13 - Supersession, from 1945

Summary

In the last year and a half of Hitler's War the Mediterranean theatre was steadily downgraded in importance. The U-boats withdrew late in 1944, and by the time of the German surrender in Italy on 2 May 1945 the only active naval operations were in the northern end of the Adriatic, the Gulf of Genoa, and the Aegean, where some small German ships were able to operate for short periods before being found and usually sunk. The demands of the Normandy and North Sea campaigns from early 1944 pulled most British naval strength to those areas; then the need to finish off Japan quickly took the main British naval strength to the Pacific.

The Mediterranean was thus a quiet area in the greater scheme of things in the last year of the fighting, but then a series of specifically Mediterranean problems developed and brought the Royal Navy back to the sea. These issues were largely concentrated in the eastern part of the sea – in effect, they were the continuation of, or relics of, the Eastern Question and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire - and their resolution compelled the navy eventually to retire from the region. There were three main problem areas – Greece, Palestine, and Egypt – and several minor ones – Trieste and Libya, for example – and over all these came the gradual realisation that the navy no longer had the power to impose itself on events, though the attempt was usually made. That is, the navy still carried with it the attitude which had made it so powerful before 1939, but it did not have the political support at home. Its role was now taken up by the United States Navy, after a time at least, and to its admirals the Royal Navy was only a minor, if rather annoying, ally. For ten years the two navies jockeyed for influence; the larger, as usual, won.

Civil warfare in Greece involved British forces from December 1944. This was both an outcome of the German and Italian conquest in 1941 and their subsequent occupation of the country and a precursor for the British of the end of their power in the Mediterranean.