Word: mediterranean
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Poland's friend. Much depends for Poland on Hungary's continued neutrality, for only by marching around through Hungary, unless he fights through from Cracow to Lwów, can Hitler sever the artery (river, railroad, broad highway) by which France and Britain may give Poland blood transfusions via the Mediterranean...
...methods. Contemporary experts agree that the Dardanelles campaign, the attempted relief of Antwerp that held up the German advance on Paris in 1914, were brilliantly conceived, weakly executed. Purpose of the Dardanelles campaign as Churchill saw it was more than an attempt to help Russia gain access to the Mediterranean: it was to swing fence-sitting Italy to the Allied side, win the tremulous Balkans away from Germany. Defending himself after the failure with biting eloquence, Churchill used the phrase "gamble" in connection with the Naval Plan, later got an undeserved reputation of needlessly sacrificing...
...Germany-Italy were one country and if it should attack Poland-then any amateur war-gamer would know what Britain-France must do. Britain-France must destroy Italy. Thus they would deliver a shattering wound to Germany-Italy, become masters of the Mediterranean from end to end and able to bring help to Poland and to the entire Eastern Front...
...Germany-Italy is not one country. Suppose Germany attacked Poland and Italy stayed out. Britain-France could not then beat Germany by hurting Italy, and Britain-France could not be sure of being masters of the Mediterranean because Italy would always be a potential threat. All this added up to the most curious proposition of last week: that Britain-France would be better off if Italy fought with Germany than if Italy stayed neutral...
...hands of Fascist Franco, who is now in a position to train big guns on Britain's Gibraltar from the landward side. The result of this strategic boner is that the British can no longer count on Gibraltar as a firm support for naval operations along the British Mediterranean lifeline, that France is worried about submarine and airplane attacks on her Marseille-Algiers shipping from Italy's Sardinia and the Spanish Balearic Islands. But Spain is not necessarily a fatal loss to Britain and France. Along the Pyrenees (see map, pp. 28 & 29) the French have railway spurs...