Friday, March 1, 2024

ITALIANS IN LATIN AMERICA

ITALIAN EMIGRATION IN LATIN ANERICA

From 1876 to 1980 more than 26 million Italians emigrated abroad: it is interesting to note that this figure is equal to the total Italian population at the time of italian unification in 1861.

According to the data available (since 1905), 48 percent of Italian emigrants returned before of the First World War, 1.52 percent between the two wars, 57 percent after the second world War. More than half of the emigrants returned home, on average at least once. The peak of the phenomenon was reached at the beginning of the 20th century, when more than half a million people left the country every year, and in 1913 with 872,000 units. Before the first war fourteen million people had already emigrated worldwide: 55 percent of the entire flow of a century. Initially the flow was mainly toward the Americas.

At the end of the second decade of the 2000s, over 1.5 million Italians resided in Latin America, approximately a third of the 5.5 million registered in the Registry of Italians Resident Abroad (AIRE). Eight Latin American countries appear in the ranking of the top 25 Italian communities abroad: Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico. Other communities of a certain importance are found in Paraguay, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Bolivia, while in Honduras and Nicaragua there are less than a thousand Italian residents. Therefore, it is valid to say that Latin America is mostly a "continent of Italians".

"Festa do immigrante" (Immigrant Celebration) in Sao Paulo/Brasil


The Italian presence was decisive in the formation of Argentina and Brazil as modern countries, but also in the others the influence of the Italians was felt to a notable extent. The direct contribution of the pioneers of emigration was strengthened by the contribution given by their descendants, who became local citizens. Natives are estimated at nearly 32 million in Brazil, more than 25 million in Argentina, 2 million in Colombia, 1.5 million in Uruguay, 1 million in Venezuela, and more than 850 thousand in Paraguay and Mexico. By adding the results of these estimates to the Italians registered with AIRE in all the world, we arrive at nearly exceeding the population resident in Italy in 2020 (that was 61 million, but some estimates -like those of researcher Mancini- judge that the descendants of italians in the world should be nearly 100 million!)

The first flows were those of Risorgimento exiles followed, from the Unification of Italy onwards, by those who moved for work, driven to do so by a situation of poverty. The "Great Emigration" occurred from 1876 onwards, was intense for the entire duration of the century, and even increased in the following century until the eve of the First World War. Emigration reduced in intensity after the First World War and during the period of the fascist regime while the emigrants were mainly of southern origin in the XX century (because in the northern Italy the process of big industrialization -mainly in the triangle Milan/Torino/Genova- stopped the former huge emigration).

After the Second World War, the flows resumed towards Latin America for only a few years and were directed with particular intensity towards Venezuela following its oil boom. Therefore, the destinations of that continent were supplanted by European ones and, moreover, Italy's internal development strongly reduced the tendency to exodus. Few Italians now emigrate to Latin American countries: for family, commercial or business reasons, as representatives of NGOs, or for other professional reasons, while temporary travel for tourism is more substantial. However, Latin Americans who have emigrated to Italy since the 1970s have become more numerous, i.e. since Italy began to become a country of immigration due to economic, social hardship and also political instability in Latin America.

Argentina fascists in 1939: the "Fascio" of Buenos Aires had 4000 members (a small number in the total italian population of the city). After the WW2 disappearance of fascism, nearly all of them become fanatical supporters of Peronism


Actually the city with the highest number of people of Italian origin in the world is Sao Paulo, Brazil: six million and half of the 11 million "saopaulinhos" (or nearly 60% of the total population). Not only that: 44% of the population of Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, and 52% of those who live in Buenos Aires, which has 12 million inhabitants, have Italian roots.

Uruguay is the latinoamerican nation were was more strong the "italianism": the period of the late 1930s represented an era in which the Italian community achieved primary importance in Uruguayan society. It coincided with the rise to power of the Italian-Uruguayan Baldomir Ferrari (1938-1943). The Italian-Uruguayan President Ferrari obtained that the hydroelectric dam of the artificial lake "Rincón del Bonete", on the Rio Negro, was financed and partially built mainly by the Italian government in the late 1930. This President of Uruguay openly appreciated Italian fascism and attempted to imitate some of its corporate and political characteristics.

In Montevideo, for example, there was a political Fascio with 1200 members, which gave 150 Italian-Uruguayan volunteers to the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in 1936. President Ferrari (and his predecessor) managed to obtain funding and technical support from Mussolini (and also from Hitler) to build the dam on the Rio Negro, creating the largest artificial lake in South America. Furthermore, he promoted the beginning of the industrialization process of Uruguay through Italian companies. The Italian diplomat Serafino Mazzolini stated that Mussolini considered Uruguay as the most "Italian" state in the Americas, with which to form a possible future political and ethnic-racial alliance.

The italian language acquired considerable importance in Montevideo in those years and became compulsory in Uruguay's high schools in 1942, during the presidency of Baldomir Ferrari.

The Chile's Alessandri family, of Italian descent, in 1920, with two future presidents of Chile, Arturo Alessandri (1920–1925 and 1932–1938) and Jorge Alessandri (1958–1964)


The following are the ten highest percentages of Italian descendants (in parentesis the actual Italian citizens) in the main LatinoAmerican countries. It is noteworthy to pinpoint thar Brasil has the biggest amount of Italian descendants (32 million), while Argentina (63%), Uruguay (44%) and Paraguay (40%) have the highest percentage of them in the total national population:

1) Brasil: 32 million (The Embassy of Italy in Brazil in 2013, reported the number of 32 million descendants of Italian immigrants in Brazil (about 15% of the population); half of them in the state of São Paulo, while there were around 450,000 Italian citizens in Brazil.

2) Argentina: nearly 25 million (at least 25 million Argentines -62.7% of the country's population- have some degree of Italian ancestry, most of them in the Buenos Aires region. And there are nearly 700,000 Italian citizens in all Argentina)

3) Paraguay: 2,500,000 (The Italian embassy calculates that nearly 40% of the Paraguayans have recent and/or distant Italian roots: about 2,500,000 Paraguayans are descendants of Italian emigrants to Paraguay. And actually 13,000 italians are residents, mainly in the capital area)

4) Colombia: 2 million (nearly 2,000,000 Italian descendants of full or partial ancestry live in Colombia, corresponding to about 4% of the total population. There are also 20,315 Italians in 2019 (by citizenship) who reside in Colombia)

5) Uruguay: nearly 1,500,000 (an estimated 1,500,000 Uruguayans have Italian ancestry, about 44% of the total population of Uruguay. The italians residents in Uruguay are 90,000).

6) Peru: more than 1,450,000 (the descendants of italians directly and indirectly -since colonial times- are around one million and half, or the 4.8% of the total population of Peru. The italian citizens are 35000).

7) Venezuela: more than one million (some italian embassy estimates reach the 2 million descendants, while the Italian citizens are more than one hundred thousand)

8) Mexico: nearly 900,000 (there are more than 850,000 Mexicans descended from Italian emigrants since colonial times. Population figures are uncertain because, unlike other countries, Mexico's census does not gather information on specific ethnic groups. Nearly 10,000 are italian citizens living in Mexico, mainly in the capital area)

9) Chile: 700,000 (It is estimated that more than 650,000 Chileans are of full or partial Italian ancestry, corresponding to about 3.9% of the total population, while Italians by birth in Chile are about 52,000).

10) Costa Rica: 460,000 (according to the italian embassy there are nearly half a million Costa Ricans of Italian descent, corresponding to about 7.8% of Costa Rica's population, while there are around 2,300 Italian citizens)

Finally we must remember that the province of Quebec in Canada is officially french speaking and can be considered one of the latino territories in the Americas. In the 2016 Quebec census there were 327,000 italians and italian descendants.

Giuliana Sansaloni, queen of the italian community in Oberá, Misiones, Argentina



The country in Latin America that has experienced the biggest italian emigration after WW2 is Venezuela.

Italians in Venezuela

In the history of Italian emigration to Venezuela, four phases can be distinguished. Arrivals in the country, up until the 1920s, were few and the Italian presence numbered around 3 thousand units. The second phase of Italian emigration took place in the period of the great development of the oil industry until the beginning of the Second World War, when Venezuela became the first crude oil exporting country. Even in that period, the routes of emigrants towards traditional transoceanic destinations and in the Italian colonies in Africa prevailed: there were 3,137 Italians in Venezuela in 1941. The third phase began after the Second World War. Between 1950 and 1960, the period in which the "Venezuelan dream" took hold, the arrivals of Italians exceeded 100 thousand units. The Italians were not disappointed because they, thanks to their resourcefulness, together with the Spanish and the Portuguese contributed to the notable development of the country, entering all sectors. That was the period of the "enlightened dictatorship" of Marcos Perez Jimenez (1953-1958), who managed to promote strong development with the plan to strengthen infrastructure throughout the country.

The Italians, among whom there were few technicians and many agricultural workers, were able to seize the opportunities of this expansion phase and spread throughout the territory, unlike other European communities who favored the capital. There were few Italians hired in the public sectors as doctors, veterinarians, architects and in other sectors. There were many who created their own family-run businesses, obtaining subcontracts from larger ones. Furthermore, with this multiplicity of companies they managed to offer the variety of services required by a society that was beginning to understand well-being. The fact that the national currency was strong and the favorable exchange rate compared to Italy allowed the emigrants who settled there, on the one hand, to send substantial savings to Italy and, on the other, to achieve family reunions. There was no shortage of those who preferred to operate as commuters between the two countries.

At the 1961 census, there were 121,733 Italians in Venezuela, demonstrating the great growth of the community. However, the repatriations were also substantial, as there was a widespread tendency to stay in place for only a few years. The post-war years were those in which Italians managed to make themselves appreciated on a cultural level, as well as on an entrepreneurial level (especially in the food, construction and fashion sectors). Some data do not fail to make an impression. In the 1950s, at least 12% of the capital's constructions relied on the work of Italians. In the food sector, pasta prevailed over the classic corn flour, previously a national food, making Venezuela the second pasta consumer country after Italy. In turn, Italian fashion managed to impose itself on French fashion. Between 1952 and 1958 the production of footwear was in the hands of Italian protagonists. The share then rose to 80%, as emerged from the 1984-1985 industry census, highlighting that as many as 520 companies in the sector were managed by Italians.

After such a strong development, a long phase of decline began (and continues), both in terms of arrivals from Italy and in terms of the economic management of the country. Five million Venezuelans, forced to leave their country and take refuge mostly in other Latin American countries, are a sign of the catastrophic situation in Venezuela.

Compared to the past, the '90s and the first two decades of the new century were not satisfactory and, indeed, the last phases can be defined as dramatic due to the civil war, which saw the president of the National Assembly Antonio Guialdo Marquez, opposing the President of the Republic Nicolas Maduro Moros, who succeeded Hugo Chavez in 2013 (in office from 1999 to 2012). Maduro's government has become unwelcome at home and unsupported by most foreign countries. The 2018 elections did not restore calm.

Furthermore, the crisis, made unbearable by economic decay, had already made itself evident in its institutional and political implications in the 1970s, when the country was struggling to channel the considerable resources deriving from oil into functional uses for local development: a very serious deficiency, taking into account that 90% of the industries and mineral resources were in public hands. State gigantism favored the phenomena of corruption and clientelism. For example, in the past it was foreseen the hiring of a lift attendant in all public and private buildings in which a lift had already been installed and there was a public influx.

National policy was unable to remedy the decrease in oil revenues with the diversification of production activities. The result was the devaluation of the national currency, the collapse of employment, the proposal of severe measures by the International Monetary Fund and a generalized impoverishment with recurring popular uprisings. There was a temporary recovery in the two-year period 2004-2005 (GDP growth of 17.4% and 9.8% respectively), which populist politics was unable to exploit so that the GDP was barely a fifth compared to that of 2013. For critics of the regime it was a long inconclusive populism, incapable of reducing social inequalities through the prudent use of resources.

Pompeo D'Ambrosio (with his daughter Antonella and son Bruno) in 1977, when was vice-president of the main private bank of Venezuela and was responsable -with his brother Mino- of the "Deportivo Italia" (the football team of the italovenezuelans that was considered as the best Venezuelan team of the 20th century, according to the "International Federation of Football History and Education")
After the 1960s, Venezuela began to lose its attractive capacity and the numerical reduction of the Italian community also began, first gradually and then in an increasing manner, it experienced a continuous numerical decrease and in 1999 there were only 61,800 people: in that that year the Italian community was overtaken by the Spanish (133,661) and Portuguese (78,735), which in 1950 were smaller than it. Within the community, which was above average in terms of well-being, cases of hardship and poverty increased, because only higher income classes were protected from it. These are those people who traditionally organize themselves into exclusive clubs, which ensure prestige and professional and entrepreneurial opportunities. As known from recurring news stories, such notoriety comes at the cost of greater exposure to the kidnapping industry.

By virtue of its internal growth, the Italian community is one of the largest on the Latin American continent, around 120 thousand units, the majority of Italians live between Caracas and the regions of Carabobo and Aragua. There are now few Italians who emigrate to Venezuela and, mostly, for a temporary stay: these are NGO workers, journalists and professionals. As has happened in other countries, traditional and regional associations no longer have the attraction of the past and young people are interested in other forms of aggregation.

The Italian community, like the native one, is divided regarding the political regime. The problem arises of showing, with due care, the closeness to a community that is not only formally Italian, but feels its Italianness. The case of Venezuela, in the overall context of post-war migration, represents a significant case for the substantial flows of the two post-war decades, as it was also towards Canada and Australia. The "Venezuelan dream" was motivated by a rapidly expanding country and dissolved with the downsizing of such expectations following the tormented socio-political events of the last forty years.

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

ITALIAN CORSICA

This month (following a request) I am going to translate some sections of the famous book written by Marco Cuzzi about the years 1938-1943 when the island of Corsica ("Corse" in French language) was (promoted, invaded & nearly made) "italian". These were the five years when italian irredentism fought (and nearly obtained the union) to return this island (geographically, culturally, ethnically and historically italian since roman centuries) to the Italians.

Since the early 1930s the italian irredentism promoted the addition of this island to the kingdom of Italy, but only in November 1942 there was the military invasion (for unification) of Corsica by Mussolini's orders.

Indeed in November 1942 the Italian naval special force, originally formed for the invasion of Malta (never undertaken), landed in Bastia, in the north-east of Corsica (on the night between 11 and 12 November); other forces reached Ajaccio and Porto Vecchio. The 20th "Friuli" Infantry Division of the Italian VII Army Corps landed in Corsica without encountering resistance. The absence of partisan movements on the island, and the desire to avoid disagreements with Marshal Pétain's puppet regime limited the recruitment of Corsicans by the Italians, except for a "worker battalion" in March 1943.

A famous map created by the italian irredentists of Corsica in November 1942



The Corsican population initially showed support to the Italians, partly as a consequence of irredentist propaganda. Many Corsicans welcomed the italian troops when entered in their villages and cities. The garrison of the VII Corps came to include, in addition to the 20th "Friuli" Division, the 44th "Cremona" Infantry Division, the 225th Coastal Division, the 226th Coastal Division, an Alpini battalion and an armored battalion. The command of the garrison was entrusted to General Umberto Mondino until December 1942, to General Giacomo Carboni until March 1943, followed by General Giovanni Magli until September 1943. The initial force of 30,000 personnel grew to almost 85,000 men; an enormous number, if compared to the population of 220,000 inhabitants that Corsica had at the time

Some Corsican military officers collaborated with Italy, among them the retired major Pantalacci and his son Antonio, Colonel Mondielli, Colonel Simon Petru Cristofini and his wife Marta Renucci (the first Corsican female journalist). Cristofini collaborated early in January 1943 and (as head of the Ajaccio troops) helped the Italian army to repress the french resistance of the "maquis" during summer 1943, before the armistice of 8 September 1943. He was joined by the Corsican writer Petru Giovacchini, indicated as a potential governor of Corsica, if Italy had annexed it.

In the first months of 1943 the irredentists, led by Giovacchini and Bertino Poli, carried out a propaganda campaign among the population (mostly pro-italian until late spring 1943), advocating the unification of the island as the "Governorate of Corsica", modeled on the "Governorate of Dalmatia" created in 1941. But Benito Mussolini suspended the unification process awaiting the peace treaty that would follow the hoped-for Axis victory (however the main cause of his reluctance was German aversion to irredentist claims).

ITALIAN CORSICA (1938-1943), by Marco Cuzzi

During a lesson held in March 1942 to the students of a scientific high school in Bologna, professor Umberto Brauzzi summarized in a few well-studied sentences the entire Italian political action on Corsica and above all the concrete motivations underlying the fascist claim to the Tyrrhenian island:

"The Sardinian-Corsican wall, with Corsica in the hands of strangers, would mean the most dangerous breach in our defense system, the paralysis of every movement, from the Ligurian arch to the Campania region. We could never say we were winners without Corsica; because, to peacefully bring to the world the contribution of our undisputed civilization and to the order of the new Europe, it is absolutely necessary that the foundations of our richest commercial movement are not undermined: that is, we need full possession of the island. And again, further on: Our launch platform, the peninsula, is profoundly vulnerable, due to the intrusion, in the middle of our land, of France which monitors and blocks the free ways of sea and air". Beyond the declarations of geographical continuity (Corsica was compared to Dalmatia, with the mirror function of the extreme limit of an Italian "great gulf": there the Adriatic, here the Tyrrhenian) and of national community (the Corsicans were defined as a natural "filiation" of the "Italic race"), what emerged from Brauzzi's reasoning was the exquisitely strategic dimension of the entire claimist system: the Tyrrhenian island had to pass under the control of Rome to perfect the "fortress Italy", closing in particular the area of the capital in a sort of "Italian lake" and allowing a doubling of the Sardinian natural aircraft carrier in the heart of the Mediterranean.

Certainly the claim also found a remote motivation in resentments that never subsided, or rather amplified with the neighbor from beyond the Alps. Another statement by Brauzzi appeared emblematic: «We must infer the tough battle that Italy still has to endure to join the most Italian island in Italy». An emblematic phrase but also one of articulating political weight, if we take into account the period in which it was uttered, with a France half occupied and half poised between collaborative neutrality and total and convinced collaboration towards the Axis. Once again, as in the case of the other disputes with France (mainly Tunis, Djibouti and Nice), there was a complicated and at times painful schizophrenic relationship with Vichy, a state reality in words incorporated into the New Order but in deeds - and the survival of a French Corsica against all Brauzzi's claims was proof of this - an enemy to him, at least according to the considerations of Italian analysts.

The fascist claim to the Tyrrhenian island dated back to the dawn of the Regime, and surpassed in seniority the transalpine disputes over Provence and Savoy.

In 1924, on Mussolini's orders, a "Committee for Corsica" was established with the aim, as stated in a report commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1939, of "keeping alive the question of the Italian nature of the island between the kingdoms and the Corsicans".». The presidency of the association was given to Francesco Guerri, a university professor of Corsican origin, supported by a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Honorable Quirino Figlioli. The Ministry made an "adequate allocation" from the cabinet fund to support the Committee's initiatives. In the same period the dicastery was concerned with reorganizing the Italian diplomatic representation on the island. The objective was to make the irredentist initiative as effective as possible, giving it a solid and organized background made up of the official consular network: « Although for obvious reasons these consular representatives of ours have always had in principle instructions to « ignore » the irredentist action, carried out mainly through fiduciary elements, they have always actively contributed to facilitating this confidential activity, both by collaborating in specific cases in the implementation of some projects, and above all by providing Rome with precise elements of judgment taken from a daily control of the racing situation ». The entire operation, consular and linked to the initiatives of the War Committee, would have been coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the person of the cabinet official Marquis Blasco Lanza D'Ajeta. The dual action had the aims on the one hand of "keeping Italian national aspirations alive" and on the other of safeguarding the "Italian identity" of the island, "at the same time encouraging, after a century and a half of French domination, the rebirth of a movement of an irredentist nature".

Even clearer were the orders given to the "Committee for Corsica", the deus ex machina of all future action for the island and on the island: "to safeguard the original Italian character of the population in multiple aspects and with all possible means; promote among the Corsicans a feeling of reaction to French domination (autonomism-irredentism-philo-fascism)». From this perspective, on the one hand, it was necessary to encourage every action aimed at promoting the Italian character of the island at home. On the other hand, an attempt was made to involve the indigenous autonomist movement, or rather the Corsican independence galaxy, identifying it as the closest interlocutor, animated by a one-way, pro-Italian separatism. After a long preparatory period, the claimist initiative had its first operational season in the aftermath of the Ethiopian crisis, but above all it exploded in all its virulence with the famous demonstration of 30 November 1938 in the Chamber, during which the deputies - expertly guided - shouted the claims of the French territories: Tunis, Nice, Djibouti and Corsica, originating, as De Felice recalls, the definitive shipwreck of the attempted Italian-French rapprochements.

Map of 1494 showing Corsica in the "Genoa republic" (light green color)


The propaganda tools from Italy resulted in three different initiatives

1) First of all, an intense journalistic activity was activated, through the printing of a weekly insert of the Livorno newspaper "Il Telegrafo" (Livorno was one of the Italian cities with the highest number of citizens of Corsican origin); the weekly was placed under the direction of the omnipresent Francesco Guerri (under the pseudonym "Minuto Grosso") and was financed directly by D'Ajeta's office. The insert, which soon became the main organ of printed propaganda in favor of the cause, had collaborators almost exclusively of Corsican origin (either those who had escaped or had been in Italy for generations) and over the years would have dealt with various problems linked to the island Tyrrhenian Sea and the largest and most complex relations with France, supporting a very harsh campaign against the "republican, social democratic and Masonic" plot of Paris and the support of the French government for international and Italian anti-fascism in particular. The weekly was apparently distributed clandestinely in Corsica. The specific initiative of "Il Telegrafo" would be accompanied, with the approval and supervision of the Ministry of Popular Culture, by a propagandist action on some national newspapers which would have intensified, as DAjeta would have wisely written «particularly in moments of greatest discomfort with France».

2) The second operational tool was represented by the various scientific and cultural initiatives. A quarterly magazine, "The Historical Archive of Corsica", under the prestigious direction of the historian of the regime Gioacchino Volpe, would have dealt with historical-literary studies inherent to the island, with particular reference to the phases of greatest connection with the Peninsula (the domination of the Grifone Republic, for example) to all those characters characterized by a strong autonomist or independence commitment (such as Pasquale Paoli) or to all the courses that had influenced French cultural and political life, in an attempt to demonstrate a Corsican superiority over the Power "colonizer" which subtly implied by syllogism a superiority of the "Italic race": the champion of these analyzes could only be, it goes without saying, the Great Corsican par excellence, Napoleon Bonaparte (or rather, Buonaparte, according to the original denomination of the surname, and which was reiterated by Italian scholars to underline its peninsular origin). Volpe's magazine was also allegedly distributed clandestinely on the Tyrrhenian island. The indefatigable Guerri was also responsible for directing a monthly scientific dissemination magazine ("Ancient and Modern Corsica"), with the departed former Corsican autonomist leader Marco Angeli as editor-in-chief. The periodical should have joined Volpe's magazine, completing its work with anthropological, ethnographic, geographical and even geological studies, all aimed at reiterating for the umpteenth time the link with the true and only "motherland". Finally, the University of Pavia professor Gino Bottiglioni coordinated the publications of the «Linguistic Atlas of Corsica», financed by a consortium between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, of the Interior and National Education as well as by the University of Cagliari, one of the universities most attentive to the operation towards the Tyrrhenian island. The purpose, evident from the name of the newspaper, was to identify all the possible glottological and linguistic links between Corsica and Italy, to arrive at the demonstration of the thesis according to which «the origins Corsican idioms are closely linked to the Tuscan, Sardinian and Sicilian ones »

3) The third propaganda tool in Italy was characterized by the Corsican cultural groups (Gcc) established in Pavia in 1938 on the initiative of Pietro (Petru) Giovacchini, known as "the parish priest" (u parrucu). Born in 1909 in Corsica, in Canale di Verde, and moved to Pavia in 1930 where he graduated in medicine and surgery, Giovacchini, who was also a volunteer fascist Blackshirt in Spain, would become in the following years the main exponent of the pro-fascist irredentist movement. The aim of Giovacchini's GCC was, originally, to include all Italian citizens of Corsican origin and Corsicans who had escaped under a single acronym, with the aim of promoting the Italian nature of the island both from a cultural and linguistic point of view. In the days immediately following September 1939, D'Ajeta's office, through the "Committee for Corsica", began monitoring the declared 15 thousand members of the GCC (concentrated mainly in Liguria, Tuscany and Sardinia) to understand if there were conditions to transform, with corresponding and adequate funding from the Ministry, the cultural initiative of the Groups into active irredentist propaganda connected with the clandestine movements on the island. However, it was a hypothetical project which, at least until 1939, would not have been applied: the conditions did not exist and the GCC would have had to hold less disruptive roles. This organization, according to the Italian diplomat, could become a useful "opinion movement", capable of coordinating on the one hand the diffusion in the homeland of the battle for a Corsica that was first independent from France and therefore Italian again and on the other the insertion of Corsican citizens resident in Italy, or recently escaped from the Tyrrhenian island, in the midst of national life. In this D'Ajeta suggested to the Minculpop Chief of Staff, Luciano, to facilitate the inclusion of Corsicans resident in Italy in the life of the country, recognizing them a particular status not as foreign citizens (and shortly thereafter "belonging to an enemy nation »), but of "non-kingdom Italian citizens", according to a formula also adopted towards the Italians of Spalato and Dalmatians subjected to the Yugoslav administration. Furthermore, it would have been desirable for the courses to be admitted to the National Fascist Party, even if formally not Italian. In D'Ajeta's drawings, Giovacchini's GCC should have supported the authorities in supervising and channeling the inclusion of the Corsican community in Italy within the national life. The risks of this task were, however, very clear to the Italian diplomat: « […] a strict control would be maintained, which Giovacchini's well-known enthusiasms could sometimes prove to be untimely», while the Groups themselves would not be entrusted « […] managerial tasks" nor "[...] the possibility of being aware of the reserved Italian action as a whole": the characteristics of the Corsican temperament, D'Ajeta concluded not without irony, perhaps involuntary, and that is a temperament "easy to enthusiasm and to the demolition, partisan, factious, interested" they advised against a qualitative leap of the Groups into an explicitly subversive organisation, a sort of Tyrrhenian ustaša15. In reality, the exclusion of Giovacchini's GCC from merely irredentist action and their encroachment on propaganda and classification initiatives in Italy was suggested more than by reasons of unreliability of character by the delicate network that D'Ajeta's Office had spread over the the island through both Guerri's « Committee for Corsica » and the diplomatic network strengthened by the reform of the mid-twenties.

The main instrument of the local initiative was the « Partitu corsu d'azzione » (Pca) of Pietro (Petru) Rocca, a former combatant, decorated with the Legion of Honor by the French General Staff. Through the official organ of the party, the bilingual Franco-Corsican weekly «A Muvra», Rocca's movement had rapidly moved from a moderately autonomist position to an increasingly strong independence and clearly pro-Italian position. Removed from the register of the Legion of Honour, Rocca was perpetually monitored by the French police, risking arrest on a daily basis while his newspaper had suffered numerous seizures until the mandatory suspension of publications immediately after the outbreak of the war with Germany. Without going into details, for "particularly confidential" issues, D'Ajeta listed the Party and Rocca's newspaper as "instruments" of the Italian initiative on the Tyrrhenian island, implying the nature and volume of the support that the government Rome reserved for the insular autonomist movement16: the main trait d'union between the autonomist Party and the Committee for Corsica would have been the former party leader Marco Angeli, editor-in-chief of «Ancient and modern Corsica» and «dean» of exileism.

In a subsequent very polemical letter towards the Giovacchini, considered incapable and unworthy of leading the GCC, Angeli would have summarized the program of Rocca's party as follows: «The program [...] is linked to the tradition of Pasquale Paoli, it reaffirms the combative spirit of the Corsicans against the French tyranny cloaked in hypocrisy and immoral principles and supports the reasons for the recovery for Corsica ».

The Italian activities on the island were conducted overall with great skill and confidentiality, so much so that they did not arouse any suspicion, at least from the French diplomatic corps in Italy, on the contrary. In fact, it is interesting to note the relative transalpine disinterest towards the complex irredentist and claimsist activities in Italy. Almost two months after the "qualitative leap" of the irredentist movement, François-Poncet, the French ambassador to Italy, wrote a short report to his Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet in which he summarized with many uncertainties the propagandist network of D'Ajeta, Guerri and Giovacchini, revealing an inexplicable difficulty in gathering more precise information, also through the French consulate in Livorno, perceived by diplomats as the true operational center of irredentist propaganda. The closing comment is interesting: « J'ai cru devoir signaler, to all useful ends, to the attention of the Department these indications are evidently some fragmentary ones. Elles paraissent me cepoendant de nature à remove the same croissant that for the reasons for the many tactics, and thus obtain, the same ones, other advantages in exchange for an eventual desistement, the Italian government brings or affects the wearer from 'the lost island'". This rather disenchanted attitude and underestimation of the problem, from part of the French diplomacy, would also continue in the following months: «On constate qu'aujourd'hui, rien n'est fait ici [in Italy – Editor's note] pour enflammer à cet egard le moral de la nation», we read for example in a new dispatch from François-Poncet in Paris regarding the usual Italian claims, including Corsica. A trick, therefore, a propaganda balloon for internal rather than external use: no trace appears in the reports of the confidential operations conducted in Corsica by the War Committee and D'Ajeta's office of the transalpine diplomatic representatives in Italy. Inaugurated at the end of 1938, the irredentist operations slowed down in September 1939. The outbreak of hostilities had reduced the scope of the initiatives on the island. What the Italian diplomat defined as "contacts with Corsican personalities", without specifying their names or qualifications, appeared impossible from the first days of September. Even the grants that had been paid in previous years in favor of more pro-Italian island press seemed "very difficult", even if d'Ajeta was confident in an unspecified future improvement in the conditions for reopening a canal with some Corsican newspapers.

The clandestine distribution of Italian publications was very precarious (from the insert of "Il Telegrafo" to cultural and scientific magazines). Apparently another instrument appeared in better conditions, probably even more important and deep-rooted than the Party of Rocca: « Faithful to our cause, to which they have rendered and continue to render precious services, some religious Orders with whom the « Committee » has confidential and appropriate contacts ». But, in general, the initiative on the spot appeared from the first month of the war somewhat limited, and Italian non-belligerence was of little use: the Italian trustees linked to the "Committee for Corsica" and charged by the diplomats with maintaining the quadrangular network (autonomists-local personalities-newspapers-clergy) ran "very considerable risks", while, being Corsica having been declared an "operational zone" by the French General Staff, would soon suffer the same fate as Alsace where, as D'Ajeta recalled, the local autonomist leaders of the pro-Nazi movement had recently been condemned to be shot for high treason: "We have some of our 'friends' in French military prisons." Furthermore: «The population is anti-Italian and certainly anti-fascist: the autonomists – a small number – certainly do not demonstrate ambitions for martyrdom. The bravest are undoubtedly now in Italy, having "deserted" the French army. Faced with such a framework, the Minister of Popular Culture, Alessandro Pavolini agreed with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the opportunity to suspend activities in Corsica, maintaining contacts but avoiding worsening the already precarious situation of the "Committee" network with concrete initiatives: it was necessary to wait for the maturation political and military conditions.

In the climate of expectation and uncertainty characterizing non-belligerence, the decision taken by the Government to suspend the initiative on the island also extended to propagandist activity in Italy. François-Poncet also noticed the fact and reported to Paris the reduction in propaganda activity in national newspapers, motivating it with the attempts of Italian diplomacy to reach mediation during the crisis of August 1939. The Committee ordered Giovacchini to suspend all action. It should be borne in mind that the outbreak of the war with Germany had a further impact in Italy too: more than half of the main exponents of the GCC, sometimes due to a rediscovered patriotic feeling and most of the time due to fear of reprisals from the Paris government, had returned to the Tyrrhenian island. Disciplined, against all the suspicions of D'Ajeta who, as has been said, considered him impulsive and restless, the irredentist leader sent a circular to all the groups distributed across the Peninsula which, although commanding silence, foreshadowed a future offensive that was even more military than propaganda: «Period of waiting and silent preparation. Refrain from any public or mass demonstration; do not hinder the work of our diplomacy. Don't discover our batteries, but don't abandon them. I will let you know when the time has come to get excited". The activity of the Giovacchini Groups and more generally of the Committee for Corsica was reduced until May 1940 and the commitment of the main leaders of the Corsican community in Italy appears much more prosaic and less ideal than the previous period, concentrated above all on a series of personal favors requested from Mussolini through both Foreign Affairs and Minculpop. On 22 May 1940 Giovacchini met with Pavolini: the date is fateful, at least for the brief history of the fascist claim of Corsica, and marks the change between the head of the GCC and Guerri's "Committee for Corsica", now definitively anesthetized , leading the propaganda initiative.

Giovacchini illustrated the state of his organization to the Minister of Popular Culture, probably pushing the numbers and amplifying its actual possibilities. The Corsican culture groups amounted to 170 sections, both in Italy and abroad, for a total of 22 thousand members. There were around 250 active executives, even if only a part could actually be used in possible and unspecified "actions". Pavolini agreed with the president of the GCC - renamed himself "general president" perhaps in view of a qualitative leap in the war field - to intensify propaganda and to start the "establishment and training of an action nucleus, to be kept ready to be sent to Corsica at a given time ». It was an explicit response to a statement from Giovacchini to the minister only a few days earlier (« The irredeemed Corsicans gathered in Rome are determined to take action »). The minister allocated 30 thousand lire for propaganda costs, to which five thousand lire was added for the purchase by Minculopop of a brochure on Corsica edited by the Groups themselves. However, the long-awaited "action" did not come even after June 10th. The GCC did not budge and propaganda continued to be suspended.

The only significant act corresponding to the new state of war was the transformation of the culture groups into "Corsican irredentist action groups" (GAIC). In a fit of enthusiasm, which was also illustrative of a certain organizational and organigrammatic confusion, Giovacchini shortly afterwards renamed the GAIC first into "Corsican irredentist movement" and then into "Corsican irredentist action movement" (Maic): the attempt was to throw the foundations for a real insurrectional organization that would support the Italian troops in the "liberation" of the island. A further sign of the desire of Giovacchini's irredentists to give themselves a more militant structure was the separation from the movement of the entire scientific-cultural initiative, through the establishment of the "National Institute of Corsican Studies" in Pavia, which organized university lectures, a exhibition in Venice on the Italian nature of the island, initiatives and mobilizations for the naming of squares and streets after Corsica and Pasquale Paoli. Free from cultural commitment, Giovacchini could finally launch himself into political and perhaps military enterprise. But the game was entirely diplomatic and included on the one hand the relations between Italy and Germany and on the other the complicated armistice issue with France. In the aftermath of the French collapse, the Italian government had included Corsica among the priority territorial requests: "Union with Italy" was stated in the cahier de doléances of the Ministry of Foreign affairs on the eve of the Italian-German summit of June 1940 « is the first and fundamental condition for its development and prosperity.

Corsica is Italian geographically, historically and ethnically ». In the initial plans of the Italian Commission for the armistice with France (CIAF), Corsica would have been included among the apparently indispensable aspirations. However, the long negotiations at Villa Incisa and then the endless CIAF dispute would have seen the claim become increasingly blurred. A CIAF delegation arrived in Corsica in July 1940 and apparently the topic discussed with the local Vichysois authorities seemed more oriented towards the demilitarization of the island, according to the clauses of Villa Incisa. The Italian delegates therefore appeared very respectful of French authority, distancing themselves from the extremism of the followers of Giovacchini or Guerri. However, as Rainero recalls «Don't think that renouncing the immediate annexation of Corsica was among the easiest decisions of the regime; the claim remained almost "for future reference", awaiting a peace settlement [...]".

On the other hand, it is no coincidence that Marshal Badoglio, only two months after the visit of the CIAF delegation to the island, submitted to Mussolini a project for the invasion of Corsica through two divisions, coming respectively from Livorno and Sardinia. The plan would develop over the following months. In the meeting between the chiefs of staff of the Italian and German navy, held in Merano on 13 and 14 February 1941, Admiral Riccardi clearly told his German colleague Raeder that the naval general staff had prepared a plan for the occupation of the island, also arousing disapproval on the German side: the occupation of Corsica was not only considered useless by the Third Reich, but rather harmful in the global strategy of the conflict, and would have definitively pushed Vichy (and certainly the whole of French North Africa, still wavering) into the arms of the British. Irritated by the opinions of their ally, but unable to ignore them given the balance of power within the Axis, the Italian commands continued to perfect the plan only theoretically, waiting for more favorable times, and transformed it into a joint project between navy and army. The new plan, drawn up by Admiral Vannutelli (who should have held the role of commander of the possible occupation contingent), significantly excluded the use of Rocca's separatists and much less Giovacchini's irredentists, both considered treacherous and bungling. While providing extensive protections to the "Corsican ethnic group" (recognition of the acquired rights of Corsican employees, use of the Corsican dialect in trials, etc.), the island would have been governed by a viceroy (like Albania) or by a high commissioner (like Slovenia) with full executive powers and two sub-governorates in Ajaccio and Bastia, corresponding to the two areas (the « Bande ») into which the Tyrrhenian island was traditionally divided.

Map showing the actual Corsica dialects. It also shows 3 places (in red color) where it is spoken the old Genoa dialect: Calvi, Ajaccio and Bonifacio. Until 9 May 1859 the Italian language in Corsica was the official language, after which it became the French one. Another language spoken on the island was Corsican, a dialect of the Tuscan family. Corsican is made up of many variants contained in two main linguistic groups: the “Cismontano” spoken mainly in the north of the island and closer to Italian; then we have the “Oltremontano” more widespread instead in the south of Corsica, more archaic and close to the language spoken in the north of Sardinia.Since 2002 in the elementary schools of Corsica there has been the opportunity to learn the Corsican language originating from the island, recognized since 2013 also as a regional French language. In addition, road and tourist signs on the island are bilingual now: in French and Corsican. It is noteworthy to pinpoint that since the early 2020s there it is the proposal to add -again- the italian language to these two official languages in Corsica.

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Here it is the original text in italian:

CORSICA ITALIANA (1938-1943)
LA RIVENDICAZIONE DELLA CORSICA tra il 1930 ed il 1943
di Marco CUZZI

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Nel corso di una lezione tenuta nel marzo 1942 agli studenti di un liceo scientifico bolognese, il professore Umberto Brauzzi riassunse in alcune roboanti frasi l’intera azione politica italiana sulla Corsica e soprattutto le concrete motivazioni poste alla base della rivendicazione fascista dell’isola tirrenica :

« L’antemurale Sardo-Corso, con la Corsica in mano agli estranei, vorrebbe significare la più pericolosa breccia nel nostro dispositivo di difesa, la paralisi di ogni movimento, dall’arco ligure sino al campano. Vincitori senza la Corsica non ci potremmo dire mai ; ché, per apportare al mondo, serenamente, il contributo dell’indiscussa nostra civiltà e all’ordinamento della nuova Europa, è assolutamente necessario che non siano menate le basi del nostro movimento commerciale più ricco : ci occorre cioè il pieno possesso dell’isola1. E ancora, più avanti : La nostra piattaforma di lancio, la penisola, è profondamente vulnerabile, per l’intrusione, nel bel mezzo di una terra nostra, della Francia che sorveglia e preclude le libere vie del mare e dell’aria »2.Al di là delle dichiarazioni di continuità geografica (la Corsica veniva paragonata alla Dalmazia, con la speculare funzione di limite estremo di un « gran golfo » italiano : là l’Adriatico, qui il Tirreno) e di comunità nazionale (i corsi erano definiti come una naturale « filiazione » della « razza italica »), ciò che emergeva dal ragionamento di Brauzzi era la dimensione squisitamente strategica dell’intero impianto rivendicazionista: l’isola tirrenica doveva passare sotto il controllo di Roma per perfezionare la « fortezza Italia », chiudendo in modo particolare l’area della capitale in una sorta di « lago italiano » e permettendo un raddoppio della portaerei naturale sarda nel pieno centro del Mediterraneo.Di certo la rivendicazione trovava anche una remota motivazione in rancori mai sopiti, anzi semmai amplificati con il vicino d’Oltralpe. Emblematica appariva un’altra affermazione del Brauzzi : « Noi dobbiamo arguire della dura battaglia che l’Italia deve ancora sostenere per aggregarsi l’isola più italiana d’Italia »3. Frase emblematica ma anche di articolare peso politico, se si tiene conto del periodo in cui venne enunciata, con una Francia per metà occupata e per metà in bilico tra una neutralità collaborativa e un collaborazionismo totale e convinto nei confronti dell’Asse. Nuovamente, come nel caso delle altre vertenze con la Francia (principalmente Tunisi, Gibuti e il Nizzardo), si assisteva a una complicata e a tratti penosa relazione schizofrenica con Vichy, realtà statale a parole inglobata nel Nuovo Ordine ma nei fatti – e la sopravvivenza di una Corsica francese contro tutte le affermazioni del Brauzzi ne era la testimonianza – ad esso nemico, almeno secondo le considerazioni degli analisti italiani.

La rivendicazione fascista dell’isola tirrenica risaliva agli albori del Regime, e superava per anzianità le vertenze transalpine sulla Provenza e la Savoia. Nel 1924 venne istituito su ordine di Mussolini un « Comitato per la Corsica » avente lo scopo, come si legge in una relazione commissionata dal Ministero degli Esteri nel 1939, di « mantenere tra i regnicoli e i Corsi viva la questione dell’italianità dell’isola »4. La presidenza dell’ associazione fu data a Francesco Guerri, un docente universitario d’origine corsa, affiancato da un incaricato del Ministero degli Esteri e dall’onorevole Quirino Figlioli. Il Ministero dispose sul fondo del gabinetto un «congruo stanziamento» per sostenere le iniziative del Comitato. Nello stesso periodo il dicastero si preoccupò di riorganizzare la rappresentanza diplomatica italiana sull’isola. L’obiettivo era di rendere l’iniziativa irredentista più efficace possibile, dando ad essa un retroterra solido e organizzato composto dalla rete consolare ufficiale:« Benché per ovvie ragioni tali nostri Rappresentanti consolari abbiano sempre avuto in linea di massima istruzioni di « ignorare » l’azione irredentistica, svolta principalmente tramite elementi fiduciari, essi hanno sempre attivamente contribuito a facilitare questa attività riservata, sia collaborando in specifici casi alla messa in atto di alcuni progetti, sia e soprattutto fornendo a Roma precisi elementi di giudizio tratti da un diuturno controllo della situazione corsa »5. L’intera operazione, consolare e legata alle iniziative del Comitato di Guerri, sarebbe stata coordinata dal dicastero degli Esteri nella persona del funzionario del gabinetto marchese Blasco Lanza D’Ajeta. La duplice azione aveva scopi da un lato di « mantenere vive le aspirazioni nazionali italiane »6 e dall’altro di salvaguardare l’« identità italiana» dell’isola, «favorendo al tempo stesso dopo un secolo e mezzo di dominazione francese, la rinascita di un movimento a carattere irredentistico ». Ancora più chiari erano gli ordini dati al « Comitato per la Corsica », il deus ex machina di tutta la futura azione per l’isola e sull’isola : « salvaguardare nei suoi molteplici aspetti e con tutti i possibili mezzi l’originaria italianità della popolazione ; favorire tra i corsi un sentimento di reazione al dominio francese (autonomismo-irredentismofilofascismo)». In quest’ottica fu giocoforza per un verso incentivare in patria ogni azione atta a propagandare l’italianità dell’ isola. D’altro canto si cercò di coinvolgere il movimento autonomista autoctono, o meglio la galassia indipendentista corsa, individuando in essa l’interlocutore più prossimo, animato da un separatismo a senso unico e filo italiano.Dopo un lungo periodo preparatorio, l’iniziativa rivendicazionista ebbe la sua prima stagione operativa all’indomani della crisi etiope, ma soprattutto esplose in tutta la sua virulenza con la celebre manifestazione del 30 novembre 1938 alla Camera, durante la quale i deputati – sapientemente pilotati – gridarono le rivendicazioni dei territori francesi : Tunisi, Nizza, Gibuti e Corsica, originando come ricorda De Felice il definitivo naufragio dei tentati ravvicinamenti italo-francesi8. Gli strumenti di propaganda dall’Italia si risolsero in tre differenti iniziative.

Anzitutto, fu attivata un’intesa attività giornalistica, attraverso la stampa di un inserto settimanale del quotidiano livornese « Il Telegrafo » (Livorno era una delle città italiane con il più alto numero di cittadini d’origine corsa) ; il settimanale venne posto sotto la direzione dell’ onnipresente Francesco Guerri (sotto lo pseudonimo di « Minuto Grosso ») e fu finanziato direttamente dall’ufficio di D’Ajeta. L’inserto, che divenne ben presto il principale organo di propaganda stampata a favore della causa, ebbe collaboratori quasi esclusivamente d’origine corsa (o fuoriusciti o in Italia da generazioni) e si sarebbe occupato negli anni sia di problemi vari legati all’isola tirrenica sia delle più vaste e articolate relazioni con la Francia, sostenendo una durissima campagna contro il complotto « repubblicano, socialdemocratico e massonico » di Parigi e il sostegno del governo d’oltralpe all’antifascismo internazionale e italiano in particolare. Il settimanale sarebbe stato distribuito clandestinamente in Corsica. All’ iniziativa specifica de « Il Telegrafo » si sarebbe affiancata, con il benestare e lasupervisione del Ministero della Cultura popolare, un’ azione propagandista su alcuni quotidiani nazionali che si sarebbe intensificata, come avrebbe scritto sagacemente DAjeta «particolarmente nei momenti di maggior disagio con la Francia »9.Il secondo strumento operativo fu rappresentato dalle varie iniziative d’ordine scientifico e culturale. Un rivista trimestrale, « L’Archivio storico di Corsica », sotto la prestigiosa direzione dello storico del regime Gioacchino Volpe, si sarebbe occupata di studi storico-letterari inerenti all’isola, con particolare riferimento alle fasi di maggiore legame con la Penisola (la dominazione della Repubblica del Grifone, ad esempio) a tutti quei personaggi caratterizzati da uno spiccato impegno autonomista o indipendentista (come Pasquale Paoli) o a tutti i corsi che avevano influito sulla vita culturale e politica francese, nel tentativo di dimostrare una superiorità corsa rispetto alla Potenza « colonizzatrice » che sottilmente sottintendeva per sillogismo una superiorità della « razza italica » : campione di queste analisi non poteva che essere, ça va sans dire, il Grande Corso per eccellenza, Napoleone Bonaparte (anzi, Buonaparte, secondo la denominazione originale del cognome, e che veniva ribadita dagli studiosi italiani per sottolinearne l’origine peninsulare)10. Anche la rivista di Volpe sarebbe stata distribuita clandestinamente sull’isola tirrenica. L’infaticabile Guerri si sarebbe occupato altresì di dirigere un mensile di divulgazione scientifica (« Corsica antica e moderna »), con il fuoriuscito ex dirigente autonomista corso Marco Angeli come caporedattore11. Il periodico avrebbe dovuto affiancarsi alla rivista di Volpe, completandone l’opera con studi d’ordine antropologico, etnografico, geografico e finanche geologico, tutti atti a ribadire per l’ennesima volta il legame con la vera e unica « madrepatria ». Il docente dell’Università di Pavia Gino Bottiglioni avrebbe infine coordinato le pubblicazioni dell’ «Atlante linguistico della Corsica », finanziato da un consorzio tra i Ministeri degli Esteri, dell’Interno e dell’Educazione nazionale nonché dall’Università di Cagliari, uno degli atenei più attenti all’operazione verso l’isola tirrenica. Lo scopo, intuibile sin dalla denominazione della testata, era quello di individuare tutti i possibili legami glottologici e linguistici tra la Corsica e l’Italia, per giungere alla dimostrazione della tesi secondo la quale « le origini idiomatiche corse sono strettamente legate a quelle toscane, sarde e sicule »12.

Il terzo strumento di propaganda in Italia fu caratterizzato dai Gruppi di cultura corsi (Gcc) costituiti a Pavia nel 1938 su iniziativa di Pietro (Petru) Giovacchini, detto « il parroco » (u parrucu). Nato nel 1909 in Corsica, a Canale di Verde, e trasferitosi a Pavia nel 1930 dove si era laureato in medicina e chirurgia, Giovacchini, che fu anche camicia nera volontaria in Spagna, sarebbe diventato negli anni seguenti il principale esponente del movimento irredentista filofascista. Scopo dei Gcc di Giovacchini era, in origine, quello di inquadrare sotto un’unica sigla tutti i cittadini italiani d’origine corsa e i corsi fuoriusciti, allo scopo di promuovere l’italianità dell’isola sia dal punto di vista culturale che linguistico. Nei giorni immediatamente successivi al settembre 1939 l’ufficio di D’Ajeta, attraverso il « Comitato per la Corsica », iniziò un monitoraggio sui dichiarati 15 mila iscritti ai Gcc (concentrati soprattutto in Liguria, Toscana e Sardegna) per comprendere se vi erano le condizioni per trasformare, con corrispondente ed adeguato finanziamento da parte del Ministero, l’iniziativa culturale dei Gruppi nell’attiva propaganda irredentistica collegata con i movimenti clandestini sull’isola. Si trattava tuttavia di un progetto ipotetico che, almeno sino al 1939, non sarebbe stato applicato : le condizioni non sussistevano e i Gcc avrebbero dovuto ricoprire incarichi meno dirompenti13. Questa organizzazione, secondo il diplomatico italiano, poteva diventare un utile « movimento d’opinione », atto a coordinare da un lato la diffusione in madrepatria della battaglia per una Corsica prima indipendente dalla Francia e quindi di nuovo italiana e dall’altro l’inserimento dei cittadini corsi residenti in Italia, o recentemente fuoriusciti dall’isola tirrenica, nel pieno della vita nazionale. In questo D’Ajeta suggeriva al Capo di gabinetto del Minculpop, Luciano, di facilitare l’inserimento dei corsi residenti in Italia nella vita del Paese, riconoscendo loro uno status particolare non di cittadini stranieri (e di li a poco « appartenenti a nazione nemica ») , ma di « cittadini italiani non regnicoli », secondo una formula adottata anche nei confronti degli italiani di Spalato e dalmati sottoposti all’amministrazione jugoslava. Inoltre, sarebbe stato auspicabile che i corsi fossero ammessi nel Partito nazionale fascista, anche se formalmente non italiani14. Nei disegni di D’Ajeta i Gcc di Giovacchini avrebbero dovuto affiancarsi alle autorità nel sovrintendere e canalizzare l’inserimento della comunità corsa in Italia all’interno della vita nazionale. I rischi di questo compito erano tuttavia ben chiari al diplomatico italiano : si sarebbe mantenuto « […] uno stretto controllo cui suoi ben noti entusiasmi di Giovacchini che potrebbero alle volte rivelarsi intempestivi », mentre ai Gruppi stessi non sarebbero stati affidati « […] compiti direttivi » né « […] la possibilità di essere a conoscenza della riservata azione italiana nel suo complesso » : le caratteristiche del temperamento corso, concludeva D’Ajeta non senza ironia, forse involontaria, e cioè un temperamento « facile all’entusiasmo ed all’abbattimento, partigiano, fazioso, interessato » sconsigliavano un salto qualitativo dei Gruppi in un’organizzazione esplicitamente eversiva, una sorta di ustaša tirrenici15. In realtà l’esclusione dei Gcc di Giovacchini dall’azione meramente irredentista e il loro sconfinamento ad iniziative propagandiste e d’inquadramento in Italia più che da motivi di inaffidabilità caratteriale era suggerita dalla delicata rete che l’Ufficio di D’Ajeta aveva esteso sull’isola attraverso sia il « Comitato per la Corsica » di Guerri, sia la rete diplomatica rafforzata dalla riforma della metà degli anni venti.Principale strumento dell’iniziativa in loco fu il « Partitu corsu d’azzione » (Pca) di Pietro (Petru) Rocca, un ex combattente, decorato con la Legion d’Onore dallo Stato maggiore francese. Attraverso l’organo ufficiale del partito, il settimanale bilingue francocorso « A Muvra », il movimento di Rocca si era rapidamente spostato da una posizione moderatamente autonomista su una sempre più spiccata istanza indipendentista e nettamente filo italiana. Radiato dall’albo della Legion d’Onore, Rocca era perennemente controllato dalla polizia francese, rischiando quotidianamente l’arresto mentre il suo giornale aveva subito numerosi sequestri sino alla sospensione d’obbligo delle pubblicazioni subito dopo lo scoppio della guerra con la Germania. Pur senza entrare nei dettagli, per questioni « di particolare riservatezza », D’Ajeta elencava il Partito e il giornale di Rocca come «strumenti» dell’iniziativa italiana sull’isola tirrenica, sottintendendo la natura e il volume degli appoggi che il governo di Roma riservava al movimento autonomista insulare16 : il principale trait d’union tra il Partito autonomista e il Comitato per la Corsica sarebbe stato l’ex dirigente del partito Marco Angeli, caporedattore di « Corsica antica e moderna » e « decano » del fuoriuscitismo. In una successiva lettera assai polemica nei confronti del Giovacchini, ritenuto incapace e indegno di guidare i Gcc, Angeli avrebbe riassunto il programma del partito di Rocca come segue : « Il programma […] si riallaccia alla tradizione di Pasquale Paoli, riafferma lo spirito battagliero dei corsi contro la tirannide francese ammantata d’ipocrisia e d’immorali principi e sostiene per la Corsica le ragioni della riscossa ». Le attività italiane sull’isola vennero condotte complessivamente con grande abilità e riservatezza, tanto da non suscitare almeno da parte del corpo diplomatico francese in Italia alcun sospetto, anzi. È interessante notare infatti il relativo disinteresse transalpino nei confronti delle articolate attività irredentiste e rivendicazioniste in Italia. A distanza di quasi due mesi dal « salto qualitativo » del movimento irredentista François-Poncet, ambasciatore francese in Italia, scriveva al suo Ministro degli Esteri Georges Bonnet una breve relazione nella quale riassumeva con molte incertezze la rete propagandista di D’Ajeta, Guerri e Giovacchini, facendo trasparire una inspiegabile difficoltà nel raccogliere informazioni più precise, anche attraverso il consolato francese a Livorno, intuita dai diplomatici come la vera centrale operativa della propaganda irredentista. Interessante il commento di chiusura : « J’ai cru devoir signaler, à toutes fins utiles, à l’attention du Département ces indications évidemment quelque peu fragmentaires. Elles me paraissent cepoendant de nature à démontrer l’intérêt croissant que pour des raisons au moins tactiques, et peut-être pour obtenir, le cas échéant, d’autres avantages en échange d’un éventuel désistement, le gouvernement italien porte ou affecte de porter désormais à ‘l’île perdue’ »18.Questo atteggiamento piuttosto disincantato e di sottovalutazione del problema, da parte della diplomazia francese, sarebbe proseguito anche nei mesi successivi : « On constate qu’aujourd’hui, rien n’est fait ici [in Italia – NdA] pour enflammer à cet egard le moral de la nation », si legge ad esempio in un nuovo dispaccio di François-Poncet a Parigi in merito alle solite rivendicazioni italiane, tra le quali la Corsica. Un trucco, quindi, un ballon d’essai propagandistico ad uso più interno che esterno : delle operazioni riservate condotte in Corsica dal Comitato di Guerri e dall’ufficio di D’Ajeta, non compare alcuna traccia nelle relazioni dei rappresentanti diplomatici transalpini in Italia.Inaugurate alla fine del 1938, le operazioni irredentiste avrebbero subito un rallentamento nel settembre 1939. Lo scoppio delle ostilità aveva ridotto la portata delle iniziative sull’isola. Quelli che il diplomatico italiano definiva « contatti con personalità corse », senza specificarne nomi e qualifiche, apparivano impossibili sin dai primi giorni del settembre. Anche le sovvenzioni che erano state erogate negli anni precedenti a favore della stampa isolana più filo italiana sembravano « molto difficili », anche se d’Ajeta confidava in un non meglio precisato miglioramento futuro delle condizioni per riaprire un canale con alcuni quotidiani corsi. Assai precaria risultava la distribuzione clandestina della pubblicistica italiana (dall’inserto de « Il Telegrafo » alle riviste culturali e scientifiche). Apparentemente in condizioni migliori appariva un altro strumento, probabilmente ancora più importante e radicato del Partito di Rocca : « Fedeli alla nostra causa, alla quale hanno reso e rendono preziosi servizi, si sono dimostrati alcuni Ordini religiosi con i quali il « Comitato » intrattiene riservati e opportuni contatti ».Ma, in generale, l’iniziativa in loco apparve sin dal primo mese di guerra alquanto limitata, e ben poco serviva la non belligeranza italiana : i fiduciari italiani legati al « Comitato per la Corsica » e incaricati dai diplomatici di mantenere la rete quadrangolare (autonomisti-personalità locali-giornali-clero) correvano « rischi notevolissimi », mentre, essendo la Corsica stata dichiarata « zona operativa » dallo Stato maggiore francese, avrebbe presto subito lo stesso destino dell’Alsazia dove, come ricordava D’Ajeta, i locali capi autonomisti del movimento pronazista erano stati da poco condannati alla fucilazione per alto tradimento : « Noi abbiamo qualcuno dei nostri ‘amici’ nelle prigioni militari francesi ». Inoltre : « La popolazione è antitaliana e certamente antifascista : gli autonomisti – un esiguo numero – non dimostrano certamente velleità di martirio. I più coraggiosi sono indubbiamente ora in Italia, avendo « disertato » l’esercito francese ».Dinanzi a un siffatto quadro, il Ministro della Cultura popolare, Alessandro Pavolini concordò con il Ministero degli Esteri sull’opportunità di sospendere le attività in Corsica, mantenendo i contatti ma evitando di aggravare la già precaria situazione della rete del « Comitato » con iniziative concrete : si doveva attendere la maturazione delle condizioni politiche e militari.

Nel clima d’attesa e d’incertezza caratterizzante la non belligeranza, la decisione presa dal Governo di sospendere l’iniziativa sull’isola si allargò anche nei confronti dell’attività propagandista in Italia. Del fatto si accorse anche François-Poncet, che segnalò a Parigi la riduzione dell’attività propagandista sui giornali nazionali, motivandola con i tentativi della diplomazia italiana di giungere a una mediazione nel corso della crisi d’agosto 1939. Il Comitato ordinò a Giovacchini di sospendere ogni azione. Si tenga presente che lo scoppio della guerra con la Germania aveva avuto un’ulteriore risvolto anche in Italia : più di metà dei principali esponenti dei Gcc, talvolta per un riscoperto sentimento patriottico e il più delle volte per timore di rappresaglie del governo di Parigi, era rientrata sull’isola tirrenica24.Disciplinato, contro tutti i sospetti di D’Ajeta che come si è detto lo giudicava impulsivo e irrequieto, il leader irredentista inviò a tutti i Gruppi distribuiti nella Penisola una circolare che, pur comandando il silenzio, lasciava presagire una futura offensiva addirittura più militare che di propaganda : « Periodo di attesa e di preparazione silenziosa. Astenersi da qualsiasi manifestazione pubblica o di massa ; non intralciare il lavoro della nostra diplomazia. Non scoprire le nostre batterie, ma non per questo abbandonarle. Io farò sapere quando sarà venuto il momento di agitarsi ». L’attività dei Gruppi di Giovacchini e più generalmente del Comitato per la Corsica si ridussero sino al maggio 1940 e l’impegno dei principali dirigenti della comunità corsa in Italia appare assai più prosaico e meno ideale del periodo precedente, concentrato soprattutto su una serie di favori personali richiesti a Mussolini attraverso sia gli Esteri che il Minculpop26. Il 22 maggio 1940 Giovacchini si incontrò con Pavolini : la data è fatidica, almeno per la breve storia della rivendicazione fascista della Corsica, e segna l’avvicendamento tra il capo dei Gcc e il « Comitato per la Corsica » di Guerri, ormai definitivamente anestetizzato, alla guida dell’iniziativa propagandista.

Giovacchini illustrò al Ministro della Cultura popolare lo stato della sua organizzazione, probabilmente forzando sui numeri e amplificandone le effettive possibilità. I Gruppi di cultura corsi ammontavano a 170 sezioni, sia in Italia che all’estero, per un totale di 22 mila iscritti. I quadri attivi erano circa 250, anche se solo una parte potevano essere effettivamente impiegati in eventuali e non precisate «azioni». Pavolini concordò con il presidente dei Gcc – ribattezzatosi forse in vista di un salto qualitativo in campo bellico « presidente generale» –di intensificare la propaganda e di dare il via alla « costituzione e addestramento di un nucleo d’azione, da tenere pronto per essere inviato in Corsica a un momento dato »27.Si trattava di un’esplicita risposta a una dichiarazione da Giovacchini al ministro soltanto alcuni giorni prima (« I Corsi irredenti riuniti a Roma sono decisi a passare all’azione »)28. Il ministro stanziò 30 mila lire per le spese di propaganda, alle quali si aggiunsero cinque mila lire per l’acquisto da parte del Minculopop di un opuscolo sulla Corsica a cura dei Gruppi stessi29. Tuttavia, la tanto agognata « azione » non venne neppure dopo il 10 giugno. I Gcc non si mossero e la propaganda continuò ad essere sospesa. L’unico significativo atto corrispondente al nuovo stato di guerra fu la trasformazione dei Gruppi di cultura in « Gruppi d’azione irredentista corsa » (Gaic). In un impeto di entusiasmo, esemplificativo peraltro di una certa confusione organizzativa e organigrammatica, Giovacchini ribattezzò poco dopo i Gaic prima in « Movimento irredentista corso » e quindi in « Movimento d’azione irredentista corso » (Maic) : il tentativo era quello di gettare le basi per una vera e propria organizzazione insurrezionale che affiancasse le truppe italiane nella « liberazione » dell’isola30. Ulteriore segnale della volontà degli irredentisti di Giovacchini di darsi una struttura più militante fu lo scorporo dal movimento di tutta l’iniziativa scientifico-culturale, attraverso la costituzione dell’« Istituto nazionale di studi corsi » a Pavia, il quale organizzò lezioni universitarie, una mostra a Venezia sull’italianità dell’isola, iniziative e mobilitazioni per l’intitolazione di piazze e vie alla Corsica e a Pasquale Paoli. Libero dall’impegno culturale, Giovacchini poteva lanciarsi finalmente nell’impresa politica e forse militare. Ma la partita era tutta diplomatica e comprendeva da un lato i rapporti tra Italia e Germania e dall’altro la complicata questione armistiziale con la Francia. All’indomani del crollo francese il governo italiano aveva inserito la Corsica tra le prioritarie richieste territoriali : « L’unione all’Italia » si leggeva nel cahier de doléances del Ministero degli esteri alla vigilia del vertice italo tedesco del giugno 1940 « è la condizione prima e fondamentale per il suo sviluppo e la sua prosperità. La Corsica è italiana geograficamente, storicamente ed etnicamente ». Nei progetti iniziali della Commissione italiana per l’armistizio con la Francia (Ciaf), la Corsica sarebbe stata inserita tra le aspirazioni apparentemente irrinunciabili. Tuttavia, le lunghe trattative di Villa Incisa e poi l’infinita vertenza della Ciaf avrebbero visto la rivendicazione corsa in una posizione sempre più sfumata. Una delegazione della Ciaf giunse in Corsica nel luglio 1940 e apparentemente il tema trattato con le locali autorità vichysois sembrò più orientato verso la smilitarizzazione dell’isola, secondo le clausole di Villa Incisa. I delegati italiani apparvero quindi molto rispettosi dell’autorità francese, prendendo le distanze dall’estremismo dei seguaci di Giovacchini o di Guerri. Tuttavia, come ricorda Rainero « Non si creda che la rinuncia all’annessione immediata della Corsica sia passata tra le decisioni più facili del regime; la rivendicazione rimase quasi « a futura memoria », in attesa di un regolamento della pace [...] ». D’altronde non a caso il maresciallo Badoglio, soltanto due mesi dopo la visita della delegazione della Ciaf sull’isola, sottopose a Mussolini un progetto per l’invasione della Corsica mediante due divisioni, provenienti rispettivamente da Livorno e dalla Sardegna. Il piano si sarebbe sviluppato nei mesi successivi. Nell’incontro tra i capi di stato maggiore della marina italiana e tedesca, tenutosi a Merano il 13 e 14 febbraio 1941, l’ammiraglio Riccardi disse chiaramente al suo collega germanico Raeder che lo stato maggiore della marina aveva predisposto un piano per l’occupazione dell’isola, suscitando peraltro disapprovazione da parte tedesca : l’occupazione della Corsica non solo era considerata dal Terzo Reich inutile, ma anzi dannosa nella strategia globale del conflitto, e avrebbe spinto definitivamente Vichy (e senz’altro l’intero Nordafrica francese, ancora tentennante) tra le braccia dei britannici. Irritati delle opinioni dell’alleato, ma impossibilitati a prescindere da queste visti i rapporti di forza all’interno dell’Asse, i comandi italiani proseguirono nel perfezionamento solo teorico del piano, in attesa di tempi più favorevoli, e lo trasformarono in un progetto interforze tra marina ed esercito. Il nuovo piano, redatto dall’ammiraglio Vannutelli (che avrebbe dovuto ricoprire il ruolo di comandante dell’eventuale contingente d’occupazione), escludeva significativamente l’impiego dei separatisti di Rocca e tanto meno degli irredentisti di Giovacchini, entrambi considerati infidi e pasticcioni. Pur prevedendo ampie tutele all’« etnia corsa » (riconoscimento dei diritti acquisiti degli impiegati corsi, uso del dialetto corso nei processi eccetera), l’isola sarebbe stata governata da un viceré (come l’Albania) o da un alto commissario (come la Slovenia) con pieni poteri esecutivi e due sotto-governatorati ad Ajaccio e a Bastia, corrispondenti alle due zone (le « Bande ») in cui veniva tradizionalmente suddivisa l’isola tirrenica.


Italian troops entering in Corte (central Corsica) in November 1942. The smile of the italian soldier was indicative of the welcome received by the local population

Saturday, January 6, 2024

MAURIZIO RAVA (THE FASCIST JEW GOVERNOR OF ITALIAN SOMALIA)

Only a few of us remember that -before the "appearance" of Hitler and his racism inside 1938 Mussolini's Italy- within the italian fascist party was strong the influence of italian jews (in October 1933 there were 4920 Italian Jews who were members of the Italian Fascist Party, nearly 10% of all the Jews living in Italy -while the jews were less than 1% of the total Italian population).

This month I want to research the life of the most famous of these nearly 5000 jews who were members of the Italian fascism in the 1930s: Maurizio Rava, Governor of Italian Somalia from 1931 to 1935 and Brigadier-General of the Italian Army from March 1939 to January 1941.

The following are excerpts of what I wrote & got published in the wikipedia encyclopedia about Maurizio Rava (https://en.wikipedia-on-ipfs.org/wiki/Maurizio_Rava):

1916 photo of Maurizio Rava in the Trentino front


Maurizio Rava (1878-1941) was a important Italian governor of Italian Somalia between 1931 and 1935. Before this activity, he worked as the fascist "Segretary" of Italian Tripolitania. He was also a famous writer and painter.

Life

Maurizio Rava was born in 1878 to a Jewish family in Milan (Italy). He studied painting and started writing essays since he was a young student at a Milan Lyceum (Maurizio Rava graduated at the "Academy of Fine Arts of Rome"). Before WW1 he was a supporter of Italian nationalism and in 1919 he enrolled in the fascist party of Mussolini, creating with others the section of Roma and becoming one of his better collaborators.

However, in the Great War he was an Alpine complement Officer, who was wounded and decorated with a silver and two bronze medals. He was moved to Major and later promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of the reserve.

After personally participating in the 1922 "March on Rome", he was vice-secretary of the fascist party of Lazio in 1923.

With the support of the Libya's governor Emilio De Bono, between August 1927 and June 1931 he was in this italian colony, first as general secretary, then from October 1930 as deputy governor and, from December 1928, as federal secretary of the "Fasci in Tripolitania".

He attempted expansive projects in the Libya's internal areas, with settlements of new settlers and privileges for the large Italian agricultural companies with Italian labor (which, due to adaptability to the climate, he hoped from southern Italy); he pushed for a building development plan in Tripoli and attention to the construction quality of coastal cities; he also directed the local autonomous trade fair.

From July 1931 Rava became governor of the other traditional Italian colony, Somalia (more pacified than Libya, but emerged from tensions aroused by the repressive policy of the former governor Cesare Maria De Vecchi, only attenuated by his successor Guido Corni). He also had the role of federal secretary of Mogadishu from 22 August 1931 until 1935.

He followed a policy already started by his predecessor, aimed at economic ventures, settlements and public works that would make a colony with scarce resources more profitable (for further info, please read https://dadfeatured.blogspot.com/2018/05/).

In contact with the agricultural enterprises of the Duke of Abruzzi, Luigi Amedeo of Savoy-Aosta (who died on 18 March 1933 with Rava at his side), he developed the banana production in the Villabruzzi area; however, Rava fueled the monopoly of the concessionaires of banana cultivation, the main local production aimed at the italian homeland market, which it enriched some colonists, but burdened Italian consumers.

In 1931 one of his first governor acts was the complete abolition of slavery in all italian Somalia and the creation of schools for somalian native kids on the same level of Italian children.

In early 1935, Governor Maurizio Rava created the first system of postal service stations in Italian Somalia, that later was fully enlarged to all the "Italian East Africa".

Until the end of March 1935 Rava was the "Governor" of Italian Somalia. But in the late 1930s he faced problems within the party because of Nazi Germany's influences against Italian Jews. However he was always respected by the fascists.

After being nominated "senator" when returned to live in Italy, he was promoted to Brigadier-General in 1939 by the same Mussolini (even if he was a jew) and died in 1941 because of wounds received in Italian Libya, when was a general of brigade fighting the British.

In the last years of his life he was very close to Italo Balbo (the second in charge in fascist Italy after Mussolini and a strong critic of the nazi-laws anti-jews) and promoted some links with the Israeli Navy through the Betar Naval academy in Civitavecchia (that created some of the future commanders of the Israeli Navy).

His funeral in Rome was attended by many thousands of fascists (who rejected the racial laws imposed by Hitler) and got strong complains from the Nazi-Germany ambassador in Italy.

Links to Jabotinsky Revisionism

Indeed Rava was linked to Jabotinsky (the main leader of the "Zionist Revisionism") who promoted the "Betar" (youth organization of the Revisionism) and who did the 1931 Betar Conference where was decided to promote the so called "maritime idea" of the 'Rodegal association' (read in Italian https://www.effedieffe.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30882:lasse-roma-berlino-tel-aviv-parte-ii&catid=24&Itemid=143).

In this conference the captain Irmiyahu Helpern was allowed to create a jewish "group for maritime selfdefense", that was to be prepared in the Italian navy school of Civitavecchia (located near Rome)

Finally it is noteworthy to remember that until 1936 Fascist ideology was free of any element of anti-Semitism, and the party's membership rolls were open to Jews, who joined in roughly the same relative numbers as non-Jews. More than 200 Jews (like Maurizio Rava) participated in the 1922 march on Rome, which installed Mussolini in power.

Jews who achieved prominence under Fascism included Aldo Finzi, a member of the first Fascist Grand Council; Guido Jung, Minister of Finance from 1932 to 1935; and of course Maurizio Rava, Governor of Italian Somaliland and a general in the Fascist militia.

Friday, December 1, 2023

COLLABORATION WITH ITALIANS IN DALMATIA (1941-1943)

This December 2023 I want to research the collaborationism of local slavs with the Italians during WW2 in Dalmatia, with a special "look" at the Cetnik group (made of Serb-orthodox population) as written in a book of Lorenzo Salimbeni (that I have translated in english and edited some excerpts at the final section of my essay).

As we all know Mussolini created the "Governorato di Dalmazia" in May 1941, and initially it was welcomed by most of the local slavs in Dalmatia until Germany attacked the Soviet Union and Stalin ordered the beginning of the Tito's partisan guerrilla in Dalmatia & former Yugoslavia.

Photo of Mussolini (to the right) and Pavelic in Rome when signed (May 7, 1941) the defined new borders between Croatia and the Kingdom of Italy's "Governorato di Dalmazia"
In summer 1941 the Italian government started a policy of "Italianization" in all the Governorate of Dalmatia (that had only 5000 Italians, in addition to the 20000 living in the province of Zara already Italian since 1918). New Italian schools were opened in Spalato. Administrative personnel from Italy moved to Spalato and Trau (nearly 6,700 Dalmatian Italians took refuge in Italy after the creation of Yugoslavia in 1919, and many of them were offered work if they returned to settle with their families in the Governorate of Dalmatia). The italian governor Bastianini started needed public works, building hospitals, sewage systems and roads in the area. Even the "Bank of Italy" opened a branch in Spalato.

Furthermore, lacking a systematic hygienic-health organization in Dalmatia, apart from a few hospitals and hygiene offices, the Italian government favored the activation of a very efficient medical and obstetric system in the Governorate. New works were also started to improve the road & railway network, the port facilities of Šebenico and Spalato and the construction of new aqueducts on the smaller islands. All these improvements were received with good opinions by the local slavs, mainly the Serbs. Indeed, some of these Serbs requested officially the union of their territories around Tenin (the "Bucovizza" area) to the kingdom of Italy in May 1941.

Indeed, the Serbian population of Knin, Gospić, Gračac and the other municipalities of the Kninska Krajina and the Lika necessarily supported the annexation of the region to Italy and the Italians, in turn, in full awareness of the importance of controlling that part of the dalmatian hinterland economically linked to the coast, took into consideration the possibility - initially supported by Mussolini himself - of assigning the entire area to Italy. The district civil commissioner of Knin, Carlo De Hoeberth, supported the initiative of two Serbian notables who were his fellow students in the Italian gymnasium of Austrian Zadar – Dr. Niko Novaković, municipal trustee of Knin and former minister, and the lawyer Boško Desnica of Obrovazzo - who delivered to the Italian authorities in Spalato a petition signed by over one hundred thousand Serbs from Bucovizza, a mountain region between Šebenico and Zara, requesting the annexation of the area to Italy (7 May).

The petition also had notable repercussions among the Serbs of Bosnia and a few days later representatives of the communities of Bosanski Grahovo, Dervar (Drvar), Sanski Most, Bosanski Petrovac, Bihać, Bosanska Krupa, Ključ and Donj Lapac showed up at the command of the "Sassari Division", requesting a possible annexation to Italy. Favorable sentiments towards the Italians seem to have also been demonstrated by Muslims and the rest of the population of Herzegovina. However, the news of the petitions reached Mussolini too late, after the talks with Pavelić in Monfalcone on 7 May, when the borders of Dalmatia had already been defined.

Map (that I created for wikipedia) showing the Governorato di Dalmazia (limited by red points), with the Italian area of Croatia limited by blue points. The green points separate the Italian and German areas of influence.
THE CETNIC-SLAV COLLABORATION WITH ITALIANS IN DALMATIA IN 1941-1943 (IL COLLABORAZIONISMO CETNICO IN DALMAZIA) , written by LORENZO SALIMBENI

On May 8, 1941 a Croatian delegation went to Rome to offer the crown of Croatia to the House of Savoy.

(The italian King and Emperor) Vittorio Emanuele II designated Aimone of Savoy of Aosta as Duke of Spoleto, the position he would have to take the name of "Tomislav II"; but ultimately he never set foot in his kingdom. That same day Benito Mussolini and Ante Pavelic (leader of the fascist Croatians, called "Ustasha") signed the treaties that guaranteed the Italian & Croatian small linguistic minorities.

And, above all, they defined the boundaries between the two kingdoms: Castua, Sussak, Cabar, part of the district of Delnice, the hinterland of Zara, went to Italy, as well as Sebenico, the Bocca di Cattaro with the islands of Veglia, Aebe, Tirona, Solta, Lissa, Sant'Andrea, Pomo, Curzola and Melada. To the counterpart remained Ragusa, Dalmatia to the south of Spalato (a city that would have enjoyed a special customs regime) and the islands of Lesina and Brazza.

The initial arrangement did not satisfy Mussolini since such a dismembered Dalmatia had no possibility of surviving from an economic point of view and would have been affected the process of assimilation of the natives Slavs to Italy, which the Duce believed it was ongoing; and also left Pavelic with a bad taste in his mouth, as he found himself increasingly cornered by the pro-German section of the ustasha movement led by Kvaternik senior (the Marshal Slavko, commander of the Armed Forces and former Habsburg officer) and son (Evgeny, head of the police) and who brought as a "dowry" no territorial mutilations to what was the presumed "Great Croatia", but rather the highly advantageous agreements signed on 16 May and 1 June which projected the Croatian economy into the Germany's area.

In Zagabria a committee was set up directed by Edo Bulat from Spalato, officially to welcome Croatian refugees coming from the Croatia's coast, in reality to support the Croats who remained in the territories annexed to Italy. The Italian commands soon realized that army and Ustascian forces were feeling some hate towards Italy, following the mutilation of the Dalmatia coast and feared the same fate for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Since 7 April, the day of the armistice, the command of the VI Army Corps had held power in Dalmatia, although supported by the Commander Athos Bartolucci, former Federal Secretary and then Prefetto di Zara, who was promoted to this new role by the Supreme Command: he was not only concerned with guaranteeing the regular functioning of the service, but rather prepared the ground for the annexation which was now in the air. He has received the support of the District Commissioners Ildebrando Tacconi in Spalato and Guseppe Franchi in Zara; in effect, contrary to the customs of the international community, Dalmazia, like the "Autonomous Lubiana Province", was annexed to Italy before the war ended.

Designation of Aimone of Savoy (named Tomislav II) by Italian King Vittorio Emanuele II as "King of Croatia" on 18 May 1941. In front of him, Pavelić stands with the Croatian delegation.
The Governorate of Dalmazia was established on 18 May 1941 and had at the top Giuseppe Bastianini, an early fascist squad member, like his successor Francesco Giunta (Florentine, but leader of the Fascio triestino in the immediate after the post-war period and therefore a leading exponent of the so-called "frontier Fascism", characterized by strong anti-Slavic characteristics) who was in office from February to 9 August 1943, the day on which the authority passed into the hands of the military.

Consistently with the projects circulated in those months in the fascist spheres and which envisaged the return of those who had migrated from Dalmatia to Italy or Yugoslavia at the expense of those who had arrived there from 1919 onwards, Governor Bastianini immediately implemented a program of forced Italianization in the three provinces (Zara, Spalato and Cattaro) with prefects respectively the "fascistissimi" Vezio Orazio, Paolo Valerio Zerbino and Francesco Scassellati Sforzolini: the Croats who arrived in Dalmatia in the last decades faced dismissals, expulsions and limitations of the citizenship law, as well as the forced Italianization of cultural and political life and local social system, onto which the Fascist Party with all its elephantine apparatus was forcefully grafted. However, despite the forced transfers from the italian motherland, the administrative apparatus was weakened due to the removal of Yugoslavian personnel.

From the outset, thge three provinces presented different characteristics: Cattaro was full of Montenegrin supporters, Spalato denounced a conspicuous communist militancy and a significant Serbian activity, whereas in the new acquisitions of Zara the foreign element welcomed the occupiers with detachment. In Knin, however, in the formally Croatian hinterland, but actually under the protection of the Italian Royal Army, the Italian occupiers had always had a protective attitude from the threats of the Catholic Ustasha and this fact had guaranteed the italian army a non-hostile attitude on the part of the countryside. At least at first the annexation to the Kingdom of Italy was seen, in these areas, as the least of the evils.

In Dalmatia -thanks to the Orthodox community present in a compact manner between Obrovazzo and Derns and well rooted in Tenin (there were approximately 20,000 Serbian Orthodox)- the town of Tenin in which Division Sassari placed his command, Spalato and Kistanje (the roman "Burnum") became points of reference for numerous fugitives. So much so that -already after Pavelic's seizure of power and foreshadowing the impending scandals figures- there were some of the most important members of the Serbian communities who would have been found in the territory of the Croatian state: Niko Novakovic (confirmed mayor of Tenin by Bartolucci who added to him the Civil Commissioner Carlo De Hoeberth), his brother Vlade, the pope of Strmica Momcilo Djujic, the rich landowner of Biskupje Pajo Popovic, the official of the Radical Union Stevo Redienovic and other businessman and former Yugoslav army officer.

A delegation of them (who on May 25th the newspaper "Hrvatski Narod" defined as "fugitives from Orthodox troublemakers who, however, would soon be joined by Ustasha justice) made an act of submission and devotion to Italy on behalf of the 100,000 Serbs (partly ex "Morlacchi") from Bucovizza (between Sebenico and Zara). Senator Alessandro Dudàn believed that the same thing could happen by adequately stimulating the 60,000 Serbs residing between Ragusa and Cattaro who were already supporters of the Italian community against the Austrians before WW1.

In short, the Governorate of Dalmatia had become the destination of almost 3,000 Serbs coming mostly from Drvar, Bosanski Grahovo, Donje, Lapac, Udbina and Gracac: new arrivals had therefore appeared added to the original community and Kistanje became the important center not only as a gathering centre, but also and above all politically important due to the relationships that the Serbian elders had there with the Italian authorities.

On the Italian side, it was due to spontaneous motivations of a umanitary nature that the local authorities, in contravention of superior orders that required neutrality and detachment, worked in favor of the civil victims of the massacre like those perpetrated in Gracko, Evesinje, Ljubnje, Stolac, Mostar and Metkovic, done by the Ustasha. The situation became even more complex at the end of May, when -as the Ustasha persecutions increased- the Serbs from Trebinje (behind Ragusa) started to defend themselves with guns and those from Mostar were forced to form armed bands: In July the region of Luka (right next to the Dalmatia) rose up against the Ustasha

Since the first months of the Governorato there were many slav volunteers, who were joining the italian "Anti-Communist Volunteer Militia": at the moment of greatest consistency, they would have included more than 26,500 members; 6,500 of whom were employed by the XVIII Italian Army. Among these, approximately 5,000 would have served in the MV C "Dinara" division composed mainly of Greek Orthodox Serbs from the Knin district.

Perpetually short of men and wary of their Croatian ally, the Italian commands were happy to have at their disposal these mobile units (made of Serb "Cetniks"), expert in the territory and, as they were nationalists and monarchs, that were strongly anti-communist, although hated by the Germans who considered them enemies in the same way as the partisans.

in August 1941 Pietromarchi and Bastianini requested that the coastal strip from Fiume to Montenegro for a depth of at least about fifty kilometers was to be Italian in order to ensure tranquility of the coast. Thus it happened that between August and October that the Second Army took possession of the so-called Second Area (the territories that were located close to the italian border where the Croats could not have military posts) and Third Area (the innermost regions up to the demarcation line with a district garrisoned by Germans), also assuming political adminstrative powers in contact with the fictitious figure of a Croatian administrative Commissary united to the Italian military command.

In early summer 1941 "governor forces" of local slavs were established in the provinces of Zara and Spalato, which received rifles & ammunitions from the Army Corps warehouses and they were framed as the "Anti-Communist Volunteer Corps of Italian Dalmatia". The enlistment applications were filled out on a special form form and presented to the command of the Royal Carabinieri, who, once having authenticated the photos and extended a judgment on the volunteer, they would then have them forwarded to the Military Cabinet, which requested elements of absolute reliability and suitable from a physical, moral and political point of view.

The first Serbian Orthodox volunteer groups began to operate in August 1941; they were recruited in the Dalmatian territory based on critera that were ethnic (there were also Croatian Catholic ones) and geographical (usually remained to act in the area of origin), and had to undergo a special oath of fidelity to Italy.

The Slav volunteers were in two groups: the regular "Armed Bands" and the "Armed Villagers". The "Armed Bands" acted under the orders of local leaders and were divided into "Squads", while the "Armed Villagers" were civilians residing in the villages who occasionally provided support and aid to the italian "Carabinieri". From a propaganda point of view, the three-weekly bilingual (Italian and Serbo-Croatian) "La Voce dei Volontari Anti-communists di Dalmazia" was well accepted by the Slavs, while the experiment of the Armed Villagers turned out to be a failure, who, due to their occasional use, soon became an easy target for the partisans.

Furthermore, the volunteers from the annexed Dalmatia (mainly in the italian province of Zara) were included in the "Anti-Communist Zara Bands": they had their baptism of fire on July 27th, 1941 in the fighting at Monte Sopalj and in August they came under the authority of the Zara Troop Command; so, as part of the establishment of the 158th Infantry Division Zara, from September 1st 1941 they appeared as an Auxiliary Corp.

Momčilo Đujić, commander of the Dinara Division (left), with an Italian officer in 1942
Additionally, he division "Dinara" was formed by Serbs in early January 1942: Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin played a central role in organizing the units of Chetnik leaders in western Bosnia, Lika, and northern Dalmatia into the Dinara Division and dispatched former Royal Yugoslav Army officers to help. This Division -ruled by Momcilo Dujic- was successful in fighting the Tito's guerrilla in collaboration with the Italians, but was reduced to only 3000 men in February 1943.

Finally, it is noteworthy to pinpoint that the Serbian component of these volunteer groups, headed by the charismatic Trifunovic, had given -during the second half of 1941, all 1942 and until summer 1943- undisputed proof of anti-communism and always showed friendly links with the Italians.