Military history of Italy during World War II
The participation of Italy in the Second World War was characterized by a complex framework of ideology, politics, and diplomacy, while its military actions were often heavily influenced by external factors. Italy joined the war as one of the Axis Powers in 1940 (as the French Third Republic surrendered) with a plan to concentrate Italian forces on a major offensive against the British Empire in Africa and the Middle East, known as the "parallel war", while expecting the collapse of British forces in the European theatre. The Italians bombed Mandatory Palestine, invaded Egypt and occupied British Somaliland with initial success. However, the British counterattacked, eventually necessitating German support to prevent an Italian collapse in North Africa. As the war carried on and German and Japanese actions in 1941 led to the entry of the Soviet Union and United States, respectively, into the war, the Italian plan of forcing Britain to agree to a negotiated peace settlement was foiled.[1]
The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was aware that Fascist Italy was not ready for a long conflict, as its resources were reduced by successful but costly pre-war conflicts: the pacification of Libya (which was undergoing Italian settlement), intervention in Spain (where a friendly fascist regime had been installed), and the invasions of Ethiopia and Albania. However, he opted to remain in the war as the imperial ambitions of the Fascist regime, which aspired to restore the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean (the Mare Nostrum), were partially met by late 1942, albeit with a great deal of German assistance.
With the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia and the Balkans, Italy annexed Ljubljana, Dalmatia and Montenegro. Puppet regimes were also established in Croatia and Greece, which were occupied by Italian forces. Following Vichy France's collapse and the Case Anton, Italy occupied the French territories of Corsica and Tunisia. Italian forces had also achieved victories against insurgents in Yugoslavia and in Montenegro, and Italo-German forces had occupied parts of British-held Egypt on their push to El-Alamein after their victory at Gazala.
However, Italy's conquests were always heavily contested, both by various insurgencies (most prominently the Greek resistance and Yugoslav partisans) and Allied military forces, which waged the Battle of the Mediterranean throughout and beyond Italy's participation. The country's imperial overstretch (opening multiple fronts in Africa, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean) ultimately resulted in its defeat in the war, as the Italian empire collapsed after disastrous defeats in the Eastern European and North African campaigns. In July 1943, following the Allied invasion of Sicily, Mussolini was arrested by order of King Victor Emmanuel III, provoking a civil war. Italy's military outside of the Italian peninsula collapsed, its occupied and annexed territories falling under German control. Under Mussolini's successor Pietro Badoglio, Italy capitulated to the Allies on 3 September 1943, although Mussolini would be rescued from captivity a week later by German forces without meeting resistance. On 13 October 1943, the Kingdom of Italy officially joined the Allied Powers and declared war on its former Axis partner Germany.[2]
The northern half of the country was occupied by the Germans with the cooperation of Italian fascists, and became a collaborationist puppet state (with more than 800,000 soldiers, police, and militia recruited for the Axis), while the south was officially controlled by monarchist forces, which fought for the Allied cause as the Italian Co-Belligerent Army (at its height numbering more than 50,000 men), as well as around 350,000[3] Italian resistance movement partisans (many of them former Royal Italian Army soldiers) of disparate political ideologies operated all over Italy. On 28 April 1945, Mussolini was assassinated by Italian partisans at Giulino, two days before Hitler's suicide. Unlike Germany and Japan, no war crimes tribunals were held for Italian military and political leaders, though the Italian resistance summarily executed some political members at the end of the war, including Mussolini.
Italy and Japan after the surrender[edit]
Japan reacted with shock and outrage to the news of the surrender of Italy to the Allied forces in September 1943. Italian citizens residing in Japan and in Manchukuo were swiftly rounded up and summarily asked whether they were loyal to the King of Savoy, who dishonoured their country by surrendering to the enemy, or with the Duce and the newly created Repubblica Sociale Italiana, which vowed to continue fighting alongside the Germans. Those who sided with the King were interned in concentration camps and detained in dismal conditions until the end of the war, while those who opted for the Fascist dictator were allowed to go on with their lives, although under strict surveillance by the Kempeitai.
The Italian concession of Tientsin was occupied by Japanese troops with no resistance from its garrison. The Social Republic of Italy later formally gave it to the Japanese puppet Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China.
The news of Italy's surrender did not reach the crew members of the three Italian submarines Giuliani, Cappellini and Torelli travelling to Singapore, then occupied by Japan, to take a load of rubber, tin and strategic materials bound for Italy and Germany's war industry. All the officers and sailors on board were arrested by the Japanese army, and after a few weeks of detention the vast majority of them chose to side with Japan and Germany. The Kriegsmarine assigned new officers to the three units, who were renamed as U-boat U.IT.23, U.IT.24 and U.IT.25, taking part in German war operations in the Pacific until the Giuliani was sunk by the British submarine HMS Tally-ho in February 1944 and the other two vessels were taken over by the Japanese Imperial Navy upon Germany's surrender in 1945.
Alberto Tarchiani, an anti-fascist journalist and activist, was appointed as Ambassador to Washington by the cabinet of Badoglio, which acted as provisional head of the Italian government pending the occupation of the country by the Allied forces. On his suggestion, Italy issued a formal declaration of war on Japan on 14 July 1945.[103]
As early as of May 1945, the Italian destroyer Carabiniere had been prepared and refitted with a new radar and camouflage scheme to operate in the Indian and Pacific Ocean against the Japanese Empire, in collaboration with the Allies. Departing under the command of captain Fabio Tani, after a troublesome voyage the Italian crew reached their new base in Trincomalee. By August 1945, the Carabiniere had undertaken 38 missions of anti-aircraft and anti-submarine escort to British warships and SAR operations. They thoroughly impressed Admiral Arthur Power of the Eastern Fleet during combat and in defending the fleet against kamikaze attacks, and he offered captain Tani a golden watch with 38 rubies, one for each mission, as a prize for their valour. Captain Tani kindly declined, and requested that an Italian POW for each ruby be released instead, which was granted by the Admiral.[104]
A further purpose of the Italian declaration of war on Japan was to persuade the Allies that the new government of Italy deserved to be invited to the San Francisco Peace Conference, as a reward for its co-belligerence. However, the British Prime Minister Churchill and John Foster Dulles were resolutely against the idea, and so Italy's new government was left out of the Conference.
Italy and Japan negotiated the resumption of their respective diplomatic ties after 1951, and later signed several bilateral agreements and treaties.[105]
Nearly four million Italians served in the Italian Army during the Second World War and nearly half a million Italians (including civilians) lost their lives between June 1940 and May 1945.
The official Italian government accounting of World War II 1940–45 losses listed the following data:
Prisoner-of-war losses are included with military losses mentioned above.
The members in the Roll of Honor of the World War II they amount to a total of 319,207 deaths:[107]
Civilian losses totalled 153,147 (123,119 post armistice) including 61,432 (42,613 post armistice) in air attacks.[108] A brief summary of data from this report can be found online.[109]
In addition, deaths of African soldiers conscripted by Italy were estimated by the Italian military to be 10,000 in the 1940–41 East African Campaign.[110]
Civilian losses as a result of the fighting in Italian Libya were estimated by an independent Russian journalist to be 10,000.[111]
Included in total are 64,000 victims of Nazi reprisals and genocide, including 30,000 POWs and 8,500 Jews[112] Russian sources estimated the deaths of 28,000 of the 49,000 Italian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union (1942–1954).[113]
The genocide of Roma people killed 1,000 persons.[114] Jewish Holocaust victims totalled 8,562 (including Libya).[115]
After the armistice with the Allies, some 650,000 members of the Italian armed forces who refused to side with the occupying Germans were interned in concentration and labour camps. Of these, around 50,000 died while imprisoned or in transit.[116] A further 29,000 died in armed struggles against the Germans while resisting capture immediately following the armistice.[116]
Aftermath[edit]
The 1947 Treaty of Peace with Italy spelled the end of the Italian colonial empire, along with other border revisions. The 1947 Paris Peace Treaties compelled Italy to pay $360,000,000 (US dollars at 1938 prices) in war reparations: $125,000,000 to Yugoslavia, $105,000,000 to Greece, $100,000,000 to the Soviet Union, $25,000,000 to Ethiopia and $5,000,000 to Albania. Italy also agreed to pay £1,765,000 to Greek nationals whose property in Italian territory had been destroyed or seized during the war.[117] In the 1946 Italian constitutional referendum, the Italian monarchy was abolished, having been associated with the deprivations of the war and Fascist rule. Unlike in Germany and Japan, no war crimes tribunals were held for Italian military and political leaders, though the Italian resistance summarily executed some of them, including Mussolini, at the end of the war.