The Bitter Sea: The Struggle for Mastery in the Mediterranean 1935–1949. Simon Ball

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СКАЧАТЬ great speech. The Italians had missed the bus. Now it was too late to discuss anything before England was defeated. Afterwards, Ribbentrop sidled up to tell his opposite number that he should not have eyes bigger than his belly ⁴³

      Mussolini’s first gamble, that the war would be over within weeks, had failed. His second gamble, that Italy would be able to land a spectacular blow on Britain in the Mediterranean, failed whilst Ciano was still away. Mussolini’s declaration that half of Britain’s naval strength in the Mediterranean had been eliminated was a reflection of his political need, rather than military reality. ⁴⁴ The two fleets clashed at Punta Stilo, off the south-east coast of Italy, on 9 July 1940. Punta Stilo was the classic Mediterranean battle, entirely based on movement around the basins. Cunningham was at sea to rendezvous with Somerville so that they could pass a convoy from west to east. ⁴⁵ His Italian opposite number, Campioni, was at sea to prevent Cunningham intercepting a convoy that was swinging around the east of Sicily on its way from Naples to Benghazi. Both sides suspected that the other was there–they both had detailed signals intelligence–but the actual meeting was quite accidental’. The British were not too sure why the battle had occurred. ⁴⁶ Militarily, as Cunningham conceded, the Italians probably had the better of it. He admired their ‘impressive’ use of smoke to obscure the battle space, and the accuracy of their guns. On his own side he conceded that his flagship had been lucky to achieve any hits, whilst his torpedo-bombers couldn’t hit the side of a barn door, at least if it moved, which Italian battleships did, with rapidity. The Italian convoy reached Benghazi unscathed, whereas the British convoy suffered constant attack. ⁴⁷

      The British and Italians had quite different perceptions of the performance of the Regia Aeronautica. Upon his return Ciano was ‘incredulous’ to find that ‘the real controversy in naval affairs is not between us and the British but between our air force and our navy’. He was horrified to learn that ‘our air force was completely absent during the first phase of the encounter, but that when it finally came it was directed against our own ships, which for six hours withstood bombing from our [own aircraft]’. ⁴⁸ Cunningham on the other hand reported that his convoy had been bombed continuously from the Sicily coast, then from Cyrenaica, then from the Dodecanese, ‘literally we have had to fight our way back to Alexandria’. He feared that the Italian airmen would only improve with practice, that ‘the worst is yet to come’ and doubted whether he would be able to overcome this formidable air power. ⁴⁹ From the other side of the Sicilian Narrows, Somerville too concluded, that, ‘as a result of this, our first contact with the Italian air force,’ the risk to his capital ships was too great. He had turned them around and headed away to the west. ⁵⁰ Churchill was livid with his admirals, thundering that ‘warships are meant to go under fire’. ⁵¹

      He was only mildly propitiated when an Australian cruiser intercepted an Italian cruiser on its way from Tripoli to Leros and sank her with an outstanding display of gunnery ⁵² Conversely, Mussolini was ‘depressed on account of the loss of the Colleoni, not so much because of the sinking itself as because he feels the Italians did not fight well’. ⁵³ The battle of Cape Spada, as the sinking of the Colleoni was called, made more of an impression than Punta Stilo. It occasioned another round of mutual denunciations between the Regia Aeronautica and the Regia Marina–Italian aircraft responded to the Colleoni’s demands for assistance only when it was too late. They instead bombed the British destroyers which were trying to pick up Italian survivors, provoking Cunningham’s order that in future, ‘difficult and distasteful as it is’, shipwrecked sailors should be left to fend for themselves. ⁵⁴

      Failure made Mussolini and Churchill gamblers. There were striking parallels between them. They both met their advisers on the same day in August 1940. They both demanded a new approach to Mediterranean conflict. The difference was that Churchill, although dictatorial, was not a dictator. His military chiefs fought back against his demands. Mussolini was a tyrant: when his military advisers displeased him, he found others who would agree with him. Churchill’s gripe was the supposed impassability of the Mediterranean. In the debates of the 1930s he had been a partisan of battleships over aeroplanes. He was not minded to change his view. Somerville and Cunningham should stop pussyfooting around and force supplies through the central Mediterranean to Egypt. ⁵⁵ In particular Churchill was fascinated with the possibilities of large merchant vessels converted to carry tanks. If, Churchill believed, he could send a rapid supply of tanks through the Mediterranean, he could force a reluctant Wavell to attack Libya. The admirals were ‘unduly pessimistic’ about the risks. The ships could pass ‘without great difficulty’. The dangers of sending tank reinforcements to Egypt ‘had been exaggerated.’ It was lucky for Somerville and Cunningham–particularly lucky for Somerville who had sailed back to Britain to argue the case–that no one in the military hierarchy could be found to break ranks and endorse Churchill’s belief. ⁵⁶ In the end Churchill could not quite bring himself to overrule the admirals, generals and air marshals based solely on his own judgement–his political leadership would not have survived a slaughter in the central Mediterranean. ⁵⁷ What he wanted was a merchant convoy–what he got, after a great battle’, was ‘Hands Across the Sea, a mission to send major warship reinforcements east to Cunningham. ⁵⁸ Not that he conceded the point. Instead of congratulating Somerville and Cunningham for their excellent handling of the mission, he claimed that it showed that he had been right, they wrong. ⁵⁹

      Mussolini’s gamble was of a quite different order. Before the outbreak of war, troops had been rushed to Libya to defend it against the nonexistent British legions that Italian intelligence estimated were present in Egypt. When the weakness of the British became apparent, Mussolini demanded that his army should attack. Churchill firmly believed that his generals and admirals were deliberately smothering his plans–they were, he complained, ‘very wily when they don’t want to do anything’. ⁶⁰ Mussolini suspected the same. General Rodolfo Graziani, the chief of staff of the Army and the commander of forces in Libya, suggested that it was too hot to fight in Egypt and that it would be much better to wait until the next spring before any action was considered. He offered the poor compensation of a minor campaign, in the not notably cooler Somaliland instead. ⁶¹ Graziani used every wile at his disposal to avoid attacking Egypt. British intelligence had every right to be confused. There seemed to be endless orders for Graziani to attack, British forces braced themselves and then nothing happened. ⁶² Instead Graziani retired to his Mediterranean bungalow to be soothed by ‘escapades’. In the first week of September 1940, Mussolini finally lost patience: he gave Graziani an ultimatum. If after a weekend of contemplation he could not bring himself to do anything, then he was to come home in dishonour–not a pleasant experience in the Fascist regime. ⁶³ The fear of loss of emoluments, or worse, was too much for Graziani to bear. ⁶⁴ СКАЧАТЬ