Operating amidst thorny international relations: the mediating role of Comit London’s branch, 1935-1940

This paper focuses on the stormy relationship between Comit London’s branch and the British financial world in the five years preceding the outbreak of the Second World War. The issues I intend to raise are set in the broader context of the relation between the Fascist regime and the United Kingdom, which began to be troubled after the start of the war in Ethiopia in October 1935. Therefore, the questions are: how did Comit manage to keep financial relations open on the London market, despite Mussolini’s and Hitler’s foreign policy rifts? By trying to pursue this aim, did the figure of Carlo Lovioz , and its personal connections amongst British bank managers play a strategic role? In the period analysed, Comit was completing its internal reorganisation following the state bailout in 1933 and acknowledging the 1936 banking law. On a political level, there was a slow but inexorable approaching between Italy and Germany, as well as events characterised by diplomatic tensions between Authoritarian regimes and Western democracies, who managed to defuse with the policy of Appeasement. Comit London’s branch was greatly affected by this struggle between the European powers. One of its main businesses was the opening of acceptance credits in favour of Italian (but also British) exporters and the invasion of Ethiopia by the Fascist army led to a suspension of those credits. The purely political nature of the sanctions emerged, which were viewed by the banking elites with great apprehension, but little could be done, except to sit tight and wait. Notwithstanding, the interesting aspect is the work of restoring these credits by Raffaele Mattioli and Lovioz after the sanction’s removal. Mutatis mutandis, this situation would have occurred again in the First Czechoslovakian Crisis: in fact, Midland Bank, frightened by the possibility of a new world war, withdrew its acceptance credits from Comit, forcing Lovioz to act to restore them. After 1st September 1939, the wartime financial regulations were applied to Italy, despite its non-belligerence. However, there’s some evidence that show the continuation, as much as possible, of the economic relations between Italy and Great Britain, thanks to Lovioz and its relationship within the Bank of England, the only institution authorised to engage in commercial relations with enemy nations. Finally, by the presentation of this case study I intend to draw attention to the alleged function played by Comit in showing the more 'trustworthy' and ‘professional’ side of the Fascism, through the work of figures such as Carlo Lovioz and Raffaele Mattioli. In this respect, did the former universal bank have an influence amongst British banking elites, including those of the Bank of England?