# Talk:Battle of San Marino

For future reference - this divisional history covers the fighting. It hasn't gone into much more detail than we have here, though. Shimgray | talk | 00:03, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

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According to this source, San Marino declared war on Germany. See this related source. LuxembourgLover (talk) 21:03, 2 June 2024 (UTC)


### Battle of San Marino
San Marino is currently listed in the infobox as a belligerent, however there does not appear to be any reliable source of them even declaring war, let alone engaging with German forces. I remove it earlier this year but it has been added back - I believe it should not be there. notadev (talk) 05:44, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Battle of San marino#battle
"On the 21st, the local defence forces were enlisted to help mop up straggling German troops,"
I assume this is what whoever put it in the wikibox is refering too Pencilceaser123 (talk) 06:21, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
Prior to your edit the infobox entry contained a (in my opinion unreliable) link to a website which states that San Marino declared war, so it was my understanding that it was there because it supposedly declared war. That notwithstanding, only issue with this is whether this makes them a “belligerent” or not. The actual words of Linklater are:
“Its neutral territory had therefore to be invaded, and on the 20th the 4th Indian Division entered the capital, which stands high in the middle of the State, and the minute army of San Marino assisted in rounding up the remnant of the German forces there.“
-which doesn’t suggest fighting to me, although they were certainly more on the side of the allies, it seems to me (saying this as I don’t have a source on hand right now) that they still stressed their neutrality and viewed the allies presence as an ‘occupation’ (after all they entered by force).
Perhaps a line can be drawn to separate San Marino from the allies? I’m not sure but I’d be interested to hear your thoughts notadev (talk) 17:39, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
My understanding (having refreshed my memory) is that while there were some question marks over whether San Marino had ever been a belligerent earlier in the war, by the time troops arrived at the borders summer 1944 everyone seemed to agree they were neutral, but with the caveat that both Germany and Britain said they would nonetheless operate in San Marinese territory if it was needed.
Linklater mentions local troops, as do various contemporary reports. The main official history does not, however ([1]). I've poked around a bit and can find some contemporary news reports that San Marino declared war on Germany after the battle, perhaps on 21st/22nd September, though I'm not sure where to find a secondary source validating this. If so, this would seem to explain how the local forces got involved. My feeling is that this wouldn't constitute San Marino being a belligerent in the battle (rather, its belligerence was a consequence of the battle) and equally I can see no indication in the sources I have available that the San Marinese fascists were belligerents either.
In terms of the aftermath, the British described it as an "occupation", though noted that they explicitly did not set up a military government, and that the local government was able to (eg) refuse to impose a curfew. ([2]). There is also a note here suggesting the continued use of local troops for security - "The presence of refugees from northern Italy in the middle of a battle zone raised an important security problem. A cordon of Carabinieri was therefore formed round the Republic, and maintained until the battle had moved further north".
Perhaps I left that field in the infobox blank originally out of confusion :-) Andrew Gray (talk) 22:34, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for your comments. I have personally never found any official source, contemporary or otherwise, which mentions a declaration of war, which I just really want to stress, as to me it just seems like fact that was perhaps misreported (which also happened in WW1 if I recall correctly). I have seen pieces such as this or this which suggest it but it just doesn’t seem reliable to me.
As for your point regarding local troops, Carabinieri are Italian gendarmerie, so I would imagine this is referring to them being outside of the border with San Marino. Coincidentally, there was a detachment of Carabinieri in San Marino from 1921 to 1936, and in 1943 Ezio Balducci requested a group of Carabinieri to come to San Marino, but I am not sure if that ever happened. I believe this source also mentions some of the work of the Sammarinese forces in this time, which I gathered to be mostly humanitarian rather than military. notadev (talk) 04:00, 27 October 2025 (UTC)
Thanks - that makes sense re the Carabineri (on looking closely, the source suggests they were on the outside of the border...).
I do agree that contemporary reports in wartime are often a bit garbled (that's how we got the 1940 "declaration of war" in the first place! One strong indication it didn't happen is the complete lack of mention of it in the US State Department documents after summer 1944, I suppose; San Marino was also not represented at the United Nations Conference on International Organization, which might have been expected of a belligerent. Andrew Gray (talk) 23:39, 28 October 2025 (UTC)
Going back to the original point, I've trimmed the belligerents list down to just Germany on one side, UK+British India on the other. Andrew Gray (talk) 23:34, 29 October 2025 (UTC)
Thank you. My main concern was about San Marino being listed but this looks neater as well (and I assume usual practice for battle infoboxes? I do not regularly edit war related pages so I am not sure) notadev (talk) 05:19, 31 October 2025 (UTC)
Honestly I'm not 100% sure either (something like the Italian campaign with so many different participating countries is quite unusual) but I think "actual participants in this specific event" is usually a good rule of thumb. Andrew Gray (talk) 23:21, 1 November 2025 (UTC)
@PumaZ01d - you've added San Marino as a belligerent here. The country seems to have maintained neutrality throughout and it seems it did not consider itself a belligerent - do you have a source here?
The 35 civilian deaths happened in June and I haven't seen any sources indicating there were civilian deaths during the fighting in September, so not sure they should be listed here either. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:58, 1 November 2025 (UTC)
Hello again. I thought after my last reply we'd be done but I suppose not. I will be visiting a library later this week which I know holds a copy of Rimini, San Marino '44 : la battaglia della Linea Gialla, which might be able to help us more than what's on the Internet (although something tells me it will not be covering as much of San Marino as I hope).
Nonetheless, for the deaths, 35 comes from the death toll given by the Foreign Ministry to the Allies a day after the bombings (27 June), which was raised to 57 on 7 July, and must've been raised to 63 afterwards. The fact that this is the number given on this page is quite interesting, as obviously it isn't so on bombing of San Marino. In any event the bombing is a different event so it should not be listed for this battle - unless the 35 here is referring to a different death toll? As a side note, at the time San Marino was hosting up to 100,000 refugees, so its a miracle that apparently no one was killed in this battle, however it is worth noting that there were 93 deaths from thyroid after the battle. (Harris 1957, p 424)
Profughi italiani ospitati nella Repubblica di San Marino durante la Seconda guerra mondiale by Patricia Luca provides a little insight on the German entrance into San Marino and the response by San Marino, but the complete lack of mention of military forces, like in all other sources except Linklater as discussed above, really reaffirms the idea that nothing like that occurred.
San Marino appearing as a third side to the conflict makes more sense to me than it being under the Allies, but I fear it implies that San Marino fought against either one or both of the other two sides, which did not happen. The infobox is just to help illustrate the battle, not the wider conflict. In any event the causalities number should be removed it seems. notadev (talk) 10:07, 2 November 2025 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be much discussion on this, so I will make some changes for accuracy. notadev (talk) 05:14, 7 November 2025 (UTC)