Marocchinate
Marocchinate (Italian for 'Moroccans' deeds'; pronounced [marokkiˈnaːte]) is a term applied to the mass rape and killings committed during World War II after the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy. These were committed mainly by the Moroccan Goumiers, colonial troops of the French Expeditionary Corps (FEC),[1] commanded by General Alphonse Juin, and mostly targeted civilian women and girls (as well as a few men and boys) in the rural areas of Southern Lazio, between Naples and Rome. Mass rapes continued across all the campaign including several locations in Tuscany: Siena, ad Abbadia S. Salvatore, Radicofani, Murlo, Strove, Poggibonsi, Elsa, S. Quirico d'Orcia, Colle Val d'Elsa.
Background[edit]
Goumiers were colonial irregular troops forming the Goums Marocains, which were approximately company-sized units rather loosely grouped in Tabors (battalions) and Groupes (regiments). Three of the units, the 1st, 3rd and 4th Groupements de Tabors, served in the FEC along with the four regular divisions: the 1st Free French Division, the 2nd Moroccan Infantry Division, the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division and the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division. The Goums Marocains were commanded by General Augustin Guillaume.
Regular Moroccan troops (tirailleurs marocains) also served in Italy but under tighter discipline and with a higher proportion of officers than the irregular goumiers.[2]
On 14 May 1944 the Goumiers travelled over seemingly impassable terrain in the Aurunci Mountains, outflanked the German defence in the adjacent Liri valley, materially assisting the British XIII Corps of the Eighth Army, to break the Gustav Line and advance to the next defensive position, the Hitler Line.
General Alphonse Juin was alleged to have said before the battle: "For fifty hours you will be the absolute masters of what you will find beyond the enemy. Nobody will punish you for what you will do, nobody will ask you about what you will get up to."[3] While there is no evidence of any such statement by General Juin, in 2007 Baris Tomaso justified it by claiming it was linked to the perception of the crimes by the Italians rather than an official policy of the French Army.[4]
Until 1944 the Italian government showed interest and preoccupation for the violence and gathered information about the victims.[5] By December 1948 there were 30,000 cases submitted to Italian authorities but funds were scarce because of war indemnities Italy had to pay to France and this issue was an obstacle on the restoration of diplomatic relations with France.[5] For these reasons many demands were rejected and the victims had to prove permanent physical damage.[5]
Legality and aftermath[edit]
While the 1907 Hague Convention (IV) on Land Warfare prohibited war rape in international armed conflicts, the judges at the Nuremberg trials in 1946 stated that "the laws and customs of war apply between belligerents, but not...among allies."[14] Such statement was reinforced by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention under Article 4, which excludes allied nationals from the list of protected persons as long their state maintains diplomatic relations with a belligerent power.[15] At the time of Marocchinate, Italy was a co-belligerent with the Allies, having declared war on its former Axis partner Nazi Germany on 13 October 1943.[16]
Following Marocchinate, 207 soldiers were tried for sexual violence, of which 168 were convicted. Three of those convicted were executed. Another 28 soldiers who were caught in the act were summarily executed.[17] In January 1947, France authorized the compensation of 1,488 victims of sexual violence for crimes committed by French colonial troops.[17]
Cultural depictions[edit]
Although the popular definition of "ciociaria" for some areas of Lazio is historically and geographically inappropriate, the term itself is often associated with these mass rapes. The definition was indeed forcefully imposed by the fascist regime, although, it was just a popular pejorative term in the modern Roman dialect.[18][19][20][21] Having been imposed by fascism in the pre-war years, it has remained associated with these mass rapes. The 1957 novel Two Women (original title La Ciociara, literally "the woman from Ciociaria") by Alberto Moravia references the Marocchinate; in it a mother and her daughter, trying to escape the fighting, are raped by Goumiers in an abandoned church. The novel was made into a movie, directed by Vittorio De Sica and starring Sophia Loren, for which Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress. In Castro dei Volsci, a monument called the "Mamma Ciociara" was erected to remember all the mothers who tried in vain to defend themselves and their daughters.[22][23]