Britain Italy and the Early Cold War
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BRITAIN ITALY AND THE EARLY COLD WAR: Aspects of British Foreign Policy towards Italy, 1946-49. Efstathia Effie Pedaliu PhD Thesis Department of International History London School of Economics University of London 1 UMI Number: U120851 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U120851 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 UDmry British Libraryo< t^oiiticsl and Economic, Science Abstract This thesis examines political and military aspects of British policy towards Italy during 1946-1949. It focuses on five major areas: the punishment of Italian war criminality, the reconstruction of the Italian Armed forces, the role of Italy in British plans for European cooperation, British involvement in the Italian election of April 1948 and Italy’s inclusion into NATO. It analyses the factors that influenced the evolution of British policy such as pressures from the emerging Cold War, Britain’s diminished power in the region and its desire to remain a major international player in the post WWII world. It evaluates the impact that Italian domestic politics and Italian realities had on the conception and execution of British policy. It reveals that British policy towards Italy was governed not only by British power politics, the desire to frustrate the designs of the Soviet Union and the Italian Communists, and the challenge of growing US influence in Italy but also by moral and ideological underpinnings such as the desire to secure the punishment of some of the worst Italian war criminals and the aspiration, as manifested by British intervention in the Italian election of 1948, to provide Italy with a form of government which was a social democratic anti-Communist alternative to the American form based on an undiluted capitalism. British policy during this period had intended to include Italy in any British plans for European cooperation when the time was right. Its resistance to Italian inclusion into NATO stemmed primarily from pragmatism rather than any persisting punitive attitudes towards a defeated opponent. British foreign policy towards Italy did not achieve all its aims but it cannot, even remotely, be described as a failure. Italy remained firmly anchored in the Western bloc, the seeds of social democracy were nurtured, disengagement was managed in an orderly and successful manner and the British stance over Italo-Yugoslav relations succeeded in neutralising potential dangers to Italy by helping to expose Stalin in the eyes of the Yugoslavs. 2 Table of Contents 1. Title.................................................................................................................1 2. Abstract.........................................................................................................2 3. Table of contents ........................................................................................... 3 4. Preface ..........................................................................................................4 5. Introduction ....................................................................................................6 6. British Policy towards the Prosecution of Italian War Criminals ......................................................................................................18 7. Britain and the Reconstruction of the Post-Fascist Italian Armed Forces........................................................................................................ 84 8. The ‘British Way to Socialism’: British Intervention in the Italian Elections of April 1948 and its Aftermath ................................................. 145 9. The Birth of the North Atlantic Alliance: Britain and the Issue of Italian Membership ................................................................................ 222 10. Italy’s Role in British Plans for European Cooperation...............................296 11. Conclusion ............................................................................................... 358 12. Glossary of Abbreviations .........................................................................366 13. Bibliography ..............................................................................................369 Preface My interest in this subject arose from research that I carried out for my MA dissertation on Anglo-ltalian relations during the ‘phoney war1 period and from M. Palumbo’s article in Epoca on Italian war crimes against Yugoslavia1 during the Second World War. When I read David Ellwood’s superb book on the Allied Administration of Italy21 wanted badly to find out what happened next. As soon as I started researching postwar Anglo-ltalian relations I noticed a large gap in English language secondary literature on the role Britain played in the political and military reconstruction of Italy during 1946-49 and I decided that this would provide an interesting and exiting research topic. The thesis is based mainly on documents held at the Public Record Office at Kew Gardens and in particular the FO 371, FO 953, FO 800, FO 1110, CAB 65, CAB 66, CAB 79, CAB 80, CAB 128, CAB 129, CAB 131, PREM 8, WO 204, WO 32 and DEFE 4, 5 and 6 series. In addition research was carried out at the Italian Foreign Ministry Archive (Archivio Storico e Dipiomatico del Ministero degliAffari Esteri, ASMAE), the Italian State Central Archive (Archivio Centrale dello Stato, ACS) in Rome, the National Archive and Record Administration (NARA), in Maryland and the Historical archive of the Greek Foreign Ministry, in Athens and at the Labour History Archive and Study Centre of the Museum of Labour History, in Manchester. The Foreign Relations of the United States and Documents on British Policy Overseas series have been indispensable sources as were the many newspaper articles of the period. In the course of researching and writing this thesis, I have acquired debts to many people and institutions which I wish to acknowledge, though, of course, the responsibility for any mistakes and interpretations belongs to me and me alone. I should like to thank to the British Academy for a three year fees-only award (1989-92) and the Central Research Fund of the University of London 1. Palumbo, M., ‘Genocidio all’ Italians’, Epoca, 17-1-1988. 2. Ellwood, D.W., Italy, 1943-45, Leicester, 1985. 4 for meeting part of my expenses for a research trip to Rome in 1991-2. I should also like to thank the staff of the Public Record Office, the British Library of Political and Economic Science, the British Library, the Humanities Library at KCL, the ASMAE, ACS, NARA, the Labour History Archive of the Museum of Labour History, Churchill College, Cambridge and the Greek Foreign Ministry archive for their patience, assistance and willingness to help me beyond the call of duty. I should like to thank Dr Robert W. D. Boyce for his patience and supervision, Prof. Donald Cameron Watt for encouraging and supporting me throughout this project, Prof. David Stevenson for his support during the early stages of this thesis, Dr Zara Steiner for being such an inspirational teacher and introducing me to the intricate and challenging world of diplomatic history, Prof. Antonio Varsori, for his perceptive comments and his efforts to keep me up to date with any new additions to Italian historiography and Prof. Paul Preston for encouraging me to finish. I should like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr Saki Dockrill, Dr Kate J. Morris, Dr Lisa N. Pine, Dr Pamela J. Shatzkes and Prof. John W. Young for reading endless drafts, offering invaluable advice and, above all, loyalty, friendship and support throughout what must have been for them an interminable period of time. Finally, a note of personal thanks and gratitude to my parents Eleni and George Pendalios for their love, unfailing support and trust. I must extend a special thanks to Prof. Mike L. Dockrill and Andrew Fields for helping me keep my sanity by never taking me too seriously. Last but not least and above all my thanks go to Jimmy D. Athanassiou for his unstinting support during good and bad times, his willingness to sacrifice his personal life and time to discuss problems and help me edit my never ending reams of paper into something readable. 5 Introduction From the moment Mussolini had forsaken ‘non-belligerency’ and had embarked on his ‘parallel war" against the British Empire it was a matter of time when Italy would have to pay for the ‘curse’ Garibaldi had so sternly warned it against.1 The combined Royalist and Fascist coup that deposed Mussolini led to the unconditional surrender of Italy in September 1943 and brought with it the division of the country and the placing of the Southern Kingdom under the direct control and administration of Britain and America. Britain, because of its logistical superiority in the Mediterranean theatre of war was initially the ‘senior’ partner in this relationship and thus the extremely harsh Armistice terms were to reflect the British government’s punitive attitude towards Italy.2 Anglo-ltalian