colonies, all its locomotives, the Mona Lisa. The final list of demands actually presented to the French were mild. Italy dropped its claims to the Rhône Valley, Corsica, Tunisia, and French Somaliland. According to Romain Rainero, Mussolini still clung to the goals laid out in his meeting with Hitler on 18 June as late as 21 June, when the "Protocols of the Armistice Conditions between France and Italy" were officially published in Rome. It was his view that it was not German pressure that led him to back down. Indeed, Hitler had wanted the Italians to claim even more territory from the defeated French. Pietro Badoglio, however, had warned Mussolini that a larger occupation of southern France would require fifteen divisions. Negotiations On the evening of 21 June, Ambassador Dino Alfieri in Berlin transmitted the German armistice terms to Rome. According to Ciano, "under these [mild] conditions, Mussolini is not prepared to make territorial demands ... and [will] wait for the peace conference to make all our formal demands." He added that Mussolini wished to delay the meeting with the French in the hopes that General Gambara would take Nice. The French had tried to play the allies off against each other; they "flattered the Germans [and] belittled the Italian war effort". Unlike the Franco-German armistice talks, the Franco-Italian negotiations would be genuine. At 1500 hours on 23 June, the French delegation, headed by General Charles Huntziger, who had signed the German armistice the previous day, landed in Rome aboard three German aircraft. The French negotiators were the same who had met with the Germans: Huntziger, General Maurice Parisot, a peacetime friend of Badoglio's, General Jean Bergeret, Admiral Maurice Le Luc, Charles Rochat of the Foreign Ministry and Léon Nöel, former ambassador to Poland. Italy was represented by Badoglio, Cavagnari, Ciano, Roatta and Francesco Pricolo. The first meeting of the two delegations took place at 1930 hours at the Villa Incisa all'Olgiata on the Via Cassia. It lasted only twenty-five minutes, during which Roatta read out Italy's proposed terms, Huntziger requested a recess to confer with his government and Ciano adjourned the meeting until the next day. During the adjournment, Hitler informed Mussolini that he thought the Italian demands too light, and he proposed linking up the German and Italian occupation zones. Roatta convinced Mussolini that it was too late to change the demands. At 1915 hours on 24 June,