In his letter ‘Churchill and Malta’ (March 7), Charles Xuereb referred to a quote implying that, before WWII, Winston Churchill was prepared to give up Malta. This is perhaps one of the most quotable quotes reportedly made by Churchill about Malta that keeps surfacing.

I feel the specific quote brought up by Xuereb needs clarification. He writes: “According to a secret war diary, Churchill wanted to negotiate over Malta with the enemy before WWI and again before WWII to protect English interests. ‘If we could get out of this jam by giving up Malta…’”

Reports about proposals for France and Britain to offer Mussolini concessions in the Mediterranean in return for the Duce’s promise that Italy would stay neutral and that he would intercede with Hitler to grant peace terms that would not affect Britain’s independence appear to have arisen from three incompletely recorded meetings of the war Cabinet between May 26 and 28, 1940. I have no clue what secret war diary Xuereb is referring to but it would seem it is the same one incorporated in a fuller quote in Neville Chamberlain’s diary: “The prime minister (Churchill) disliked any move towards Musso. It was incredible that Hitler would consent to any terms that we could accept, though if we’d get out of this jam by giving up Malta and Gibraltar and some African colonies, he would jump at it. But the only safe way was to convince Hitler that he couldn’t beat us.”

Writers often give this quote to support the view that Churchill wanted to give up Malta and other British possessions to buy Mussolini’s goodwill but the claim is unsubstantiated. Churchill felt that negotiation with Mussolini or Hitler was not a realistic possibility and that, therefore, the issue over surrendering territory did not arise.

Significantly, it was the French premier, Paul Reynaud, who, with his back to the wall and his country’s armies in full retreat, hurried to London to persuade Britain to support his plan to offer Mussolini territories to secure Mussolini’s neutrality and intercession with Hitler.

Reynaud was authorised to offer certain French territories but it was clear that only Britain had places in the Mediterranean that could have possibly tempted Mussolini.