assassination to hitler

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Hello Sid,
I'm sorry but I do not consider the argouments I proposed unable to demonstrate a positive British attitude towards a swift military crisis with Italy conceived since 1937 and accepted, at least, in feb. 1939 for Spring 1940 and, alter, anticipated at late Sept. 1939 before the Danzig crisis modified the schedule.

About the role of the British Army in this scenario we spoke before and I must be grateful for the new elements you were able to provide for a full picture of the condition of the various Imperial Army forces, better known as the Cinderella service.

About the RAF effort I think that Chaz Bowyer "RAF Operations 1918-1938" ed. William Kimber, London, 1988, is a good source.

The hard fact the Royal Navy decided, in Feb. 1939, to add at the 1st BS in the Med. the BB Ramillies ordering, in July 1939, the Royal Oak to sail for Alexandria too to join there Warspite, Barham and Malaya (a total of 5 BBs with no more than 12 British battleships in service) planning to double the carriers in that theatre (from 1 to two, together, first time since 1924) adopting, in spite of the pilot resistance, the brand new Sea Gladiators, is an other elment which deserve some consideration.

I would add a last quoting but, unfortunatly, the Osprey booklets were yet damned in a previous e-mail of yours. It'a a pity as Nick Van Der Bijl in his "The Royal Marines 1939-93" ed. Osprey, 1994, pg. 9, wrote that: "The RM Bde, which was about half the size of an Army brigade, was formed in 1939 for a role that included operations against Italy in the Mediterranean".
You could maybe find more interesting Richard Lamb, "The Gosh of peace", pg. 53 when he says that since June 1937 the cabinet was studing the idea of "a single handed war with Italy" where the important point is the whisful thinking habit I mentioned before.

Bye EC

[sid guttridge]

Hi Enrico,

All that may well be true, but you still have not provided any evidence of intent on the part of the UK to launch an offensive war on Italy in September 1939. I have seen no indications that British strategic planning was anything other than reactive and defensive.

It is perfectly normal to retain offensive tactical potential within a defensive strategic stance and to plan for possible counter-offensive and offensive operations.

When all is said and done, nothing can evade the hard fact that Italy's entire military potential lay across the main communications route of the British Empire and that Mussolini's physical and verbal belligerence around the Mediterranean over 1936-39, which included the sinking of British-flagged merchantmen, made it more than prudent to reinforce the British position in the area.

Cheers,

Sid.

[sid guttridge]

P.S. I think the Osprey books are very useful. However, they are primarily designed for uniform buffs and their other military-historical information is necessarily secondary and very condensed.

Sid.

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Hi Sid,
as long as you accept the principle of a defensive, counter-offensive, offensive strategic stance by the Britsh cabinet between 1938 and 1940 for me it's right.
I don't hope or ask for a definitive opinion; in an other thread we debated about the pre-emptive nature of Barbarossa for a long time.
I believe, mainly analizing the Soviet naval programs of these years, Stalin was going to attack in July 1941, you not and all that is quite correct from both sides.
Maybe Maud's book reading will offer you some more elements to judge.
Anyway, while the geographical and strategical position of Italy is a not debatable theme, as it's the blessing (and damnation) of this country, Mussolini policy is.
In the 1936-1939 period you mentioned there were, sure, the sinking you said (Aug. 1937), but the British countermeasures were the one I mentioned in an earlier e mail of mine (Hobath's first, token Mobile Force, an handful of Gauntlets and little more).
After this episode there was the Easter Agreement between Italuy and Britain and the recognizion of the Italian Empire.
The build up we debated during these weeks begun on Oct. 1938
and it was something different from the previous ones,
while Mussolini decided, suddenly, at least, to begin the Greek adventure, scheduled at first for April 1939 and, then (and this was the mistake, according Gen. Pariani memories) for Sept. 1939, only in late March 1939.

So my original question comes back. As I know the Soviet disinformation had, between 1934 and January 1941, very deep roots in the Italian intelligence, making effectively the British planning even darker as they could be, was the same disinformacjia so effective on the British other side of the hill? We know today that the British intelligence of the Thirties and Fourties too was full of double Soviet agents and sources.
What's your opinion?

Bye EC

[sid guttridge]

Hi Enrico,

Such intelligence history is outside my sphere of knowledge.

However, as I understand it, the Soviet moles in British intelligence who were exposed in the 1950s to 1970s were only recruited from university in the 1930s and I would guess probably did not have very influential posts until WWII. I suppose biographies of Burgess, Maclean, Cairncross, Blunt etc. should give details of their situation in the late 1930s.

However, I do know that the British had direct evidence of Italian deployments, although not intentions, from sources other than human intelligence (Humint), as by 1939 they had broken most Italian codes (Sigint). I will dig something out on this.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Enrico Cernuschi]

All right Sid, and good hunting.

EC

[sid guttridge]

Hi Enrico,

I hope the following is of some interest.

The following is from pp.199-200 of Volume I of "British Intelligence in the Second World War" by F.H. Hinsley (HMSO, 1979)

".....in the years immediately before Italy entered the war GC and CS had all but completely mastered her cyphers. The diplomatic and colonial cyphers had been read for several years. Both the most secret and the general book cyphers of the Italian Navy were largely readable from 1937, as was one of Italy's two naval attache codes. The high-grade book cypher used by the Italian Air Force in East Africa was solved in 1938; a second, in use in the Mediterranean, became readable in the summer of 1939. Of the six Army book cyphers used in Libya, three were easily readable and the others largely so, and the same applied to a military attache cypher and to the cyphers used by the Italian mission and the Italian intelligence services in Spain......"

I have also looked at the development of the Mobile Force. When originally asembled in late 1938 it consisted of:

7th Hussars (Light tanks older than those with 11th Hussars)
8th Hussars (No tanks. Mounted in trucks)
11th Hussars (WWI vintage Rolls-Royce armoured cars)
1st Royal Tank Regiment (Old Mk.VI light tanks)
3rd Royal Horse Artillery (3.7 inch howitzers)
One company of Royal Army Service Corps
A field ambulance unit.

The Mobile Force was so badly equipped when first formed it was jokingly known as the "Immobile Force".

It is worth pointing out that, poor as the British light tanks were, they were better than anything Italy had in service in Libya at the time, so in local Middle East terms the Mobile Force was not as pathetic as it might seem. However, it was definitely no division, more a mixed brigade group.

During 1939 the Mobile Division was expanded so that by the time war broke out in September it reasonably merited the title, even though it was still well below establishment, being both short of a tank regiment and of medium tanks generally (as were the Italians). It was renamed 7th Armoured Division on 16 February 1940.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Hello Sid,
thank you for the new infos.
Just to have a more and more full pictire of the situation I can add that the black records of the "Intercettazioni estere" which are today in the Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare archives in Rome have many thousands of Royal Navy and Foreign Office decryted messases for the period 1934 - May 1940 (the following collection June 1940-Sept. 1943, even is there were some losses and gaps caused mainlt by the 8 Sept. 1943 armistice is formed by more than 25.000 despatches broken by the Italian navy criptology. This total is formed only by British messages as many thousands of similar decripts of French, Yugoslavian, Greek, USA, Soviet, Spanish, Turkish and Portouguese origin are present in other collections).
It may be useful to note that the total of the decrytped Italian messages now in the PRO is 36.800, more than 90% of them get by the mechanical ULTRA activity since June 1941 against the C38 chyphering machine used by the Italian Navy.
The most notable collection of decrypted messages covering the years before the 1934-1943 season is in the Italian Foreign Office archives, now at the Archivio centrale dello Stato, in Rome, and is formed mainly by British messages which were read, however, mostly using the original codes which had been stolen and copied, courtesy of a well paid agent of Italian origin working in the British Emassy in Rome since 1924 and active until 1940 in spite of two inquires by the F.O.

The most interesting detailis that this spy (a civilian) was a double one as he worked, in the same time, for the Russians too.
As the excellent infos which arrived from Egypt since 1935 until Oct. 1939 were from some Soviet nets too and the same, very efficient, Italian web acting in UK since 1935 until May 1940 was a Soviet loan (the Tyler Kent affair was one of the most important of the services she granted) I believe the Russian intoxicating activity to favour a British Italian clash in the M.E. was a very probable one. The Italians services knew well the true origin of these infos and by the excellent Italian Navy criptology division they tried always, since 1927, to check what Moscow thougth useful to let Rome know, but in the long run the disinformacjia had to be a deep one.
Do you know anything about similar Soviet activities favouring the British intelligence helping to put in the worste of light any Italian initiative in the M.E. and the Balkans?

Bye

EC

[sid guttridge]

Hi Enrico,

I have had a look at Maund's book. Not only have I the chapter you most kindly sent, but I saw a copy in the British Library last week and a third copy has just arrived by inter-library loan!

The preparations against Rhodes look to me rather less than a firm intent to go to war with Italy by September 1939. On p.19 Maund writes of April 1939, "We should need tw years to prepare for a landing by a brigade with the object of holding ground."

On p.17 he states that Turkey was likely to be neutral and, after the initial meeting with the Turkish general, Maund was ordered not to discuss plans against Rhodes with him again. The Turkish general also never raised the issue again.

The Glen-Class landing ships were taken up by the Royal Navy for use as supply ships for a possible Baltic, (not Mediterranean), expedition (p.21). They needed to be converted to troop carriers and the first were still being converted into LSI(L)s in June 1940 (p.66).

Although the first prototype landing craft was ordered earlier, the first landing craft series was apparently only ordered after April 1939. (i.e. probably after the Italian landings in Albania).

As far as I can work out from his book, orders for landing craft were as follows:

After April 1939: 18xLCA, 12xLCM, 2x(LCS(M).
After Sept. 1939: 8xLCA.
(Jan 1940 in construction from above orders: 26xLCA, 12xLCM, 2xLCS(M).
March 1940: 30xLCA, 18xLCM

The first three Glen ships (still apparently not ready in June 1940) were to carry 850 troops, 12 LCAs and 1 LCM each.

Maund does show that the British were undertaking preliminary preparations for amphibious warfare in the first half of 1939 and that Italy was deemed the most likely European opponent. However, it is clear that there was no possibility of mounting such operations as early as September 1939 (or for a long time afterwards) because the necessary specialist shipping was not available.

Rhodes was probably selected as the focus of planning because Britain's army and amphibious capacity were too small to attempt a landing on continental territory against an opponent with a large army like Italy, but had better prospects against an isolated garrison like Rhodes.

Cheers,

Sid.

[greenhorn]

"And what about the American Civil War? Were not USA and CSA both democratic states? Believe me, democracy is not a shield from the horrors of war, like socialism was not, in spite of the pre 1914 dreams of two generations. The only way to save peace is to love her passionately and to study deeply the nature of the past wars without accepting the propaganda schemes...and, above all, the British versions. "

Enrico... I'm glad that I don't live in your type democracy.....

I'd like to hear you justify slavery.....

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Hi Sid,

I'm glad you were able to find the excellent Adm. Maud's book.
I appreciated the very balanced opinion you were able to extract from that book. We both agree now that "something" was studied in Britain against Italy since Aug. 1938, if not before. This was a perfectly legitimate act, of course, as any country must have always a plan to invade Iceland or Paraguay without notice, but is a confirmation too "something" (again) changed that time and that this "something" was different from the previous Italian and Britsh crisis of the Thirties; we could, maybe, speak about an excalation (on both sides, of course, being a very difficoult task to estabilish first blood, I presume).

The original British planning was for 1940; they had to accelerate the mater in June 1939 after the first infos from Greece tended to confirm the correct piece of news the Italian were going to manipluate that country acting as peacemakers after a Bulgarian Greek clash (Sofia was a sort of Italian ally since the Twenties and had received weapons and industrial support from Italy for this operation, of course).

In front of such an emergency the new British landing craft would have been ready too much late, of course.
Many different chances were so studied to be ready to do "something (again) within Sept. 1939 by the Mediterranean Fleet staff and by the Admiralty.
There were some old lighters in the Med. since the Gallipoli landings and some new X lighters had ben ordered since 1938 at the Malta yard. They were both used during the Sidi el Barrani offensive in Dec. 1940.
There was a request, accepted by the French in July 1939, for their two tiny paratroopers battalions, They gad to be dropped by the new Bombay Squadron which was just coming from UK to repalce the old Valentias.

The Turkish conection was active too (look at Adm. Cunningham memories about the common landing exercises of Aug. 1939) while the fleet was reinforced, as I wrote in aprevious e mail of this thread, by new BBs.

The Glen ships, then, were pressed in service at the beginnig of Summer 1939 (British Warship Design in W.W. II, from the Transactions of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, ed. Conway, 1983, pg. 5) to be converted in LSI according a previous project. The Catherine plan (the British XIX century style invasion of the Baltic conceived by Churchill) was later.


Bye EC

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Hello Greenhorn,

I think we are speaking of two different orders of problems.
Democracy is simply a government system. It proofed to be by far the most efficent (and merciless) at war.
Democracy was able to live with slavery since Pericles Athens until President Davis without any difficulty as slavery was dropped only in the XIX century as a no more economical system. Thers' no moral superior order, think at the French revolutionary abolition of slavery in 1989 and ite re introduction some years later for the sake's of Haiti slave masters interests.


Bye EC

[Schultz]

slavery still exists today, practiced by maney countries all over the globe