Il tempo perchè lo stesso M preparasse la successione non c'era stato

[seahedges]

Ahoy dear polyglots,

Translating a history of modern journalism Italian>English seek confirmation or better yet correction of this phrase as I've rendered it:

Il tempo perche lo stesso M preparasse la successione non c'era stato,

High time, because M's preparations for his own succession had not been done,

Grazie merci many thanks.

-sea

Put the ORIGINAL sentence in the title, NOT your translation attempt.

How to choose a thread title - Come scegliere il titolo di una discussione

 

[baldpate]

It becomes clearer if you first rearrange the phrase a bit, like this ...

"Il tempo non c'era stato perche' lo stesso M preparasse la successione""

and then note that perche' is followed by the subjunctive preparasse, so doesn't mean because but rather so that / for.

"There wasn't time for M to prepare/arrange the succession"

I haven't translated "lo stesso" because I don't know how to do it in a natural way without seeing the whole context - and even then it may not need translating. It means something like "the very same M", referring back emphatically to the 'M' that has just been the subject of discussion.