The Last Soldiers of the King: Life in Wartime Italy, 1943-1945 PDF
Preview The Last Soldiers of the King: Life in Wartime Italy, 1943-1945
The Last Soldiers of the King (cid:2) UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI PRESS COLUMBIA AND LONDON The Last Soldiers of the King Wartime Italy, – Eugenio Corti Translated by Manuela Arundel Foreword by Carlo D’Este Copyright © by The Curators of the University of Missouri University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Corti, Eugenio, – [Ultimi sodati del re. English] ‒ The last soldiers of the King : wartime Italy, / Eugenio Corti ; translated by Manuela Arundel ; foreword by Carlo D’Este. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. --- ISBN (alk. paper) ‒ . Corti, Eugenio, – . . World War, —Personal narratives, Italian. ‒ . World War, —Campaigns—Italy. . Italy. Esercito. Corpo italiano di ‒ liberazione—History. . World War, —Regimental histories—Italy. ‒ . Italy—History—Allied occupation, . I. Title. D .I .C A .(cid:2)(cid:2) —dc ø ™ This paper meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z . , . Designer: Kristie Lee Typesetter: The Composing Room of Michigan, Inc. Printer and binder: The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group Typefaces: Adobe Garamond and Benguiat Publication of this book has been assisted by a generous contribution from Eugene Davidson. Contents Foreword by Carlo D’Este vii Part One June . The Corpo Italiano di Liberazionein Abruzzi; entrance into Chieti. Part Two Flashback. The armistice of September , , in Nettuno, and the dissolution of the army; wanderings in Lazio, Abruzzi, and Molise; the passing of the British-German front; ‘reorganization camps’ in Puglia; the Corpo di Liberazioneis formed. Part Three Summer of . The advance of the Corpocontinues in Abruzzi; the advance in the Marches; the liberation of Macerata, and the battles of Filottrano and the Musone; at rest in the rear zone. Part Four Fall and winter of –. The Corpo di Liberazionegoes south for British reequipment; Rome , the ruins of Cassino, and Naples ; the winter in Beneventano. Part Five Spring of . On the front again at the ‘Gothic Line’; the battle for Bologna and the end of the war; Milan after the liberation; the garri- son at the Tridentine border. This page intentionally left blank Foreword Carlo D’Este WITH THE PUBLICATION of Few Returned (University of Mis- souri Press, ), Eugenio Corti, one of Italy’s most distinguished postwar writers, was first introduced to American readers through his poignant ac- count of his experiences as an Italian soldier on the Russian Front in the winter of – . As a young twenty-one-year-old lieutenant of artillery Corti was one of the , men of the Italian Eighth Army sent to Rus- sia by Mussolini ostensibly to fight alongside his German ally, but in real- ity to be in a position to gain a measure of the plunder from an Axis- occupied Soviet Union. On the River Don the Italian force of , of which Corti was a member was surrounded by the Red Army and faced an- nihilation. Few Returnedrecounted the appalling experience of these Italian soldiers during their breakout from encirclement and a forced retreat from Russia. Their near annihilation by the Red Army during the dreadful winter of – was an experience reminiscent of the conditions encountered during Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow in . Corti was one of only an estimated , soldiers out of the force of , to survive the ordeal of the retreat from the Don. Untold thousands were killed, and of the , to , Italian soldiers of the expeditionary force captured by the Red Army, only , were later repatriated. Mussolini’s dreams of empire were shattered and his ill-fated Eighth Army had simply ceased to exist. By the summer of the Allies had driven Axis forces from North Africa and with the July invasion of the island of Sicily were poised to bring the war to mainland Italy. With the backing of senior officers of the Italian Army, King Victor Emmanuel III acted in July to remove Mussolini from power, then placed him under house arrest in a resort in the mountains of the Abruzzi, where he remained until September when he was rescued at Hitler’s orders by SS Lieutenant Colonel Otto Skorzeny. The joyous celebrations after the fall of Mussolini were short-lived as vii Italy soon became a battleground that would be fought over for the next twenty months, leaving most of the country devastated. The disastrous war to which Mussolini had so willingly committed his nation in had come full cycle. A new Italian government headed by Field Marshal Pietro Badoglio informed Hitler that Mussolini had re- signed voluntarily and pledged Italy would honor its commitment to Ger- many as an ally, even as it negotiated Italy’s surrender to the Allies. The announcement of Italy’s capitulation in early September was greeted with unbridled fury by Hitler, who condemned it as a betrayal and swore revenge. Henceforth Germany would treat its onetime ally as the enemy. What had once been an uneasy partnership had turned into a state of war. In rapid order a series of harsh reprisals were carried out. Italian Jews were rounded up and deported to Nazi death camps such as Auschwitz, thou- sands of Italians were taken as hostages and murdered, and a reign of ter- ror was initiated not only throughout German-occupied Italy but also in other occupied states in the Mediterranean. Although conditions in the north were somewhat better, southern Italy was plunged into starvation and deprivation every bit as brutal as that of the nations conquered by Ger- many. The surrender left the Italian Army virtually leaderless, and it all but dis- integrated in the chaotic period that followed. What is less well known is that while some elements of the Italian Army remained loyal to fascism and continued to fight alongside their German ally, others switched sides and aligned themselves with the Allies after the British invaded southern Italy and the U.S. Fifth Army landed at Salerno on September , . Those who did so were subject to immediate execution if captured by the venge- ful Germans. As British historian Richard Lamb points out, “Hitler ordered that all Italian troops fighting against the Germans were to be treated as francs-tireursand shot as they surrendered, in order to minimize Italian mil- itary co-operation with the Allies; his generals obeyed these criminal or- ders.”1 Some of the very worst atrocities were perpetrated against Italian soldiers captured in Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, and the islands of the Aegean. An estimated six hundred thousand Italian soldiers were deported in cattle wagons to Hitler’s slave labor camps in Germany where they became fod- der for the German war machine. After his escape from Russia in , Eugenio Corti remained in the Ital- ian Army and was one of those who switched sides, joining the fight along- . Richard Lamb, War in Italy, –(New York: St. Martin’s Press, ), . viii side the British in the Abruzzi. The Last Soldiers of the King is Corti’s ac- count of his experiences during the remainder of the war. The war in Italy was the longest military campaign fought by the Allies. From the time of the first landings in September , the war in Italy lasted days as the Allies fought some of the bitterest battles of World War II from Calabria to the foothills of the Alps. The cost in human mis- ery was staggering. Allied casualties totaled , , including , killed. German losses in Italy have never been fully affirmed but are cited as , (including more than , dead and more than , miss- ing, most of whom have never been accounted for). The number of dead and homeless Italians can only be guessed. The Last Soldiers of the Kingis one soldier’s deeply personal account that depicts the war from the perspective of the average Italian soldier. As was the case in Few Returned,this book focuses not on high-level strategy or the wars of the generals, but what life was like at the sharp end of battle, and during those times when men fought boredom as well as the enemy and at- tempted to make sense of the chaos of war. Corti’s book is more than yet another war memoir; it is the story of life in wartime Italy, as reflected in his descriptions of a proud people forced to endure death, poverty, and the virtual destruction of their nation during the most oppressive period of Italian history. ix
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