In 1937 , along with many other submarines of the Royal Italian Navy ( '' Regia Marina '' ) , '' Galileo Galilei '' secretly participated in the Spanish Civil War , conducting several missions without achieving any success . Following the - incident , in September 1937 the Nyon Conference was called by France and Great Britain to address the " underwater piracy " conducted against merchant traffic in the Mediterranean . On 14 September , an agreement was signed establishing British and French patrol zones around Spain ( with a total of 60 destroyers and airforce employed ) to counteract aggressive behavior by submarines . Italy was not directly accused , but had to comply with the agreement and suspend the underwater operations
Nyon Conference
Nyon Conference
Italian submarine Galileo Galilei