Italy joins Central Powers but...

[danwild6]

the CP's are still defeated. A POD could be a relief of the siege of Przemyl or an Austrian Tannenburg. Italy joins the war at roughly the same time as OTL. France redeploys troops to Alpine positions and successfully throws back multiple Italian offensives with ease. All French offensives from 1915-1917 butterflied away. American entry roughly same as OTL. War ends roughly OTL.

What consequences for Italy? Does France take any territory? What about reparations?

 

[Mulder]

I don't think France would gain much Italian territory, since Britain in OTL allowed France to take nothing more than Alsace-Lorraine, which was French before 1871, from Germany. Maybe Val d'Aosta, but even that is a stretch. The big difference will be that Italy loses its colonies and gains only Trentino from the partition of AH (i.e. Bozen and maybe the Kanal valley stay Austrian and all the other stuff in the East [Trieste, Istria, Gorizia] go to Yugoslavia, which then will replace AH as Italian enemy Nr. 1).

 

[Eurofed]

What consequences for Italy? Does France take any territory? What about reparations?

Italy would more or less take the same peace deal as it got after WWII. France would annex Briga and Tenda. Aosta would likely get the same deal as the Saar and Rhineland. Austria would keep Bolzano (not Trento), Yugoslavia would get Gorizia-Gradisca, Trieste, and Istria. Forget about any political fragmentation of Italy, it would be as untenable as breaking up Germany. Add hefty reparations and military limitations. Italy also loses all the colonies.

The main conseguence is that the fascist takeover becomes even more guaranteed than OTL, perhaps after an attempted Communist revolution. And ITTL interwar Italy would be from the beginning much more wholehearted and serious about revanchism and alliance with Germany for a rematch, making a good job of military preparation, and support the Anschluss from the start in exchange for German support to break up Yugoslavia. Either by political means (supporting Croatian separatism) when Germany makes moves on Czechoslovakia, or by military attack when Germany attacks Poland. Italy shall build a much more efficient army, assimilating the lessons of WWI as did Germany, but it shall also have to rebuild its fleet from scratch. All in all, the Axis shall be rather stronger on land, but likely weaker in the Mediterranean. However, Italy did not use its considerable WWII naval assets any well IOTL, so if the lessons of a lost war are assimilated, the Regia Marina could still pull a net better performance ITTL as well.