After the surrender
One of the striking features of the Italian Armistice was that it began to lapse on the day it was signed. Of course, the Allies intended to do so, and the Italians, faithfully fulfilling the terms of the armistice, would prepare themselves a path to reduce their obligations. Surrender was only a first step, and the Allies would later make concessions in the form of pure amnesty, and Italy's "respectable position" in the new Europe would be restored in the future.
Clearly, Roosevelt and Churchill explained Italy's unconditional surrender in a special sense. For the two fierce enemies, Germany and Japan, unconditional surrender had long-term implications. It must ensure that there is no possibility of further aggression by the two countries. They must be excluded from international life indefinitely and must not be made independent States. In the case of Italy, unconditional surrender had no such meaning, and it was considered a fleeting phase, but it was a necessary stage in order to remove the psychological obstacles caused by the rapprochement with the enemy.
In addition, insisting on surrender allowed the allies to relax the terms of surrender strictly according to the degree of cooperation of the Italians. In the words of Churchill, "Italy must open a way out on its own." In adjusting and implementing the terms of the armistice, the useful contribution of countering the enemy will be recognized ...... by usOur principle is to make meritorious atonements. ”
At first glance, dealing with unconditional surrender in this way is a callous and realistic way of exploiting total victory. Presumably, Roosevelt and Churchill thought this solution was reasonable, because it guaranteed that any concessions made by the Italians would be made entirely in exchange for their own actual contributions. This would greatly encourage the Italians to actively help the Allies, who would make concessions to them and leave little public criticism. In reality, however, the idea of "meritorious atonement" did not suit the problems faced by the Allies in Italy.
The premise of the policy of the Allies was that whether Badoglio and the King of Italy were friends or foes was to be left to the open question, which was to be answered by Italian action. However, in war, such a skeptical, wait-and-see approach is likely to lead to defeat. If a bloc is in fact friendly, it is in the interest of the victorious country to strengthen it as much as possible; If it is hostile, try to weaken it in your favor as much as possible. If, during the probationary period, the victorious Power fails to strengthen the forces of friendly blocs or weaken the forces of hostile blocs, it is to the detriment of its own cause. Therefore, the wait-and-see attitude is risky and should only be adopted when there is no other way to do it.
In the case of Italy, there is no reason to consider the question of friend or foe to be a wholly pending one. The collapse of the Axis Alliance effectively brought the armistice regime in Italy into the camp of the Allies. Once this is done, there is no turning back for Badoglio, and there is no way he can betray the allies. Therefore, inserting a period of time between surrender and active cooperation to see the aftermath is only a matter of weakening the power of the allies on their own side.
Moreover, the Allies were wrong to think that the hope of possible future concessions was the most effective way to stimulate active cooperation in Italy. The presence of Germans in Italy is one of the greatest concerns of Italians. In observing the situation, they proceeded not only from the point of view of pleasing or not pleasing the Allies, but also from the point of view of driving away or not taking away the Germans. The military question implied that the interests of the Allies and Italy were intertwined. Therefore, the Italians could not be made to think that currying favor with the Allies was their only goal in life. In any case, they had to criticize Allied measures which, in their view, did not help to achieve the common goal of defeating the Germans. And during the war was established"Good behavior"is one of these measures.
In Badoglio's memoirs, it is evident that the Italians were indignant at the treatment of the regime given to him by the Allies. He complained that the Italians had always been forced to play a supporting role in the war: "We had supplied many logistical troops, sent arms and food to the front, and sent many divisions to protect the lines of communication, and about 100,000 men or more in one.""Engineer Corps"but we are not allowed to increase our armed forces. ......I said that we were not given **, or rather, we had many ** taken and sent to the Balkans ......It's bizarre to treat us like this. The leaders of the Allied powers** called on the Italians to expand their military forces, and said that the terms of the armistice would be reduced according to our role in the war. However, the Allied headquarters in Algiers and the Allied command in Italy did everything possible to prevent us from entering the battle. ”
This kind of complaint is understandable from a psychological point of view. Since it had been stated that the terms of the armistice would be reduced in accordance with Italy's contribution to the war, the Allied policy of not surrendering any theater of operations to the Italian army seemed intended to relieve the Allied of their moral obligations to Italy. Such an approach is unlikely to lift the hearts and minds of Italy.
However, having allowed the Italian armed forces to collapse, it was impossible for the Allies to pursue any other policy. The principle of meritorious atonement gave them every reason to sit idly by, since the Italian army had not previously performed enough to "earn" any other treatment. At the critical juncture of the Allied offensive, neither in Salernor nor in the rear of the German army, it did not contribute. The result was that Italy could not provide the allies with combat-capable troops. A combat-ready Italian army could only be reorganized and armed with the equipment of the Allies. However, at a time when the war was raging, it was clear that this was impossible. Therefore, the position taken by the allies is also justified. However, given the objective reality, it would be pointless to impress the Italians by proposing a reduction of the terms of surrender in the light of the actual contribution to the war.
They are concerned about the psychological repercussions of the Bardoglio regime's promise of a common belligerent state as a formidable stumbling block for the heads of the allied powers. Because both King Yi and Badoglio had played roles in fascist regimes in the past, they were not popular partners. Therefore, the leaders of the allied countries were anxious to put the recognition of Badoglio's regime on hold until the King of Italy and Badogglio had produced evidence of active meritorious service. But war cannot wait. Allied Headquarters urgently needed permission for Italy to declare war on Germany, and the directive on this issue had in fact been drafted before 20 September. However, opponents of the recognition of the Bardoglio regime delayed the decision for several weeks, so that the order to allow Italy to enter the war did not reach Eisenhower until October 5, and Italy did not officially declare war on Germany until October 13.
Apparently there were very compelling reasons for the Allies to abandon their opposition to the recognition of the Badogglio regime, and to wait for the Italians to make a "war exploit" and give them the status of a common war. These reasons may be inferred from the Hopkins memorandum, which opposed the recognition of the Bardoglio regime. On 20 September, Hopkins read a draft agreement allowing Italy to enter the war as a "co-belligerent" rather than as an "ally," and then he wrote a memorandum to submit**, which reads as follows:
I hope you do not encourage Eisenhower to recognize Italy as a common belligerent nation. This would give the Italians exactly the same status as our other allies. And I don't think there's enough evidence to make us trust Badocorio and King Yi to arm any part of their army. I think that if certain armistice conditions were breached, such as the use of Italian ** to transport Allied troops, or the use of Italian bombers to attack the Germans from Sardinia, Eisenhower could have quietly pretended not to see them. ......Would it be good to delete the words 'war against Germany' in the second paragraph and replace it with 'help us fight'? ’…I do not see any benefit to us in declaring war on Germany by Badoglio, but only to prompt us to hastily admit two men who had worked closely with the fascists in the past. I thought we should take everything we could from them, but I don't think we have any obligation to them. I don't understand why Eisenhower, who thought he could trust the Italians, wanted to use their navy and ships, why didn't he just do it. Until we see Badoglio and King Yi clearly, I really don't want to legitimize it. The report written by the British General Mac** about them, the opinion of them is really not good. I don't want to throw Badogglio away, but acknowledging Badogglio is an inevitable step. Can you tell Eisenhower to put off for a moment and make a decision next week? ”
The memorandum makes it clear why the Badoglio regime must be recognized as a co-belligerent nation, and that is the urgent need to use part of the Italian fleet in actual combat. Hopkins believed that if Eisenhower felt that the Italian fleet was reliable, he could use it directly, and Hopkins ignored that Eisenhower's trust alone was not enough to get these ships to be dispatched. Admirals generally carry out their duties only when they are ordered by their superiors, and the Italian naval commander is no exception in this regard. They had to get orders from Badoglio** to take part in the battle. It was for this reason that the Allies had to negotiate with Italy, and that they had to conclude another special agreement on the issue of the fleet. This is known as the Kenningham-de Gurton Agreement; The agreement was signed on 22 September in Tarantol by the Allied Naval Commander, Admiral Andrew Cunningham, and the Italian Minister of the Navy, Admiral Rafael de Granton.
It was a stopgap agreement. At that time, it was not possible to conclude an agreement with ** itself, because the Allies were not ready to recognize the Badoglio regime, and even a detailed agreement on the long-term and non-military provisions of the armistice had not yet been signed. Therefore, the bizarre method of concluding a treaty with one of the members of the country had to be adopted.
Nevertheless, the agreement made Italy a de facto co-belligerent nation, and the formal recognition of this fact could not be delayed for long. As soon as the fleet flying the Italian flag entered into a battle at sea, Italy was in a state of undeclared war against Germany, which was exceptional from the point of view of public international law. The full cooperation of the Navy of course required a formal declaration of war, which was not actually done until Italy had been given the status of a co-belligerent nation. "As soon as the status of the co-belligerent nation was announced, the navy was regarded as a fleet of the allies," Badogglio wrote. All light ships and cruisers (except for 5, 3 of which were later returned to us) took part in the battles in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, winning the admiration of the British and Americans. Our air force immediately took part in the fighting in the Balkan theater of operations, where we not only carried out many bombing and machine-gun fires, but also conveyed orders and delivered goods to our units fighting side by side with the guerrillas. ”
It is not clear what the Allies have gained by trying to reject the common warfare policy in August and leave it for October to be implemented. Obviously, there was never a need to unconditionally give the Badoglio regime the status to fight together. The Italian envoy could have been told that the Badoglio regime could be recognized as a co-belligerent state if certain conditions were met. But in the armistice negotiations, it was this kind of "deal" that the Allies left aside. In this way, the Allies put themselves in a position where giving Badogglio the status to fight together would inevitably lead to the perception that they were capricious.
This is the main drawback of the policy of "meritorious atonement", which gives the impression that neither the treaties concluded by the allies nor the terms they proposed need to be taken too seriously. The main decision-makers on the part of the Allies did not pay attention to the fact that the assurances they had made or obtained were not undermined by the great powers. When a treaty concluded by the Allies was broken, Hopkins said something "pretending not to be seen", which showed a flippant and unserious attitude, which was the most characteristic of the decisions of the Allies in wartime, and the situation in Italy made it abundantly clear that what was needed was not unconditional surrender, but that the conclusion of a meaningless and ineffective treaty was considered at the time to be better than abandoning the cult of unconditional surrender.
Hopes that this treaty would at least give the allies the benefit of complete freedom of action were also disappointed. The Allies did not achieve complete freedom of movement, because as soon as Italy surrendered, they could not effectively grant or retain the status of a joint combatant at will. Only for an Italian regime, which had been completely deprived of its combat potential, could the Allies refuse to grant the status of joint combat. By October, the strength of the Italian army had almost reached this state due to the ill-advised nature of the Allies and Italy, but the addition of Italy's rather powerful navy to the Allies inevitably meant giving them the status of joint combatants. This could have been foreseen in August, and would have been foreseen if the Allied leaders had not been indulging in utopian dreams, but they believed that military action could begin at any time on the impulse of nature, without the need for technical work or legal and political loyalty.
To be continued).