The Second World War (4): The Mediterranean 1940–1945

By Paul Collier

This book explores the idea that the Mediterranean theater of the Second World War was the first truly modern war. It was a highly mobile conflict, in which logistics were a critical and often deciding factor, and from the very beginning a close relationship between the land, sea, and air elements was vital. Victory could not be achieved by either side unless the three services worked in intimate cooperation. Each side advanced and withdrew across 1,000 miles of desert until the Axis forces were decisively defeated at El Alamein in 1942.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Jun 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781472809902

Paul Collier

Paul Collier has lived and worked extensively in England and Australia, where he completed his first degree at Adelaide University. He received his DPhil from the University of Oxford. He passed away in 2010.

Book preview

Background to war

Italian imperialism

The fascist rise to power

Benito Mussolini became prime minister of Italy in October 1922 as head of the Fassci di Combattimento, the Fascist Party, which enabled him to assume dictatorial powers three years later. His regime inherited the colonies of Libya, Eritrea, Italian Somaliland and the Dodecanese Islands but during his early years Mussolini pursued a comparatively pacifist foreign policy. While still trying to secure his own domestic support he emphasized that fascism would try to be an element of equilibrium and peace in Europe, and secure Italy’s interests by respecting treaties of mutual friendship.

But Mussolini was a grandiose leader who relied on propaganda and bombastic rhetoric to amplify the regime’s achievements and exaggerate his own importance. He wished to see Italy taken as a serious power on the world stage, especially in the Mediterranean, which he regarded as an Italian lake, and in Africa, where to his chagrin Britain and France had acquired a more prestigious empire than Italy. Mussolini boasted that Italy had three times given civilization to a barbarian world and in an excess of pompous self-indulgence he claimed that Italians were the most solid and homogeneous people in Europe, who were destined to raise the flag of imperialism throughout the Mediterranean and make Rome once again the center of western civilization.

In reality, however, Italy was only a middle-ranking power. Weaker economically than Britain or France, and with an army that had not been modernized, Mussolini required a prestigious propaganda coup to bolster his domestic support. Taking advantage of an international situation in which Italian friendship was courted on all sides, Mussolini decided to conquer Ethiopia and establish the king of Italy as emperor. On 3 October 1935 the numerically superior Italian forces under Graziani invaded Ethiopia from Italian Somaliland. Though ineptly led, they faced little real opposition and by May 1936 Emperor Haile Selassie was forced to leave Ethiopia. The Italians immediately combined their colonies of Eritrea, Italian Somaliland and Ethiopia into a single federation, Italian East Africa, with Graziani, and later the Duke of Aosta, as governor-general. On 9 May 1936, on the floodlit balcony of the Palazzo Venezia, Mussolini proclaimed to a large crowd the foundation of a new Roman empire.

It was Mussolini’s finest moment but the theatrical extravagance masked deeper problems. By committing to a distant empire Mussolini increased Italy’s maritime vulnerability, especially the dependence on tenuous shipping links in the Mediterranean. Furthermore, despite Mussolini’s promise of vast mineral resources and agricultural wealth the maintenance of the empire and the vast army required to suppress it consumed thousands of millions of lire that would have been more profitably spent developing parts of Italy and modernizing the army. Ethiopia was never under firm control and the brutal methods of repression, including the use of poison gas, ensured that a hostile population was always ready to rebel. Nevertheless, the victory reinforced Mussolini’s confidence and the new watchword in Italy became Roma doma, Rome dominates. Mussolini now had the illusion that he could continue without danger along the same path and play a much bigger role in Europe.

The Italian invasion of Ethiopia had far greater implications. Failure by Britain and France to impose comprehensive sanctions discredited the League of Nations and fatally imperiled the international system of collective security. Hitler had a graphic demonstration that belligerence in the face of international opposition could pay dividends and in the process he had a potential enemy converted into an ally. Mussolini increasingly came within the Nazi orbit and, with their common themes of nationalism, militarism and anti-bolshevism, the not-unnatural tendency for the fascist regimes to converge began in earnest. The democracies, as a consequence, realized that they were now forced to commit to a policy of rearmament and the first steps were taken along the path to world war.

The Rome–Berlin Axis

The Spanish Civil War offered another opportunity for Mussolini to assert the authority of fascism and Italy throughout the Mediterranean. Although this horrible war further unhinged the balance of power in Europe and encouraged a rapprochement between Italy and Germany, Mussolini maintained a deliberately confusing and contradictory foreign policy. Despite his bellicose behavior Mussolini feared full-scale war against a real enemy because he knew that Italian strength had been based on propaganda and bluff. Mussolini promised the French Italian troops to defend against German aggression, yet he also assured Hitler that Italy and Germany had a partnership dictated by destiny and announced the Rome–Berlin Axis in November 1936 – a political understanding of friendship and not yet a military alliance.

Nevertheless, Mussolini was still widely admired as an anti-bolshevist, even by Churchill. To balance his growing proximity with Germany and to cover himself in the Mediterranean he made a gentleman’s agreement with Britain in January 1937 that recognized freedom of movement for both countries in the Mediterranean. Mussolini reaffirmed the agreement in April 1938, with little practical effect, but he made the important concession to maintain the status quo in the Mediterranean and to exchange information annually concerning any major changes or proposed changes in the strength and dispositions of their respective armed forces.

Mussolini had steadfastly promised to prevent Germany’s occupation of Austria but when Hitler announced the Anschluss in March 1938, without notifying the Italians, Mussolini acquiesced. He had been deceived and made to look foolish, but in the process he gained the permanent gratitude of Hitler. Nevertheless, Mussolini was now convinced that war with Britain was inevitable and, since his visit to Germany in September 1937, during which he was impressed by German power and the strength of the Nazi war machine, he was certain that Germany would be the victor. Despite their mutual distrust both Mussolini and Hitler realized that in the absence of alternative friends their regimes needed a closer relationship and Hitler’s visit to Rome in May 1938 brought both countries much closer together. At the Munich conference in September 1938 Mussolini played the role of mediator and guarantor of peace in Europe, and he basked in the admiration bestowed on him by Hitler.

Mussolini planned to bring the Balkans under Italian control and by the late 1930s the fascists had come to regard Albania as virtually an Italian protectorate. But Hitler’s surprise invasion of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939 alarmed Mussolini, who feared that the Germans would next move into Croatia and the Adriatic. A German advance into the Balkans would usurp control of what the fascist propaganda had long claimed to be an Italian sphere of influence. On 7 April Mussolini therefore invaded Albania, an expedition that was notable only because of its incompetence and mismanagement and because the enfeebled condition of the Italian armed forces was now clearly visible to anyone who cared to look. Even the fascist propaganda could not completely disguise the calamity, but Mussolini’s unbridled self-assuredness reached rarefied heights.

The democracies, however, now regarded Mussolini as simply another fascist tyrant, in cahoots with Hitler. President Roosevelt made his first serious intervention to halt the spread of the European dictators by offering his services as a mediator and attempting to revise American neutrality laws; Britain and France guaranteed Poland, Greece, Turkey and Romania against aggression; and Britain also marked a significant change of policy by introducing compulsory military training. As a result of this relatively minor event, the schism between the fascist and democratic powers broadened irrecoverably and the Grand Alliance which hoped to defeat fascism began to coalesce.

On 22 May 1939 the political and economic axis between Italy and Germany was formalized in the Pact of Steel, an alliance that committed Italy to enter immediately and unconditionally into any war started by Hitler. Mussolini responded with aggressive plans for the inevitable war but attempted to clarify that it should be delayed at least until 1942, since Italian rearmament required another three years of effort. Caught by the myths of his own propaganda and bluff, Mussolini had deceived himself over the efficiency of the Italian armed forces and now found himself in a predicament, committed to a war that he knew neither his people nor his army were capable of sustaining. However, the Germans and the Italians both had a deep suspicion of each other and there was very little military cooperation. Neither side had any enthusiasm for a unified command, for agreeing on basic strategic coordination or for any significant form of consultation, either then or at any time afterwards. Despite the propaganda claims of the solidarity of the Axis, Mussolini and Hitler mistrusted each other and both intended to preserve the maximum freedom of action.

At the outbreak of war in September 1939 the Italian Army was in the same condition that it had been in 1915. Mussolini was conscious that Italy’s capacity for any major engagement was negligible but he was anxious the world should not learn that for years his boasts had been mere fallacy. Torn between desire and reality, Mussolini concluded that neutrality was the only sensible policy for Italy. After preaching war for 18 years, however, he coined the phrase non-belligerence, a more acceptable concept. Forced to remain on the sidelines, Mussolini was in a delicate position, so instead of concentrating on rearming and making preparations for war he continued his policy of public works to reinforce his domestic support and wagered on German success. He would then enter the war, in time to enjoy the spoils of victory but without having taken any risk.

Hitler had no real interest in the Mediterranean and the Pact of Steel symbolized his vision that Germany’s interests would be served north of the Tyrol. He planned to extend German control down the Danube to cultivate Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and even Bulgaria into a satellite zone by peaceful negotiation, in preparation for the struggle to expand the German Reich in the east. Meanwhile, Hitler repeatedly reassured Mussolini that the Mediterranean was an Italian sphere in which he would not interfere and was happy to allow Mussolini the freedom to extend his empire. Hitler vaguely hoped that Mussolini would attack Malta but he had no desire for the Italians to embark on a full-scale campaign in the Balkans, which would unsettle the region and disrupt his