Conclusion

Abstract

In surveying the British captivity of Italian servicemen during the Second World War, it is clear that the diversity of experience catalogued in the preceding chapters was conditioned by the interaction of military, political, economic and cultural factors. Thus the initial treatment of Italian captives in North and East Africa was based primarily on the assumptions that the 1929 Geneva Convention should be upheld, but qualified by the imperatives of military security at a time when the front line was fluid and the stability of the Egyptian base could not be guaranteed. At the same time, racial assumptions also came into play. The difficulties of dealing with huge numbers of Italian captives was to some extent ameliorated by the almost immediate disarming and demobilisation of non-European conscripts and militias, who, it was assumed, were of little military value, uncommitted to Fascism and who could be relied upon to return home and cause no further trouble.