Italian Resistance Movement - Resistance By Armed Forces

Resistance By Armed Forces

The earliest acts of armed resistance must be credited to Italian soldiers, although technically they cannot be defined as "partisans", i.e. paramilitary forces, since they were part of the formal Italian Armed Forces. In the days following 8 September 1943 most servicemen, left without orders from the higher echelons were disarmed and shipped to POW camps in the Third Reich, often by much smaller German outfits. However some garrisons stationed in Greece, Albania, Yugoslavia and in Italy proper, engaged in armed fighting against the Germans. Admirals Inigo Campioni and Luigi Mascherpa led an attempt at defending Rhodes, Kos, Leros and other Dodecanese islands from their former allies. With reinforcements from SAS, SBS and British Army troops under the command of Maj. Gen. F.G.R. Brittorous and Brig. Gen. Robert Tilney, the defenders held on for a month, but the Wehrmacht ultimately managed to take hold of the islands through air and sea landings performed by infantry and Fallschirmjäger supported by Luftwaffe aircraft. Both Campioni and Mascherpa were captured and later executed at Verona under the charge of high treason.

On 13 September 1943, the Acqui Division stationed in Cefalonia was ordered by Comando Supremo to attack the Germans in spite of negotiations going on between the Italian headquarters and Wehrmacht senior officers. After the battle raged for ten days, the Germans executed a great number of officers and enlisted men as a retaliation. The death toll, which was previously estimated as high as 10,000, has recently been revised and watered down to roughly 1600 KIA, including the Division commander, General Antonio Gandin.

The best known battle of those days broke out in Rome on the same day the armistice was announced. Regio Esercito units such as the Sassari Division, the Granatieri di Sardegna, the Piave Division, the Ariete II Division, the Centauro Division, the Piacenza Division, the "Lupi di Toscana" Division, besides Carabinieri, infantry and coastal artillery regiments, were deployed around the city and along the roads leading to it. Fallschirmjäger and Panzergrenadiere were initially repelled but, despite being outnumbered and enduring heavy losses, they slowly got the upper hand, aided by their experience and superior Panzer component. Moreover, the defenders were decisively hampered by the escape of King Victor Emmanuel III, Marshal Pietro Badoglio and their staff to Brindisi, which left the Generals in charge of the city without a coordinated defence plan. This also caused Allied support to be called off at the last minute, since the Fallschirmjäger were not prevented from taking the DZs where the 82nd Airborne Division was scheduled to be airdropped (Brig. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor crossed the lines and went to Rome in person to supervise the operation himself).
The Centauro II Division not participating in the battle also contributed to the defeat: the StuG IIIs, Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs it was equipped with could have easily turned the tables of the battle. But, given its dubious allegiance (it was mostly formed by ex-Blackshirts), it was not fielded.
By 10 September, the Germans had penetrated into downtown Rome. Granatieri, aided by civilians, made their last stand at Porta San Paolo. At 4 pm, General Carlo Calvi di Bergolo signed the surrender. The Italian Divisions were disbanded and their members captured.
Although some of the officers participating in the battle later joined the Italian Resistance, the clash was not motivated by anti-German sentiment but only by the necessity to defend the Italian capital and resist the Italian soldiers' disarmament. For instance, General Raffaele Cadorna, Jr. (commander of Ariete II) and Giuseppe Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo (later shot in the Ardeatine massacre), joined the underground; General Gioacchino Solinas (commander of the Granatieri) instead opted for the Italian Social Republic.

The Italian soldiers captured by the Germans numbered around 700,000. Most of them chose to refuse cooperation with the Third Reich, chiefly to maintain their oath of fidelity to the King, in spite of being subject to all kinds of hardships, both direct and subtle. Their former allies designated them Italienische Militär-Internierte ("Italian military internees"), to deny them POW status and the consequent benefits granted by the Geneva Convention. After decades of oblivion, theirs has been recognized as an act of unarmed resistance on a par with the armed confrontation sustained by other Italian servicemen.

More Italian forces remained stuck in Montenegro when the armistice was announced. The Taurinense Division, the Venezia Division, the Aosta artillery Group and the remains of the Emilia Division were assembled in the Italian Garibaldi partisan Division, part of the Yugoslav People's Liberation Army. When the unit finally returned to Italy, at the end of the war, half of its members had been killed or were listed as missing in action.