As part of his policy of reducing potential enemies , Chamberlain laid great stress in using the Anglo-Italian Gentlemen 's Agreement of January 1937 as the basis of winning Italy back to the Western fold . Chamberlain believed that Italy and Germany were tied together by the Spanish Civil War , and that if Benito Mussolini could be persuaded to withdraw his troops from Spain , then Italy would orbit back to the policy of the Stresa Front . In the summer of 1937 Chamberlain started to use Sir Joseph Ball of the Conservative Party Research Department , and the Maltese lawyer Adrian Dingli to contact the Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano , circumventing the Foreign Office and the Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden , who was less enthusiastic about the prospects of winning Italy away . The prospect of Anglo-Italian talks was interrupted in August 1937 by Italian submarine attacks on neutral ships carrying supplies for the Spanish Republic . Following strong pressure from Eden , the Nyon Conference was called in September 1937 where the British and French navies agree to patrol the Mediterranean to suppress " piracy " as the Italian attacks were called . The Anglo-French patrols put an end to the " pirate " ( in reality , Italian ) submarine attacks on ships bound for Republican Spain , and even included the Italian Navy which was permitted to save face by patrolling the Tyrrhenian Sea against its own attacks
Nyon Conference
Nyon Conference
European foreign policy of the Chamberlain ministry