Where It All Began

Cacciatore, Nicola

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-28682-7_2

Nicola Cacciatore³

Part of the book series: Italian and Italian American Studies ((IIAS))

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Abstract

In the early morning of the 10 September 1943, two Italian corvettes of the Royal Navy reached the harbour of Brindisi. One of them, the Baionetta, was carrying a particularly delicate cargo: the Italian royal family and the government, led by Marshal Pietro Badoglio, who had fled the capital of Rome on the night of 8 September 1943. However, the Baionetta had another, perhaps even more unusual, passenger. He was Richard ‘Dick’ Mallaby, a British agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the secret service created by the UK in 1940 and to which Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave the task of ‘setting Europe ablaze’. How Mallaby ended up sharing the Baionetta’s deck with the King of Italy and its head of government is a story tied with the history of Italy in the Second World War. While the corvette was slowly approaching the docks, Italy’s fate had been sealed, and the previous years’ events had come to a devastating conclusion. However, to explain why Mallaby was where he was, we need to recount these events from the perspective of the two main actors involved, the Italians and the Allies. These two actors, in fact, had a long and complicated relationship even before the start of the war, which laid the way to further issues during it.

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Notes

1.
On the figure of Mussolini, see the classic volume by Richard Bosworth: Richard J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini un dittatore italiano (Milan: Mondadori, 2004).
2.
Emilio Gentile, Il fascismo in tre capitoli (Bari: Laterza, 2004), pp. 13–21.
3.
Bosworth, Mussolini, p. 187.
4.
Gentile, Il fascismo, pp. 27–29.
5.
For an account of the Fascist takeover in English, see Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, pp. 6–25.
6.
Bosworth, Mussolini, p. 187.
7.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, p. 4. Giovanni Giolitti was among those who made this mistake. Gentile, Il fascismo, p. 23.
8.
Giovanni Tessitore, Fascismo e pena di morte Consenso e informazione (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2007), pp. 220–224.
9.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, p. 39.
10.
The meaning of the name still remains uncertain. It has been explained as Opera Volontaria di Repressione Antifascista, Organizzazione di Vigilanza e Repressione dell’Antifascismo, and Organo di Vigilanza dei Reati Antistatali. However, despite the passion of the Fascist regime for acronyms, it seems it was simply a pun made by Mussolini, by merging the words piovra (octopus) and ochrana (the czarist secret police). Mimmo Franzinelli, I tentacoli dell’ovra agenti, collaboratori e vittime della polizia politica fascista (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1999), p. 103.
11.
To have an idea of the vast repressive apparatus of the regime, see the diagram in Marina Giannetto, ‘I Rosselli, GL e i Servizi di informazione politica’, in Marina Giannetto (ed.), Un’altra Italia nell’Italia del fascismo: Carlo e Nello Rosselli nella documentazione dell’Archivio Centrale dello Stato: Roma, dal 20 giugno 2002 (Roma: Edimond, Direzione generale per gli archivi, 2002), pp. 26–27.
12.
Luigi Salvatorelli, Giovanni Mira, Storia d’Italia nel periodo fascista, vol. II (Turin: Einaudi, 1957), p. 33.
13.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, p. 113.
14.
Giorgio Galli, Storia del Partito Comunista Italiano (Milan: Edizioni il Formichiere, 1976), p. 131.
15.
On Gramsci: Angelo d’Orsi, Gramsci una nuova biografia (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2017).
16.
Aldo Agosti, Storia del PCI (Bari: Laterza, 1999), pp. 26–27.
17.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, p. 35.
18.
Agosti, Storia, p. 27.
19.
On Anarchism in Italy, see the recent volume: Antonio Senta, Claudio Venza, Utopia e azione: per una storia dell’anarchismo in Italia (1848-1984) (Milan: Eléuthera, 2015).
20.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, pp. 106–109.
21.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, pp. 102–106.
22.
Giorgio Rochat, Le guerre italiane 1935-1943 Dall’Impero d’Etiopia alla disfatta (Turin: Einaudi, 2008), p. 10.
23.
On this see also the volume by British anthropologist Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard who lived with the Cyrenaica’s population and took part in the campaign against Italy in North Africa as a liaison officer with the Senussi: Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).
24.
Rochat, Le guerre italiane, p. 11. On the Italian crimes in Libya: Angelo Del Boca, Gli italiani in Libia (Bari: Laterza, 1986), vol II. Angelo Del Boca, A un passo dalla forca. Atrocità e infamie dell’occupazione italiana della Libia nelle memorie del patriota Mohamed Fekini (Milan: Baldini Castoldi Dalai, 2007).
25.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, p. 24.
26.
Benedetto Croce, Scritti e discorsi politici (1943-1947), ed. by Angela Carella (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1993), vol. I, pp. 60–61. Unlike Nazism, which constituted a long-term threat to European civilisation, see Croce, Scritti e discorsi, II, p. 25.
27.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, pp. 87–90.
28.
Bosworth, Mussolini, pp. 261–262.
29.
Aldo Garosci, Storia dei Fuorusciti (Bari: Laterza, 1953), pp. 11–31.
30.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, p. 54.
31.
Ibid., p. 43.
32.
In general, the evaluation of the émigrés’ activities is varied, but most scholars agree that they were not able to do much other than be a living testimony of the evils of Fascism and of the fact that not all Italians were aligned with Mussolini. See, for example, Benedetto Croce, Quaderni della Critica, 5 (1946), p. 113; Garosci, Storia, p. 109; Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, pp. 11–12.
33.
Enrico Acciai, Antifascismo, volontariato e guerra civile in Spagna. La sezione Italiana della Colonna Ascanio (Milan: Edizioni Unicopli, 2016), p. 118.
34.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, I, pp. 266–267; 417–419.
35.
Carlo Sforza, The totalitarian war and after. Personal Recollections and Political Considerations (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1941), pp. 54–55.
36.
Silvio Trentin, ‘L’Italia all’estero’, in Antifascismo e Rivoluzione, scritti e discorsi 1927-1944, ed. by G. Paladini (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 1985), p. 15.
37.
John Ramsden, ‘“That will depend on who writes the history” Winston Churchill storico di se stesso’, Italia contemporanea, 208 (1997), p. 489.
38.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, pp. 180–181.
39.
Churchill, Closing the ring, pp. 57–58.
40.
On the various lies that still survive regarding the Fascist regime and its supposedly ‘humanitarian’ nature, see Francesco Filippi, Mussolini ha fatto anche cose buone le idiozie che continuano a circolare sul fascismo (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2019).
41.
Andrew N. Buchanan, ‘American policy towards Italy during its “decade of war”’, in ed. by M. M. Aterrano and K. Varley, A Fascist decade of war 1935-1945 in international perspective (New York: Routledge, 2020), pp. 28–41 (p. 29).
42.
Antonio Varsori, Gli alleati e l’emigrazione democratica antifascista 1940-1943 (Florence: Sansoni Editori, 1982) pp. 21–26.
43.
Ennio di Nolfo, Michele Serra, La gabbia infranta. Gli Alleati e l’Italia dal 1943 al 1945 (Bari: Laterza, 2010), p. 8.
44.
Buchanan, ‘American policy’, p. 30.
45.
Varsori, Gli alleati, p. 28.
46.
di Nolfo, La gabbia, p. 9.
47.
Emilio Gentile, ‘La politica estera del partito fascista. Ideologia e organizzazione dei Fasci italiani all’estero (1920-1930)’, Storia contemporanea: rivista trimestrale di studi storici, 6 (1995), pp. 906–911.
48.
Joseph John Viscomi, Out of Time: History, Presence, and Departure of the Italians of Egypt, 1933-present, University of Michigan dissertation, 2016, pp. 30–31.
49.
Milano, Istituto Nazionale per la Storia del Movimento di Liberazione in Italia ‘Ferruccio Parri’ (INSMLI), Fondo Battino, Una famiglia di vagabondi del mediterraneo, b. 1, fasc. 1, p. 45.
50.
Garosci, Storia, pp. 31–32.
51.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, pp. 27–28. On the Concentration: Santi Fedele, Storia della concentrazione antifascista 1927-1934 (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1976).
52.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, p. 38.
53.
C. Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, pp. 56–59.
54.
On GL, the literature is boundless, especially in Italian. See Marco Bresciani, Quale antifascismo? Storia di Giustizia e Libertà (Rome: Carocci Editore, 2017).
55.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, pp. 50–51.
56.
Bresciani, Quale antifascismo?, p. 10.
57.
Ibid., pp. 71–72.
58.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, p. 52.
59.
TNA, HS 6/821-82, Telegram from D/H113 (Cairo) to J section, 20 September 1942.
60.
Leone Ginzburg e Carlo Levi, ‘Il concetto di autonomia nel programma di “G.L.”’, Quaderni di Giustizia e Libertà, 4 (1932), p. 7.
61.
Bresciani, Quale antifascismo?, p. 105.
62.
An evaluation that was shared, for different reasons, by the Fascists as well. See Massimo Baioni, Risorgimento in camicia nera studi, istituzioni, musei nell’Italia fascista (Turin: Carocci editore, 2006).
63.
On this topic: Lucy Riall, Il Risorgimento Storia e interpretazioni (Rome: Donzelli editore, 2007), p. 34.
64.
Carlo Rosselli, ‘Discussione sul Risorgimento’, Giustizia e libertà, 26 April 1935. Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, pp. 52–53. On GL’s position on the Risorgimento, see Carlo Rosselli, Scritti dell’esilio, ed. by Costanzo Casucci (Turin: Einaudi, 1988), p. 246. Carlo Panizza, ‘Antifascismo e Risorgimento. Una discussione all’interno di Giustizia e Libertà’, Quaderno di storia contemporanea, 32 (2002), p. 25.
65.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, pp. 64–71. The most spectacular example was Bassanesi’s flight above Milan: L. Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, pp. 71–73.
66.
Nicola Tranfaglia, ‘introduzione’, in ed. by M. Giannetto, Un’altra Italia, p. X.
67.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, pp. 71–75. On the clandestine network, see the interesting documents produced by the Italian Fascist police and published in: Giannetto, Un’altra Italia, pp. 173–190.
68.
Bresciani, Quale antifascismo?, pp. 165–166.
69.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, p. 210.
70.
Carlo Rosselli, ‘La guerra che torna’, Quaderni di Giustizia e Libertà, 9 November 1933, pp. 1–8.
71.
Bresciani, Quale antifascismo?, pp. 168–169. On the Soviet policy in this period and the popular fronts, see Silvio Pons, La rivoluzione globale Storia del comunismo internazionale 1917-1991 (Turin: Einaudi, 2012), pp. 98–112.
72.
Bresciani, Quale antifascismo?, p. 170.
73.
Carlo Rosselli, ‘Non è l’ora di ripiegar gli ideali’, Giustizia e Libertà, 24 July, 1936.
74.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, p. 240.
75.
Rosselli, ‘La guerra che torna’, pp. 1–8.
76.
Rochat, Le Guerre, pp. 15–20.
77.
Ibid., pp. 48–65.
78.
On this see Rochat, Le Guerre, pp. 65–70. Angelo Del Boca, La guerra d’Abissinia 1935-1941 (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1965). Giorgio Rochat, ‘L’impiego dei gas nella campagna d’Etiopia’, Rivista di storia contemporanea, 1 (1988), pp. 74–109. Angelo Del Boca, I gas di Mussolini: il fascismo e la guerra d’Etiopia (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1996), which also contains the aforementioned article by Rochat, ‘L’impiego dei gas’.
79.
However, Ethiopian Resistance continued, and Italian troops soon found themselves fighting in a bloody guerrilla war. Rochat, Le Guerre, pp. 131–134; 140–141.
80.
Rochat, Le Guerre, pp. 29–32.
81.
di Nolfo La gabbia infranta, p. 8.
82.
Carlo Rosselli, Scritti politici e autobiografici (Naples: Polis Editrice, 1944), p. 92. See also a series of letters by Rosselli on the matter: Giannetto, Un’altra Italia, pp. 151–154.
83.
Steven Morewood, ‘An opportunity missed Britain and the Abyssinian Crisis’, in ed. by M. M. Aterrano and K. Varley, A Fascist decade of war 1935-1945 in international perspective (New York: Routledge, 2020), pp. 13–27 (pp. 13–14).
84.
Silvio Trentin, ‘Appello agli italiani’, in Antifascismo e Rivoluzione, scritti e discorsi 1927-1944, ed. by G. Paladini (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 1985), p. 299. Of the same opinion was an article on GL’s newspaper: ‘Come si presenta la Guerra d’Africa’, Giustizia e Libertà, 2 August 1935.
85.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, pp. 143–145.
86.
On the Italian racial laws and the life of Jews under Fascism see in particular: Michele Sarfatti, Gli ebrei nell’Italia fascista. Vicende, identità, persecuzione (Turin: Einaudi, 2000).
87.
Rochat, Le Guerre, pp. 103–107.
88.
On GL in Spain see Acciai, Antifascismo, volontariato e guerra civile in Spagna.
89.
Bresciani, Quale antifascismo?, p. 196. Rosselli, Scritti politici, pp. 179–180.
90.
Rosselli, Scritti politici, p. 168.
91.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, p. 372.
92.
Rosselli, Scritti politici, p. 179.
93.
Giustizia e Libertà, 28 August 1936. On this: Stephanie Prezioso, ‘“Aujourd’hui en Espagne, demain en Italie” L’exil antifasciste italien et la prise d’armes révolutionnaire’, Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’Histoire, 93 (2007), p. 91.
94.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, p. 372.
95.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, pp. 145–154. On Guadalajara also: Rochat, Le Guerre, pp. 107–112.
96.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, p. 154.
97.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, pp. 372–373.
98.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, pp. 154–160.
99.
Ibid., pp. 164–166.
100.
On the Pd’A see the comprehensive volume: Giovanni de Luna, Storia del Partito d’Azione la rivoluzione democratica (1942/1947) (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1982).
101.
The legacy of the Spanish Civil War remained central in the PCI discourse even after 1945, see Raffaele Feruglio, ‘La memoria della Guerra civile Spagnola nella stampa del Pci 1948-1964’, Italia contemporanea, 247 (2004), pp. 271–284.
102.
Rochat, Le Guerre, p. 130.
103.
Rochat, Le Guerre, p. 241.
104.
Salvadorelli and Mira claim this was thanks to the PCI tactics of infiltrating the Fascist organisations and appealing to the population. Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, p. 373.
105.
On this: Pons, La rivoluzione globale, pp. 118–132.
106.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, pp. 179–180.
107.
Giorgio Bocca, Storia d’Italia nella guerra fascista 1940-1943 (Bari: Laterza, 1973), vol. 1, p. 59.
108.
Ribbentrop even claimed Germany would not go to war before ‘four or five years’. Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, p. 439.
109.
Bocca, Storia d’Italia, p. 58.
110.
Ibid., p. 61.
111.
Bocca, Storia d’Italia, pp. 62–63.
112.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, pp. 446–449. The Italian industrial production was never able to compete with other major nations involved in the conflict. See on this topic: Paolo Ferrari, Andrea Curami, ‘Le armi tra storiografia militare ed economica. Indirizzi e interpretazioni’, Italia contemporanea, 190 (1993), pp. 130–149. Andrea Curami, ‘L’industria bellica prima dell’8 settembre’ Italia contemporanea, 261 (2010), pp. 665–679.
113.
Rochat, Le Guerre, pp. 241–244.
114.
Ibid., pp. 190–191.
115.
Ibid., pp. 230–235.
116.
Ibid., pp. 210–211; 307; 309–310. The main industrial groups constituted an illegal cartel to better exploit the situation, see Curami, ‘L’industria bellica’, p. 667. On the role of the Ansaldo group: Fabio degli Esposti, ‘L’Ansaldo industria bellica’, Italia contemporanea, 190 (1993), pp. 149–168. Fortunato Minniti, ‘L’Ansaldo di Cavallero raccontato dagli archivi’, Italia contemporanea, 190 (1993), pp. 168–173.
117.
Salvatorelli, Storia d’Italia, II, pp. 441–442.
118.
Rochat, Le Guerre, pp. 206–217. On the navy under the Fascist regime, see the recent volume by Fabio De Ninno, which disproves many myths about the Italian navy of the period. Fabio De Ninno, Fascisti sul mare: la Marina e gli ammiragli di Mussolini (Bari: Laterza, 2017).
119.
Rochat, Le Guerre, pp. 206–217.
120.
Ibid., pp. 241–242.
121.
Ibid., pp. 248–251.
122.
Ibid., pp. 255–256.
123.
Flores, Storia, pp. 6–7.
124.
Rosselli, ‘La guerra che torna’, pp. 1–8.
125.
Cacciatore, ‘“La vera Italia siamo noi.”’, p. 34.
126.
Silvio Trentin, ‘La lotta antifascista’, in Antifascismo e Rivoluzione, scritti e discorsi 1927-1944, ed. by G. Paladini (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 1985), p. 405.
127.
David Stafford, ‘The detonator concept: British strategy, SOE and European Resistance after the fall of France’, Journal of contemporary history, 2 (1975), p. 208.
128.
Wieviorka, Storia della Resistenza, p. 27.
129.
David Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, 1940-1945 A survey of the Special Operations Executive, with documents (London: Thistle Publishing, 2013), p. 10.
130.
On the SOE scientific literature has been lacking for some time, as a starting point, see M.D.R. Foot, SOE An outline history of the Special Operations Executive 1940-46 (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1984); William Mackenzie, The secret history of SOE (London: St Ermin’s Press, 2000); Mark Seaman (ed.), Special Operations Executive: a new instrument of war (London: Routledge, 2006); Stafford, Britain and European Resistance.
131.
When Section ‘D’ (for ‘destruction’) was established. D. Stafford, ‘The detonator concept’, p. 186. On the evolution of the British strategic thinking on covert warfare, the principal source remains the aforementioned work of Stafford, Britain and European Resistance.
132.
Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, pp. 11–12; 17–18.
133.
The reference to the Spanish guerrillas (as to the Irish Sinn Fein and the Chinese Irregulars) was made by Hugh Dalton himself: Hugh Dalton, The fateful years; Memoirs 1931-1945 (London: Frederik Muller, 1957), p. 368.
134.
Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, p. 20.
135.
Wheeler, ‘The SOE Phenomenon’, p. 518.
136.
Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, pp. 13–14. On the internal conflicts in London and the ‘battle of Whitehall’, see Wieviorka, Storia della Resistenza, pp. 49–58.
137.
Ibid., pp. 178–180.
138.
Frederik W. Deakin, ‘La Gran Bretagna e la Resistenza europea’, Il Movimento di liberazione in Italia, 65 (1961), p. 4.
139.
Stafford, ‘The detonator concept’, p. 209. Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, p. 84. Piffer, Gli alleati, p. 33.
140.
This also came with new threats to the SOE independent action, and the service had to survive even an attempt to abolish it. Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, pp. 85–99.
141.
Wieviorka, Storia della Resistenza, pp. 190–191.
142.
Isabella Insolvibile, ‘Autoassoluzione di una nazione. Il racconto egemonico dell’Italia nella seconda guerra mondiale’, Italia contemporanea, 276 (2014), pp. 549–550.
143.
Cacciatore, ‘Missed connection’, pp. 266–267.
144.
Wieviorka, Storia della Resistenza, pp. 167–170. On the SOE operations in Italy before 1943, the most complete study is: Roderick Bailey, Target Italy: the secret war against Mussolini 1940-1943 (London: Faber&Faber, 2014).
145.
Wieviorka, Storia della Resistenza, pp. 80–81.
146.
Elena Aga Rossi, L’inganno reciproco l’armistizio tra l’Italia e gli angloamericani del settembre 1943 (Rome: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici, 1993), pp. 17–18. See also: FO 371/29936, Memorandum sull’uso dei prigionieri di guerra italiani per un lavoro politico antifascista, 30 January 1941; published in: Aga Rossi, L’inganno reciproco, pp. 237–242.
147.
Wieviorka, Storia della Resistenza, pp. 81–83. Mireno Berrettini, La Gran Bretagna e l’antifascismo italiano Diplomazia clandestina, Intelligence, Operazioni speciali (1940-1943) (Florence: Le Lettere, 2010), pp. 41–45. For India, see Kent Fedorowich, ‘“Toughs and thugs” The Mazzini Society and political warfare among Italian PoWs in India, 1841-1943’, in The Politics and Strategy of Clandestine War Special Operations Executive 1940-1946, ed. by Neville Wylie (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 154. For Egypt, see Cacciatore, ‘Missed connection’, pp. 265–279.
148.
Berrettini, La Gran Bretagna e l’antifascismo, pp. 87–90.
149.
Christopher Woods, ‘SOE in Italy’, in Special Operation Executive: a new instrument of war, ed. by Mark Seaman (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 92.
150.
David Stafford, Mission accomplished SOE and Italy 1943-1945 (London: Vintage Books, 2012), p. 13.
151.
Woods, ‘SOE in Italy’, p. 92.
152.
Ester Lo Biundo, ‘Radio Londra 1943-1945: Italian society at the microphones of the BBC’, Modern Italy, 1 (2018), pp. 43–46.
153.
Luca Valente (ed.), Ascoltando Radio Londra il diario di Leone Fioravanti 1943-1945 (Schio: Edizioni Menin, 2003), p. 11.
154.
Ester Lo Biundo, ‘Voices of Occupiers/Liberators: The BBC’s Radio Propaganda in Italy between 1942 and 1945’, Journal of War & Culture Studies, 1 (2016), pp. 60–73.
155.
Cacciatore, ‘“La vera Italia siamo noi”’, pp. 35–36.
156.
Emilio Lussu, Diplomazia clandestina: (14 giugno 1940-25 luglio 1943) (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1956), p. 55. See also the letter by Lussu to Ferdinando Schiavetti in which he summarised his doubts, and remarked how: ‘We want to punish the [Fascist] regime and save Italy, they… want the exact opposite’. Giannetto, Un’altra Italia, pp. 223–228.
157.
On Sforza and his attempts, see Varsori, Gli alleati.
158.
However, this was also due to the doubts that many anti-fascists had on the project. It was again Lussu who expressed them in the clearest manner, Emilio Lussu, ‘Il problema della Legione’, in Per l’Italia dall’esilio ed. by M. Brigaglia (Cagliari: Edizioni della torre, 1976), pp. 253–254.
159.
Mireno Berrettini, ‘“Set Italy ablaze!” Lo Special Operations Executive e l’Italia, 1940-1943’, Italia contemporanea, 252–253 (2008), p. 413.
160.
The affiliation of Valiani with the SOE has been the subject of speculation for some time, but definitive proof has been found in the archives in London. Mauro Canali, ‘Leo Valiani e Max Salvadori. I servizi segreti e la Resistenza’, Nuova Storia Contemporanea, 3 (2010), p. 29. Bailey, Target: Italy, p. 364. Piffer, Gli alleati, p. 276, note 25.
161.
Massimo Salvadori, The labour and the wounds: a personal chronicle of one man’s fight for freedom (London: Pall mall Press, 1958), p. 145.
162.
Bailey, Target: Italy, p. 186. On his activities, see also McCaffery’s papers, preserved at the Imperial War Museum: IWM, Private papers of J Mccaffery OBE.
163.
Wieviorka, Storia della Resistenza, p. 167.
164.
Bailey, Target: Italy, pp. 189–190.
165.
Wieviorka, Storia della Resistenza, p. 168. Bailey, Target: Italy, pp. 210–211.
166.
Bailey, Target: Italy, pp. 194–195. Stafford, Mission accomplished, pp. 92–93.
167.
Bailey, Target: Italy, pp. 217–218.
168.
Wieviorka, Storia della Resistenza, pp. 167–168.
169.
This operation’s success also rested on the British’s naïveté. Klein presented himself as an Italian Jew and a former member of the army. That a Jew could enjoy such freedom of action after 1938 was ludicrous at best, but nobody in the J section seemed to have noticed this incongruity. Gianluca Barneschi, An Englishman abroad SOE agent Dick Mallaby’s Italian missions, 1943-45 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2019), p. 64.
170.
Bailey, Target: Italy, p. 214.
171.
Barneschi, An Englishman abroad, p. 79. Bailey, Target: Italy, pp. 218–219.
172.
Bailey, Target: Italy, pp. 220–221.
173.
Wieviorka, Storia della Resistenza, p. 167.
174.
Flores, Storia della Resistenza, p. 10.
175.
Bailey, Target: Italy, p. 153.
176.
Bailey, Target: Italy, pp. 64–74. On Picchi and others, see also: Mimmo Franzinelli, Guerra di spie. I servizi segreti fascisti, nazisti e alleati (1939-1943) (Milan: Mondadori, 2004).
177.
I will refer to the killing of pow as ‘murder’ in this book. The hazy claim of the fascist regime that an Italian national was guilty of treason and thus could not enjoy the protection of the International Conventions is a simple excuse. Picchi, and others like him, was a soldier in uniform and therefore enjoyed fully the status of pow. Those who murdered him committed a war crime. On this see W. Thomas Mallison, Sally V. Mallison, ‘The juridical status of irregular combatants under international humanitarian law of armed conflict’, Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, 1 (1977), pp. 39–78.
178.
Bailey, Target: Italy, pp. 143–153.
179.
Berrettini, La Gran Bretagna e l’antifascismo, p. 65.
180.
Stafford, Mission accomplished, p. 93.
181.
On the contacts with these personalities, see Berrettini, La Gran Bretagna e l’antifascismo, pp. 99–129.
182.
Bailey, Target: Italy, pp. 190–191.
183.
HS 6/821-65, Telegram from D/H113 (Cairo) to J section, 28 December 1942.
184.
At the end of 1942, the Anglo-Americans were weary of the possibility that Stalin could decide to sign a separate peace with Germany. See Kenneth Young (ed.), The diaries of Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart (London: Macmillan 1980), p. 220.
185.
Piffer, Gli alleati, p. 34. Matthew Jones, Britain, the United States and the Mediterranean War, 1942-44 (London: Macmillan, 1996), p. 3.
186.
Piffer, Gli alleati, p. 42. See, for example, MacMillan, The blast, pp. 262–263.
187.
Richard Overy, ‘La grande svolta: la guerra in Europe e il 1943’, in ed. by M. Fioravanzo, C. Fumian, 1943, p. 14.
188.
Piffer, Gli alleati, pp. 34–35.
189.
Ivi., pp. 44–45.
190.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione, p. 38. Piffer, Gli alleati, p. 35.
191.
Jones, Britain, the United States, p. 145.
192.
As noted by Richard Overy, there were no ‘soft’ engagements in the Second World War, even the British victory in Ethiopia against the Italians was hard-fought. Overy, ‘La grande svolta’, p. 23.
193.
Piffer, Gli alleati, pp. 41–42.
194.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, p. 60.
195.
Wieviorka, Storia della Resistenza, p. 243.
196.
Churchill supported the idea of detaching Italy from Germany by offering more lenient peace conditions well into 1941. Aga Rossi, L’inganno reciproco, p. 18.
197.
Piffer, Gli alleati, p. 57.
198.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, p. 40.
199.
On this, see: Varsori, Gli alleati.
200.
Aga Rossi, L’inganno reciproco, p. 20.
201.
Varsori, Gli alleati, pp. 143–149; 270–312. On the Sforza affair, see also: Elisabeth Barker, Churchill and Eden at war (London: Macmillan, 1978), pp. 165–167.
202.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, p. 43. And even Churchill grew fond of this idea by 1943: Barker, Churchill and Eden, p. 166.
203.
Piffer, Gli alleati, pp. 41–42. The message sent to Italy in January 1942 by the American Government is revealing as to the level of appeasement that the USA was still willing to concede to Italy. The message is published in: di Nolfo La gabbia infranta, pp. 11–12.
204.
di Nolfo La gabbia infranta, p. 9. Barker, Churchill and Eden, p. 162.
205.
On Roosevelt’s decision to declare the principle of ‘unconditional surrender’, see Robert Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: an intimate history (New York: Harper, 1950), pp. 696–697. Anne Armstrong, Unconditional surrender. The impact of the Casablanca Policy upon World War II (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1961), p. IX. Both leaders claimed that Roosevelt made the declaration almost out of the blue. However, this was not the case: Macmillan, The blast, p. 263.
206.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, pp. 46–47.
207.
Ibid., p. 60.
208.
Macmillan, The blast, p. 262.
209.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, p. 61.
210.
As an introduction on the OSS: Bradley Smith, The shadow warriors: OSS and the origins of the CIA (London: André Deutsch, 1983); Richard Harris Smith, OSS: the secret history of America’s first central intelligence agency (Guilford: Lyons Press, 2005).
211.
Piffer, Gli alleati, pp. 36–37.
212.
Tommaso Piffer, ‘Office of Strategic Services versus Special Operations Executive Competition for the Italian Resistance, 1943-1945’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 4 (2015), p. 43.
213.
Ibid., p. 44. See also T. Piffer, Gli alleati, pp. 50–56.
214.
Piffer ‘Office of Stretegic Services’, pp. 46–48.
215.
Berrettini, La Resistenza italiana, pp. 24–27.
216.
Piffer ‘Office of Stretegic Services’, p. 48.
217.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, pp. 62–63. Confirmed also in Macmillan, The blast, p. 262.
218.
Piffer, Gli alleati, p. 57.
219.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, pp. 63–64.
220.
Macmillan, The blast, p. 354.
221.
Rochat, Le Guerre, pp. 302–304.
222.
On this: Umberto Massola, Marzo 1943 ore dieci (Rome: Editori riuniti, 1963); Paolo Spriano, Storia del Partito comunista italiano (Turin: Einaudi, 1976), vol. 4, pp. 168–196. In English: Behan, The Italian Resistance, pp. 40–44.
223.
On these attempts see: Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, pp. 55–60. Also, see Olivetti ‘mission’: Berrettini, La Gran Bretagna e l’antifascismo, pp. 122–128.
224.
Giorgio Vaccario, ‘Il 25 luglio: la crisi del fascismo’, Italia contemporanea, 72 (1963), pp. 3–4.
225.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, p. 71.
226.
A summary of the discussion is in: Vaccario, ‘Il 25 luglio’, pp. 7–8.
227.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, pp. 231–234.
228.
Frederick William Deakin, ‘Lo special Operations Executive e la lotta partigiana’, in ed. by Francesca Ferratini Tosi, Gaetano Grassi, Massimo Legnani, L’Italia nella seconda guerra mondiale e nella resistenza (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1988), p. 107.
229.
According to Aga Rossi, Badoglio was but a first step of a transitory period that would lead to Grandi taking the PM role. However, the project never took form because of Eisenhower’s opposition to the idea. Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, p. 72. This idea is shared by Vaccario as well: Vaccario, ‘Il 25 luglio’, p. 8.
230.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, pp. 73–74.
231.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, pp. 237–240.
232.
Aga Rossi, L’inganno reciproco, p. 28.
233.
Malcolm Tudor, SOE in Italy 1940-1945 the real story (Newtown: Emilia Publishing, 2011), p. 13.
234.
Bailey, Target: Italy, pp. 262–270.
235.
Initial planning for the mission started in August 1942. However, the mission kept getting delayed, and its initial agent, the Italian ‘Kelly’ understandably crumbled under the psychological pressure of this situation and had a nervous breakdown. Mallaby, his instructor, replaced him. Berrettini, La Gran Bretagna e l’antifascismo, pp. 72–73.
236.
The Olaf/Neck mission documents are preserved at TNA, HS 6/769-772, MALLABY/NECK; HS 6/775, SOE organisation in Italy including OLAF papers.
237.
Barneschi, An Englishman abroad, p. 76.
238.
Berrettini, La Gran Bretagna e l’antifascismo, p. 73.
239.
Bailey, Target: Italy, pp. 305–306.
240.
Barneschi, An Englishman abroad, pp. 100–101.
241.
Bailey, Target: Italy, p. 304.
242.
Barneschi, An Englishman abroad, pp. 105–107; 111.
243.
Ibid., pp. 108–109.
244.
Ibid., pp. 115–119.
245.
Aga Rossi, L’inganno reciproco, pp. 39–40. On this, see also the diary of the Foreign Minister at the time, Raffaele Guariglia: Raffaele Guariglia, Ricordi: 1922-1946 (Naples: Edizioni scientifiche italiane, 1949), p. 647.
246.
Aga Rossi, L’inganno reciproco, p. 37.
247.
Kogan, Italy, p. 31.
248.
Aga Rossi, L’inganno reciproco, p. 35.
249.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, p. 87.
250.
Aga Rossi, L’inganno reciproco, p. 35.
251.
Macmillan, The blast, p. 372.
252.
Aga Rossi, L’inganno reciproco, pp. 37–38.
253.
The full text of the ‘short’ armistice has been published in: ‘United Nations: Italian Military Armistice’, The American Journal of International Law, 1 (1946), pp. 1–21, here p. 2.
254.
Delzell, Mussolini’s enemies, pp. 241–242.
255.
Aga Rossi, L’inganno reciproco, p. 38.
256.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, p. 95.
257.
Ibid., p. 85.
258.
Aga Rossi, L’inganno reciproco, p. 41. Also in their propaganda: Ester Lo Biundo, London calling Italy La propaganda di Radio Londra nel 1943 (Milan: Edizioni Unicopli), p. 132.
259.
Barneschi, An Englishman abroad, pp. 135–136.
260.
Bailey, Target: Italy, pp. 311–312.
261.
Barneschi, An Englishman abroad, pp. 153–156. According to Castellano, Mallaby needed ‘some convincing’. Giuseppe Castellano, Come firmai l’armistizio di Cassibile (Milan: Mondandori, 1945), p. 123.
262.
On the name of the station, probably improvised by Roseberry, see: Bailey, Target: Italy, p. 311; Barneschi, An Englishman abroad, p. 135.
263.
According to Castellano, this name was chosen because when Mallaby was captured he was found in possession of large number of quartz crystals for his radio kit. Castellano, come firmai.
264.
Barneschi, An Englishman abroad, p. 148. And caused the ire of its competitors: Ibid., p. 145.
265.
Aga Rossi, L’inganno reciproco, p. 34.
266.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, p. 97. Castellano, come firmai, pp. 219–223.
267.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, pp. 97–99.
268.
TNA, WO 214/36, War Office: Earl Alexander of Tunis, Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean Theatre: Papers. Special subjects.
269.
Bailey, Target: Italy, p. 320.
270.
TNA, WO 214/36, War Office: Earl Alexander of Tunis, Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean Theatre: Papers. Special subjects.
271.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, p. 112. The underestimation of the German reaction was a key component of the Italian and the Allies’ failures.
272.
Castellano, come firmai, pp. 172–173.
273.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, pp. 102–103. As rightfully pointed out by Aga Rossi, reconstructing these events is difficult, as those involved have a vested interest in presenting their actions positively. Therefore, contrasting accounts are common.
274.
Moreover, Roatta wrongly believed that the Allies would land with 15 divisions, as requested by Badoglio. It is unclear who misguided him. See: Mario Roatta, Otto milioni di baionette: l’esercito italiano in guerra dal 1940 al 1944 (Milan: Mondadori, 1946), pp. 301–302.
275.
Ibid., pp. 104–105.
276.
Ibid., pp. 106–107.
277.
Bailey, Target: Italy, p. 320.
278.
Ibid., p. 321.
279.
A. Chandler (ed.), The papers of Dwight David Eisenhower: the war years (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1970), vol. 3, p. 1402.
280.
It must be noted that this final message for the Italian troops had been added to Badoglio’s communiqué by the Allies themselves, Barneschi, An Englishman abroad, pp. 179–180.
281.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, pp. 116–118.
282.
Ibid., pp. 118–119.
283.
Barneschi, An Englishman abroad, p. 184.
284.
Peli, La resistenza, pp. 16–17.
285.
Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, pp. 135–137.
286.
Gabriele Hammermann, ‘Le trattative per il risarcimento degli internati militari italiani’, Italia contemporanea, 249 (2007), p. 542.
287.
Often, these massacres gave birth to posthumous mythology. The most prominent case is undoubtedly Cefalonia. See: Elena Aga Rossi, Cefalonia: la resistenza, l’eccidio, il mito (Bologna: il Mulino, 2016). However, some managed to escape the Germans and often joined the local Resistance. This was the case in mainland Greece: Ioannis Nioutsikos, ‘From occupiers to brothers-in-arms Italian fighters in the ranks of the Greek People’s Liberation Army’, in ed. by M. M. Aterrano and K. Varley, A Fascist decade of war 1935-1945 in international perspective (New York: Routledge, 2020), pp. 107–118 (pp. 111–115).
288.
E. Aga Rossi, Una nazione allo sbando, pp. 122–135.
289.
On the RSI see Luigi Ganapini, La repubblica delle camicie nere (Milan: Garzanti, 1999). William Deakin, Brutal friendship: Mussolini, Hitler and the fall of Italian Fascism (London: Phoenix, 2000).
290.
Claudio Pavone, Una guerra civile Saggio storico sulla moralità della Resistenza (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2006), pp. 23–42. On how to interpret the 8 September the opinions still diverge. See the synthesis by Smuraglia: Carlo Smuraglia, ‘8 settembre: fine della Patria o inizio del riscatto?’, in Fioravanzo, 1943, pp. 175–187.
291.
Peli, La resistenza, pp. 6–8.
292.
Ibid., pp. 27–35.
293.
The first bands were too large and static to withstand the German counterattacks. Ibid., p. 25.
294.
For an overview of the CLNAI: Franco Catalano, Storia del CLNAI (Bari: Laterza, 1956).
295.
S. Peli, La resistenza, pp. 36–41.
296.
Roughly 50% of the bands were tied to the PCI, while 20% to the Pd’A. Of course, a precise estimate of the political affiliation of each partisan is impossible. Behan, The Italian Resistance, p. 49.
297.
Peli, La resistenza, pp. 42–44.
298.
De Luna, Storia del Partito d’Azione, pp. 100–101.
299.
Behan, The Italian Resistance, pp. 48; 51.
300.
Peli, La resistenza, p. 45.
301.
Behan, The Italian Resistance, pp. 32–39.
302.
John M. Stevens and others, ‘L’Inghilterra e la Resistenza italiana’, Il Movimento di Liberazione in Italia, 80 (1965), 75–100 (p. 80). Piffer, ‘Office of Strategic Services’, p. 48.
303.
Berettini, La Resistenza, pp. 24–25.
304.
Woods, ‘soe in Italy’, pp. 97–99.
305.
See Roger Absalom, A strange alliance: aspects of escape and survival in Italy, 1943-45 (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1991).
306.
Stafford, Mission, pp. 91–97.
307.
Stafford, Mission, pp. 96–97.

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Cacciatore, N. (2023). Where It All Began. In: Italian Partisans and British Forces in the Second World War. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28682-7_2

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