A Civil War

by Claudio Pavone

  26 Letter of 27 December 1941 by second lieutenant Amedeo Rainaldi, student at the Catholic University, killed in December 1942 (in Ceva, Cinque anni, p. 67). For Catholic participation, with its own particular accent, in the war against Bolshevik Russia, see M. Isnenghi, ‘La campagna di Russia nella stampa e nella pubblicistica fascista’, in Istituto storico della Resistenza in Cuneo e provincia, ‘Gli italiani sul fronte russo’, pp. 404–6.

  27 See several observations made by Battaglia, Storia della Resistenza, Chapter 1, section entitled ‘Gli italiani sul fronte russo’, pp. 404–6.

  28 Letter to the author, 6 January 1986, by Enzo Marino, at that time a medical student, who had applied to be enlisted as a volunteer. In a previous letter, of 4 January, Marino writes: ‘Perhaps it was already then a certain fear of the unknown, of a possible or presumed insufficiency of our forces which drove us towards “arditistico” decisions, which were certainly always hasty and irrational.’

  29 Quoted (by ACS) in M. Di Giovanni’s degree thesis. As will be noted, some of the letters that I am quoting are by volunteers, who were possibly more numerous than claimed by F. Chabod, L’Italia contemporanea 1918–1948, Turin: Einaudi, 1961, p.103. Nevertheless, I think that the judgment expressed there about the lack of a ‘collective movement’ that might revive ‘a typical phenomenon of Italian history’ is still valid. The Fascists must have found this situation such a sore point that, towards the end of the war, all the university students born in 1920 were officially declared ‘volunteers’.

  30 Testimonies by Settimio Bernaducci and Ferruccio Mauri, in Portelli, Biografia di una città, pp. 241, 239.

  31 Letter by Nuccio Floris, published in Intervento (Sassari), November XIX [1941], and quoted in M. Addis Saba, Gioventù italiana del Littorio. La stampa dei giovani nella guerra fascista, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1973, p. 175.

  32 G. Pintor, Doppio diario 1936–1943, Turin: Einaudi, 1978, p. 84 (23 November 1940).

  33 Letter of 15 July 1942 to his fiancée. The soldier warned the girl, who seemed prey to heroic furies, that ‘a woman must never speak of certain things that are incomprehensible to her. If she did so, her very essence as a woman would disappear’ (in Rizzi, Lo sguardo del potere, p. 106).

  34 Letter by the peasant Giovanni Barroero, 27 November 1940, about to leave for Albania (Revelli, L’ultimo fronte, p. 31).

  35 Letter of 30 August 1941 to his wife and son by Bersaglieri lieutenant colonel Aminto Carretto, who did not enrol in the PNF out of repugnance at adding a second oath to the one he had taken to the king. He was killed in July 1942 (Ceva, Cinque anni, p. 55).

  36 Letter to his family, 11 January 1941, by Silvano Buffa, Triestine, born in 1914, Alpini second lieutenant, killed in Greece in March 1941 (ibid., p. 45).

  37 Pintor, Doppio diario, p. 112.

  38 Diary of Alpini second lieutenant Antonio Cantore, killed in Greece (in Ceva, Cinque anni, p. 31). This is a clear paraphrase of the Risorgimento notion of falling in a cornfield with a bullet through one’s forehead.

  39 Undated letter from North Africa by a Blackshirt to a civilian, in Rizzi, Lo sguardo del potere, p. 101, where the editor refers to stereotypes of reassurance and of fears that this would degenerate.

  40 Consider this leaflet circulated at Adria soon after Italy entered the war, by youths born in 1922 who were offering themselves as volunteers against shirkers: ‘the “revolutionary march is continuing”, Our Duce has said and we shall make sure it continues; the cudgel has remained too inactive, the castor-oil has piled up too greatly in the pharmacies; our “ripulisti” [“clean out”] is near’. As a nice example of politico-cultural syncretism that had not yet been dissolved by the 8 September blow, the leaflet ended by proposing this motto: ‘Italy and Victor Emmanuel III! Benito Mussolini!’ (in ACS, quoted in M. Di Giovanni, laureate thesis). This refers to a report by the prefect of Rovigo to the Ministry of the Interior, 18 June 1944.

  41 ‘It has been on the battlefields that we have measured the spiritual dissolution of the Italians and at the same time the responsibility of the ruling class … No, our Fallen, our mutilated, are not the “heroes” of a militarism for its own sake, but rather the “victims” of the atrocious selfishness of the ruling class: their memory cannot and must not be of glory, but of pity.’ (‘Il dovere compiuto, il dovere da compiere’, in Bollettino Popolo e Libertà, November–December 1943, 6).

  42 Fragment from a diary (19 April 1941) by Valerio Graziola, fallen in action (in Ceva, Cinque anni, p. 83).

  43 Letter by Sandro Bonicelli, 20 August 1942. On 21 July, before the sight of the ‘luckless [Polish] people’, Bonicelli had written: ‘On these yellow faces and undernourished faces that have suffered greatly there gleams the mute sadness of those who have been defeated but who have not ceded’ (ibid., pp. 83, 80). For Bonicelli, see Ceva, Cinque anni, p. 79.

  44 Letter of 23 August 1942 by second lieutenant Bonicelli, referred to in the previous note (ibid., p. 84).

  45 See Ceva, Cinque anni di storia italiana; Tarchi (G. Tolloy), Con l’armata italiana in Russia; cf. Revelli, La guerra dei poveri; especially the pages devoted to the campaign in Russia.

  46 Observation suggested to me by Luca D’Angiolini, Alpini second lieutenant wounded at the battle of Nikolaevka.

  47 Deakin, The Brutal Friendship, p. 206.

  48 These were the incitements that came from the loudspeakers on the other bank of the Don. See A. Carracciolo, Teresio Olivelli, Bescia: La Scuola Editrice, 1947, p. 82.

  49 See in this regard Aldo Garosci’s observations in the introduction to La guerra dei poveri.

  50 Revelli, La guerra dei poveri, p. 141. On 5 October 1943, the date of this annotation, Revelli had not yet established relations with the GL formations.

  51 I have taken these figures from Belmondo et al., La campagna di Russia, p. 455. In total, out of 229,005 men, Italian losses in Russia amounted to 84,830, plus 26,690 wounded and frozen (General R. Cruccu’s report, ‘Le operazioni italiane in Russia’, in Istituto storico della resistenza in Cuneo e provincia, Gli italiani sul fronte russo, pp. 209–23).

  52 Testimony by Eghertone Barbanti, Modenese born in 1924, regarding the ‘first impact with the survivors of the Russian campaign’ in a Mantua barracks (CU).

  53 Anonymous Romagnolo, 1943–45. Storie ai margini della storia, Milan: Ottavio Capriolo, 1984, p. 181, regarding the survivor Gal. (Galeazzo Viganò).

  54 G. Rochat, ‘Memorialistica e storiografia sulla campagna italiana di Russia, 1941–1943’, in Istituto storico della resistenza in Cuneo e provincia, Gli italiani sul fronte russo, p. 471.

  55 Among the first Communist partisans of the Avezzano area (Alpini were recruited in Abruzzo too), there were numerous survivors from Russia (‘verbale seduta segretaria 26 novembre 1943’: IG, Archivio PCI).

  56 Testimony by Diego Verardo, born in the province of Treviso in 1914, regular soldier, then partisan (Bravo and Jalla, La vita offesa, p. 76).

  57 Tarchi (G. Tolloy), Con l’armata italiana in Russia, p. 21.

  58 Revelli, La guerra dei poveri, p. 30.

  59 Story told by G. V., ex-prisoner, quoted in Ceva, Cinque anni, p.113. In the railway wagon that transported the prisoners there were ‘those who wept, those who shouted, those who died’.

  60 Diary (22 February 1943) and letter (2 April 1943), ibid., p. 173–4. For the stupor aroused by the ‘imperturbability’ of the Croat partisans who were led out to be shot – ‘they seemed to be going to a dance party’ – see the letter to his family by a soldier from Casaboldo who had witnessed their executions, 12 July 1942 (in Rizzi, Lo sguardo del potere, p. 115).

  61 Rochat, Memorialistica e storiografia sull’internamento, p. 30.

  62 See the introductory essay by M. A. and S. Timpanaro and G. and E. Varlecchi, Potente. Aligi Barducci, comandante della divisione Garibaldi-Arno, eds M.A. and S. Timpanaro, Florence: Libreria Feltrinelli, 1975, p. 72. Another future partisan chief, Ciro, was to tell of the importance of his first encounter with
partisans in Belgium (Borrini, Mignemi and Muratore, Parlare, p. 18).

  63 See ANED, Gli scioperi del marzo 1944, Milan: Franco Angeli, 1986, p. 58.

  64 See L. Casali, ‘appunti sull’antifascismo e la Resistenza armata nel Ravennate’, in Il Movimento di liberazione in Italia 77 (October–December 1964), p. 58.

  65 ‘Relazione di massima sull’attività dei partigiani della provincia di Arezzo’ (ISRT, Fondo Berti, envelope I folder 6).

  66 For the sectarianism of Slavs active in Umbria, see the testimony of captain Melis, who describes them, however, as the ‘spina dorsale’ (‘backbone’) of the movement (Portelli, Biografia di una città, p. 266).

  67 Primo, who stood out for ‘love of the people, courage, honesty, the spirit of sacrifice’, then – according to the author of the document – moved into line: not only did all the Communist symbols disappear, but he also succeeded in having as chaplain-commissar in the brigade an excellent patriot Salesian priest (report by Andreis [Italo Nicoletti], inspector at the 6th Langhe division, to the Piedmont delegation of the General Command of the Garibaldi brigades, 12 October 1944, quoted in Le Brigate Garibaldi, vol. II, ed. G. Nisticò, p. 436).

  68 In April 1943 anti-partisan paratroopers were sent into the zone between Caporetto and Postumia. Their commander, Captain Edoardo Sala, was to be head of a regiment of RSI paratroopers and sentenced, after the Liberation, for crimes committed in Piedmont (M. Di Giovanni’s degree thesis, and Neppi Modona, Giustizia penale, p. 76).

  69 Letters by Ottavio Luccheto to his wife, February 1942, and by Salvatore Seldi to his family, 1 July 1942, quoted in P. Moraca, ‘I crimini commessi da occupanti e collaborazionisti in Jugoslavia durante la seconda guerra mondiale’, in E. Collotti, ed., L’occupazione nazista in Europa, Rome: Riuniti, 1964, p. 543. According to Yugoslav sources used by the editors of LRE, pp. 557–8, the dead caused by the occupation numbered about half a million. For Italian repressive measures in Russia (round-ups, reprisals, forced labour, under pain of serious punishment, to report the presence of partisans), see L. Porcari, ‘La “Cunneense” sulle fronti di guerra’, in Istituto storico della Resistenza in Cuneo e provincia, Gli italiani sul fronte russo, pp. 261–89 (which includes as an appendix a circular on this subject by General Nasci, commander of the Alpino corps, dated 2 August 1942).

  70 With regard to the protection given to Jews by the Italian troops, especially in southern France, see L. Poliakov, Bréviaire de la haine. Le III Reich et les Juifs, Paris: Calman-Lévy, 1951.

  71 See La Riscossa italiana. Organo piemontese del Fronte di liberazione nazionale, 20 October 1943, article entitled ‘La gioventù italiana’; and L’Azione. Organo del Movimento cristiano sociale, 20 November 1943, article entitled ‘Non c’ è tradimento’. The latter, actually, rather than describing an event that really occurred, illustrates the ideal behaviour of a Christian.

  72 In his last letter to his mother Tone Tomšic, Triestine by birth, leader of the Slovene Communist party, ordered to be shot in Lubyana 21 May 1942 by the Italian military tribunal, writes that ‘the Italians dare to shoot us’ only thanks to the help and endorsement given to them by ‘the bishop, Ehlich and all the other renegades of our nation’ (LRE, pp. 568–70). For the stereotype suggested in the text see Fussell, Tempo di guerra, pp. 159–63.

  73 Ceva, Cinque anni, p. 10.

  74 A. Omodeo, ‘Momenti della vita di guerra. Dai diari e dalle lettere dei caduti 1915–1918’, published in instalments in La Critica from 1929 to 1933, then collected in one volume, Bari: Laterza 1933. The book was republished in 1968 by Einaudi with a long, fine Introduction by Alessandro Galante Garrone, who recommends that readers of the work distinguish between ‘storiografico, rievocativo, polemico’ (‘historiography, reminiscence, and polemic’ [p. xxxi]).

  75 L. Spitzer, Lettere di prigionieri di guerra italiani 1915–1918, Turin: Boringhieri, 1976 (original edition Italienische Kriegsgefangenbriefe Materialien zu einer Charakteristik der volkstümlichen italienischen Korrespondenza, Bonn: Peter Hanstein Verlag, 1921). Spitzer is the main source of Omodeo’s Appendix, mentioned in the text.

  76 In his presentation of Spitzer’s book, cited above, Lorenzo notes the affinities of the texts collected by the Austrian scholar with those published by Revelli in L’Ultimo fronte, which I have mentioned several times.

  77 The two documents, conserved in ACS, are quoted respectively in Belmondo et al., La campagna di Russia, p. 441, and in Rizzi, Lo sguardo del potere, p. 66.

  78 The passage, taken from the preface to a book on the arditi, is quoted by Rochat, Gli arditi della grande guerra, p. 79.

  79 See G. Rochat, ‘L’esercito e il fascismo’, in G. Quazza, ed., Fascismo e società italiana, Turin: Einaudi, 1973, pp. 89–123.

  80 I use these expressions in the sense that G. Germani gives them in Autoritarismo, fascismo e classi sociali, Bologna: Il Mulino, 1975. The notice, posted in the public offices during the war, ‘Here one does not discuss high politics and high strategy, here one works’, offers shameless proof of this failure. Compare Moltke’s last letter to his wife, where the maxims proclaimed by the people’s court that tried the 2 July 1944 conspirators are paraphrased: ‘Whoever discusses questions of high politics with persons who in no respect whatsoever have the competence and particularly with those who do not in any way belong to the Party are preparing high treason … Whoever dares express opinions on questions to be decided by the Führer is preparing high treason’ (LRE, p. 414).

  81 ‘War’, the Duce prophesied on that occasion, ‘will be won by the army that becomes a political army more quickly than its opponents’ (Deakin, The Brutal Friendship, p. 320).

  82 Cited in ibid., p. 132.

  83 For a keen but unsuccessful search for the new Fascist man, see R. De Felice, Intervista sul fascismo, ed. M. A. Ledeen, Bari: Laterza, 1975.

  84 ‘Spiritual testament’ addressed to his wife on 16 April 1944 by Mario Moretti, a twenty-eight-year-old Neapolitan, former combatant in 1940–43, who died the following June (LRSI, p. 78).

  85 Letter of 8 December 1940, in Rizzi, Lo sguardo del potere, p. 133.

  86 I am referring above all to P. Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, New York: Oxford University Press, 1975; E. J. Leed, No Man’s Land: Combat and Identity in World War I, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979; A. Prost, Les anciens combattants dans la société française 1914–1939, Paris: Presses de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques, 1977. For the Italian experience see, in a predominantly political key, G. Sabbatucci, I combattenti nel primo dopoguerra, Bari: Laterza, 1974.

  87 R. O. Paxton’s review of Prost’s book, in Journal of Social History XIV: I (Fall 1980), pp. 157, 160.

  88 This theme is widely covered by Leed, again as regards the First World War, in the last chapter of No Man’s Land, ‘The Veteran Between Front and Home’, and particularly in the section ‘The Economy of Sacrifice and its Collapse’.

  89 This is a series of examples treated by Ceva, Cinque anni, p. 98 (it is Captain Gabardini, mentioned above); Rizzi, Lo sguardo del potere, pp. 131, 149; diary of paratrooper Pallotta during leave (quoted in M. Di Giovanni’s degree thesis).

  90 Letters quoted in Rizzi, Lo sguardo del potere, pp. 150, 130, 132; diary quoted in the previous note.

  91 Letter of 9 July 1942, quoted in Rizzi, Lo sguardo del potere, p. 105.

  92 Corporal’s letter to a woman of Poggio Rusco (Mantua), 15 June 1942, quoted in Rizzi, Lo sguardo del potere, p. 130).

  93 This is what G. Mayda recounts in ‘Morto Scorza, l’ultimo ras del fascismo’, in La Stampa, 27 December 1988, according to the testimony of Gambetti himself.

  94 Tarchi (G. Tolloy), Con l’armata italiana in Russia, p. 163.

  95 Undated letter from Tripoli, quoted in A. Asor Rosa, ‘La cultura’, in Storia d’Italia, Turin: Einaudi, 1975, vol. IV, p. 187.

  96 See M. Di Giovani’s degree thesis.

  97 For the ‘Congiura detta dei “tre B” ’ (‘The So-Called Conspiracy o
f the “Three Bs” ’), namely Francesco Maria Barracu, mutilated in one eye, and undersecretary for the presidency of the Council, Carlo Borsani, blinded in war and president of the ‘Associazione combattenti nella RSI’, and the great disabled Fulvio Balisti, see Bocca, La Repubblica di Mussolini, p. 148. Bocca also recalls the brusque way in which, at the Verona congress, Alessandro Pavolini greeted the proposals of a trade-unionist, Lequio di Milano, to include agriculture among the activities to be socialised, by way of reparation for the promises of land that had been made but not kept to the peasants who were First World War veterans (ibid., p. 94).

  98 Rochat justly writes that at least part of the memoirs about the campaign in Russia highlight values, such as esprit de corps, that were ‘only partially alternative to the traditional ones … which however … acquire a significance as a criticism and rejection of the structure and tradition of the army and potentially of the political structures which are at the origin of so much suffering and grief’. And he adds that ‘Nikolaevka and all the fighting during the retreat are, in a certain sense, partisan battles because they were faced by those who were convinced that they wanted to do it’ (Rochat, Memorialistica e storiografia, pp. 472–3).

  99 Testimony by Gaudenzio Peroni, from Novara, born in 1919, street vendor, condemned in 1942 for desertion, in Bravo and Jalla, La vita offesa, p. 76, where similar expressions appear about officers on the Greek–Albanian front.

  100 Report by the Mantua provincial censorship commission, 13 July 1942, in Rizzi, Lo sguardo del potere, p. 73.

  101 Letter by Igino Carbone, peasant (5th year Elementary school certificate), 15 August 1942 (later killed in Tunisia), in Revelli, L’ultimo fronte, p. 18.

  102 P. Levi, Il sistema periodico, Turin: Einaudi, 1975, p. 66 (published in English as The Periodic Table).