The Bitter Sea

The Struggle For Mastery In The Mediterranean 1935 – 1949

Simon Ball

Published by Harper Collins 2009

Simon Ball has given us a comprehensive and detailed book on the war in the Mediterranean and especially he has covered the people who made the decisions and the people who fought the battles. He takes history as a result of actions and turns it into history as a result of peoples weaknesses, beliefs and prejudices.

The Mediterranean was a world thoroughfare carrying traffic through the Suez Canal to and from Europe. The big drawback of this is the choke point south of Italy. Mussolini saw the Sea as an “Italian Sea”, much in the traditional manner of the old Romans, and his fleets were often in transit between Italy and the Italian colonies of northern Africa. Since most of the crossing along this sea route was covered by Italian air power or threatened by their Navy it forced a division of the British presence in the Mediterranean into East and West commands. They could not afford to relinquish either end of the Sea as their naval presence was all that kept the Italian forces and the Vichy French Navy bottled up. As the Italians made their moves in North Africa and the western Mediterranean the British and their allies found it increasingly difficult to maintain a presence. Supplies for the North African campaign were landed in Alexandria and they had to cross the Italian sector to get there or face the long trip south around Africa. The same applied to food going to Britain from Australia and New Zealand. Little by little the British Navy was whittled down as it was ordered into one desperate campaign after another.

Simon Ball examines the leaders who set these campaigns in motion. Few leaders come off well in his analysis, but some military commanders were at least competent. Kesselring had the German forces, especially the Luftwaffe, well organised and supplied. Despite setbacks the Italian navy was well lead by good men usually. Unfortunately the British, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean, were largely under the command of very poor quality men except for Cunningham and all were subject to Churchill’s whims and fancies back in Britain. The British were divided rather than coordinated and each segment such as the Intelligence agencies seemed reluctant to allow any intrusion on “their” turf. There were many one-man missions such as that by Anthony Eden to try to bring the locals into line. These were notably unsuccessful because the British failed to realise just how despised they were by the local populations. The same fault occurred with the French and Italians. Many of the local leaders were just out to get what they could and settle accounts at the end of the war.

The Allies had to deal with Royalists and Republicans in Greece, the Arab Grand Mufti of Jerusalem versus the Jews, a number of factions in Egypt, Communists and Royalists in Czechslovakia, and all the splinter groups who were just out for commercial gain or political power. The British distrusted the Vichy French and De Gaulle’s Free French, the Vichy French distrusted the Italians (with whom they were still on cordial terms), and nobody really trusted the British.

The war looked settled in for a long period of attrition. On land Rommel (and Simon Ball analyses his moves carefully and shows that he was not such a great commander as history has tended to picture him) had wins and losses. On the sea the navies traded blow for blow and both sides seemed to be holding their own. The need to protect convoys put the Royal Navy in a difficult position, within range of Italian torpedo bombers. One by one their big ships were sunk. In the air the Luftwaffe had superiority except perhaps over the deserts of Africa where the balance of power depended on getting fuel through the blockades.

The Americans were urged to join the battle in North Africa, but unlike the colonial powers they carried no ill-feeling with the local people. Indeed, they made an attempt to find out what the local people wanted to do after the war. Although the polls were carried out to find out who the locals believed would win the war a high percentage wanted nothing at all to do with the Allies but wanted to determine their own future. The Americans had no colonial ambitions so just wanted to use North Africa as a stepping stone to Europe. Britain on the other hand still believed it was important to put the former Italian and Spanish colonies under British rule to protect their trade routes through the Suez Canal. No wonder then that Ball points out that the British “accepted that they were more unpopular in North Africa than the Nazis”. While Churchill was sacking his generals, Eisenhower went about doing what Rommel and the British could not – take North Africa. This would also divert public attention from the British losses and hopefully give a much-needed victory.

The bickering over who would control what continued and Ball paints a picture of the French assuming they would command the invasions of their former colonies, Britain not telling the Americans of the proposed Alamein offensive as they didn’t trust the Americans, and so on. While Montgomery was winning the battle of El Alamein Eisenhower had to deal with the petty ambitions of the French commander Giraud who loftily declared that as a Frenchman and outranking Eisenhower he would be the one to lead the invasion of the French colonies.

American tactics after the battle were divided. There were those urging a complete takeover of the Mediterranean along the lines of the British preference. These people thought an invasion of north western Europe would be folly. Others saw the future as taking over the eastern Mediterranean and extending their influence there – rather prophetic in view of the current oil-powered politics. The final proposal, to invade Europe from the south through Italy, had its supporters as well. In the end the Italian option turned into a debacle. Churchill, meanwhile, had his own ideas on where the forces should be concentrated next. Vichy France still remained a thorn in everyone’s side.

The breaking point for the Axis came when Sicily was invaded. With sufficient troops and materiel the Americans were able to make a strong advance. The German forces began to leave the island and the Italians were quick to follow. Even the Italian attempts to surrender Italy were marred by intrigue and counterplot as the participants tried to get as much power for their own factions as possible. For a while the Allies were unsure just who had the power to surrender on behalf of Italy.

The disgusting jockeying for power continued at the highest levels and Ball gives us an insight into the motives of the various world leaders. Roosevelt, for instance, proposed a conference of world leaders that would effectively divide the world into spheres of influence. Churchill, having seen the invasion of Europe given to Eisenhower, was more concerned with his own prestige and with having a British commander in charge of the Mediterranean – under his control. He wasted no time in organising an invasion at Anzio which, had it succeeded, would have cut off many German troops doing a fighting retreat up Italy. His record of military blunders preceded him and the American officer in charge of the invasion said “the whole affair has the strong odor of Gallipoli and apparently the same amateur is still on the coach’s bench”. Although the Anzio landing was unopposed Churchill’s dream of encircling the enemy troops to the south failed when the forgotten Germans to the north encircled the Allies instead. Churchill’s glorious moment once again turned into World War I trench warfare,

What was left of the Mediterranean war turned political and, Ball points out, became a training ground for later independence groups like the Haganah. The British didn’t notice this because they were too concerned with working around behind the Americans to put their own preferred Governments into countries like Greece. The outcomes of these blunders sealed Britain’s fate in the Mediterranean in following years. They got away with it because the Americans were now looking to an invasion of France. Their experience in Italy suggested that the war would be continually bogged down in battles of attrition if they insisted on fighting their way up Italy. The Mediterranean was simply unimportant to them. That left the way clear for the British, the French, the Arabs and even the Vatican to squabble over areas of power. It led to decades of unrest in places like Algeria, Greece and Palestine and ultimately to the displacement of the previous colonial powers.

Although Simon Ball has covered the major battles in some detail as well as the tactics and logistics, it is his attention to the personalities that makes this book more than just a history. By understanding the motives and background of the leaders involved it gives a wider scope to the history of this troubled area. It also helps to explain why the colonial powers did not see the arising of the independence movements. There were, it was true, those movements whose motives were mostly based on a lust for power, but there were also those whose upbringing and background led them to believe in their own superiority over the local people. It took World War II to give the local people a chance at self-determination.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 4 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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