Victor Emmanuel III

[J. J.]

You mean the King of Italy while Mussolini's dictatorship was in power?

If I'm right, he was the one who assumed de facto power after Mussolini was overthrown, cast his lot with the allies, but then got occupied by the Germans, so the allies had to fight their way through Italy.

He was pretty ineffectual I guess.  I don't know whether his was supposed to be a ceremonial monarchy, like the current British one, or whether it was supposed to have any real power.

It was Victor Emmanuel III and I would point out that he was an active participant in the overthrow of Mussolini.  Auguable, his actions helped shorten the war, by draining German resources.

[J. J.]

He only overthrew Mussolini once it became obvious that his government was doomed anyway, a "which way the wind is blowing". Prior to that he bowed to his every command and even assumed the titles Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Albania after Mussolini invaded those nations. And of course he's the reason Mussolini came to power in the first place. Overall he incredibly spineless and just went with however the wind was blowing.

Well, others didn't.  Mussolini still had a large following and solid political infrastructure.

[J. J.]

But there is no way he could've withstood the Allied invasion.

I'm not entirely sure of that.  Add the Italian forces to the Nazi ones and it becomes more problematic.

[J. J.]

You are missing a number of factors:

1.  While the Italians were far from the best military in the world at the time, they still had successes.  The British regarded some fighting in North Africa as the best they ever faced; there was also the success in Albania.  Granted that could not be said about the entire Italian Army, but there was still an army that could have taken defensive operations.

2.  The Italian Army did have troops on different fronts, including the USSR (the numbers I've seen were between 60,000 and 200,000); they were also involved in Yougoslavian antipartizen operations.  These troops still had to be replaced when they surrended.  That hurt German manpower.

3.  The Italians had to be interned by the Germans; the extra troops needed to guard (and transport) them drained additional manpower.

4.  Had the Italians fought, there would have needed to be either less than the number of Germans in Italy or had the same number with better results.  Naples may not have been a battle rather than an unopposed landing.

5.  Largely due to the German occuptation, partizen activity in the north grew.  That tied up more German troops.

[J. J.]

I was more expresssing scepticism about how useful they were as an ally, since they didn't end up being a great ally for the Germans.  I think the Germans would have been better off, in sum, had the Italians remained neutral.  That is essentially where they were after they surrendered in 1943.

The Germans would have been much better of if the Italians had not invaded Greece in 1941.  On the balance, the Nazi's probably benefited, overall, from having Italy as an ally from 1940-43.  The defection of Italy hurt the Nazi cause.