The Regio Esercito in Co-Belligerency, October 1943–April 1945 95

Chapter 5 The Regio Esercito in Co-Belligerency, October 1943–April 1945

Richard Carrier

Few European armies experienced the Second World War as the Italian Royal Army (the Regio Esercito) did. Thrown by Mussolini into a war for which it was not ready in June 1940, it suffered setbacks in North Africa and Greece before being rescued by its German ally. From the spring of 1941 until the summer of 1943, army divisions fought a “subaltern war” in North Africa and the Soviet Union, and performed occupation duties in the South of France, the Balkans, and the Aegean Sea.1 With the Allied invasion of Sicily on 10 July 1943, the Regio Esercito had to defend the homeland for the first time in the war. Two weeks later, the double coup against Mussolini created considerable uncer- tainty, as few—especially the Germans—believed Badoglio’s declaration that the war against the Allies would continue.2 On 8 September at 19h45, the announcement of the armistice provoked a large-scale disintegration.3 For most Italians, this second Caporetto marked the end of the army as they knew it. The Americans and British would have welcomed an active and ­immediate Italian participation in the war.4 On 9 September, Churchill hoped for the “conversion of Italy into an active agent against Germany.”5 It did not happen, and the only consolation for the Allies—and especially for Churchill—was

1 The fate of the Italian forces in Ethiopia was sealed in the spring of 1941. 2 On Badoglio’s role between July 1943 and June 1944, see Piero Pieri and Giorgio Rochat, Pietro Badoglio (Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1974), pp. 771–859; in the English lan- guage, see Philip Morgan, The Fall of Mussolini: Italy, the Italians, and the Second World War (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007), pp. 84–85. 3 Elena Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando: L’armistizio italiano del settembre 1943 e le sue con- seguenze (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003), pp. 111–185; Filippo Stefani, 8 settembre 1943: Gli armistizi dell’Italia (Milan: Marzorati, 1991), pp. 60–63; Giorgio Rochat, Le guerre italiane 1935–1943: Dall’impero d’Etiopia alla disfatta (Turin: Einaudi, 2008), pp. 421–36; John Gooch, “Neither Defeat nor Surrender: Italy’s Change of Alliances in 1943,” in Holger Afflerbach and Hew Strachan (eds.), How Fighting Ends: A History of Surrender (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012), p. 360. 4 Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, pp. 179–84; David Ellwood, Italy 1943–1945 (New York, Holmes & Meier, 1985), p. 41. 5 C.R.S. Harris, Allied Military Administration of Italy 1943–1945 (London: HMSO, 1957), p. 129.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004363762_007 96 Carrier the transfer of the Italian navy to Malta; from then on, it made a significant contribution to the war effort.6 In the case of the army, Badoglio’s passivity jeo­­pardized any chance of a coherent reaction against the German troops and accelerated the disintegration of most units. It was a missed opportunity that generated Allied disillusion. Nevertheless, with a dearth of alternatives,7 a mar- riage of convenience between the Allies and the royal government took form with the Italian declaration of war on Germany on 13 October.8 This opened a strange chapter in the history of the Italian army. The aim of this work is to trace—mainly from an Italian perspective—the involvement of regular units of the Regio Esercito in the war of liberation between October 1943 and April 1945.9 During this period, they performed tasks, including combat, that are barely known in the English-speaking world as the historiography mostly concentrates on the fighting between the Allies and Germans.10 The chapter is divided into three closely related parts. The first part briefly examines the British and American views on the fate of Italy as the first defeated Axis member. It proved difficult for them to determine a compre- hensive policy towards the Italian government. The second part presents the impacts of the 8 September 1943 armistice on the Italian army. Despite the extent of the collapse, the remnants of the army composed most units that took part in the war against Germany. The third, and most important part, deals with the involvement of the Regio Esercito as a co-belligerent force. Numerous and persistent obstacles—namely Allied, especially British, ambiv- alent and suspicious attitudes alongside tight control of the Military Mission Italian Army (MMIA)—hindered, from the beginning, its participation.11

6 On the Italian fleet, see Winston Churchill, The Second World War: Closing the Ring (Bos- ton: Houghton Mifflin, 1951), pp. 114–5; Lucio Ceva, Storia delle forze armate in Italia (Turin: UTET, 1999), p. 334. The transfer of the fleet was more complicated than it appeared to the Allies; see Rochat, Le guerre italiane, pp. 429–30. 7 Ellwood, Italy, p. 41. 8 On the diplomatic relations between the Allies and the Italian government, see Ministero degli Affari Esteri, I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani, decima serie, 1943–1948, volume I, 9 settembre 1943–11 dicembre 1944 (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1992). Hereafter MAE, DDI. 9 As the purpose here is not to unveil new evidence, this work is based on Italian official and secondary sources rarely used in the English-speaking historiography. 10 And consistently undervalues the importance of Italy as a co-belligerent. For instance, see Douglas Porch, The Path to Victory: The Mediterranean Theater in World War II (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2004). 11 On the relationship between Allied authorities and the Italian army, see Salvatore Loi, I rapporti tra Alleati e Italiani nella cobelligerenza: Military Mission Italian Army-Stato