Guest Post: Skorzeny's Daring Rescue Fails

This article first appeared on Today in Alternate History.

September 12, 1943:

On this day in alternate history, Operation Eiche ended in disaster. This was a daring rescue mission to whisk Hitler's former Axis partner Benito Mussolini away from Campo Imperatore Hotel to a meeting at Wolf's Lair. But for reasons unknown and despite the objections of the pilot, Commando leader Otto Skorzeny insisted on accompanying him in the Fieseler Fi 156 STOL. This overloaded the plane, which crashed into a cliff and killed everyone on-board.

The Fuhrer had been enraged when Victor Emmanuel III, the King of Italy had replaced the Duce with Marshal Pietro Badoglio. As he suspected, this led to an armistice signed only three weeks after the Sicily landings. When Mussolini was placed in captivity, Hitler even threatened to seize the Pope. Instead, his Austrian-born countryman Skorzeny was ordered to rescue the Duce.

The light security detail at the Hotel was unmistakable evidence that the fate of Benito Mussolini was considered a complete irrelevance to the outcome of the war and, indeed, the future of Italy. But Badoglio miscalculated and this would lead to the early collapse of his Government. Hitler wanted a figurehead for his Northern Italian puppet state, and, although alternative leaders such as Alessandro Pavolini or Rodolfo Graziani would probably do, Il Duce, despite being a dejected figure, was strongly preferred for the appearance of continuity. Therefore, the Duce still at least had some symbolic value.

After the crash, the morale of the Italian Social Republic never got off the ground without the Duce. This was to be to the great military advantage of the Communist partisans operating in the North with the assistance of British SOE. Although Churchill was denied his opportunity to strike at the soft under-belly of Europe, nevertheless it was a development not without consequence because Western Yugoslavia was liberated before Soviet forces could arrive. 

The head of the Yugoslav Partisans, Josip Broz Tito, had made an arrangement with the Germans to jointly oppose any Western landing. The inevitable result was the partition into a western kingdom led by King Peter governing from Sarajevo, and an eastern Communist state ruled out of Belgrade by Tito. This settlement was formed by the percentage agreement, a "naughty document" proposed by Churchill and signed by Stalin, stating that Great Britain would get 50% sphere of influence control.

Tito would die in 1980 and be succeeded by another strongman, Slobodan Milosovic. However, East Yugoslavia would not survive long past the fall of Communism in 1989, after which Peter II finally became the constitutional monarch of a united country.

Author's Note: in reality, they only just missed the cliff, and it was considered the greatest special forces triumph of WW2. This led to further operations including the kidnapping of Admiral Horthy's son and also Operation Grief during the Battle of the Bulge. Peter II was was prevented from returning to Belgrade by Prime Minister Subasic. This was after Stalin demanded a three man regency council to govern until a plebiscite was held on if Yugoslavia should become a republic or remain a monarchy. He died in 1970 following a failed liver transplant. His cirrhosis was caused by depression resulting in alcoholism.