Entangled Enemies: Vichy, Italy and Collaboration

Abstract

Writing about the fraught nature of French relations with the Italian government after the armistice of June 1940, Admiral Darlan concluded that the root of the problem lay in the similarities of the French and Italian characters. ‘The skin of the Frenchman is as sensitive as the skin of the Italian’, he argued; as a result, it was precisely when the French and Italian authorities met directly, ‘when we should have “understood” each other, that the first clashes occurred’.¹ This chapter seeks to propose a new framework for understanding the Vichy government’s conduct during the Second World War by shifting the focus away from the traditional emphasis upon Franco–German relations towards exploring the complexities of French relations with Italy. Much of the previous scholarship has concentrated exclusively on French dealings with Germany because it was the main enemy and occupier.² Over decades of research, historians have established that collaboration with the German government was not imposed upon Vichy but was actively sought by many of its protagonists.³ French officials sought to justify their accommodation and anticipation of German demands as being driven by the desire to protect French sovereignty, secure a more favourable peace treaty, reduce the burden of the occupation and gain the release of French prisoners of war.⁴ In reality, though, as many historians have shown, the strategy was doomed to fail from the outset.