through their guerilla warfare campaign. Their king may or may not be dead, but the casualties their bombings and ambushes inflicted were very real. How many more disasters would it take for the Fascists to stop looking for "hidden Albanians" and start looking at their military flaws which were becoming even more apparent? (18) But the Fascists were not rational people. Rational people would never have gone after the Arbëreshë, nor would they have provoked a war with their former ally across the Strait of Otranto.

Then again, even though this camp reeked of irrationality, Giuseppe had to admit that there was a method to its madness. As crazy as it seemed, all of this could be seen as an attempt to control what was a profoundly uncontrollable situation. What was supposed to be a series of easy victories had resulted in one national disaster after another and had shook the very foundations of the Italian nation. Why else place a camp on Sazan, an island with no reliable source of groundwater, if not in an attempt to transform it from a site of Italian embarrassment to a site of Zog's? Why else would the guards' hands be so quick to go to their truncheons if not to help them cope with the fact that the ruined buildings they were now quartered in were once a major Italian naval base, itself a kind of monument to the Italians' inability to secure a better harbour in 1920?(19) They might not be able to dominate the Albanians or anyone else in the field, but here, in this camp, they could regain the dominance their nation was losing on every other battlefield.

More than a few of Giuseppe's fellow internees had begun to agree with him in recent days. In fact, even though there were still a few young men who thought they would be able to make it out alive, these days it seemed his was the majority opinion. Normally this fact would have filled him with joy, but instead Giuseppe found himself burdened by the increasingly dark rumors that spread from the growing realization that most of them would not be leaving this island. So far, they were only rumors, but even still they had a certain weight to them after all, their presence here alone signaled that camp had already begun to drift from its official rationale. Officially, the camp was never intended for them but rather as a temporary means to address the rising number of captured Albanian resistance fighters escaping from prisons on the mainland. (20) It just so happened that the decision to build it coincided with Mussolini deciding to send a message to Italian political dissidents and so they were sent as the vanguard to prepare the way.

But what exactly were they preparing the way for? The need to securely transport the prisoners from the mainland made a certain degree of sense, but why not build better structures? At the very least, why not build better structures for the guards instead of forcing them to leave in the burnt-out ruins Zog's men had left behind after their retreat? The Italians had already adopted one form of Teutonic barbarism in using terror bombing, what was to stop them from going further? His wife and children were already confined to their village and forced to register their every movement, How much longer would they be able to walk to the square without pinning some piece of cloth to their jackets like the Jews in Germany? How much longer before the Italians decided that their initial roundups hadn't gone far enough? Thinking a bit further abroad, what was going to happen to all the Albanians on the mainland if the fighting continued? Their lickspittle Regent Vërlaci was willing to tolerate anything to stay in power, if it was out of sight, out of mind, and technically on Italian territory even better. He could claim ignorance while who knows what happened to how many of the people he ostensibly ruled over. Normally, he could not care less about the descendants of those who chose to submit to the Ottomans but given the present situation…

Fortunately, the necessity to verbally respond to roll call saved him from mentally going down that path and brought him back to the present. Those that became consumed with the rumors and their implications often joined the old men under the guards' truncheons. Besides, even though his pessimistic attitude was becoming something of a fixture in camp life, deep down Giuseppe still had hope. He suspected that all of them who were still breathing still had hope. Everything they did to survive spoke to the fact that somewhere deep down even the older internees like himself believed that there was a chance they would get out of this. The Italians might be able to keep them weak enough and station enough guards and patrol boats to prevent an escape but all their efforts here would not change what was happening out there. How much more damage could Mussolini's regime take? How much longer until the cracks that had already appeared became deeper and deeper fissures and eventually brought the entire edifice down? How much longer until the truly decent people living in Italy rose up and said, "No More!"?

Hopefully not too much longer, his hacking cough was getting worse…

Giuseppe_Salvatore_Bellusci.jpg

Giuseppe Salvatore Bellusci 31/05/1888 - 30/05/1941​

Notes

10. Picture is from OTL's Rab camp circa 1942.

11. Giuseppe is an OTL figure. Born in San Demetrio Corone to parents of Albanian ancestry, he graduated from the University of Naples with a degree in Italian Literature before traveling to Ferentino just south of Rome.

12. Arbëreshë is the name for the Italo-Albanian minority in Albania. There are roughly 100,000 of them today and they still mostly live in villages in Calabria, Sicily, and the rest of Southern Italy.

13. TTL's Arbëreshë have a bit of a different experience. In OTL the Italianization campaigns of the 1930s were accompanied by a need for loyal collaborators in Albania after 1939. In TTL Albania is under military occupation and their loyalty has already been called into question.

14. Giuseppe was a teacher in OTL who took jobs both in Ferentino and later in Naples. He married an Italian woman there and had 2 children Giuseppe (b.1917) and Ugo (b. 1920) His refusal to join the Fascist party in OTL led to him moving back to Naples to teach there and him getting arrested several times before 1943. As the Fascist regime began to falter, he joined the resistance and briefly served in the post-war Italian Constituent Assembly from 1946-48 as a member of the PRI. He later became Undersecretary for Public Education before retiring from public life and eventually passing away in 1972. In TTL his Albanian heritage combines with his OTL anti-fascism to get him rounded up and interned on Sazan.

15. San Marzano di San Giuseppe is an OTL Arbëreshë village near Taranto.

16. The Italians don't go full Nazi right away. Rather the mixed nature of the Arbëreshë/Albanian community creates a mixed response that blends elements of Fascist persecution in the Balkans and Fascist persecution in Italy from OTL. So far, only a portion of the male and politically active Arbëreshë population has received the Balkan treatment. The experience of those not sent to Sazan is quite similar to how the Italians treated other foreign nationals and Jews in Italy proper.

17. The nature of immigration meant that many Arbëreshë followed their southern Italian neighbours across the Atlantic and then in TTL got recruited by Zog's agents as a part of broader efforts.

18. To be fair to Mussolini, the results of Jack's foreknowledge at Durres would be difficult to explain. This coupled with a need to explain the even worse disaster at Taranto leads to his decision to intern the Arbëreshë and send the most politically active plus the men closest to Taranto to Sazan.

19. In OTL the Italians wanted their base to be in Vlora proper but were unable to get the League of Nations to agree so they were forced to build it on Sazan during the 1920s. Due to it having insufficient groundwater, a water tanker vessel regularly made the trip between it and Brindisi to see to the base's needs.

20. In OTL the Italians basically inherited the entire Zogist prison system. In a testament to how little they feared Zog's hold over the Mati Tribe (and providing yet more evidence supporting the plausibility of their turn in TTL,) they even continued to use the highest security prison in Albania in Burrel, a town deep within Mati territory. In TTL they are not so lucky as will be revealed in the next update.

(Excerpted from James Butler ed. "History of the Second World War: The Mediterranean and the Middle East Vol.1 Early Successes Against Italy (to May 1941)" 1954)

…Had Mussolini known just how close Legentilhomme's motley command was close to breaking on August 5, he undoubtedly would have ordered Aosta's attack to go ahead. Yet fears of another unforeseen disaster lurked behind every corner. Albania had been an even more clear-cut victory and yet Mussolini was still reeling from Zog's surprise over a month later. With the Luftwaffe seemed poised to defeat Britain regardless of what actions Italy took, why risk appearing even weaker for territories she would most likely gain anyways? Far better to conserve precious resources and look to the future for opportunities for expansion. Even if British Somaliland was poised to fall as Aosta insisted, the battle of Loyada had convinced Mussolini that French Somaliland would be an impenetrable fortress which the Allies could easily reinforce and use to undermine the entirety of Italian East Africa. So he chose to order Aosta to scrap his planned offensive resume a defensive posture and in so doing transformed his fears about French Somaliland into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious that Mussolini's decision not to go ahead with Aosta's Somaliland offensive marked the beginning of the end for Italian East Africa. A concerted second attack on Anglo-French positions around Loyada would not have encountered the same fiercely determined force that had thrown back Bertoldi days earlier. Instead, it would have encountered a force which had all but exhausted its meagre supplies of ammunition for its AT and AA guns and was running low on ammunition generally. Moreover, outside of the men of the Black Watch, French morale remained dangerously low, to the point which even Legentilhomme feared that the rest of his command would free the junior officers he'd arrested only weeks earlier and finally enact the coup they'd threatened in July. (21) Such a force would have surely melted under the determined attack of Aosta's best divisions supported by tanks and air power. With Loyada under their control, Aosta would have been able to quickly ascertain that no threat lay to the west and would have been able to march east along the coast towards Djibouti where he would likely have been greeted by a pro-Vichy crowd ready to leave the war at the earliest opportunity.(22) Though such a victory would not have guaranteed an Italian victory in the theater, it would have struck a decisive blow to Wavell's hopes of a rapid campaign and would have forced his eventual advance to go through much harsher terrain without the benefit of the port and railway afforded by Djibouti.(23)

Aosta's adoption of a defensive posture was seen as so miraculous by Legentilhomme he refused to believe it for several days and even wrote de Gaulle in an attempt to dissuade him from making pre-mature announcements about the "Great Victory" at Loyada. Fortunately, de Gaulle was far more aware of the potential political gains to be made by emphasizing the battle and did so any way. He wagered that even if the Italians renewed their offensive, the propaganda value of a battle in which the Italians not the British attempted to take a French colony and the British fought alongside the garrison to ensure that it remained French was too good to pass up. Even the South Africans, maligned as "Agents of Perfidious British Imperialism" by Vichy propaganda due to their role in propping up de Coppet in Madagascar, had contributed a vital role by providing vital air cover to the combatants.(24) The opportunity was too good to pass up and rapidly paid dividends. Before the end of the month all of French Equatorial Africa had been secured, and mere days later, another propaganda coup: the signing of the Matsuoka-Henry Pact in Indochina.(25)

When coupled with its willingness to collaborate with the Italians to remove Legentilhomme, Vichy's effective capitulation to the Japanese dealt a critical blow to its legitimacy in the colonies. Within weeks, simmering discontent in Madagascar, Somaliland, and Ubangi-Shari had all but vanished and serious doubts were being raised in the other colonies. The doubts were particularly strong in French West Africa where Leon Cayla had already begun creating a secret pro-Gaullist faction in the event that Vichy attempted to collaborate too closely with the Germans. Though he put up a front for de Gaulle when the battleship Courbet arrived on September 15, his earlier activity shows that his mind had been made up weeks earlier. Unfortunately, the subsequent defections in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and elsewhere failed to materialize as Vichy responded to Cayla's defection with alacrity. Still, when combined with the increasing numbers of personnel volunteering to fight with de Gaulle, Dakar's strategic location and command over West Africa firmly established the Free French movement as a dangerous rival to Vichy.

Nowhere were the effects of the Free French movement's ascending legitimacy more apparent than in French Somaliland. Not only did Legentilhomme go from planning his escape route should his troops mutiny one night, to giving speeches to packed rooms the next, but reinforcements began to pour in. Elements of the First South African Infantry Brigade were the first to disembark, this time to a much livelier reception than the one that had greeted their comrades at Diego Suarez a few months earlier. (26) Another regiment from Madagascar was the next to arrive, followed by more free French troops from Europe and West Africa. (27) These were then topped by two more South African Brigades to give Legentilhomme effectively two divisions by the end of the year. (28)

Aerial reinforcements also continued to arrive both in the form of additional S.A.A.F planes but also French squadrons from Dakar. Of these arguably the most important were G.C. 1/4 and G.B. I/62 whose Curtiss Hawk 75 and Glen Martin 167 F aircraft were far superior to those flown by the Regia Aeronautica detachment. When combined with the Hawker Hurricanes of No.1 Squadron S.A.A.F. and the existing Bristol Blenheim I's and Gladiators stationed in Aden, these aircraft were able to decisively turn the tide in the aerial battles which dominated the last months of 1940. The Glen Martin bombers proved particularly effective in those battles as their high speed and fixed forward firing armament allowed them to double as fighters and led to numerous aerial victories. Based initially in Aden, these aircraft quickly moved into French Somaliland proper to prosecute an aerial offensive aimed at the heart of the Italian position. When combined with the actions of British and South African aircraft in Sudan and Kenya respectively, these operations had a devastating effect on the Regia Aeronautica's effectiveness. By the end of 1940 casualties, coupled with a lack of spare parts and an intense operational tempo had reduced the number of operational aircraft available to the Italians from the roughly 200 at the beginning of the war to 82 bombers and fighters by December 1940. (29)

However, no amount of success in the air or number of reinforcements could counter East Africa's lack of strategic priority. On December 2, Wavell met with Platt, Legentilhomme, and Cunningham in Cairo and informed them that the offensives that they had been pushing for in the region would be delayed at least until the end of the upcoming action in the Western Desert. If Libya fell, Wavell argued, not only would it send a clear message to Britain's Albanian allies and America, but it would also cut Italian East Africa off from further aerial reinforcements. Even still, all three East African commanders left Cairo disappointed. Though there was a window to rapidly transfer the 4th Indian division to the Sudan in time to begin an offensive in January 1941, Wavell's commitment to Operation Compass meant that the earliest additional forces could be transferred from Egypt was likely to be months away. When coupled with a shortage of transport, this delay threatened to push the coming offensive in East Africa until the end of the rainy season.

Still, Wavell was aware of the difficulties in delaying the East African offensive had on broader Allied strategy, particularly due to the Italian fleet at Massawa effectively making the Red Sea a warzone and preventing the Americans from operating freely. As a result, even though he withheld further reinforcements, Wavell gave all three commanders enough leeway in their orders to exploit any openings that presented themselves. This move proved to be a prescient one as not only did the capture of Cyrenaican airfields cut Italian East Africa off from aerial reinforcement, but the spectacular performance of British armour created a sense of panic throughout the Italian army. Though the Gazelle Force in Sudan was a far cry from the 7th Armoured division, its activity nevertheless convinced Aosta to withdraw from the key position Kassala in mid-January 1941, lest his forces stationed there join the 10th Army in ignominy. (30)

Despite lacking sufficient numbers to take the offensive, Platt seized upon the Italian withdrawal and re-occupied Kassala on January 20 and in so doing initiated the offensive that would bring an end to the East African Campaign. (31) For though Platt lacked the resources to push deeper into Eritrea, his actions inspired Legentilhomme to push forward more aggressively in the hopes of similarly improving his position's strategic depth. In so doing, Legentilhomme's motley forces slammed directly into Aosta's planned withdrawal into the more favourable defensive terrain in Eritrea. Having been convinced by Operation Compass that his forces stood no chance of defeating the Allies on open ground, Aosta had already begun evacuating his best units in an effort to prolong the campaign as long as possible by forming a strategic redoubt around Keren and Massawa. Aosta's assumptions were further strengthened by an elaborate British attempt at strategic deception aimed at convincing the Italians that the primary thrusts of the offensive would come from Kenya and Sudan. (32)

When combined with months of inaction along the Somali front, the false intelligence regarding the Kenyan attack lulled Aosta into a false sense of security and led to a dangerous state of unreadiness pervading the forces along the vital motorway between Djibouti and Addis Ababa. Expecting to be ordered north at any time, they were completely caught off guard by the aggressive attack from Legentilhomme's "Guépardforce." (33) Though hardly as speedy as its name suggested due to the presence of Great War vintage FT-17 tanks, (34) the motley collection of units was nevertheless able to vastly exceed all expectations and rout the Italian garrison at Dewele on January 25 by using the dry riverbed of the Oued Beuade to outflank the Italian position. When Italian resistance failed to materialize and aerial reconnaissance revealed a temporary hole in the Regio Esercito's deployments, Legentilhomme felt like he had been presented with an opportunity too good to refuse.

This time it was his turn to throw caution to the wind. Leaving only minimal forces along French Somaliland's northern frontier, Legentilhomme ordered the bulk of his command south towards the key rail and road junction of Diredawa. Despite Guépardforce losing all of its tanks to either enemy fire or mechanical breakdowns, it was nonetheless able to reach the vital jun4ction before any of Aosta's reinforcements and once again overwhelm the garrison through the use of superior mobility on January 27. Though it would have struggled to repel the Italian attacks of the subsequent days on its own, possession of the railway allowed for Guépardforce's rapid reinforcement by the rest of the 1st South African Infantry Division and the 1st Free French Light Division. Together, these forces decisively threw back several attempted counterattacks and continued to press forward towards Addis Ababa. With the majority of the Italian forces clustered to the North and to the South they once again faced minimal opposition and entered the city on February 5th. (35)

Legentilhomme's rapid advance and capture of Addis Ababa would not have been possible without the herculean efforts of the RAF, SAAF, and Free French airforce above it. From January 25-February 5 the combined squadrons worked themselves and their machines to the point of exhaustion in an effort to gain air superiority. Echoing an operational tempo similar to the Desert Air Force in Operation Compass, the involved pilots flew an average of four sorties a day to strike at both Italian airfields and troop columns with devastating effect. Captured Italian documents show how, again and again, Italian attempts to strike at Legentilhomme's advance but were stymied by Allied airpower. With Aosta hoarding his best divisions to the north, advancing columns of Italian colonial troops withered away before they could even threaten the Djibouti/Addis Ababa railway as desertion levels skyrocketed. (36) Had Aosta been willing to deploy the remainder of the Regia Aeronautica more aggressively he might have been able to complicate the Allied advance, but doing so might have robbed him of the extra weeks of preparation as the Allied Air Forces recovered from their rapid and unexpected dash to Addis Ababa.

However, the adoption of such a strategy would have necessitated an entirely different strategic outlook for Aosta. As disastrous as Legentillhomme's bisection of Italian East Africa was to foreign observers, to Aosta it was somewhat expected and he believed that given his untenable situation, by preserving his best units in Italian East Africa, he had done the best he could. Unfortunately for Aosta, this perfectly valid strategy was overshadowed by yet another Italian collapse in the immediate aftermath of the Italian collapse in North Africa. Cut off from retreat, the Italian forces in the south struggled to reorient themselves to resist Cunningham's impromptu offensive and surrendered in droves despite massively outnumbering them and holding superior terrain. Mogadishu fell on February 15th and despite the worsening weather, Cunningham's troops had fully linked up with Legentilhomme by mid-March.

Yet Cunningham's offensive paled in comparison to the eucatastrophe experienced by Emperor Haile Selassie who returned to his country days before Legentilhomme's advance occurred expecting to wage a grueling guerrilla war like Zog in Albania. He was still in the isolated village of Belaya when word reached him of the capture of Addis Ababa. In an instant the entire mission of "Gideon Force" changed as a sizeable portion accompanied Selassie to Addis Ababa while the remainder attempted to impede Italian efforts to retreat into their strategic redoubt. As Wingate's forces struggled to impede the vastly better equipped Italian forces facing them,(37) Selassie engaged on a triumphal march and arrived in the capital a month later. Instead of rallying his followers to a harsh campaign of guerrilla warfare from the mountains, Selassie used his new re-established position in Addis Ababa to call his people to finish the work of liberating the country.

Thanks to Aosta the process of liberation would take some time, but the outcome was even more certain following the liberation of Addis Ababa. With the conclusion of Operation Compass, Wavell turned his full attention to exploiting Legentilhomme's advance and shifted as many supplies and reinforcements to the region as possible. With additional squadrons from the Desert Air Force, the last vestiges of the Regia Aeronautica were driven from the skies and though Aosta's men forced the combined Allied armies to fight tooth and nail for every inch of mountainous ground they eventually surrendered on May 19, 1941 after being granted the honours of war by Generals Platt and Legentilhomme. (38) As valiant as the final stand of the Regio Esercito in East Africa was, it paled in comparison to the rapid collapse in Abyssinia and Somaliland that preceded it, which in turn came on the heels of national embarrassments in North Africa, over Malta, and in Albania. When combined these defeats shook the Fascist regime to its core and destroyed its credibility to wage war independently from their German allies. Even though it had begun elsewhere well before May 19, Aosta's surrender marked the true end of Italy's guerra parallela and cemented her subordinate status within the Axis.

Notes

21. In OTL these junior officers were the primary reason Legentilhomme was unable to rally the colony to the Free French. In TTL they are less powerful due to no Operation Catapult but are still influential.

22. Legentilhomme feared precisely this happening in OTL as he did not have the same level of fortifications around Loyada that he did elsewhere along the borders of Djibouti.

23. Prior to the fall of France, Wavell preferred to launch an east African campaign through French Somaliland rather than through Sudan. See https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/LondonGazette/37645.pdf page 3528 (page 2 of document)

24. In OTL the South Africans were considered somewhat of a luxury by Cunningham to the point that he turned down additional troops. He had no problems transferring the fighters of No. 1 Squadron SAAF to Sudan in OTL, the only difference is that in TTL they go to Aden/Djibouti.

25. Feel free to critique this, but from what I can tell the British were emphatically opposed to provoking a war with Japan over Indochina in 1940 and actively tried to prevent the colony from joining the Free French movement. Furthermore, the Vichy French capitulation to Japan in the region, however recalcitrant it was in OTL (even more so in TTL) was basically unavoidable IMO once Catroux was replaced in July.

26. See Part XXII, in TTL de Coppet's declaration for de Gaulle in July 1940 forces Smuts to reroute the 1st South African Brigade to Madagascar to help maintain order and prevent a Vichy coup in early July. De Gaulle's prompt arrival stabilizes things somewhat and allows for it to be redeployed.

27. Legentilhomme already had 1 regiment of Malagasy troops under his command in OTL. As per Part XXII, No Operation Compass means that almost half of the French troops in the UK join the Free French. In addition to these troops, Legentilhomme is also reinforced by French troops from the Mediterranean which fought in Operation Compass in OTL. If this sounds far-fetched, its' worth noting that a brigade of Free French troops consisting of colonial troops from Chad and French Foreign Legion troops fought in OTL's East African campaign under General Georges Catroux. In TTL they are much stronger and French Somaliland has propaganda importance so de Gaulle throws everything into the mix.

28. OTL went to Kenya. In TTL General Alan Cunningham believes he can hold the region with the roughly two African divisions as he did in OTL.

29. This is probably the biggest impact on the campaign. The French squadrons are from OTL and were stationed at Dakar. Their transfer to Aden/Djibouti along with the concentration of RAF/SAAF assets there allows for a massive intensification of the air war over East Africa much earlier than TTL as the stationing of modern aircraft much closer to the main airfields in AOI provokes a similar response to OTL. Interestingly enough, in OTL a pair of French pilots defected to de Gaulle in September 1940 by flying their Glenn Martin bombers to Aden. They do so in TTL to join the existing squadrons there.

30. All OTL trends that I don't see any reason to change.

31. A bit later than OTL due to no 4th Indian division.

32. Aosta's strategy is straight from OTL. The only real difference is the British strategic deception. In OTL they successfully convinced the Italians that the main advance was coming through Kenya and Somalia which reinforced Aosta's strategy. In TTL the advance is coming from Somalia so they focus on Kenya and Sudan which similarly reinforces Aosta's strategy and also contributes to him stripping the border forces around Djibouti.

33. "Cheetah Force" a cheeky response to Platt's "Gazelle Force."

34. Legentilhomme had these tanks in OTL.

35. OTL it fell on April 6, 1941. In TTL Legentilhomme's forces have far less distance to travel and far better infrastructure to travel on.

36. Cunningham experienced a similar phenomenon in OTL.

37. The earlier Italian defeat does not work in Wingate's favour IMO.

38. Aosta's strategy was a good one and he had several excellent formations. Slim consistently maintained that the campaign around Keren was the toughest fighting he'd experienced in the war. It is also worth noting that in TTL Platt is on the defensive without the 4th Indian division until the fall of Addis Ababa so I don't think it's unreasonable to have Aosta hold out until roughly when he did in OTL. Basically, this entire portion of the TL can be summed up as: Stronger Free French forces effectively replace the 4th Indian division in East Africa. The mechanics of the campaign are a bit different obviously. I might return to talk a bit about Phase 2 of the campaign particularly along the Red Sea coast since a more effective Taranto raid frees up some resources but other than that I'm probably not going to go into a lot of detail here at this point.