Divide and Rule: The Mediterranean in the Second World War
On the eve of the Second World War, the navies of Italy, France and Britain plotted for supremacy in the Mediterranean. Their actions resulted in the fracturing of the sea’s age-old unity, with consequences that persist to this day. Simon Ball explains how the ‘Middle Sea’ became the Middle East.
In the spring of 1939 the great Mediterranean navies had a burst of enthusiasm for war. The Royal Navy fantasised about giving the despised Italians a good drubbing. The Italian Regia Marina plotted to humble the British. The French Marine demanded war too. This enthusiasm was not sustained once the consequences had been thought through. In the end the three naval powers chose not to fight one another. Instead they began to doubt the very concept of the Mediterranean itself, the belief that the sea is a unified area rather than disparate bits of Europe, North Africa and western Asia.
Each of these great powers had a different vision of the Mediterranean. The British described the sea as an artery. Armies and navies passed through it to the east; raw materials, tin, rubber, tea and, above all, oil, made their way west.
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