‘No-one wears the fascist badge anymore’: blockade, starvation and popular opinion in wartime Sicily and Sardinia, 1940–3

This article analyses the relationship between the maritime war, food supply, and popular opinion in Italy during the ‘fascist war’ (1940–3). It does so through a novel case study, focusing on Sicily and Sardinia. Drawing on a rich body of multinational sources – including detailed Italian police, informer, prefectural, and censorship reports – the article demonstrates that the war at sea critically disrupted food supplies to the islands, precipitating a rapid deterioration of civilian support for the regime well before the onset of sustained, large-scale Allied bombing. This challenges the prevailing historiographical narrative that attributes the breakdown of the Italian home front primarily to events from late 1942 onwards. By systematically tracing the links between maritime logistical failures, food shortages, and the erosion of consensus, this study not only integrates three historiographical strands – maritime warfare, the wartime ‘battle for food’, and the dynamics of home fronts – but also proposes a broader methodological framework for examining the impact of maritime warfare on civilian morale in island contexts. The findings suggest that the Italian case may offer wider comparative insights into the social consequences of the maritime war during the Second World War.