hipper
Banned
More good questions. Why would the Fall of France affect the export of coal to Italy? I'm missing something here. The U Boats would of course have tried to intercept the shipping, but they are doing so anyway, and the British are already shipping it to them in British ships, so it seems a wash. The only change is they (U-Boats) now have the Biscay ports to operate from. The Italians have to get it from somewhere, and Germany can't supply enough to make up the shortfall. Even if they did raise production they still have to ship it to Italy and the rail lines and tunnels can't handle the increase. This still leaves the UK as the primary source of supply.
Er initially it was German coal exported to Italy through Rotterdam in Neutral Ships. In early 1940 the British stopped that as the Italians would not sell them aircraft. Instead the Germans sent coal to Italy through Switzerland. Which worked well untill 1943 or so. Germany was always italics main coal supplier.
There’s a nice paper here on the effect of theoretical League of Nations coal and oil sanctions on Lybia in the 1930s
https://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/economics/history/paper14/14paper.pdf