Anglo-Italian Relations in the Middle East, 1922-1940

Behind the façade of European collaboration, relations between London and Rome in the Middle East were already strained by the late 1920s. While Mussolini’s open antagonism toward Britain intensified during the 1930s, their apparent cordiality in European affairs masked a deeper geopolitical rivalry. Britain sought to safeguard its imperial lifelines — sea and air routes to the Far East, trade networks, and access to oil for the Royal Navy — while Italy aimed to assert itself as a great power by dominating the Mediterranean and Red Sea and extending its influence across the Middle East and Arabian Peninsula.

This book examines the complex interplay of diplomacy, propaganda, commerce, and espionage that defined Anglo-Italian relations in the interwar Middle East, focusing on four key arenas of competition:

• The struggle for political influence among Arab leaders and nationalist movements;
• The rivalry for commercial and trade advantages;
• The propaganda campaigns designed to win Arab hearts and minds;
• The clandestine contest between British and Italian intelligence services.

"The book is well written and engaging. Fiore is to be congratulated for an incisive, interesting, and readable diplomatic history of a vital period in European and world history."

 —  Professor Matthew Hughes, The English Historical Review

"Moving from cultural diplomacy and radio propaganda to arms sales and quasi-covert sponsorship of Britain's local opponents, Fiore’s work paints a comprehensive picture of a none-too-secret Anglo-Italian proxy war .... Fiore's achievement is to piece these processes together into a history of deepening bilateral competition beyond the fringes customarily applied to fascist imperial ambition."

 —  Professor Martin Thomas, Intelligence and National Security

"Fiore’s careful study, based on British and Italian archives, opens up a neglected area of Anglo-Italian imperial rivalry in the 1920s and 1930s .... His opening chapter on the Anglo-Italian covert war in the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea is particularly interesting in this regard."

 —  Professor David Reynolds, Contemporary European History

"The book makes extensive use of the Italian diplomatic and military archives to analyse events that remain largely unexplored and thereby shed exciting new light on the dynamics of Great Britain's relations with Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran throughout the 1920s and 1930s."

 —  Professor Fred Lawson, Journal of Arabian Studies  

In July 1941, shortly after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Hitler ordered the conquest of the Crimea, a strategic peninsula critical for securing Soviet and Romanian oil fields and neutralizing the Soviet Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol. While Axis forces quickly occupied much of the region, Sevastopol’s formidable defenses held out, revealing the crucial role of naval power in the campaign.

When Germany lacked sufficient small and midget vessels, it turned to the Italian Regia Marina, whose successes against the British in the Mediterranean made it an indispensable ally — the only instance in which Germany spontaneously requested Italian military support.

This book explores the neglected German and Italian naval campaign in the Black Sea, offering fresh insight into the operational and strategic factors that shaped the Axis defeat in the East.