7 Quoted in F. W. Deakin, The Brutal Friendship, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962, p. 219.
8 Giorgo Rochat, from whom I take the image recorded in the text, has no hesitation in calling it ‘una leggenda’ (‘a legend’): see his book Gli arditi della grande guerra. Origini, battaglie e miti, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1981, p. 71. For a detailed judgment on the reactions provoked by the defeat see Giovanni Procacci, ‘Aspetti della mentalità collettiva durante la guerra: L’Italia dopo Caporetto’, in D. Leoni and C. Zadra, eds, La grande guerra. Esperienze, memorie, immagini, Bologna: Il Mulino, 1986, pp. 261–89.
9 See the last article he wrote for La Provincia Granda, 19 February 1943, quoted in R. Belmondo, L. Bertello, P. Bologna, M. Calandri, A. Cavaglion and E. Mana, ‘La campagna di Russia nella stampa piemontese e in particolare nella provincia di Cuneo’, in Istituto Storico della Resistenza in Cuneo e provincia, Gli italiani sul fronte russo, Bari: De Donato, 1982, p. 452).
10 The speech is published in B. Gentile, Giovanni Gentile. Dal discorso agli Italiani alla morte, Florence: Sansoni, 1951, pp. 65–81. The reference cited is on pp. 69–70. It is from the article ‘Esame di coscienza’, published in Il Resto del Carlino, 15 December 1917 (then in G. Gentile, Guerra e fede, ed. Hervé A. Cavallera, Florence: Le Lettere, 1989, pp. 45–8).
11 See M. Piccialuti Caprioli, Radio Londra 1940–45. Inventario delle trasmissione per l’Italia, Rome: Pubblicazioni degli Archivi di Stato, 1976, I, p. 329 (Free Italy Talks, 16 April 1943).
12 M. Tarchi, Con l’armata italiana in Russia, Livorno, 1944, p. 36. This book was printed clandestinely in Milan under the editorship of the Partito Italiano del Lavoro [Italian Labour Party]. The author, Giusto Tolloy, republished it in 1947 with De Silva in Turin.
13 Lidia Beccaria Rolfi’s testimony in A. Bravo and D. Jalla, eds, La vita offesa. Storia e memoria dei lager nazisti nei racconti di duecento sopravvissuti, Milan: Franco Angeli, 1986, p. 79.
14 F. Calamandrei, La vita indivisible. Diario 1941–1947, Rome: Riuniti, 1984, pp. 103–4.
15 These words were suggested by Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. See G. Bianchi, 25 luglio, crollo di un regime, Milan: Mursia, 1966, pp. 416–18.
16 E. Forcella, ‘Le trappole di Badoglio’, in Il Messaggero, 5 September 1983.
17 Attempts in this direction occurred for example among the paracadutisti (paratroopers), whose strong esprit de corps was called into question by the crisis of the war. On 15 August their newspaper, Folgore, published an article, ‘Momenti seri’, which reaffirmed the possibility of victory if everyone did their duty ‘freely, conscientiously, entirely’ (I take this information from the degree thesis of Marco Di Giovanni of the University of Pisa, 1988, on the Italian paratroopers in the Second World War).
18 On 29 July a young intellectual wrote: ‘It makes no sense trying to be smart with a power [Britain] stronger than us, to which every citizen owes infinite gratitude’. E. Artom, Diari: gennaio 1940–febbraio 1944, Milan: Centro di documentazione ebraica contemporanea, 1966, p. 58.
19 See Deakin, The Brutal Friendship, p. 145.
20 Foreign Relations of the United States. Diplomatic Papers 1943, II, Europe, Washington, DC: United States Printing Office, 1964, p. 338; and the reply, of 30 July, to a note on the fall of Mussolini made by Churchill on 26 July (ibid., pp. 332–5).
21 Here we are not entering the controversy as to whether that infelicitous sentence was another attempt to play a double game. See R. Zangandi, 1943: l’8 settembre, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1967. The text of the proclamation is in P. Badoglio, L’Italia nella seconda guerra mondiale, Milan: Mondadori, 1948, pp. 106–7.
22 Memoria 44, and promemorias no. 1 and 2 and teletype no. 2402 issued between 5 and 9 September (see them in Zangrandi, 1943, pp. 364–73).
23 W. Churchill, The Second World War: Closing the Ring, London: Cassell, 1952, p. 50 (prime minister’s note, 25 November 1942).
24 Roman numerals were used to signify the year of the Fascist regime, starting from the year 1922, and were standard notation at the time. In this case, XXI is the twenty-first year of Fascist rule in Italy (1943). Report quoted in Belmondo et al., La campagna in Russia, p. 452.
25 On the collapse of the ‘fronte interno’ (‘home front’) see in particular N. Gallerano, ‘Il fronte interno attraverso i rapporti delle autorità (1942–1943)’, in Il Movimento di liberazione in Italia XXIV: 109 (1972), pp. 4–32, and ‘La disgregazione delle basi di massa del fascismo nel Mezzogiorno e il ruolo delle masse contadine’, in Gianfranco Bertolo, Luigi Ganapini, Massimo Legnani, Operai e contadini nella crisi italiana del 1943–1944, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1974, pp. 435–96; R. Giacomini, ‘Manifestazioni pacifiste e sovversionismo popolare nei primi anni di guerra’, in M. Pacetti, M. Papini and M. Sarcinelli, eds, La cultura della pace dalla Resistenza al Patto Atlantico, Bologna: Il Lavoro editoriale, 1988, pp. 127–69 – in particular the final section, ‘Manifestazioni di entusiasmo per una pace … che tarda a venire’.
26 Albina Caviglione Lusso in A. M. Bruzzone and R. Farina, eds, La Resistenza taciuta. Dodici vite di partigiane piemontesi, Milan: La Pietra, 1976, p. 67.
27 See a testimony along these lines in R. Battaglia, Un uomo, un partigiano, Rome– Florence–Milan: Edizioni U, 1945, p. 17.
28 P. Togliatti, Opere, IV, 2, ed. F. Andreucci and P. Spriano, Rome: Riuniti, 1979, p. 477.
29 Special Directives of the Political Warfare Executive of 10 August 1943, in Piccialuti Caprioli, Radio Londra 1940–45, pp. xlvi, xlvii – the citation of two broadcasts in this spirit, by Candidus (John Joseph Marus) and Umberto Calosso.
30 See A. Berselli, ‘Il ‘Times’ di fronte ai governi Badoglio’, in Inghilterra e Italia nel ‘900: Atti del Convengo di Bagni di Lucca, 193–200, Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1973, p. 137, where an editorial of 27 July 1943, ‘A Dictator’s Downfall’ is cited.
31 Badoglio’s speech on ‘La caduta del fascismo e l’armistizio’ is cited in an extract by Agro, n.d., but shortly after the constitution of the RSI, preserved in ISRT, Fondo Foscolo Lombardi, envelope 22, folder IV. For the comments by the French Resistance see, for example, ‘Pensée et Action. Organe de l’Union des Intellectuels Patriotes’, where Badoglio is spoken of as the ‘shameful heir of fascism, who drags like a ball-and-chain his ridiculous title of Duke of Addis Ababa’ (article entitled ‘L’Effondrement du fascisme’, July–August 1943).
32 Testimony by Ferdinando Pepi, who subsequently became a ‘tenente della Garibaldi’ (‘Garibaldi brigade lieutenant’). See ‘La divisione Garibaldi’, in R. Bilenchi, Cronache degli anni neri, Rome: Riuniti, 1984, p. 101.
33 C. Mazzantini, A cercar la bella morte, Milan: Mondadori, 1986, p. 11.
34 For the manifesto, see F. Catalano, Storia del CLNAI, Bari: Laterza, 1956, p. 36.
35 Article entitled ‘Cammino di un anno’, northern edition, 25 July 1944.
36 Article entitled ‘Un mese’ in L’Italia Libera, August 1943.
37 See ‘L’Italia dei quarantacinque giorni 1943: 25 luglio–8 settembre’, Quaderni del Movimento di Liberazione in Italia, Milan, 1969, 4, p. 37. For confirmation of the attitude of subaltern officers see A. Borrini, A. Mignemi and R. Muratore, eds, Parlare e scrivere di Ciro, Novara: Cooperativa Bighinzoli, 1987, p. 20 (Ciro was the Garibaldino commander Eraldo Gastone).
38 For Roatta’s circular of 26 July, see L’Italia dei quarantacinque giorni, pp. 11–12. The circular is attacked by L’Avanti!, 22 August, in the article entitled ‘La repressione’. A copy of Armellini’s circular of 30 July is preserved in ACS, Carte Casati, folder H. See L’Italia dei quarantacinque giorni, p. 46.
39 Teresa Cirio’s testimony, in Bruzzone and Farina, eds, La Resistenza taciuta, p.78.
40 Chiesura, Sicilia 1943, p.83.
41 Saggio bibliografico, no. 3081.
42 See Catalano, Storia del CLNAI, p. 44, and L’Italia dei quarantacinque giorni, Chapter IV.
43 Article entitled, ‘Come prima, peggio di prima’.
44 See L. Valiani, ‘
Il partito d’azione’, in L. Valiani, G. Bianchi and E. Ragionieri, Azionisti, cattolici e comunisti nella Resistenza, Milan: Franco Angeli, 1971, pp. 57–9.
45 On the Florence conference see G. De Luna, Storia del Partito d’Azione, 1942–1947, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1982, pp. 85–8. Cf. ‘L’Intervista sulla guerra partigiana’, given by Parri on 28 October and 3 November 1966 to Luisa La Malfa Calogero and Maria Vittoria de Filippis, published in Italia contemporanea 149 (December 1982), pp. 21–8.
46 For example, in Modena General Negro opposed the offer of the committee of anti-Fascist parties of a ‘possible collaboration by volunteers’ with a ‘courteous but firm rejection’. See E. Gorrieri, La Republica di Montefiorino. Per una storia della Resistenza in Emilia, Bologna: Il Mulino, 1966, p. 21.
47 ‘Promemoria sulla necessità urgente di organizzare la difesa nazionale contro l’occupazione e la minaccia di colpi di mano da parte dei tedeschi’, in L. Longo, Sulla via dell’insurrezione nazionale, Rome: Riuniti, 1971, pp. 33–4; republished in Le Brigate Garibaldi nella Resistenza. Documenti, 3 vols, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1979, vol. I, eds G. Carocci and G. Grassi, p. 93. For Longo’s attempted approaches, see R. Battaglia, Storia della Resistenza italiana, Turin: Einaudi, 1964, p. 69. As a testimony of the clear perception, on the part of the Communists, of the need immediately after the imminent armistice to engage in armed struggle, see P. Colajanni, ‘I comunisti e l’organizzazione militare clandestina antifascista’, in Quaderni siciliani, 1973, 3–4, pp. 71–94.
48 See L’Italia dei quarantacinque giorni, pp. 337–8.
49 A copy of the document is preserved in IG, Archivio PCI.
50 The expressions relating to France are taken from M. Bloch, L’étrange défaite, Paris: Colin, 1957, pp. 126, 138.
51 See the ‘Bollettini’ (‘Bulletins’) of the Popolo e Libertà movement, July 1943, p. 32, and August 1943, p. 3 (La sagra della viltà).
52 I have taken the first expression from C. Casucci’s Introduction to Il fascismo. Antologia di scritti critici, Bologna: Il Mulino, 1982, pp. 13–18, and the second from I. Calvino, ‘Tante storie che abbiamo dimenticato’, in La Repubblica, 23 April 1985.
53 S. Freud, ‘Thoughts for the Times on War and Death’, 1915, available at panarchy.org.
54 Worth quoting, among all the documents that can be invoked on this score, is the telegram sent by Eisenhower to Badoglio on 10 September: ‘If Italy rises up now as a single man we shall grab every German by the throat. I urge you to make an overwhelming appeal to all Italian patriots. They have already done much locally, but their action seems uncertain and disconnected.’ But already on 13 September, writing to the Chief of Staff George Marshall, Eisenhower spoke of ‘weak and supine Italians … of little help and inert’. Badoglio’s reply of 11 September had, besides, been unsatisfactory to the point of impertinence: Badoglio had assured the Anglo-American commander-in-chief that he had ordered the armed forces (not at any rate the patriots, as Eisenhower had requested) to ‘act vigorously against German aggression’ (see M. Toscano, Dal 25 luglio all’8 settembre, Florence: Le Monnier, 1966, pp. 216, 218). For the pressure exerted directly on the king and Badoglio by Roosevelt and Churchill to do something for the good of Italy, see N. Kogan, Italy and the Allies, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961, pp. 42ff).
55 Churchill, Second World War: Closing the Ring, pp. 134–5.
56 Bloch, L’étrange défaite, p. 158. See also, on p. 202: ‘Our leaders did not only allow themselves to be beaten: they immediately found it natural to have been beaten.’
57 A. Bravo and D. Jalla, Introduction to La vita offesa, p. 23.
58 F. T. Marinetti had spoken of a ‘disastro splendido’ as something desirable in his essay ‘Futurismo e Fascismo’, published in La civiltà fascista, Turin: UTET, 1928 (cf. Casucci, Il fascismo, p. 106).
59 See M. Bloch, ‘Réflexions d’un historien sur les fausses nouvelles de la guerre’, in Mélanges historiques I, Paris: Écoles des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1983, pp. 41–57 (in particular, p. 54).
60 See Zangrandi, 1943, p. 181, which refers to a testimony by J. Di Benigno, Occasioni mancate. Roma in un diario segreto, Rome: SEI, 1945, p. 137.
61 Thus Calamandrei, La vita indivisibile, p. 112 (8 September in Venice).
62 N. Revelli, La guerra dei poveri, Turin: Einaudi, 1962, p. 127.
63 Calamandrei, La vita indivisible, pp. 109–10.
64 Testimony by Carlo Barbaglia, from Como, born in 1910.
65 Testimonies by Luigi Airaldi, from Milan, stationed at Pegli; of Tullio Benigni, from Umbria, stationed in Vicenza; of Aldo Accorsi, from Carpi, a sailor who embarked on one of the ships that managed to reach Malta from Pola (CU).
66 G. Quazza, ‘Un diario partigiano’, in La Resistenza italiana. Appunti e documenti, Turin: Giappichelli, 1966, pp. 133–5.
67 G. B. Lazagna, Ponte rotto, Quaderni di ‘Il Novese’, Nuovi Ligure: 1967, p. 17.
68 Testimony by A. B., from Padova,, who was sixteen years old at the time (CU).
69 Testimony of the attorney Adolfo Gatti (La Repubblica, 7 September 1983). The same sentry replied to the present author: ‘We have orders to hand in our weapons as soon as they arrive – The Anglo-Americans? – No, the Germans.’
70 Artom, Diari, p. 76 (10 September). On the first day the diary records (p. 75) the meeting with the captain who, when asked ‘What can those who defend the patria do?’, replies: ‘Why are you asking me?’ – ‘Because you are an officer in the army’ – ‘I have nothing to do with it’, he replies, ‘Ask the command of the territorial defence’ – ‘And how will they greet us?’ – ‘They won’t even listen to you’.
71 Testimony by Uberto Revelli in Bravo and Jalla, eds, La vita offesa, p. 80.
72 Testimony by the Tuscan Giuseppe Bandin (CU). On the dissolution of the 4th army see Istituto Storico della Resistenza in Cuneo e provincia, 8 settembre. Lo sfacelo della IV armata, Turin: Book Store, 1979.
73 D. Benelli, Un Ponte fra due castelli. Fascismo e antifascismo nelle Signe, Florence: Istituto Gramsci Sezione Toscana, 1983, cited and appropriated in the testimony of private P (CU).
74 ‘Declaration’ of lieutenant Raffaele Sciandone regarding Linate Pozzolo (Gallarate) airport, n.d., attached to a report by the CLNAI delegation in Switzerland, November 1944 (INSMLI, CLNAI, envelope 3, folder I. Ib).
75 Testimony by Claudio Locci in A. Portelli, Biografia di una città. Storia e racconto: Terni (1830–1985), Turin: Einaudi, 1985, p. 258.
76 The document, preserved in the Historic Museum of the Folgore Parachute Brigade, is cited in M. Di Giovanni’s degree thesis, which also quotes a police report of 20 July 1943 describing the airmen of Ciampino airport who took to the country after an air-raid and who, the following morning, ‘were wandering along the via Appia, several kilometres from the field, without their jackets, with a blanket over their shoulders and a flask in their hands’.
77 An observation of this sort is in Zangrandi, 1943, p. 22.
78 See Borrini, Mignemi and Muratore, Parlare, p. 22. Gastone, for the time being, chose to disguise himself as a military chaplain.
79 Testimony in La Repubblica, 7 September 1983.
80 Battaglia, Un uomo, p. 19.
81 P. Chiodi, Banditi, Turin: Einaudi, 1975, p. 15 (9 September).
82 L. Bocci, ‘Ricordi di un allievo ufficiale’, in Bilenchi, Cronache degli anni neri, p. 40.
83 Testimony by Marina Azzoni Soldat (CU).
84 D. L. Bianco, Guerra partigiana, Turin: Einaudi, 1973, pp. 6–7.
85 Borrini, Mignemi and Muratore, eds, Parlare, p. 23.
86 A. Gobetti, Diario partigiano, Turin: Einaudi, 1972, p. 23.
87 Testimony by Elsa Oliva in Bruzzone and Farina, La Resistenza taciuta, p. 127.
88 Testimony by Olimpio Zuffa (CU).
89 Gobetti, Diario partigiano, pp. 26, 21.
90 See G. Carocci, Il campo degli ufficiali, Turin: Einaudi, 1954, p. 26. A colleague had said ‘let’s flee too’; and Ca
rocci writes: ‘But it bothered me for the sake of the soldiers’ (p. 25).
91 Mazzantini, A cercar la bella morte, p. 18.
92 This, for example, is what Gorrieri writes in La Repubblica di Montefiorino (p. 28). On the pillaging that took place in Milan, see E. Tortereto, ‘Notizie sul movimento operaio in Milano dal 25 luglio 1943 al marzo 1944’, in Il Movimento di liberazione in Italia, July 1956, 43, pp. 16–41; on those that occurred in Lazio, V. Tedesco, ‘Vita di guerra, Resistenza, dopoguerra in provincia di Roma’, in Gallerano, ed., L’altro dopoguerra, p. 226.
93 A proclamation of September of the German military command of Modena (Fondo RSI, no. 313).
94 On the huge amount of booty captured by the Germans in Italy, see Zangrandi, 1943, pp. 379–81, and G. Bocca, La Repubblica di Mussolini, Bari: Laterza, 1977, p. 67.
95 Mussolini is ‘the last Roman, but behind his powerful figure a people of gypsies will end up putrefying’ (10 September). The previous day Goebbels had written: ‘I presume that the Italians, who put their hands up in every theatre of war, will do the same when they find themselves facing German soldiers’ (quoted in E. Ragionieri, Italia giudicata, Turin: Einaudi, 1976, pp. 796, 795). In agreement with his minister, the diary of a German soldier in Italy (G. Nebel, Unter Partisanen und Krezfahrern, Stuttgart, 1950) describes ‘splendidly’, according to Schmitt, ‘when a large regular army dissolves and, as a mob, is either exterminated by the local population or itself turns to killing and plundering’ (C. Schmitt, Theory of the Partisan, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, p. 71).
96 I. Calvino, ‘Angoscia in caserma’, in Ultimo viene il corvo, Turin: Einaudi, 1976, pp. 102–3.
97 See Zangrandi, 1943, p. 129; E. Forcella, ‘Un black-out ante litteram, come e perché giornali e radio non parlano dell’8 settembre’, in Il Manifesto, 9 September 1983.
98 ‘Una seconda Caporetto’ (‘A second Caporetto’), says an elderly station-master of Mestre. See Benelli, Un ponte fra due castelli, p. 80.
99 See A. Degli Espinosa, Il Regno del Sud, Rome: Migliaresi, 1946, p. 81.
100 I have had to omit specific references to the situation created after 8 September in the Balkans and the Aegean islands between the Italian occupying troops, where ‘those who had a shred of common sense started to cry, because for us the worst was beginning’ (testimony by Antonio Paccagnella in Bravo and Jalla, La vita offesa, p. 79).
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