A Civil War (34 page)

11
Report by Inspector Parini, 22 February 1941 (quoted in Rizzi,
Lo sguardo del potere
, p. 65).

12
Note by the censorship commission of Gorizia, 9 December 1940 (quoted in ibid., p. 223).

13
See G. Rochat, ‘Lo sforzo bellico 1940–1943. Analisi di una sconfitta', in Francesca Ferratini Tosi, Gaetano Grassi, Massimo Legnani,
L'Italia nella seconda guerra mondiale e nella Resistenza
, pp. 237–8.

14
Letter of 4 March 1941 by second lieutenant Vincenzo Ambrosio, born in Rome in 1913, functionary of the Ministry for Italian Africa, killed in Albania, 10 March 1941 (in Ceva,
Cinque anni
, p. 41).

15
Letters by tank corps lieutenant Giuseppe Locatelli, 9 October 1940, who was to die on the Egyptian front in November 1941; by Blackshirt, and volunteer, Riccardo Bedeschi, Milanese, born 1923, of 9 January 1943, killed in Tunisia; of lieutenant Alessandro Oddi Baglioni, who on 23 February 1943 recounts the episode from North Africa (ibid., pp. 161, 135, 156). The lack of popular songs was frequently noted.

16
This is indicative because if self-censorship led to limiting and expressing in coded form critical expressions about the regime and its war, this did not happen in the case of favourable ones. On censorship, which ‘is a trap for the simple, an alarm for the crafty', and on self-censorship, which only accentuates what is ‘for many a habit of life', see Nuto Revelli's observations in
L'ultimo fronte
, Turin: Einaudi, 1971, p. xlii.

17
Episode recounted in Paolo Masera's letter from North Africa, 13 February 1942 (in Ceva,
Cinque anni
, p. 150).

18
Letter by artilleryman Gino Lanfranchi, from Omegna, February 1941 (ibid., p. 29).

19
The first letter is quoted in B. Bellomo,
Lettere censurate
, Milan: Longanesi, 1975, pp. 22–3; the second, by a civilian from Gorizia to a sergeant-major, in Rizzi,
Lo sguardo del potere
, p. 98.

20
See the contrast that, already during the First World War, the Germans had drawn between themselves, as a people of heroes, and the British as a people of traders and shopkeepers. See W. Sombart's ‘war handbook',
Händler und Helden
, quoted by Hirschman,
Shifting Involvements
, p. 6, ironically in view of the fact that it was precisely in 1914 that the British had by contrast rediscovered the figure of the ‘warrior' (Hirschman refers to Eric J. Leed's
No Man's Land: Combat and Identity in World War I
, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979, and Paul Fussell's
The Great War and Modern Memory
, New York: Oxford University Press, 1975).

21
Page written for
La Tradotta Libica
by engineer corps sergeant-major Carlo Biagioli,
Fronte d'Egitto, 3 novembre 1942/XXI
(in Ceva,
Cinque anni
, p. 126).

22
See in Fondo RSI numbers 316, 365, 396, 432, 479, 601, 613, 667, 689, 690, 761, 771, 988, 989, 991. Black soldiers are often presented as rapists of women.

23
Undated letter to his parents by Giorgio Monti, of Macerata Feltria, who was killed at Castel di Decima on 3 June 1944 (
LRSI
, p. 92).

24
Letter to his family, in Mantua, by gunner Valentino Coda, 30 January 1943 (in Rizzo,
Lo sguardo del potere
, p.184). For the Italian combatants in North Africa see, in general, L. Ceva, ‘Gli italiani in Africa Settentrionale', in Tosi, et al.,
L'Italia nella seconda guerra mondiale e nella Resistenza
, pp. 185–96, and works cited in it.

25
Letter by the tanner Carlo Rolando, 1 November 1942, who later went missing. In Albania Rolando, at Christmas 1940, had taken refuge in the idea that ‘Il Re dei Rei' (‘The King of Kings') wanted everything that was happening to happen ‘in order to give the world perennial justice and order. Let us therefore trust in Him and resign ourselves to His will' (Revelli,
L'ultimo fronte
, pp. 39, 36–7).

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).