Why didn’t Italy stay neutral in 1940? In hindsight it seemed like the smartest course. Nevertheless, on June 10th of that year, Italy threw in its lot with its Axis partner. Its ultimate strategic goal: access to the world’s oceans.
Benito Mussolini was obsessed that Italy could someday be locked into the Mediterranean Sea, unable to reach the Atlantic or the Pacific. Both chokepoints to these oceans — Gibraltar and Suez — were controlled by Great Britain. The conquest of Abyssinia in 1935-36 was only possible because the Brits allowed Italian troop transports through the Suez Canal. From his balcony on June 10th, Mussolini asserted, “We take up arms to resolve…the problem of our maritime frontiers…since a people of forty-five million souls is not truly free if it does not have free access to the ocean.”
To this day, the British refuse to return Gibraltar to Spain. For decades both the British and French refused to give Italy a seat on the Suez Canal Board. The Dutch had a seat to insure passage to their colonies in Indonesia. Even British-occupied Egypt held two seats for appearance sake. Italy was continuously rebuffed.
The 1930s were still the heyday of colonialism. Africa and Asia were still enriching European powers with natural resources and cheap labor, as well as manpower during wars. To be a global power required ocean access, easy enough for Atlantic powers like France and Great Britain. With the French opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the Mediterranean became a shortcut to British India and French Indochina, cutting three weeks off circumnavigating Africa. Until the rise of a reunified Italy and the Fascist naval build-up in the 1920s and 30s, the Mediterranean was an Anglo-French lake.
When Hitler invaded Poland in September, 1939, Mussolini had no reason to join him in a land war. Neutrality was an easy option so long as the French and British recognized Italy’s maritime rights. That meant allowing German coal imports and Italian exports to continue as normal. However, German coal ships were soon blocked leaving Italy’s energy needs to come by costly Alpine railroad. Moreover, Italian ships were routinely stopped and searched by the Allies for contraband. Some perishable cargoes didn’t survive the delays and losses were not reimbursed. Italians had to pay to unload and reload their own ships for inspection and absorb port fees when hauled into non-Italian ports. Neutrality was becoming an economic disaster. Still, the Italians had no viable options until France stood on the verge of collapse in May, 1940.
Both Britain and France were major naval powers in the Mediterranean. In fact their strategic plan in case of war with Fascist Italy was for the French Navy to checkmate the Regia Marina in the western Med while the Brits dominated the eastern Med from bases in Malta and Alexandria, Egypt. The French Navy was more than up to the task with an aircraft carrier (the Italians had none) and a modern fleet with technical superiority in night combat. French Admiral François Darlan had even contemplated a preemptive strike against the Regia Marina before Italy’s entry to destroy any value it had for Hitler. The British didn’t support such a risky venture.
All that changed with the Blitzkrieg. By June 5th 1940, the Germans had driven the British from Europe at Dunkirk. The French Army was near total defeat as German forces approached Paris. What of the French Navy? Both Churchill and Mussolini wanted to know.
Whether Mussolini knew the future of the French fleet or he just assumed it would no longer be a Mediterranean threat, the records aren’t clear. By June 10th, he convinced the King of Italy that Italy could rule the Mediterranean with the fall of France and the British Navy mostly engaged in the Atlantic. Italy declared war and awaited the fate of the French Navy.
As it turned out, Hitler allowed the French to retain half their country under Marshal Petain’s Vichy government, and to retain their navy but fully immobilized in demilitarized French ports. In short, Mussolini’s gamble paid off. Even the French aircraft carrier Béarn was packed off to Martinique and never saw service.
Winston Churchill trusted neither Hitler nor the French with the fleet. On July 3rd he ordered his forces to attack the French fleet in Algeria. Three battleships were destroyed and 1,300 French sailors killed – bad blood to this day. -JLM
As far as colonialism, I would separate the Italian way from other countries brutal way to colonialism. Although there have been crimes (overrated by Anglo propaganda and left-wing historians), Italians did not go to Ethiopia, Somalia and Libya for the primary reason of exploitation. Many Italians moved to Africa and built much infrastructure.
Addis Ababa is considered the most European city of Africa for the many buildings built during the Italian occupation. A simple Google image search of Italian infrastructure in Africa can “prove” this. The same search for other colonial powers does not yield the same results.
A point well taken. I often cite the Britannica entry for Ethiopia which states that no other colonial power poured as much investment into a colony in so short a time. Italy aimed to export its people to Africa and prepared the way. And of course, the biggest secret of Abyssinia was Italy freeing 2 million slaves upon victory. Ethiopian slavery was notorious throughout the 1920s and 30s.
Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea, is also recognized as one of the most beautiful cities in Africa. I saw a You Tube video not so long ago (before the ongoing war in Eritrea) that clearly showed the great Italian influence there, and also an Italian emersion school where the students spoke beautiful Italian. Some Italian tourists said that the Italian food in Asmara is the best they have had outside of Italy. The love of Italy is still very apparent there.
Interesting too, was that Italy was relatively late in the Western colonial movement by about 300 years and definably not a very popular move among the contadini
and yet one more reason to leave the old country during the great migration…….. And as far as I am aware, did not engage in the slave trade as a nation, and other similar not so great activities…..such as the opium trade…that Great Britain and some of the other European powers .did……a joke among historians was that Queen Victoria was a high class, drug dealer since after the opium wars in China, the British exported the stuff all over the world, and the royal family got their cut too.