tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14888780547984137682024-03-13T15:05:08.946-07:00The Italian MonarchistA collection of pages from The Mad Monarchist focused on monarchy in Italy.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.comBlogger348125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-82860864007635594492017-09-27T12:36:00.000-07:002017-09-27T12:36:18.584-07:00The Second War of Italian Independence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Italian peninsula, after so many centuries of division and foreign rule since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, would ultimately fight three wars for independence but of these three, none would be so consequential as the second. The first had seen the hope of the existing Italian princely states, Papal, Bourbon and even Habsburg, come together under the leadership of the House of Savoy against the Austrians with the possibility of confederation or federal unity for Italy only to be defeated by the Austrian army of the unflappable Graf von Radestky. King Carlo Alberto of Piedmont-Sardinia, after his defeat, abdicated in favor of his son King Vittorio Emanuele II a monarch who was originally interested only in the unification of northern Italy and that mostly so as to prevent it from occurring under the leadership of the radical republicans. However, with cooperation from the other Italian states now out of the question, he knew he would have to look for an ally against the Austrian Empire. Such an ally was to be found in the person of Emperor Napoleon III of the French.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vittorio Emanuele II, Napoleon III, Franz Joseph</td></tr>
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One benefit the Savoy monarchy had was that the radical republicans had been, in 1848 and after, thoroughly discredited among Italian nationalists. They had failed and in Austria, the Papal States and Naples, reactionary forces had revived in a harsh way. This meant that the Savoy, careful to keep on the side of the nationalist spirit, was looked to for leadership while the republican crowd of Mazzini was discredited. Aside from the King, the most important player on the Savoyard side was his prime minister Count Camillo di Cavour. For Cavour, nationalism was a means to an end rather than an end in itself. His goals were for the financial independence of Turin from British banks, the furthering of industrialization and economic expansion. Ties with British banks were cut, new ties with French banks were established, railroad construction exploded and trade increased. The army was improved as well and in 1855 the Piedmontese participated in the Crimean War as a way of gaining British and French support against Austria. The result was a Savoyard army that was better organized, more easily mobilized, with a better staff system and with greater combat experience.<br />
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Obtaining an alliance with France, however, proved rather difficult. The French were willing but Napoleon III extracted a heavy price for his support which included the Savoy ceding their own heartland, the Duchy of Savoy as well as the County of Nice to France. The King also had to give his daughter, the petite Princess Clothilde, to the hulking Prince Jerome Bonaparte, the French Emperor’s cousin. In exchange, France would support the end of Austrian rule over Lombardy and Venice and the creation of an independent Kingdom of Italy on the northern half of the peninsula. This was, however, a defensive alliance and would only take effect if Austria attacked Piedmont. In Naples, the Kingdom of the Two-Sicilies did not figure into the issue. While still possessing a powerful army, it was geared entirely toward suppressing the local population, which had proven very prone to rebellion, and not to defending against foreign invasion. An alliance was proposed between Turin and Naples but King Francesco II of the Two-Sicilies had rejected it out of hand. They would play no part in the ensuing conflict.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bersaglieri officer, 1850's</td></tr>
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The French, more so than the Piedmontese, also took care to ensure that there would be no unwelcome intervention on the part of the Russians. This was not a problem as the Russians were feeling in no way sympathetic to the Austrians. Perhaps even more than the powers that fought against them, the Russians blamed Austria for their defeat in the Crimean War and were particularly bitter given that they had aided the Habsburgs during their time of greatest peril in the Revolutions of 1848. They also did not tend to view Austrian rule over northern Italy as legitimate anyway, going all the way back to the French Revolutionary Wars, Russia’s Czar Paul had been very disappointed by the British and Austrians keeping territory they took from the French rather than restoring it to its previous rulers, be it Malta or Venice. The British could also be counted on to remain on the sidelines given that they had good relations with France (for a change) and had been quite offended by the harshness of Austrian rule in Lombardy-Venetia. Paris and Turin were convinced that they could handle Austria between them and all that was necessary was for Austria to fire the first shot.<br />
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The Austrian Empire had come very near to total collapse in the Revolutions of 1848 but, thanks to the leadership of their new, young Emperor Franz Joseph and the victories of Graf Radetzky, they had weathered the storm and the Austrian Imperial Army seemed all the more robust and formidable. Austria did become a constitutional monarchy but it was a constitution that the Emperor accepted on his own terms and he pursued a policy since labeled “neo-absolutism”. There were problems though due to rivalries in the military leadership and a financial crisis which greatly effected military readiness. The politicians in Vienna always seemed prepared to sacrifice spending on the army before anything else and this meant that Austria could not maintain so large an army, or armies, on the Italian peninsula and, in the event of major trouble there, would have to divert forces from elsewhere in the empire if they were to maintain an overwhelming superiority. The Austrian Empire had also simply become overstretched. Aside from their own frontiers to the south and east, garrisons to keep troublesome populations in line within the empire, the Austrians had also been called upon to safeguard the Papal States and the Spanish Bourbons in Naples as well as their own Italian possessions. It was simply too much, particularly with a less than robust economy. The desire of Emperor Franz Joseph to reassert Austrian leadership in Germany also meant that neither Berlin or Moscow were, at the time, looking too favorable toward Vienna.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Garibaldi Meets the King</td></tr>
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The French and Piedmontese, on the other hand, were well prepared with a joint-plan for military cooperation in the event of war and the Piedmontese economy was booming. It was the perfect time for a war but it could only happen if Austria made the first aggressive move. Count Cavour, therefore, entered into a number of schemes to encourage trouble in the central duchies such as Tuscany and Modena, nominally independent but ruled by junior members of the House of Habsburg. The famous nationalist revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi was also recruited to lead volunteers in the cause of Italian independence under the Savoy banner. This caused nearly 20,000 Italians to rush to Turin to volunteer, fired by nationalist zeal, so many that Cavour had to suspend his plan before things went off prematurely. The point was for the trouble in the duchies to draw Austrian strength away from Lombardy-Venetia and the government in Turin knew perfectly well that the government in Vienna would blame them for any Italian nationalist unrest and thus the Austrians would be encouraged to attack Piedmont-Sardinia.<br />
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King Vittorio Emanuele II also ordered the mobilization of his army, at least gradually, which was sure to attract Austrian attention. The Austrians were certainly alarmed but also unsure how to respond. The Piedmontese had not actually made any aggressive move and a full mobilization of the Austrian Imperial Army was a costly exercise Vienna would wish to avoid if not strictly necessary. The Italians also had to be fully prepared before the war started given that, as per the agreement, they would be responsible for both paying for the French intervention on their behalf and keeping both armies supplied during the war, which would be no small task. The French also began moving their forces into position which alarmed the Austrians all the more. In April, 1859, however, everything almost came to ruin when the British government proposed an international congress to deal with the Italian situation. Thankfully, France and Italy were rescued by their Austrian adversary. Emperor Franz Joseph had sought out the retired elder statesman, Prince Klemens von Metternich, who immediately understood that the French and Italians were trying to provoke Austria into a war and he advised the Emperor that, whatever he did, do NOT send an ultimatum to Turin. The young Kaiser sheepishly had to admit that he had already sent one out.<br />
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The ultimatum ordered the King to demobilize his forces or face war and this message was immediately forwarded to Paris. The French and Italians had their threat and could take action in a war of self-defense against Austrian aggression. Lest anyone think that Emperor Francis Joseph was being purely hot-headed in this blunder, he had expected such a conflict to rally the German states in support of Austria. Unfortunately for him, they did not. The Prussians were not sympathetic, seeing the Austrians as rivals with a bizarre obsession with non-Germans and the other states often did not see Austria as a “team player”, partly also because they were necessarily focused on their rebellious non-German territories. They also saw no reason for Austria not to accept the proposal for a congress rather than giving the Italians exactly what they wanted, which was a war. Emperor Francis Joseph, however, feared that any such congress just might say what many Italian nationalists had been saying for ages; leave Italy to the Italians and everyone mind their own business. Austria simply had no real friends at this point and so would have to stand alone. Emperor Francis Joseph, for good or ill, was prepared to and after the Italians did not respond to his ultimatum, issued the declaration of war on April 29, 1859.<br />
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Feldzeugmeister Franz Graf Gyulai, commander of the Austrian Second Army in Lombardy, believed that his forces would have at least two weeks to crush the Italians before the French could intervene. He had on hand some 110,235 soldiers as well as another 59,000 deployed throughout Lombardy-Venetia to suppress any popular uprisings. The Italians could field only 77,348 men to meet them, however, they were very efficient and led by men who had learned from the mistakes of 1848. The Franco-Italian leadership had also carefully worked out the train schedules and necessary stockpiles of supplies to move the French into northern Italy as quickly as possible. The Austrians had previously assumed the French were not prepared to move because they had not been stockpiling supplies. However, this was because it had been left to the Italians to handle the logistics and, in the end, the French army was transported quickly with ample stores by the very efficient Piedmontese rail network.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Generale La Marmora</td></tr>
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Unfortunately for the Austrians, Gyulai was no Graf Radetzky and no one knew this better than Gyulai himself who was more of a desk general. He had asked to be reassigned but this was refused. With the outbreak of war, his plan was to crush the Italians with his superior numbers and by then be able to take up a good position from which to deal with the French. He would march directly on the Piedmontese capital at Turin. Of course, this is exactly what the Italians expected him to do and the Piedmontese army was deployed to block any such advance and hold up the Austrians until the French arrived at which point they would work together to drive the enemy from Italian soil. The Italian commander, General Alfonso La Marmora was under no apprehension that this would be easy but he was aided by the extensive spy network set up by Lt. Colonel Giuseppe Govone, his chief of military intelligence, who had a constant flow of information on the movements of the Austrian army. La Marmora deployed his five infantry and one cavalry divisions to be in a position to block the advance on Turin and to be able to link up with the five French Corps at their places of deployment which, when they arrived, would be set up to pin down the Austrians at the Dora Baltea line and then, with three of the French Corps coming from Genoa to Alessandria, to threaten the Austrian flank.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Austrian Imperial Army</td></tr>
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Austrian naval strength was negligible, being about as large as the Piedmontese navy, far outmatched by the French fleet which was the second-largest in the world. In any event, the commander of the Austrian navy, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, had prepared only for the defense of the Adriatic and had no plans for offensive operations (and keeping in mind most of the sailors in the Austrian navy were Italians). As such, by rail and by sea the French were able to move their forces into Italy rapidly and freely. The Austrian army, likewise, inexplicably remained in place for days while their enemies massed against them. Gyulai claimed that Vienna had ordered him to wait while in Vienna they blamed Gyulai for not seizing the initiative. It is difficult to know who was in the right but it does seem that, having blundered into giving the Italians the war they wanted, Emperor Franz Joseph hoped, at the last minute, to be able to negotiate a solution or for the German states to rally in support of Austria. Of course, neither would be the case nor were such hopes frankly realistic. By May 1, with French deployments proceeding as scheduled, General La Marmora remarked to the commander of the Third Division at Novi, General Giovanni Durando (commander of the Papal Army in the First War) that the Austrian advance was “molto lentamente” (very slow).<br />
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The Austrians had their spies too and they reported to Gyulai on the movements of the French army which seems to have intimidated him as they tended to exaggerate French strength. He was unsure of how to deploy his own forces for fear of where they would be when the French reached their own destinations. As it turned out, it was ten days from the time of the ultimatum until Gyulai moved, very slowly, toward Vercelli. King Vittorio Emanuele II, who was in his element on such occasions, wanted to stick to the original plan but the French convinced him to redeploy Franco-Italian forces away from Turin. He did so and, as it happened, a determined Austrian advance would have found little more than one Piedmontese cavalry division blocking their way if they had driven on for the capital but the Austrians were convinced that the French were planning to flank them from the south and so began to pull back. The danger to Turin dissolved faster than it had appeared.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lt. General Garibaldi</td></tr>
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By May 12 the Emperor Napoleon III had arrived in Genoa. Armed with some thoughtful advice from retired General Baron Antoine-Henri Jomini (a veteran of his famous uncle’s army), Napoleon met with King Vittorio Emanuele II at Alessandria to work out their offensive against the Austrians. It would be too much to say the Franco-Italian forces took the initiative from the Austrians as the Austrians never seemed to have held it in the first place but Napoleon III and Vittorio Emanuele II were certainly willing to seize it where it lay. They did, however, pass up an opportunity to strike the Austrians while Gyulai was redeploying his forces but an overall strategy was still being well executed. The famous Giuseppe Garibaldi, given rank as a Lt. General in the Piedmontese army after pledging allegiance to “Vittorio Emanuele and Italy”, was to harass the Austrian right, brushing the Alps. He had originally intended to lead the effort to foment unrest in the central duchies but this job was instead given to Prince Jerome Bonaparte and his French troops, which was deemed preferable to the authorities in Turin as Garibaldi, a lifelong republican and former Mazzinian, was still not regarded as being sufficiently loyal to the Savoy monarchy to be absolutely trusted. Garibaldi in the north and Prince Jerome in the south would threaten the Austrian position from the left and right, they would be intimidating but not part of the major action.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Battle of Montebello</td></tr>
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As the French First Corps moved on Voghera, the Austrians thought this the first move in an effort to get around behind them and the Austrian IX Corps under Field Marshal Lieutenant Karl Urban was deployed to stop them. The result was the first engagement of the war that was more than a skirmish, the Battle of Montebello on May 20 between the lead French division of General Elie Frédéric Forey and elements of the Austrian V Corps under General Philipp Graf von Stadion which had been sent in to support Urban. Three Italian cavalry regiments, the Aosta, Novara and Montferrato, also participated. Despite being considerably outnumbered (3 to 1), Forey fought an aggressive action that made Graf Stadion believe that the French had more support behind them, prompting him to retreat and give the victory to the Franco-Italian forces under Forey. This sharp rebuke made Gyulai all the more reluctant to take risks but as he had initiated the action, it also made Napoleon III nervous that the Austrians might be trying to take back the initiative. As it was, Gyulai had been concerned about a move south and his forces had met the enemy so he continued to believe he was on the right track and all forces were shifted toward the south.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Garibaldi occupying Varese</td></tr>
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When an armed reconnaissance by General Enrico Cialdini, commander of the Piedmontese fourth division, found minimal Austrian resistance at Vercelli the following day, the French Emperor and Italian King could see that Gyulai was shifting away from the north, giving them an opportunity to come at the Austrians from that direction. Garibaldi was also proving effective at keeping the Austrians off-balance. On May 26 at the Battle of Varese, his Cacciatori delle Alpi routed the Austrians, forcing them to keep more troops deployed in the north as the aggression of the Italians again caused the Austrians to overestimate their strength. The next day Garibaldi and his men defeated another Austrian contingent at the Battle of San Fermo, forcing the Austrians to withdraw from Como.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">King Vittorio Emanuele II leads the Zouaves at Palestro</td></tr>
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At the same time, while the largely French force was engaged at Montebello, King Vittorio Emanuele II led Cialdini’s division with the addition of some French Zouaves against a smaller contingent of Austrians under General Friedrich Zobel at the Battle of Palestro. The Austrians rushed in reinforcements so that, in the aftermath, they held the numerical advantage yet the threat of French troops on the Sesia caused him to retreat for fear of being cut off. By May 30 the Franco-Italian forces had secured a bridgehead across the Sesia. With efforts to retake Palestro having failed and with Garibaldi keeping control of the northern front in spite of being outnumbered nearly 4 to 1, Gyulai decided that the threat to Milan was too great and he ordered a retreat across the Ticino to concentrate his forces at Mortara. However, the rapid movements of the Franco-Italian armies forced him to abandon that plan. He was correct that they were moving against Milan, the capital of Lombardy, but he did not know what approach they would take. He was coming under intense pressure and no small amount of criticism, particularly after the arrival of Field Marshal Heinrich von Hess with stern orders from the Emperor (who had reached Verona) to defend the frontier and not retreat to the Quadrilateral fortress complex.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Battle of Magenta</td></tr>
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More Austrian reinforcements arrived and Gyulai was finally convinced that the enemy was not trying to maneuver around behind him after all. There was also confusion as Hess outranked Gyulai, yet seemed to be leaving things to him. All of this caused a degree of stagnation on the Austrian side as one commander would fail to do something because he assumed the other commander would do it. Nonetheless, the Austrians did hold a strong defensive position around Magenta after destroying the bridges over the Ticino. Gyulai had about 68,000 men in the area when the Battle of Magenta commenced on June 4. With a little over 50,000 French troops plus 12,000 Italians under General Manfredo Fanti, Napoleon III planned an assault on the front and flank of the Austrian army. The two sides were thus evenly matched as long as the Austrians concentrated on the points of attack and did not remain spread out. Both sides made mistakes and many units blundered into each other, nonetheless, the Austrians took far heavier losses and finally retreated, giving the victory to the French. Napoleon III congratulated Marshal MacMahon with a peerage as Duke of Magenta for this success.<br />
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This latest defeat was the last straw for Emperor Franz Joseph who had seen his forces do nothing but retreat, be outmaneuvered and defeated often by forces inferior to their own. He dismissed Gyulai and took command of the Austrian Imperial Army himself. With the Quadrilateral fortress cities secure but the enemy in command of the surrounding countryside, his position was similar to that of Graf Radetzky in 1848. However, “Papa Radetzky” was a veteran, unflappable commander and Emperor Franz Joseph was not. Determined to take the offensive and crush the enemy, he abandoned his strong position and moved out on June 23 to take on the Franco-Italian armies. The result was the bloody Battle of Solferino the following day. Once again both sides were about evenly matched with roughly 130,000 soldiers each.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emperor Napoleon III at the Battle of Solferino</td></tr>
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Each army was basically trying to attack the other and so units ran headlong into combat, often not as they intended. It was a huge brawl that involved a number of separate actions and coordination was difficult. The Austrian position was also undermined on distant fronts by uprisings breaking out in conjunction with Prince Jerome’s arrival in central Italy. Earlier, toward the end of May, his forces entered Florence and soon dispatched units to Parma and Modena. At Solferino, most of the fighting centered around two engagements, one around Solferino itself where the French under Forey pushed the Austrians back into the town itself at which point house-to-house fighting ensued. Despite Austrian reinforcements arriving, French attacks soon succeeded in nearly surrounding the town. Fighting south of town was disconnected from the main engagement and involved a number of cavalry units. There, the French attacks were repulsed by the Austrians but this had no effect on the imperiled Austrian position in town. The fighting was fierce and casualties were heavy, particularly for the Austrians.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">King Vittorio Emanuele II at San Martino</td></tr>
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The other major action was the battles at San Martino and Madonna della Scoperta which largely involved the Italian forces. The Austrians had a fairly good defensive position and the Italians attacked immediately, hoping to dislodge them before they could strengthen their lines. However, this meant that the Italians attacked piecemeal as they came up rather than being able to throw their entire force at the Austrian position. Field Marshal Lieutenant Ludwig Benedek, considered the best Austrian corps commander by many, had been ordered to attack the French flank and had not been expecting to run into the Italians. However, he was a veteran of this region and kept his cool, responding rapidly to the changing situation. Repeatedly, Italian discipline and determination carried them forward to the cusp of success only to have Benedek adeptly move his men and guns to the imperiled area and throw the Italians back with devastating barrages. However, when word came that the main Austrian army had been beaten at Solferino, he had no choice but to conduct a fighting withdrawal as the Italian attacks continued. With the French having taken Solferino, the Italian seizure of San Martino marked the end of the massive and bloody battle.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Napoleon III & Franz Joseph make their peace</td></tr>
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Stunned by the ferocity and chaos of the engagement, Emperor Franz Joseph ordered his forces to fall back to the security of the Quadrilateral fortresses. Losses had been heavy for both sides. The Italians had lost about 5,000 men, the French more than 10,000 and the Austrians about 22,000 in the vicious struggle. Both the French and Austrian emperors were shaken by the extreme loss of life. The carnage would later lead one Swiss observer of the engagement to found the International Red Cross in 1863. Operations continued for a time but Napoleon III and Franz Joseph both agreed that the war should come to an end. Franz Joseph feared that a continuation of the so far disastrous conflict could pose an existential threat to the Austrian Empire itself if other areas rose in rebellion. Napoleon also feared that if Austria seemed near to collapse the other German states might get involved and threaten France itself. Disregarding his earlier promises to the Italians, Napoleon III agreed to make peace with Emperor Franz Joseph at Villafranca on July 8.<br />
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The result of this was that Austria gave up Lombardy to the House of Savoy but retained control of Venetia. It was not the total victory that Italian nationalists had wanted and many were bitter about the result. The French had gained Savoy and Nice but had backed out before the total liberation of northern Italy had been achieved. Many, given how close Austria had come to collapse in 1848, thought they would not put up so strong a fight. However, despite being weakened by budget cuts, the Austrian military was much more effective than Austrian diplomacy had been. Things would have gone very differently if the Austrians had not managed to offend the Russians, Prussians, the minor German states and the French all at the same time. Not only did this isolate Austria but it also gave the Prussians room to further gain prestige among the German states, standing as the defenders of German rights while Austria was focused on keeping control of Italians, Slavs and Magyars.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The landing at Marsala</td></tr>
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A particular example of this was in 1857 when royalists in the Principality of Neuchâtel had risen in revolt. They favored the King of Prussia for their prince rather than being a part of Switzerland and the German states saw this as an opportunity to strengthen the German Confederation. Emperor Franz Joseph, president of the Confederation as the Head of the House of Habsburg, had, however, refused to give their cause imperial support. Prussia was ultimately forced to back down and many in the German Confederation wondered why they should take any risk to support the Austrian rule over unwilling Italians two years later when the Austrians had been unwilling to support pro-German royalists who wanted to be ruled by a German monarch. It was illustrative of how Austrian interests diverged from those of the rest of the German-speaking people. There were also those in Berlin who realized the implications that Italian independence would have better than the French did. Napoleon expected to gain a subservient northern Italian buffer state but, as Modena, Tuscany, Parma and after Garibaldi’s shockingly successful invasion of the south, all came to be part of the Kingdom of Italy, France instead helped create a rival in the Mediterranean.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The King and Napoleon enter liberated Milan</td></tr>
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The result of all of this was that Austria lost Lombardy, which joined with Piedmont-Sardinia, Tuscany, Parma and Modena to form the Kingdom of Italy, soon joined by the south and the Papal States outside of Rome. Austria remained friendless and increasingly overshadowed by Prussia and the French were not seen by the Italians as stalwart allies but as rather fair-weather friends who likewise kept troops in Rome. The French had gained battlefield laurels but would also find themselves without friends going forward just as the Austrians had because of their determination to maintain some level of control over Italy, continuing a cycle which had been going on for many, many centuries and which would continue until the fall of Napoleon himself in 1870. Italy had gained much from the Second War for Independence but not so much as to not require a third war. The Austrian loss did not seem too significant but it actually was. In trying to maintain control of Italy, Austria would ultimately lose their place in Italy and their place at the had of Germany to the Kingdom of Prussia. It would be no coincidence then that the Third War of Italian Independence would see Italy and Prussia on the same side.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-42960661515480024652017-07-08T04:24:00.002-07:002017-07-08T04:39:06.855-07:00King Carlo Emanuele III<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Only the second king of the House of Savoy, Carlo Emanuele III was undoubtedly one of the most ambitious and military-minded of the family. That he was to prove an astute and formidable monarch is all the more noteworthy inasmuch as he was not raised with the expectation of taking on such a responsibility and had been neither very well liked or well prepared by his father. Carlo Emanuele di Savoia was the second son of King Vittorio Amedeo II by his wife Queen Anne Marie d’Orleans. He was born in Turin on April 27, 1701, well before his father was King of Sardinia and was thus only Duke of Savoy. He was nicknamed “Carlino” as a boy for being rather frail and not the strapping, handsome son all fathers wish for. In time, however, his people would give him a more praiseworthy nickname; “the Hardworking” king. As his father became involved in the War of the Spanish Succession and because of the long military tradition of the family, young Carlo Emanuele was given a more thorough education on the subject of warfare though other subjects were neglected.<br />
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In 1713 his father became King of Sicily as part of the peace following the War of Spanish Succession but this aroused the jealousy and opposition of other powers so that the first reign of the Savoy over Sicily would be a relatively short one. At the same time tragedy struck the family when Carlo Emanuele’s older brother, Prince Vittorio Amedeo of Piedmont, died from smallpox at the age of only fifteen. His father had adored and doted on the boy, even making him regent during his year long absence from 1713-14 despite his young age. It was a devastating blow for the King and also thrust Prince Carlo Emanuele, Duke of Aosta, into the position of heir to the throne. The throne he would be heir to soon changed though as in 1720 his father finally came to an agreement to appease the other crowned heads of Europe by trading the Kingdom of Sicily for the Kingdom of Sardinia. In previous times, this might have aroused some opposition on the part of the German Emperor as there were supposed to be no other kings in the empire besides himself, however, the Hohenzollern rulers of Prussia had already set a precedent for princes within the empire to be kings of territories outside the empire.<br />
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Nonetheless, Vittorio Amedeo II would not rule for long as his life was being overtaken by grief and sadness. His eldest daughter (mother of King Louis XV of France) died in 1712, his second daughter did not survive childhood, his third daughter (wife of King Felipe V of Spain) died in 1714 and his eldest son died in 1715. In 1728 his grief-stricken wife Queen Anne Marie also passed away from heart failure. Trying to flee from his depression, in August of 1730 the King secretly married an old girlfriend with special permission from Pope Clement XII. The following month they made their marriage public and shortly thereafter the King announced his abdication, signing over his powers to his son on September 3, 1730 who then became King Carlo Emanuele III. The whole affair over the new wife and the abdication caused quite a scandal and King Carlo Emanuele III, who had never been his father’s favorite, was less than pleased with having to deal with it. He did his best to keep the former monarch out of sight and out of mind.<br />
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After so much gloom and grief, King Carlo Emanuele III tried to restore a more festive atmosphere to his court and Piedmont as a whole. However, his father was soon giving him trouble as, after recovering from a stroke, he tried to reassert himself and possibly retake the throne. This was potentially disastrous as not only had the whole abdication fiasco made Vittorio Amedeo II rather unpopular but father and son had never been on very good terms. For one thing, Carlo Emanuele had never been as good as his older brother as far as his father was concerned, he was not as strong, not as attractive, he did not measure up in the eyes of his father in any way. The new King had also had plenty of heartaches of his own. His father had arranged both of his marriages, the first to a German countess who died in childbirth at only 19 and the second to the Hessian Princess Polyxena with whom he had a successful marriage and six children. However, their domestic life was upset by the King who decided that his wife was too distracting and took up too much of his son’s time so he ordered them to sleep in separate beds.<br />
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Although she had only a few more years to live herself, Queen Polyxena was adamant that her husband be firm in dealing with his father. King Carlo Emanuele III gained the support of the Crown Council and managed to have his father arrested and confined to Rivoli castle and probably just in the nick of time as he had been rumored to be plotting an invasion Lombardy with the aim of conquering Milan, which would surely have sparked a war. In any event, that crisis was averted, his father had been dealt with and would trouble him no more and King Carlo Emanuele III could get on with the business of ruling his country. He did not have long to wait before an actual war broke out, once again over a disputed royal succession. The monarchy in dispute was that of Poland with France, Spain and Parma (so the Bourbon family basically) supporting Stanislas I and Russia, Austria, Prussia and Saxony supporting Augustus III. Rather than backing the empire, King Carlo Emanuele III joined the French and quickly led a very successful invasion of Lombardy, conquering Milan with little difficulty.<br />
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Unfortunately, the Spanish demanded Milan and Mantua as their reward for joining the coalition and the last thing King Carlo Emanuele wanted was for northern Italy to fall back under Spanish control again. He had ambitions to unite Italy which, though a tall order, he famously said the Savoy could accomplish the same way one eats an artichoke; one layer at a time. In any event, while the diplomats argued, King Carlo Emanuele III proved himself a skillful military leader as the commander of the combined Franco-Spanish-Italian forces in Italy. However, suspecting that the French would take away his gains and hand them over to Spain, he purposely botched the campaign to take Mantua. He did, however, prove himself in command of Franco-Piedmontese forces in victories at the Battle of Crocetta and the Battle of Guastalla. When France and Austria finally came to terms, as expected, the Piedmontese were obliged to withdraw from Lombardy rather than retain their conquests, however, King Carlo Emanuele III did gain Langhe, Tortona and Novara in the final settlement. In the end, the House of Bourbon gained territory but the candidate preferred by Russia, Austria and Prussia, Augustus III, became King of Poland (though he would not have a happy time of it).<br />
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This war over the Polish throne had a few significant results for the Savoy monarchy. First, it had secured the reputation of King Carlo Emanuele III as a capable military leader with his campaign which secured several battlefield victories and showed his skill at maneuver in preventing the union of the armies from Austria and Naples. Secondly, it showed that the hope for greater gains to be had by allying with the French were not to be taken for granted. It caused no small amount of frustration in Turin that so much territory which the Piedmontese had fought for and won would be so quickly handed over to another power. Another conflict was soon on the horizon and King Carlo Emanuele III would certainly not be taking the side of the French again. That conflict, the War of Austrian Succession, was the next great crisis of his reign.<br />
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The War of Austrian Succession (known as King George’s War in America) was basically an effort by the French and the Prussians to prevent the Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary Maria Theresa from inheriting the Habsburg monarchy. Her father had spent all but his last thaler trying to buy the support of the crowned heads of Europe to ensure a peaceful succession for his daughter but, as soon as he was gone, most opposed her anyway. King Carlo Emanuele III threw his support behind Empress Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs. He brought his own skills and a small but proficient army, however, his small state could not sustain the effort it would take to fight what was effectively a world war. However, the British, who also backed the Austrians as a way of opposing the power of the Bourbon French and Spanish, provided economic support for the House of Savoy, effectively funding their war effort. The war began in 1740 when King Frederick the Great of Prussia invaded Silesia, however Piedmont-Sardinia was not immediately involved.<br />
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In 1741 the Spanish and their Neapolitan proxies made a fast and aggressive invasion north with the aim, once again, of taking control of Milan and northern Italy for Spain. Empress Maria Theresa sent her people to talk to King Carlo Emanuele III’s people and work out an alliance. 1742 saw these negotiations concluded and combat begin, though the Habsburg-Savoy alliance was directed at Spain rather than France. At first, the Austrians did well enough and seemed to need no help, however, by early 1743 the Spanish got the better of them. More troops were rushed in from Germany and the Spanish retreated but the scare was enough to involve the French were drawn into a frustrating conflict in the Alps against the Piedmontese troops of the House of Savoy. 1744 promised to be decisive with a major Franco-Spanish invasion planned for the conquest of northern Italy. The French, Spanish and Neapolitan troops, led by the King of Naples who would later be King Carlos III of Spain, won the Battle of Nemi (or First Battle of Velletri) and then a second by thwarting an Austrian raid that intended to capture the future Spanish monarch.<br />
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After this, the Austrians wrote off Naples and focused on supporting their Savoy ally in the north against the French forces under the Prince of Conti. King Carlo Emanuele III fought the French as best he could but, though he suffered several defeats, still managed to prevent the French and Spanish forces from uniting against him in battles throughout the summer of 1744. The successful defense of Cuneo was critical to that. The following year, the Republic of Genoa joined the Bourbon side and declared war on Piedmont-Sardinia. The French launched a renewed offensive in 1745 with a combined force of 80,000 men which managed to draw the Austrians away and then pounce upon the small, isolated Piedmontese army at the Battle of Bassignano on September 27, 1745. However, by that time, Prussia had made peace with Austria and more Austrian troops could be committed to Italy. The French and Spanish still fought ferociously and took a huge toll on the Austrians, the Genoese also holding their own surprisingly well against the Habsburg armies.<br />
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King Carlo Emanuele III lost a succession of battles against a Franco-Spanish army that outnumbered his roughly 3-to-1, however, in 1746 he was given some Austrian reinforcements to make good his losses and began to turn the situation around. Alessandria and Asti were recaptured from the enemy and in 1747 he won a stunning and decisive victory over the French at the Battle of Assietta. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Italians defeated the French and inflicted 5,300 losses on them while losing only 299 of their own. It was such an overwhelming victory that the Bourbon forces gave up on the Italian front and shifted their main war effort to the Franco-German border and the Netherlands. King Frederick the Great of Prussia famously said that if he had an army like the Piedmontese, he would make himself King of Italy in quick order. King Carlo Emanuele III was not without at least some such aspirations but, as his remark about the artichoke demonstrates, he knew that he would have to play the long game. As it was, he showed his remarkable skill as a negotiator when both sides of the war finally determined to come to terms for peace. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle might not have fulfilled every aspiration but it considerably expanded Savoy territory and recovered all that had been lost at the hands of the French.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MCsGAYfu9bU/WWDA2iCOOdI/AAAAAAAAlyo/lU4bV_SrArkrJloVuAgeWjj9xA_XziKTwCLcBGAs/s1600/Ritratto_di_Carlo_Emanuele_III.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="456" data-original-width="356" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MCsGAYfu9bU/WWDA2iCOOdI/AAAAAAAAlyo/lU4bV_SrArkrJloVuAgeWjj9xA_XziKTwCLcBGAs/s320/Ritratto_di_Carlo_Emanuele_III.png" width="249" /></a></div>
When the Seven Years’ War (French & Indian War to Americans) broke out not long after, King Carlo Emanuele III remained neutral. His country had been stretched to the breaking point, invaded, occupied and needed a period of peace to recover its strength. He worked on improving the government, developing Sardinia, making the army more efficient, his fortresses stronger and improving higher education. He was also able to take time to indulge in his love of great works of art, enlarging the Savoy family collection and even establishing a tapestry workshop in Turin. Happiness in his private life continued to be short-lived. In 1737 he had married Princess Elisabeth Therese of Lorraine but, sadly, their life together was to be dominated by heartache. They had three children together, the first two dying in childhood with only their third, a son, surviving to adulthood and Elisabeth Therese died of fever shortly after this third childbirth. King Carlo Emanuele III could only busy himself with his duties, improving his military defenses, strengthening the army and so on, which he did until his death on February 20, 1773.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-52517615962002478902017-07-07T13:24:00.002-07:002017-07-07T13:35:00.941-07:00The First War of Italian Independence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4pRYClJ2bVE/WUUg0VaoA6I/AAAAAAAAlsg/WRt5YCYkWmwmhJFJ0uRYIERJEF8Yz9--ACLcBGAs/s1600/1024px-San_Martino_della_Battaglia_-_Fresko_1848_Goito_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: black; color: #444444; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="1024" height="267" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4pRYClJ2bVE/WUUg0VaoA6I/AAAAAAAAlsg/WRt5YCYkWmwmhJFJ0uRYIERJEF8Yz9--ACLcBGAs/s400/1024px-San_Martino_della_Battaglia_-_Fresko_1848_Goito_3.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The idea of some sort of a unification of the Italian peninsula was one that long predated the series of wars for Italian independence. Indeed, unification and independence were not the same thing and might not necessarily have been linked. After the downfall of Napoleon and the re-drawing of the map of Europe by the Congress of Vienna, most of northern Italy was handed over to the Austrian Empire of the Habsburgs and their cadet branches of the family. Central Italy was restored to the Pope and the south of Italy was returned to the junior branch of the Spanish Royal Family. However, from the very beginning, there was trouble in the south and Austrian troops had to be dispatched to keep the King of the Bourbon Two-Sicilies on his throne. Between the north and the south, this meant that, fairly early on, Austria was forced to maintain a military force of over 100,000 soldiers on the Italian peninsula to maintain the existing power structure.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8Oz1Wk8L7so/WUUh9oo9mUI/AAAAAAAAlso/wgeD4c9t_iMxidc5vP7Pv1TsFgTYsE1ewCLcBGAs/s1600/464px-Metternich_%2528c._1835-40%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: black; clear: right; color: #444444; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="464" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8Oz1Wk8L7so/WUUh9oo9mUI/AAAAAAAAlso/wgeD4c9t_iMxidc5vP7Pv1TsFgTYsE1ewCLcBGAs/s200/464px-Metternich_%2528c._1835-40%2529.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="154" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.4px; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: black;">Metternich</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The Austrian statesman, Prince Clemens von Metternich, knew this was unsustainable in the long-term and so proposed to the allies the creation of an Italian federation under the leadership of the King of Lombardy-Venetia, who not coincidentally happened to be the Emperor of Austria. The allies rejected this proposal and the unrest continued, particularly in the south. Metternich feared that this tendency toward rebellion would spread and threaten those areas recently placed under Habsburg rule. In response, he produced the “Troppau Protocols” in 1821 in which Austria, Prussia, France and Russia agreed that any outbreak of revolution would be met by concerted military force to suppress it. It was unlikely that such cooperation was to be forthcoming but Metternich hoped that the statement alone would be enough to convince potential rebels of the hopelessness of their cause and bolster the King in Naples in particular. To his frustration, however, such hopes by Metternich were dashed.</span><br style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">That same year, rebellions broke out in both Piedmont-Sardinia and the Two-Sicilies and Austrian troops were dispatched to both to suppress them. In Turin, the rebels did not try to bring down the monarchy but demanded a constitution, which Prince Carlo Alberto gave them, as he had taken control of the government when King Vitttorio Emanuele I abdicated in favor of his brother King Carlo Felice who was out of the country at the time. King Carlo Felice, with his loyal regiments and the Austrians, regained control of the country and restored the absolute monarchy, exiling Prince Carlo Alberto to France. In Naples, Austrian troops suppressed the rebels and restored King Ferdinando IV to power. This, however, only strengthened the hand of the radicals who argued against constitutional monarchy and in favor of radical republicanism. This faction was led by Giuseppe Mazzini who had no use for kings at all and would make great use in his propaganda for every time a monarch on the Italian peninsula granted a constitution at a time of weakness only to revoke it once they had an Austrian army behind them.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YBslrLyXq-s/WUUiL4qFkGI/AAAAAAAAlss/3hJ8ZfDLK-07zdeBvMdByNKUc2o86TFGACLcBGAs/s1600/carloalberto_franzjoseph.png" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: black; clear: left; color: #444444; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="500" height="313" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YBslrLyXq-s/WUUiL4qFkGI/AAAAAAAAlss/3hJ8ZfDLK-07zdeBvMdByNKUc2o86TFGACLcBGAs/s320/carloalberto_franzjoseph.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.4px; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: black;">King Carlo Alberto & Kaiser Franz Joseph</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">This set the stage for the wars of Italian unification and independence. The momentum was toward that goal but the question remained whether it would be the radical republicans or the constitutional monarchists who reached the finish line first. The two most prominent monarchs involved would be the King of Piedmont-Sardinia, firstly King Carlo Alberto who came to the throne in 1831 and the Emperor of Austria Franz Joseph who would come to the throne in 1848. King Carlo Alberto, despite his earlier reputation, was a monarch of very traditional leanings and had fought, during his exile, for the legitimist cause in Spain as well as supporting other such legitimist causes elsewhere on the continent. He would give Piedmont-Sardinia (and by extension Italy as a whole in due time) her only monarchial constitution but it would be one that reserved considerable authority to the monarch. Nonetheless, once given, it would not be revoked and that garnered the House of Savoy a great deal of popularity. King Carlo Alberto also had a vision for a united Italy, independent of the Austrians but which would consist of a confederation of Italian princely states under the leadership of the Pope. However, the events of 1848 changed the situation and it became, again, a competition between the Italian nationalists who favored a republic and the Italian nationalists who favored a monarchy. King Carlo Alberto knew that if he did not succeed, Mazzini and his cohorts would.</span><br style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">1834 and 1838 had seen revolutionary outbreaks across Italy but in 1848 revolution began to sweep across multiple countries throughout Europe. In January the Sicilians rose up and overthrew the authority of the king in Naples, by March the Austrian Empire was engulfed in rebellion with uprisings in Milan, Venice, Budapest, Cracow, Prague and even Vienna itself. The regime of Kaiser Ferdinand was suddenly threatened by independence movements by the Hungarians in the east and the Italians in the west. In Milan, after five days of bitter struggle, the Austrian authorities were driven out while at the same time the Austrians were expelled from Venice in an uprising led by Daniele Manin. The Habsburg Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Habsburg Duke of Modena, the Bourbon King of the Two Sicilies and the Bourbon Duke of Parma were all forced by popular uprisings to grant constitutions. Likewise, in Rome, political reforms were demanded of Pope Pius IX who had initially favored the nationalist cause, to the point of liberating from prison and appointing to high office a succession of revolutionaries whom his predecessor, Pope Gregory XVI, had arrested.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kJTo9G4dCyo/WUUibxRZOcI/AAAAAAAAlsw/uIkrKw0Aes02Xab_tm1Wc7daI4bK7LcwQCLcBGAs/s1600/41_00345712%257E_joseph-graf-r--von-radetz-radetzky_joseph-von-radetzky---painting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: black; clear: left; color: #444444; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="371" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kJTo9G4dCyo/WUUibxRZOcI/AAAAAAAAlsw/uIkrKw0Aes02Xab_tm1Wc7daI4bK7LcwQCLcBGAs/s320/41_00345712%257E_joseph-graf-r--von-radetz-radetzky_joseph-von-radetzky---painting.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.4px; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: black;">Graf Radetzky</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">In Turin, King Carlo Alberto granted a constitution and was urged to take the lead in supporting the independence movement and driving the Austrians from Italian soil. He was very popular with the nationalists though the radical republicans of Mazzini’s faction naturally opposed him as the last thing they wanted was for a king of the most venerable Italian royal house to be the one to secure the unity and independence of Italy. Meanwhile, in Vienna, the Habsburg government was paralyzed and in need of leadership. Kaiser Ferdinand, handicapped from birth, was simply not up to the challenge. Moreover, the strength of the Austrian military had recently been reduced and now, suddenly, there were disasters in practically every part of the empire that needed to be dealt with so that Austrian military strength was severely overstretched. The one bit of good fortune the Austrians did have was the person of their commander on the ground in Italy; Field Marshal Joseph Graf von Radestky. He may not have been the most brilliant general but he was experienced, extremely competent and, most importantly, unflappable. He kept a cool head in the crisis when panic had gripped everyone around him.</span><br style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">So it was that with only 68,000 troops at his disposal and no immediate prospect for reinforcement for Radetzky that the Italian nationalists saw their chance and men such as Camillo di Cavour, Cesare Balbo and Massimo d’Azeglio urged King Carlo Alberto to take the lead and attack the Austrians before the republicans took control of the uprising. The King agreed and on March 29 led his small but highly proficient army of 28,000 men across the Ticino River with the aim of moving on Milan. With so many of their forces tied down all across Lombardy-Venetia trying to suppress rebellion, for the time being, the Austrian and Piedmontese forces would be about evenly matched. Further, as soon as word came that King Carlo Alberto had crossed the frontier, nationalist support for the Savoy monarchy erupted all across the Italian peninsula. Not wanting King Carlo Alberto to claim all the glory of liberating Italy for himself, Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany and King Ferdinando II of the Two-Sicilies likewise dispatched forces to join him in a joint war-effort against the Austrians. Even Pope Pius IX sent his support. The vision of independence and unification by way of a coalition of the princes of Italy seemed to be coming true.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8SVaVepJ0hQ/WUUjLq2-WTI/AAAAAAAAls4/VhYLMOBANoMBJedMLvZV8X96qr6GScJzwCLcBGAs/s1600/02_-_lombardo_veneto_-_Austria_1848.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: black; clear: left; color: #444444; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="239" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8SVaVepJ0hQ/WUUjLq2-WTI/AAAAAAAAls4/VhYLMOBANoMBJedMLvZV8X96qr6GScJzwCLcBGAs/s320/02_-_lombardo_veneto_-_Austria_1848.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="217" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.4px; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: black;">Uprising in Milan</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Brigadier General Guglielmo Pepe, a veteran of the Peninsular War and the Battle of Tolentino, commanded the Neapolitan contingent and, even more surprisingly, the Piedmontese and former Mazzinian General Giovanni Durando was given command of the Papal army by Pius IX. Altogether, a combined force of 100,000 Italian soldiers was moving or set to move against the beleaguered Austrians in the north. With such a force arrayed against them, the Austrian position seemed doomed. Any other commander would likely have lost his nerve but not Graf Radestky. He ordered his subordinates to fall back even as he pulled out of Milan. Yet, this was no disorderly retreat. Austrian commanders threatened horrific retaliation to remote areas of Lombardy-Venetia if any disturbances occurred, frightening most into taking no action. Radestky concentrated his forces in the Quadrilateral, the area within the fortresses of Verona, Mantua, Legnano and Peschiera. This would permit the Italian coalition no weak area to exploit. Thanks to the calm determination of Radetzky, the Austrians would soon discover that their position was not so vulnerable as it seemed.</span><br style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">On March 29, to great public fanfare, King Carlo Alberto entered Milan at the head of his troops. He marched on and his army pushed the Austrian rearguard across the Mincio River. The Austrian withdrawal caused the Piedmontese to push ahead before their allies from the south had arrived. Durando and the Papal Army was still south of the Po, Pepe and the Neapolitans were further north and the division from Tuscany was still on the march. King Carlo Alberto, seeing the Austrians retract, was determined to keep up the pressure on them and push forward, crossing the Mincio in mid-April toward Verona. On April 30 he met the Austrians at the Battle of Pastrengo and won a solid victory. Peschiera was besieged and the King was still pushing forward toward Verona. Graf Radetzky was finally compelled by this to take action and do something to take the initiative away from the Italians. An Austrian contingent was ordered to strike out from the city and on May 6 they administered a sharp sting at Santa Lucia that forced King Carlo Alberto to divert to the southwest of Verona, to Villafranca, to wait for further Piedmontese reinforcements and his allies from the south to join him.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N3RSgatgzPk/WUUjemUVhrI/AAAAAAAAls8/JC4d7t_A20s7VUKLYQ_u2kw_Ip3vDZV9ACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_2111%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: black; clear: right; color: #444444; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N3RSgatgzPk/WUUjemUVhrI/AAAAAAAAls8/JC4d7t_A20s7VUKLYQ_u2kw_Ip3vDZV9ACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_2111%25281%2529.JPG" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.4px; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: black;">Princely solidarity</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">At first, pan-Italian support only seemed to grow as the fight was underway. Nationalist sentiment in Parma and Modena forced their dukes to join the war effort. However, at this same critical moment, the expected help from the more significant states began to fall away. Tuscany remained pledged to the Italian cause but seemed unwilling to actually engage. Pope Pius IX suddenly sent an order to Durando forbidding him to cross the Po River, causing considerable bewilderment and likewise the commitment of King Ferdinando II of the Two-Sicilies seemed to fade away as April passed. A republican coup tried to unseat the King in Naples and disrupt the royal coalition. They failed at the first goal but succeeded in the second. King Ferdinando retracted the constitution he had earlier granted and recalled his army. General Pepe refused to go but most of the Neapolitan troops abandoned him. The remainder joined with the forces from Tuscany standing watch around Mantua. As for the Papal Army, General Durando argued with the Pope over his sudden about-face and finally simply disregarded the order and took his army across the Po anyway in an effort to cut off Radetzky from Venice.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WcOY88o9gSM/WUUj1ekS_VI/AAAAAAAAltA/6IAhBbEswoQlug9YmrwfTw4oQM8-MCEIgCLcBGAs/s1600/goito1848brunodarcevia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: black; clear: left; color: #444444; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="704" data-original-width="954" height="236" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WcOY88o9gSM/WUUj1ekS_VI/AAAAAAAAltA/6IAhBbEswoQlug9YmrwfTw4oQM8-MCEIgCLcBGAs/s320/goito1848brunodarcevia.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.4px; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: black;">Sardinian Grenadiers at Goito</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Unfortunately for the Italians, Durando did not coordinate with King Carlo Alberto in these operations but the Austrian response of Graf Radetzky was, by contrast, extremely well coordinated. Field Marshal Lieutenant Count Nugent was dispatched with 16,000 men to stop the Italian advance in Venetia, hitting Durando at Cornuda and forcing him back to Vicenza. Throughout June, Durando and the Papal Army would remain there, surrounded by Austrian forces. This allowed Radetzky freedom to maneuver and while the Piedmontese remained at Villafranca, the Austrians flanked them with a march to Mantua. On May 29 they defeated the small contingent of troops from Tuscany and the 2,000 Neapolitan soldiers who had not abandoned Pepe at Curtatone-Matanara. Radetzky then moved his men from Mantua along the west bank of the Mincio with the aim of cutting off King Carlo Alberto from Piedmont. Unfortunately for the Austrians, King Carlo Alberto spotted this move and immediately grasped the enemy plan. He moved quickly to attack the Austrians while they were on the march and at the Battle of Goito on May 30, the Italians were victorious. Peschiera fell on the same day.</span><br style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">The Savoy star was still shining brightly, however, the situation was far from favorable. What little support that had been available from Tuscany, Naples and the Papal States was now completely gone and even with the many volunteers from across Lombardy and reinforcements from Piedmont, King Carlo Alberto had only 75,000 men which would be insufficient to launch a major offensive into Venetia or to mount a proper siege of the fortress cities of Mantua or Verona. King Carlo Alberto had no option but to remain at Villafranca and watch. At the same time, unflustered as usual, Graf Radetzky was methodically carrying on and was also finally receiving reinforcements from the rest of the Austrian Empire. The window of opportunity of Austrian weakness had closed on the Italians and Radetzky was able to launch a serious offensive of his own, descending on the Italians with two armies at the Battle of Custozza .</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">This was the climactic engagement of the war, 33,000 Austrians against 22,000 Italians and the Italians fought valiantly against superior forces for three days from July 23-25. However, in the end, the Italians were forced to retreat. Yet, it was a fighting retreat, the Italians fell back in good order, continued to give resistance until disengaged, abandoned no equipment or anything of the sort. They had also inflicted considerably higher losses on the Austrians than they had suffered and the Austrians had not been able to decisively destroy the Piedmontese army. All the same, King Carlo Alberto would not waste the lives of his men needlessly and knew that without the whole of Italy standing together, he could not defeat the Austrians who would only grow stronger as his own forces grew weaker. The King had seen a chance but that chance was now gone and on August 9 he agreed to an armistice with the Austrians. In due course the Piedmontese abandoned Lombardy, returning to their own territory and the First War of Italian Independence came to an end. The following year, King Carlo Alberto did, briefly, attempt another effort but it was a short-lived disaster and, proud man that he was, this resulted in his abdication in favor of his son who became King Vittorio Emanuele II.</span><br style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><br style="color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;" /><span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">For the Austrians, the war had been one crisis among many. They had gained a new monarch in the young and determined Kaiser Franz Joseph, more laurels for a genuine war hero in Graf Radetzky and though they had come close enough to disaster to look it directly in the eye, that disaster had been averted and the Austrian Empire would survive, though ultimately concessions would be made to the Hungarians. Nothing of the sort would be forthcoming for the Italians however who continued to be ruled in the same manner that they had been before. The Kaiser even became somewhat cross with his younger brother, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, when, as Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia, he attempted to win over the Italians rather than flog them into submission. There was even talk that the Archduke himself entertained thoughts of uniting the Italian peninsula himself. He was soon put in his place and made no more than a ceremonial figure so that he began to look toward Mexico for a place to prove himself. In short, despite coming so close to defeat, the Austrians were determined to change nothing in regards to Italy.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">As for the Italians, the First War of Independence was a major turning point. It represented the one and only time that the monarchs of the existing Italian states, no matter how enthusiastically, came together in common cause as one Italian people. The fact that this fell apart almost as soon as it came together meant that the vision of the more traditional nationalists of an Italian confederation of princely states would not come to be. Going forward, it would be the republicans or the House of Savoy alone who would have to see foreign rule ended on the Italian peninsula. The Savoy would take the lead, initially quite reluctantly, to prevent the republican vision from becoming reality and in the end even many republican nationalists would be swayed to the monarchist side because the Savoy had a record of success and the republicans had only a succession of failures. It would take at least two more wars before Italy was completely independent of foreign rule but the First War of Italian Independence clearly illustrated who would lead them and how they woul</span><span style="color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">d be fought.</span></span>MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-8797423062217357772017-03-17T08:47:00.001-07:002017-03-17T08:47:16.576-07:00Birth (or Rebirth) of the Kingdom of Italy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It was on this day in 1861 that the first Italian parliament, assembled in Turin, proclaimed the birth of the Kingdom of Italy, the united country as we know it today (though sadly now as a top-heavy, lower tier republic). The timing of this momentous occasion was quite conservative. With revolutions, a declaration of independence or proclamation of a new country generally comes before such a thing is an actual reality, while the struggle is still in progress. With the Kingdom of Italy, however, this was not the case. By the time HM King Vittorio Emanuele II assembled the first Italian parliament in Turin, the Austrians had been expelled from Italian soil everywhere except for the area around Venice, Garibaldi's victorious campaign had united the south with the north, finished off by the final victory by King Vittorio Emanuele's forces at the siege of Gaeta so that, other than Venice, the only other major Italian city that remained out of reach was Rome itself. The Eternal City was then still under the rule of Pope Pius IX, propped up by a French army sent by Emperor Napoleon III. As such, the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy was the recognition of an established fact. The further designation of Rome as the capital city, despite it being under papal rather than Italian national control, was a hopeful expectation.<br />
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Nonetheless, with the notable exceptions of Rome and Venice, Italy was at last one united nation under one government for the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire. It was the culmination of a long struggle that Italian nationalists had been waging to take back control of their own destiny and once again become more than a battleground for foreign powers to fight over. It was a long time coming and might have come about in a number of ways. There were certainly better ways in which it could have happened but none of those came to be. However, that it finally happened at all was thanks to the monarchist faction and that is a truth that should not be ignored. The republicans under Mazzini had tried to do things their own way and had failed completely. Even Garibaldi, a republican by inclination, was obliged to accept that Italy could be united only by the monarchy. It is something to be thankful for that men such as the future prime minister Francesco Crispi were sufficiently nationalist to put the ultimate aim of national unity and national greatness above their own previous political opinions. As Crispi himself said, the monarchy unites while the republic divides. It was true then and it is true now. Hopefully the day will come when the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed on this day in 1861, can be restored as a fully Italian, Catholic monarchy which can regain its place as a major player on the world stage.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-432353671847277332017-02-01T03:38:00.001-08:002017-02-01T03:38:59.436-08:00The Second Italo-Abyssinian War<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today the Second Italo-Abyssinian War of 1935-36 is generally viewed as a prelude to World War II but, of course, no one at the time could view it in that way. It was a strange conflict in many ways that brought to light some rather strange bedfellows on the part of the nations of the world at that time. It was one of the last of the colonial wars that had been fairly common in the previous century and yet you had the largest colonial power on earth, Great Britain, denouncing this campaign of colonial expansion. On the other hand, you had the Empire of Japan, which was growing increasingly vocal in denouncing European colonialism in Asia, taking the side of the Italian colonialists. The officially atheist and egalitarian Soviet Union was cheering for Ethiopia, an officially Coptic Christian feudal absolute monarchy. The British, for that matter, who had long been at the forefront of the anti-slavery campaign, likewise cheered for Ethiopia in which slavery was both legal and extremely widespread.<br />
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This conflict, which is today usually given little attention and simply mentioned as part of the build-up to the Second World War, one name on a list alongside the Mukden Incident, the occupation of the Rhine and the Sudetenland, the annexation of Austria and the occupation of Albania. However, at the time, it dominated world attention and had far greater implications and ramifications than most people think. It was the great test of the League of Nations, the existential threat to the post-World War I world order and, in a broader sense, it was the conflict which actually determined both the fate of the former monarchy in Austria and the alignment of the Fascist-ruled Kingdom of Italy with the National Socialist regime in Germany. Prior to this war, Italy was still aligned with France, Britain and the other World War I allies. Hitler had long idolized Mussolini but the Duce had until then kept his distance from the Nazi leader. The war between the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Ethiopia changed all of that.<br />
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Many misconceptions continue to be held about the conflict and many of the facts will doubtless come as a surprise to most people. Italy did not actually start the war, nor was it a pre-planned event. The Ethiopians were not a horde of ignorant primitives fighting with sticks and stones, despite what you may have heard. The outcome was not a foregone conclusion, indeed many in the international community expected the Italians to be defeated or at least that any victory would be so difficult to obtain that the Fascist regime would be brought down by a combination of a long, drawn-out war with heavy losses and the crippling effect of League of Nations sanctions on the Italian economy. Today, the war is often portrayed as an almost effortless military parade with the Italians crushing the backward Ethiopians like insects with the African natives having no hope for victory. That is certainly not how it looked at the time and the conclusion of the war, far from being preordained, took most people by surprise, certainly in how quickly events unfolded. It was the war which solidified the Fascist hold on Italy and which brought an end to the independence of the last un-colonized corner of Africa.<br />
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The war was first sparked, as many people may be at least vaguely aware, by the Wal Wal Incident in 1934 but this requires some background information. Much has been made of the fact that many Italians still seethed with indignation over the stunning defeat of the Italian colonial army at the Battle of Adowa in 1896 which brought down the Crispi government and, it is true, that loss to the Ethiopia of “King of Kings” Menelik II lingered in the Italian national consciousness but much had happened since then. Ethiopia had fallen into civil war, had briefly allied with the Ottoman Turks in World War I after which the ruling emperor, who had converted to Islam, was overthrown. An empress ruled the country but was ultimately surpassed by one chieftain Ras Tafari Makonnen who prompted another civil war with his efforts to centralize power, remove the power of the other chiefs and implement progressive taxation. After crushing the forces who tried to restore the empress, upon her rather mysterious death in 1930 Ras Tafari took the throne outright as Emperor Haile Selassie.<br />
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In 1932 Haile Selassie crushed another revolt in Gojjam and waged what some historians have called a genocide against the natives of Azebu Galla, the Oromo people having long been the victims of enslavement and persecution. Earlier, in 1928, Haile Selassie had signed a friendship and trade treaty with Italy but after coming to power made it clear that he was no more interested in friendship than Mussolini was. Some historians question whether his immediate campaign to build up and modernize the armed forces, particularly his personal troops, was intended to suppress internal rivals or to dominate the Horn of Africa and absorb the Italian colony of Eritrea in particular with its port facilities. The Italians, at that stage, had no designs on Ethiopia but simply wished to keep it out of the hands of any other foreign power. Toward that end, it was Italy which sponsored Ethiopia joining the League of Nations, a decision they may have come to regret eventually, because of their fear that the British would bend to the powerful anti-slavery societies in that country to launch an expedition into Ethiopia and annex it to the British empire. The British had no such plans but it was for that reason that Ethiopia, a tribal absolute monarchy that practiced widespread slavery, was brought in to the supposedly liberal and democratic League of Nations.<br />
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Once secure on his throne, Haile Selassie sought to modernize and strengthen Ethiopia as quickly as possible and invited in various European powers to help with this though it rankled in Rome that he made a point to exclude the Italians. The latest weaponry was purchased from the French, Belgians, Swedes, Czechs and Swiss. European military officers were brought in as advisors to train the Ethiopian military as Haile Selassie built up his own Imperial Guard that would be armed with the latest modern weapons and he sent Ethiopian officers for these units to train in the military academies of Europe. The colonial army of the Belgian Congo had a particularly formidable reputation and Belgian officers were hired to oversee the modernization of the Ethiopian army. All of this was going on long before there was the slightest hint of any actual trouble with Italy on the horizon. Unlike Hitler and his many speeches about the Germans living outside of Germany that preceded his annexations, one would be hard pressed to find Mussolini ever mentioning Ethiopia as an area of concern or even particular interest.<br />
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That only changed with the Wal Wal Incident of 1934. Several years before, the Italians had built a fort at this remote oasis and the Ethiopians said nothing about it. Then, on November 3, 1934 an Ethiopian military force of about a thousand men approached the fort and demanded its surrender, saying it had been built within Ethiopian territory. Why this was not mentioned at any time in the roughly four years since the fort had been built was not explained. In any event, the Italian commander refused. Tensions were raised but nothing immediately happened. That changed when a column of reinforcements for the tiny garrison arrived and on December 5, 1934 fighting broke out between the two sides. Despite being vastly outnumbered, the Italian colonial troops held their own and the Ethiopians retreated. Ethiopia protested to the League of Nations and before the month was out, Mussolini had dispatched one of the leaders of the Fascist “March on Rome”, General Emilio De Bono, to Eritrea to take command of the forces being assembled for an invasion of Ethiopia.<br />
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This reveals the little-discussed truth behind one of the major misconceptions of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. It is usually stated or at least implied that the Wal Wal Incident was something instigated by the Italians with the sole purpose of serving as a pretext for Mussolini’s pre-planned conquest of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). However, it is quite obvious that this cannot be true. The Italians did not initiate the engagement nor did it lead immediately to conflict. If this had all been staged, surely Mussolini would have had the Italian army already deployed and ready to attack. Instead, it would take the better part of the following year before the war actually started, before the Royal Italian Army could be transferred to Africa, deployed, equipped and supplied to begin the invasion. Clearly, this was not a pre-planned event. Mussolini did not set this up. However, he was certainly more than willing to take advantage of the situation and use this opportunity to conquer Ethiopia and take revenge for the past defeat at Adowa.<br />
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In January of 1935, Mussolini obtained the assurance of the French that they would not intervene in any conflict in East Africa. It was not until July of 1935 that Emperor Haile Selassie announced to his people that a danger of war existed. And, all the while, the League of Nations delegates and the assorted foreign ministers tried to work out some sort of compromise that would prevent the whole thing from happening. The British and French foreign ministers, Samuel Hoare and Pierre Laval, made a proposal that Mussolini seemed agreeable with which would have seen Abyssinia partitioned, Italy taking one portion and Haile Selassie retaining control of the rest. However, the Abyssinian crisis had become the fashionable cause of the day and public opinion in the liberal democracies of the west was solidly opposed to Fascist Italy and firmly on the side of Emperor Haile Selassie and the proposed agreement was leaked to the press. Immediately there was a huge public outcry and the public in France and Britain denounced this as a shameful caving in to the hated Fascists. The agreement was immediately dropped, Hoare and Laval were both forced by public pressure to resign (Laval would be shot after World War II for having participated in the Vichy regime). Compromise was off the table.<br />
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The aim of Hoare and Laval had been to keep Italy on side in a cordon of opposition around Nazi Germany and this, they reasoned, was more important than who ruled Abyssinia. They feared, and rightly so as events unfolded, that British and French opposition to Italy would drive Mussolini into the arms of Adolf Hitler. This would prove to be of particular importance to the British given that the Kingdom of Italy, possessing a powerful fleet, sat astride the primary artery of the British Empire through the Mediterranean to Asia. No one wanted war but all were willing to join in economic sanctions against Italy by the League of Nations. Events there also had a profound impact on world opinion with Emperor Haile Selassie addressing the delegates, appearing regal and dignified, while he was heckled by Italians who came off as childish and bullying. The sanctions were enacted, though oil was not included, and Mussolini was infuriated. The more force the League of Nations leveled, the more belligerent Mussolini became. He denounced the organization as a bunch of elite, liberal hypocrites, particularly singling out the British and French, rulers of the first and second largest colonial empires in the world, for suddenly condemning Italian colonialism. The coming clash would determine whether the League of Nations would govern world affairs or not.<br />
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By October of 1935 the Royal Italian Army was in position. The primary force was deployed in Eritrea under General Emilio De Bono. A secondary front was prepared in the south, out of Italian Somaliland, under General Rodolfo Graziani, known in Italy as “the Pacifier of Libya” and in Libya as “the Butcher of Fezzan”. De Bono was an affable, old fashioned old soldier, one of the ‘Quadrumvirs’ who led the Blackshirts “March on Rome” but also a fervent monarchist who only joined the Fascist Party when Mussolini made it clear that he would remain loyal to the King. He planned a cautious, traditional sort of colonial campaign that would be conservative with the lives of his soldiers, advancing slowly, establishing defensive positions as they went, using their superior firepower to decimate Ethiopian attacks on their lines. General Graziani was a highly experienced colonial soldier, had been the youngest colonel in the Italian army in World War I and had a reputation for being a hard man who got results. An ardent Fascist, he said bluntly that, “The Duce will have Ethiopia…with or without Ethiopians”.<br />
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On the Ethiopian side, Emperor Haile Selassie mustered his forces, conscripting all able bodied men. Newsreels of the day showed hordes of barefoot Africans wearing loincloths and waving swords and spears. However, Haile Selassie had forbidden his army from wearing shoes and had uniforms but reserved most of these for his personal troops, the Kebur Zabagna, or Imperial Guard which also had the latest weapons. Despite the popular image, most Ethiopians had rifles and the army was equipped with a fair amount of artillery and machine guns. They also had trained officers, European advisors and European officers fighting as mercenaries. One of the most prominent foreigners was the Turkish General Mehmet Wehib Pasha, leader of the Turkish advisory mission to Abyssinia, who referred to himself as the “hero of Gallipoli”. He served as chief-of-staff to Ras Nasibu, Ethiopian commander of the southern front and oversaw the construction of a fortified line nicknamed the “Hindenburg Wall” in reference to the famous Hindenburg Line of World War I. Wehib Pasha was of course a Muslim as were the vast majority of the Eritreans and Somalis in the Italian colonial army. However, he was happy to fight for Abyssinia as he had an intense hatred of Europeans and would fight them anywhere under any flag.<br />
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On October 3, 1935 the Italian invasion began, slowly and cautiously. The same day, Ethiopia formally declared war on Italy, Rome never having issued such a declaration. The following day, on the northern front out of Eritrea, Italian forces occupied Adigrat, Inticho and Daro Tacle while on the southern front, out of Italian Somaliland, Graziani occupied Dolo Odo and Maladdaie on the Genale (Jubba) River. On October 6, in a moment of particular satisfaction though no real military significance, the Italians marched into Adowa, site of their former defeat. That historic battle had an impact on both sides. The Italians were being careful, taking nothing for granted, having a healthy respect for the fighting ability of their enemy. The Ethiopians, on the other hand, because of their previous victory, tended toward over-confidence and underestimating their enemy. They reasoned that they had defeated the Italians before and could do so again, having an even larger and better armed army than before. Emperor Haile Selassie planned to let the Italians move in and then overwhelm them in a massive attack with his superior numbers. The Ethiopians did have the advantages of fighting a defensive war on their own ground, they had the advantage of numbers and outside support. However, the Italians had the more modern force, greater discipline and an arsenal which included weapons Ethiopia lacked. Their greatest advantage was the Regia Aeronautica, the Italian royal air force, which the Ethiopians had no answer for. The Ethiopian air force was miniscule and mostly served to move Haile Selassie from place to place.<br />
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The international community largely favored Ethiopia. Military experts predicted that, due to Ethiopian superiority in numbers, the harsh terrain, lack of modern infrastructure and the opposition of the general public, it would take the Italians at least two years to conquer the large country, if they could manage it at all. By that time, they were confident that huge Italian losses and the crippling effect of the League of Nations sanctions would bring down the Fascist regime, removing Mussolini from power in much the same way that the defeat at Adowa had brought down Crispi. However, this war would be different from the first. The same day that Adowa fell, Italian forces in the south captured the fortress of Gedlegube and pushed up to the K’orahe minefield in the Ogaden Desert. On the northern front, Italy was handed a propaganda victory when Degiasmacc Haile Selassie Gugsa, son-in-law of Emperor Haile Selassie and commander of the Mek’ele sector, defected to the Italian side. He had been married to the Emperor’s second daughter and after her death the two had fallen out, the Emperor blaming Gugsa for the loss of his daughter and Gugsa resenting the Emperor for not giving him the title of Ras (chief) while a junior cousin was so honored. This was all the more a major event given that Gugsa was a prince of the Imperial Family, a great-grandson of Emperor Yohannes IV who had seized the throne in 1871 following the disgrace and suicide of Tewodros II.<br />
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Within five days of this stunning event, the historic capital of Abyssinia, Axum, was taken by Italian forces. The war was going good for Italy, progress was steady and casualties were, so far, minimal. However, it was not happening fast enough to please Mussolini. The sanctions were causing pain at home and the longer the war lasted, the worse things would get. At that point, there was no grumbling, only a shared sense of sacrifice and a determination not to give in to the demands of the international community. Following the example of their Queen, more than half a million Italians donated their golden wedding rings to the war effort, the government replacing them with a band of steel to show their sacrifice for the nation. The Catholic Church joined in as well with the Bishop of Civita Castellana handing over his gold pectoral cross to Mussolini personally, followed up with a Roman salute before a cheering crowd of 12,000. Eventually, however, the sanctions would begin to bite and such stop-gap measures would not be enough to maintain the needs of the country and the war effort.<br />
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Meanwhile, in the south, the Italian advance continued, helped by their Somali allies who often had a personal grudge against the Ethiopians. On October 21 the Sultan of Olol Dinle, commanding his own forces, occupied Geladi and by the end of the month Italian and Ethiopian forces were locked in battle along the Dawa River. In November, on the northern front, the Italians captured Mek’ele and then Salaclaca. Again, good progress, but things were still moving too slowly for the increasingly frustrated Duce. By the end of the month, De Bono was ‘kicked upstairs’ with a promotion to Marshal of Italy and replaced with Marshal Pietro Badoglio with orders to shift the offensive into high gear. De Bono had been methodical, certain that Ethiopian forces would soon attack in huge numbers but, while the fighting was fierce and almost constant, such a major attack never occurred. Soon enough, all would learn that De Bono had not been wrong in his estimation of the enemy. Haile Selassie had been massing his forces and planning a major offensive that would split the Italian army, conquer Eritrea and eradicate the Italian presence in the Horn of Africa. On December 15, 1935, with about 200,000 men, the Ethiopians launched what became known as the “Christmas Offensive”.<br />
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Massed attack was the preferred fighting method for the Ethiopians and as the offensive began, the Italians were overwhelmed. At the Dembuguina Pass the Italian Gran Sasso Division was forced to retreat and Ethiopian forces recaptured the Scire area. It looked as though the victorious onslaught at Adowa was being repeated on a larger scale. However, toward late December an Italian pilot, Tito Minniti, was captured by the Italians, tortured, mutilated and finally beheaded. The Ethiopians have since denied this but mutilation of captives was an age old custom in the country (as photos of those captured in the first war after Adowa show) and such things doubtless occurred. This happened on the southern front and General Graziani ordered immediate retaliation. Later, this was also used to justify Italian use of poison gas, banned by international law, against the Ethiopians. However, Marshal Badoglio had requested and, indeed, already began using poison gas days before Minniti was shot down. In all likelihood, Minniti was tortured and executed, as were many other Italian and African colonial soldiers, however the use of poison gas also likely had less to do with this than with the ferocity of the Ethiopian offensive that Badoglio had to deal with.<br />
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Despite attempts at justification (following denials), the Italians used poison gas for the simple reason that it gave them an advantage (or at least they thought it would), it would mean killing more of the enemy and sparing the lives of more of their own troops. It was ugly and it was brutal but not really different in principle from the British using Maxim guns against spear-tossing natives or the United States using the atomic bomb against the Japanese. If one side has a weapon that will give them an advantage over their enemy, especially a weapon that the enemy cannot defend against, chances are they will use it. When it comes to accusations of cruelty and war crimes in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, the truth is that neither side was blameless nor always guilty. The Italian claim that the Ethiopians used forbidden Dum-dum bullets was likely untrue and simply a reaction to poor quality ammunition. However, Ethiopians did break the rules, killing and mutilating enemy prisoners, trapping Italian soldiers in their tanks and building fires underneath to slowly cook them alive. The noted English Catholic author, Evelyn Waugh, reported that the Ethiopians did use Red Cross insignia to cover themselves and that other reporters, going on only what the Ethiopians told them, reported to their readers Italian attacks on hospitals that did not exist. It is also likely that many of the Italian colonial soldiers practiced the same sort of mutilation on the enemy as some of the Ethiopians did and the use of poison gas by Marshal Badoglio was something he requested, not something prompted by moral indignation.<br />
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In any event, while the Italians were being hammered by the Ethiopian “Christmas Offensive” in the north, in the south, General Graziani continued to make steady progress. In early November his forces intercepted and defeated an Ethiopian motorized column (a fact which will doubtless surprise those who think the Ethiopians had no modern means of transportation at all) near Hamaniei. In December, the Sultan of Olol Dinle set his warriors against the Ethiopians at Golle and Italian forces occupied Denan by the end of the month. A major breakthrough followed shortly thereafter when Graziani crushed the southernmost Ethiopian army at the Battle of Genale Wenz in a fight lasting from January 12-16, 1936. The Ethiopians did win a bit of a propaganda victory of their own in the aftermath though, when a number of Italian colonial troops deserted to the Ethiopian side. This was mostly done for religious reasons, African Coptic Christians feeling little solidarity with the largely Muslim Somalis and their Catholic Italian officers. However, by the end of January, the Italian forces had taken Borana and reached the Ethiopian military base at Negele.<br />
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In the north, Marshal Badoglio went back on the offensive with the first Battle of Tembien. It was not much of a success but did at least bring the Ethiopian offensive to a halt. The Ethiopians reacted adeptly, moving around to encircle the Italians at Warieu Pass, keeping up relentless assaults. However, before the end of the month, the Italians had fought their way back and the Ethiopian “Christmas Offensive” was stopped for good. Badoglio seized the initiative and intended to keep it. Amba Ardam was taken in early February and in a long and hard fought battle lasting until March 2, the second Battle of Tembien, the Italians captured Worq Amba. This was quite a decisive engagement, shattering the armies of Ras Kassa and Ras Seyoum. Responsibility for the defeat on the Ethiopian side remains something of a controversial subject but it left Haile Selassie with only one army of his original four on the northern front. The remnant was crushed in the Battle of Shire under Ras Imru Haile Selassie, the Emperor’s cousin and one of his most trusted subordinates. A royal cousin was also present on the Italian side at the battle in the person of Prince Adalberto, Duke of Bergamo, fourth son of the Duke of Genoa, who commanded the Gran Sasso Division.<br />
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Witnessing the situation falling apart, Haile Selassie worked frantically to organize a counter-offensive to halt the Italian advance. On March 31, 1936 the Ethiopian chieftain threw all the forces available to him at the enemy in a desperate gamble known to history as the Battle of Maych’ew. This time, Haile Selassie commanded his troops himself and even committed his prized Imperial Guard to the battle. However, Marshal Badoglio had intercepted a message Haile Selassie sent to his wife, telling of the planned attack. This allowed Badoglio to call off his own planned attack and take up carefully prepared defensive positions. The Ethiopians would be walking right into his trap. The initial Ethiopian attack was bloodily repulsed in hard fighting, after which the main assault shifted to the Italian left flank which was hit repeatedly but all to no avail. Finally, Haile Selassie committed six battalions of his Imperial Guard but despite being the best armed and equipped, they fared no better. In desperation, Haile Selassie ordered all units to attack all along the line but the only result was that they were all wiped out, most already being greatly weakened by that point anyway.<br />
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The Ethiopian army broke and began to retreat and it was at that point that insult was added to injury. Prior to the battle, Haile Selassie had tried to buy back the support of the Azebu Galla (the people he had nearly wiped out prior to the war) with a cash bribe for each man and lavish gifts for their leaders. They pledged support but had remained on the sidelines during the battle. Then, when the Ethiopian army began to flee, they suddenly joined in, attacking the Ethiopians and cutting them down as they ran away, only intermittently deterred by Italian bombers who also joined in attacking the fleeing army. Haile Selassie has seen his forces devastated, ordered the remainder to disperse and sent the Crown Prince to Dessie where he hoped to organize a new army to carry on the war. However, the Crown Prince later abandoned Dessie without a fight and the hoped for widespread resistance failed to materialize.<br />
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Meanwhile, on the southern front, the Ethiopians attempted to regain the initiative with an attack they hoped would culminate in an invasion of Italian Somaliland. However, this offensive was bloodily repulsed at the Battle of Genale Doria. General Graziani adopted the policy of offense being the best defense and made heavy use of Italian control of the air, decimating the Ethiopian forces with attacks from the sky. Graziani came up with an operation he called the “Milan Plan” and within five days all of his attacking columns had reached their objectives. In the Battle of the Ogaden, the vaunted “Hindenburg Wall” of Wehib Pasha was broken through and the last organized Ethiopian resistance in the south was utterly destroyed, the survivors fleeing into the countryside to wage guerilla war against the invaders. Graziani pushed on for Harar but while he met little Ethiopian resistance, bad weather and a lack of modern roads delayed his advance.<br />
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The climax of the war came in the north with what the Fascist propagandists touted as the “March of the Iron Will”. This was a rapid advance by a large mechanized column from Dessie to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. It may have been inspired by a similar advance led by the prominent Fascist leader, the “Panther Man”, Achille Starace on Gondor, covering 120km in three days. The advance on Addis Ababa was swift, powerful but also largely unopposed. Haile Selassie gathered his family and entourage and fled the country prior to the Italian attack and Addis Ababa fell into a state of anarchy and looting before order was restored by the arrival of the triumphant Italian army on May 5 (though advance units of the Eritrean colonial brigade arrived the day before). Marshal Badoglio staged a triumphal entry into the city and sent word to Rome that the war was over and Abyssinia was conquered. As soon as the news hit Italy, widespread celebrations broke out with cheering crowds calling Mussolini back to the balcony no less than ten times. A war that was supposed to be a 2-year long quagmire that would bring down the Fascist regime, which had set Italy against the prevailing international order of the League of Nations, had ended with Ethiopia being conquered in seven months.<br />
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King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy was given the title of Emperor of Ethiopia and Mussolini crowed to his Blackshirts, “…lift on high, legionnaires, your standards, your steel and your hearts and salute, after fifteen centuries, the reappearance of the EMPIRE on the fatal hills of Rome!” Of course, the significance of this victory need not have been so great but the importance that the international community had heaped on it made it one that changed the course of history. More than just an Italo-Abyssinian War, the popular fervor for the Ethiopian cause made this a confrontation between the Fascists on one side and the League of Nations on the other. The League was defied by Italy and with the victory in Africa, the League was humiliated. The tragic figure of Haile Selassie went into exile in England, though King Edward VIII refused to meet with him, as he found the League of Nations more objectionable than Mussolini. Of course, he would soon give up his crown and never regain it while Haile Selassie would ultimately be placed back on his former throne by the Allied armies in World War II.<br />
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For the time being, however, the Italian victory over Ethiopia changed everything. Mussolini, stung by the opposition of France and Britain in the League of Nations, infuriated by their economic sanctions, broke from their anti-German front and finally accepted the extended hand of Adolf Hitler. On a visit to Germany, Mussolini told a stadium full of people that Italy would “never forget” how Germany had refused to join the sanctions regime when so much of the world had turned against them. His opposition to the German annexation of Austria evaporated and the plan of Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to restore the Austrian monarchy under Archduke Otto was stopped cold. Previously, Mussolini had approved of the plan, even talking about another Habsburg-Savoy royal marriage to cement their alliance but the reaction of the western powers to the war in Ethiopia changed all of that. In Italy, Fascism was more popular than ever and Mussolini more confident in the military prowess of the armed forces. Soon he would be sending tens of thousands of Italian troops to Spain to aid the nationalist forces of General Franco against the Spanish Republic.<br />
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Haile Selassie, perhaps strangely given how the system had failed him, doubled down on his support for collective security and international bodies. In his last appearance before the body, he criticized the League of Nations for not taking more forceful action to stop the Italians, effectively for not using force to see that their rulings were abided by. He ended with the ominous warning that, “It is us today. It will be you tomorrow.” Perhaps his words were remembered when the League of Nations was succeeded by the United Nations which could and has used military force to see its decisions implemented. However, the same United Nations which he had supported, including sending Ethiopian forces to participate in the Korean War, took no action to save him when he was overthrown and most likely killed in 1975 by communist traitors. It was largely the forces of the British Empire which, in World War II, had seen him restored to his throne after the Italians were defeated and by 1975 the British Empire was no more (and Haile Selassie himself had been more than happy to see it go at the time) and the Soviet Union could be counted on to block any UN move to take action against the Marxist clique that had seen Haile Selassie lose his throne the second time.<br />
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For a seven-month colonial war, the second clash of Italy and Abyssinia had proven to be quite consequential. The last un-colonized corner of Africa was conquered, Britain and France made an enemy, Germany gained an ally, the post-World War I world order embodied by the League of Nations was shattered and the last realistic hope for the restoration of the Habsburg monarchy was brought to ruin and Germany gained control of Austria all as a result of this conflict. It is also not a great leap to imagine that had the war ended differently, had Italy lost, there might have been no help for Franco in Spain and the Second Spanish Republic might have carried on, at least until the breakup of the Soviet Union. The Second Italo-Abyssinian War was a conflict that warrants greater study and understanding. It was far more significant and had many more far-reaching consequences than most people realize.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-57290236084580100032017-01-18T20:25:00.002-08:002017-01-18T20:25:50.162-08:00Emperor Valentinian II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The history of the Roman imperial monarchy is complete with stories of every kind; dramatic, bizarre, occasionally comic and tragic. The story of Emperor Valentinian II is one of the tragic ones. To set the scene, a good place to establish the background of this unfortunate monarch is with the glorious reign of Emperor Constantine the Great. As most know, it was Emperor Constantine who reunited the Roman Empire under one emperor, built the second capital city of Constantinople, established a policy of religious freedom for Christians and who was, at the end of his life, the first Christian Emperor of Rome. He also established a dynasty that carried on into the 360’s with his last male descendant being Emperor Julian, better known as “Julian the Apostate” who tried to revert Rome back to paganism rather than Christianity. A new imperial dynasty was then established, in the west, by Emperor Valentinian I, a man who rose from humble origins in Pannonia in what is today Croatia. He was a staunch Christian, a military-minded man who established the Valentinian dynasty, ruling the west himself while his younger brother Valens ruled as Emperor of the East.<br />
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Valentinian I was succeeded by his son, Emperor Gratian, the man who would hand over the title of “Supreme Pontiff” to the Bishop of Rome. However, Emperor Gratian ruled only from 367 to 383 AD when he was assassinated at Lyons with most of the empire north of the Alps left in the hands of a renegade general named Magnus Maximus. However, he died in 388, a year after invading Italy. The young man who was in charge, or at least who was supposed to be, was Emperor Valentinian II. The son of Valentinian I by his second wife, Justina, he was only four years old when he came to the throne on November 22, 375 AD and had inherited a perilous position. The generals loyal to his father had proclaimed him emperor immediately upon the death of his father, taking no account of his half-brother Gratian or his uncle Valens. It is often assumed that the Frankish commander of the Roman forces in Pannonia, Merobaudes, intended to disregard Gratian, whom many in the military distrusted, in favor of Valentinian II who was, obviously, too young to rule and could not oppose them.<br />
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Emperor Gratian was thus left with what is now France, Britain and Spain while the nominal Emperor Valentinian II reigned over Italy, most of the Balkans and Africa. His imperial court was in Milan but tensions were thick. The most influential figure in his life was his mother Justina, an adherent of the Arian heresy, who clashed with the preeminent religious authority, St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan and prefect of Liguria and Emilia who was an adamant opponent of Arianism. This was a dangerous combination as the young Valentinian II became the pawn of those wishing to push their own agendas. Justina used his authority to try to suppress the orthodox Christians in favor of the Arians, though St Ambrose had the local populace on his side. Magnus Maximus, who was trying to claim the throne for himself, also used Arianism as his tool, casting himself as a champion of orthodoxy in order to take power from Valentinian II or, more precisely, those who ruled in his name. After Emperor Valens in the east came the reign of Emperor Theodosius the Great who was also opposed to Arianism and so would be of no help.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Valentinian II</td></tr>
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When Maximus crossed the Alps into Italy, Justina and the teenage Emperor Valentinian II fled to Thessalonica (Greece) from which they obtained the support of Emperor Theodosius to restore Valentinian II in the west by offering in marriage his sister Princess Galla. In 388 AD Emperor Theodosius dutifully launched a military campaign that saw Maximus defeated and Valentinian II restored and though he would begin to establish his own dynasty through his sons Arcadius and Honorius, Emperor Theodosius remained faithful to his agreement with the last of the Valentinian dynasty. However, the young monarch’s troubles were far from over. While Theodosius held court in Milan, Valentinian II was installed in Vienne (in France) with Emperor Theodosius acting as his guardian since Justina had died around 391. As the East Roman Emperor had plenty to keep himself busy, he delegated his duties as guardian to his Frankish general Arbogast.<br />
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Emperor Valentinian II occupied himself with peaceful pursuits in Vienne while Arbogast marched off to fight the Germans along the Rhine in his name. However, it was clear that Arbogast was the real ruler in the west, not Valentinian II who he jealously guarded. Though nominally answerable to Emperor Theodosius, it is likely that the Eastern Emperor would not have approved of his tyrannical treatment of Valentinian. Anyone who became too close to the isolated young man could be expected to meet an unhappy end, always with the justification that the person had been guilty of some crime. Harmonius, for example, was a friend of Valentinian who was murdered by Arbogast personally and in the presence of the young emperor himself. Arbogast justified this by asserting that Harmonius had been guilty of taking bribes, but then as now many suspected that he simply wished to keep Valentinian isolated and under his power.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St Ambrose</td></tr>
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All of this, naturally, greatly disturbed Valentinian who was, by then, certainly more than old enough to be ruling on his own without a “guardian”. He saw an opportunity when word came that barbarians were preparing to attack Italy. Valentinian II planned to lead an army into Italy himself, no doubt hoping that he could establish a source of military strength for himself that would enable him to stand on his own. However, Arbogast could see where that might lead as well as anyone and refused to allow the Emperor to leave. Valentinian II then attempted to simply dismiss Arbogast from imperial service but Arbogast openly defied him on the grounds that he had been appointed by Emperor Theodosius and Valentinian II had no authority to relieve him of his command. Emperor Valentinian II was still little more than a prisoner but did manage to write for help, appealing to St Ambrose in Milan and Emperor Theodosius that he was being overruled by a barbarian general. He also requested to get right with the Church and for St Ambrose to come to Vienne to baptize him in rejection of the Arianism of his mother.<br />
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However, none of that was to happen and it may be that Arbogast was informed of what had been written in those letters for on May 15, 392 Emperor Valentinian II was found dead, hanging in his palace in Vienne. He was only twenty-one years old. Arbogast said that he had committed suicide and certainly his life had been one to encourage depression and despair. However, many people, then as now, believe that Arbogast had the young emperor murdered, with many accepting this as a matter of fact. Given what he had just written to Theodosius and St Ambrose, it does seem that, while in despair, Valentinian still held out hope for redress of his situation. The timing of his sudden death certainly points to Arbogast being the guilty party. We also know that St Ambrose eulogized him and praised him highly as a virtuous, young monarch, a Christian Roman emperor who should be an example to others. It seems highly unlikely he would have done so if he had harbored any suspicion that the Emperor had killed himself.<br />
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So it was with that air of mystery and suspicion that the reign of Emperor Valentinian II came to an end. His body was carried, with full imperial Roman pomp and ceremony, to Milan where his remains were met by St Ambrose and his weeping sisters Justa and Grata. He was buried alongside Emperor Gratian in the Basilica of San Lorenzo. Arbogast, though first claiming to remain loyal to Theodosius by proclaiming his son Arcadius emperor, eventually set up his own puppet usurper in the person of Eugenius. Emperor Theodosius came west, defeated Eugenius and Arbogast and placed his son Honorius on the throne as Western Roman Emperor.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Valentinian II</td></tr>
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As for Emperor Valentinian II, his tragic death marked the end of his dynasty and its replacement with the Theodosian. His all too short life had been spent dominated by others, often treated as a rather well kept prisoner but thanks to St Ambrose, when he is remembered at all, he is generally remembered well, as a good-hearted young man who could have made for a great emperor if he had truly been given a chance. The account of St Ambrose is convincing given that he had no reason to distort the truth and would have gained nothing by it. During the young of Valentinian II, the two had often been at odds. Influenced by his Arian mother, orders given in his name were defied by St Ambrose and he also met Church opposition when Valentinian wished to preserve the monuments of pagan Rome, an act which caused the pagans to try to gain more, such as the restoration of the Altar of Victory in the Senate but to this Valentinian II could not agree. His eventual renunciation of Arianism seems to have been genuine and under different circumstances he may well have become one of the great lights in the twilight era of the Roman Empire. That he was not is unfortunate but, according to St Ambrose, he nonetheless set a worthy example in his own tragic life of strength of character in the face of great adversity.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-85583760944310715132016-12-14T15:08:00.000-08:002017-01-17T22:53:46.377-08:00The Patriotic Priest Father Reginaldo Giuliani<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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During most of the history of the Kingdom of Italy, the so-called “Roman Question” proved a source of division and heartache for the Italian people. The Roman Catholic Church, to which the vast majority of Italians belonged, refused to recognize the Kingdom of Italy, a united, Italian nation-state, due primarily to the loss, to such state, of the temporal territory of the Papacy. This stand-off was not ended until the signing of the Lateran Accords by Pope Pius XI and the government of Benito Mussolini in 1929. However, long before that, from the very beginning in fact of the creation of the Kingdom of Italy, there were those within the Catholic Church who maintained that one could be in obedience to the Roman Pontiff as well as a patriotic Italian and that to be a devout Catholic and to be a patriotic Italian who supported his country were not mutually exclusive concepts. One such individual, and certainly one of the most famous, was Father Reginaldo Giuliani, a Dominican friar who endeavored to serve God while also having very explicit political views about the Italian nation.<br />
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Father Giuliani was born in Turin on August 28, 1887 and first came to public attention during World War I. Not only did he join the Italian Royal Army as a field chaplain when Italy entered the First World War but he went even further and joined the Arditi, the elite assault troops who served as trench raiding parties and the spearhead of major offensives. These were the troops who were given especially rigorous training, to use a variety of weapons and for hand-to-hand combat as well as to have, because their mission was such an especially dangerous one, to have an utter fearlessness that engendered a total, almost mocking, contempt for death. Father Giuliani was right alongside his comrades as they stormed enemy trenches, fought in the most fierce battles and under the most strenuous conditions. He did not shirk his duties and during the course of the Great War gained notice for his bravery and gallantry, earning two bronze medals and two silver medals for military valor. He was devoted to his country, his comrades and what they all felt they were fighting for in those dark days. As such, like many other war veterans, he shared their view that when the time came for the peace settlement at the end of the war, that Italy had been cheated of all that the other Allies had promised to induce Italy to join the war in the stressful days of 1915.<br />
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Many of these war veterans tried to take it upon themselves to redress this injustice on their own by seizing on a particular port city and, by taking it, hopefully forcing the Italian government to take action in favor of their cause. This was the famous seizure of Fiume or ‘Fiume Exploit’, on the Dalmatian coast, led by the poet and war veteran Gabriele d’Annunzio. This was an historically Italian city (a long-time outpost of Venice) that had been part of Austria-Hungary during the war but which afterward was to be handed over to the newly contrived Kingdom of Yugoslavia rather than the Kingdom of Italy. Father Giuliani was part of this effort with what was called the “Catholic Legionnaires”. These men and the other legionnaires declared an Italian regency over the port which the international community tried to side-step by declaring it a “free city” that would belong to neither Italy nor Yugoslavia. The Italian Royal Navy moved in to end the regency by force in 1920, however, the enterprise made such an impression that several years later Fiume was finally annexed to the Kingdom of Italy.<br />
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In the immediate aftermath, however, many of the supporters of Gabriele d’Annunzio and more broadly of a dynamic sort of nationalism fused with a new social-economic model known as corporatism found a home in the emerging Fascist movement of Benito Mussolini. Once again, yes, Father Giuliani was alongside many of his fellow Arditi war veterans in the Fascist black-shirt squads. In 1921 when Mussolini made his bid for power with the Fascist “March on Rome”, Father Giuliani was a participant, black shirt, war medals and crucifix together. This culminated with the failure of the liberal political establishment and King Vittorio Emanuele III inviting Mussolini to form a government. This the Duce of Fascism duly did and after an election gave him a large popular mandate, the old liberal political system was replaced by Mussolini’s Fascist dictatorship. Father Giuliani, during these years, took the time to write an account of his harrowing experiences in the First World War with the Italian Third Army assault troops, producing a book called simply, “The Arditi” in 1926.<br />
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Over the next ten years, Father Giuliani did not have so high a profile. The Fascist regime busied itself with domestic issues dealing with the economy, industrial production, agricultural production, improvement of the national infrastructure and so on while Father Giuliani, of course, had his religious duties to attend to. However, he came back to prominence again with the outbreak of war with Ethiopia. Father Giuliani was an outspoken supporter of the war feeling that it was not only justified by the Ethiopian attack but hailing it as a Catholic crusade against heretics (presumably referring to the Copts) and heathens (presumably referring to the animists) to spread Roman civilization in eastern Africa. Once again, Father Giuliani rushed to the colors to enlist with the Royal Army as a field chaplain. He was assigned to the Eritrean Corps with the MVSN division of General Filippo Diamanti. Father Giuliani had lost none of his tenacity or courage and was persistently at the front with the troops. Finally, however, he paid the price when he was killed in action at the Battle of Warieu Pass (or Second Battle of Tembien). Father Giuliani was cut down by Ethiopian warriors while trying to come to the aid of wounded Italian soldiers. For his heroism and self-sacrifice he was posthumously awarded the gold medal for military valor.<br />
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Father Reginaldo Giuliani, already something of a hero in Italy, became a national martyr with his death in Africa. The following year, his letters from the front were collected and put into a book titled “The Cross and Sword”. This was likely a reference to the citation for his gold medal which read, “A blow of a scimitar, brandished by a barbarian hand, cut short his terrestrial existence: ending the life of an apostle and beginning that of a martyr”. More than a dozen Italian towns and cities have squares or some monument in his honor and in 1939 a Liuzzi-class submarine of the Royal Navy was named after him. The famous Italian war film, “The Man with a Cross” by Roberto Rossellini about an Italian chaplain on the Russian front was based on his example. At the time of his death, and in the immediate aftermath, Father Giuliani was held up as the epitome of the pious patriot, the ideal Catholic Italian cleric. Under other circumstances, someone with so high a profile with such a life would likely have a cause for their canonization underway but, given the political views of Father Giuliani, that would be unthinkable these days.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-19810093444578619282016-10-02T07:23:00.002-07:002016-10-02T07:23:41.626-07:00Royalist Submarine Ace Longanesi-Cattani<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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One of the most prominent Italian submarine commanders of World War II was Captain Luigi Longanesi-Cattani. Born in Bagnacavallo, in the province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna on May 4, 1908, he attended the naval academy at Livorno, graduated and began his career as an undersea naval officer on the submarine <i>Marcantonio Bragadin</i>. Later, he was posted to Italian East Africa on the submarine <i>Benedetto Brin</i>. He was serving as commander of the <i>Benedetto Brin</i>, one of the Brin-class of submarines, in Taranto when the Kingdom of Italy entered World War II. His was then the only boat of his submarine squadron, the rest being on service in the Red Sea when war broke out. He served in the Mediterranean and earned the Cross of War for Valor after successfully saving his boat from an Allied air attack. In October of 1940 he was ordered to make the perilous journey through the Straits of Gibraltar to Bordeaux, home base of the Italian submarines operating in the North Atlantic.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Italian submarine <i>Benedetto Brin</i></td></tr>
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Longanesi-Cattani crossed Gibraltar on November 4 but, upon surfacing, was surprised by two British destroyers which immediately opened fire. Thanks to his quick thinking, Longanesi-Cattani and his boat survived and escaped but he was forced to put in at Tangiers for repairs. Earlier that summer, Tangiers had been occupied by Spanish troops and, after the <i>Brin</i> was joined by another submarine, the Spanish were able to shield the Italians from the British destroyers. After a period of frenzied repairs, as well as a great deal of play-acting to fool British spies, both submarines were able to slip out of Tangiers in December and arrive in Bordeaux a few days later. For this little adventure, Captain Longanesi-Cattani was awarded his first Bronze Medal for Military Valor. However, that was not his only achievement. While on route to Bordeaux Longanesi-Cattani happened upon the British submarine HMS <i>Tuna</i>. The British mistook the Italian sub for one of their own and there was an exchange of signals before they realized they were in the presence of the enemy. The British sub fired one full salvo of six torpedoes followed by another of four torpedoes but, though extremely close, the <i>Brin </i>avoided them and fired two torpedoes of their own. These missed as well, though fire from the Italian deck gun did appear to hit the British sub, both survived the encounter.<br />
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Once arriving in Bordeaux, it took some time to repair the <i>Brin</i> and fully restore it to fighting shape after the ordeal it went through on the way there. Everything was finally in order for a proper war patrol in the summer of 1941 and on June 13, 1941 Longanesi-Cattani and his men participated in an attack on an Allied convoy. It was a great success with the <i>Brin</i>, in only about fifteen minutes, sinking two merchant ships (one a Greek vessel and the other a French ship in use by the British) as well as damaging two more. For this achievement, Longanesi-Cattani was awarded the Silver Medal for Military Valor as well as the German Iron Cross second class. The commander of all German submarines and all Axis submarines in the Atlantic, Admiral Karl Doenitz met with Captain Luigi Longanesi-Cattani and the two became good friends. However, little more than a month later he was ordered to return to Italy, making the dangerous passage in front of Gibraltar again, but arriving safely in Naples with several victory pennants flying.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Longanesi-Cattani on <i>Leonardo daVinci</i></td></tr>
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On October 6, 1941 Longanesi-Cattani was given a new command, the Marconi-class submarine <i>Leonardo da Vinci</i>, which would be the most successful Italian submarine of the war. He returned to France but was soon sent on something of a ‘refresher course’ in the latest submarine warfare tactics in what is now the Polish city of Gdynia, at the time part of Germany. Once completed, he took his boat to hunt in the waters around the Azores but soon had to turn back due to mechanical problems, even being forced to pass on attacking an Allied convoy a couple of days later. Still, his service was further recognized by promotion to lieutenant commander in December. In January of 1942, while on patrol northeast of the West Indies, Longanesi-Cattani had better luck, sinking a Brazilian ship by torpedo attack and two days later a Latvian ship with a combination of torpedoes and gunfire. Upon returning to port, he received a second Silver Medal for this.<br />
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By this time, pressure was being placed on Brazil to join the war and with Allied convoys in the North Atlantic so heavily guarded, it was correctly thought that the Brazilian shipping lanes would offer greater opportunities for the larger Axis submarines such as the Italian boats and the German Type-IX’s that had sufficient range to operate in the South Atlantic. Longanesi-Cattani was sent in and patrolled off the coast of Brazil but was later diverted to the African coast. On June 2, 1942 he sank a large schooner with his deck gun, the <i>Reine Marie Stuart</i>, and a few days later sank the British ship <i>Chile</i> with a single torpedo. On June 10 he successfully torpedoed the Dutch ship <i>Alioth</i> (also with gunfire which was not uncommon for Italian submarines since their torpedoes were not as effective as the German magnetic type) and later another steamer, the <i>Clan McQuarrie</i>. Longanesi-Cattani had become an “ace” sub skipper, sinking more than five ships and returned to port to receive another Silver Medal and the Iron Cross first class from his German ally. After a job well done, in August he was ordered back to Italy for a new assignment, his boat to be given to Gianfranco Gazzana-Priaroggia who would gain fame as Italy’s most successful submarine commander.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Greeted by the admiral returning to port</td></tr>
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All in all, Captain Luigi Longanesi-Cattani had, during his participation in the Battle of the Atlantic, sunk eight Allied merchant ships for a total of 34,439 tons of Allied shipping destroyed. Once back home, he was given what seemed to have been an even more critical assignment, being attached to the elite Xth Flotilla MAS, which was rather like the special forces branch of the Italian submarine fleet. These were the men who launched attacks on ships in heavily guarded enemy ports using “human torpedoes” or mini-subs and it was intended that Longanesi-Cattani would command a special team of CB-class midget submarines in operations against the Soviets in the Black Sea. However, that assignment never came to be. Instead, he was attached to the command of the zealous Fascist and overall X Flotilla MAS commander Prince Junio Valerio Borghese, aka “the Black Prince” and was to command the submarine <i>Murena</i> for a special mission against an Allied pipeline that was under construction. However, before that could get underway, the entire Italian war effort was thrown into confusion by the dismissal of Mussolini by King Vittorio Emanuele III and his replacement by a new government led by Marshal of Italy Pietro Badoglio.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Longanesi-Cattani on the bridge of his submarine</td></tr>
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The military had no warning about this and Marshal Badoglio announced publicly that he would be continuing the war alongside the Germans (in reality, he immediately began trying to secretly arrange an armistice with the Allies). Longanesi-Cattani put aside his personal views and remained committed to his duty and carried on preparing his submarine for the attack on the pipeline at Gibraltar. Everything was just about in order when Marshal Badoglio announced an armistice with the Allies and ordered all Italian forces to cease hostilities. Longanesi-Cattani had been at sea performing tests when this happened and learned of it only after returning to port. Like many, he was shocked and rather bewildered by this abrupt change. He almost had to sink his own boat until the last-minute intervention of Prince Borghese had the order revoked. Many Italian soldiers, sailors and airmen were torn by this sudden turn of events. Prince Borghese gathered his men and asked who among them would stay with him to carry on the fight against the Allies alongside Germany. Most agreed and Longanesi-Cattani decided to as well but only after being assured by Borghese that this would not compromise his oath of loyalty to the King of Italy.<br />
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During the confusion of the armistice period, Longanesi-Cattani was dispatched to Florence to protect the family of Prince Aimone, nominal King of Croatia. The Prince’s wife, Princess Irene of Greece & Denmark, who was heavily pregnant and her sister-in-law Princess Anne of Orleans, Duchess of Aosta, were there. The veteran submariner was there, watching over the family in Florence, when Prince Amedeo the current Duke of Aosta was born on September 27, 1943. He was also there when, only a few days earlier, the Italian Social Republic was proclaimed, formed by Mussolini at the insistence of Hitler, and that was a deal breaker for Captain Longanesi-Cattani. He refused to break his oath of loyalty to the King of Italy, which came before all else for him, and immediately wrote to Prince Borghese informing him of this. He also wrote to the republican Secretary of the Navy, Captain Feruccio Ferrini, handing in his resignation. This was a major risk for him as he was trapped in northern Italy which had been occupied by the Germans and were taking into custody anyone who opposed the Italian Social Republic. Regardless, his loyalty to the King was all that mattered and he willingly surrendered himself to the authorities and, along with Princess Irene and Princess Anne, was sent to the concentration camp at Hirschegg near Innsbruck, Austria on July 26, 1944.<br />
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The camp was eventually liberated by American troops and, as King Umberto II of Italy had, upon going into exile after the farcical referendum, released everyone from their oath, Captain Longanesi-Cattani returned to duty with the navy of the new Italian republic, eventually rising to the rank of Squadron Admiral. His only other prominent part in a public issue was sitting on the commission of inquiry into the former commander of the BETASOM Italian submarine base in Bordeaux during the war, Captain Enzo Grossi, where Longanesi-Cattani had served. Captain Grossi was ultimately cleared. After a lifetime of service to his country, including becoming one of the top Italian submarine commanders of World War II and earning four Silver Medals, two Bronze Medals, the War Cross and the first and second classes of the Iron Cross from Germany, Admiral Luigi Longanesi-Cattani died in Rome on March 12, 1991.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-29806850452626102016-09-28T11:13:00.001-07:002016-09-28T11:13:07.338-07:00The Knights of St Stephen of Tuscany<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the old days of Christendom, there were religious military orders subject to the Roman Pontiff, such as the Templars, as well as religious military orders subject to a particular dynastic house. One of these was the Order of St Stephen of the Italian Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Officially, the “Holy Military Order of St Stephen Pope and Martyr”, it was founded on October 1, 1561 by the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I de’ Medici with the permission of Pope Pius IV. This could be seen as part of the normalization of the transition in Tuscany to monarchy, away from the city-state Republic of Florence, taking on more of the trappings associated with monarchy as Florence became the seat of power of a hereditary Grand Duke rather than a republican leadership. The order was named for Pope St Stephen the Martyr because his feast day (August 2) corresponded with the victories that Grand Duke Cosimo had won at the Battle of Montemurlo (August 2, 1537) against republican insurgents who wanted to restore the Florentine republic and the Battle of Marciano (August 2, 1554) in which the Medici grand duke had conquered the city-state Republic of Siena.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grand Duke Cosimo I</td></tr>
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Grand Duke Cosimo had actually been trying to establish such an order for some time and more than one attempt was thwarted by Church opposition, largely for political reasons which was typical of the period in which Italy was divided among feuding states. That, however, finally changed with the reign of Pope Pius IV who was a Medici. The primary purpose of the order was to combat the Islamic pirates who were raiding the Mediterranean at will and who had increasingly threatened the Tyrrhenian Sea where Grand Duke Cosimo had built a new, modern port at Livorno. He also wished to demonstrate his support for the cause of Christendom and to unite his people, including the more recently conquered regions such as Siena and Pisa, against a common, non-Italian and non-Christian enemy. The Grand Duke also hoped it would add prestige to his newly established grand duchy, standing alongside other dynastic orders and adding fame to the name of Tuscany and the House of Medici for fighting on the front-lines against the forces harassing Christendom.<br />
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Based on the religious rule of St Benedict, the order took as its symbol a red eight-point cross on a white background, incorporating the red and white colors of Florence, with a heraldic lily flower in between the arms of the cross, again using a symbol associated with Florence as well as that of the House of Medici due to their ties with the Royal House of France. Grand Duke Cosimo served as the first Grand Master of the order and, as it was a dynastic order, this would be passed on to every subsequent Grand Duke of Tuscany. The headquarters of the order were originally in Portoferraio but later moved permanently to the city of Pisa where one can still find the magnificent Palazzo dei Cavalieri and the church of Santo Stefano dei Cavalieri. The knights focused primarily on coastal defense but also took the fight to the enemy in cooperation with larger allies. The first of three, broad “campaigns” that the Knights of St Stephen fought was done in cooperation with the Spanish in their fight against the Ottoman Turks in the Mediterranean.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">war galley of the Order of St Stephen</td></tr>
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The Knights of St Stephen, with their own war galleys, fought alongside the Spanish (and other allied Italian states) at the siege of Malta in 1565 and the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. They also participated in the attack and capture of Annaba in Algeria in 1607 under Admiral Jacopo Inghirami in which the city was devastated. This phase in their campaigning was, such as at Malta and Lepanto, defensive and focused on stopping major Turkish offensives against southern Italy. However, once that was done, low level harassment on the part of Turkish and, more often, Barbary pirates remained a problem and the Order of St Stephen focused its second campaign on dealing with this problem. They also concentrated on areas closer to home with raids on the Turkish-held islands of the Aegean as well as launching attacks on Islamic forces in Dalmatia, Negroponte and the island of Corfu. These were successful enough that offensive military operations by the Knights of St Stephen decreased, their last major campaign, coming around the year 1640, during the reign of Grand Duke Ferdinando II, focused on coastal defense and aiding the Republic of Venice in their on-going struggle against the Ottoman Empire.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grand Duke Ferdinando III</td></tr>
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The year 1719 saw the last time that the Order of St Stephen was used in combat by Grand Duke Cosimo III. Later, in 1737, a major change came when the House of Medici was supplanted by the Austrian dynasty of Hapsburg-Lorraine. The second Hapsburg grand duke, Pietro Leopoldo I, formally ended the military aspect of the order and reorganized it as an order that would focus on education for the elites of Tuscany. It became more a feature of social status and no longer an order focused on war and military defense. The Order of St Stephen lost its fighting capacity under the Hapsburgs but things soon became even worse. In 1791 Emperor Leopold II abdicated the throne of Tuscany in favor of his son Ferdinando III who has the dubious distinction of being the first monarch to recognize the revolutionary First French Republic. However, that was not enough to save him. French expansion continued and the Austrians eventually agreed to hand over control of northern Italy to the French Republic in exchange for half of the territory of neutral Venice. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany was occupied by the French, the Grand Duke was forced to abdicate and the Order of St Stephen was suppressed.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grand Duke Leopoldo II</td></tr>
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Thankfully, that situation did not endure. In due time Napoleon was defeated and the Grand Duke of Tuscany was put back in his place in 1814 and, the following year, the Order of St Stephen was restored. It was, however, restored in its reformed form, not a military order but became more of a sign of favor with the grand ducal family. The French experience also seemed to have an affect on the Italian populace as so many years of division, feuding and foreign rule or foreign occupation prompted the growth and spread of a new Italian nationalism. It was an unfortunate period for the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, who were good men of good motives and intentions but their natural inclination to support their Austrian relatives was not matched by their subjects and many deserted the forces of Tuscany to join the Piedmontese and the Italian national movement in fighting to expel the Austrians from Italian soil. Grand Duke Leopold II, a noble and tragic figure, made the mistake of so many of his contemporaries in granting constitutional government, only to later revoke it and he was forced to abdicate. Grand Duke Ferdinando IV, his successor, ruled for only about a year before he too was forced out in 1859 by the Italian nationalists. In 1860 Tuscany was formally annexed to the Kingdom of Italy.<br />
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Neither the Kingdom of Italy nor the current Italian republic officially recognize the Order of St Stephen, though it does still exist but as a purely private organization under the leadership of the Hapsburg-Lorraine heirs of the former grand duchy. Prince Sigismund, Archduke of Austria, is the current Grand Master and the order is considered, by the Catholic Church, as a “public association of the faithful” with historic papal foundations. The Knights of Malta still recognize it but membership is extremely limited, mostly to close friends and family. One must have extensive documented proof of aristocratic ancestry to even be considered for membership and the costs required, as with most such orders today, ensure that only quite wealthy people could ever hope to be invited. Nonetheless, what exists today is a valuable reminder of what a glorious and formidable military-religious order the Knights of St Stephen once were and one can still see their educational facility and naval war college in Pisa, a testament to their past as one of the major forces on the front lines of defending Christendom in the Mediterranean area.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-91878068641866197362016-09-18T16:46:00.001-07:002016-09-18T16:46:39.102-07:00Anglo-Italian Royal Connections<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Throughout the earliest periods of British royal history, after the Roman conquest of course, there were few official connections with Italy but probably more than most realize. In terms of royal consorts, the English monarchs originally took local wives and after the Norman conquest brides from France were preferred. However, one of those, Eleanor of Provence, wife of King Henry III of England, was a daughter of the Count of Provence and Beatrice of Savoy, daughter of Count Tommaso I of Savoy, the Imperial Vicar of Lombardy. This was the first connection between the English Royal Family and the Italian House of Savoy. Later, during the reign of the Tudor dynasty, as the Italian city-states gained dominance in trade and banking, one first began to see English monarchs who could speak fluent Italian with Queen Elizabeth I. It was also the first Tudor monarch, King Henry VII, who employed "John Cabot" (actually Giovanni Caboto of Genoa) in his expedition of discovery to Canada. His son, King Henry VIII, employed Italian mercenaries (as well as Germans) in the suppressing of the "Prayer Book Rebellion" of 1549. It is remembered that when the Italian soldiers, who were of course Catholic, learned what their employer had them fighting for, that they went to confession, sorry for what they had done.<br />
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After the House of Stuart came to the throne of England, there were to be more Italian connections than ever before. King Charles I was married to Henrietta Maria of France who was the daughter of Queen Marie de' Medici and it was their son, King James II, who had as his consort Queen <a href="http://italianmonarchist.blogspot.com/2011/12/mary-of-modena-italian-queen-of-england.html">Mary of Modena</a>, the daughter of the Duke of Modena and Laura Martinozzi. When the end of the Stuart reign, British monarchs mostly restricted themselves to German spouses but the Italian connections to the House of Stuart were only strengthened. The son of King James II and his Italian bride Queen Mary of Modena, who would have been King James III, spent the final years of his life in Italy, living in a palace gifted to him by the Pope in Rome. His son, "Bonnie Prince Charlie", who would have been King Charles III, spent most of his life in Italy, growing up largely in Rome and after the failed Jacobite uprising of 1745 and some years in France, returned to Italy and lived in Florence. In fact, he had his first experience of battle in Italy at the 1734 siege of Gaeta. He died with no legitimate heir and was succeeded by his brother, Cardinal York, who of course had no children and so the Stuart claim to the British throne then passed to the Italian royal house.<br />
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A daughter of King Charles I and his half-Italian bride Henrietta Maria was Princess Henrietta of England. She married the French Duke of Orleans and it was her daughter, <a href="http://italianmonarchist.blogspot.com/2013/06/queen-anne-marie-dorleans.html">Anne Marie of Orleans</a>, who married King Vittorio Amadeo II of Piedmont-Sardinia, House of Savoy. Because of that union, when Prince Henry, Cardinal York, last male heir of the Stuart line died, their claim to the British throne fell to King <a href="http://italianmonarchist.blogspot.com/2015/11/king-carlo-emanuele-iv-of-piedmont.html">Carlo Emanuele IV</a> of Piedmont-Sardinia, making the head of the House of Savoy the pretender to the British throne as "King Charles IV" in 1807, though he never pressed such a claim. The Stuart claim remained with the House of Savoy until the death of Princess Maria Beatrice of Savoy, wife of the Duke of Modena after which it fell to a cadet branch of the House of Habsburg and finally the Bavarian royal House of Wittelsbach (it is next set to pass to the princely House of Liechtenstein). Had then things gone differently in the course of history, the British and the Italians might have shared a royal family, at least for a period of time.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-82663782450893562272016-09-02T03:15:00.000-07:002016-09-02T03:15:48.677-07:00Papal Walls in Rome<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Everyone today will certainly be aware of the waves of Muslim peoples moving into Europe from Africa and the Middle East. Italy has been greatly impacted by this with huge numbers of people coming ashore on the southern islands, depending entirely on the Italian tax-payers for support. This is, of course, not the first time that large groups of Muslims have come into Europe and Italy in particular. In the past they came armed for battle but were met by Italian and other European Christians ready to defend themselves. Today that seems unnecessary given that they are being taken in willingly. This has become part of a larger, global narrative of people from poorer countries fleeing to wealthier countries, almost exclusively Western Europe and North America. Pope Francis has been rather outspoken on the subject that these Muslims should be accepted into the European countries and, while on a visit to the United States, called building walls to protect national borders something that a true Christian would not do. This would, however, put the Holy Father at odds with his saintly predecessor Pope Leo IV.<br />
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Elected in 847 AD, Pope Leo IV was a native Roman and reigned during a time of great danger for Italy and Christendom as a whole. By this time, Muslim armies had come out of the deserts of Arabia to invade and conquer the Middle East, all of North Africa and were well advanced into Spain. The island of Sicily, for example, had been conquered and made into a Muslim emirate for almost twenty years when Leo IV came to the Throne of St Peter. That same year, 847, saw the Islamic conquest of Bari in Apulia and the establishment of the Emirate of Bari. Muslim raids on Italian coastal towns and cities were a frequent occurrence and the Eternal City of Rome was not immune from danger. Most worrisome to the Pope was the number of people who, in return for special treatment for themselves, aided the Saracen invaders in making war and pillaging the lands of their fellow Italians in rival cities. The year before his election, Muslim invaders had sailed up the Tiber River and pillaged the outskirts of Rome itself, desecrating the churches of Old St Peter's and St Paul's Outside-the-Walls. Further damage was prevented only by the still standing Aurelian Wall, built in the Third Century by the Emperor of Rome.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pope St Leo IV waving to crowds below</td></tr>
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Pope Leo IV thus began his pontificate with cleaning up after this attack and trying to improve the defensive fortifications of the city as best he could while also trying to organize an Italian coalition to drive out the Islamic invaders. Gaeta was already under siege at the time of his election and when the Muslims moved against Portus it was Pope Leo IV who called for the Italian cities known for their naval forces to come together in defense of Italy and Christendom. Naples, Amalfi and of course Gaeta answered the call and an effective Italian fleet was assembled, including papal vessels from Rome, that was led by Caesar of Naples (son of Duke Sergius I) who won a dramatic victory over the Muslims in the 849 Battle of Ostia. Pope Leo IV had come out to see the fleet off, give them his apostolic blessing and to say mass for the Italian sailors. His prayers certainly seemed to be effective as a storm erupted during the middle of the battle which split the Saracen fleet and enabled the Italians to win the day.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Map of the Leonine City</td></tr>
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This was a great offensive victory but, as mentioned, Pope Leo IV did not neglect defensive measures either and so it was he who had built a massive new wall forty feet high with towers at intervals of 'an arrow shot' completely around the Vatican hill, covering some three kilometers to enclose that part of the city not protected by the Aurelian Wall. The Castel Sant Angelo (the tomb of Emperor Hadrian) stood at one end as the primary fortress and strong point of the new fortifications. The Pope employed his own laborers as well as local builders and even Saracens who had been taken prisoner at the Battle of Ostia. Donations, funds from the papal treasury and a donation from the Frankish monarch funded the project. The end result was what has become known as the Leonine Wall which was a success in that Rome was never victimized by Muslim forces again. The area enclosed by the wall is also sometimes known as the Leonine City. This was also, it might be mentioned, the area originally offered to Pope Pius IX by King Vittorio Emanuele II as a papal state after Rome became part of the Kingdom of Italy but the offer was rejected by the Pope.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-90145000577553294672016-08-22T00:54:00.000-07:002016-08-22T00:54:02.037-07:00King Odoacer in the Roman System<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It was on this day in 476 AD (according to some sources anyway) that Odoacer was proclaimed by his soldiers as the first “King of Italy”. Such a proclamation, needless to say, did not actually make him the King of Italy but such was finally accomplished when the last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was forced by Odoacer to abdicate. This was a case of recent history repeating itself as Odoacer was the top military commander of Emperor Romulus, a boy who had been placed on the throne by his father Orestes who had been the top military commander of Emperor Julius Nepos, whom he had overthrown and driven into exile in the east. That being the case, in order to add legitimacy to his rule of Italy, King Odoacer enlisted the support of the exiled Emperor Julius Nepos and received it and so based his authority on the recognition that he ruled Italy on behalf of the absent Emperor. This reveals how Odoacer fit in to the remnants of the Roman imperial system, even though he was himself not a Roman. Historians have never come to an agreement on what exactly his ethnic background was but do agree that he was a barbarian and not an Italian.<br />
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Aiding Odoacer was the fact that the young Romulus Augustulus had never received widespread recognition for the legitimacy of his rule (which was actually the rule of his father Orestes). Beyond central Italy, few regarded Romulus Augustulus as the rightful emperor. King Odoacer tried to strengthen the legitimacy of his rule by obtaining the recognition of as many established authorities as possible, such as the exiled Julius Nepos, the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno and, of course, the Bishop of Rome who was at the time Pope St Simplicius. King Odoacer was a Christian, an adherent of the Arian heresy which was widespread in those days. Pope Simplicius had long been known for his opposition to the Eutychian heresy at the Council of Chalcedon. Keeping in mind that most of the latter Western Roman Emperors had not ruled from Rome itself, the administration of the Eternal City had effectively fallen to the Pope and King Odoacer made no effort to interfere with this existing system, other than a few administrative changes, he effectively left Pope Simplicius to carry on as before while he focused his attention on consolidating and expanding his Kingdom of Italy.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Odoacer's Italy</td></tr>
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In this, he was rather more successful than he is usually given credit for. Through diplomatic means alone he gained the island of Sicily from the Vandal king Gaiseric and in 480, when Julius Nepos was murdered by two of his servants, King Odoacer launched a military campaign on the pretext of apprehending and punishing the assassins which saw the reach of his Kingdom of Italy extended all throughout the region of Dalmatia, effectively making the Adriatic an Italian lake once more. Almost immediately thereafter he was also enlisted in a plot against the Eastern Emperor Zeno led by Illus, the Eastern Emperor’s top military commander in a repetition of events in the west. Odoacer was not too concerned with what became of Zeno but seized the opportunity to conquer to territories then being held by the Eastern Emperor, in the area of what is today Austria. Oddly enough, the territories which Odoacer extended his rule over at the height of his Kingdom of Italy is almost identical to those which British prime minister Churchill offered to Mussolini in an effort to influence him to abandon the Axis and join the Allied side at the start of World War II.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Theodoric's tomb</td></tr>
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If Odoacer was not terribly concerned about Emperor Zeno, Zeno was certainly concerned about him and endeavored to save himself by turning his barbarian vassals against each other. Needless to say, he immediately withdrew his recognition of Odoacer’s rule over Italy and invited another barbarian chieftain, Theodoric the Goth, to invade Italy and receive imperial recognition of his rule if he could defeat and overthrow Odoacer. So it was that King Theodoric and his Goths invaded and came pouring down the Italian peninsula, forcing Odoacer, as other barbarians had forced the Western Roman Emperors before him, to take refuge in the fortified coastal city of Ravenna. The Goths soon attacked and in 493 the city surrendered after which Odoacer fell victim to a murderous plot. King Theodoric, thereafter known as Theodoric the Great, invited him to a banquet as a show of reconciliation and friendship. Odoacer, unfortunately, accepted the invitation only for Theodoric to poison his food and Odoacer, King of Italy, died on March 15, 493.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-77878663039708452892016-08-07T20:56:00.002-07:002016-08-07T20:56:45.504-07:00The Tiburtine Sybil and Imperial Prophecy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the old days of Christendom, one could mention the Tiburtine Sybil and the prophecies regarding the Roman emperors and many people, certainly educated people, would know immediately what was being talked about. Today that is certainly not the case and so some background information must be provided as, aside from experts in this particular field or, perhaps, art history aficionados, no average person will know what this is all about. First of all, we have the figure of the Sybil. The sybils were women who acted as oracles, usually associated with a particular holy site in pagan times. The custom originated in ancient Greece but soon spread to Italy, Asia Minor and other areas. The Oracle of Delphi is probably the most well known example of a sybil. These women were often sought out for prophecy and divine guidance as it were by powerful people. In the time of the Roman Empire one of the most prominent was the Tiburtine Sybil, known as such because she resided at the town of Tibur, an old Etruscan town, which is today the Italian city of Tivoli. Many stories grew out of this particular sybil later on among Christians concerning the Roman emperors.<br />
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One thing to clarify at the outset was that the sybils were, obviously, not Christian religious figures but were associated with paganism. However, once upon a time, this did not cause Christians to discount stories about their prophecies. They knew from their Bible stories that the pagan priests of Pharaoh were able to perform seemingly miraculous deeds or that the witch of Endor had been able to summon up the spirit of Samuel for King Saul, for example. It was taken for granted that people who were not worshippers of the Christian God could still possess amazing gifts and that God could use such people for His own purposes. Later examples of such things might include the Native American shamans who, according to various stories, made prophecies about the coming of the Spanish or had visions of the Blessed Virgin to prepare them to receive the Gospel when Christian missionaries later arrived. There was also, it must be said, an effort by the Christians of the “Ages of Faith” to look back at classical history and to incorporate it into their new, Christian, world view. The story of Pope St Gregory the Great, momentarily resurrecting the Roman Emperor Trajan in order to baptize him, is an example of this. Virtually everyone discounts this story now but it reflects the wish of people to see so great a man, such a revered emperor, saved from eternal damnation for not having been a Christian.<br />
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The first recorded instance of the Tiburtine Sybil crossing paths with a Roman emperor came in the time of Augustus Caesar. The story goes that Emperor Augustus approached the Tiburtine Sybil, Albunea, at the Temple of Vesta to ask if he should be worshipped as a god. This meeting was once a very common thing to see depicted in art. An Archbishop, Jacobus de Voragine, later recorded this story, stating that it had been handed down to him by Pope Innocent III, that Augustus met the Sybil and that the Sybil revealed to him one who would come after him, greater than he, and showed him a vision of the birth of Christ, referring to the Blessed Virgin as “the Altar of Heaven” where a church was later built and dedicated as such. According to Virgil, the Cumaean Sibyl also made such a prophecy about the birth of Christ and stories such as these, which became widespread, explain why the sybils were included in Renaissance works of art, such as by Michelangelo, alongside Old Testament prophets in foretelling the coming of the Christian era. These would also coincide with other stories, once popular, about the early Roman emperors taking a “hands off” approach to Christ. Stories circulated, for example, that Emperor Tiberius, who did not exactly have a reputation for kindness, ordered that Christians not be persecuted or accused and even talked of including Jesus Christ in the pantheon of Roman gods.<br />
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If such stories were true, the prophecies of the Tiburtine Sybil to Emperor Augustus might help explain why such an attitude was taken or why someone like St Paul would prefer to put his fate in the hands of the Emperor Nero rather than his own Jewish countrymen of the Sanhedrin. There were actually a great many such accounts of miraculous events and Christian prophecies concerning the pagan Roman emperors before the more famous events after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and the baptism of Emperor Constantine the Great. There was the story of Pope St Clement I being a cousin of the Emperor Diocletian (in all likelihood he was a freedman who had been in his employ), Emperor Antoninus Pius condemning any illegal attacks on the Christian community, the dramatic story of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and the “Thundering Legion” or his son Emperor Commodus having a Christian mistress which is often pointed to as a reason for this fairly irascible Caesar refraining from persecuting Christians. She is also credited with influencing Emperor Commodus to release Pope St Calixtus I from prison. A revelation, passed down the imperial line, originating in a pagan source that they would not question, would be a possible explanation for such behavior.<br />
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However, other than foretelling Emperor Augustus of the birth of Christ, the most famous prophecy of this sort from the Tiburtine Sybil concerning an apocalyptic vision about a certain Emperor Constans. This prophecy foretold of a Greek king who would rise to become “king of the Romans and the Greeks” or, in other words, the Roman Emperor of East and West alike again, who would be very tall, very handsome, very wealthy, will destroy the enemies of Christianity, end all pagan worship, convert the Jews and defeat the massive, mysterious powers of Gog and Magog, after which he will retire to the Holy City of Jerusalem, abdicate his throne and hand the empire over to God. At that point, the Sybil describes what we would recognize as the rise of the Anti-Christ, coming from the tribe of Dan, who will win the people over by miraculous acts, who will destroy the Roman Empire and only then reveal himself as the agent of evil from the Temple of Jerusalem. This, of course, is very similar to other prophecies concerning “the Final Emperor” or the “Great Catholic Monarch” who will lead a last revival of Christian power before the end of the world.<br />
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An interesting point in the prophecy of the Tiburtine Sybil is that this monarch is named as Emperor Constans and that the prophecy was made, as near as we can tell, around the year 380 AD, a few decades after Rome had already had the reign of the historic Emperor Constans, the son of the Christian Emperor Constantine the Great, who came to the throne in 337 and ruled until he was assassinated in 350. If we were to be skeptical and presume that the Sibyl was trying to tailor her message for the audience, or that the story was invented later to appeal to Christian sensibilities, naming this future Christian hero after Emperor Constans would not make much sense. He was not known for being a terribly nice man or a terribly good emperor, though he too was part of a prophecy of his own concerning his grandmother, the Christian Empress St Helena. The prophecy said he would die in the arms of his grandmother and when he was assassinated it was after being cornered in a military post named Fort Helena.<br />
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So, what is the point of all this? I will be the first to admit it is largely just an act of indulgence on my part since I am interested in this sort of stuff. As with anything of this nature, some people will be inclined to believe and others will be inclined to disbelieve it and there really isn’t anything that anyone can say to prove either side right or wrong. I will say, at the very least, the existence of these stories and that they were passed on for so long reveals something to us about the people and the faith of Christendom. Sources of revelation were not rejected for being pagan, the people of the time recognizing that God can use anyone to participate in His plan. It shows also the centrality of the Roman Empire and the Roman emperors in the hearts of minds of Christian people and how central that Roman imperial tradition was to Christendom itself. The Christians of the late Roman Empire, even with all that was going on around them, did not cease to believe that their ‘realm’ on earth was something special, that Christianity had sprang up in that empire was no accident and that the Roman Empire was something that others would strive to bring back, that they hoped ultimately would come back, with all Christian, European peoples united under one divinely ordained Caesar.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-41824061434307264522016-08-04T14:37:00.000-07:002016-08-04T14:37:06.816-07:00Royal Monograms<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Vittorio Emanuele II</div>
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Umberto I</div>
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Vittorio Emanuele III</div>
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Umberto II</div>
<br />MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-65905087456758020462016-07-27T22:07:00.001-07:002016-07-27T22:07:51.992-07:00The Italian Empire, A Legacy to Be Proud Of<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Italian colonial empire was a short-lived affair but one that had far more extensive roots than most people realize. As a united country, the Kingdom of Italy is often described as the last to obtain an empire and the first to lose it but Italians had been colonizers for a very long time. One need not go back to the Roman Empire when the whole Mediterranean basin was ruled from Italy but simply going back to the Middle Ages or the Renaissance shows that various Italian states had minor colonial holdings of their own. The Republic of Genoa held territory on the Crimean peninsula, the Kingdom of Sicily held Tunisia for some time and the Republic of Venice had extensive holdings down the coast of the Adriatic and in the Aegean Sea as well as controlling Crete and Cyprus. The Grand Duke of Tuscany sent a preliminary expedition to South America with the intention of establishing an Italian colony in the New World but he died before the project could be completed. Unlike virtually every other colonial power, Italians were most often not treading on new ground but simply returning to lands which their ancestors had held, sometimes for centuries, before them.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eritrean colonial troops</td></tr>
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The colonial empire of the Kingdom of Italy had humble beginnings. It started when the Rubattino Shipping Company bought land around the Bay of Assab on the coast of the horn of Africa from the Sultan of Raheita in 1869 to establish a coaling station. This holding was later bought by the Italian government and expanded to become the first overseas colony of the Kingdom of Italy with the first Italian settlers arriving in 1880. Hearkening back to the old Roman name for the Red Sea, the Italians named the territory Eritrea. In 1888 the first railroad in the country was built and another improvement of particular pride was the Asmara-Massawa Cableway which was the longest in the world at the time (the British later dismantled it after World War II). Laws against racial mixing were imposed but no one seemed to mind much as, for the first time in their history, the local Africans had access to modern medical services, improved sanitation, transportation and improvements in agriculture. Italy lost money in the enterprise on the whole but the lives of the natives certainly improved, particularly because of the Italian colonial army which prevented raids on the country from Ethiopia, particularly from the Tigray region.<br />
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As a result, many Eritreans enlisted in the Italian colonial army and many gained quite a high reputation. Marshal of Italy Rodolfo Graziani considered the Eritreans the best of the Italian colonial soldiers and the famous cavalry officer, Amedeo Guillet, referred to them as the ‘Prussians of Africa’. During the Fascist era there was also a huge increase in industrialization in Eritrea and a subsequent boom in the population, both African and Italian. Before the outbreak of World War II, Asmara was a growing, prosperous city dotted with coffee shops, ice cream parlors, pizzerias and even its own race track. The fact that it was a “planned” city meant that it had many modern conveniences that even some cities in Italy lacked and boasted scenic wide boulevards lined with trees. These many improvements as well as the threat from Ethiopia worked together to ensure that Eritrea remained a loyal colony.<br />
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Not long after the first foothold in Eritrea was established, Italy also gained new territory on the southern side of the Horn of Africa in Somalia. In 1888 Sultan Yusuf Ali Kenadid of Hobyo made his province an Italian protectorate. The following year the Sultan of Majeerteenia did the same and the colony of Italian Somaliland was established. Here, development was somewhat slower as the Italians left local affairs in the hands of the local rulers, paid them a pension and focused on foreign relations, defense and the establishment of port facilities. In 1905 the Italian government decided to establish a formal colony in the region, partly because it was discovered that the local company had been turning a blind eye to the continued operation of the slave trade in the region. By 1908 the legal formalities were finished to establish Italian Somaliland as a formal colony. The most determined problem, early on, was the trouble caused by Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, aka “the Mad Mullah” but that violent movement was duly done away with and in the Twentieth Century development began to spread from the coast further inland.<br />
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Prince Luigi Amedeo formed an Italian-Somaliland Agricultural Society that established new, model plantations in the colony for the growing of sugar, bananas and cotton. The same year, 1920, saw the first modern bank established in Somalia when the Banca d’Italia opened a branch in Mogadishu. Surveys were done, after which more development proceeded such as the establishment of model farms, schools and hospitals. Before the end of the decade, Crown Prince Umberto had come to witness the opening of a new Catholic cathedral in Mogadishu and the region’s first international airport was established. The Sultan of Hobyo was usually very loyal to the Italians, the only problem occurring when he was excepted to allow British troops to land in his territory and Somalis tended to resent the British for their colonial rule over Somali tribes in the north (British Somaliland). After this, the Sultan was replaced by the Italian authorities and the population was disarmed but there were no major problems in the future and the Italians continued to abide by their agreements and allow the original, northern protectorates to govern themselves in their own way. Somalians were also enlisted in the Italian colonial army and included such colorful units as a corps of camel-born artillery.<br />
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There were, of course, bound to be setbacks. When the Italians took control of Eritrea, one of the local chieftains who had given his approval was one Sahle Maryam of Shewa. In exchange for this, Italy gave him support such as modern weapons in defeating his rivals to take control of Ethiopia as Emperor Menelik II. A treaty was signed that was supposed to ensure peace between the two, however, there was a discrepancy in the wording as it read differently in the Italian-language and Amharic-language versions. One established, essentially, an Italian protectorate over Ethiopia and the other said that Ethiopia could have Italian protection but only if and when they wanted it. Each side, of course, accused the other of changing the text in their version, Menelik II broke off diplomatic relations with Italy, effectively declaring war. A small Italian colonial army of a little over 17,500 men was later attacked by an Ethiopian army of around 100,000 and almost totally wiped out, ending, for the time being at least, any idea of Italy establishing any sort of control or influence over Ethiopia.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Italian troops landing in Libia</td></tr>
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However, of all overseas territories, none seemed more near at hand to Italy than Tunisia. Not only was it extremely close, but it had a sizable Italian population that had been present for a very long time. In the “Scramble for Africa” the Italian government sat back, taking the moral high road as it were, only to see Tunisia snatched up by the French. This caused quite a backlash in Italy and a renewed effort to make sure that such a thing did not happen again with the other north African lands south of Italy, three provinces still held by the Ottoman Sultan of Turkey, known to Italians as “the fourth shore”. Determined not to let another power snatch this region away from them, the Italian government began investing in the area and when the Turkish government started to clamp down on the increased Italian interest, Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire in September of 1911. Italian military forces landed on the coast and quickly seized control of the major ports while the Ottoman forces, largely Arab raiders with Turkish officers, fell back into the interior to strike at any Italian attempt to move south. The situation produced a stalemate as Italy had been counting on the support of the local Arab population and resources had not been allocated for a major campaign in the desert interior of the country. The Turks, likewise, could rule the desert but proved incapable of dislodging the Italians from the coast or of challenging Italian naval supremacy.<br />
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In 1912 the Turks finally agreed to come to terms with Italy, prompted by the Italian seizure of Rhodes and other nearby islands and the threat of an attack on the Dardanelles, which all powers were anxious to avoid. The former Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan were ceded to Italy which, in due time, merged them into one colonial administration, resurrecting the old Roman name for the region, “Libia”. Actual Italian control, however, continued to remain mostly on the coastal region and during the First World War, attacks by Islamic insurgents, backed up by Turkey and Germany in an effort to restore Ottoman Turkish control over the whole of north Africa, forced the Italians back into the major port cities as the overwhelming bulk of Italian military strength was concentrated on the critical border region with Austria. However, all of that changed after the acquisition of power by Benito Mussolini and his Fascist party. From 1923 until 1932 a fierce irregular war raged in the region, known as the Pacification of Libya. Stopping the terrorist attacks on Italian settlers and ending the insurgency took time but finally Italian forces resorted to repressive measures and the rebellion was ended, with the primary insurgent leader actually being captured by a troop of Libyan cavalry fighting on the Italian side. The first modern roads were built, port facilities were modernized and new model farming communities were established. Much progress was made under the governorship of Air Marshal Italo Balbo and when he was killed at the start of World War II, witnesses remarked that the Libyans showed more grief than the Italians at his loss because he had made things so much better.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Italian troops in Ethiopia</td></tr>
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The next colonial acquisition for Italy was Ethiopia, which, of course, was the cause of much controversy. It was sparked by an attack on an Italian outpost which was on land that the Ethiopians claimed as their own. The fact that this was not something instigated by Italy is evident enough by the amount of time it took to transfer military forces to Eritrea and Somalia to fight the actual war. The League of Nations opposed this and the issue became larger than Ethiopia but was, rather, seen by Mussolini as a struggle against the leaders of the existing international world order, embodied by the League. The fighting was harsh but, in the end, Italian forces conquered Ethiopia in seven months and merged it, administratively, with Eritrea and Somalia into “Italian East Africa”. Tensions were high at first and when the Viceroy, Marshal of Italy Rodolfo Graziani, was badly wounded in an assassination attempt, there were bloody reprisals. However, he was replaced by the Duke of Aosta under whose administration the country was at peace and began to see considerable improvements, including the abolition of slavery in the country. Plans for the modernization of the capital and other projects were ultimately canceled by the outbreak of World War II.<br />
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The Kingdom of Albania was occupied by Italian forces with practically no opposition by the native population shortly before the outbreak of World War II, however, again, the fact that Italy joined World War II so shortly thereafter, and the Italian presence was removed after 1943, meant that the Italians were able to have very little impact on Albania. Although, it is worth pointing out, that the period of union with Italy, following the conquest of Greece and Yugoslavia, was the only time that the nationalist goal of “Greater Albania” was actually achieved, albeit for a short time. Before World War II had ended, all Italian colonial possessions were, of course, taken away and given independence or, short of that, given nominal independence under the temporary stewardship of a parent country. It is worth pointing out though that, at the time of Italian entry into World War II, there was no widespread opposition to Italian rule in any of the colonies.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Albanian militia unit</td></tr>
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The Italian presence in Albania was not entirely welcomed but not entirely opposed either and most of those in the Albanian government had previously been in the government of Ahmed Zog, the previous potentate of the country. Libya, Eritrea and Somalia were all quite calm and peaceful under Italian rule, the only place where any opposition at all existed was in Ethiopia. That is understandable given that, unlike all the others, the Ethiopians had a history as a previously independent country with their own sense of nationhood. However, even there, serious opposition had been dealt with and most accepted the change and got on with things. In fact, of all the colonial troops who served in the Italian royal army in World War II, the only native soldier to earn the highest Italian decoration for bravery was an Ethiopian. So, even there, considerable levels of support and devotion did exist. What is illustrative of the Italian colonial enterprise overall, and why Italians should not be ashamed of their short-lived period of imperialism, is the fate of the former Italian colonies after Italian rule was removed and these places became independent.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marshal Graziani in Mogadishu</td></tr>
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The Kingdom of Albania was occupied by the Germans and then, after the Allied victory in World War II, fell to the communists of Enver Hoxha who established a Marxist tyranny, so fanatical and so murderous that it alienated Stalinist Russia, Maoist China and Tito’s Yugoslavia in turn. Albania fell into oppressive poverty and had the lowest standard of living of any European country. To this day, it has not fully recovered. Italian East Africa was occupied by the Allies (mostly British imperial troops) and broken up into the countries that exist today. Somalia was under the military administration of Britain and became nominally independent though in 1949 stewardship over the country was given to the Italian Republic until 1960 when it was joined with the former British colony of British Somaliland to create the country as we know it today. And, as we know, Somalia has become the go-to example in the world for a “failed state”, being reduced by poverty, crime and internal warfare to a state of total chaos. When one thinks of Somalia today it is only as a place of anarchy, warlords and a nest of pirates. Somalis have fled their failed independent homeland in huge numbers, going as far abroad as Minnesota and Sweden to get as far away from their nightmarish native land as possible.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Asmara station, Eritrea</td></tr>
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In Eritrea, the first Italian colony, the British military ruled the place until 1950 because no one could decide what to do with it. One person who knew exactly what he wanted to do with it was the de-throned Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie who was pushing for Allied support for the Ethiopian annexation of Eritrea even before British imperial forces had set him back on his own throne. The United Nations, in the 1950’s, finally agreed that Eritrea would be joined with Ethiopia in a “federation” with Eritrea officially remaining independent. That charade ended in 1962 when Haile Selassie dissolved the Eritrean parliament and unilaterally declared the country to be part of Ethiopia. Not surprisingly, war broke out immediately as the Eritreans fought the Ethiopians in a brutal conflict that spanned the next thirty years, only ending when the Eritreans made an alliance with a faction of Ethiopian rebels after which the UN stepped in to hold a referendum. This, of course, resulted in the Eritreans voting for their independence in 1993. Eritrea got it, established a dictatorship and haven’t had another exercise in democracy since. Needless to say, thirty years of war, terrorism and finally Marxist dictatorship have left the country an impoverished wreck.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Haile Selassie and one of his lions</td></tr>
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Ethiopia, again, is really in a class by itself and cannot entirely be compared to the others. Still, the post-Italian period has not been pleasant for the country, though it would also be worse than the pre-Italian period as well. Haile Selassie was put back in control of the country and money poured in from the victorious Allies through various aid funds. Still, this did not benefit the country overall as serious divisions and problems remained which Haile Selassie struggled to deal with. He championed the cause of pan-African unity and opposition to European colonialism in Africa (even while imposing his own sort of colonial rule over the unwilling population of Eritrea) but this ultimately proved to be not so beneficial to the “Conquering Lion of Judah” as he styled himself. Most of the anti-colonial movements in Africa were communist and after some particularly hard times the communists managed to overthrow Haile Selassie in 1974. This time there was no British Empire to put him back on his throne again and he was murdered the following year. His replacement was a communist dictatorship so vicious and so oppressive that it must rank among the very worst in the entire world. Oppression, murder and misery prevailed to the point that the very name of Ethiopia became synonymous with “starvation” in the rest of the world. Again, even after the communist regime officially fell, the country has still not recovered from the decades of murderous misery the communists inflicted on it.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">King Idris</td></tr>
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Finally, we have the case of Libya. British military rule gave way to the creation of a new monarchy under the former Emir of Cyrenaica who became King Idris I of Libya in 1951. The British and Americans established close ties with the new regime, built military bases there and in 1959 Exxon discovered vast deposits of oil in the country which changed things considerably. New wealth brought greater resentment and efforts to promote unity failed, mostly because neither the King himself nor any of his people recognized him as a “Libyan” but rather as the Emir of Cyrenaica who had been imposed by western powers over the whole country. He was accused of favoring his own circle when it came to dishing out the oil revenues and of being too friendly with foreign powers and foreign oil companies. This culminated in King Idris being overthrown while on holiday by a military coup led by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 1969.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gaddafi with African chiefs</td></tr>
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Gaddafi, as we know, established a brutal and farcical dictatorship over the country, marked by tyranny at home, support for terrorism abroad and for the increasingly bizarre behavior of Gaddafi himself. Whether it was his painfully long orations at the UN, his threats of war against Switzerland or his bevy of buxom female bodyguards, no one could accuse Gaddafi of being boring. He also used the threat of floods of illegal immigrants to extort huge financial benefits as well as groveling apologies from the Italian government. In 2011 the hated dictator was overthrown, with air support from NATO, and given mob justice on the streets of Sirte. Since that time, Libya has fallen into chaos and is increasingly becoming a hotbed of terrorism, economically stagnant, politically unstable and extremely dangerous. Certainly, a far cry from what it had been during the tenure of Air Marshal Italo Balbo to be sure. And this in a country, it is worth remembering, where Italian-born Roman legions marched long before the first Arab ever cross the Sinai or the name of Mohammed was known to the world.<br />
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No, the historical record clearly shows that Italians have no reason to feel ashamed of their colonial past overall. Certainly there were unpleasant episodes in a couple of places but, on the whole, these parts of the world often saw their only periods of sustained stability and progress while under the Italian flag and the Crown of Savoy. Without exception, none of them have fared better after Italian rule was withdrawn. On the contrary, their record as independent states has been a record of failure. That does not mean, of course, that anyone in any of these places is nostalgic for the colonial past. National and racial awareness exists today in a way that did not exist in those days, though it is interesting to note that the Albanian government recently requested the return of the Italian military to deal with the influx of illegal immigrants (aka “refugees”) into their country, many of them fleeing former Italian colonies that have since become failed states. That, in itself, rather tells the story doesn’t it? European rule once came to Africa and, now that it is gone, Africans (and others) are now coming to Europe to live once more under their former imperial rulers.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-91058705470080154952016-07-19T10:57:00.000-07:002016-07-19T10:58:50.484-07:00A Look Back at Adorable Propaganda<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If you're going to make war propaganda, why not make it cute? Evidently that was the sentiment of someone with artistic talent in Fascist Italy during the Second Abyssinian and World Wars. Here is a look back at some previously posted colorful artwork of an adorable little Italy going out to subdue the enemies of the <i>Patria Italia</i>:</div>
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<a href="http://italianmonarchist.blogspot.com/2013/06/chibi-italia-goes-to-war-part-i.html">Set One</a></div>
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<a href="http://italianmonarchist.blogspot.com/2013/06/chibi-italia-goes-to-war-part-ii.html">Set Two</a></div>
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<a href="http://italianmonarchist.blogspot.com/2013/06/chibi-italia-goes-to-war-part-iii.html">Set Three</a></div>
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<br />MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-13888575777836056302016-07-16T13:02:00.002-07:002016-07-16T13:02:56.624-07:00A Classical View of Modern Problems<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It will have escaped no one's attention that Europe, and the wider western world, is in a state of crisis. Demographic changes have placed the peoples of Western Europe on a path to extinction, European nations are under threat of being replaced by international organizations run by a globalist elite and there are problems ranging from terrorism to simple cultural stress brought about by the importation of peoples totally alien to Europe and western values, customs and traditions. Italy has been at the forefront of this crisis, particularly in terms of the influx of massive numbers of migrants from Africa and the Middle East who cross the Mediterranean and make their first landfall on Italian soil. Most, as we know, do not choose to remain in Italy but move north toward countries such as Sweden, Norway or, most especially, Germany. The usual explanation for this is that these are wealthier countries with more to offer than the heavily indebted countries in the south such as Greece or Spain or the Italian Republic. That is certainly true and it makes sense. However, it also matters that these countries, particularly Germany, have welcomed such migrants and are willing to accept them. No one is forcing the German government to do this and, given the immense problems it is causing, one must ask why they would.<br />
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There are, undoubtedly, a number of reasons that could be put forward but we might also consider a possible explanation that a mentality is at work here that was around in the days of ancient Rome. In his book <i>Germania</i>, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote down his observations about the Germans and how different they were, in so many ways, from the people, society and customs of Rome. He describes how very meritocratic the Germans were, how egalitarian their society was in contrast to Rome, making it less orderly but in other ways more admirable to modern sensibilities. Tacitus also described in great deal, as an example, the very different attitude towards women that the Germans had. In Rome, it was the matron that was upheld as the ideal, the supportive wife and mother, devoted to her home and family, to domestic pursuits. German women, on the other hand, had a much higher profile, were more outspoken and even followed their men into battle, cheering them on amidst the carnage. Like the Romans, most Germans had only one wife but adultery seems to have been very rare among the Germans. Tacitus also spoke of how decisions were taken collectively by the senior men of every German tribe, totally unlike the Romans with the prominent leadership of great generals, consuls or, in times of crisis, a dictator. Ultimately, as we know, there would be an emperor.<br />
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Could some trace of these attitudes still remain in the German mind of today? If these were spread beyond the "tribe" to all other peoples in the world, it might explain, to some extent, the current German position regarding issues from feminism to the migrant crisis. That would be the key point though, as the ancient Germans would certainly be aghast at the actions of their descendants today because they certainly drew a sharp distinction between those who were Germans and those who were not. However, the mentality that everyone, regardless of who they are, must be given consideration, if applied beyond the "tribe" might, to some extent, explain the attitude of Germany today and why opposition seems to be so much stronger in countries such as France, Italy, England, Poland or Hungary. One also cannot help but notice, in the United States, where the current presidential race is portrayed as a contest between a nationalist, Trump, and a globalist, Clinton, that Anglo Americans, Scots-Irish, Polish-Americans and Italian-Americans have tended to support Donald Trump, Americans of German, Dutch and Scandinavian ancestry have tended to oppose him. It does make one wonder just how much our ancestry influences our views and opinions.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-5532691078581479582016-07-07T17:34:00.000-07:002016-07-07T17:34:21.178-07:00Italy and the American Revolution<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There was, as most know, no united country called Italy at the time of the American Revolution. The Italian peninsula was still divided among a collection of minor states and the dominions of the Pope, most of them under the direct or indirect rule of some major European power, usually Austria. However, Italians played a considerable part in the American war and events in Italy, both historic and contemporary, inspired America's Founding Fathers. The independence movement in Corsica, first against Genoa and later against France, was something many Americans looked to and, of course, the historic legacy of the Roman Republic had a major influence on the establishment of the United States government.<br />
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On July 1, 1777 the U.S. government assigned Ralph Izard as Commissioner to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando III, but he was never received and formal diplomatic recognition was never extended to the United States by Florence. That was most likely due to the opposition to the American war by the Austrian Emperor Joseph II who was concerned that his own subjects might follow their example. However, there was still a desire for commercial ties. Ragusa, in what is now Croatia, which had a large Italian presence, established trade links with the United States through Italian agents in France such as Francesco Favi and Giovanni Fabronni. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany never recognized the United States prior to the formation of the Kingdom of Italy. However, there were those who did, though some were quite late such as the Duchy of Parma which recognized the American government in 1850.<br />
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In 1796 the King of Naples officially recognized the United States of America, though full diplomatic relations were not established until 1832 due to the tumult caused by the French Revolutionary Wars. The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia established diplomatic relations with the United States in 1802. The Papal States, while waiting a long time to extend official diplomatic recognition to the United States, did open its ports to American trade in 1784 and this was at the instigation of the Papal Nuncio in Paris, not by the Americans. The United States was also allowed to have a consulate in Rome from 1797. The Republic of Genoa recognized the United States in 1791 though that relationship did not last long since the republic was annexed by France in 1805. Oddly enough, one Italian state that was quite unfriendly to the new republic in America was the older Republic of Venice. The Venetian ambassadors in France and Spain were approached by the American envoys but Venice refused to recognize the American government and ignored an effort at correspondence with the Venetian ambassador in Paris. The only reason for this seems to have been a reluctance on the part of Venice to risk endangering their trade with Britain or upsetting the Austrians. As it turns out, the American republic received more support from the monarchies of Europe than from the republics, as surprising as most would probably find that today.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-82146428842050169562016-06-09T00:17:00.001-07:002016-06-09T00:17:07.073-07:00King Vittorio Amadeo III of Piedmont-Sardinia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Prince Vittorio Amadeo Maria, Duke of Savoy, was born in Turin on June 26, 1726 the son and heir of King Carlo Emanuele III by his second wife Princess Polyxena of Hesse-Rotenburg. A son from the King’s previous marriage had died the year before so the birth of Vittorio Amadeo, a new heir to the throne, was widely celebrated in the Savoy lands of Piedmont-Sardinia. His childhood and upbringing were very typical for the house of Savoy and the same descriptions would be used for Italian royal sons right to the last king to ever reign. His private tutor was quite strict and his education stressed military subjects, Catholicism and history, particularly the history of the House of Savoy. The emphasis on the army was doubtless even more so given that, even in the ranks of a family with an extremely long martial history, King Carlo Emanuele III was most known as a “warrior-king”, earning laurels in the wars over the Polish and Austrian successions. Prince Vittorio Amadeo had an upbringing that greatly stressed the importance of the army and, like other Savoy royal heirs, he was kept away from politics until the day he actually came to the throne.<br />
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However, Prince Vittorio Amadeo did not waste his time with frivolity but, as a young man, surrounded himself with scholars, statesmen and various, highly esteemed ‘wise men’ whose company he could benefit from. Many of this men would go on to serve him when he became king. A man of very conservative politics and with religious views that were very traditionally Catholic, Vittorio Amadeo nonetheless fostered an atmosphere of openness around him and was gentleman enough to get along well with people who did not share his views. He was confident in his own positions that he had nothing to fear from hearing all sides of an issue. He was also, of course, expected to marry and secure the future of the royal succession. King Fernando VI of Spain reached out to him to arrange a marriage between the Savoy heir and his sister Infanta Maria Antoinetta, the youngest daughter of King Felipe V, the first Bourbon Spanish monarch. The couple were married in 1750 and they had a very happy marriage with the pair growing quite attached to each other. So attached in fact that they had twelve children, so the future of the Savoy dynasty was safe and sound.<br />
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In 1773, with the passing of his father, the Duke of Savoy became King Vittorio Amadeo III of Piedmont-Sardinia on February 20. From day one the administration of his country and the military were his top priorities but that does not mean that he neglected other areas. Because of his conservative and religious nature he has often been accused of being reactionary to the point of being averse to change of any kind, but this is not so. In fact, he was very keen on improving a number of things that needed it. Beneficial change was never a problem for him but change for the sake of change alone, naturally would not be tolerated. For all of the emphasis he placed on the army, he was also certainly not a warmonger and aimed at ensuring the security of his country by peaceful, diplomatic means first and foremost. His marriage to a member of the Spanish Royal Family was part of this, to secure a marriage alliance with Spain after the two powers had been enemies in the War of Austrian Succession (the Savoy having backed the Hapsburg side).<br />
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Similarly, he arranged a marriage for his own son and heir with the sister of King Louis XVI of France and several daughters were also married into the French Royal Family. His second son was married into the Hapsburg family (Austria-Este), another daughter to the Electoral Prince of Saxony and his youngest son married a daughter of the Naples branch of the Spanish Bourbons. As such, Piedmont-Sardinia had strong to ties to all its neighbors and several other lands farther a field and his offspring included three future Kings of Sardinia and one, at least nominal, Queen of France (another would have also been a Queen of France but she died before Charles X came to the throne). Because of this, the army that so many claim was his sole focus, had little to do until the very end of his reign. In other, peaceful pursuits, he improved the bureaucracy of his country, improved the infrastructure with new roads, new dams and upgrades to the port of Nice. He established botanical and agricultural institutions with the aim of making the country more self-sufficient and undertook a number of public works projects.<br />
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Overall, he carried on with the changes first set in motion by his grandfather which were aimed at making the aristocracy less corrupt and more socially-minded (a common problem of the time) and encouraging greater social mobility for the common people so that they could lift themselves out of poverty by their own talents. In terms of the army though, he did spend a great deal, carrying on the effort to renovate the Piedmontese military along the lines of that of the Kingdom of Prussia which was the example that all small, resource-poor states naturally wished to follow. Given the events of his reign, some have dismissed this as a failure but that requires taking a very narrow view. In fact, the military “culture” of the country was changed and even as late as World War II, a German general serving in Italy remarked on how similar Piedmont was to Prussia in the emphasis placed on the army and in the many years in between not a few foreign observers would refer to Piedmont as ‘the Prussia of Italy’. The King is also remembered as the founder of the Gold Medal of Military Valor, the highest Italian combat decoration which is still awarded to this day. He also followed this example himself at home by adopted a more Spartan lifestyle so that the British historian Gibbon, on traveling through the area, wrote about how the Savoy royals lived “with decent and splendid economy”.<br />
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King Vittorio Amadeo III would take daily walks, set time aside every Saturday to receive visitors from his humblest subjects and showed his piety when, on every Holy Thursday, he would wash the feet of twelve poor men and then see them off with a gift of money for a fine supper. All in all, life under his rule was good and steadily improving. However, all of it was thrown into the gravest peril by the outbreak of the French Revolution. Being a very traditional, conservative and religious man with several of his children married to French royals, he could not but be appalled by what was happening in neighboring France. Without hesitation he gave safe haven to his sons-in-law the Count of Artois and Count of Provence, fleeing the worsening chaos and repression in their homeland, though this immediately caused cries from the revolutionaries in Paris for retribution against the House of Savoy. Even though the odds against them would be impossibly long, he also did not hesitate to pledge his small, prized army to the royalist cause in 1793, working in cooperation with the Austrians as part of the First Coalition.<br />
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The French republicans were quick to attack Piedmont, vowing to make northern Italy a satellite republic, but the Savoyard troops, along with a contingent of Austrians, fought fiercely and succeeded in repelling the initial invasion. The French met a similar fate on other fronts and when they tried to enlist the United States to come in on their side, the American government flatly refused and considered the alliance made with the late King Louis XVI to have died with him. Royalist counter-revolutionaries were also rising up and achieving successes. However, the French responded by ordering the conscription of every adult male in the country and soon they had turned the war situation around, swamping their enemies with what was often simply a huge, armed and radicalized mob.<br />
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After four years of fighting off superior forces, in 1796 the Savoyard troops of King Vittorio Amadeo III finally met a foe they could not defeat in the person of a young, up-and-coming French commander named Napoleon Bonaparte. In the Montenotte campaign the “Little Corporal” was able to outmaneuver his foes, separate the Austrian and Piedmontese armies and eventually defeat them both. The Austrians had positioned themselves at too great a distance from the Piedmontese, despite the urgings of the Italian general Michelangelo Alessandro Colli-Marchi and the result would lead to the domination of northern Italy by republican France. After the Battle of Mondovi on April 21, there was no choice left but capitulation and King Vittorio Amadeo III, in the most painful moment of his life, was forced to sign the Armistice of Cherasco on April 28, 1796, removing the Savoy domains from the First Coalition. The following month he signed the Treaty of Paris, handing over the key fortresses of the country to France, allowing French troops passage through the country to carry on the Italian campaign and ceding Nice and Savoy to France.<br />
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In the wake of this fiasco, King Vittorio Amadeo III was a broken man and his health and spirits only worsened from that point on. Within a year he had an apoplexy and finally died on October 16, 1796 at Moncalieri. A reign that had began with such promise and which had seen many beneficial reforms, had been reduced to ruin in the final years by the horror and bloodshed that were the fruits of the French Revolution. However, the House of Savoy was down but not out and the next three kings to succeed him would all be sons of Vittorio Amadeo III and they would ultimately see the French defeated, the Savoy flag raised again over Turin and the monarchy restored completely along with some additional lands. The French revolutionaries had won the first round but the sons of Vittorio Amadeo III would be the ones returning home in triumph while Allied armies marched down the boulevards of Paris. Whereas his enemies would be remembered for "the Terror" and wars of conquest, Vittorio Amadeo III would be remembered as a beloved figure, perhaps a little too trusting at times, but a kind man of good character who was generous to a fault.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-82173703336387008652016-06-04T00:57:00.001-07:002016-06-04T00:58:46.125-07:00Graziani and Rommel, Two Commanders in North Africa<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is widely regarded as one of the greatest military commanders of all time, and for good reason. He is most famous for his aggressive battles in North Africa against superior British forces which earned him the nickname, “the Desert Fox”. The usual, although not entirely accurate, portrayal is that Rommel arrived, just in time, to save the Italian forces in Libya from disaster following the failed invasion of Egypt by a more infamous World War II military leader, Marshal of Italy Rodolfo Graziani. The two generals have, from time to time, been compared and such comparisons have never been favorable to Graziani. That is something that is not going to change. Rommel has achieved near-mythic status among military historians whereas Graziani is usually written-off as an example of incompetent Italian military leadership. However, accepting that, looking at the facts, does Graziani really compare so unfavorably to his more famous German successor? If one sticks to the truth and disregards stereotypes, one might see that the two were not as different as one might think. Looking at their careers in total, Graziani doesn’t compare all that badly.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rommel and Graziani in World War I</td></tr>
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First of all, in terms of actual military experience, Graziani was very much in advance of Rommel. The young German officer from Wurttemberg had never seen combat until the outbreak of World War I, whereas the young Rodolfo Graziani was, by that time, a veteran of the Italo-Turkish War with an extensive record of colonial service in East Africa where he had learned to speak Arabic and the language of the local Tigreans. During the First World War, both men had exceptional records though Rommel would probably have taken more headlines. Rommel served in the elite Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion and had his greatest triumph when his audacity led to the capture of an Italian mountain position and the taking of 9,000 prisoners. For this stunning achievement, Rommel was awarded the “Blue Max”, Imperial Germany’s highest combat decoration. Graziani, on the other hand, had no such singular victory as that, however, he did advance farther and faster in the war than Rommel did. His own record was very impressive, he earned rapid promotion and before the war was over held the rank of colonel, the youngest in the Royal Italian Army. Coincidentally, after his capture of Tobruk, Rommel would become the youngest field marshal in the German army in World War II.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graziani, the "Pacifyer of Libia"</td></tr>
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After the end of World War I, the military careers of Rommel and Graziani were vastly different. Rommel remained in the army but was of course limited to desk jobs, giving him time to write a book on armored warfare that would be read by many, including his future enemies. Graziani, on the other hand, left the military and tried his hand at civilian life but found little success as a businessman. He was recalled to service after attacks by Islamic terrorists in Libya against Italians became a major cause for concern. With his record of colonial service in Africa before and during World War I, Graziani was a natural choice for such an assignment. It also helped that he understood the local culture and could speak to the Arabs in their own language. In 1930 he was appointed Governor of Cyrenaica by Mussolini and charged with putting an end to the terrorist attacks there. In this campaign, Graziani proved very successful. He isolated the rebel groups from their sources of support, forced them out of their favored area of operations and finally wiped them out. Libya was pacified, terrorist attacks stopped and the rebel leader, Omar Mukhtar, was captured, tried and executed.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rommel as a young officer</td></tr>
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However, whereas Rommel has a reputation for being a generally humane and chivalrous commander, the Pacification of Libya saw General Graziani nicknamed the “Butcher of Fezzan” for his harsh treatment of the Islamic radicals and those suspected of supporting them. Retribution killings were not unknown and large numbers of Arabs were put into vast concentration camps to prevent them giving aid to the terrorist groups. Graziani believed in fighting fire with fire and that such methods were necessary in the context of the local culture where strength and brutality were respected while generosity and tolerance were taken as signs of contemptuous weakness. Nonetheless, it would not be the last incident that would give Graziani demerits in the eyes of many for his character when compared to Rommel, a man widely respected by his foes as well as his friends. As far as military achievement goes though, undoubtedly Graziani surged ahead of Rommel in the period between the two world wars. While Graziani was being hailed in Rome as the “Pacifier of Libya”, Rommel was still a relatively low ranking officer working in obscurity behind a desk.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graziani in the Ethiopian capital</td></tr>
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That situation only continued as General Graziani was given a command in Somalia at the outbreak of war between Italy and Ethiopia in 1935. He was charged with leading the attack from the south, out of Somalia, while the main attack came from the north out of Eritrea. Once again, Graziani won hard fought victories. His Ethiopian foes, while ill-equipped compared to the Italians, were not the ignorant primitives that they are usually portrayed as. They had many trained military commanders, foreign military advisers, modern weapons, a huge advantage in numbers and incredible fighting spirit. While Rommel was in the Versailles-restricted German army, Graziani was winning further laurels on the battlefield. He wiped out an entire Ethiopian army at the Battle of Genale Doria and later won the Battle of the Ogaden, vanquishing the defensive line developed by the veteran Turkish general Wehib Pasha, a highly experienced foreigner employed by Ethiopia who was happy for any chance to fight Europeans. Graziani was so successful that after the war was won and Ethiopia conquered, he was appointed Viceroy of Italian East Africa. Still, attacks on his character returned when a group of Ethiopian rebels tried to assassinate him. He was badly wounded but survived and in the aftermath ordered ruthless reprisals that caused the newspapers to rename him the “Butcher of Ethiopia”.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rommel in the invasion of France</td></tr>
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Even in Italy this bad press caused Graziani trouble and he was replaced by the gallant and chivalrous Prince Amadeo, Duke of Aosta and was somewhat sidelined in the aftermath. He played no more major part in Italian military affairs until after the country joined in the Second World War. It was during this period that the career of Rommel comes from behind to start overtaking Graziani. After years as a military instructor, being a colonel in 1938 (a rank Graziani achieved decades earlier), Rommel’s career began to take off after Hitler assumed power, being a fan of the military theories Rommel had written about in his book. Hitler put Rommel in command of his own military escort during the annexation of Czechoslovakia and the invasion of Poland. Hitler liked Rommel’s ideas about fast, mechanized warfare and liked the fact that unlike many of the German officers, Rommel was not an aristocrat. In 1940 Hitler told Rommel he could have whatever command he wanted and Rommel asked for a tank division. Hitler promptly promoted Rommel to major general and gave his command of the Seventh Panzer Division.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graziani poster art</td></tr>
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In the invasion of France and the Low Countries, Rommel and his tanks raced from victory to victory. His unit earned the nickname, the “Ghost Division” because it seemed to appear out of nowhere. His star was clearly on the rise. Graziani, meanwhile, was facing what would be the one major failure of his military career. When Air Marshal Italo Balbo was killed in a “friendly fire” accident, Marshal Graziani was rushed in to take command of Italian forces in Libya with orders from Mussolini to invade and conquer British-held Egypt as quickly as possible. The ultimate result of this was a disaster. Graziani was against the plan from the start and participated very grudgingly, moving only when Mussolini sent him the ultimatum to invade Egypt or be relieved of command. At this stage, he had the British outnumbered (though he was not confident of that) but he knew from his experience in Ethiopia that having superior numbers does not guarantee success. In that war he had defeated an enemy that had him heavily outnumbered due to his own ingenuity and his superior weapons and equipment. In Egypt, he had the numbers but it was the British who had the better weapons and equipment.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rommel postcard</td></tr>
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The Italian invasion of Egypt started off well but after advancing a relatively short distance, Graziani halted and began building a line of fortified camps to guard against a British counter-attack while he waited for more supplies, more guns and more tanks from Italy. Many since have accused Graziani of simply losing his nerve and that will be an important point to remember. When the British counter-attack came, it was swift and devastating. In “Operation Compass” the British reduced the Italian fortified camps one by one, drove them out of Egypt and advanced deep into Libya, taking large numbers of Italian prisoners. Undoubtedly raddled by the disaster, Graziani was relieved of command at his own request. Within a short time, Mussolini accepted Hitler’s offer of assistance and Rommel was given command of the German ‘Afrika Korps’ that very quickly turned things around in Libya. Rommel rose to international fame as commander of the Italo-German forces in North Africa (he was nominally subordinate to the local Italian commander but, having the support of Hitler, Rommel basically did as he pleased and called the shots). The war in North Africa essentially stalemated, Rommel rushing ahead, the British forcing him back and then Rommel pushing ahead again and so on.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graziani and Rommel in Africa at happier times</td></tr>
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This is the time period that most point to as proving the point that Rommel was the clear winner in any comparison with Graziani. True enough, Rommel won victories that Graziani never did. Yet, a variety of factors can account for this. For one, it was the defeat of Graziani that made Rome and Berlin take the North African front seriously and Rommel went into battle with a far better supplied and better equipped force than Graziani had had at his disposal. Rommel had raised the morale of his men whereas Graziani had an Italian army that had already felt rather gloomy since the death of Marshal Balbo and who were worn out from fighting a succession of campaigns before World War II even began. Rommel was fighting an enemy he knew, just as Graziani had been in Ethiopia and Libya. The Italian marshal, on the other hand, had no experience fighting the British and seemed to be fighting a more colonial-warfare style campaign. The command style of the two men was also totally different. Rommel was a gambler, known for his audacity, aggressiveness and taking chances. Graziani also had a reputation for aggressiveness but also for being a more methodical commander who would devise a plan and enact it step by step.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marshal Graziani</td></tr>
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If Graziani had commanded a force as well supplied and equipped, with an additional corps of German troops at his disposal, he might have done much better but, for him, that was never an option. His campaign had been an all-Italian affair and much of the supplies that could have been sent to him were siphoned off for Mussolini’s invasion of Greece. However, it is also worth noting that Rommel, just like Graziani, came to ruin through a failed invasion of Egypt. Unlike Graziani though, Rommel was the one pushing for an invasion of Egypt while other commanders, such as his nominal Italian superior Marshal Ettore Bastico, thought it doomed to failure. German Air Marshal Albert Kesselring, overall commander of the southern front, also thought invading Egypt a mistake, preferring to first capture the British island-fortress of Malta to ensure the safety of their logistical support. Hitler, however, backed Rommel and the invasion of Egypt went ahead, ending in defeat at the Battle of El Alamein, after which the war in North Africa turned irrevocably against the Axis powers.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rommel decorated by Bastico with the Colonial Star</td></tr>
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Another interesting point, often ignored, is that Rommel’s invasion of Egypt, though certainly pushed more energetically than that of Graziani, also ended in failure and also was followed by a sequence of events that has caused some historians to likewise accuse Rommel of losing his nerve. The Germans retreated from El Alamein and almost never stopped until the Italo-German forces were trapped and forced to surrender in Tunisia. At every step of the way the Italians, on whose ground they were fighting, urged Rommel to stand and fight. He refused, saying it was impossible. Likewise, Hitler was constantly urging Rommel to stand his ground, to retreat no further and launch counter-attacks as he had done previously with so much success. Again, after one failed attempt that saw massive numbers of Axis troops taken prisoner (sound familiar?), Rommel persisted in his belief that it was hopeless, constantly asked for more supplies (as Graziani had done in Egypt) until he was finally removed from command so as not to preside over the inevitable collapse of Axis power in Africa.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graziani having some pasta in Libia</td></tr>
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Rommel, of course, gave perfectly legitimate reasons for retreating from Egypt, all the way across Libya to Tunisia and even Mussolini praised the operation as “brilliant” in its conduct, though it meant surrendering Italy’s “fourth shore” to the British. Yet, it is interesting to note how the Germans are praised for the retreat from Egypt while Italian forces are often ridiculed for losing battle after battle in which they fought against hopeless odds (with antiquated artillery and totally outmatched tanks), losing, yes, but at least putting up a fight. As the (controversial) author David Irving wrote in his biography of Rommel, many in the German High Command thought Rommel had lost his nerve, had fallen prey to defeatism and many Italian officers grumbled that he was willingly sacrificing their country and had no intention of even trying to hold on to north Africa. However, just like Graziani before him, Rommel was not simply making excuses but informing them of very real supply problems (though the fact that these problems existed rather proves the point that Kesselring argued about the importance of taking Malta and were exactly why Marshal Bastico had no faith in a victory in Egypt).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-unYx43rHZHM/V1KHEzH9iNI/AAAAAAAAjvM/VMmMswr39Dcjw9pkug1hn0SMpr6TWIgKgCLcB/s1600/Hermann_Bernhard_Ramcke_Erwin_Johannes_Eugen_Rommel_Afrika_DAK_Deutsches_Afrikakorps.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-unYx43rHZHM/V1KHEzH9iNI/AAAAAAAAjvM/VMmMswr39Dcjw9pkug1hn0SMpr6TWIgKgCLcB/s200/Hermann_Bernhard_Ramcke_Erwin_Johannes_Eugen_Rommel_Afrika_DAK_Deutsches_Afrikakorps.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rommel & General Ramcke</td></tr>
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Moreover, Rommel also had one major problem that Graziani had not had to deal with which was that the Allies, by this time, had broken the Enigma code and were reading all of Rommel’s messages. Every time he asked about the whereabouts of supply convoys, and was told where they were and when they were expected to arrive, Allied forces could move to intercept these convoys and prevent them reaching Africa. Just as Mussolini had done with Graziani, Hitler promised Rommel ample supplies, new guns and new tanks but, even those that were actually sent, often ended up on the bottom of the Mediterranean thanks to British planes and submarines. When Rommel finally advised total evacuation and abandoning Africa, he finally lost the confidence of Hitler who worried that the Fascist regime in Italy might be brought down by such a disaster and Germany would lose her primary ally. From that time on, Hitler never had quite the same degree of trust in Rommel that he had always shown previously.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rommel in France</td></tr>
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Another interesting difference, again often overlooked, is that Rommel never presided over another significant victory again. His assignments included a brief, uneventful stint in Greece and disarming Italian forces in northern Italy after the King dismissed Mussolini and the Badoglio government sought an armistice with the Allies. He was then posted to defend the coast of France from the expected Allied invasion but, as fate would have it, like the Battle of El Alamein, Rommel was away when the day of battle came and the Allied armies landed in France and advanced steadily, long after Rommel was wounded in an air attack and put out of action permanently. In contrast, Graziani, who had seemed to be disgraced for his failed invasion of Egypt, ultimately came back to win further laurels. As the senior military officer in Mussolini’s German-backed republic in northern Italy, Graziani commanded Italian and German forces in a final victory for his career at the Battle of Garfagnana in December of 1944.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mussolini and Graziani</td></tr>
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It would be tempting to also draw another contrast between the character of these two men regarding their relationships with their respective dictators. Rommel, as most know, was implicated in the failed plot to assassinate Hitler and was forced to commit suicide. As such, he is regarded as one of the few military figures of the Nazi period in Germany that it is acceptable to like in polite society. Graziani, on the other hand, remained loyal to Mussolini to the bitter end. In fact, he was the only Marshal of Italy to side with Mussolini rather than the King (possibly because of long-standing dislike of Marshal Badoglio). He served some time in prison but spent the rest of his life writing books defending his own actions and the Fascist regime in Italy. As such, he remains a very controversial figure and, unlike Rommel, someone it is not okay to like or defend in polite society. On the other hand, the two might not have been so dissimilar as they seem in this regard either. Mussolini had threatened to dismiss Graziani and after the Egypt fiasco said that he despised him, so the two were not always on good terms and Rommel, if one looks beyond his end, never actually took any action against Hitler or helped the rebels in any way. He was only implicated when one of the captured plotters called out his name while under torture. He had commanded Hitler’s personal guard and had been known to defend the German dictator, assuring frustrated officers that it was only the incompetent advisors around Hitler who were to blame for all mistakes.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Graziani and Rommel at the front</td></tr>
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Obviously, the two men who commanded the Axis forces in the fight against the British in North Africa, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and Marshal of Italy Rodolfo Graziani, had very different careers and have extremely different popular perceptions. Rommel is remembered as “the Desert Fox”, a brilliant, daring and gallant commander who ultimately fell to a superior foe. Graziani is remembered as “the Butcher of Fezzan” or “the Butcher of Ethiopia” if you prefer, a ruthless commander who was out of his depth, lost his nerve and was defeated by an enemy that his own forces outnumbered. However, looking at the careers of these two men together, while nothing will change their current reputations, I think it is safe to say that these perceptions are rather inaccurate. Rommel certainly did better in north Africa than Graziani had done, though he had a much better force at his command to do it with. However, Graziani had a more extensive military career than Rommel and his failed invasion of Egypt was the only military operation that he ever commanded that was not successful. Clearly, the contrast between the two is not so simplistic as most people think.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-24915869144458838662016-05-30T01:59:00.001-07:002016-05-30T02:02:58.251-07:00Italian Fascism in the United States<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paolo Ignazio Thaon di Revel</td></tr>
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In 1924 Count Ignazio Thaon di Revel traveled from Italy to the United States to reorganize Italian-American supporters of Fascism into the Fascist League of North America or FLNA. The first incarnation of the FLNA had been founded earlier by Dino Bigongiari, Professor of Italian at Columbia University. So it can be seen that the drive toward Fascism was instigated by Italian-Americans in the United States and not by the directive of the Fascist government in Rome, though no doubt Mussolini approved. Count di Revel, however, in late 1924 took central control as President of the Fascist Council for the FLNA which stood for the opposition to radicalism, chiefly instigated by the Bolsheviks and their supporters in America (many of which were deeply imbedded in the labor unions). One member said they stood for opposition to “atheism, internationalism, free-love, communism and class hatred” which is as good a summary as any. The official oath of the Fascist League of North America stated:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I swear to my honor<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To serve with fidelity and discipline the Fascist idea of society - based on religion, the Fatherland, and the family, and to respect the authority of the League and of the hierarchy and tradition of our race.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To love, serve, obey and exalt the United States of America and to render obedience and respect to its constitution and its laws.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To keep alive the cult with Italy as the Fatherland and eternal light of civilization and greatness.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To combat with all my might theories and ideas tending to subvert, corrupt, and disgrace religion, the Fatherland, or the family.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To do my best to improve my culture, my physique and my morals, to render me fit for the part I am to play in serving the nation in its hour of greatness.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To submit to the discipline of the hierarchy of the Fascist League of North America.</blockquote>
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The FLNA attracted a great deal of criticism in the United States and other Italian-American groups, such as the Sons of Italy, condemned the organization. This threatened to damage relations between the U.S. and Italy, particularly when powerful politicians began calling for a Congressional investigation of the group. In 1929, to put a stop to such difficulties, Count Revel announced that the FLNA was disbanding, having, at that time, a membership of 12,500 in 80 branches across the country. Nonetheless, throughout the 1930’s many pro-Fascist Italian language newspapers and radio broadcasts were available to the Italian-American population, some of which had quite large audiences. One of the most prolific was the Italian Library of Information in New York City under the direction of Ugo V. D’Annunzio, son of the famous poet and nationalist. These included information on Fascist economics, the corporatist system, Italian history and the Italian contribution to the exploration, settlement and progress of America.<br />
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When the Second Italo-Abyssinian War broke out in 1935, most American sympathy was with Ethiopia, like most of the rest of the liberal-democratic world. However, Italian-American opinion was more divided and particularly as many African-Americans adopted the cause of Ethiopia, many Italian-Americans naturally took the side of Italy. Some volunteered to go and fight for Italy in Abyssinia, joining the 221st ‘Italiani all’Estero Legion of the MVSN Fascist militia (the “Black shirts”) which was made up of Italian expatriates from around the world. In the United States itself, violence sometimes erupted between African and Italian-Americans with shops being vandalized and so on. Yet, not everyone took the side expected. The noted African-American entertainer Josephine Baker (later a friend of Princess Grace of Monaco) was shocked that so many of her countrymen would sympathize with a regime that still enslaved their fellow Africans to the point that she expressed her wish that she could organize a volunteer corps of African-Americans to fight for Italy against Ethiopia.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. Salvatore Caridi of the Italian War Veterans</td></tr>
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On the world stage of course, the biggest result of the Ethiopian war was the open defiance of the League of Nations and the eventual alliance of Italy and Germany in the “Pact of Steel”. This change was mirrored in America as well as Italian-American Black shirts made common cause with the German-American Brown shirts in the United States. The Lictor Federation, led by Joseph Santi was one such group (founded by Domenico Trombetta). Dr. Salvatore Caridi was the leader of another, the pro-Fascist Italian War Veterans and in 1937 he and about 500 Black shirt Italian-American war veterans appeared at a gathering in New Jersey of the German-American Bund led by Fritz Kuhn. Caridi was one of the speakers and he encouraged his listeners concerning their political enemies that, “…if they insult Mussolini or Hitler we can punch them in the nose!” On one occasion they also joined forces with the strange American group known as the Silver shirts of William Dudley Pelley for a joint-meeting in support of the Nationalists in Spain, denouncing the Spanish republican government and communism in general.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Italian-American Black shirts</td></tr>
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Exactly how strong these Italian-American Black shirt groups were cannot be known. Their sympathizers tended to inflate their numbers whereas their opponents tended to try to minimize them by downplaying the size of their membership. Studies have shown that about 90% of the Italian-language press in America was generally favorable toward Mussolini and his Fascist regime. And, needless to say, there were always plenty of anti-Fascist Italian-Americans, though as with similar groups elsewhere these tended to be on the far-left and often included communists and anarchists. These would ultimately have a longer life as the international situation developed. When World War II broke out in Europe, pro-Fascist Italian-Americans generally favored, like others, the policy of American neutrality. Most realized that the United States would never take the side of the Axis powers and so were content to push for the best reasonable position in their view which was for America to simply stay out of the fight.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Salvatore Caridi and Fritz Kuhn</td></tr>
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All of that, of course, came to an end with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. When, a few days later, Italy declared war on the United States, it became “open season” on all those Italians and Italian-Americans in the country who had voiced support for the Fascist cause. Many Italian-language media outlets were closed down by the government and known Italian-American Fascists were arrested. Those on the west coast were forced to move inland and many had their homes and businesses seized. Although not as well-known as the Japanese-Americans, Italian-Americans and German-Americans were also arrested and put into internment camps for varying periods of time after the U.S. entered the war. However, the vast majority of those who were interned were Italian nationals rather than Italian-Americans who were citizens or who had been living in the United States for many years.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Italian-American Black shirt girls</td></tr>
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Certainly those who had been prominent supporters of the Fascist regime could count on close scrutiny by the authorities, including such figures as Joseph Ferri in California, the aforementioned Joseph Santi and Salvatore Caridi in New Jersey, John J. Olivo, Paul Lucenti, Joseph Bono, Ralph Ninfo and Floyd Carridi in New York, Luigi Scala in Rhode Island, Father Arthur W. Terminiello of Mobile, Alabama and so on. The vast majority, of course, of Italian-Americans embraced the cause of the United States wholeheartedly and served with distinction in huge numbers during World War II. However, as with the Germans, the Japanese and even the Soviets, Fascist Italy was not without its supporters in America. They are not much remembered today but there was a time when they caused considerable alarm even into the halls of power in Washington DC.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Italians (in the Black shirts and white trousers) at a Bundist camp</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Italian-American Fascists at Camp Siegfried (FBI photo)</td></tr>
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<br />MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-30159351615112337282016-05-27T10:10:00.001-07:002016-05-27T10:10:35.893-07:00Italy and the War in Iraq in 1941<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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One of the most neglected areas involved in World War II was the Middle East. Everyone knows about the fighting in north Africa, across Europe, southern Russia and the Far East but relatively few are aware of how involved countries in the Middle East were. Italian forces were involved in this area as well and one area included in this was the then Kingdom of Iraq. Just to understand the basic background of the region, the Kingdom of Iraq had been created with the support of the Allies after the breakup of the Turkish Ottoman Empire following World War I. The Kingdom of Iraq was made a mandate of the British Empire but by the time of the outbreak of World War II, all British troops had been withdrawn for several years with only a few RAF bases being maintained there. Iraq was governed by Iraqis and defended by Iraqis though they remained a part of the British Empire. Some were happy with this state of affairs but others were not and one of those who was not was Rashid Ali, an Arab nationalist who became prime minister of Iraq in 1940. He seemed a likely collaborator with the Axis powers.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rashid Ali al-Gaylani</td></tr>
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When World War II broke out, the Iraqi government under Rashid Ali did, rather unenthusiastically, break off diplomatic relations with the Nazi Germany due to the state of war between Britain and Germany. However, when the Kingdom of Italy declared war on Britain and France, the Iraqis did not break off diplomatic relations with Italy and, that being so, the Italian embassy in Bagdad became the center of operations for the Axis sympathizers in the area. At the same time, Italian air power was bringing the war to the Middle East when daring, long-range bombing missions by the Regia Aeronautica, hit British oil facilities in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in October of 1940, (mentioned previously <a href="http://italianmonarchist.blogspot.com/2013/11/italian-air-offensive-in-middle-east.html">here</a>) forcing the British to redirect military resources and causing a fuel shortage that allowed Italian forces to reinforce the armies in Libya without serious opposition from the British. Meanwhile, in Iraq, Rashid Ali worked to eliminate British influence in the country and began working with the German minister in Turkey and the pro-Nazi Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to forge closer ties with the Axis powers. The British, naturally, learned of this and responded with sanctions against Iraq.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">11 October 1942, the Grand Mufti gives Arab volunteers<br />for Italy their unit flag</td></tr>
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In 1941 Rashid Ali was forced to resign as prime minister but he soon returned and launched a successful coup on April 1, taking over the country and installing a new regent for the child monarch, King Faisal II. He expelled pro-British officials from the country and asked the Germans for military assistance in the event of war. The British response was rather limited at first, consisting of the transfer of British and imperial forces from India and strengthening the Royal Navy presence in the Persian Gulf. As Iraqi forces moved in around RAF bases in the country, the British responded by launching air strikes, destroying most of the Iraqi air force and enabling them to send support to British forces at Habbaniya which had been besieged by the Iraqis. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem declared a jihad against the British and the Iraqis cut off the oil supplies of the country from going to the Allies. Air power was critical in these operations and the early destruction of much of the Iraqi air force gave Britain a clear advantage.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SS.79 Sparviero</td></tr>
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When the Iraqis tried to attack Habbaniya from the air with one of their few surviving planes, it was an Italian SM.79 Sparviero. RAF interceptors shot down the plane and subsequent British attacks pushed the Iraqis off of their commanding position on the plateau outside Habbaniya. British ground and air attacks also took a heavy toll on Iraqi reinforcements sent to the area, which had collided with retreating Iraqi forces causing much confusion on the ground. The Germans, with the situation worsening, moved to support the anti-British Iraq regime and obtained support from the Vichy French government, which held power in Syria, to support their efforts to bolster the pro-Axis forces in Iraq. Using Syrian bases, a number of German Luftwaffe personnel and aircraft were sent from May 10-15 to reinforce the Iraqis and develop a joint plan of action against the British. Unfortunately, the Allies were aware of this as messages were still traveling via the Italian diplomatic channel which was being intercepted by London.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CR.42 Falco</td></tr>
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On May 27, 1941 (75 years ago today) support for the Iraqis also arrived from the Kingdom of Italy with the transfer to the Iraqi city of Mosul of 12 Fiat CR.42 biplane fighters from the 155a Squadriglia of the Regia Aeronautica to create the ‘Squadriglia speciale Irak’. It was these Italian aircraft which fought the last air engagement of the campaign when, on May 29, the Italian planes intercepted a force of Hawker Hart light bombers escorted by Gloster Gladiators. In the aerial combat that ensued, the Italians shot down two Gladiators for the loss of one CR.42 biplane. Axis forces were soon on their way out again as the Iraqi forces had almost nothing at all to support the Axis air forces and Turkey, a neutral country, refused to allow Axis military units to move through their country to supply and reinforce their units in Iraq. It was not long before the German and Italian forces in Iraq began to pull out. Some German units did see action as the British launched a major offensive to take back control of Iraq but they did minimal damage and had no effect on the outcome.<br />
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As the British moved advanced on Bagdad with a column of troops from the Indian Imperial Army, on May 29 Rashid Ali and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem fled to Persia and from there to Germany. The British secured Bagdad and a pro-British government was put back into power. That was the end of the effort to put Iraq into the camp of the Axis powers. However, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem continued to call on Muslims to unite behind Nazi Germany and he helped organize Muslim volunteers for the Nazi Waffen-SS, though they ultimately proved unsatisfactory. The Italian army also formed a special unit for Arab volunteers who wished to fight alongside them the following year on May 1, 1942. These recruits came from various Arab or Islamic countries and some did come from Iraq. However, the course of the war with its numerous setbacks discouraged enlistment and no more a few hundred Arabs ever joined the ranks. They were never fully organized and equipped before the end came with the 1943 armistice.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-26675039055135989372016-05-20T19:13:00.001-07:002016-05-20T19:13:31.632-07:00The Triple Alliance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It was today in 1882 that the German Empire, the Kingdom of Italy and Austria-Hungary joined in the "Triple Alliance". Ever since, the Kingdom of Italy has been frequently criticized for failing to follow her allies into the First World War, however, very few understand the details of the agreement made by the representatives of Kaiser Wilhelm I, King Umberto I and Kaiser Franz Joseph I. It was, from the start, intended to be a defensive alliance of monarchs. Germany feared French or Russian actions against them, the Austrians feared Balkan unrest, Russian support for them and did not want to have to worry about a war with Italy at the same time as such a threat. Italy had also recently been outraged by the French annexation of Tunisia. Italians had thought that by refraining from the rush to grab colonies, Italy would gain the moral high ground and the respect of the world. Instead, Italy gained nothing and had Tunisia snatched out from under them by the French Republic. So, it was hoped that the Triple Alliance would deter foreign aggression against Italy and give Italy support, at least from Germany, in the competition for colonial expansion.<br />
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Today, all too often, Italy is portrayed in a negative light as never being genuinely committed to the Triple Alliance but this is extremely unfair as it implies that Germany and Austria were. In fact, the Germans never supported Italy in any subsequent colonial venture and the Austrians continued to plan for an attack on their "ally" Italy right up to the outbreak of World War I. In other words, every country continued to look out for their own interests and not those of their allies, which is nothing unique or unusual. In such a situation, it is extremely hypocritical to criticize Italy for doing the same. One should also keep in mind that the details of the agreement was, in fact, violated prior to the First World War and the Kingdom of Italy was NOT the guilty party.<br />
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One of the most significant points of the agreement, widely ignored today, was the stipulation that if there was to be any change to the status quo in the Balkans, Austria would consult with Italy before taking action and that if Austria gained any territory in the Balkans, Italy was to be compensated with Austrian territory that was historically and demographically Italian. Austria never honored these promises, never consulting Italy at all about efforts made in the Balkans and refusing to discuss any territorial concessions to Italy after the Austrian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Add to this the fact that, in 1914, the Chief of Staff of the Austrian army was a man who had advocated launching an unprovoked invasion of Italy, their ally, and the slain heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, had never made much of an effort to hide his strident bigotry toward all Italians. To a lesser degree, German Kaiser Wilhelm II had not impressed many people with his insulting antics towards the King of Italy during a state visit to Rome (he purposely brought his tallest soldiers so as to make the short Italian monarch seem tiny in comparison -a petty and juvenile antic).<br />
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It should, therefore, be no great surprise that when war came, Italians were not rushing to arms to fight alongside Germany and Austria. It is also worth repeating that the Triple Alliance was always a defensive alliance and, while there were certainly circumstances involved, when the fighting actually began it was with the Germans and Austrians being the ones on offensive rather than the defensive. The Triple Alliance, it is true, was not a successful pact as it did not prevent war and did not endure beyond the Austro-German ethnic core (the Hungarians were not in favor of war in 1914 either). However, to portray Italy as the false partner, to portray Italy as the one who treacherously betrayed "faithful" allies, is preposterous and totally untrue.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-43730488198874708662016-05-09T14:15:00.002-07:002016-05-09T14:15:34.060-07:00The Abdication - Today in Italian History<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It was on this day in 1946 that His Majesty Vittorio Emanuele III abdicated as King of Italy, passing the crown to his son, Umberto II, who was already acting on his behalf as 'lieutenant of the realm'. The general assumption has usually been that the King abdicated, three weeks before the referendum on the future of the Italian monarchy, to improve the chances of his son in the upcoming vote. As with most things involving King Vittorio Emanuele III, arguments continue on this subject and it has been the focus of criticism from elements on the left as well as the right. Some republicans opposed the abdication because they feared it would improve the position of King Umberto II in public opinion. Other republicans supported it as a 'too little, too late' gesture that would be seen as an act of manipulation. On the right, there were monarchists who opposed it because of the already too-leftist direction the country was taking while others supported it as the necessary result of a lost war. There were also those, and not a few, who thought it should have happened much sooner in order to save the monarchy by making a fresh start as soon as possible with a new monarch who had not been on the throne during the Fascist era and the painful invasion of Italian soil. Many have puzzled over what the King must have been thinking in abdicating when he did after waiting for as long as he did in spite of the clear pressure from anti-Fascist politicians as well as the Allied nations for him to do so. I could be wrong of course, but to me, the King's position seems clear.<br />
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For one thing, the King rightly felt that his own abdication was unjustified in so far as it implied his being responsible for the entire Fascist era, which was how the issue was usually framed. It was only after the Liberals failed to come together to put forward an alternative and only after numerous offers to other political figures had been rejected that the King had invited Mussolini to form a government; a government which was originally a coalition government in which the Fascists were a minority. The public, unpopular as it later became to say so, had been supportive of Mussolini for most of his tenure and it had, after all, been the King who had taken action to finally have the Duce removed from power and took the first steps to getting Italy out of the war. The King was also very much alarmed at how many dangerous elements, including communists fresh from Russia, were already being taken in to the Badoglio administration. He did not hold out much hope for his son being given a fair chance in light of all of this and that the ultimate result would be the end of the monarchy and a republic that would be ruinous for everyone but the communists. It is worth pointing out that events would ultimately prove the King entirely correct in all of these predictions.<br />
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In the end, my own thoughts on this subject are rather complicated though undoubtedly sympathetic to the King. In my view, he should not have had to abdicate at all and yet such a thing was probably unavoidable and being unavoidable it would have been better to have come sooner rather than later. It was only the latest in what had become a series of 'no-win' situations for the King of Italy. His departure from Rome, for example, was a disaster but staying behind would have probably sealed his fate and led to disaster as well. Abdication was not unprecedented in such circumstances and he had already surrendered his thrones as Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Albania but the issue had been framed in the context of the Fascist dictatorship and as such it was unavoidable that abdication would be seen by many as an implicit acceptance of responsibility for that, which was completely wrong. Abdicating earlier would probably have made things better for King Umberto II but, would it really have changed the outcome of the referendum? Given that it was the enemies of the monarchy who were carrying out the referendum and counting the votes, it is hard to see how this could be. It was a rigged contest which is plainly evident to all but the willfully ignorant. As such, the abdication of the King was a sad event, a complicated event and probably represented a situation for which there simply were no "good options" left available.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1488878054798413768.post-19133284519690306692016-05-05T19:17:00.000-07:002016-05-05T19:17:59.034-07:00Today in Italian History<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The fifth of May is a significant day in the history of the Kingdom of Italy with two significant events that stand out, one in the creation of the Kingdom of Italy and the other in considerably expanding its power overseas. The first, and probably more famous, event came on this day in 1860 when Garibaldi and his intrepid band of one thousand volunteers set sail from Genoa bound for the island of Sicily. This marked the beginning of one of the most stunning and successful military campaigns in Italian history, a real upset that saw a ragged band of mostly inexperienced romantics, take on a large and professional standing army and win. It was the start of the campaign that ultimately ended in the reunification of northern and southern Italy for the first time practically since the fall of the Roman Empire. With the sailing of those ships carrying Garibaldi and "the Thousand" the course of Italian history was set to change forever in a major way.<br />
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On, perhaps, a more controversial note, it was the fifth of May in 1936 that Italian troops occupied the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, the culmination of Mussolini's "Marcia della ferrea volonta" or 'March of the Iron Will' to end the Second Italo-Abyssinian War with a dramatic and awe-inspiring show of force. After exhorting his people to fight to the last, Emperor Haile Selassie had fled the city several days earlier for French Somaliland and immediately after his departure the city erupted in a frenzy of looting and vandalism, the Imperial Palace itself being thoroughly gutted before Italian troops arrived and restored order with Marshal Pietro Badoglio proclaiming a victorious end to the war in Ethiopia. When word of the success reached Rome, the event became probably the most celebrated victory of the Fascist era.MadMonarchisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08083008336883267870noreply@blogger.com0