18. Esnouf cites an unsigned note by Churchill of 26 or 27 May, in Churchill’s handwriting, in PREM 3/174/4,11-3: the Italian move would lead “to an armistice and conference under the conditions of our being at Hitler’s mercy.… Such a conference would only end in weakening fatally our power to resist the terrible terms which will almost certainly be imposed, if not upon France, at any rate upon Britain.”

19. How did they know this? In 1940 and for some years before, both the Italian and the British secret services were able to decrypt and read many of each other’s documents. Yet such a suggestion from Hitler to Mussolini could hardly be extracted from Hitler’s letter of 25 May (see above, p. 95) •

20. Chamberlain Diary, NC A 24/2.