What if Italy is allied with Central Powers?

[Shortround6]

Unfortunately 10th place (or even 8th place) is way behind the Big 4 or 5 on the world stage.

"In May 1915, the fleet was composed of five dreadnoughts, nine pre-dreadnoughts, eight armored cruisers, six scout cruisers, thirty-five destroyers and eighteen submarines."

This slightly deceptive as the 5th dreadnought was only commissioned in May of 1915 and the 4th was commissioned in April of 1915. So Italy in Aug/Sept of 1914 had 3 dreadnoughts (all with 12 in guns), Of the nine pre dreadnoughts only two had four 12 in guns, two had four 10in guns and 4 had two 12in and twelve 8in.
to get to 9 pre dreadnoughts they may be counting the old (laid down 1885 completed 1895) Sardegna.
Italy's ability to influence the naval war in the Med was minimal and her ability to maintain any meaningful contact with the African colonies would be highly suspect.

 

[The Basket]

Italy was a military power?
Compared to who? Bulgaria?

 

[swampyankee]

Italy was a military power?
Compared to who? Bulgaria?

It was, at the time, considered one of the great powers, with the UK, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, the US, and Russia.

 

[Shortround6]

The Question is at which time? Japan was considered in the top eight in 1914 as far as navies go.
Out of the eight Navies listed in the Naval Annual of 1914 only Austro-Hungary was spending less than the Itialians
And another sources claims Italy was spending up to 37% of it's defence/military budget on the Navy.
Size of the Austro-Hungarian army compared to Italy's?

Once you get past place 8 all the other navies fell into the "minor" catagory.

 

[The Basket]

Look at the facts.
Against Ethiopia and against the Turks in Libya. My limited knowledge of Italy military power or my knowledge of limited Italy military power?
Or do we include Carthage and Asterix and Obelix?
And I test drove a Fiat Panda. Didn't like it

 

[Vincenzo]

As naval power Italy can claim the 6th place, over the austro hungarian empire and the russian empire
Italy had before of war a fleet with 3 dreadnought, 8 pre-dreadnought and 9 acr
Austro hungarian empire had 2 dreadnought, 9 pre-dreadnought and 2 acr (of the common claimed 12 pre dreads 3 were CDS of bit over 5 thousand tons of normal displacement)
Russian empire had 9 predreads and 6 acr

for the army to next post

p.s. the italian v/s the turks in Libya win, only after the start of WW 1 with the withdrawal for fight v/s the austro hungarian the libyan take the inland

 

[Milosh]

Regia Marina (1914)

Regia Marina (1914)

 

[Vincenzo]

Regia Marina (1914)

Regia Marina (1914)

As i've posted in my post the russian navy had not dreads BB, just one more predreads BB and 3 ACR less so i can only disagree with your source
not that your source is right on the italian BB, counting oldest ships like they were in the fleet, not talking on wrongs number for the class

 

[Shortround6]

The counts of ships in many navies of the time were inflated by old, obsolete (read just plain junk) ships that were held "in reserve".
the British navy did use the The HMS Revenge

in WW I for coastal bombardment early in the war, Laid down in Feb 1891 she was completed in March of 1894. The British were building battleships faster (from keel laid to completed) faster than anybody else and some navies took 10 years to complete a ship which meant it was obsolete on the day it commissioned.

Even the British could get caught and the Revenge and her 6 1/2 sisters were obsolete by the late 1890s. Please note there is not gun house or armor protection for the gun crews of the main guns. There is a low wall around the gun mount that offered some protection (when designed battle range was expected to be only a few thousand yards and plunging fire was not considered. While the guns did not use black powder they used "smokeless brown cocoa " powder which actually produced less smoke than Black powder but was hardly smokeless. The ammunition hoists and rammers were at the rear of the barbette mounting and required the guns to aligned for and aft on the ships centerline for reloading and then swung back onto the target, rate of fire while better than muzzleloaders was, shall we say, abysmal. Armor was few inches of steel backed up by a number of inches of wrought iron. All steel armour of about 2/3rds the thickness provided equal protection let alone shifting to nickel steel or nickel-chrome and heat treatment.

Picking the the British here as a benchmark. Just about anybody else's ship of the same age (or even a few years newer, remember most other navies would have completed an older design after the Revenge and her sisters so while newer in age they were older in concept) would be no better and in some cases worse. Four gun battleships of the early 1900s (1900-1908) had much better guns, much better armor and even better machinery. And they had no business trying to fight a dreadnought type battleship let alone the relics from the 1880s and 90s.

 

[parsifal]

This is an article on Regia Marina during WWI edited by an Italian and based largely on Italian sources

Naval Warfare (Italy) | International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1)

Italy was undoubtedly swayed by its relative weakness at sea according to this article, and this was a significant influence in persuading the Italians to abrogate their treaty with Germany

This second online source gives a more specific force analysis of the Italian fleet in 1914

Royal Italian Navy Deployment, 1914-1915


Andhere is the naval history online OB for the RM in WWI

Italian Navy Organisation and Fleet Lists 1915-1918

 

[Vincenzo]

In my count the oldest italian BB were launched in 1897, the oldest ACR in 1895
the oldest AH BB in 1900, the ACR in 1898
the oldest russian BB in 1893. the ACR in 1896
however i've not use a year requirement i just checked if the ship was used in the fleet, seagoing fleet, not just as harbour defence or guard ship

 

[Vincenzo]

Now i've not time for go in details but can tell that Italy can claim the 6th place also in the armies list

 

[The Basket]

No one is saying the Italian soldier didn't suffer or wasn't brave or courageous or didn't sacrifice his life.

The biggest army belonged to the Czar and how that turn out?

 

[parsifal]

So the armies in size order might be:

Russia
Germany
France
Austria
Turkey?
Britain/Empire?
Italy?


I don't know the exact size of the Russian Army in 1914, but it was very large........
THE RUSSIAN ARMY, 1914

The German army in 1914 consisted of 87 divisions with about 2.3 million men.

This is a link to the Austrian OB in 1914
Austro-Hungarian Army - Armed Forces 1914

In 1914 the French army consisted of 1.7 million men, organized into basically 62 continental divs. There were approximately 15 additional divisions deployed overseas and not counted in these manning levels

In 1914 there were 700000 men in the british army incl reserves, organized into 6 regular and 14 territorial divs. I'm not entirely sure of the empire strength, but the Anzacs amounted to 4 divs expanding to 7 divs during the war (incl the mounted div)

Before the Ottoman Empire entered the war, the four armies divided their forces into corps and divisions such that each division had three infantry regiments and an artillery regiment. Although I am not 100% sure, the ottomans fielded an army of approximately 1 million men. The main units were: 1st army with fifteen divisions; 2nd army with 4 divisions plus an independent infantry division with three infantry regiments and an artillery brigade. The second army headquarters was located in Syria commanding two corps made up of two divisions. 3rd Army with nine divisions, four independent infantry regiments and four independent cavalry regiments (tribal units); and the 4th Army with four divisions. The Redif system had been done away with, and the plan was to have reserve soldiers fill out active units rather than constitute separate units. In August 1914, of 36 infantry divisions organized, fourteen were established from scratch and were essentially new divisions. In a very short time, eight of these newly recruited divisions went through major redeployment.

By November 1914, the Second Army was moved to Istanbul and commanded the V and VI Corps, each composed of three divisions. The Ottoman concentration plan shifted major forces to European Thrace and established the defense of straits. The First and Second army located in this region. The Third army acquired new supplies for a winter offense. The force in Palestine (VIII Corps) is replaced with the Army in Mesopotamia.



The Italian Government introduced military conscription in 1907. However, only about 25 per cent of those eligible for conscription received training. By 1912 there were 300,000 in the Italian Army but critics point out that there was a shortage of experienced NCOs and trained officers. The performance of the army suffered considerably because of those shortages.

In July 1914 General Luigi Cadorna became chief of staff of the Italian Army. Although the Italian government declared its intentions to be neutral on the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Cadorna expected war and began building up his army. He decided to concentrate his forces on the borders with Austria-Hungary.

At a secret meeting held in England on 26th April 1915, representatives of the Italian government agreed to enter the war in return for financial help and the granting of land currently under the control of Austria-Hungary. The Treaty of London resulted in Britain granting an immediate loan of £50 million and a promise to support Italian territorial demands after the war. Without that help it is reasonable to assume that the Italian Army would have found further expansion very difficult. I cannot see the Austrians or the germans being able to match that financial underwriting.

By the spring of 1915 General Luigi Cadorna had 25 infantry and 4 cavalry divisions (by comparison, the British army by then consisted of over 50 divisions plus about another 20 colonial divs) . Grouped into four armies, Cadorna only had 120 heavy or medium artillery pieces and some 700 machine guns. Despite the shortage of artillery Cadorna launched mass attacks on Austria-Hungary in May 1915. The defending army quickly built trenches and the Italians suffered heavy casualties. In the first two weeks of the Isonzo Offensive, the Italian Army lost 60,000 men. By the time the attacks were called off that winter, Italian casualties had reached 300,000. Cadorna had also lost 3,000 field guns, which had mostly been supplied by Britain.

Cadorna made seven attempts to break through enemy lines but his only substantial victory was at Gorizia in August 1916. The Austro-German Caporetto Offensive in October 1917 was disastrous for the Italian Army. Over 300,000 men and most of its trench artillery was lost and the following month General Luigi Cadorna was replaced by General Armando Diaz.

Diaz managed to stabilize the front-line but was unwilling to undertake an offensive of his own. Vittorio Orlando, the Italian prime minister, was aware that he would need military victories to strengthen his negotiating position to obtain territorial demands after the war. He therefore pressurized General Armando Diaz to launch an offensive in a war that would soon be over.

On the 23rd October 1918, Armando Diaz launched an offensive at Vittorio Veneto. Diaz was able to put 57 Italian divisions in the field. These were supported by soldiers from the French Army and the British Army.

After initial difficulties crossing the Piave River, the Italian Army took the town of Vittorio Veneto. The Austro-Hungarian Army collapsed and by the Armistice the Allied forces had reached Trento in the west and Tagliamento in the east. When the ceasefire was called on 2nd November, the Italians had taken 300,000 prisoners.

Italy's total wartime casualties was 420,000 killed and almost 955,000 wounded out of the 5.2 million men who served during the First World War.

 

[Vincenzo]

googling i've found this: Armies 1914
this can give a idea of the armies situation before of war (I've classified the british empire army as one and over the italian army)

The armies under that italian are the japanese and the US

 

[The Basket]

Armies are difficult to size as what year and when but roughtly here is the top ten
Russian Empire
Germany
British Empire
France
Austria Hungary
Italy
USA
Turkey
Bulgaria
Japan
Japan was not fighting so their army did not expand and the USA had pretty much an army equivalent to Serbia in 1914.
Italy was only fighting on one main fromt wheras the Turks were fighting all over thier empire. In my view judging an army based on size is poor as North Korea has a huge army but its true effectiveness is unknown.

 

[Vincenzo]

I've used pre mobilization situation, because some armies not mobilized o mobilezed later of august '14
personally i've not checked the dimension of 3 armies because i are sure they were (much) larger of italian army, this are Russian, German and French armies
IMHO your rank of British empire army is too high, for me A-H army is 4th and British empire is 5th
the british army that was most important part of empire army had only 6 active division, the indian army, the larger, had 9 division, A-H had 33*.
The US army was small had only 30 infantry rgts (with only 3 division), Japanese had 78 (with 19 division) , is true that the US had the ANG (~130 rgt (~140 equivalent rgt counting the separate units)) but this imho is to be comparate with the reserve of the country with conscription;
Comparing Ottoman army also is difficult because is a conscription army but not had reserve units, all the reseve go to the active army unit for go up to war strenght this, if i understand their system they had 35 infantry division on 3 rgts but this in pace time had only 2 btln on 3 cos with the mobilization the btln became 3 and the cos 4 each.

* P.S. an other 8 division each had the austrian and hungarian army (the A-H landwehrs were a regular army not a 2nd line like the german Imperial-Royal Landwehr - Wikipedia )

 

[The Basket]

British is smaller but probably the most professional in 1914.
Navy took our money.
But them stats correct if you believe that.
So that top ten will be late war. Not pre war. Don't need much of an army to police the natives.
This isn't the British army but the Empire army and not every is front line on the Western front.