Italian Civil War
The Italian Civil War was a civil war in the Kingdom of Italy fought during the Italian campaign of World War II between Italian fascists and Italian partisans and, to a lesser extent, the Italian Co-belligerent Army.
Many Italian fascists were soldiers or supporters of the Italian Social Republic, a collaborationist puppet state created under the direction of Nazi Germany during its occupation of Italy. The Italian Civil War lasted from around 8 September 1943 to 2 May 1945. The Italian partisans and the Italian Co-belligerent Army of the Kingdom of Italy, sometimes materially supported by the Allies, simultaneously fought against the occupying Nazi German armed forces. Armed clashes between the fascist National Republican Army of the Italian Social Republic and the Italian Co-belligerent Army of the Kingdom of Italy were rare, while clashes between the Italian fascists and the Italian partisans were common. There were also some internal conflicts within the partisan movement. In this context, Germans, sometimes helped by Italian fascists, committed several atrocities against Italian civilians and troops.
The event that later gave rise to the Italian Civil War was the deposition and arrest of Benito Mussolini on 25 July 1943 by King Victor Emmanuel III, after which Italy signed the Armistice of Cassibile on 8 September 1943, ending its war with the Allies. However, German forces began occupying Italy immediately prior to the armistice, through Operation Achse, and then invaded and occupied Italy on a larger scale after the armistice, taking control of northern and central Italy and creating the Italian Social Republic, with Mussolini installed as leader after he was rescued by German paratroopers in the Gran Sasso raid. As a result, the Italian Co-belligerent Army was created to fight against the Germans, while other Italian troops continued to fight alongside the Germans in the National Republican Army. In addition, a large Italian resistance movement started a guerrilla war against the German and Italian fascist forces. The anti-fascist victory led to the execution of Mussolini, the liberation of the country from dictatorship, and the birth of the Italian Republic under the control of the Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories, which was operational until the Treaty of Peace with Italy in 1947.
Terminology
Although other European countries such as Norway, the Netherlands, and France also had partisan movements and collaborationist governments with Nazi Germany, armed confrontation between compatriots was among its most intense in Italy, making the Italian case unique. In 1965, the definition of "civil war" was used for the first time by fascist politician and historian Giorgio Pisanò in his books, while Claudio Pavone's book Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità della Resistenza, published in 1991, led to the term "Italian Civil War" being used more frequently by Italian and international historiography.Factions
Confrontations between the factions resulted in the torture and death of many civilians. During the Italian Campaign, partisans were supplied with small arms, ammunition and explosives by the Western Allies. Allied forces and partisans cooperated on military missions, parachuting or landing personnel behind enemy lines, often including Italian-American members of OSS. Other operations were carried out exclusively by secret service personnel. Where possible, both sides avoided situations in which Italian units of opposite fronts were involved in combat episodes.Partisans
The first groups of partisans were formed in Boves, Piedmont, and Bosco Martese, Abruzzo. Other groups, composed mainly of Slavs and communists, sprang up in the Julian March. Others grew around Allied prisoners of war, released or escaped from captivity following the events of 8 September. These first organized units soon dissolved because of the rapid German reaction. In Boves, on 19 September 1943, the Nazis committed their first massacre on Italian territory.On 8 September, hours after the radio announcement of the armistice, the representatives of several anti-fascist organizations converged on Rome. They were Mauro Scoccimarro and Giorgio Amendola, Alcide De Gasperi, Ugo La Malfa and Sergio Fenoaltea, Pietro Nenni and Giuseppe Romita, Ivanoe Bonomi and Meuccio Ruini, and Alessandro Casati. They formed the first Committee of National Liberation, with Bonomi taking over its presidency.
The Italian Communist Party was eager to take the initiative without waiting for the Allies:
The Allies did not believe in the guerrillas' effectiveness, so General Alexander postponed their attacks against the Nazis. On 16 October, the CLN issued its first important political and operational press release, which rejected the calls for reconciliation launched by Republican leaders. CLN Milan asked "the Italian people to fight against the German invaders and against their fascist lackeys".
In late November, the Communists established task forces called Distaccamenti d'assalto Garibaldi, which later would become brigades and divisions whose leadership was entrusted to Luigi Longo, under the political direction of Pietro Secchia and Giancarlo Pajetta, Chief of Staff. The first operational order, dated 25 November, ordered the partisans to attack and annihilate in every way:
- officers, soldiers, and material deposits of Hitler's armed forces;
- people, places, and properties of fascists and traitors who collaborate with the occupying Germans;
- war industries, communication systems and everything that might help the war plans of the Nazi occupants.
The GAP's mission was claimed to be delivering "justice" to Nazi tyranny and terror, with emphasis on the selection of targets: "the official, hierarchical collaborators, agents hired to denounce men of the Resistance and Jews, the Nazi police informants and law enforcement organizations of CSR", thus differentiating it from the Nazi terror. However, partisan memoirs discussed the "elimination of enemies especially heinous", such as torturers, spies and provocateurs. Some orders from branch command partisans insisted on protecting the innocent, instead of providing lists of categories to be hit as individuals deserving of punishment. Part of the Italian press during the war agreed that murders were carried out against moderate Republican fascists willing to compromise and negotiate, such as Aldo Resega, Igino Ghisellini, Eugenio Facchini, and the philosopher Giovanni Gentile.
Women also participated in the resistance, mainly by procuring supplies, clothing and medicines, distributing anti-fascist propaganda, fundraising, maintaining communications, organizing partisan rallies, and participating in strikes and demonstrations against fascism. Some women actively participated in the conflict as combatants.
The first detachment of guerrilla fighters rose up in Piedmont in mid-1944 as the Garibaldi Brigade Eusebio Giambone. Partisan forces varied by seasons, German and fascist repression and also by Italian topography, never exceeding 200,000 people actively involved.
Fascist forces
When the Italian Resistance movement began, consisting of various Italian soldiers of disbanded units and many young people not willing to be conscripted into the fascist forces, Mussolini's Italian Social Republic also began putting together an army. This was formed with what was left of the previous Regio Esercito and Regia Marina corps, fascist volunteers, and drafted personnel. At first it was organized into four regular divisions, together with various irregular formations and the fascist militia Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana that in 1944 were brought under the control of the regular army.The fascist republic fought against the partisans to keep control of the territory. The fascists claimed their armed forces numbered 780,000 men and women, but sources indicate that there were no more than 558,000. Partisans and their active supporters numbered 82,000 in June 1944.
In addition to regular units of the Republican Army and the Black Brigades, various special units of fascists were organized, at first spontaneously and afterward from regular units that were part of Salò's armed forces. These formations, often including criminals, adopted brutal methods during counterinsurgency operations, repression and retaliation. Recruiting military forces was difficult for the RSI, as most of the Italian army had been interned by German forces in 1943, many Italians had been conscripted into forced labour in Germany and few wanted to fight on Nazi Germany's side after 8 September 1943; the RSI granted convicts freedom if they would join the army and the sentence of death was imposed on anyone who opposed being conscripted. Autonomous military forces in the RSI also fought against the Allies including the Decima Flottiglia MAS under command of Prince Junio Valerio Borghese. Borghese held no allegiance to Mussolini and even suggested that he would take him prisoner if he could.
Among the first to form was the banda of the Federal Guido Bardi and William Pollastrini in Rome, whose methods shocked even the Germans. In Rome, the Banda Koch helped dismantle the clandestine structure of the Partito d'Azione. The Banda Koch, led by Pietro Koch, then under the protection of General Kurt Mälzer, the German military commander for the Rome region, were known for their brutal treatment of anti-fascist partisans. After the fall of Rome, Koch moved to Milan. He gained the confidence of Interior Minister Guido Buffarini Guidi and continued his repressive activity in various Republican police forces. The Banda Carità, a special unit constituted within the 92nd Legion Blackshirts, operated in Tuscany and Veneto. It became infamous for violent repression, such as the 1944 Piazza Tasso massacre in Florence.
File:War flag of the Italian Social Republic.svg|thumb|War flag of the Italian Social Republic
In Milan, the Squadra d'azione Ettore Muti operated under the orders of the former army corporal Francesco Colombo, already expelled from the PNF for embezzlement. Considering him dangerous to the public, in November 1943, the Federal Aldo Resega wanted to depose him, but was killed by a GAP attack. Colombo remained at his post despite complaints and inquiries. On 10 August 1944, Muti's Squadrists, together with the GNR, perpetrated the Piazzale Loreto massacre in Milan. The victims were fifteen anti-fascist rebels, killed in retaliation for an assault against a German truck. Following the massacre, the mayor and chief of the Province of Milan, Piero Parini, resigned in an attempt to strengthen the cohesion of moderate forces, who were undermined by the heavy German repression and various militias of Social Republic.
The command of the National Republican Army was in the hands of Marshall Graziani and his deputies Mischi and Montagna. They controlled the repression and coordinated anti-partisan actions of the regular troops, the GNR, the Black Brigades, and various semi-official police, together with the Germans, who made the reprisals. The Republican Army was augmented by the Graziani call-up which conscripted several thousand men. Graziani were only nominally involved in the armed forces, under the apolitical CSR.
The Republican Police Corps formed in 1944 under Lieutenant-General Renato Ricci. It included the fascist Blackshirts, the Italian Africa Police members serving in Rome, and the Carabinieri. The Corps worked against anti-fascist groups and was autonomous, according to an order issued by Mussolini on 19 November 1944.