Italian Mare Nostrum
However, the nation that really dominated the Mediterranean in 1940 was the United Kingdom, as the British had strong naval bases in Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus. The British also controlled the Suez Canal, along with the French; the French Third Republic had a relatively powerful navy, and controlled the African Maghreb. Only after the conquest of Greece and Yugoslavia, in April 1941, Mussolini started to talk about an Italian dominated Mediterranean sea.