Ancient history

Battle of Cape Matapan


In mid-February 1941, Admiral Raeder, commander in head of the German navy, and his Italian counterpart, Admiral Riccardi, met to study the possibility of an attack on British convoys by Italian surface ships. They could find no basis for agreement. But on March 5, as the English forces in Greece were steadily building up, the Germans again asked for help, which the Italians had no desire to give.
First of all, their navy lacked air cover and Mussolini had long since decided that aircraft carriers were unnecessary. This was the source of the difficulties encountered by the command in establishing the links between the Italian fleet at sea and the terrestrial air bases, Italian or German. Then there was a fuel shortage. At the start of hostilities, the total reserves amounted to 1,800,000 tons - a quantity that Mussolini considered sufficient for ten months of war. However, in February 1941, after nine months of hostilities, approximately one million tons had been burned. All Mussolini did to avert the crisis was to order that the reserves be stretched over a period of twenty months.
Finally, no one could predict the outcome of the conflict and Mussolini was keen its fleet intact as far as possible to strengthen the Italian position at the peace conference.