FASCISM IN LATIN AMERICA BEFORE WW2 (AND UNTIL THE 1970S)

 A brief account of Fascism & fascist movements in Latin America in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s:

The question of Fascism in Latin America (including French Canada) dates back to the 1920s and 1930s. Certain fascist-type movements emerged in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Venezuela and Mexico, among others, while in Europe, Fascism was on the rise amidst an atmosphere of intellectual and political radicalism.

There was even a relatively small number of Italians in Latin America who were members of the "Italian Fascist Party", but this will be researched in another future monthly issue. 

However it is noteworthy to pinpoint that the important fascist Giuseppe Bastianini in 1922 was appointed in Roma as head of the "Fasci Italiani all'Estero", a movement aimed at co-ordinating the activities of Italian fascists not currently living in Italy. He called on members to seek to diffuse proper Italian fascist ideals wherever they were living. This group gained a considerable following amongst Italian expatriates in the mid-1920s, mainly in South America. Indeed, in 1925 he submitted a report to the Fascist Grand Council claiming to have groups in 40 countries worldwide, most of them in Latin America.

López de la Torre places the main deep origin of fascist roots in Latin America at the end of the 19th century, amid the consolidation of nation-states. According to him, the elites of the time developed inclusive discourses that in practice were quite the opposite, establishing mechanisms of exclusion and discrimination aimed at maintaining hegemony.

Another factor behind the development of forms of Italian Fascism in Latin America was the huge emigration of Italians in the region. Countries like Argentina had half of its population made of Italians and their descendants in the first half of the XX century.

We will now briefly review these movements in Latin America:

Argentina fascists in 1939: the "Fascio" of Buenos Aires had more than 4000 members. After the WW2 disappearance of Fascism, nearly all of them become fanatical supporters of Peronism

In 1922, the year Mussolini became prime minister of Italy, a reactionary and anti-communist group called "The Leopards" was founded in Colombia, inspired by the ideas of the Duce (nickname of Mussolini). In 1933, as Hitler consolidated his totalitarian regime, the "Golden Shirts" (called "Camisas Doradas" in Spanish) were founded in Mexico, an anti-Semitic and anti-Chinese movement inspired by the Führer's National Socialism. In Brazil, in 1932, the largest fascist group in Latin America, the Brazilian Integralist Action, was born, led by Plínio Salgado claimed as many as 200,000 member.  In 1937 many thousands of Brasilian fascists militants used the Greek letter sigma (∑) as the equivalent of the Italian "Fascio" and united under the motto "God, Homeland, and Family."

Imitating the Nazis, Brazilian fascists raised their right arms in greeting. Unlike the Germans, they added something extra to the greeting: "Anauê!", an indigenous Tupi word meaning something similar to "you are my comrade".  A short word to indicate that the Latin-American fascists were similar to their European friends, but not entirely the same. 

Of course, the country in Latin-America where Fascism was more followed and powerful -because it was the most populated by Italians- was Argentina. Even Uruguay experienced a similar situation.

Argentina

In 1919, the "Argentine Patriotic League" emerged in Argentina during the presidency of Hipólito Irigoyen. This event coincided with the rise of Fascism in Italy. The Patriotic League had a nationalist program that combined right-wing politics and liberalism in economics. It enjoyed broad support from the government, the military, the Catholic Church, and the upper class, and formed civilian paramilitary squads called "White Guards"  (similar to Mussolini's "Black Shirts")  to suppress strikers, anarchists, Jews, and Catalans. 

Vittorio Valdani, vice president of the Argentine Industrial Association, was charged by the Italian Fascist Party with organizing and directing Italian fascist groups in Argentina, creating in 1930 the main fascist press organ in South America, the newspaper "Il Mattino d'Italia", which was published in Italian language until October 1944.

"In order to disseminate the Fascist ideology abroad, different organizations were built up by Mussolini, most importantly the "Fasci italiani all’estero", which operated in many countries and had 8 million members worldwide. The local Fascio in Buenos Aires was the first to be founded on Latin American soil, even before the March on Rome in October 1922 and in the continental comparison also remained the most important. Further Fasci in other Argentine cities followed. Claiming the interpretative monopoly of italianità, which under fascism coincided with the Fascist ideology, the Fasci in Argentina tried to instigate patriotic sentiments and resuscitate emotional connections towards the former homeland among the otherwise ideologically heterogeneous Italian community in Argentina. Therefore, the Fasci engaged in the social, cultural and educational sphere, rivaling among others with the various traditional associations of Italian immigrants in Argentina, mostly of charitable, social or cultural nature. Katharina Schembs"

There were other fascist-type movements in the 1920s, such as the "Argentine Social League", whose objective was to fight modernism and tendencies they considered subversive. From 1930 to 1943 (the "infamous decade"), several dictatorships followed one another: Uriburo, Justo, Ortíz, and Castillo. In 1930, the coup-monger General Uriburo attempted to create a fascist regime, but failed due to opposition from broad sectors, including conservatives linked to the USA.

In 1923 was created the "National Fascist Party" (Partrido Nacional Fascista) of Argentina, a fascist political party that was directly linked to Mussolini. It had five thousand members in 1927 and was centered in Buenos Aires and Cordoba. 

In 1932 the "Argentine Fascist Party" (Partido Fascista Argentino) was founded\ by Italo-argentines, as a split from one of the factions of the National Fascist Party. The PFA was founded on the ideological and doctrinal basis of Italian Fascism, and in fact in 1935 it was recognized by the Italian National Fascist Party. In the 1930s the party became a mass organization, especially in the city of Córdoba. Nicholas Vitelli led the Córdoba faction of the Argentine Fascist Party until his death in 1934, when Nimio de Anquín took the reins of the party leading it towards a new orientation close to Catholic nationalism,

The "National Fascist Union" (Union Nacional Fascista) was a fascist political party formed in Argentina in 1936, as the successor to the Argentine Fascist Party. It was dismantled during WW2.

         Flag of the "Partido Fascista Argentino", created by the Italian-Argentine  Nicola Vitelli

Between 1943 and 1946, the so-called United Officers Group ("GOU") took power and imposed a dictatorship. Its main leaders included high-ranking officers Farrell, Ávalos, Vernengo, and Colonel Juan Domingo Perón. Before Perón prevailed over this group of officers, who at one point conspired, imprisoned him, and forced his retirement, masses of mostly workers demanded his release on October 17, 1945, and later prevailed in the 1946 elections.

It's important to note that Peron publicly admired Mussolini. His support for Mussolini is well documented, and during a trip to Europe in 1938 he said:

"Italian Fascism made people's organizations participate more on the country's political stage. Before Mussolini's rise to power, the state was separated from the workers, and the former had no involvement in the latter."

Payne emphasizes the fascist characteristics of Peronism, especially the years Perón spent in power between 1946 and 1955, but not the subsequent history of the "Peronist Party" as a mass labor union movement. Several scholars of the early stages of the Peronist movement argue that it shared many characteristics of Italian Fascism.

Although Perón's goal was to found a single party, it was never achieved in practice. Peronism enjoyed strong support from the Union sector and was based on a limited authoritarianism that tolerated pluralism. Germani defined Peronism as a "national populism," adding a populist approach to the discussion. Lipset, on the other hand, classified it as "left-wing Fascism," highlighting that its largely union-based social base could shift from right to left.

Brazil

In Brazil, between 1932 and 1938, a movement with fascist influences emerged, the "Ação Integralista Brasileira" (Brazilian Integralist Action, AIB), founded by the writer Plinio Salgado. The AIB was inspired by an anti-parliamentary, traditionalist, and monarchist Portuguese movement, known as "Lusitanian Integralism". It was an important mass political movement that at one point had more than 500,000 members and met virtually all the conditions of a fascist organization. However, the ruler Getulio Vargas, after flirting with the movement, finally demobilized and banned it under US influence during WW2. 

In Integralism, the attitude and production of its ideologues, its publications and propaganda, and its rigorously hierarchical structure tend to demonstrate its eminently fascist character, obviously in a different historical context. Integralism possesses characteristics of European fascist movements with certain indigenous elements, without being a simple replica of those movements.

 In the Italian fascist organizations, both immigrants and their descendants were accepted, such as in the case of the "Fascio di Sao Paolo", one of the main organizations of Italian fascism in Brazil.

The Fascio di Sao Paolo was formed in March 1923 approximately 6 months after the fascists took power in Italy; it achieved huge success among the Italians of the city and rapidly spread to other cities and Italian communities. In November 1931, a branch of the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro, which had existed in Italy since 1925, was founded in São Paulo and subsequently placed under the control of the Fascio di Sao Paulo. The Fascio was responsible for spreading the fascist doctrine among the popular classes. 

Another institution at the time was the Circolo Italiano di Sao Paolo which was established in 1910 and still active today. Its aim has been to preserve and disseminate Italian culture to Italian-Brazilians and Brazilians in general. In the mid-1920s, the fascist doctrine began to infiltrate the community and institution through the influence of Serafino Mazzolini, the Italian consul to Brazil

Brasilian integralist in a 1935 Sao Paulo manifestation doing the fascist salute

Regarding Vargas's government from 1930 to 1937, it fluctuated between the anti-oligarchic "dictatorship" (1930 to 1934) and the constitutional-liberal government from 1934 to 1937; in the next stage, before the election of his successor, he carried out a coup d'état with the support of the Armed Forces and imposed an authoritarian and repressive system ("Estado Novo", 1937 to 1945); finally, Vargas was elected President of the Republic by universal suffrage in 1950 through the Brazilian Labor Party.

Under his successor, he carried out a coup d'état with the support of the armed forces and imposed an authoritarian and repressive system (Estado Novo, 1937 to 1945). Finally, Vargas was elected President of the Republic in 1950 by universal suffrage through the Brazilian Labor Party.

Uruguay

In Uruguay, a group of far-right intellectuals and politicians took advantage of the 1929 depression and began to criticize the executive branch for its poor handling of the economic situation. The Uruguayan economic elite founded the "Vigilance Committee" with the intention of promoting a change in economic policies. 

In Uruguay there was a huge Italian community (that was nearly one third of the total population of Uruguay) and the influence of Italian Fascism was very strong and important like in nearby Argentina (please read with google translation:.http://www.chasque.net/frontpage/relacion/9909/uruguay.htm).

Indeed elected President Gabriel Terra (an italo-uruguayan), who had already expressed fascist ideas, led a coup d'état and dissolved Parliament and the National Administrative Council in 1933. The "March on Montevideo" (similar to the March on Rome led by Mussolini) was called in support of him in April 1933.

Gabriel Terra's followers became known as "Marzists" due to their adherence to the "March Revolution," the official name of the coup. Elections were called for the Constituent Assembly that drafted the 1934 Constitution. The constitution, founded on corporatist principles, formally recognized the human rights to education, health care, and work, as well as freedom of assembly and association. Terra broke off diplomatic relations with the USSR and the Second Spanish Republic, recognizing Franco's Spain.

The "March regime" developed anti-immigration policies, such as controlling Jewish immigration and establishing a minimum of 80% Uruguayan labor in public works. Despite holding favorable opinions about the system, the 1934 Constituent Assembly rejected the full implementation of corporatism in Uruguay, considering it too radical.

Indeed during the Terra regime (1933-1938), several political leaders expressed their intentions to incorporate certain fascist premises into Uruguay. Gabriel Terra and César Charlone made no secret of their fascist sympathies. The latter emphasized the need to introduce corporatism into Uruguayan legislation, proposing "union pacts" and concepts of "the newest labor rights" taken from Mussolini's "Carta del Lavoro". These ideas were put into practice with the creation of the Higher Council of Labor in 1933, which required it to be composed of Unions that would enjoy legal status. 

It is noteworthy to remember that president Terra allowed 100 Uruguayans to fight as volunteers in the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in October 1935. Terra was also the first south-american politician to recognize the Franco regime in Spain.

The Italian language acquired considerable importance in Uruguay in those years under Terra and his successors: in 1942, under the presidency of Baldomir Ferrari (who admired Italian Fascism), its study became compulsory in all the high schools of Uruguay.

Uruguayan newspaper showing the 100 Uruguayan volunteers who went to Ethiopia to fight for Mussolini's conquest of this African country in 1935. In the headlines there it is written: "Yesterday sailed in the Augustus (ship) the volunteers of Uruguay who go to unite to the Italian Army (in Ethiopia)...Nearly one hundred soldiers were enrolled by a Minister of Italy...Also, a huge group of volunteers from Argentina goes to fight Ethiopia with armaments "

Chile

The Fascist Party of Chile (PFC) was founded in 1932 by Carlos Keller. The PFC was inspired by Italian fascism and Spanish Falangism and promoted national unity, dictatorship, and corporatism. Unlike the MNS, the PFC had a more limited social base, composed primarily of intellectuals and members of the lower middle class.

Chilean fascism was characterized by its strong nationalism and authoritarianism. Fascist leaders emphasized the importance of Chile as a nation and the need for charismatic and authoritarian leadership to address the country's problems.

Chilean fascism championed corporatism, a system in which workers organized into their respective unions and participated in the management of the economy, and in which the antagonism between capital and labor was suppressed. Furthermore, Chilean fascism was openly anti-communist, which earned it the support of a significant segment of the Chilean population, who viewed communism as a threat to property and individual freedoms.

The Chilean Fascist Party participated in the 1938 presidential elections but was defeated by the Popular Front candidate, Pedro Aguirre Cerda. From that moment on, Chilean fascism lost ground and ceased to be a relevant political option in Chile.

Despite its short life, Chilean fascism left a lasting legacy in Chilean politics. The nationalist and authoritarian discourse it championed influenced the formation of later political groups, such as the National Union and the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Furthermore, some historians argue that elements of Chilean fascism are present in contemporary Chilean politics, especially in the populist and authoritarian currents that have emerged in recent years.

Furthermore , in 1933 Chile, a movement emerged that aspired to adopt the principles of Nazism. The National Socialist Movement of Chile, or Nazi Party (MNS), was created. The MNS was configured with a hierarchical command structure, which was completed in 1933 with the "Nacist Assault Troops." 

In 1938, before the elections, it organized a demonstration called "The Victory March." The following day, a group from the MNS took over the Workers' Insurance Fund and the University of Chile's main campus to launch a coup against President Arturo Alessandri and impose General Ibáñez on power. The coup failed, and the government ordered the execution of the insurgents. 

In 1939, the MNS was renamed the Popular Socialist Vanguard (VPS), adopting a leftist stance, which caused most of its members to abandon the party, which dissolved in 1942.

Mexico

In Mexico, especially after the economic crisis of 1929, groups of ultranationalists, xenophobes, or racists emerged, among whom one was anti-Semitic and another anti-Chinese.

The "Revolutionary Mexicanist Action"  (Spanish: Acción Revolucionaria Mexicanista), better known as the Gold Shirts (Camisas Doradas), was a Mexican fascist, anti-Semitic, anti-Chinese, anti-communist, ultra-nationalist paramilitary organization; it originated on March 10, 1934 in Mexico City and disbanded in 1936. It was led by Nicolas Carrasco, an admirer of Mussolini and Hitler.

The National Synarchist Union defended the values of Catholicism and anti-communism. It was inspired by the National Catholicism of the Spanish Falangist movement.

The Traditionalist Spanish Phalanx also emerged, gaining the support of Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas, who facilitated the integration of Spanish Republican exiles into Mexico.

Peru

In Peru, the "Revolutionary Union" (RU) was created in 1931 by Sanchez Cerro, who admired Mussolini. In 1933, it was led by the Prime Minister of Peru -Luis A. Flores Medina- and became an openly fascist party that opposed liberalism and communism, and in particular the APRA party. They promoted xenophobia against Japanese and Chinese immigrants. They proposed a corporatist and totalitarian society similar to the model of European fascist movements of the interwar period. 

Beginning in 1933 and after the murder of President of Peru Sanchez Cerro, the Revolutionary Union propagated a resoundingly fascist discourse similar to that used in Mussolini's Italy. At the end of 1933, the "Blackshirt Legion" was created, comprised of youth, following the authoritarian line. Furthermore,  the RU promoted the rights of equality for women under the leadership of the Italo Peruvian Yolanda Coco Ferrero. She is considered one of the first feminist leaders in world History.

Indeed under the leadership of Luis A. Flores, who sought to mobilize mass support and even set up a Blackshirt movement in imitation of the Italian model (called "Camicie Nere" in Italy),  the Revolutionary Union successively planned a coup d'état which was discovered in 1937, leading to Flores exile in Chile.

Flores was allowed to return to Peru in the early 1940s and reorganized his political fascist party,^[8] which never achieved the same results it reached in 1936 and disappeared with the final defeat of Fascism in 1945 WW2.

Photo of funeral for murdered President of Peru Sanchez Cerro in 1933, showing behind the priest the leader of:the "Revolutionary Union" Luis Flores (dressed with fascist black shirt) and the Italo peruvian feminist leader Yolanda Coco Ferrero.

Bolivia

The governments of David Toro and Germán Busch were vaguely committed to corporatism, ultra-nationalism, and national syndicalism, but they lacked coherence in their ideas. Such concepts were later adopted by the "Revolutionary Nationalist Movement" (MNR), which openly acknowledged its ideological debt to Fascism and joined the military under Gualberto Villarroel's pro-Axis government in 1943. But after WW2 the MNR moved away from the defeated Fascism.

Because historically the Bolivian army contained some German advisors and German-trained soldiers, the President Busch (of part-German ancestry himself) was suspected to have sympathy for Fascism and have Nazi tendencies; this was reinforced by the fact that only a week after taking power in 1937, he had requested economic and oil advisors from the German legation. On 9 April 1939, shortly before his declaration of dictatorial rule on the 24th, Busch had spoken with Ernst Wendler, the German minister in Bolivia, to request "moral and material support" for the establishment of "order and authority in the state through [...] the transition to a totalitarian state form". To do this, Busch asked for German advisors in almost every field of government administration. 

While Wendler expressed interest, the final reply by the German government on 22 April cordially denied Busch's request, stating that it wished to avoid "conspicuous measures, such as the sending of a staff of advisors". The possible reason was the refusal of Bush to accept the racism of Hitler and accept the immigration of Jews into Bolivia while escaping from Europe in 1939. 

Furthermore from an initially oppositional stance, Óscar Únzaga's "Bolivian Socialist Falange" was an important group in the 1930s that sought to incorporate the ideas of the leader of fascism in Spain, the falangist José Antonio Primo de Rivera, in Bolivia. However, like the MNR, it gradually de-emphasized its faith in Fascism over time after 1945.

Paraguay

Paraguay has been often declared as "The paradise of the extreme-right fanatics in South America", because the first Nazi party was created there in 1929, 4 years before Hitler took power in Germany. The ideals of Fascism were promoted in the capital La Asuncion by the huge Italian and German communities of the country in the 1920s and 1930s.

Indeed the "Febrerista movement", active during the second half of the1930s, demonstrated some support for Fascism by seeking revolutionary change, endorsing strong nationalism, and seeking to partly introduce corporatism of Italian Fascism. Their revolutionary Rafael Franco-led government, however, proved decidedly non-radical during its brief presidential tenure in 1936. 

The Febreristas have since regrouped as the "Revolutionary Febrerista Party", that supported after WW2 the 35 years of the dictatorship of the Paraguay President Stroessner (a declared admirer of Mussolini's Fascism).

Ecuador

In Ecuador there was a small Italian community concentrated in Guayaquil (with nearly two thousand members), where was created an italian  "Fascio" in 1933 with 82 members. However politically Fascism in Ecuador was without importance in the 1930s.

Only in 1942 Jorge Luna Yépes formed the "Accion Revolucionaria Nacionalista Ecuatoriana" (ARNE) party, inspired by the European fascist political parties of the first half of the 20th century, particularly the Spanish Falangism of Francisco Franco. His party described itself as "nationalist, anti-communist and anti-capitalist".  During its existence it had an important political participation, both in the legislative and executive branches, being part of the government of Ecuador president José María Velasco Ibarra in 1944.

Costa Rica

 In Costa Rica there was a big community of Italians (nearly half a million descendants actually) and also a relatively huge of Germans, mainly in the San Jose capital's region.

The existence of figures who were sympathetic to Fascism and Nazism in high political positions has been pointed out in the administrations of León Cortés Castro and Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia.

 Cortés,  having spent some time in Italy and Nazi Germany, was publicly viewed as an important sympathizer of Mussolini's Fascism. He was President fro 1936 to 1940 and during his presidency, he appointed as "immigration advisor" the German-Costarican Max Effinger, who restricted immigration for "Non-Aryans". In particular, he prevented many Polish Jewish refugees from entering Costa Rica

In the late 1930s, a movement which was sympathetic to Nazism developed among a large community of Germans. Supporters of Nazism (numbering 66 in 1939) met in a local German Club of San Jose, but during WW2 all Germans and Italians were sent to concentration camps for security reasons promoted by the USA.

Quebec (French Canada)

 Among the right-wing nationalists in French Canada in the 1930s, the "National Social Christian Party" (NSCP) was founded. Its founder, Adrien Arcand, would be known as the “Canadian Duce.” 

European influence, anti-Semitism, Christianism, and the Great Depression all played an important role in the expansion of extremist right-wing nationalism in Quebec. There were two main groups among the nationalists of the extreme right in the 1930s: the separatist group of Abbé Lionel Groulx, and the federalist group of Adrien Arcand.

Groulx was an historian and a teacher at the University of Montreal. Pro-separatist, Catholic, racist, and anti-democracy, he was very influential among his fellow ultranationalists. Groulx was the mentor of the radical nationalist group Les Jeune Canada (“The Young Canadians”). Also linked to his circle was the magazine L’Action Nationale and intellectual newspaper Le Devoir, which published anti-Semitic articles.

Adrien Arcand was a professional journalist. In 1929, he and his friend Joseph Ménard started Le Goglu, a satirical review. Later on, they added Le Miroir and Le Chameau. The three weekly newspapers served as a platform for fascist propaganda. When the economic crisis started to strongly affect Quebec, they announced the creation of a “proto-fascist” movement called the "Ordre Patriotique des Goglus". The Order held mass meetings promoting racism and proudly wore blue shirts with swastika logos. 

With WW2 all the fascist organization in Quebec were outlawed and closed.

Colombia

The fascist-style politics of the conservatism of the "Leopardos" would be closely linked to the actions of the different elements of Colombian conservatism at the beginning of the 20th century.

These different ideological orientations would begin their career as fascist-style cultural and economic movements, eventually revealing their true purpose and minimally achieving their political goals and projects. They imitated practices of the fascist models that would triumph in Europe, such as those of Italy, but also of Germany and Spain.

The year 1936 saw the proliferation of Fascist and Falangist groups. In January, El Tiempo of Bogotá announced the creation of a fascist group called "Haz de Fuego" (Fire Beam) and the appointment of the Falangists from the "Primo de Rivera" center as its leader. Fascist groups were formed in Bogotá's universities. In Medellín, a military organization called "La Cruz de Malta" (The Cross of Malta) and another group with a clearly fascist character called "Haz de Juventudes Godas" (God Youth Beam) appeared. Under the auspices of the Antioquia's "Haz Godo" (God Youth Beam) were created, several phalanxes of university students, workers, "rearguard of children," and also a phalanx of women.

Some right-wingers promoted the formation of a right-wing organization separate from the Conservative Party, structured around a program directly inspired by Hitler, Mussolini, and Oliveira Salazar.

This led to the emergence of various support organizations for these fascist models, influenced by the results and support obtained as a political movement before WW2.

Venezuela

Dictator Gomez until 1935 ruled Venezuela with a "colonial" dictatorship that had only a few fascist characteristics, mostly related to Germany's racism. He favored the "Blanqueamiento" (whitening) of the Venezuelan population, blocking the immigration of Chinese, Asian & African people into oil-rich Venezuela and promoting the creation of the Nazi party of Venezuela.

The renowned writer and key figure of the literary "Magical Realism" movement of Venezuela, Arturo Uslar Pietri, held pro-Axis and anti-US sentiments, attempting to sway President Medina Angarita towards aligning with Germany and Italy during the beginning of WW2. Subsequently, Pietri went on to serve as a senator and establish the Nationalist party known as the National Democratic Front (Frente Nacional Democrático). 

A noteworthy detail of fascist Venezuelans is that Ettore Chimeri, recognized as the first Venezuelan to compete in Formula 1, was a member of Squadron 73 in the Royal Italian Aeronautics during World War II, serving in the African campaign.

Enrique Parra Bozo, who was noted for his admiration of Franco & Mussolini as well as his Catholicism and anti-communism, led the Partido Auténtico Nacionalista along Fascist lines. The group lent its support in the 1950s to the military regime of Perez Jimenez and even attempted, though unsuccessfully, to nominate him as their candidate for the 1963 presidential election.

Conclusions:

In short, there is no doubt that during the 1920s and 1930s, fascist models emerged in Latin America that mimicked Italian, German, or Spanish Fascism, in some cases a minority, such as "Nacism" in Chile, or broad and well-rooted movements such as "Integralism" in Brazil or "Marzism" in Uruguay, clearly founded on European interwar Fascism. 

However, in no case were these truly consolidated fascist regimes. The case of Peronism presents native complexities as it is a populist movement with fascist features, based on Trade Unions, which has a broad mass base, and which brings it closer to a left-wing Fascism, but accepting pluralism at first to a greater extent and then to a lesser extent, as it shifted toward repression in its final stage.

The Second World War sealed, in a certain sense, the fate of the Fascism overseas in Latin America. Patriotic pride of Italy was followed by the humiliation of defeat. But the fascists did not disappear, nor did they lose prestige. Nor did the corporatist ideology, anti-Americanism, distrust of democracy, and the cult of the leader that these Italians and their descendants had professed disappear, and which merged with other ideologies in the rhetoric and practice of subsequent populisms (like Peronism in Argentina).

Juan Domingo Perón (in the photo center), President of Argentina from 1946 to 1955 and from 1973 to 1974, admired Italian Fascism and, according to some authors, modeled his economic policies on those followed by fascist Italy.

Latin America dictatorships and Fascism until the 1970s.

Some academics identify a group of  dictatorships in Latin America with Fascism: 

According to them, the first dictatorships in Latin America classified as fascist were those imposed in the Dominican Republic by Rafael Trujillo, giving rise to "Trujillismo" (1930–1961), in El Salvador by Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, giving rise to the "Martinato" (1931–1944), and in Nicaragua by General Anastasio Somoza, giving rise to what is known as "Somocismo" (1937–1979). 

All three imposed types of state without the possibility of political opposition, which extended over several decades, with the support of the United States and the economic elites, characterized by an ideology with a marked anti-communist accent, profoundly liberal in economics, and repressive of union, student, indigenous movements, and politicians with social justice programs. 

The first dictatorship in Argentina also dates from that early period, explicitly -according to them- inspired by Italian Fascism, led by General José Félix Uriburu (1930-1932), whose aim was to prevent the Yrigoyenist Radicalism, with its broad popular base, from governing the country, an objective which it achieved although it did not manage to consolidate its hold on power.

Furthermore, certain dictatorships sparked a widespread debate about whether or not they constituted fascist regimes after WW2

In this group, we include the coups d'état in Brazil (1964), Uruguay (1973), Chile (1973), and Argentina (1976). Many scholars questioned how similar or different they were to the dictatorships of historical interwar fascism.

In Venezuela the dictatorship of Perez Jimenez (that had some characteristics of a moderate Fascism) lasted from 1952 until 1958 and promoted the "europeization" of the country allowing nearly one million emigrants from Europe to reside in Venezuela (that had only 5 million inhabitants).

According to Tzeiman, the 1960s, following the impetus of the Cuban Revolution, witnessed a growing intensification of class struggle in various parts of Latin America, whether through national-popular or socialist political movements. This climate of radicalization spread throughout the early 1970s. The military coup that took place in Chile in 1973 initiated a wave of dictatorships that would spread to other Latin American nations. 

Thus, by the end of the 1970s, the southern cone of Latin America was invaded by military dictatorships whose establishment acted as a brake on the aforementioned popular advance. Cueva paints a bleak picture of the 1970s. Brazil's military dictatorship seemed fully consolidated after twelve years. In Bolivia, the Banzer dictatorship seemed to have imposed a stable pro-imperialist order. Uruguay and Chile were suffering the effects of the fascist regimes established since 1973; while in Argentina, the government of Mrs.Estela Martínez de Perón was dying, giving way to the dictatorship of General Videla. And in Uruguay, the Stroessner tyranny had remained unshaken in power since 1954. 

In 1971, Nicos Poulantzas, who studied the processes of fascistization, examined these processes, concluding that, amidst the imperialist phase and class struggle, Fascism arose from a political and ideological crisis of the ruling group that generated a new hegemony of monopoly and financial capital. It is a political reaction to reinvent itself as a hegemonic power. 

In other words, this bourgeoisie, in the midst of a crisis, "changes its clothes" and presents itself to the masses as the "solution," which includes elements such as order, corporatism, nationalism, and stability. Its displacement culminates in the obliteration of the opposition and the emergence of a fascist police state. 

According to O'Donell, some of the inherited characteristics of historical Fascisms are: hierarchical social organization, political exclusion, repression of the popular sector, suppression of citizenship and participation, reconsideration of the nation, violent elimination of dissent, patriotic and militarized discourse, and sympathy for European fascisms.

THE ITALIAN GUERRILLA WAR IN "AFRICA ORIENTALE ITALIANA" (1941-1943)

I have written in May & June of this year about the end of the "Africa Orientale Italia" (A.O.I.) in the last months of 1941. But the end of this Italian East Africa empire was followed by a guerrilla war done by thousands of Italian soldiers with hundreds of Eritrean colonial troops (faithful to Italy). Indeed  after the surrender of the last AOI Vicerroy (general Nasi) in Gondar and all the massacres and lootings that were done by the Ethiopian troops (mainly by the fanatical "Arbegnochs) that started to massacre also the local Italian civilians, looting everything (please read and "google translate" from italian: https://arcadia.sba.uniroma3.it/bitstream/2307/4213/1/Tesi%20di%20dottorato%20di%20Antonio%20Cataldi%202013.pdf  I missionari cattolici in Etiopia; pag. 337-343), many Italian soldiers decided to continue to fight by themselves.

1941 photo of Amedeo Guillet -nicknamed "Devil commander"- giving orders to his cavalry Ascari. He attacked in that year a British unit of armored vehicles & tanks with his cavalry (that was armed only with guns, hand-grenades and knifes) and a British lieutenant wrote: "... When our battery took up position, a group of native cavalries, led by an officer on a white horse, charged from the north, rushing down from the hills. With exceptional courage these soldiers galloped to within thirty meters of our guns, firing from their saddles and throwing hand grenades, while our guns, turned 180 degrees, fired point-blank. The grenades slid along the ground without exploding, while some even tore open the chests of the horses. But before this charge of madmen could be stopped, our men had to resort to machine guns...."

.Most estimates (like the one of Rosselli, Alberto: "Storie Segrete. Operazioni sconosciute o dimenticate della seconda guerra mondiale") pinpoint that more than seven thousand Italians participated in this guerrilla, until the surrender of the Kingdom of Italy to the Allies on September 8, 1943. They fought in the desperate hope that the Italian & German Army of Rommel could win the war in Libya & Egypt and reach later the region of former AOI. 

According to the italian historian  LoPiccolo, some Italian officers continued to fight the English when the Fascist empire was already lost. Major Lucchetti, creator of the "Resistance Front" ("Fronte di Resistenza") in Addis Abeba, was one of them. Several “bands” joined his military organization. Members of this Front were the Carabinieri Captain Leopoldo Rizzo, the Grenadier Major Enrico Arisi, the Majors Giuseppe De Maria and Mario Bajon. Many bands organized rebellions against the authority of the Negus, as happened in Cobbò (Eritrea) with the Azebò Galla tribe. A rebellion that lasted for more than a year until 1943.

In other areas of south-western Ethiopia, such as Caffa and Gimma, acts of sabotage were organized. In Eritrea, in the Amba Auda region, a Royal Navy headquarters communicated with the "Maristat" (Navy General Staff) in Rome. Also in Eritrea, a clandestine cell was organized that took care of Italian soldiers who had escaped from prison and carried out acts of sabotage. It was led by the naval captain Paolo Aloisi and by a fascist militia officer, Luigi Cristiani. The latter had been captured and sentenced to death by the English. He avoided the sentence thanks to the intervention of the bishop of Asmara.

All these officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers, contrary to what British intelligence had declared, were not “desperate” fighters without plans, but men experienced in sabotage actions. The guerrilla actions conducted between April 1941 and May 1943 involved all the regions included between Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Dancalia and the Red Sea. The best equipped Italian units had model 91 rifles, Beretta pistols and Breda submachine guns. The effectiveness of their actions forced the English to ask for reinforcements supported by air and mechanized vehicles from Kenya and Sudan.

In February 1942, a revolt of the Galla Azebò broke out in the Galla Sidama region (Ethiopia) with the support of Italian units stationed in the desert areas and led by the militia general Muratori. The revolt lasted until 1943, when it was suppressed by British and Ethiopian troops. Other guerrilla actions were carried out in the area of ​​the Omo-Bottego river (Ethiopia), at the beginning of 1942, where the group commanded by the Carabinieri lieutenant colonel Calderari attacked South African units. Similarly in Ogaden and Dancalia, where groups of Italian soldiers, including men from the fascist "MVSN" (Voluntary Militia for National Security), gave the English a hard time with various ambushes. 

It seems that even in May 1942 Negus Haile Selassie intended (probably worried about the initial successes of the Italian-German forces in Egypt and Libya, of the German armies in the USSR and of the Japanese successes in the Far East) to start negotiations with the Italian “resistance” groups. 

When the Axis troops were defeated at El Alamein in the autumn of 1942, causing a rapid occupation of Egypt and from there a hypothetical advance in the Middle East to vanish, the Italian “armed” groups began to face reality. Isolated in a territory difficult to tackle and without any more connections with the mother country, they began to abandon the idea of ​​a now unequal fight. Only the “Resistance Front”, commanded by Major Lucchetti, continued to fight in an organised way, in the hope of a change in the situation. But his would be an illusion, because he was arrested by the British military authorities some days after the Italian-German lost of Libia in December 1942.

This desperate guerrilla war received no help from Italy: only the Italian air force dropped some needed military materials & did some attacks. For example:  on May 1943 an Italian long range SM.75 bomber intended to attack an American airfield at Gura in Eritrea, but having encountered fuel difficulties was forced instead to bomb Port Sudan, causing huge damage.... however another Italian airplane was able to drop bombs on Gura.

"......In 1943, two SM.75 GA aircraft undertook a bombing mission, the only one made by an SM.75, intended to destroy American bombers stored at an airbase in Gura. To reach the objective, which was over 3,000 kilometers (1,900 mi) away, the two SM.75 were laden heavily with 11,000 kilograms (24,000 pounds) of fuel, and modified by fitting a "Jozza" bomb-aiming system and a bomb bay capable of carrying 1,200 kilograms (2,600 pounds) of bombs. The most experienced crews were selected for the mission, led by officers named Villa and Peroli. The mission started at 06:30 hours on 23 May 1943 from Rhodes, the easternmost Regia Aeronautica base at the time.  The SM.75 GA's engines were optimized for endurance and economy rather than for power, which made the takeoff difficult with the heavy load of fuel and bombs. Initially flying at low altitude, at 10:00 hours the modified SM.75 GAs climbed to 3,000 meters (9,800 feet). Having used an excessive amount of fuel, Peroli diverted to bomb Port Sudan instead; he returned safely to Rhodes at 05:30 hours on 24 May 1943 after 23 hours in the air. Villa, meanwhile, pressed on alone and arrived over the Gura airbase—which was heavily defended despite being well behind the front line—at 18:45 hours and released his bombs....." BD.

It is interesting to note that last Italian guerrilla fighter to surrender was Corrado Turchetti, who wrote in his memoirs that some soldiers continued to ambush Allied troops until the end of October 1943. 

Indeed, the last Italian troops to surrender were Eritrean colonial Ascari under the command of the "Muntaz" Ali Gabrè, an Eritrean "Zaptié" (Eritrean Carabinieri). In 1941, when the Italian Army surrendered to the English, he continued to fight and his resistance lasted until the beginning of 1946. 

This means that, for five years, Ali Gabrè, known as "Ali Muntaz", with initially 8 other Eritrean & Italian soldiers, in the fort of Agordat area bravely opposed the English in the name of the King of Italy and he later continued on his own, with a hundred other "Eritrean Ascari diehards", to fight in the Abyssinian/Eritrean bush during all 1944 & 1945.  He fought until the imbalance of forces and the lack of armaments forced them to lower the Italian tricolor flag, but only nearly one year after the end of WW2.

Thanks to these Italian & Eritrean fighters the Italian flag was present in Ethiopia from 1935 until 1946 (11 years) and not only less than five years (from 1936 to 1941), as it is written mistakenly by the actual Ethiopian propaganda! Some Ethiopians want to minimize the Italian colonial control on their country, but real History cannot be erased.....

1950 photo of the doctor Rosa Dainelli, secret agent of the Italian "Military Information Sevice" (Servizio Informazioni Militare) who participated in the Italian guerrilla war in Ethiopia (https://www.storiaverita.org/2023/10/06/rosa-dainelli-la-spia-sabotatrice-di-cuveglio-che-durante-la-seconda-guerra-mondiale-fece-impazzire-gli-inglesi-in-africa-orientale/)

Most of these Italian guerrilla fighters were members of the fascist organizations in AOI, but many were military soldiers and officials who only did not want to surrender to the Allies and a few were civilian colonists and also women. 

The most famous of these women was the doctor Rosa Dainelli, who was able to destroy a full ammunition deposit:  she entered a British ammunition dump in Addis Abeba and blew it up, surviving the subsequent explosion. Dainelli was taken prisoner by the British shortly after and tortured.with weak electrical shots in order to make her confess info about her guerrilla friends (that she did not give). This act of sabotage destroyed the ammunition for the new British "STEN" submachine gun and delayed the deployment of this extremely simple and cheaply made submachine gun, that used regular 9×19mm Parabellum ammunition, for many months. in AOI:

This is a list of the Italian officers who fought in AOI after the 1941 surrender of General Nasi:

• Lieutenant Amedeo Guillet in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia
• Captain Francesco De Martini in Eritrea, northern Somalia & Ethiopia
• Naval Captain Paolo Aloisi in Eritrea
• Captain Leopoldo Rizzo in Ethiopia
• Colonel Di Marco in Ogaden of Somalia
• Colonel Ruglio in Eritrea
• General (black shirt) Muratori in Ethiopia & Eritrea
• Officer (black shirt) De Varda in Ethiopia
• Officer (black shirt) Luigi Cristiani in Eritrea
• Major Lucchetti in Ethiopia
• Major Gobbi in Ethiopia
• Colonel Nino Tramonti in Eritrea
• Colonel Calderari in Somalia

The last Italian officer known to have fought this guerrilla war was Colonel Nino Tramonti in Eritrea until the Italian Armistice of September !943.

     "Capitano" Francesco De Martini (on the right side) with his Ascari band

The following are excerpts translated from an Italian book about this guerrilla ("THE RESISTANCE OF ITALIAN GUERRILLAS IN EAST AFRICA", by Alberto Rosselli):

LA RESISTENZA DEI GUERRIGLIERI ITALIANI IN AFRICA ORIENTALE

di Alberto Rossell

."...Already two months before the surrender of Gondar (November 27, 1941), the last Italian stronghold in East Africa defended by the brave and skilled General Nasi, that is, at the beginning of September 1941, several members of the fascist militia and the army decided to give life to a clandestine movement of revolt to oppose the British occupation forces and the new government of the Negus and to create the conditions for a reconquest, by the Italian-German Army of Africa of General Erwin Rommel, of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. The rapid and brilliant successes achieved in Cyrenaica by the German general in the months of February, March and April of 1941, induced many Italians in East Africa, both military and civilian, to hope for a possible "liberation" of the former Empire, even though the latter was now almost entirely under the control of the English and Ethiopian forces loyal to the Negus. As mentioned, already on 6 September, some elements from the ranks of the fascist party gave life to the secret Association Sons of Italy which, in addition to the fight against the occupiers of Albion, also proposed a "harsh repression against traitors, collaborators, profiteers, anti-fascists and anti-monarchists who had dishonoured the Fatherland". The association even managed to send a letter to Rome (to Mussolini himself) informing him of the existence and operation of "a resistance movement faithful to the fascist creed".

Almost at the same time as the establishment of the Sons of Italy Association, the Resistance Front was born in Addis Ababa, a military organization constituted and directed by Major Lucchetti and whose objective was to coordinate the guerrilla actions that several hundred Italian soldiers and civilians had been conducting since April 1941, shortly after the fall of the last great bastion of Cheren. Quantifying the exact numerical consistency and evaluating the equipment and armament of the numerous bands that went to flow into the organization (some report a total of at least 7,000 men, including officers, non-commissioned officers, soldiers and rearmed civilians) is not an easy thing, even if the testimonies, although contradictory as in all these cases, are not lacking. We know exactly the names of the 40 members of the first secret committee of the Resistance Front (among others, the captain of the Carabinieri Leopoldo Rizzo, the major of the grenadiers Enrico Arisi, the majors Giuseppe De Maria and Mario Bajon, the journalist F.G. Piccinni, the former vice-mayor of Addis Ababa Tavazza and other officers) and we know for sure the areas in which the gangs, even those not affiliated with the "Resistance Front" (such as the legendary one made up of the Amhara horsemen of the cavalry lieutenant Amedeo Guillet, who for several months in Eritrea gave the English a hard time).

In the region of Dessiè, the gang of Major Gobbi operated; while in Cobbò some officers organized the revolt of the Azebò Galla tribe hostile to the Negus. There were also armed gangs of saboteurs in Caffa and Gimma, and others active in the areas of Dembidollo, Moggio and Cercèr. And again, in the region of Amba Auda, near Saganeiti, a group of naval officers had managed to install a radio transmitter with which to send messages to the Maristat in Rome, while in Eritrea the captain of the vessel Paolo Aloisi and the senior of the fascist militia Luigi Cristiani had organized an assistance network for the soldiers who had escaped from the English concentration camps and a group of saboteurs. Captured by the English, the senior Cristiani was sentenced to death but escaped the capital punishment thanks to the intercession of the bishop of Asmara, Marinoni. In short, the Italian Resistance in East Africa was not the work of a few "desperate" people without plans (as was propagandized by those responsible for the British Secret Services), but was a phenomenon that involved a significant number of qualified individuals, command experts and accustomed to weapons and espionage and sabotage operations. For two years, from April 1941 to May 1943, the Italian units incorporated into the "partisan" bands fought a hard, obscure but often effective war against the English and Ethiopian units in a vast region between Sudan and Kenya, between the Red Sea and the Lakes region. The most organized Italian gangs had individual armament consisting of Beretta pistols, Model '91 muskets, Breda machine guns, Fiat and Schwarzlose machine guns, English war booty rifles, hand grenades, dynamite charges and even some 65 mm mountain pack animals, even though they were short of ammunition.

Some resistance units could also count on a certain number of camels, mules and horses for the transport of food, ammunition and equipment. After an initial phase of interlocution and organization (from spring to winter 1941, the bands operated mainly in the English rear, attacking isolated motorized columns and attacking small garrisons poorly defended by irregular Ethiopian troops), in 1942 the Italian units began to strike the enemy with greater precision, both in urban areas and in the countryside. So much so that the English Command was forced to recall from Kenya and Sudan some colored battalions supported by air and mechanized vehicles. The fear of a more widespread "Italian" revolt in East Africa had become more real following the successes obtained by the German Afrika Korps in Libya and Egypt and the entry into the war of Japan (7 December 1941) alongside Germany and Italy. In May 1942, following frequent sightings of large Japanese ocean-going submarines, equipped with small catapulted reconnaissance seaplanes, along the coasts of Yemen, Somalia, Tanzania and the northern part of Madagascar, the British Supreme Command strengthened surveillance of the African coasts of the Indian Ocean. And at the same time imprisoned or removed from cities such as Mogadishu, Kismayo and Dante almost all of the Italian settlers, fearing that some of them might provide useful information on the size (in truth rather small) of the British forces to the crews of the Japanese submarines.

From January 1942, a good percentage of the Italian units operating in the Ambe, in the desert areas or in the depths of the forests of south-west Ethiopia began to receive instructions from the secret command of the Militia General Muratori who, thanks to his strong influence on the Galla Azebò, had managed to start a revolt in the Galla Sidama region: a revolt that was suppressed by the British forces and only ended in 1943. Also at the beginning of '42, in the remote basin of the Omo Bottego-Baccano river, the band of Lieutenant Colonel Calderari of the Carabinieri put the small South African garrisons in serious difficulty, while those of Colonels Di Marco and Ruglio (operating, respectively, in the arid regions of Ogaden and Dancalia) and that of the Centurion of the Volunteer Militia for National Security De Varda (formed mainly by "black shirts") carried out several ambushes against enemy motorized columns, creating confusion and forcing the the British to strengthen surveillance along the truck roads and the most popular trails. In May 1942, Emperor Haile Selassie himself began to consider a "separate peace" with the Italians and even a form of underground collaboration in an anti-British function. After his new installation on 6 April 1941, by London, the Negus had had the opportunity to note the distrust and condescension with which he was treated by the plenipotentiaries of London: an attitude that he deplored to the point of considering a sensational about-face.

And it was precisely between May and July 1942 that the Negus, certainly impressed by Rommel's successes in North Africa, thought of this solution, intensifying, albeit with the utmost caution, contacts with the Italian "rebels" in Ethiopia. However, as the months passed and, despite brilliant coups carried out (but always kept quiet by the British media), the Italian bands began to lose that motivation in the fight that had supported them for so many months. Isolated from the mother country and forced to survive in very difficult territories from an environmental and climatic point of view, several units began to complain of dangerous weaknesses. In the late summer of 1942, after the definitive arrest of Rommel's Afrika Korps at El Alamein and the first serious setback suffered by the Japanese fleet in the Pacific at Midway, the hopes of being reached by the Axis armies faded. Throughout the winter and spring of 1942, word had spread among the resistance forces of East Africa of the imminent arrival, along the Nile, of a powerful and mythical "Italian-German relief column coming from Libya, with tanks, artillery and no less than 6,000 camels". A dream destined, however, to be shattered by the harsh and adverse reality.

n any case, on the eve of the "miracle", Major Lucchetti, still at the head of the Resistance Front, tried to reassure his units and even intensified his work "organizing special units of saboteurs, setting aside food and vehicles, and collecting money, in this last undertaking ably assisted by Monsignor Ossola, Catholic bishop of Harar". 

Arrested by the English in October 1942, Lucchetti disappeared from the scene when, with Rommel's defeat in Egypt and with the almost total evacuation or imprisonment of soldiers and civilians from East Africa, any further resistance lost its meaning". "Our dreams of that time - recalls the "guerrilla" Corrado Turchetti in his memoirs - were not yet without hope. The Italian motorized forces, if they had succeeded in breaking the British defenses of El Alamein, could have returned down the Nile" and overwhelmed the English and Ethiopian armed forces that occupied the former Empire. The last effective guerrilla actions conducted by the Italians against the British occupation troops took place in that "historic" summer of '42 and were led by two truly exceptional characters: Dr. Rosa Dainelli and the captain of the SIM (Military Information Service) Francesco De Martini. After the death of Captain Bellia and Lieutenant Paoletti, who fell into an enemy ambush at the end of a series of sabotage actions, De Martini, who had already made himself known in '41 for some daring and brilliant actions in Dancalia, was taken prisoner (in July '41) but managed to escape and subsequently set fire to the ammunition depots of Daga (Massawa) with makeshift means.

De Martini, despite being hunted by the English police, created a network of informants in a few weeks (partly composed of Eritreans loyal to Italy) managing to send, via a makeshift radio, very useful information to the Command in Rome. It even seems that De Martini had managed to arm some Arab dhows with machine guns with which he carried out night missions to locate and report British naval convoys in transit along the Eritrean coast. De Martini survived (like the aforementioned Lieutenant Guillet, who narrowly escaped captivity and took refuge on a small boat in Yemen) the war and was decorated with the Gold Medal for Valor. And speaking of medals, a very special one would have rightfully gone to the courageous and fascinating doctor Rosa Dainelli who in August 1942, demonstrating patriotism, athleticism and uncommon courage, penetrated at night into the most guarded English ammunition depot in Addis Ababa, blowing it up with a dangerous charge of dynamite with a fuse. Rosa Dainelli miraculously managed to get away with it and, above all, to save her skin by causing the enemy much greater damage than she had foreseen. In the depot, in fact, there were 2 million special Fiocchi cartridges, booty of war that the English Command had already earmarked as ammunition for the new Sten machine guns that had just entered service but were still without an adequate supply of cartridges.

The failure to use Italian bullets forced the English to do without modern machine guns until November 1942 when the new purpose-built cartridges finally came out of the English factories. Towards the end of 1942, almost all the Italian armed bands began, as has been said, to disband and even the secret organizations that had followers and supporters among the inhabitants of the main Eritrean cities entered a phase of organizational collapse. And in the first months of 1943, the last national groups, hidden in the wildest regions of the Empire, laid down their weapons, but not before having made them unusable by the enemy. Thus ended, without any fanfare, one of the most interesting and least known pages of the Second World War......"

Map of the Ethiopian & Eritrean area where happened most of the Italian guerrilla (1941-1943). In dark color is the area where happened the Galla Azebo rebellion, promoted by the general Muratori of the Italian black shirts (MVSN).

Finally,I want to add a translation from an Italian blog about the last guerrilla fighters of Ali Gabre, who fought for the Kingdom of Italy until spring 1946:

"Italy also had its "last Japanese", or rather over a hundred.

Yes, a unit of those glorious fighters who were the Eritrean Ascari surrendered only in 1946, when it actually had certainty that Italy had surrendered and the war was over. One hundred forgotten heroes (like many others) commanded by a courageous Sciumbasci, Alì Gabre.

As it is known, a tenacious Italian guerrilla continued to fight against the English even after the fall of Gondar (November 1941). The most famous Italian official of this guerrilla was Commander Guillet.

But very few know that apart from Guillet and other Italian officers in command of colonial units organized into "Bands", other units of loyal Ascari, left without Italian officers, continued to fight for the Motherland as long as they could.

The most tenacious unit was precisely the one commanded by Ali Gebre and composed of about 100 Eritrean mounted guerrillas. Among the other resistance groups, it is worth mentioning the one in which Amid Awate fought, considered the moral Father of modern independent Eritrea.

Gebre's band continued the guerrilla warfare as long as it could, ignoring the events that had occurred in the meantime in Italy, such as September 8 and April 25. Moreover, operating by necessity in a hostile territory characterized by large spaces, the band had to necessarily find shelter in the most remote and inaccessible areas of the AOI, therefore far from the areas inhabited by nationals and large cities such as Asmara, Massua or Addis Ababa. Therefore far from reliable sources of information, that is, Italian. Needless to say, having no intention of surrendering, the messages sent by the English regarding the armistice and then the surrender of Italy were totally ignored and considered deceptive (just like what happened to the last Japanese in the jungles).

But in the end, after yet another sabotage of the telegraph wires by the gang, in the late spring of 1946 the English command decided to charge former Italian officers of the Eritrean battalions, just liberated by virtue, rather than the peace conference underway in Paris, with the very task of going to the areas still "infested" by their former subordinates. Wearing their colonial uniform for the last time, the now former Italian officers had to communicate to them (documents in hand, just in case) that it was now time to surrender. Not without some difficulty did the Italian envoys manage to reach Ali Gebre's men, who, anxious to have news from Italy and convinced that these officers brought who knows what positive news, discovered instead that the war was lost, but also that they should be proud of having done much more than their duty."

Historian Luigi M. Rubino wrote in 2022 that no other European colonial power has had some of the own colonial soldiers fight for the Homeland like did the Ascari of Ali Gabre for Italy.  And this unbelievable fight shows that Italy behaved in a very civilized way in Eritrea with the native population, without any superiority behavior or despicable real racism.

                                           1941 photo of MVSN Italian militia in AOI

THE 1941 END OF THE "AFRICA ORIENTALE ITALIANA" (2)

This June I am going to research the last italian stand in the "Africa Orientale Italiana " (AOI), when was fought the Gondar battle in November 1941.

    Photo showing the British giving the "Honours of War" to the last Italians defending their A.O.I.

This last battle was fought after the italian forces under coronel Maraventano were forced to left the stronghold of Debra Marcos, a city that should have been under the orders of Agenore Frangipani.  He was the last Italian governor of Addis Ababa in 1941 and was also the last governor of Scioa Governorate. Frangipane was forced to surrender Addis Ababa to the British on April 6, 1941, following the Allied advance. But he later committed suicide during the retreat, reportedly due to the dishonor of surrender.

Indeed the last phase of the British "Gojjam campaign" (in north-west Ethiopia) was made of a series of small battles, with few casualties on both sides, which nevertheless fixed on their positions and kept constantly in alarm the Italian forces defending Debra Marcos. The garrison commander, Colonel Saverio Maraventano, although certainly capable not only of covering his base, but possibly counterattacking towards Buriè, was compelled by orders given him in Addis Abeba on March, 30th to evacuate the whole region (because also the ethiopian "Bande"-read if interested :https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311983.2024.2335753#d1e783 - that helped the Italians since 1936, have abandoned him), falling back across the Blue Nile towards Dessiè. 

The Supreme Command of the Africa Orientale Italiana was thus losing its best opportunity to extend the struggle in the north-western area of the colony, where General Guglielmo Nasi still had a strong and efficient army corps deployed around Gondar, which could be decisively reinforced by Maraventano’s units. Orde Wingate, simply keeping his Gideon Force in being in the Debra Marcos area in late March – and with the fear inspired by the irregular bands of murderous Arbegnoch rebels, strongly encouraged in their activity by the British offensive – was able to force their italian  enemy to make a strategic blunder, giving up the opportunity of creating in the Gojjam a forward defensive position for the main fortress of Gondar, the last bulwark of the Italian Empire.

In the Gondar redoubt and its offshoots (Blagir-Celgà, Tucul-Dinghià, Ualag and Culqualber-Fercaber) Nasi could instead count on the remaining 29,000 men (seven national battalions, six colonial ones, thirteen batteries and a reserve of five battalions).

Map showing Gondar during WW2 conquest of AOI by the British: "ultima resistenza italiana" means "last Italian stand" on 27-XI-41

I have already written that the sacrifice of the 1st Carabinieri Battalion in the heroic defense of the stronghold of Culqualber, on November 21, 1941, should not be forgotten.

In November 1941, Italian military operations in Abyssinia were concentrated on the defense of Gondar. General Guglielmo Nasi had established garrisons at Uolchefit, Celga Blagir, Tucul Denghià and Culqualber, in the Amhara region.

This mountain pass was very important. Culqualber guaranteed control of the north-eastern shore of Lake Tana and the Ouramba plain. At the same time, the enemy necessarily had to pass through here to advance on Gondar with its armored units and artillery.

The garrison, placed under the command of Colonel Augusto Ugolini, could count on the 1st Mobilized Carabinieri Group, veteran of the battles on the heights of Blagir and Ineet Amba. Their morale was high but the men were exhausted by privations and constant efforts. For months they had fed exclusively on bargutta, a mixture of grains and fodder for draft animals. It was impossible to quench their thirst, the rivers were in fact far away and on routes controlled by the enemy. Despite this, with team spirit, they worked to fortify the positions.

In October, a rapid advance had allowed them to conquer Larnbà Mariarn and an English counteroffensive had been repelled. The Carabinieri, in those days, counted 36 fallen and 31 wounded, an enormous sacrifice that gave respite to the stronghold of Culqualber. But the enemy did not take long to reappear.

The garrison consisted of 226 Carabinieri and 180 Zaptié (military recruited by the Carabinieri from the indigenous populations of our colonies, in this case they were Eritreans), 675 Blackshirts of the CCXL CC.NN. “Salerno” battalion, under the command of Senior Alberto Cassòli, and approximately 620 Ascari of Major Carlo Garbieri. The garrison was completed by two artillery batteries, the 43rd with 3 77/288 guns and 40 Italian gunners and the 44th, with 2 70/159 howitzers and 34 Eritrean gunners, a platoon of Engineers (65 nationals and 23 colonials) and finally a field hospital (with 2 doctors and the military chaplain).

From 21 October, artillery fire operated and bombs launched by the air force thundered. On 5 November an attack was repelled; on the 12th a second and more powerful one was repelled; on the 18th the enemy air action became more fierce: nine aircraft were shot down by the Carabinieri, but on the 20th and 21st a new air assault, aggressive and continuous, was successfully accompanied by the relentless advance of the tanks.

The Carabinieri did not abandon their positions until they were overwhelmed. Almost all of them sacrificed themselves. It was one of the most bloody battles in Italian East Africa. 

It is noteworthy to remember the sacrifice of the "Camicie Nere" of the Salerno fascist battalion CCXL: only a few dozen survived the fight and all of them were wounded. It was one of the highest percentages of casualties in all WW2.

Photo of the last Ascari (who fought in Gondar) and still living in 2003: Beraki Ghebreslasie. Another Ascari -Unatù Endisciau- received the italian gold medal of military valor at the Cuqualber battle

One ascari living in Roma in 2003 fought in Cuqualber and Gondar:  Beraki Ghebrelslasie. Here it is his narration of these battles, when interviewed in that year:

..the remaining forces of the Duke of Aosta took up positions in defense of redoubts with the intention of resisting the overwhelming enemy units as long as possible. On May 19, 1941, after two weeks of heroic resistance, the stronghold of Amba Alagi surrendered, which received the honors of war from the English. There were still 80,000 Italians under arms, under the command of General Gazzena, in the south-western sector, and General Nasi, in the north-western sector.....I was assigned to the contingent of General Guglielmo Nasi in Gondar, Ethiopia. He immediately divided us into several points: Culquaber, Uolchefit and Debra Tabor. I was in Culquaber, about 40 km from Gondar. We were isolated, with no possibility of receiving reinforcements, but we felt protected by the mountains. It was a strategic point at 2,000 m above sea level. A formidable natural fortress.....Gondar had been chosen as the last defense of the empire because it towered over the surrounding Ethiopian plateau. To reach it, attackers were forced to climb steep rocky slopes and supplies could only reach it via difficult mule tracks. On these positions, the Italian troops and the Ascari competed in heroism, holding their own against an overwhelming enemy for a long time........The artillery and the English air force were decimating us, day after day. I had lost all my dearest comrades and I was certain that I would not survive either. General Nasi is a hero, if I am alive today I owe it only to him. We, his men, were the last to lower the Italian flag. We resisted, without eating or sleeping for five long days. There were only a few of us left but we had all become brothers. All of us. I will never forget them.

In the final phase of the fighting at Gondar and Culqualber, the Regia Aeronautica could only counter a hundred English aircraft with two Fiat C.R.42 “Falco” fighters.

Both were lost during desperate fighting: the British killed the Italian pilot Malavolti, who attacked with the last one but they later dropped on Gondar to honor him this message:"Tribute to the pilot of the Fiat. He was a brave man. South African Air Force." 

Photo of pilot Ildebrando Malavolta. his gold medal for military valor states:"A skilled and generous fighter pilot, who had already distinguished himself in the past, with the aim of providing precise information to his own commands on the size and location of enemy armed forces besieging a stronghold, he volunteered to carry out the sortie alone, despite the precarious efficiency of the old aircraft available and the certain opposition of superior enemy air forces. He carried out the mission successfully; on the way back, attacked by two fighter aircraft, he managed, after a strenuous fight, to shoot down one and force the other to crash-land. Reached near our advanced lines by a third attacker who approached him under cover of clouds, despite being short of ammunition, he boldly engaged in combat. Mortally wounded, he ended his young life with the supreme holocaust to the Fatherland. The enemy, by means of a message launched from an airplane, paid his pious and chivalrous homage to the hero. Sky of the A.O.I. (Gondar), October 24, 1941."

The Gondar redoubt received help only with airplanes from Italy, but this happened with great danger because the air travel was very huge and over the Sahara Desert of Libya and Sudan. The last of these flights was done in November and ended in disaster (for more info, please read: https://stormomagazine.com/Articles/HistoryArticles_TheRAinAOI.htm):

At the beginning of November 1941, the Regia’s command tried a few more symbolic links to Gondar, to support – at least psychologically – the besieged. On November 9, the SM75 I-LAME took off from Rome under the command of lieutenant Guido Bertolini (the other members of crew were the second pilot lieutenant Fernando Battezzati, the wireless operator, lieutenant Carlo Profumo and the engineer, lieutenant Giacomo Timolina). The aircraft – loaded with about 100 kg of medicals, cigarettes, food and mail – made a stop over in Libya to reach  directly Djibouti on November 11 at 8.00 am. The bad weather conditions and the dark had in fact prevented commander Bertolini from landing at once at Gondar. On November 12 at 1.40 am, the SM75 took off again from the Somali airport, heading to the Italian stronghold. After about one hour of navigation, due to a violent storm and bad visibility, the machine crashed on the summits of the Debra Tabor massif. The whole crew perished in the terrible disaster. With this casualty the epic deeds of the SM75 employed in the links to IEA came to an end: a long and difficult operational cycle which, unfortunately, did not prevent shortly after the collapse of the last strip of the Italian empire. On November 27, in the Italian manufacture Savoia Marchetti of Vergiate (Lombardy) the engineers were fighting against time, trying to fit a new machine (the SM75 I-LINI) with four 413 litres supplementary fuel tanks and one Salmoiraghi auto-pilot device for night-flight. On the same day, general Guglielmo Nasi’s troops were surrendering after a six-months siege. Alberto Rosselli

Once the Allied troops had taken the passes around Culqualber, they gained control of the heights overlooking Gondar and reached the town on 23 November 1941. There they found huge defenses and were initially blocked by heavy fighting.

However the garrison of Gondar was seriously depleted.  The final assault on Gondar, where Nasi had his headquarters, started at 5:30 a.m. on 27 November. The Azozo airfield was the initial objective; it was captured by midday of 27 November with bloody fights and shortly afterwards, Commonwealth troops reached Fasilides Castle. 

After the conquest of Culqualber, the British had easier and less defended access to Gondar and it became superfluous to conquer the other strongholds of Ualag, Chercher, Celgà and Gorgorà. The final offensive against the stronghold of Gondar was launched at 04:30 on 27 November 1941: the KAR of the 25th Brigade attacked from the south supported by 60 tanks, while from the east attacked the 26th Brigade of Ethiopian irregulars and a battalion of Gaullists. Around 10:00 Nasi communicated to Rome that the enemy had now penetrated the city, at 11:00 the locality of Azozò with its airport fell after very heavy fighting and at the same time some British tanks entered the city. Shortly after midday, while Ethiopian irregulars were looting the first houses on the outskirts and military warehouses, the indigenous population also began to loot Italian property. At 1.30 pm Nasi communicated to Rome that: «Gondar is all a volcano with gunpowder magazines exploding and warehouses burning. The battle is lost. I no longer have any strength to maintain it, no means to direct it». At 2.30 pm the Italian commander sent two parliamentarians towards the British lines, when Ethiopian squads and regular formations were now in the city centre. Around 4.00 pm some British tanks reached the Bank of Italy, where Nasi had his headquarters, and a British lieutenant requested the last governor of the A.O.I. to surrender, while the British flag was raised with difficulty on the roof of the bank. Two hours later -after more heavy fighting- Nasi formally surrendered to General James and, after having made arrangements for the delivery of weapons and the surrender of the last strongholds, the following morning nearly all resistance ceased. W. E.

At 4:30 p.m., while the Kenya Armoured Car Regiment (KAR) penetrated the outskirts of the town, Nasi sent his last message to Italy, explaining that the reserve brigade had been deployed on the southern front but had been unable to stop the attack, that enemy troops had passed the barbed wire and enemy armoured vehicles had entered the town. Nasi surrendered soon after. Sadly, the ethiopian troops started to massacre the local civilians, looting everything (please read and "google translate" from italian: https://arcadia.sba.uniroma3.it/bitstream/2307/4213/1/Tesi%20di%20dottorato%20di%20Antonio%20Cataldi%202013.pdf  I missionari cattolici in Etiopia; pag. 337-343).

The fall of Gondar and the end of Italian East Africa were solemnly celebrated on 1 December  afterrnoon by General Fowkes' troops with a large parade at Azozò airport, where the fighting had been particularly hard.

Some Italian outposts fought on until 30 November, marking the end of the battle. The last italians accepted to surrender only at 1 am of December first in the northernmost hill of Ambazzo, north of Gondar.

So, it is useful to pinpoint that the last Italian flag in Ethiopia and AOI went down in December 1941 and not in November, as it is usually written in History books.    

The following are excerpts taken from this U.K. official book: 

"The King's African Rifles" -volume 2, by Lieiutenant-Colonel  H. Moyse Barlett

In autumn 1941 General Nasi initially had nearly 40000 soldiers in the Gondar area (only 17000 were Italians), but -from November to December first, when ended the last six months stand of his troops- he had only 23000 (nearly half of them wounded and all without food & sleep, when made POWs). 

Finally, we must remember that more than 6000 Italians died in combat in this last defense of their Empire (1/3 of their total last forces under General Nasi) and the survivors received the "Honours of War" from the British.

VIDEOS:

1) British video of the Gondar fall in 1941: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75XyseCEb_Q

2) Video showing the small "tanks" created by Italians in Gondar:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e2u3H044ZI&t=220s

3) Italian video showing Gondar in 1940-1941: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7besrthvPw