Closing the Ring (7 page)

5. Finally, we think that the message to the Italian people would seem to come better after an initial success in Sicily has been achieved, because a repulse would make it somewhat inappropriate. It would anyhow be lost to the world in the cannonade, and will hardly get through to the Axis fighting troops in time to influence the crunch.

  Roosevelt recognised the justice of our case, and I sent him a revised draft which we felt would be appropriate.

  This is a message to the Italian people from the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

At this moment the combined armed forces of the United States and Great Britain, under the command of General Eisenhower and his Deputy, General Alexander, are carrying the war deep into the territory of your country. This is the direct consequence of the shameful leadership to which you have been subjected by Mussolini and his Fascist régime. Mussolini carried you into this war as the satellite of a brutal destroyer of peoples and liberties. Mussolini plunged you into a war which he thought Hitler had already won. In spite of Italy’s great vulnerability to attack by air and sea, your Fascist leaders sent your sons, your ships, your air forces, to distant battlefields to aid Germany in her attempt to conquer England, Russia, and the world. This association with the designs of Nazi-controlled Germany was unworthy of Italy’s ancient traditions of freedom and culture—traditions to which the people of America and Great Britain owe so much. Your soldiers have fought, not in the interests of Italy, but for Nazi Germany. They have fought courageously, but they have been betrayed and aban doned by the Germans on the Russian Front and on every battlefield in Africa from El Alamein to Cape Bon.

Today Germany’s hopes for world conquest have been blasted on all fronts. The skies over Italy are dominated by the vast air armadas of the United States and Great Britain. Italy’s seacoasts are threatened by the greatest accumulation of British and Allied sea-power ever concentrated in the Mediterranean. The forces now opposed to you are pledged to destroy the power of Nazi Germany, which has ruthlessly been used to inflict slavery, destruction, and death on all those who refuse to recognise the Germans as the master race.

The sole hope for Italy’s survival lies in honourable capitulation to the overwhelming power of the military forces of the United Nations. If you continue to tolerate the Fascist régime, which serves the evil power of the Nazis, you must suffer the consequences of your own choice. We take no satisfaction in invading Italian soil and bringing the tragic devastation of war home to the Italian people; but we are determined to destroy the false leaders and their doctrines which have brought Italy to her present position. Every moment that you resist the combined forces of the United Nations—every drop of blood that you sacrifice—can serve only one purpose: to give the Fascist and Nazi leaders a little more time to escape from the inevitable consequences of their own crimes. All your interests and all your traditions have been betrayed by Germany and your own false and corrupt leaders; it is only by disavowing both that a reconstituted Italy can hope to occupy a respected place in the family of European nations.

The time has now come for you, the Italian people, to consult your own self-respect and your own interests and your own desire for a restoration of national dignity, security, and peace. The time has come for you to decide whether Italians shall die for Mussolini and Hitler—or live for Italy and for civilisation.

R
OOSEVELT
C
HURCHILL

  Allied aircraft dropped leaflets of this proclamation over Rome and other Italian cities on July 17.

*  *  * *  *

Two days later, the Duce, accompanied by General Ambrosio, left by air to meet Hitler at the Feltre Villa, near Rimini. “There was a most beautiful cool and shady park,” writes Mussolini in his
Memoirs
, “and a labyrinthine building which some people found almost uncanny. It was like a crossword puzzle frozen into a house.” All preparations had been made to entertain the Fuehrer for at least two days, but he left the same afternoon. “The meeting,” says Mussolini, “was, as usual, cordial, but the entourage and the attitude of the higher Air Force officers and of the troops was chilly.”
¹

The Fuehrer held forth lengthily upon the need for a supreme effort. The new secret weapons, he said, would be ready for use against England by the winter. Italy must be defended, “so that Sicily may become for the enemy what Stalingrad was for us.” The Italians must produce both the man-power and the organisation. Germany could not provide the reinforcements and equipment asked for by Italy owing to the pressure on the Russian Front.

Ambrosio urged his Chief to tell Hitler plainly that Italy could not continue in the war. It is not clear what advantage would have come from this, but the fact that Mussolini seemed almost dumbstruck finally decided Ambrosio and the other Italian generals present that no further leadership could be expected from him.

In the midst of Hitler’s discourse on the situation, an agitated Italian officer entered the room with the news, “At this moment Rome is undergoing a violent enemy air bombardment.” Apart from a promise of further German reinforcements for Sicily, Mussolini returned to Rome without anything to show. As he approached, he flew into a huge black cloud of smoke rising from hundreds of wagons on fire in the Littorio railway station. The next day he had an audience of the King, whom he found “frowning and nervous.” “A tense situation,” said the King. “We cannot go on much longer. Sicily has gone west now. The Germans will double-cross us. The discipline of the troops has broken down. …”
Mussolini answered, according to the records, that he hoped to disengage Italy from the Axis Alliance by September 15. The date shows how far he was out of contact with reality.

The chief actor in the final drama now appeared on the scene. Dino Grandi, veteran Fascist, former Foreign Minister and Ambassador to Britain, a man of strong personal determination, who had hated the Italian declaration of war upon Britain, but had hitherto submitted to the force of events, arrived in Rome to take the lead at the meeting of the Grand Council. He called on his old leader on July 22, and told him brutally that he intended to propose the formation of a National Government and the restoration to the King of the supreme command of the armed forces.

*  *  * *  *

At 5
P.M.
on the 24th, the Grand Council met. Care appears to have been taken by the Chief of Police that they should not be disturbed by violence. Mussolini’s musketeers, his personal bodyguard, were relieved of their duty to guard the Palazzo Venezia, which was also filled with armed police. The Duce unfolded his case, and the Council, who were all dressed in their black Fascist uniforms, took up the discussion. Mussolini ended:

War is always a party war—a war of the party which desires it; it is always one man’s war—the war of the man who declared it. If today this is called Mussolini’s war, the war in 1859 could have been called Cavour’s war. This is the moment to tighten the reins and assume the necessary responsibility. I shall have no difficulty in replacing men, in turning the screw, in bringing forces to bear not yet engaged, in the name of our country, whose territorial integrity is today being violated.

Grandi then moved a resolution calling upon the Crown to assume more power and upon the King to emerge from obscurity and assume his responsibilities. He delivered what Mussolini describes as “a violent philippic,” “the speech of a man who was at last giving vent to a long-cherished rancour.” The contacts between members of the Grand Council and the
Court became evident. Mussolini’s son-in-law. Ciano, supported Grandi. Everyone present was now conscious that a political convulsion impended. The debate continued till midnight, when Scorza, Secretary of the Fascist Party, proposed adjourning till next day. But Grandi leaped to his feet, shouting, “No, I am against the proposal. We have started this business and we must finish it this very night!” It was after two o’clock in the morning when the voting took place. “The position of each member of the Grand Council,” writes Musso lini, “could be discerned even before the voting. There was a group of traitors who had already negotiated with the Crown, a group of accomplices, and a group of uninformed who probably did not realise the seriousness of the vote, but they voted just the same.” Nineteen replied “Yes” to Grandi’s motion and seven “No.” Two abstained. Mussolini rose. “You have provoked a crisis of the régime. The session is closed.” The Party Secretary was about to give the salute to the Duce when Mussolini checked him with a gesture, saying, “No, you are excused.” They all went away in silence. None slept at home.

Meanwhile, the arrest of Mussolini was being quietly arranged. The Duke of Acquarone, the Court Minister, sent instructions to Ambrosio whose deputies and trusted agents in the police and the carabinieri acted forthwith. The key telephone exchanges, the police headquarters, and the offices of the Ministry of the Interior were quietly and unobtrusively taken over. A small force of military police was posted out of sight near the Royal villa.

Mussolini spent the morning of Sunday, July 25, in his office, and visited some quarters in Rome which had suffered by bombing. He asked to see the King at five o’clock. “I thought the King would withdraw his delegation of authority of June 10, 1940, concerning the command of the armed forces, a command which I had for some time past been thinking of relinquishing. I entered the villa therefore with a mind completely free from any forebodings, in a state which, looking back on it, might really be called utterly unsuspecting.” On reaching the Royal abode, he noticed that there were everywhere
reinforcements of carabinieri. The King, in Marshal’s uniform, stood in the doorway. The two men entered the drawing-room. The King said: “My dear Duce, it’s no longer any good. Italy has gone to bits. Army morale is at rock-bottom. The soldiers don’t want to fight any more. … The Grand Council’s vote is terrific—nineteen votes for Grandi’s motion, and among them four holders of the Order of the Annunciation! … At this moment you are the most hated man in Italy. You can no longer count on more than one friend. You have one friend left, and I am he. That is why I tell you that you need have no fears for your personal safety, for which I will ensure protection. I have been thinking that the man for the job now is Marshal Badoglio. …”

Mussolini replied: “You are taking an extremely grave decision. A crisis at this moment would mean making the people think that peace was in sight, once the man who declared war had been dismissed. The blow to the Army’s morale would be serious. This crisis would be considered as a triumph for the Churchill-Stalin set-up, especially for Stalin. I realise the people’s hatred. I had no difficulty in recognising it last night in the midst of the Grand Council. One can’t govern for such a long time and impose so many sacrifices without provoking resentments. In any case, I wish good luck to the man who takes the situation in hand.” The King accompanied Mussolini to the door. “His face,” says Mussolini, “was livid, and he looked smaller than ever, almost dwarfish. He shook my hand and went in again. I descended the few steps and went towards my car. Suddenly a carabinieri captain stopped me and said, ‘His Majesty has charged me with the protection of your person.’ I was continuing towards my car when the captain said to me, pointing to a motor-ambulance standing near by, ‘No. We must get in there.’ I got into the ambulance together with my secretary. A lieutenant, three carabinieri, and two police agents in plain clothes got in as well as the captain, and placed themselves by the door armed with machine-guns. When the door was closed, the ambulance drove off at top speed. I still thought that all this was being done, as the King had said, in order to protect my person.”

Later that afternoon, Badoglio was charged by the King to form a new Cabinet of service chiefs and civil servants, and in the evening the Marshal broadcast the news to the world. Two days later, the Duce was taken on Marshal Badoglio’s order to be interned on the island of Ponza.

*  *  * *  *

Thus ended Mussolini’s twenty-one years, dictatorship in Italy, during which he had raised the Italian people from the Bolshevism into which they were sinking in 1919 to a position in Europe such as Italy had never held before. A new impulse had been given to the national life. The Italian Empire in North Africa was built. Many important public works in Italy were completed. In 1935 the Duce had by his will-power overcome the League of Nations—“Fifty nations led by one”—and was able to complete his conquest of Abyssinia. His régime was far too costly for the Italian people to bear, but there is no doubt that it appealed during its period of success to very great numbers of Italians. He was, as I had addressed him at the time of the fall of France, “the Italian lawgiver.” The alternative to his rule might well have been a Communist Italy, which would have brought perils and misfortunes of a different character both upon the Italian people and Europe. His fatal mistake was the declaration of war on France and Great Britain following Hitler’s victories in June 1940. Had he not done this, he might well have maintained Italy in a balancing position, courted and rewarded by both sides and deriving an unusual wealth and prosperity from the struggles of other countries. Even when the issue of the war became certain, Mussolini would have been welcomed by the Allies. He had much to give to shorten its course. He could have timed his moment to declare war on Hitler with art and care. Instead he took the wrong turning. He never understood the strength of Britain, nor the long-enduring qualities of Island resistance and sea-power. Thus he marched to ruin. His great roads will remain a monument to his personal power and long reign.

*  *  * *  *

At this time Hitler made a crowning error in strategy and war direction. The defection of Italy, the victorious advance of Russia, and the evident preparations for a cross-Channel attack by Britain and the United States should have led him to concentrate and develop the most powerful German army as a central reserve. In this way only could he use the high qualities of the German Command and fighting troops, and at the same time take full advantage of the central position which he occupied, with its interior lines and remarkable communications. As General von Thoma said while a prisoner of war in our charge, “Our only chance is to create a situation where we can use the Army.” Hitler, as I have pointed out in an earlier volume, had in fact made a spider’s web and forgotten the spider. He tried to hold everything he had won. Enormous forces were squandered in the Balkans and in Italy which could play no part in the main decisions. A central reserve of thirty or forty divisions of the highest quality and mobility would have enabled him to strike at any one of his opponents advancing upon him and fight a major battle with good prospects of success. He could, for instance, have met the British and Americans at the fortieth or fiftieth day after their landing in Normandy a year later with fresh and greatly superior forces. He could perhaps have so disposed his forces as to lead to the decision of the war. There was no need to consume his strength in Italy and the Balkans, and the fact that he was induced to do so must be taken as the waste of his last opportunity.