page_title: History of Corsica
section_title: Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: History of Corsica / Modern era / Second World War
caption_attribution_description: Map of Kingdom of Italy (1919) showing the areas claimed by Irredentism:in red Malta, in purple Corsica, in yellow with green points Dalmatia, Ticino and Nizzardo. I have used as a basic map an old map from an Italian geography and history school book of 1935 "Scuole Medie Inferiori", and I have written and painted on it.Cropped caption: L’ Italia dopo la Guerra 1915-1918
context_page_description: The history of Corsica goes back to antiquity, and was known to Herodotus, who described Phoenician habitation in the 6th century BCE. Etruscans and Carthaginians expelled the Phoenicians, and remained until the Romans arrived during the Punic Wars in 237 BCE. Vandals occupied it in 430 CE, followed by the Byzantine Empire a century later.
  Raided by various Germanic and other groups for two centuries, it was conquered in 774 by Charlemagne under the Holy Roman Empire, which fought for control against the Saracens. After a period of feudal anarchy, the island was transferred to the papacy, then to city states Pisa and Genoa, which retained control over it for five centuries, until the establishment of the Corsican Republic in 1755. The French gained control in the 1768 Treaty of Versailles. Corsica was briefly independent as a Kingdom in union with Great Britain after the French Revolution in 1789, with a viceroy and elected Parliament, but returned to French rule in 1796.
  Corsica strongly supported the allies in World War I, caring for wounded, and housing POWs. The poilus fought loyally and suffered great casualties.
context_section_description: After the Allied defeat of 1940, Corsica became part of the Southern zone of Vichy France, and was thus not directly occupied by Axis forces, but fell under ultimate military control of Nazi Germany. A campaign of rhetoric by Benito Mussolini asserting that Corsica belonged to Italy was reinforced by the irredentist movement of Italian-speaking Corsicans (such as Petru Giovacchini) who advocated the unification of the island with Italy.
  In November 1942, as part of its invasion of the southern zone, Germany arranged for fascist Italy to occupy Corsica as well as some parts of France up to the Rhône river. The Italian occupation force in Corsica grew to over 85,000 troops, later reinforced by 12,000 German troops – a huge occupation force relative to the size of the local population of 220,000. The French had no troops with which to prevent the occupation. Irredentist propaganda intensified, but the préfet representing the French government restated French sovereignty over the island and stated that the Italian troops were occupiers.
  The French Resistance soon began developing under the impetus of loyal local inhabitants (the Maquis named after the 18th-century partisans of Pasquale Paoli), and of Free French leaders starting in December 1942, with Charles de Gaulle eventually sending Paulin Colonna d'Istria from Algeria to unite the movements. Boosted via six visits by the  Free French submarine Casabianca, and further armed by Allied airdrops, the strengthened Resistance was met with fierce repression by the OVRA (Italian fascist police) and the fascist Black Shirts paramilitary groups but gained strength, especially in the countryside.
  In July 1943, following the imprisonment of Mussolini, 12,000 German troops came to Corsica. They formally took over the occupation on 9 September 1943, the day after the armistice between Italy and the Allies. Following the Allied landings in Sicily and the Italian surrender, these German troops were joined by the remnants of the Africa Division of the German army, reconstituted as the 90th Panzergrenadier Division with about 40,000 men, which crossed over from Sardinia. They were accompanied by some Italian forces. They faced Resistance forces which had been asked to occupy the mountains to prevent Axis troop movements between the Corsican coasts, as well as a subset of Italian troops that allied with them but whose contribution was hampered as their leadership was ambivalent. The German forces retreated from Bonifacio towards the Northern harbor of Bastia. Elements of the reconstituted French I Corps, from the "4th Moroccan Mountain Division", landed in Ajaccio to counter the German movement and the Germans evacuated Bastia by 4 October 1943, leaving behind 700 dead and 350 POWs.
  After Corsica was thus liberated from the forces of the Third Reich, the island started functioning as an Allied air base in support of the Mediterranean Theater of Operations in 1944; in particular, groups of the 57th Bomb Wing were stationed along the east coast from Bastia in the north to Solenzara in the south. Corsica was also one of the bases from which Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France in August 1944, was launched.
caption: A 1935 fascist Italian textbook claiming Corsica (in purple)
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