The Roman Holocaust
Unable to understand the plans of the Allies, Badogglio was not prepared for any military action, but watched with increasing despair as German power in Italy grew stronger and German troops moved into Rome. Italy also managed to assemble 6 divisions near Rome. The Germans had about two divisions in this area, one of which was an armored division. Although Badoglio's army was numerically superior, he certainly did not intend to recklessly drive the Germans out of Rome. To do so, he needed the help of the Allies.
The Allied High Command was in fact ready and willing to hand over some reinforcements to Badoglio. The final armistice was signed on 3 September at the Allied outpost near Cassibili on Sicily, which included a deviation from the policy of total unconditional surrender. This discrepancy satisfies Badoglio's request that the Allies arrive before he publicly announces the abolition of the German-Italian alliance and accepts the terms of surrender of the allies.
As part of the terms of the armistice, the Allied side was responsible for airdropping part of the US 82nd Parachute Division to airfields near Rome. This operation was to take place a day or two before the landing of the main forces, and it was to be held in parallel with the planned surrender of Italy, which was announced on 8 September. However, the U.S. Officers, General Maxwell Taylor, and Colonel Len Gardner, who were in charge of making detailed arrangements for the airdrop paratroopers, did not come to Rome until September 8 to make contact with Badoglio. It is impossible to make detailed arrangements in such a short period of time.
At the time, some Italians had contradictory accounts of Taylor's mission. According to Mauri's account, the first person Taylor and Gardner met was General Calboni (commander of the Italian army in Rome), who vetoed the whole plan, believing that the German forces around Rome were too strong and that they had managed to cut off the Italian army from ** and oil **. In this case, both the Italians and the Americans would have been subjected to "** According to Mauri, the entire battle plan would have to be canceled for this reason, but if the Allies had informed in advance that their main landing in Salerno would have taken place at almost the same time, the Italians would have seen the situation in a completely different way. Because then they would not be afraid of German reinforcements coming from the south. But Taylor and Gardner "didn't confide in anything." They can't confide either. In fact, the Allies have never confided any secrets to us." General Eisenhower later once claimed that this was one of the worst mistakes the Allies had made in the entire war.
Badoglio's version of this interjection is quite different. He said that the U.S. envoy had indeed told him that the main landing was imminent, and he added that Calboni had only asked for more time to distribute the ** and oil to the Italian army. This will take some time. But according to Badogrio, Taylor and Gardner once said that airdrop paratrooper units are also needed.
Four or five days. Badoglio's understanding was that he did not need to declare surrender before Allied reinforcements landed near Rome; So he sent a telegram to Eisenhower, asking for permission to postpone the armistice proclamation until 12 September "in the interests of the fighting."
As a result, Eisenhower was furious. According to the Allied headquarters, Badoglio's request was only an indication that he wanted to unilaterally revise the agreement that had already been signed, so his reliability immediately became very questionable. Eisenhower decided to return the favor by sending a strongly worded telegram to Badoglio, telling him that the Allies would broadcast the surrender agreement at 6:30 p.m. on September 8, as scheduled, and that Badogglio would fulfill his share of responsibility and that "if Badogglio or any part of his army did not cooperate as agreed, he would make the whole story known to the world." But Eisenhower agreed to suspend the airdrop of paratroopers, as this would not have been possible until an armistice was declared.
Badoglio, of course, had to fulfill his share of the agreement, and, as Eisenhower recounted, he declared an armistice "in trepidation" an hour and a half after receiving the telegram.
The declaration of an armistice led to a very tragic end. That night, Badoglio, the other military leaders, the King of Italy and his royal family moved to the Ministry of Defense. At four o'clock in the morning, General Roda woke them up and told them that the Germans were marching into Rome and that they must leave quickly. So they all set out south, hoping to cross the battle line and be protected by the Allies. Although they were thus spared captivity, after their departure, all opportunities to organize anti-German activities disappeared. ** There is no one in the ministries and military commands who can issue orders. The Italian military machine collapsed in this way.
The German response was swift and effective, and they bluntly ordered the disarmament of all Italian forces in the areas under their control. For the most part, this action was not met with resistance from the Italians; Only in the port of La Spezia, the Italian army had covered the withdrawal of its own fleet to Malta. For such a move, we cannot blame the Italian army and army commanders. They didn't follow any orders at all, and they didn't have any leadership at all, and the Roman ministries didn't even take it. In his broadcast announcing his surrender, Badoglio inserted the implicit phrase that the Italian army should cease hostilities against Britain and the United States, but must resist "attacks that may come from any quarters." There is no other explanation. As to what the Germans meant if they were to disarm them, the army commander was not instructed on what to do. If they had a clash with the Germans, there was no one to direct their actions. Resisting the Germans in such a situation would be pointless and self-defeating. Moreover, the armistice proclamation only stated that Italy had surrendered and withdrawn from the war, and tried to avoid recognizing Italy as a member of the Allied side or even a common belligerent. None of this was intended to encourage the Italians to organize military resistance to the Germans after the armistice.
One might ask why Eisenhower insisted on issuing an armistice on September 8. According to one account, he did not think the proclamation could be delayed any longer, given that the Germans might overthrow the Badoglio regime at the last minute. But this argument does not seem convincing. The danger that Badoglio would be overthrown by the Germans, or rather, captured, was there. In fact, the hasty publication of the surrender agreement has made this danger even more dangerous. But it must not be assumed that, whatever the consequences of Badoglio and his regime, this agreement will certainly become a capital in the hands of the Allies, as long as it is published on time. If the Germans overthrew or captured Badoglio and the King of Italy, the agreement would be worthless, whether it had been published or not.
The real reason doesn't seem to be so. By the time Badoglio's request for an extension was received, it was clear that Salerno's landing could no longer be canceled. In Eisenhower's mind, the proclamation of surrender and the landing were inextricably linked, and in his view, it was inconceivable to land before the proclamation was published. It is possible to abandon the battle in Rome, but the armistice cannot be postponed until after the battle in Rome is completed.
Why did Eisenhower think that the landing and the announcement of the armistice had to go hand in hand? Here is Bucher's account of 12 September: "If Italy's acceptance of the armistice was made in good faith, the armistice agreement following the unconditional surrender was to be published 24 to 48 hours before the landing in the Gulf of Salino." It will be a signal that all Italian troops should betray the Germans at this time, seize and protect the airfields, threaten and stop, if possible, the movement of the German fleet, the Italian fleet, and probably other ships, to take refuge in the ports under our control. ”
In fact, that was the whole gist of the instructions Eisenhower received from the political leaders. He could not doubt the correctness of this **. The only thing that really became the question was: whether Italy was "sincere" in accepting the armistice. If Badoglio had shown his sincerity by announcing the armistice, everything else would have followed at once, and the Italian army would have begun to attack the Germans as soon as it knew that it had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies. In this way, it is not difficult to see why Badogrio's behavior on the 8th will make Eisenhower grit his teeth and hate it. The landing was imminent and could not be canceled, so Italy had to turn back and attack the Germans at once. But Badoglio refused to do the only action necessary for Italy to begin military action against the Germans, and that was to broadcast the armistice. Eisenhower clearly saw that Badoglio had to be forced to execute.
It is very strange to hope that the proclamation of "unconditional surrender" would have these consequences, and that even without a prior proclamation could provoke a complex and difficult military operation, what could have been in this agreement to prompt Italy to go to war against Germany? The Allies did not recognize Italy as a common belligerent nation, and gave the Italians only a set of conditions that would lead to a complete defeat, depriving them of all power, all independence, and even the basic means of defence. Eisenhower himself once considered these conditions "excessively harsh," and he suspected that the allies were trying to "show their domineering authority by announcing harsh surrender conditions to the whole world." But how can one expect that conditions suitable for "displaying domineering presence" in one's own country will also boost the morale of Italy?
For the Italian army to begin its revolt against the Germans, it was primarily necessary an effective leadership body that issued clear orders. For technical reasons, such a military leadership had to be located in Rome, which was easily accessible. The possibility of Italian military action was therefore determined by the survival of Rome. Eisenhower did not seem to have anticipated that the suspension of the airdrop of paratroopers would cause the head of the armistice regime to abandon Rome immediately, knowing that the Italian army in the region was superior in any case, and he could not imagine that all the military commanders would make the slightest effort to defend Rome and abandon their troops.
If the Allied side had sent a military liaison to Rome not on the eve of the drop, but before that, while negotiations were still going on in Sicily, what the situation would have been, one can only guess. In that case, it would probably be possible to work out a method of joint operations when time permits. However, the fact that the Allies refused to even consider Italy's qualifications as a co-belligerent nation certainly hampered all joint operations. Eisenhower was not allowed to draw up a joint military plan, and he could only do this part secretly through armistice negotiations, although the most important part, with the details of the airdrop of paratroopers near Rome. By the time the airdrop paratrooper program was approved, it was too late to materialize.
Badoglio's sudden departure from Rome shattered all hopes of the Allies for military cooperation with Italy. In the rear, or in the battle for the Gulf of Salerno, the Italian army was of no help to the Allies. At the critical juncture of the attack on Salerno, Italy's political and military leaders, cut off from the army, were wandering aimlessly in southern Italy.
To be continued).