The Mediterranean triangle: Britain, France, Italy and the origins of the Second World War, 1935-1940

This dissertation examines Britain, France and Italy prior to outbreak of the Second World War in the Mediterranean. Specifically, it studies the interaction of British, French and Italian foreign and defense policies in the Mediterranean from the Anglo-German naval agreement of June 1935 to Italy's declaration of war in June 1940.; It reveals that the weaker European great powers, France and Italy, played significant roles in the origins of World War II and challenges historian D. C. Watt's popular claim that this war "was in the beginning fundamentally a war between the British and German peoples." It also demonstrates that the Mediterranean represented a strategically crucial theater for Allied and Axis war planning, and that the British, French and Italian naval staffs had an extraordinary degree of influence on the development of their nations' foreign and defense policies in 1935-40.; In contrast to the historiographical orthodoxy, this international study of the Mediterranean shows that French fears about a rising Italian menace in 1935-40 served as the catalyst for the various permutations of Anglo-French Mediterranean planning before and during the war; Allied strategy can no longer be interpreted as synonymous with British strategy. This dissertation also argues that Italy paralyzed British and French war planning and conduct until Italy intervened in June 1940. Italy's attempt to divide Britain and France before war erupted may have failed but Italy managed to inspire such different British and French assessments of the Fascist regime that the two democracies developed contradictory Italian policies and could not adopt a coherent Allied war strategy for the Mediterranean.; Instead, the Allies relinquished the initiative in the Mediterranean to the "non-belligerent" Italians, who, on the one hand, persuaded the Allies to take especially lenient economic blockade measures against Italy in 1939-40 and, on the other hand, prevented Allied forces from evacuating the Mediterranean by refusing to abandon the Axis alliance with Germany. The unresolved Italian factor and the unsettled Mediterranean situation contributed to the Allied decision to prosecute a "phony war" against Germany from September 1939 to May 1940. It was not until Italy's imminent intervention that British strategists admitted that the veil of ambiguity surrounding Italian aims had been lifted, finally paving the way for an energetic war policy against the Axis powers.