In 1941 at the deciding moment whether to send troops to the Balkans or crush the Italian troops out of Africa the decision was made in favor of the former.What if instead the Italians were driven out of Africa? No El Alamein or Battle of Tobruk but would something else change, what do you think?

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http://gi.grolier.com/wwii/wwii_8.html

With the destruction of the Italian Tenth Army and the occupation of the whole of Cyrenaica, the British were faced with a difficult problem. The only Italian forces left in North Africa were 5 very weak and dispirited divisions of the Fifth Army around the port of Tripoli. General O'Connor was confident that the 13th Corps could advance and capture Tripoli, with the prospect of eliminating all Axis forces from North Africa, and he immediately drew up plans for doing so. There was, however, another urgent call in a very different direction. When the Italians began invading Greece, they had met with some initial success, but very soon the Greeks counterattacked and drove them back into Albania. Partly to help their ally and partly for other reasons, the Germans decided to advance through Yugoslavia and occupy Greece. German preparations for this move had been apparent to the British intelligence service for some time. Hitherto the Greeks had declined British aid, but on Jan. 29, 1941, Premier Ioannes Metaxas died, and his successor, Alexandros Korizes, intimated that he would welcome British help against what he regarded as an imminent German threat. British resources in the Middle East were insufficient to allow both an advance to Tripoli and aid to Greece. After numerous exchanges of views between the British government and General Wavell and discussions in Cairo and Athens (Athenai), which were attended by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and the chief of the Imperial General Staff, Gen. (later Field Marshal) Sir John Greer Dill, it was decided to send a force to Greece and remain on the defensive in North Africa.




What? No DAK??!

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