@The11HP20:
Now to ponder the impact on Italy and Japan.
Good point! That would be interesting. I think Italy is easy enough to figure out though: they wouldn’t have done a thing.
Up until Italy invaded southern France, the UK and French were still doing everything in their power to keep Italy out of the war, and even had mild hopes of Italy joining them (though that was more of a stretch considering the fascist regime). That’s why Italy was given such a free hand in invading Abyssinia. True, the western allies condemned the invasion, but they ultimately didn’t want to piss off Italy to do anything more to make them align more with Germany.
One reason why I really have mixed feelings on the Taranto/the UK being able to attack Italy first move in AA 1940. Historically, there’s almost no way the Allies would have attacked Italy first, since they didn’t want Italy joining the fight against them in the first place.
Japan is a different matter. They were still at war with China regardless. It’s hard to see them attacking the US, Dutch, French, and UK, knowing that the whole might of all of them could be brought to the Pacific without any worry in Europe. That being said, with a Germany power vacuum, I wouldn’t be surprised to have seen the USSR become aggressive and take territories in eastern Europe.
We’re getting down the historical fiction hole a lot now though! :-)