ITALIAN LANGUAGE IN ITALY'S COLONIES

Like some other European countries, during the first half of the XX century Italy occupied a number of territories around the world, though most of these colonies were located in Africa. In those where the Italian presence has been longer and more pervading, Italian language was still spoken (until the brginning of the XXI century) as a second language (e.g. in the Dodecanese, now part of Greece) or in a corrupt form (Simplified Italian of Ethiopia & Pidgin Italian of Eritrea and Somalia; for further information read this essay of Bernini: http://www00.unibg.it/dati/corsi/3415/43993-lap_1011_03_pidgin_italiani.pdf)

The "Asmara Caffe" on Harnet Avenue of Asmara (Eritrea) is famous for Italian-style cappuccino and pastries. It has the italian word "caffe", that means 'coffee'

Nevertheless, given that many years have passed since Italy’s colonizing mission, today the number of speakers of Italian is steadily decreasing. However it is also noted that many loanwords still remain, phonetically adapted and incorporated in languages such as Libyan Arabic, Eritrean, Amharic, Oromo, Gawwada, Saho, Tigrinya and Somali (among others). The goal of this research is to give an overall view of the main of these languages and their "pidgins" linked to the italian language.

As we know, the Kingdom pf Italy -after the unification of Italy- started a process of colonization in Africa (and secundarily in China) that was able to create an empire when Ethiopia was conquered in 1936. So, in 1913, when Ethiopia had not yet been taken, Italy controlled about 4% of the total colonial areas occupied by Europeans. To give an idea of the Italian situation, just think that Great Britain - at the time the European power that held the primacy of colonized lands - at that time was in possession of 60% of the total. That means that the italian empire was the last of the european empires and its linguistic heritage was not huge, but noteworthy.

The colonies where more the italian was "loanworded" are Libya, Eritrea and Somalia. But there was also a relatively strong influence in Ethiopia. Also it is noteworthy to pinpoint that in Greece the italian was very important in the italian dodecanese islands (like Rodi) and also in Corfu (where there it is an historical venetian-speaking community since the Middle Ages: read https://dadfeatured.blogspot.com/2019/03/corfiot-italians.html).

As has been observed, the effects of Italian colonization in the linguistic field have not yet been fully studied. Even the immense work done by Abdu (Abdu, Hussein Ramadan, “Italian loanwords in colloquial Libyan Arabic as spoken in the Tripoli region”) is incomplete: suffice it to note that it is based entirely on the dialect spoken in Tripoli (Libya), which will inevitably be different even only from that of Benghazi, without mentioning the Libyan hinterland. Not to mention the fact that studies of this type are still to come for Assab, Massawa, Addis Ababa and Mogadishu.

However, with the data collected with the few researches it is possible to try to draw some conclusions. First of all, it is confirmed that the linguistic history of the Dodecanese has followed paths that are quite different from that of Africa. In these small islands, Italian has been taught in a customary way and learned by the population, who in some cases still speak it (also for reasons of convenience due to tourism or personal pride).

On the African side, on the other hand, we distinguish the "pidgin" that came to be created in the "Horn of Africa", which has not been documented very well in more recent times and whose traces seem to have been lost, only to receive confirmation of its vivacity. An in-depth study should absolutely be devoted to this topic, by doing research directly on site and trying to interview as many native speakers as possible to gather new and updated data.

As for the borrowings in the languages of the former colonies, we have seen how many of the words - above all those relating to certain areas, such as mechanics, are almost identical. This is partly due to loans that have taken place over the years between the native language themselves, but also from the fact that these terms of Italian origin have found an "empty space" to fill. Also with regard to loans, an in-depth study is urgently needed for each language (as well as for those that remain excluded, primarily the Ethiopian "Tigre'"), which verifies the updating of the lists reported here and possibly expands them. We have noticed how in many cases Italian loanwords are productive and have led to the creation of new verbs and idioms: it could be interesting to deepen this aspect.

Of all the languages in the Italian empire, the one that would perhaps deserve more attention in the future is "Somali". Given the prolonged Italian presence (from before 1880 to 1960), which began with colonial rule, continued with the Italian trust administration first and then with university collaborations at the time of the regime, the Italian-Italian lexicon - especially in the technical-scientific field - is present with very recent loans, often created at the desk during the compilation of technical-scientific manuals, in the context of “Somalisation” campaigns of the specialized lexicon.

In short, there are still many traces of the Italian colonial experience in Africans and their languages.

Finally, it is important to remember that the italian language left some loanlords also in countries (not classified as "colony" because european) temporarily occupied by the kingdom of Italy, like Albania (that was united to Italy from 1939 to 1943) and Slovenia (the "Provincia di Lubiana" was a province of Italy from 1941 to 1943).

A pidgin: the simplified Italian of Ethiopia

During the entire period of Italian stay, the locals found themselves in the situation of having to communicate with the occupants in a typically colonial context. The Italian used was limited to the vehicular language of daily relations between servant and master, especially in the workplace (even if not alone. Certainly, however, the two interlocutors were always on two different levels, one subordinate to the other). This is, in fact, the typical context in which a pidgin is created.

The pidginized variety of a language is in fact formed when there is a reduced linguistic input provided by native speakers (the limited teaching of Italian to the population, in this case), when there is no shared language and the cultural and social distance between the speakers is considerable, but nevertheless there is a need to communicate. The lexical material available is re-analyzed and restructured in such a profound way that a pidgin may even no longer be understandable to the native speaker of L1 (or first used language, but this is not the case here), even if the language on which it is based it is usually easily identifiable and is defined lexicalizing language.

If a pidgin consolidates itself and is learned as a mother tongue by the new generation of speakers, then one can speak of Creole. In the case of the Horn of Africa, this seems to have happened for at least one generation, and then regressed. Judging from the literature, after having been used for a certain period even by non-Italians to communicate inter-ethnic contacts, this pidgin would seem to have disappeared today, given that it is no longer mentioned, but from other sources (like professor Andrea Tarantola) we learn that "the Italian pidgin is alive and variable in diachrony and synchrony".

Indeed it is noteworthy to pinpoint that this pidgin was very important in the capital of Ethiopia (for furter information read https://dadfeatured.blogspot.com/2018/12/italian-addis-abeba.html).

The Phonology of the simplified Italian of Ethiopia is characterized by interference from Tigrinya and Amharic, the two Semitic languages spoken respectively in southern Eritrea and central-northern Ethiopia by the majority of the population

The following are possible percentages of the 1940 use of pidgin by the native population (of course togheter with their own language) in the italian colonies of Africa:

The following are possible percentages of the 1940 use of pidgin by the native population (together with their own language) in the italian colonies of Africa. The percentages have a five percent increase or reduction value, according to historian E. Aiello:

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Colony............percentage of natives speaking Pidgin.............................only in the capital area

Eritrea................................64%................................................................95% (Asmara)

Libya..................................51%................................................................91% (Tripoli)

Somalia..............................42%................................................................84% (Mogadiscio)

Ethiopia..............................10%...............................................................26% (Addis Abeba)

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The following are excerpts from the essays written by Bruno D'Ambrosio about the italian Pidgin created in Eritrea, Somalia and Libya and that were partially published on Wikipedia:

Eritrean Pidgin Italian

Eritrean Pidgin Italian (or Italian Eritrean, as is often called) was a pidgin language used in Italian Eritrea (and until the 1970s in the Asmara region) when Eritrea was a colony of Italy.

This pidgin started to be created at the end of the 19th century and was fully developed in the 1930s. It had similarities with the Mediterranean Lingua Franca. Michael Parkvall wrote that: "Indeed Lingua Franca also seems to have affected other languages. Eritrean Pidgin Italian, for instance, displayed some remarkable similarities with it, in particular the use of Italian participles as past or perfective markers. It seems reasonable to assume that these similarities have been transmitted through Italian "foreigner talk" stereotypes" (Mikael Parkvall. "Foreword to A Glossary of Lingua Franca". Editor Alan D. Corré. Milwaukee-United States, 2005).

In 1940 nearly all the local native population of Asmara (the capital of Eritrea) spoke the Eritrean Pidgin Italian when communicating with the Italian colonists. Until the late 1970s this pidgin was still in use by some native Eritreans, but currently it is considered extinguished (even if a few old Eritreans still understand it in Asmara).

About the Italian Eritrean Habte-Mariam wrote that: “[…] at the initial stage of their contact […] It seems likely that the Italians simplified the grammar of the language they used with underlings at this stage, but they did not borrow vocabulary and grammatical forms from Amharic and Tigrinya, since it does not show up in the 'simplified Italian' used today”. Habte wrote that it was used not only between native Eritreans and Italians, but also between different tribes in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The linguists G. Gilbert & Lionel Bender called this pidgin a "Simplified Italian of Eritrea" and wrote that:
"Simplified Italian of Eritrea" is definitely a pidgin; it is described by Habte as a “relatively variable form of Italian” (1976:179). Habte’s account of its sociolinguistic setting (1976: 170-4) and what we know of recent Eritrean history make it quite clear that it is not likely to become a creole, and in fact seems likely to die out within the next generation or two.

For them the Simplified Italian of Eritrea "has basic SVO order; unmarked form is used for nonspecific; stare and ce (from Italian) as locatives".

Finally it is noteworthy to pinpoint what wrote G. Montesano in his essay "La lingua italiana in Eritrea":

"The effect of Italian colonisation: unlike England, France, Spain and Portugal, Italy‟s colonial period lasted only a brief amount of time: a little less than seven decades. The influences brought about by Italian colonisation are particularly pronounced in Eritrea, where several linguistic phenomena occurred. In some cases, Italian words were grafted onto the local Tigrigna language in order to refer to modern creations; in others, a standardised form of Italian arose out of the multitudinous dialects spoken by Italian settlers from different regions" (read for further info: https://ciccre.uvt.ro/sites/default/files/qr/qr_iii_2_giampaolo_montesanto.pdf)

Somali Pidgin Italian

The pidgin spoken in Italian Somalia was important in the capital Mogadiscio and in some minor cities (like in the Merca/Villabruzzi). For further information about "Mogadiscio italiana" read https://dadfeatured.blogspot.com/2018/05/italian-mogadishu.html.

The italian language was undertood by nearly all the native inhabitants of Mogadishu in 1941, while half of them was able to speak in Italian using the Somali Pidgin Italian.

During the United Nations Trusteeship period from 1949 until 1960, Italian along with Somali were used at an official level internally, whilst the UN's main working language of English was the language used during diplomatic, international and occasionally for economic correspondence. After 1960 independence, the Italian remained official for another nine years. Italian was later declared an official language again by the Transitional Federal Government along with English in 2004. But, in 2012, they were later removed by the establishments of the Provisional Constitution by the Federal Government of Somalia leaving Somali and Arabic as the only official languages.

Italian is a legacy of the Italian colonial period of Somalia when it was part of the Italian Empire. Italian -of course- was the mother tongue of the Italian settlers of Somalia.

The Somalian school system in the colonial era before World War II was in Italian language and limited mainly to primary schools and a few middle schools (like the "Scuola Regina Elena": see photo below, done in the late 1930s).

But in the capital Mogadishu of "Italian Somalia" there was an important high school: The "Lyceum De Bono" of Mogadishu. In this Lyceum was created in the early 1950s the "National Institute of Legal, Economic and Social Studies", https://books.google.com/books?id=DPwOsOcNy5YC&pg=PR33&lpg=PR33&dq=National+Institute+of+Legal,+Economic+and+Social+Studies+in+1954+mogadishu&source=bl&ots=mP42GvAq5x&sig=yOpgFHBoJy27ENMYV3us-68jnJ4&hl=it&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjOgafixZ_bAhUILKwKHc4RB3MQ6AEITTAF#v=onepage&q=National%20Institute%20of%20Legal%2C%20Economic%20and%20Social%20Studies%20in%201954%20mogadishu&f=false, as a post-secondary school in Italian language for pre-university studies in order to access the Italian universities.

Although it was the primary language since colonial rule, Italian continued to be used among the country's ruling elite even after 1960 independence when it continued to remain as an official language (Video showing Somalian natives talking fluently in Italian after the Somalia independence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W96tncBcItg). It is estimated that more than 200,000 native Somalis (nearly 20% of the total population of former Somalia italiana) were fluent speaking Italian and/or Somali Pidgin Italian when independence was declared in 1960.

After a military coup in 1969, all foreign entities were nationalized by Siad Barre (who spoke Italian fluently), including Mogadishu's principal university, which was renamed 'Jaamacadda Ummadda Soomaliyeed' (Somali National University). This marked the initial decline of the use of Italian in Somalia.

However, Italian is still widely spoken by the elderly, the educated, and by the governmental officials of Somalia. Prior to the Somali civil war, Mogadishu still had an Italian-language school, but was later destroyed by the conflict.

Libyan Pidgin Italian

There was an italian Pidgin in the colony of Libya, that survived until the 1980s. Libyan Italian is a name given to the Italian language used by native population in the North African nation of Libya.

Indeed Italian is a legacy of Italian colonial period when Libya was part of Italian North Africa. Of course it was the language of the Italians who settled in Libya. In 1940 Italian Libya, nearly half the native Libyans were able to speak Italian, but in Tripoli – and in downtown Benghazi - nearly all of them were fluent in the Dante language.

Although it was the primary language since colonial rule, Italian greatly declined under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi who expelled nearly all the Italian colonists population (and Italian-educated Libyans who were opposed to Gaddafi’s rule). The Libyan dictator returned Arabic to be once again the sole official language of the country.

Nevertheless, Italian is still spoken and understood to some degree by mainly some old people. After the National Transitional Council (NTC) has been responsible for the transition of the administration of the governing of Libya, returning Libyan refugees from Italy or Switzerland and their children who speak Italian introduced the language again in Libya (but only in some limited cities like the capital Tripoli).

Under the colonial regime, Italian was the language of instruction in schools, but only a scattering of Muslim children attended these institutions. As a consequence, the Italian language did not take root in Libya to the extent that French did elsewhere in North Africa. Nevertheless, the strong wave of nationalism accompanying the 1969 revolution found expression in a campaign designed to elevate the status of the Arabic language. An order was issued requiring that all street signs, shop window notices, signboards, and traffic tickets be written in Arabic. This element of Arabization reached its apogee in 1973, when a decree was passed requiring that passports of persons seeking to enter the country contain the regular personal information in Arabic, a requirement that was strictly enforced. U.S. Library of Congress: Libya

After the 1990s, practically disappeared the use of Italian language in Libya.

Language characteristics: While phonology and intonation are affected by Arabic, Libyan Italian is mostly based on the standard European form. The Italian lexicon used in Libya contains many loanwords of Arabic origin, including Islamic terms. Also, Libyan Italian can be seem to resemble the form and structure of Creole based forms of European languages.

Actually some loanwords from the Italian language have been assimilated into the Libyan Arab language, according to Saul Hoffmann. The most important are in the following list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Libyan_Arabic_words_of_Italian_origin

ITALIAN LANGUAGE INFLUENCES AND PRESENCE IN SWITZERLAND, GREECE AND MALTA

On the borders of Italy there are Italian speaking communities. The biggest -and more important historically- are in France (Nizza, Corsica and Savoia) and former Iugoslavia (actual Slovenia and Croatia), but there are also in Switzerland, Greece and Malta.Of course there are italian communities also in what is now Turkey (https://www.opiniojuris.it/medio-oriente/levantini/#_ftnref11) and in the arab mediterranean area, but are not authochtonous. The following are excerpts translated from the italian books written by Francesco Bruni (of the "Nuova Rivista di Letteratura italiana") and related to these 3 smaller communities (of Switzerland, Greece and Malta).

1919 "Irredentism" map showing Canton Ticino and Malta as italian speaking areas outside of the Kingdom of Italy. The green areas were claimed by Italian irredentists (note that Corfu in Greece was requested and added later by Fascism after 1922)

SWITZERLAND (Canton Ticino)

At the beginning of the second decade of the twentieth century, the "Canton of Ticino" was in a depressed economic situation, enjoyed little consideration within the Swiss Confederation, was devoid of political importance. Open to German economic and ethnic penetration, the canton also lacked a university and institutes of higher culture.

Although quite isolated, some intellectuals sensitive to the culture of "Voice di Prezzolini" tried to react to the decline, and in 1912 he founded a weekly, the "L'Adula". It was a sign of the times that it was directed by two women, Teresa Bontempi and Rosa Colom-bi: in 1911 the "Women's Association of Culture" was born in Bellinzona. The magazine's incidence was limited, and its intellectual profile was not very high; however, the L'Adula put in explicit terms the problem of an Italian linguistic and cultural identity that had to be strengthened, if the overall situation of the Canton was to be improved, in short, he advanced the "persevering affirmation of our Italian soul"

Until 1920, the line of the magazine was alien to irredentist tendencies; these began to manifest themselves in 1921, as a result of the Fiume enterprise, which impressed the small circle of which the magazine was an expression, or more exactly Adolfo Carmine, a Bellinzonese converted to D'Annunzio and financier of the magazine "The spirit of Fiume".

The enthusiasm for the "Impresa di Fiume" of D'Annunzio made the magazine suspicious in the Canton and in the Swiss Confederation; and the support obtained from various people strengthened their isolation of Italian intellectuals (Prezzolini, Gentile, Borgese and others): the L'Adula now appeared to be an organ subservient to a foreign power. The isolation of the magazine would increase with the adhesion to the "March on Rome" and the sympathy for Mussolini's politics, until the "unequivocal irredentist orientation" did not induce the Swiss government to close it in 1935.

Moreover, the question now went beyond the problem of a group with very little political follow-up, and invaded the fascist foreign policy with Switzerland, conducted on the double track of respecting the rules of non-interference between states and acts of interference in the Swiss Confederation.

GREECE (Ionian islands)

After the treaty of Campoformio, the Ionian islands (Corfu, Zakynthos, Ithaca, Ce-falonia, Santa Maura, Passo, Cerigo: the Eptaneso) passed from the Republic of Venice to France, which would have abandoned them in 1799. The following year, the republic of the Heptanese, independent until 1807, when it fell under French rule; in 1809-14, however, the islands were occupied by England, to which the European order deriving from the Congress of Vienna and the Treaty of Paris assigned the privilege of exercising their protectorate there. Only in 1864 did the Ionian islands join the continental kingdom of Greece politically. During the not short period of the British protectorate and a few years later, Italian (and not just Venetian) remains the language of legislation and courts, in both civil and criminal matters, although English and Greek are gradually being added to it. In short, the transition to Greek was anything but immediate, also because the change of language was concomitant with a change of jurisprudence.

It is noteworthy to pinpoint that Cefalonia was nearly all "venetian speaking" in 1797, but soon started to change its language in favor of Greek because of huge immigration from continental Greece.

In favor of the cause of Italian and Greek independence, as well as that of other oppressed nationalities, Niccolo Tommaseo invited the population of the Ionian islands to promote Greek to written and cultured customs, without thereby adopting Italophobic, linguistic or cultural attitudes; and precisely the experience, common to the Greeks no less than to the Italians, of peoples and languages deprived of strength, had to ensure the cultural friendship that, rightly, seemed desirable:

"...If the Italians were victorious and powerful, it might seem prudent to beware of them, and daring not to cure them, and excusable pride. But misfortune relieves you for them, and recommends them to you. You [Tommaseo apostrophes the Greek intellectuality of the islands that, in an effort to rebuild their cultural identity, showed signs of suffering from the long presence of the Italian] are neither so hailed nor happy enough to despise anyone. And the happy ones do not reject with impunity the covenant of misfortune and the sacred brotherhood of pain....

Like the Greeks, of the Ionian islands or of the continent, so the Italians had known long centuries of enslavement; and the common pain could, according to Tommaseo, bring together the two peoples, both strangers to spirits of conquest and dominion. The inevitable phase of linguistic nationalism that accompanies the standardization of a language later frustrated Tommaseo's hope, and in the process of time the fascist aggression against Greece certainly did not contribute to the cause of Italian; the fact is that after the Second World War the acute need to learn foreign languages, Italian tourism in Greece and, by no means negligible, the good number of Greek students enrolled in Italian universities, have brought Italian back to a good diffusion.

MALTA

In the scenario of the conflict between England and Napoleon's France, a British protectorate had established, shortly before the Ionian islands, in Malta, the island of the Knights of St. John which had been part of the Kingdom of the two Sicilies until , on 12 June 1798, Napoleon, launched in the enterprise of Egypt, had not put an end to their long domination. The French presence, however, had lasted less than three months, since the Maltese had rebelled against a "nation so opposed not only to the Christian religion, which is the prime curb of the government, but also to public tranquility" and they had asked for help from Ferdinand IV, king of the Two Sicilies. Since he had not been able to to help them adequately, "for the troubles that exist in Italy, and in his kingdom of Naples", the Maltese wrote to him on 7 February 1799 asking him, in the same message, for permission to

"...have recourse to a power allied to your Majesty, which is His British Majesty, whose team nevertheless keeps the French blocked, in order to obtain from it a special protection, and valid cooperation, in an affair of such importance..."

The king of Naples agreed and an English naval team blocked the island until the French capitulation (5 September 1800). Since then Malta passed, like the Ionian islands, under English influence. In Malta, where the mother tongue, a variety of Arabic, enjoyed less prestige than Greek in the Ionian islands, Italian had been the language of high uses for centuries and, in particular, as in the Ionian islands, it was the language of law and of the courts, therefore of lawyers and judges. It is not excessive to say that the political history of Malta and the smaller islands, first and foremost cultural, runs, for a good part of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, on the line of the conflict between an Italophile and an Anglophile party, respectively the anti-reformist party (later National Party), and the Reform Party; it is also necessary to consider the role of the Catholic religion, which together with Italian represented a cornerstone of the identity of Malta (as in the Catholic Ticino, where Germanism meant not only the influence of the German language and capital, but also the entry of a Protestant orientation).

We cannot dwell on a fascinating historical event, almost unknown in Italian studies of Italian studies, which has been reconstructed in some valuable recent treatises, and which should lead us to examine even the most ancient phases of Maltese linguistic history. In this session I will limit myself to mentioning that in an issue of "Mediterranean Magazine", an English newspaper published in Malta to be distributed also in other Mediterranean countries, we read about the intention to also publish articles in Italian, "which is the current language in the Mediterranean" . It is a testimony of 1842; and again in 1883 a captain Cooper Kirton, resident in Malta, wrote in Italian that "it is spoken over the whole of the Mediterranean", so it can be said that the language stood up for a long time, and victoriously, to the penetration of English.

In 1932, when English had by now overtaken Italian, and Maltese was also gaining prestige, it was still asserted that it was difficult to replace basic Italian law in Rome with a law in English or Maltese, although just two years later such a replacement was imposed; but now, since trilingualism is onerous, Maltese also gained space together with English. British politics also stirred the specter of irredentism, which was, in truth, very little represented in Malta; and even the fascist foreign policy pursued for a long time the end of good relations with England. Already compromised since 1934, the Italian's hardships received the decisive blow from the Second World War and from the bombings that the island suffered from the Italian air force. As in Greece, so in Malta the Italian recovered, in different conditions, after the wounds of the conflict were re-marginalized

THE DALMATIA BORDER PROBLEM BETWEEN ITALY AND CROATIA IN 1941 YUGOSLAVIA DEFEAT

The eastern border of Italy has greatly changed during the two last centuries, since 1797 when the "Repubblica di Venezia" disappeared. Indeed the Republic of Venice's Istria and Dalmatia were Italian for a few years under the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. After the Congress of Vienna in 1815 they passed under Austria and since then began the reduction (by some called "extermination") of the Italian ethnic group in these eastern regions of Italy: Italians have practically disappeared in Dalmatia, while in Istria they are reduced to a small minority! Only during the Second World War (read https://www.ilpostalista.it/pm_file/pm_122.htm) did Italy return to Dalmatia, creating the "Governorate of Dalmatia" (see the following map) between 1941 and 1943, while Istria was Italian after the First World War for about thirty years (1918-1947) even though it was actually Italian until September 1943 (or for 25 years).

Map of summer 1941 with the initial borders between the provinces of Zara/Zadar and that of Spalato/Split (which included Sebenico/Sibenik). Subsequently, the boundary between the two provinces was moved south of Sebenico to the border line established in the Treaty of London of 1915 between Italy and Yugoslavia.

During the first year of WW2 and after the military collapse of France, Fascist Italy entered into the war in the hope of a quick and painless war, which would allow the conquest of a large booty with little effort. In the summer of 1940, the armistices of France with the Axis Powers and the evident military difficulty of Great Britain, expelled from continental Europe, convinced Mussolini that the war against the main enemies was now over and that the time had come. to settle the accounts with Yugoslavia and Greece.

The historian Monzali wrote that having already given Pavelić the task of organizing the revolution in Croatia in May 1940, in July Mussolini ordered the army to prepare for the war against Yugoslavia and Greece and Ciano was ordered to speak to Hitler "about the need to dislocate Yugoslavia, typical Versagliesque creation with an anti-Italian function ». In those weeks, however, Mussolini's anti-Yugoslav projects clashed with Germany's opposition to Italian actions in the Balkans. The head of the fascist government, after thinking of a blitzkrieg against Belgrade, decided to postpone the project of attack against Yugoslavia, and then Mussolini chose to act only against Greece in October. The invasion of Greece and the Italian military crisis on the Greek front at the end of 1940 convinced many generals and Ciano himself that it was urgent to improve relations with Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav benevolence could bring important political and military advantages for Italy engaged in a difficult war against the Hellenic army: from the possibility of clearing the Italo-Yugoslav borders and concentrating all the troops on the Greek and African front, to any facilities for the transport of supplies to troops in Albania through Yugoslav territory.

In November 1940 the Italian government proposed to Belgrade to conclude a bilateral alliance treaty, an attempt to reconstitute that collaboration between the two countries that had ceased with the fall of Stojadinović in 1939. The initiative was not successful, hampered by the German hostility to any autonomous action by Italy in the Balkans and Mussolini's lack of interest. It was now Germany that dictated the directives of fascist foreign policy. During the first months of 1941, German diplomacy engaged in an intense effort to persuade Yugoslavia to enter the Germanic sphere of influence and to join the Tripartite Pact, an alliance treaty concluded between Italy, Germany and Japan in September 1940. On 25 March the government of Belgrade signed an agreement in Vienna which sanctioned Yugoslav membership of the Tripartite: the Yugoslav state committed itself to collaborate politically with the Axis but would not participate in war operations; at the time of the disintegration of Greece, Yugoslavia would have obtained control of the region of Thessaloniki. The resurgence of an aggressive Italian tendency against Yugoslavia was, as is well known, on German impulse.

The pro-English and anti-German coup against the government of the regent Paolo, which took place in Belgrade on March 27, 1941, provoked a very harsh German reaction. Despite the attempts of some members of the new Yugoslav government to convince Berlin of Belgrade's desire to keep faith with the agreements made in Vienna, Hitler decided to punish the Yugoslav "traitors" with a military expedition. The initiative was decided autonomously by the German government, without any consultation with the Italian ally. Hitler limited himself to communicating to Mussolini, on March 27, 1941, the German decision to attack Yugoslavia, asking Italy not to carry out further military operations in Albania in the following days and to strengthen its troops on the borders with the Yugoslav territories. Mussolini's response was to join the German initiative. In reality, beyond the rhetoric of the regime, the Italian participation in the invasion of Yugoslavia was characterized not only by aggressive ambitions against Belgrade, but also by the need to collaborate with Germany to prevent it from taking control of important territories for strategic interests. Italians, dangerously bringing the German presence too close to the Adriatic Sea.

On 6 April 1941 the German troops - and immediately after the Italian ones - invaded Yugoslavia, defeating it in a few days. Between 12 and 17 April the Italian armed forces occupied the main centers of Dalmatia. On April 15 the Turin division occupied Spalato/Split. Italian troops from Albania occupied Ragusa/Dubrovnik and conquered all southern Dalmatia in just 2 days. On the 18th of the same month the hostilities had already ended, with the complete victory of the Axis forces.

The political crisis and then the sudden collapse of Yugoslavia rekindled the Italian ambitions of territorial expansion in the eastern Adriatic. The disintegration of Yugoslavia - an event which, in April 1941, was considered by most to be definitive and unchangeable together with the future persistence of German hegemony on the European continent - finally gave the opportunity to reopen the Adriatic question on the territorial level and to avenge the alleged "defeat" suffered by Italy in the peace negotiations at the end of the First World War.

Starting from the end of March 1941, Palazzo Chigi began to receive memoirs and communications on the Yugoslav question from politicians of Dalmatian and Julian origin. When the war broke out, Senator Antonio Tacconi, political leader of the Italian minority in Yugoslavia, had left Spalato together with the Spalatini in possession of Italian citizenship. Arriving in Italy, Tacconi took action, in collaboration with his friends Dudan and Salata, to persuade the government of Rome to claim the annexation of Dalmatia. On April 14, Dalmatian senators aligned with fascism (Tacconi, Dudan, Salata) and some exponents of the Italian Dalmatian communities sent a telegram to Mussolini in which they declared that they were certain that "all Dalmatia would be given back to the Italians from Veglia del Carnaro to Albania".

On April 15, when the triumph of the Axis armies over the very weak Yugoslav resistance was already clear, Tacconi and Dudan prepared some memorials on certain aspects of the Dalmatic question, which Salata sent to Anfuso with the "request to submit the three notes to the Duce and to take orders for the measures to be adopted ». The first note entitled "On the extension of occupations in Dalmatia" was especially interesting, which dealt with the question of how much Dalmatian territory Italy should have occupied militarily. According to Tacconi and Dudan, "Dalmatia, in its territorial entity coinciding with the province of the Kingdom of Dalmatia already part of the nexus of the former Austrian Empire, represents a historical unit, which the various administrative subdivisions, to which it was subjected during the 23 years of Yugoslav rule, they have not been able to obliterate ». The government of Rome, therefore, had to take control of all Dalmatia up to the ridge of the Dinaric Alps.

It would have been unacceptable to occupy only a part of Dalmatia and to think of solutions such as those envisaged by the Pact of London of April 1915. The arrangement of Dalmatia conceived by the Pact of London - Italian annexation of Zara/Zadar and Sebenico/Sibenik and their hinterlands as well as various islands - met, according to Tacconi and Dudan, a strong resistance in the Slavic Dalmatians themselves «because it provided for an unnatural partition of the region. In general, even in the implementation of the Dalmatian occupations, one must disregard any easy return with the thought to the Pact of London, especially since the territory covered therein represented the minor and least important part of Dalmatia ". Nor could we renounce the occupation of important centers of inland Dalmatia such as Signa/Sinj, Imoschi/Imotski and Vergoraz/Vergorac, nor in Ragusa/Dubrovnik and Metcovich/Metković.

In those days at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs various notes were drawn up on the Dalmatic question and the Yugoslav problem in anticipation of future border negotiations with Germans and Croats. In a note on the Yugoslav question, dated 12 April and prepared by the Armistice and Peace Office of the Cabinet (Office chaired by Luca Pietromarchi, in charge of dealing with the Dalmatic question and Croatia, therefore one of the men who had to elaborate the territorial requests towards the new Croatian state), it was foreseen the future Italian annexation of Dalmatia, the creation of an independent Croatia, the partition of Slovenia between Italy and Germany, the satisfaction of the Hungarian, Bulgarian, Albanian and Romanian national claims and the reconstitution of a Serbian state, including what remained of pre-1914 Serbia plus some Bosnian territories. From the diary of Pietromarchi we know that in those days the Foreign Ministry was immersed in continuous meetings, being also the destination of visits by political and military exponents wishing to express their ideas on the question of the Yugoslav borders. Pietromarchi declared himself in favor of a program of large territorial annexations in the Adriatic, in consonance with the theses of the former nationalist and Julian-Dalmatian politicians. In his opinion, Mussolini was also convinced of the need to avoid any renounced solution:

Public opinion - wrote the diplomat in his diary on April 15 - is increasingly compact for Dalmatia. Limited importance is attached to union with the Croatian state. The Duce has realized that it is necessary to satisfy the general desire of the nation. In a note, which made me lose Anfuso, the Duce gave the instruction to consider the possibility of a large province of Zara that also includes Sebenico/Sibenik.

In April, the Berlin government also progressively defined its ideas about the future order of the territories of the former Yugoslavia. The pro-Croatian tendencies were strong in the National Socialist establishment. In particular, in the National Socialist political circles there was the desire of Rio to create a strong and vast Croatian state as a possible bulwark against Italian penetration in the Balkans and the eastern Adriatic.

The Austrian Nazi Glaise Horstenau, appointed representative of the Germanic army in Croatia, clearly stated to Hitler and the National Socialist leaders his opposition to the Italian annexation of Dalmatia. In his opinion, Croatia should have controlled the same coastal territories as Yugoslavia, giving up only the Cattaro/Boka Kotorska in favor of Italy. Hitler, who did not want to humiliate Mussolini and arouse suspicion in the Italians, chose to leave the Duce free to autonomously establish the Italian borders with Croatia, imposing, however, on Italy the most important decisions regarding the future of the former Yugoslavia. These transpired from the directives that Hitler gave to Ribbentrop regarding the future organization of the Yugoslav political space on April 6. Hitler wanted the Slovenian territories bordering Styria and Carinthia to be annexed to the German Reich, while Croatia would become an autonomous state, to be placed under Magyar influence. The northern Adriatic coastal territories, Dalmatia and Montenegro were to come under Italian control, while Bulgaria could annex Macedonia.

Hungary would have conquered the neighboring territories north of the Danube, while Serbia, without Macedonia, would have been subject to German military administration. On April 17 Ribbentrop proposed a bilateral meeting to Ciano to discuss the future of the Yugoslav territories. In Ribbentrop's letter to the Italian minister there was also the announcement of Hitler's decision to proceed with the definitive destruction of the unitary Yugoslav state and to push the borders of Germany south to encompass northern Slovenia. Ribbentrop's communication accelerated discussions within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Italian territorial claims program. An improvised Commission, made up of Pietromarchi, General De Castiglioni, the Director of European and Mediterranean Affairs for Foreign Affairs, Gino Buti, and Zenone Benini, Undersecretary for Albania, met to discuss these problems on the 16th. April 1941. The Commission's orientation in favor of a massive annexation program that would ensure Italy control of the entire eastern Adriatic coast from Rijeka to Albania and bring the latter's borders to the Vardar River. Of particular importance was the question of borders in Dalmatia.

Pietromarchi, in charge of presenting some proposals in this regard, noted in his diary on April 16: In the morning Anfuso makes me ask if he can send the Duce a memo on Dalmatia for the afternoon. I promise you. While the officers of the General Staff prepare a charter on which the boundaries of the territories will be drawn, which will be distributed to the numerous states bordering Yugoslavia, I with Prof. Randi prepare the memo on the Dalmatian question. I support the maximum thesis. I have no indication as to what the Duce's ideas may be; On the contrary, I have been reiterated on several occasions that we need to think about tomorrow and the repercussions that a totalitarian solution to this problem could have on our relations with Croatia, but I am increasingly convinced that every half measure would lead to nothing. Anyway it is not possible to ask for less than what the Government asked in 1915 when negotiations for the Pact of London began. The crux of the matter is the following: if we give ports to Croatia we reduce the others, that is, those that will remain in our possession, to the situation of Rijeka, that is, we will deprive them of all their functions, since Croatia, instead of using them, it will channel its traffic towards its ports. To avoid this jattura, there is nothing other than forcing Croatia to use Dalmatian ports and therefore either all Dalmatia comes to us or all of it passes to the Croats. There is no middle ground.

Quickly prepared the memo, Pietromarchi handed it over to Anfuso and together they went to Palazzo Venezia to confer with Mussolini on the matter on April 17. The Duce read and commented on the memo in front of the two officials. Mussolini agreed with Pietromarchi's proposals: For Slovenia [the Duce] observes - Pietromarchi reported in his diary - that a prefect will be appointed while leaving it with the widest autonomy. It will have customs and currency in common with Italy. On Dalmatia, the Duce affirms that for historical, geographical, military and economic reasons it constitutes an inseparable whole that must be annexed to Italy. The Slavs, the Duce notes, came to Dalmatia largely following the Turkish invasion. They flowed back to the Christian lands which were generous to them of hospitality. The immigration to Molise of its Slavic colonies, which still exist there, is perhaps due to the same cause. They were perhaps the extreme points of this population movement. Similar causes pushed Albanian nuclei to come to Italy and in particular to Sicily. We will give Dalmatia an autonomous regime. We could call it the "Regency of Dalmatia" or the "Illyrian Kingdom" according to the Napoleonic memory or otherwise, but it will be under the Italian flag. If we come to a personal union with Croatia, we will be able to discuss with it the regime to be given to Dalmatia. The solution, I observe, will be similar to the one that Dalmatia had under Austria. Precisely - affirms the Duce.

Mussolini then clarified that Croatia would have no outlet to the sea and that the borders of Dalmatia should have been drawn following the line of the mountain ridge: The Duce replies that he does not intend to go beyond the ridge. "Our policy - he says - has always been that of the ridges and has served us well, as in Alto Adige/South Tyrol and as it will be in the case of the Canton of Ticino".

On April 17, 1941, Mussolini sent Ciano a note on the territorial changes to be obtained in Yugoslavia in favor of Italy, to be negotiated in the next meetings with the German leaders and the Croatian representatives. This note included the incorporation of Slovenia into the Kingdom of Italy, territorial adjustments in the vicinity of Fiume/Rijeka, the annexation of the entire eastern Adriatic coast from Segna to Cattaro, the reconstitution of Montenegro as an autonomous state aggregated to Albania, the passage of Kosovo and the Yugoslav territories inhabited by Albanians to the Kingdom of Albania.

After tracing the Italian territorial claims on geographical maps, the following day Pietromarchi and Anfuso returned to Mussolini. Pietromarchi reported to the Duce the concerns of the Ministry of War about the excessive narrowness that the Italian territory south of Fiume would have had "where the Velebit ridge had been followed". For the military, it was more appropriate to have an Italian-Croatian border that would yield the internal basins to Italy and "follow the side facing the Croatian Kraina". Mussolini observed that undoubtedly the border was irrational, since it reserved for Italy a coastline just seven kilometers deep: Therefore - declared the Duce - I agree that the border at least on the part south of Segna up to the Morlacca canal must be fixed. inside. This obliges us to incorporate a Croatian zone. If the Croats need they will make an essential question to come to a union with us we can also grant them this stretch of the coast.

".... If, as seems to have been decided, we will have a very long border in common with Germany, from Mont Blanc to Idria. The weakest section of this line is the one south of Tarvisio which will need to be strengthened in depth with the utmost attention unless we devalue the positions of Brenner and Dalmatia. [...] The principle of nationality has been reappeared towards us and to limit our requests. "We return" I observed to the Minister "to the concept of peace of Versailles, while we believed we were on the level of living space, which is the negation of the nationalitarian criterion "." It is evident "he replied" that they want to apply the principle of nationality to us and to stick to Lebensraum for themselves ". [...] The German attitude of offering protection to all the small states is evident. […] It is basically the usual tactic of all the victors of weakening the ally after the war is over, thus opening an era of dangerous intrigues .... .. "

For Pietromarchi, Italy found itself faced with Germany in a position comparable to that of Piedmont before the France of Louis XIV, "but without being able to count on the support of others to balance the excessive power of its neighbor".

On the afternoon of the 21st the Italian delegation met with Ciano, and Pietromarchi reminded the minister of the existence of the exchange of letters with Ribbentrop in March 1939, which had guaranteed Italy a free hand in Croatia. Ciano had the letters brought, read them carefully and sent the Italian ambassador to Berlin, Alfieri, to Ribbentrop to remind him of the commitments he had made. On the evening of 21 Ribbentrop was received by Hitler to discuss the Yugoslav problems. The next day, the German foreign minister met again with Ciano and reported the Führer's directives60. As for Croatia, Hitler had already established the Croatian-Germanic borders and foresaw the temporary stay of German troops in northern Croatia. Germany confirmed its political lack of interest in Croatia: the Duce could decide autonomously, or in talks with the Croats, the borders with Croatia. According to Hitler, however, the German state had great economic interests in Croatia and in the former Yugoslavia, a crucial region as a source of raw materials. These interests were to be secured through the restitution of the former German territories to the Reich and through the control of the chromium and lead mines in Macedonia and Mitrovica. Ribbentrop expressed a strong interest in ensuring that Germany would be guaranteed a safe use of the bauxite mines in Dalmatia. Regarding the other border problems (Montenegro, Croatia, Dalmatia, etc.), the German government promised a political disinterest in favor of Italy. Ciano reiterated that, in the name of historical, political and military reasons, and to guarantee Italy its Lebensraum, all of Dalmatia had to be annexed to the Italian state. However, he would have talked about these issues with Pavelić. The talks concluded with the understanding that the Rome government would provide formal assurances to Berlin regarding the protection of Germanic economic interests in the territories that would be annexed by Italy.

Pavelić tried to buy time and extend the negotiations with Italy on the borders to delay the cession of the Dalmatian territories and Kvarner. The Croatian government had the idea of offering the crown of the reborn Croatian state to an Italian prince in order to avoid or reduce territorial transfers in favor of Rome. Within the Italian ruling class there were two orientations regarding the Adriatic territorial structure and future relations with Croatia. Most of the Italian politicians, diplomats and military men wanted the definitive overcoming of the borders established after the First World War, a consequence of the alleged "mutilated victory". Often men who had fought in the Great War believed that Italy should secure undisputed and absolute dominion over the eastern Adriatic: hence the request for the annexation of the entire eastern Adriatic coast from Fiume to Albania, or, at least, of large part of Dalmatia. Not everyone, however, within the Italian ruling class and diplomacy agreed on the need for large territorial annexations in the Adriatic.

Some diplomats and state officials, more realistic, declared themselves in favor of a moderate and renounced policy on the territorial level, which would allow Italy to present itself as a friendly and protective power of the Croats and guarantee the inclusion of all Croatia in the area of influence. Italian economy. The Italian consul in Susak, Americo Gigli, wrote a report to Ciano inviting the government to a realistic and moderate policy towards Croatia. Through the ploy of referring the objections advanced by some Croatians, "with a certain objectivity of reasoning", to the Italian territorial aspirations in the Fiume/Rijeka hinterland and in Dalmatia, Gigli advised a moderate and far-sighted policy towards the Croats:

"........ Italy's distant political interest should lead it to impose a minimum of territorial sacrifices on the new state, in order to definitively become the spiritual godmother of the same, especially since the new leaders of this state have been placed in able to become such only from the complacent hospitality and the wide ten-year support of Italy. Not only that, but the political long-suffering of Italy [...] should and could be used by her as a good currency of exchange to ensure itself, in the form the broader economic scope to which it aspires is more substantial, even if less apparent; otherwise its legitimate selfish assumptions would fall. a large emporium. It is not by annexing a few thousand square kilometers of more territory that Italy will see the problem of certain of its supplies resolved and even less its plan of economic expansion in areas with an economy substantially complementary to its ....... "

In Gigli's opinion, by renouncing vast territorial conquests in Croatia, Italy could become the Protecting Power of the Croats thus managing to impose on them an extremely advantageous economic union for the Italian state. Italy could solve the problem of supplying certain products only by including all Croatian territories in its economic sphere, "through technical measures that could lead to a complete customs and perhaps even monetary union: This is a really concrete result, which, in order to be based on certain foundations, should presuppose a sure continuity of political influence. And such an influence would arise under the best auspices if, in addition to and more than on the close ties that unite the Heads of the new State to Italy, it rested, let's not say on the gratitude of the masses, but on the absence of reasons for friction so pregnant as a consequence for the future as well as that of the irrepressible irredentism of too many hundreds of thousands of new Italian citizens. That economic complementarity would act then, and only then, with political obstacles removed, a solid cement and a sure guarantee for the future."

Ideas similar to those of Gigli supported Carlo Galli, a former Italian minister in Yugoslavia. According to Galli, rather than annexing Dalmatia to Italy it would have been wise to create an autonomous Dalmatian state, which would have enhanced the cultural specificity of the local population by strengthening the influence of Italy, which would have been protected with economic and political agreements. It was also important not to humiliate Croatia, avoiding offensive forms of interference for national pride and aiming to strengthen Italian influence through slow economic and cultural collaboration, facilitated by a future customs and monetary union.

Returning to Rome from Vienna, Ciano tried to speed up the conclusion of a border agreement with Croatia. A future meeting was established in Ljubljana between the Italian minister and Pavelić for April 25th. Gino Buti was charged with preparing a draft agreement that envisaged close political, economic and military collaboration between the two countries. He gave up on the idea of personal union because, since Pavelić had become the supreme head of Croatia, "one should not ask him to renounce his office. " For the text of the draft agreement, the protection treaty that Germany had concluded with Slovakia in 1939 was taken as a model, replacing the word "protection" with "guarantee". Mussolini "softened" the draft agreement with Croatia, reducing, for example, the duration of the alliance from fifty to twenty-five years. On the morning of the 24th Ciano consulted with some generals and admirals to decide the negotiating basis for negotiations with the Croats. There was the hope of overcoming the opposition of the Croatians by promising them an outlet to the sea and between Fiume/Rijeka and the Morlacca canal. Two solutions were therefore prepared: "a territorially integral one from Fiume to Cattaro, one limited to historical Dalmatia".

Meanwhile Ciano asked the Berlin government to clearly communicate to the Croats that Germany supported the Italian territorial claims and would accept the results of the Italian-Croatian bilateral talks. The Italian pressures clashed with the Germanic reluctance to intervene directly in the dispute between Rome and Zagreb. Ribbentrop reiterated Germany's political disinterest in the Croatian question, but limited himself to sending a bland communication to Zagreb confirming Berlin's interest in a quick conclusion of the Italian-Croatian negotiations.

On 25 April, in Lubiana/Ljubljana occupied by the Italian army - in a city that did not appear hostile to the new occupying power to the Italian diplomats (and also had many inhabitants supporting the union to Italy), the Slovenian terror was so strong for the possible arrival of the Germans, who in those days were inflicting ruthless treatment on populations of northern Slovenia, made up of "looting, robbery, killings" - the meeting between Ciano and Pavelić took place.

The Foreign Minister presented the Italian territorial requests, centered on the request for the annexation of the entire eastern Adriatic coast from Fiume/Rijeka to Cattaro/Kotor. Pavelić replied to Ciano that the application of these requests would have had the consequence of "having him kicked out of the government". He made some counter-proposals, aimed at reducing the annexations of Italy in exchange for the signing of the treaty of alliance: Dalmatia of the Pact of London, plus Traù/Trogir, to Italy, while Split and Ragusa with various islands would be due stay in Croatia. He accepted the alliance pact and was ready to consider "the possibility of a personal union or a monarchy with a Savoyard Prince". Pavelić's proposals aroused the opposition of the military accompanying Ciano, rather inclined, however, to find a moderate compromise solution. Poglavnik asked for a few days of reflection and agreed with Ciano to meet again later to close the border issue.

Back in Rome, Ciano had an interview with Mussolini on April 26, to whom he referred Pavelić's proposals. Faced with Croatian pressure and resistance, Mussolini informed Ciano that he had changed his mind and was willing to make concessions to Pavelić. Ciano noted in his Diary that "Mussolini - except for Split - agrees with Pavelić, and rightly believes it is more useful to attract Croatia into our political orbit than to take a little more land populated by hostile Croats". He influenced this evolution of the positions of the government of Rome by the observation of the German coldness in supporting the Italian claims.

The supporters of the need not to give up even a centimeter of coastline in Dalmatia were strong and organized in the Senate, where the Adriatic senators Dudan, Tacconi and Salata acted. When Dudan learned of the change in directives in the pro-Croatian sense decided by the head of government, he had a very harsh and angry reaction, which prompted him to send Mussolini a note, dated May 4, 1941.

Dudan proclaimed himself hostile to any territorial renunciation in Dalmatia. According to the Dalmatian senator, «on the day that the annexation of Ljubljana to Italy is proclaimed as an" ethnically compact Slovenian "no one can think of the renunciation not of Split or Ragusa, but not even of an inner Dalmatian village which [... ] had for centuries the provincial and municipal administrations uninterruptedly entirely Italian ». Germany, Russia, Bulgaria and Hungary were taking all the territories they wanted, while Croatia itself annexed the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Hitler had given Italy carte blanche in delimiting the Adriatic border: how could the slightest renunciation be justified, "if we put the cross on Orlando, Nitti and Giolitti, who had allies and not allies against them?". In the end, the protests and invocations of Dudan, some politicians and militaria in favor of the Italian annexation of all Dalmatia had little effect. Mussolini put an end to the pro-Dalmatian agitation and decided to continue on the path of territorial compromise with Ustascia Croatia.

The Italian requests to create a customs union and annex Spalato/Split were unacceptable to the Zagreb government. According to the Croatian representative in Berlin, Benzon, the customs union would have resulted in the suffocation of the independence of Croatia. On May 5 Pavelić made a new appeal to Mussolini, asking him, taking into account the future political closeness between Italy and Croatia sanctioned by the choice of a Savoy as sovereign, the Italian renunciation of Spalato and a future personal interview. Mussolini decided to accept the idea of a meeting, but made it known that Italian sovereignty over Spalato was a fact that could not be discussed. On May 7, 1941, the meeting between Mussolini, Ciano and Pavelić took place at the Monfalcone railway station. During the conversations, the Croatian delegation managed to convince Mussolini to give up the customs union project between Italy and Croatia, despite Ciano's insistence on the importance of its realization, and to obtain some small border improvements. The renunciation of the customs union was explained by Pietromarchi with Mussolini's primary interest in ensuring a propaganda success for Fascist Italy with the annexation of the city of Spalato. In Monfalcone, at the end of the talks, Pavelić and Mussolini signed a document describing the future Italian-Croatian borders:

The Croatian government accepted the cession of Split to Italy and in exchange Mussolini gave up total control of the entire Dalmatian coast. The signed document in fact provided that with regard to Dalmatia, Italy would annex: the islands of Veglia/Krk and Arbe/Rab and all the neighboring islets, as well as all the islands in front of Zara the hinterland of Zadar, the cities of Sebenico/Šibenik and Trau/Trogir and their hinterlands; the islands of Tirona, Solta, Lissa/Vis, Biševo, S. Andrea, Pomo and other smaller ones; the city of Spalato/Split including the suburbs; the islands around Melàda; the district including the Cattaro/Boka Kotorska. Italy, on the other hand, gave up Hvar/Hvar, Brazza/Brac, Ragusa and all of central Dalmatia south of Spalato, territories left to independent Croatia. To sweeten the pill for the Ustascia friends, the future conclusion of conventions was foreseen that would guarantee a regime of autonomy and protection of Croatian rights in Spalato/Split.

ITALIAN TIENTSIN IN CHINA

Tianjin 1901-1945. The Significance of the Italian Experience, by Maurizio Marinelli

The production of Italianità (Italianness) in the Chinese space

Since the acquisition of the concession in 1901, every unilateral practice of territoriality to assert and enforce control over this geographical area was seen as legitimate.

Ambassador Giovanni Gallina, after signing the concession’s agreement with the Director of the Chinese Maritime Customs Tang Shaoyi, proudly justified the immediate expropriation of the ‘filthy Chinese village’, arguing that all the other powers proceeded to the land expropriation as soon as they occupiethe area of their concession.8 Therefore, after the annihilation of the uncanny Chinese site (1902-04) and the reclamation of the wetlands (1905-06), the Italian colonial government firmly appropriated and thoroughly reinvented the space under its control by approving the new regulatory building code, the police code, and the code of hygiene in 1908.

Despite a slow and uncertain start, the Italian concession in Tianjin became the testing ground of a full-scale pedagogical project of modernity through a radical re-designing of the Chinese space. The enhancing of Italian-style architecture in the Italian concession contributed to generate a collective political and emotional capital which had two fundamental functions: to sustain the Italian government’s claim to legitimise the newly constructed national identity of the recently unified Italian Kingdom (1861-1946), and to gain the international recognition of Italy as a legitimate imperial power on the same level of the other imperialistic nations.

Significantly, Chinese historians Shan Keqiang and Liu Haiyan have emphasized that, from an administrative, juridical, police, and fiscal perspective, the =concessions were ‘states within the state’ (guo zhong zhi guo). Zhang Hongxiang has denounced foreign powers for land expropriation and forced removal of thousands of former residents without compensation. Official documents reveal how officials emphasized that, in the middle of the wars, Tianjin residents suffered immensely, to the extent that their “family businesses were swept away (jiayedangran)”; therefore the officials asked the “civilized countries” (wenmingguo) to avoid the “extreme sacrifice of their land (xishengzhidi).

The Italians, as well as others are accused of having appropriated public land, ontravening the treaties; an entire cemetery was removed and graves destroyed for reasons of public sanitation. There was a specific case of land expropriation, where the salt mines were located (115 mu), and promises of full compensation to the merchants were not kept.

However, for the newly unified Italian nation, the acquisition of the concession became a unique opportunity to affirm Italianità (Italianness) on a global geo-political scale: it represented the long-awaited historical nemesis, after the repeated failures, which had characterized both Italian colonial policy in Africa and diplomatic relations between Italy and China from the 1866 bilateral Treaty onwards.

On 1st March 1896, Italian troops had suffered a devastating defeat in the climactic battle of the first Italo-Ethiopian war, which was fought near Adwa, against Ethiopia’s Negus Menelik II. This defeat triggered the resignation of Prime Minister Francesco Crispi and the fall of his second Government (March 10, 1896), amidst a profound disenchantment with “foreign adventures.”

In the spring of 1899, an Italian attempt to extract from the Chinese government an official recognition of Sanmen Bay (in present day Zhejiang province) as a naval station and Italian zone of influence miserably failed. Veteran Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti (at the helm of the Kingdom’s cabinet five times between 1892 and 1921), referring specifically to the Italian experience in China, defined the unsuccessful attempt with Sanmen Bay as “a waste of a few million (lire) and a national humiliation.” The refusal by the Chinese government to accept the 1899 Italian request – eventually presented in the untenable form of an ultimatum –, was a serious setback for the imagined community of the newly created Italian nation.

Even more so since this rebuff occurred at a historical juncture when all other major powers (Great Britain, France, Germany, but also Japan and Russia) were obtaining concessions and settlements in strategically important locations for their political presence and economic penetration in the Chinese territory. The wound was rendered all the more painful by Britain’s refusal to support the Italian ultimatum in 1899, thus revealing that other foreign powers were not keen for Italy to be part of the ‘scramble for concessions’ and exert its influence in China. Cicchiti-Suriani, writing in 1951 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the acquisition of the concession, pointed out that ‘After the unfortunate prelude of Sanmen, that gesture represented the epilogue of the 1900 international events’.

There is no unanimous consent in the sources concerning the Chinese population living in the area at the time of the transfer: 13,704 according to the 1902 census, around 17,000 people according to Fileti’s report, and 16,500 according Arnaldo Cicchiti-Suriani. It is important to notice, however, the significant reduction since the 1922 census reports 4,025 Chinese citizens, 62 Italians, and 42 from other nationalities were living in the concession at the time. In 1935 the total estimated population was 6,261, of which 5,725 Chinese and 536 foreigners including 392 Italians, but Gennaro Pistolese argues instead that the Italians were ‘about 150 people’. F.C. Jones, in the few lines dedicated to the Italian concession, says: ‘The population in 1937 was 373 foreigners and some 6,500 Chinese’. Judging from these figures, one can deduct two factors: a significant decrease of the overall population living in the Italian concession from 16-17,000 (1902) to 4-6,000 (1922-1935) and a predominance of Chinese citizens. Nevertheless, an in-depth analysis of the Italian sources unmasks the tendency to obscure the presence of Chinese citizens in the concession, relegating them to the role of subalterns.

This tendency reached its climax in 1935, when Pistolese affirmed: ‘Our concession has a demographic consistency superior to the other concessions in Tien-Tsin’, and he reports the data of the Japanese concession (5,000 people), British (2,000), and French (1,450). This mystification contributed to the fascist regime’s construction of a self-reflexive and self-congratulatory image, based on cultural reproduction: the successful infrastructural projects that beautified the area were indicative of the outstanding success of the Italian spiritual and civilizing mission in this ‘faraway extension’ of the motherland. Therefore, the Italian concession became a transposed miniature representation of the alleged success of the Italian nation.

The operative mechanisms of spatial territoriality and cultural reproduction revealed an intrinsic character of ethnic displacement and class exclusivity: in Tianjin the Italian planners reinforced the separation between the foreigners and the indigenous residents, unless the Chinese were able to live up to the foreigners’ status and contribute to the ‘aristocratic’ flavour instilled on the concession’s built form.

The outcome was a miniature venue of Italianità, as demonstrated by the replica of Italian-style architecture both on the two main squares (Piazza Regina Elena and Piazza Dante) and the main roads (Via Roma, Via Principe D’Udine, Via Matteo Ricci, Corso Vittorio Emanuele III). The christening of the other space and its occupation with neo-renaissance and romanesque Italian villas, was the unique Italian response to the challenge of finding a collective unified identitary form, both in terms of national culture and national identity, visà-vis the other European great powers operating in Tianjin.

Each foreign concession developed its residential area for the expatriates of the colonial power (and for wealthy Chinese citizens) using building styles that were reflecting, reproducing and imposing the stylistic traditions of each individual country. The Italian area’s architecture was dominated by the neo-renaissance style and became known as ‘the aristocratic concession’. Cultural reproduction contributed to the emergence of hagiographic representations. Imagining an entity like the ‘modern’ Italian nation and projecting it onto China, through the construction of the Italian ‘neighborhood’ in Tianjin, was a way of building a positive story up around the Italian citizens and, intentionally, beyond: this took the form of a master narrative of benign colonialism, where the colonial agentsbecame the positive characters of a specific national success story.

The Italian concession in Tianjin had the characteristics of a hybrid community, with foreign and Chinese citizens living in a small area de iure defined as a permanent foreign possession but de facto dwelling on the Chinese soil. Yet it was a community ‘imagined’ according to a specific scheme of projective self-perception, and therefore represented as a ‘neighborhood’ bridging multiple worlds: Italy and China, but even more so, Italy and the other foreign powers operating in Tianjin.

Narratives and Counter-narratives of the Italian Imperial Dream

The craftsman of the Italian concession was Vincenzo Fileti, who was the Consul General of the concession between 1909 and 1919 and the key promoter of its development and transformation into the so-called ‘aristocratic concession’.29 In his 1921 report, Fileti portrays the Chinese people as unwilling to abandon their rigid obstinacy, insensitive to any western innovation, and even ignorant and superstitious; since they belonged to ‘a closed civilisation jealous of its own ideology which they consider much superior to the western one’. The colonial agent’s lexicon contributes to building the collective political and emotional capital necessary to deconstruct the alleged Chinese superiority complex and proclaim instead the superiority of his own civilisation.

This is the sine qua non used to justify Fileti’s agenda and his vision of China as ‘a virgin land’ ready for exploitation:

Today the European and American capitals, and for the most part Italian labour, have succeeded in building there about 3,500 miles of railways, a very small amount considering the total surface of China … It is therefore a vast virgin land for economic exploitation that can be opened to human activity and the effort to overcome the difficulties is well justified … all the nations that feel strength, due to their commercial and industrial development, have always looked with active and growing interest to the vast and virgin Chinese market and seized every favourable opportunity to breach the wall enclosing such a treasure, to avoid being second or overpowered in the exploitation of that vast new market.31 The idea of catching up and accelerating the process of conquest and exploitation –to compensate for Italy’s late arrival on the globalimperialistic arena– is a constant leitmotiv in Italian colonial literature.

However, the Italian ‘imagined community’ in Tianjin capitalized on the rhetoric trope of the ‘civilizing mission’ attributed to the newly created Italian nation. The Italian colonial experience in Africa, especially in the 1890s, was characterized by a strong emphasis on Italy’s “proletarian” colonialism, which was allegedly less pernicious than the others since it would have been ‘aimed to secure better land and greater prosperity forits indigenous citizens’.

At the same time, Italy almost seemed to have a duty to implement a precise pedagogical design of ‘modernity’, transforming the natives into European-style consumers: in fact lieutenant Gustavo Bianchi describes the natives in Ethiopia as ‘eager to possess weapons, objects, trifles and instruments that belong to Europeans’, but since ‘they cannot understand things that they only hear about’, he argues that the Italians should teach them how to dress, how to build their houses, how to farm their land, in other words, how to desire and acquire consumption tastes similar to the ‘civilised’ European people.

In the Chinese context, the mandate to extend the Italian culture is used to legitimise the use of the concession to promote the mercantile expansion. Italians officials and intellectuals alike often capitalize on the rhetoric trope of a ong-standing friendship between Italy and China, which goes back to the celebrated cross-cultural intermediation of Venetian traveller Marco Polo (1254–1324), and even more Jesuit Father Matteo Ricci (1552–1610).

On 26 April 1927 Professor Ugo Bassi, in a lecture given at the Fascist University of Bologna, celebrates the contributions of the two illustrious Italians and concludes: ‘Our magnificent Italian progeny has offered to the whole world vast continents and new knowledge, affirming herself always and in every field, first among all the others.’

Fileti’s 1921 accurate description of the Italian concession area is less high-sounding and more pragmatic, but he also reveals revealing the juxtaposition of external and internal space. The external space is also imbued with quantitative elements. These allude to the various possibilities of economic exploitation, with regard to the vastness of the indigenous territory, and in comparison with other foreign powers. The internal space is tinged with emotions such as pride, greed, and arrogance, which became even more prominent with the transition from the liberal state to the fascist regime.

As Ugo Bassi emphasizes: ‘Even Italy, the most civilized and famous people throughout Europe was tempted by the same propulsion of greed, which was a characteristic of other nations’.

However, Bassi also reiterates the mantra of Italian benign colonialism: ‘The Italians proud as usual of the humanist tradition of their motherland and the Roman civilisation brought to the indigenous people, where they could, aid and rescue’. The alleged magnanimous behaviour of the Italian ‘liberators’ is contradicted by the first-hand account of Medical Lieutenant Giuseppe Messerotti Benvenuti.

In fifty-eight letters and 400 photographs to his mother (taken between September 1900 and September 1901) he documented the relations between the different military troops, mentioning the killing, the looting and other atrocious excesses, and in the end he sadly concluded:
"If our soldiers did less harm than the other armies it is due to the fact that, even though they (the Italians) always went everywhere, they always got there late, when the villages had already been burned and plundered. The few times they arrived on time, they behaved like the others."

But the Italian colonial literature prefers to embrace and firmly uphold Fileti’s argument that Italy could not miss the opportunity to mark off China ‘as an actor and observer in that world where probably new global destinies were developing.’Fileti’s hagiographic description contributes to construct the metanarrative41 of salvation of the Chinese space, and allegedly the Chinese people, from poverty and indigence.

In 1936, in line with the fascist dream of Empire-building, engineer Rinaldo Luigi Borgnino wrote an enthusiastic article, arguing against the possibility of ceding the territory back to China. The alleged legitimacy of keeping the concession was based on the highly civilizing motivations demonstrated by the Italians, as revealed by the progressive ‘evolution’ of that ‘small territory.’

Before the Italian intervention the area was ‘miserable’, ‘noxious’, ‘desolated’ and ‘sad’. After the Italian acquisition, the area had become a stage display of Italianness: a model of modernity and hygiene. With a clear self-congratulatory tone Borgnino boasted that among the most impressive achievements there were advanced civil engineering and infrastructural projects, such as wide roads, elegant buildings, a modern hospital, electricity and potable water in all the houses, an advanced sewage system, and public landscaping.

A local British newspaper, mentioned by Borgnino, defined the Italian concession as ‘the most pleasant residential neighbourhood among all the concessions’. The representation of the concession as a ‘neighbourhood’ of exquisite Italianness became a recurrent colonial rhetorical trope, indicating pride in the motherland. This reached its climax with military general Cesare Cesari’s 1937 description:

By 1943, however, the concession had a garrison of circa 600 Italian troops and not many civilians were left. On 10 September 1943 it was occupied by Japan, since Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic relinquished the concession to the Japanese-sponsored Chinese National Government (which was neither recognized by the Kingdom of Italy, nor by the Republic of China). On 10 February 1947 the concession was formally ceded back to China by post-war Italy.

VLACHS IN GREECE OCCUPIED BY ITALY (1941-1943)

Last January 2020 I posted https://researchomnia.blogspot.com/2020/01/auton.html about the autonomy of the Pindus Principate during WW2. As a follow up, I post this month of September 2021 this detailed research: the following is an interesting essay written by Arben Llalla about the Vlachs and nazi-fascism during WW2

Flag (proposed) of the "Principality of Pindus" during WW2

The collaboration of Vlachs with Nazi-fascists (The Declaration of Autonomy of the Principality of Pindus)

During the First World War in 1917, the Italian Army put forth the idea for the establishment of the "Principality of Pindus" based in Mecova in order to gain support in Greece. The head of that project was chosen the Prince Alcibiades Diamandi, a Samarina Vlach of Thessaly, a lawyer by profession. During WWI the project did not find broad support from the Pindus Vlach population. Prince Alcibiades Diamandi left Greece after the end of WWI and moved to Romania.

During World War II, the Greek Army, led usually by senior officers of Vlach origin, surrendered to the German & Italian Army. On 20 April 1941, on Easter Sunday, the Vlach General of Greek Corp-Army I Panagiotis Demestichas, the General of the Corp-Army II Georgios Bake, the Metropolitan of Ioannina Spyridon who was a Vlach from Pogonia, signed the surrender and cooperation of the Greek Epirus Army with the German Army and later with the Italian Army (The Metropolitan of Ioannina, Spyridon, was a bigoted anti-Albanian. He was the Minister of interior in the government of Northern Autonomy of Epirus in 1914. The Metropolitan of Ioannina, Spyridon, served as the Archbishop of Greece in 1949-1956. The people knew him by the name of Spyridon Vlachos, but his real surname was Sito). After surrendering the Greek Army of Epirus and of Greek Macedonia, the Greek generals with Vlach origin gained privileges of ministerial-levels during the greek collaborationist goverments governments of 1941-1944.

On 29 April 1941, the Chief of Staff of the German Army High Command Alfred Jodl and General Alberto Ferrero, Chief of Staff of the Italian Army in Albania, appointed Greek Prime Minister Georgios Tsolakoglou, who had a Vlach origin. After being assigned as Prime Minister, Georgios Tsolakoglou appointed General Panagiotis Demestichas, who was a Vlach, as Interior Minister and another top military officer, Theodore Saranti, a Vlach, as Mayor of Trikala. Colonel Theodhosiso Papadheothosiu, who was another Vlach, was elected as Mayor of Larissa-Volos. Vlachs already led Greece and that reality helped them to declare the independence of the "Principality of Pindus".

In May 1941, Alcibiades Diamandi returned to Greece, went to Ioannina and conducted meetings with Vlachs there. In the summer of that year, Diamandi began a tour across the Vlach settlements, such as in Samarina, Grevena, Larisa, Trikala, Elassona and in many other villages, conducting over 50 meetings in those areas with Vlach graduates in Italian and Romanian schools. During those meetings with the Vlachs of Pindus, Diamandi opened the offices of the Autonomy of the Principality of Pindus in Meçova, Ioannina, Grevena, etc.

On 25 September 1941, Alcibiades Diamandi sent a memorandum to the the first collaborationist Prime Minister Georgios Tsolakoglou, as a representative of the Vlachs of Pindus and of the South Balkan Vlachs. The memorandum of Diamandi initially contained few requirements: a) The appointment of prefects, mayors and local leaders, would be done by him. b) The dismissal of permanent employees and the transfer of those who are not in favor of that movement. c) To compensate the injured individuals during the Italian-Greek war and Vlachs who had offered animals, fur and other items for the care of the soldiers. d) To punish those who during the Greek-Italian war had transfered rumanozondes with anti-national behavior.

In autumn 1941, the Prince of Pindus Diamandi moved to Larissa and -with the support of Italians who controlled that territory- founded the Roman Legions Army. The commandant of those Vlach troops was appointed Nikolaos Matusi who was born in Samaria and lived in Larissa. The number of Vlachs who wore the uniform of the Roma nLegions was about 2000.

The Vlach military troops operated jointly with the Italian Army, which was commanded by the Italian General Romero, in places such as Trikala, Elassona, Samarina, Grevena, Metsovo, Kalabak, Larissa, Farce, etc. They partially terrorized the population, robbed some of their food and possessions. The Vlach Roman Legions were attacked by the partisan troops of ELAS several times. On 1 March 1942, the Vlachs intellectuals of Greece and representatives of the Vlachs in Albania, Bulgaria and Serbia, signed the "Manifesto of the South Balkan Vlachs".

At the top of the list of the signatories of that Manifesto of Vlachs was the chairman of the Vlachs of the Southern Balkans Alcibiades Diamandi, the chairman of the Vlachs of the Pindus Nikolaos Matusi, chairman of the Vlachs in Albania VasiliVarnduli, of Serbia Micelle Tegojani, of Bulgaria Ziko Area. The Vlach intellectuals of Greece who signed that Manifesto were: professor Dimo Cutra, doctor Kosta Taxon, lawyer Georgio Franko, professor A. Beka, Gaqi Papa, doctor Niko Micibuna, professor Dim Kaxhigogo, lawyer Kalometro, Colonel Vasilis Jorgos, professor Kosta Nikolesko, professor Jorgo Kondojani, K. Kaloera, professor Virxhilio Balamace, professor MiceleBarnd, engineer E. Goxhamani, engineer K. Stefa, engineer Niko A. Beka, professorJorgo Balamate, engineer S. Peleqi, lawyer K. Pituli, lawyer Dim Barnda, lawyerToli Haxhi, John Kopano, professor Zisi Haxhibira, doctor Serxhio Triandafili, JaniMercos, Pericles Piteni, Jorgo Gjuleka, Akille Taqi Furkoti, Athanasius Balodhimo. As it can be seen, the names who signed the manifesto of the Vlachs are intellectual figures of Greece, not ordinary people, workers, farmers, but well educated people who were well aware of what they signed. After the war, most of them were not severely punished or expelled from Greece as it happened with the Cham Moslem albanian population, under the pretext that they were allegedly Germans collaborationists. Today, their children or grandchildren are MPs, ministers, mayors, senior officials of the state institutions of Greece.

In late 1943, after it became obvious that the German-Italian Axis power were losing the war, the leaders of the Vlach legions and the majority of its members abandoned their uniforms and joined the troops of Napoleon Zervas. The Prince of Pindus Alcibiades Diamandi left Greece and moved to Romania. Once the communists seized power there, he was arrested in 1948 and died a few months after his arrest in the basement of the Interior Ministry in Romania.

The Prime Minister of the Principality of Pindus and the commander in chief of the armed forces of the Roman Legions, Nikolaos Matusi, fled Larisa after the capitulation of the fascist Italy in September 1943 and went to Athens where he collaborated with the German Army. He fled to Romania after the liberation of Greece in October 1944. There, the Romanian communist police imprisoned him as a collaborator of the German Army. At the request of Greece in 1964, he was transferred back to continue his sentence. At the Court held in Athens in May 1964, the senior leader of EDES for Athens, Apostoli Papageorge, and the political leader, Apostol Paguco, were called to witness about Nikolaos Matusi. Only Papaegeorge gave evidence in the court as witness. In Greece, Nikolaos Matusi enjoyed privileges up to the level of carrying aweapon with permission. In spite of the fact that he was a collaborator of the Italian and German Armies, the Greek courts never condemned him. His daughter, Ksenia Matusiwas, was one of the most renowned painters in Greece and enjoyed privileges despite of her father being a collaborator of the Italian and German Armies during World War II. Nikolaos Matusi died in 1991 in Larissa.

The Vlach population of the Pindus, although officially documented as collaborators of the Italian and German Armies, was not expelled from Greece. In the contrary, it took over the leadership of the country and participated directly in the massacres of the Albanian population in Chameria. The Vlachs of Pindus, together with the orthodox refugees from Asia Minor, were the ones who plundered and exploited the properties of Chams.The historian and journalist Dhimosthenis Kukunas, who has published several books and two volumes about the events in occupied Greece 1941-1944, brings the names of 83 Vlachs who signed the Manifesto of March 1942 and who were part of the Roman Legions; in fact, their number as aforementioned was larger. What sounds the bell is the fact that the children and grandchildren of the majority of the Vlach collaborators with the Italian and German Armies have enjoyed privileges. They have been or are MPs and historians who propagate against Albania for years.

So, Vlachs were not persecuted or expelled from Greece under the charge of being collaborationists of the Italian and German Armies. The untrue charge applied only to Cham Albanians was deliberately used to justify the expulsion of 25000 moslem albanians (Chams) from Greece to Albania.

The research proved that the children or grandchildren of Vlachs who collaborated with the Italian and German Armies and who enjoyed privileges are the following:

Joan Nikolaos Mercos, born in Nimfeo of Florina. The residents of that village are Vlachs and some of them had come from Voskopoja. He was the signatory of the Manifesto of Autonomy of the Principality of Pindus. After the cooperation with the Italian Army in Larissa, in 1942, Joan moved to Thessaloniki with his family and began to collaborate with the German Army. After the war he was sentenced to 11 years to prison. His son Nikolaos Joan Mercos was born in 1936 in Nimfeo of Florina. He now is a lawyer, writer and has published over 15 books. Nikolaos Mercos, the son of the Italian and German collaborationist, was the national adviser for Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis in 1990-1993. Nikolaos Mercos also assisted closely the former President and former Prime Minister of Greece Constantine Karamanlis. Nikolaos Mercos is an honored figure of the Greek state. Nikolaos Mercos belongs to the anti-Albanian group that promotes the annexation of southern Albania and is a friend of the Archbishop of the Orthodox Church of Albania, Anastasios.The MP of Greece Konstantinos Gioulekas of the New Democracy party is a relative of Georgios Gioulekas, a Vlach from Samara. Georgios Gioulekas was a signatory of the Manifesto for the Autonomy of the Vlachs of Pindus in March 1942. He was member of the Vlach Roman Legions and a collaborationist with the Italian and German Armies in 1941-1944. The fate of Georgios Gioulekas is unknown, but the MP Konstantinos Gioulekas derives from the same family. The Vlach Konstantinos Gioulekas is a lawyer and has worked as a journalist for several years in the city of Thessaloniki. Since 2000, he is MP of the New Democracy Party in the Greek Parliament and has been assigned deputy-minister several times.

Within the Ottoman Empire, Vlachs had more rights than Albanians. They had primary and secondary schools in their native language, which is similar to Romanian.The struggle for the assimilation of Vlachs was competitive between Romanians and Greeks, and that caused Vlachs to have dual national consciousness and often fought each other fiercely. There were Vlachs of Grevena with a Romanian consciousness who assassinated the Greek Metropolitan Emiliaos in October 1911, because he propagated their assimilation.

More names of Vlach collaborationists.

As mentioned before, the historian and journalist Dhimosthenis Kukunas has revealed 83 Vlach names that signed the "Manifesto for the Autonomy of the Vlachs" in March 1942 and participated in the Vlach Roman Legions, aiding the Italian and German Armies. Some of them were not punished at all, others received 2-6 years in prison, and a marginal number of them sentenced to life imprisonment. The families of Vlachs who proclaimed the Autonomy of Pindus and who collaborated officially with the Italian and German Armies were neither persecuted nor expelled from Greece by Greek authorities after 1944. Their Greek citizenship was not revoked as it happened with Cham Albanians. Despite of the fact that the allegations about Cham Albanians collaboration with the invading Italian and German Armies were never proved, Cham Albanians were massacred and expelled permanently from their homes where they lived for thousands of years. The classic racist policy of Greeks is now documented in the books of Greek authors and affirms clearly the ethnic and religious divisions.

Alqiviadhis Konstandin Diamandi was born in Samarina in 1894 in a wealthyfamily. During the First World War, he had the rank of a non-commissioned officer in the Greek Army in 1917 and acted in the Vlach villages of Pindus. With Italian support he founded the Army of the Principality of Pindus and proclaimed himself a Prince. For those actions the Greek court convicted Diamandi, but he received forgiveness with the amnesty of 1927. In 1920-1925, Alcibiades Diamandi was a diplomat of Romania in Sarandon, keeping contact with Romanian and Italian secret services. In the early 1930s, he returned to Greece as a representative of some Romanian companies of oil and timber. During that period Alcibiades started the recruitment of Vlachs of Thessaly and Epirus in order to establish the Principality of Pindus with its own Army. With the arrival of the Italian and German Armies in 1941 Alqiviadhis Konstandin Diamandi established the Roman Legions of Vlachs, which were financed by the Italian Army. Prime Minister andcommander of the Principality of Pindus became Nikolaos Matuci. In late 1942, Alcibiades Diamandi left Greece and moved to Romania. When the communists came to power in 1948, he was arrested and died after a few days in jail.

Nikolaos Mattheo Matusi was born in 1899 in Samarina of Pindus. After he finished university studies in Athens, he began working as a lawyer in Larissa. He was the signatory of the Manifesto of the Autonomy of Vlachs of Pindus in March 1942, and later the general commander of the Vlach forces known as the Roman Legions. After the capitulation of fascist Italy in 1943 he went to Athens where he collaborated with the German Army. He fled to Romania after the liberation of Greece inOctober 1944. There, the Romanian communist police imprisoned him as a collaboratorof German Army. At the request of Greece in 1964, he was transferred back to continue his sentence. At the Court held in Athens in May 1964, the senior leader of EDES for Athens, Apostoli Papageorge, and the political leader, Apostol Paguco, were called to witness about Nikolaos Matusi. Only Papaegeorge gave evidence in the court as witness. In Greece, Nikolaos Matusi enjoyed privileges up to the level of carrying a weapon with permission. In spite of the fact that he was a collaborator of the Italian and German Armies, the Greek courts never condemned him. His daughter, Ksenia Matusi was one of the most renowned painters in Greece and enjoyed privileges despite of her father being a collaborator of the Italian and German Armies during World War II. Nikolaos Matusi died in 1991 in Larissa.

The Vlach population of Pindus, although officially documented as collaborators of the Italian and German Armies, was not expelled from Greece. In the contrary, it tookover the leadership of the country and participated directly in the massacres upon the Albanian population in Chameria. The Vlachs of Pindus, together with the orthodox refugees from Asia Minor, were the ones who plundered and exploited the properties of Chams.The historian and journalist Dhimosthenis Kukunas, who has published several books and two volumes about the events in occupied Greece 1941-1944, brings the names of 83 Vlachs who signed the Manifesto of March 1942 and who were part of the Roman Legions; in fact, their number as aforementioned was larger. What sounds the bell is the fact that the children and grandchildren of the majority of the Vlach collaborators with the Italian and German Armies have enjoyed privileges. They have been or are MPs and historians who propagate against Albania for years. So, Vlachs were not persecuted or expelled from Greece under the charge of being collaborationists of the Italian and German Armies. The untrue charge applied only to Cham Albanians was deliberately used to justify the expulsion of 25000 moslem albanians (Chams) from Greece to Albania.

The research proved that the children or grandchildren of Vlachs who collaborated with the Italian and German Armies and who enjoyed privileges are the following: Joan Nikolaos Mercos, born in Nimfeo of Florina. The residents of that village are Vlachs and some of them had come from Voskopoja. He was the signatory of the Manifesto of Autonomy of the Principality of Pindus. After the cooperation with the Italian Army in Larissa, in 1942, Joan moved to Thessaloniki with his family and beganto collaborate with the German Army. After the war he was sentenced to 11 years to prison. His son Nikolaos Joan Mercos was born in 1936 in Nimfeo of Florina. He nowis a lawyer, writer and has published over 15 books. Nikolaos Mercos, the son of theItalian and German collaborationist, was the national adviser for Greek Prime MinisterKonstantinos Mitsotakis in 1990-1993. Nikolaos Mercos also assisted closely the formerPresident and former Prime Minister of Greece Constantine Karamanlis. NikolaosMercos is an honored figure of the Greek state. Nikolaos Mercos belongs to the anti-Albanian group that promotes the annexation of southern Albania and is a friend of theArchbishop of the Orthodox Church of Albania, Anastasios.The MP of Greece Konstantinos Gioulekas of the New Democracy party is arelative of Georgios Gioulekas, a Vlach from Samara. Georgios Gioulekas was asignatory of the Manifesto for the Autonomy of the Vlachs of Pindus in March 1942. Hewas member of the Vlach Roman Legions and a collaborationist with the Italian andGerman Armies in 1941-1944. The fate of Georgios Gioulekas is unknown, but the MPKonstantinos Gioulekas derives from the same family. The Vlach KonstantinosGioulekas is a lawyer and has worked as a journalist for several years in the city ofThessaloniki. Since 2000, he is MP of the New Democracy Party in the Greek Parliamentand has been assigned deputy-minister several times.Within the Ottoman Empire, Vlachs had more rights than Albanians. They hadprimary and secondary schools in their native language, which is similar to Romanian.The struggle for the assimilation of Vlachs was competitive between Romanians andGreeks, and that caused Vlachs to have dual national consciousness and often fought eachother fiercely. There were Vlachs of Grevena with a Romanian consciousness whoassassinated the Greek Metropolitan Emiliaos in October 1911, because he propagatedtheir assimilation.

A list of Vlach collaborationists

As mentioned before, the historian and journalist Dhimosthenis Kukunas hasrevealed 83 Vlach names that signed the Manifesto for the Autonomy of the Vlachs inMarch 1942 and participated in the Vlach Roman Legions, aiding the Italian and GermanArmies. Some of them were not punished at all, others received 2-6 years in prison, and amarginal number of them sentenced to life imprisonment. The families of Vlachs whoproclaimed the Autonomy of Pindus and who collaborated officially with the Italian andGerman Armies were neither persecuted nor expelled from Greece by Greek authoritiesafter 1944. Their Greek citizenship was not revoked as it happened with ChamAlbanians. Despite of the fact that the allegations about Cham Albanians collaborationwith the invading Italian and German Armies were never proved, Cham Albanians weremassacred and expelled permanently from their homes where they lived for thousands ofyears. The classic racist policy of Greeks is now documented in the books of Greekauthors and affirms clearly the ethnic and religious divisions.

Alqiviadhis Konstandin Diamandi was born in Samarina in 1894 in a wealthyfamily. During the First World War, he had the rank of a non-commissioned officer in theGreek Army in 1917 and acted in the Vlach villages of Pindus. With Italian support hefounded the Army of the Principality of Pindus and proclaimed himself a Prince. Forthose actions the Greek court convicted Diamandi, but he received forgiveness with theamnesty of 1927. In 1920-1925, Alcibiades Diamandi was a diplomat of Romania inSarandon, keeping contact with Romanian and Italian secret services. In the early 1930s,he returned to Greece as a representative of some Romanian companies of oil and timber.During that period Alcibiades started the recruitment of Vlachs of Thessaly and Epirus inorder to establish the Principality of Pindus with its own Army. With the arrival of theItalian and German Armies in 1941 Alqiviadhis Konstandin Diamandi established theRoman Legions of Vlachs, which were financed by the Italian Army. Prime Minister andcommander of the Principality of Pindus became Nikolaos Matuci. In late 1942,Alcibiades Diamandi left Greece and moved to Romania. When the communists came topower in 1948, he was arrested and died after a few days in jail.

Nikolaos Mattheo Matusi was born in 1899 in Samarina of Pindus. After hefinished university studies in Athens, he began working as a lawyer in Larissa. He was one of the signatory of the Manifesto of the Autonomy of Vlachs of Pindus in March 1942, and later the general commander of the Vlach forces known as the Roman Legions. After the capitulation of fascist Italy in 8 September 1943, he left Larissa and went to Athens, where he collaborated with the German Army. After the liberation of Greece in October 1944, he fled to Romania and after being captured by the Romanian communists was imprisoned as a collaborator of the Germans Army. At the request of Greece in 1964, he was transferred to continue his sentence in a Greek prison. At the court held in Athens in May 1964, the senior ex-leader of EDES for Athens, Apostoli Papageorgiu, and the political leader Apostol Paguco, were called to witness about Nikolaos Matusi. Only Apostoli Papageorgiu appeared at court to report as a witness against Nikolaos Matusi. In Greece, Nikolaos Matusi enjoyed privileges up to the level of carrying a weapon with permission. In spite of the fact that he was a collaborator of the Italian and German Armies, Greek courts never condemned him. His daughter Ksenia Matusi was one of the most renowned painters in Greece and has enjoyed privileges despite of the fact that her father was a collaborator of the Italian and German Armies during World War II. Nikolaos Matusi died in 1991 in Larissa.

Dhimostheni Nikolaos Cutra, born in 1894, was a high school teacher in Larissa. During the Metaxas government he was dismissed on charges of making leftist propaganda to the students. Since 1941, he joined the idea of Diamandi about the Autonomy of Vlachs of Pindus. He was a signatory of the Manifesto of March 1941. He was the leader of the Vlach Roman Legions. After the war, he was sentenced "in absentiato" death. He died in 1961, hidden in the outskirts of Larissa.

Konstantin Taha was born in Larissa. He was a doctor by profession. He was a signatory of the Vlach Manifesto and in May 1941 he founded the first Roman Legion of Vlachs in Larissa. He was the main leader of the station of Roman Legions in Larissa. After the war he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.Vasileos Kristo Rapotika was born in 1888 in Gramos of Pindus. He was one ofthe first founders of the Roman Legions. He participated in several battles with the Italians against ELAS forces. He was killed in 1943 by ELAS.Thomas Demetrius Pispirigos was a lawyer from Samarina. He was a fanatic of the propaganda of the Vlachs’ autonomy and an anti-Greek. During the movement, the Principality of Pindus aligned with the Italian Army and he was promoted to colonel. He was a member of the Roman Legions and was a chairman of the Association of Romanians in Thessaloniki. After 1944 he fled to Romania, where he died. Nikolaos Miçibuna was a physician from Grevena and a signatory of the Manifesto. He became the main leader of the movement of the Vlach Autonomy in Grevena. After the capitulation of Italy in 1943, he settled in Thessaloniki. After the war he was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. Georgio Miçibuna was born in Samarina. He was a member of the Roman Legions in Grevena. He cooperated with the Italian and German Armies. He participated in several battles against the communist Army ELAS. In 1944 he fled to Romania, where he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Stefano Koço was a member of the movement for the Autonomy of Vlachs and first leader of the Roman Legions in Elassona. In 1943, he became the Prefect of Larissa.He was a collaborationist with the Italian and German Armies. After the war he wassentenced to life imprisonment.Nikolaos Frango was born in Elassona and was a signatory of the Manifesto and the leader of the Roman Legions in Elassona. He collaborated with the Italian Army and after the war was sentenced to 15 years in prison.Zico Area was born in Grevena and lived in Samarina. He was an anti-Greek and a fanatic of the Vlach Autonomy since 1917. He was a teacher and principal at the Romanian gymnasium in Grevena and president of the Romanians in Grevena. In March 1941 he signed the Manifesto as a representative of Bulgarian Vlachs. After the capitulation of Italy in 1943, he settled in Thessaloniki. After the war he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Zico Sotiri Area was a teacher at the Romanian gymnasium in Grevena. He was asupporter of the Vlach Autonomy, a collaborationist of the Italian Army and an anti-Greek. After the war he was sentenced to 3 years in prison. Georgios Vasilaqi was born in Grevena, a lawyer by profession, he was an anti-Greek and in favor of the movement of the Vlach Autonomy since 1917. In 1916 he was the mayor of Grevena. In March 1941, he signed the Manifesto of the Vlachs and was a collaborationist of the Italian Army. After the war he was sentenced to 3 years in prison. Georgio Kazanas was a lawyer in Grevena and cousin of Alcibiades Diamandi.He collaborated with the Italian Army and made pro-Romanian propaganda. He led the Association of Romanians office in Grevena. After the war he was sentenced to life imprisonment.Pericles Demetrius Piteli was a businessman, first cousin and confident of Diamandi. He backed the Autonomy and the Manifesto of Vlachs of Pindus. After the war he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.John Nikolaos Mercos was born in Nimfeo of Florina. He was a signatory of the Manifesto of the Autonomy of the Principality of Pindus. After the cooperation with the Italian Army in Larissa in 1942, he moved to Thessaloniki with his family and began to cooperate with the German Army. After the war he was sentenced to 11 years in prison. His son, Nikolaou Joan Mercos, born in 1936 in Nimfeo Florina, is a lawyer and writer.In 1990-1993, he was adviser to Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis on Greece'snational issues. Mercos has worked closely with the former President and former Prime Minister of Greece, Konstantinos Karamanlis. Nikolaos Mercos is an honored figure of the Greek state and is a friend of the Archbishop of the Orthodox Church of Albania, Anastasios.

Vasileos Agorojanis from Samarina was the chairman of the movement of the Vlach Autonomy in Samarina. Kristo Sterxios Anagnosti was a supporter of the Vlach Autonomy. He cooperated with the Italian and German Armies. After the war he was sentenced to life imprisonment.Vasileos Vardurli from Distrato was a signatory of the Manifesto of the Vlach Autonomy. Nikolaos Efthimio Galani, from Distrato, took off the Greek Army uniform and put on the Italian Army uniform during the Italian-Greek war. He was a supporter of the Vlach Autonomy. He was sentenced to death in absentia. Georgio Giulekas was from Samarina and lived in Elassona. He was a signatory of the Manifesto of the Vlach Autonomy and member of the Roman Legions. He is recorded as missing. The current MP of the New Democracy, Konstantinos Gioulekas is a cousin of Georgio Gioulekas. Other names are: E. Goxamani, Grigor Adham Guda, Stefan Dhelibasi, Demetrius Dimareli, lawyer Anastas Kalometros, doctor K. Kalometros, etc.