There were two principal reasons to defend the Mediterranean. The first was to safeguard the British line of communication to the Empire east of Suez. The second was to attempt to contain the war by preventing Germany, Italy and Soviet Russia from expanding into the Balkans and threatening the Middle East and Suez. The former was an aspect of the wider question of dealing with Japan and will be dealt with in a subsequent chapter. It is the latter that concerns us now. For the Foreign Office, preventing Germany, Italy and Soviet Russia from extending the war into the Balkans meant attempting to persuade Turkey and the Balkan states to resist the threats and blandishments emanating from Berlin and Moscow at the same time as persuading Italy to remain neutral or abandon the Axis.

Finding a policy to deal with the tangled skein of interests in the region involved answering a number of questions. Could Italy be weaned away from Germany by British actions? Would Italy split from the Axis in the face of the threat of the spread of communism in the Balkans? Would the Nazi-Soviet Pact withstand the conflicting aims of Moscow and Berlin in the region? Could the Balkan states themselves be persuaded to cooperate in their own defence? The answers to these questions had to be found in the context of alliance politics, the possibility of operations in alternative theatres and the military resources available to underpin British strategic foreign policy. The keys to this were Italy and Turkey.

PREMATURE ‘ASSUMPTION OF ITALY's NEUTRALITY’: DEALING WITH MUSSOLINI, AUGUST–SEPTEMBER 1939

In the spring of 1939, as we have seen, Anglo-Turkish relations had undergone a major change. First, there was the signing of the Anglo-Turkish declaration on 12 May; second, there were the negotiations to convert this into a tripartite Anglo-French-Turkish alliance. The negotiations proceeded slowly over the summer. One of the key sticking points was the Turkish demand for a British loan and munitions of war. Nonetheless, the British were determined that the Turks should be brought into a full-fledged agreement. The outbreak of war only intensified this feeling. At the War Cabinet on 4 September, achieving an agreement with Turkey was judged ‘of the utmost importance’ both militarily and politically.