Naval convention of Britain, France and Italy

On 10 May 1915 a naval convention between Great Britain, France and Italy was concluded in Paris. It had been provided for by the secret Treaty of London of 26 April, in which Italy undertook to enter the war within a month, and France and Great Britain promised it the active and permanent support of their fleets in the Adriatic until the Austro-Hungarian fleet was destroyed or peace was concluded. The details were to be settled by a conference of admirals of the three countries.

The dispute over command

The talks in Paris began on 2 May. Italy was represented by the Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral Paolo Thaon di Revel, France by the commander of its Mediterranean fleet, Vice-Admiral Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère, and Great Britain by Admiral Henry Jackson, accompanied by Captain Herbert Richmond of the Admiralty. Since August 1914 the French had been in charge of the whole Mediterranean, and for months their ships had been blockading the exit from the Adriatic. Now the Italians wanted to command in “their” sea. Their plan assumed that the Allied fleet would above all support the Italian army advancing along the coast of the northern Adriatic.

According to the British official history, the talks quickly reached deadlock. Neither the French nor the Italians wanted to place their battleships under the orders of a foreign admiral, because public opinion in neither country would have stood for it. The British, moreover, believed that operating heavy ships in the narrow waters of the northern Adriatic, right next to the main bases of the Austro-Hungarian fleet, would be almost suicidal. The Italians rejected successive compromise proposals. The impasse was broken only by Great Britain, which agreed to place some of its own ships under Italian command.

Two fleets

The convention created two fleets, commanded separately but acting in concert. The first, based on Taranto and Brindisi, was to operate in the Adriatic under the orders of the Italian commander-in-chief, the Duke of the Abruzzi, Luigi Amedeo of Savoy, a cousin of the King. Besides the Italian ships it was to be reinforced by four British battleships and four light cruisers, taken from the Dardanelles, where they were to be replaced by French cruisers. France undertook to place at the Duke’s disposal twelve destroyers and as many torpedo boats, submarines and minesweepers as its commander could spare, and if possible also a seaplane carrier. The second fleet, under French command, with bases at Malta and Bizerte among others, comprised the main force of French battleships and was to support the Italians if necessary and guard the exit from the Adriatic through the Strait of Otranto.

According to the historian Paul Halpern, who studied these negotiations in detail, the convention bears the date of 10 May because that was the day the Italian side signed it. Vice-Admiral de Jonquières, deputising for the Chief of the Naval Staff, signed for France, and Vice-Admiral Douglas Gamble signed an additional protocol for Great Britain.

The cost of compromise

The British official history later judged that the convention was above all a political compromise that dispersed the Allies’ forces. Austria-Hungary had only a few modern battleships in the Adriatic, and the Italian and French fleets alone far outnumbered them. Even so, Great Britain had to withdraw ships from the Dardanelles, where they were most needed. Four British battleships under Rear-Admiral Cecil Thursby joined the Italian fleet at Taranto at the end of May, after Italy had already entered the war.