The final phase of Vichy’s dealings with Rome brought the sharpest divergence in its relations with the two Axis governments. The full occupation of France ended the last vestiges of French sovereignty. However, the power relationship between Vichy and Rome evolved very differently to that between Vichy and Berlin. Vichy’s negotiations between the conflicting demands of the German and Italian authorities were, characterised by opportunism, not fully appreciated when focusing exclusively on the German occupation. Whereas Vichy chose to work with Rome to offset Berlin’s demands on the Service du Travail Obligatoire, it resolutely chose collaboration with Berlin over the opportunities afforded by Rome when it came to the treatment of Jews. Vichy’s willing collaboration with Nazi anti-Semitic policies saw it oppose the Italian attempts to prevent the deportation of Jews in their occupation zone. The fall of Mussolini ended the prospect of any fruitful cooperation with Italy. With growing internal pressure from French collaborationist forces to engage in a more radical and ideological form of collaboration, Vichy’s alignment with Nazi Germany finally became definitive.

This chapter focuses on ideology and collaborationism. The first section suggests that in the autumn of 1940, Baudouin sought to develop a culturally driven ideological alternative to collaboration with Nazi Germany. The second section explores the French Fascists’ lack of support for collaborationism with Italy. The absence of sustained collaboration with Rome meant that there was limited scope for Vichy to slip from involuntary to voluntary collaboration. The relationship between state collaboration and collaborationism with Fascist Italy was, therefore, virtually the opposite of that with Nazi Germany. While short-lived and limited in nature, it was Vichy that led attempts to forge ideological collaboration with Rome rather than the French Fascists. And while collaborationists continued to press for greater collaborationism with the Nazis after the full occupation of France deepened state collaboration with Berlin, Vichy’s pursuit of state collaboration with Rome lasted longer than any pursuit of collaborationism.

The period between July and December 1940 is usually characterised in terms of Vichy’s attempts to develop closer relations with Berlin which culminated in a new policy of collaboration. However, this picture obscures a second dimension to Vichy’s policy that saw Pierre Laval and Foreign Minister Paul Baudouin engage in concerted efforts at rapprochement with Rome to counter the domination of Berlin. Their efforts foundered upon Mussolini’s ideologically driven opposition, but their persistence suggests that it was not inevitable that French collaboration should have become exclusively directed towards Germany. At the same time, however, Vichy had two main concerns about Italian intentions. The first was that Italy’s encroachments upon French sovereignty in its occupation zone might lead to territorial annexation by stealth. The second was the need to protect the French colonial empire from Fascist claims, especially over Tunisia. Vichy, therefore, attempted to use collaboration with Germany to counter the threat from Italy.

This chapter explores the Italian threats to French authority in the areas that fell within the remit of the Italian armistice and how French officials tackled them at a local level. Italian threats included encroachments on French sovereignty, Fascist propaganda and attempts to undermine French colonial rule. A further potential threat came from the large Italian communities living in France and French North Africa. French responses were complex and multi-layered, with local French authorities sometimes adopting different approaches to those advocated by Vichy. Where Italian actions clashed with Vichy’s defence of France’s colonies or its policies on Jews, the French authorities invited intervention from Berlin. However, as French attentions turned once again towards exploiting the rifts within the Axis, the response from Berlin showed that the strategy of seeking assistance from the Germans was to be no panacea.

The conclusion ties together the book’s argument, linking diplomatic relations to local-level negotiations and ideological dimensions to demonstrate how Vichy’s engagement with the Axis saw it caught in a double bind. It reflects on the absence of public memories of the Italian occupation and the tendency to focus on Germany in the scholarship. This chapter also highlights how French responses to the challenges arising out of the Italian armistice terms, Fascist territorial claims and the Italian occupation were critical to shaping Vichy’s wider policies on collaboration. The Italian dimension to Vichy’s actions, therefore, necessitates a reconceptualisation of state collaboration and its relationship to collaborationism as well as the relationship between collaboration and resistance.

This chapter examines the Italian occupation between June 1940 and November 1942. Despite covering only a small area of territory, the Italian government saw the occupation as essential to its policy of prestige. Rome, therefore, sought to impose Italianisation, seeing its occupation zone as an opportunity for annexation by stealth. The Italian occupation was thus more akin to the German treatment of Alsace-Lorraine or northern France than the wider German zone of occupation. Defending French territorial integrity was at the heart of Vichy’s claim to legitimacy. However, the French government’s political choices ultimately determined its response. Vichy’s decision to prioritise collaboration with Berlin over objecting to the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine constrained its ability to oppose similar developments in the Italian zone of occupation. Vichy, therefore, consigned itself to accepting ‘relative’ sovereignty over French territory. In so doing, it experienced further humiliation in failing to prevent de facto territorial annexation by an Italian army whose claims of victory it rejected.

This chapter examines how the collapse of the Protocols of Paris negotiations with Berlin and the vulnerability of Italian forces in Libya resulted in a brief but significant experiment in military collaboration between France and Italy. The episode marked a high point in Vichy’s belief that it could manipulate Berlin and Rome to the French advantage. By offering Rome the concessions that Vichy had refused to grant Berlin on the use of Tunisian ports, Darlan sought to fulfil three objectives. The first was to gain concessions on the armistice terms, the second was to use Rome to counterbalance Berlin and the third was to use the Allied threat as a cover to strengthen French defences in North Africa against the threat from Italy. If Vichy’s decision to collaborate with Germany had been taken from a position of weakness and self-delusion, its decision to collaborate with Italy was taken from a position of opportunism. However, the strategy failed to yield any tangible results. Vichy’s brief engagement in military collaboration with Italy was opportunistic and voluntary, but it was also poorly conceived and executed.

The Italian occupation of south-eastern France and Corsica between November 1942 and September 1943 has often been portrayed as relatively benign compared to the German occupation and the Italian occupation elsewhere. However, this chapter suggests that mounting Italian military and political weakness and the wounded pride of the Fascist regime caused the occupying forces to assert their authority with growing repression and violence. French responses to Italian actions were characterised by opposition, unwilling compliance and limited cooperation, with local authorities often clashing with Vichy. Efforts to defend French sovereignty varied across areas of policy and in response to differing levels of threat. French authorities made pragmatic choices, making concessions to one Axis government in one policy area in an attempt to defend against the other Axis government and maintain control over another policy area. The absence of any sustained collaboration or collaborationism meant that the trajectory of French responses to the Italian occupation was in the opposite direction to those relating to the German occupation.

This chapter suggests that two key dimensions of French policy towards Italy before July 1940 presaged that developed by Vichy in the period thereafter. The first was an underestimation of the significance of ideology in Mussolini’s actions. The second was an overestimation of the French ability to control and manipulate the Italian government. The two strands led to an erroneous belief that the French government might be able to drive a wedge between Mussolini and Hitler and that the former might be induced to act as a moderating force on the latter. The armistice negotiations of June 1940 not only sealed the overwhelming domination of Germany but they also inaugurated an ambiguous relationship between Italy and France. The relatively moderate Italian terms were at odds with Mussolini’s ambitions and sent mixed signals about Italian intentions. The armistice negotiations sowed the seeds of a future French strategy of seeking to play the Germans off against the Italians, but it also marked the start of a French delusion about how much could be achieved from trying to divide the Axis.

This chapter provides an outline of the book’s central argument, explaining the different dimensions of Vichy’s double bind and situating it within the context of the scholarship on the Vichy French government, Italian Fascist foreign policy, French collaboration and the occupation of France during the Second World War.