Italian Civil War

The **Italian Civil War** was a civil war fought from 1950 to 1953 between two, and later three, opposing factions in Italy. It resulted in the fracturing of Italian territory and the creation of the Social Republic of Italy, the Sicilian Republic and the Republic of Italy in Sardinia.

## Background

In July 1944, during the Allied invasion of Italy, Italian Duce Benito Mussolini had been forced to flee Italy by anti-fascist mobs, leaving his more moderate Foreign Minister, Galeazzo Ciano, to rule in his place. After World War II concluded, Mussolini was put on house arrest on an island in the Adriatic; though exiled from Italian affairs, he continued to inspire a restorationist, ultra-orthodox fascist movement in Italy that sought to restore Mussolini to power. Ciano instituted strict laws of censorship and repression to prevent these subversive ideas from destabilizing Italy, though he hoped for an opportunity to open up the country to limited democratization, which would win respect for Italy among neighboring states and increase Italy's chances of being accepted into the Amsterdam Pact.

## The War Begins

On January 2, 1950, Benito Mussolini died in exile. Mussolini's death dealt a fatal blow to the fascist movement aimed at restoring him to power, and without him the restorationist movement collapsed. Now satisfied that the political climate was stable, Ciano declared that free elections would be held for the new Senato Italiano on September 20, expecting that his political party, the Common Man's Front (*Fronte dell'Uomo Qualunque*), would remain in power. Shockingly, however, the Italian Communist Party led by Palmiro Togliatti managed to win a narrow majority in the Senato. On October 1, horrified at the thought of a communist-dominated Italy, Ciano nullified the results of the election, outlawed the Communist Party and its allies ("political and not"), ordered the arrest of Communist leaders and declared *Fronte* leader Pietro Badoglio to be the leader of the legislative branch.

Togliatti, however, had been tipped off about his impending arrest by friends in the Italian secret police, and fled with his allies to Turin. Alcide de Gasperi, leader of the Christian Democratic Party, was appalled at Ciano's blatant disregard of democratic procedure; though he had been arrested by Ciano's troops, he and his Party opted to support Togliatti's Turin Declaration of October 5, 1950, which dissolved the Kingdom of Italy and declared the Social Republic of Italy (*Repubblica Sociale d'Italia)*, headed by Togliatti and supported by the imprisoned De Gasperi. Within a week, the civil war had begun, as fighting between Loyalist and SRI forces had erupted in all major Italian cities.

## Foreign Reactions

The Social Republic of Italy was recognized by all Eastern Bloc countries shortly after its declaration. Yugoslavian President Josip Broz Tito was particularly enthusiastic about sponsoring the new regime, expecting that if he could win the loyalty of a communist Italy to supplement his influence over Markos Vafeiadis in Greece, he could create a Mediterranean power bloc to rival that of Moscow. Yugoslavian, Soviet, and CommunistAustrian "volunteers" were soon dispatched to aid the SRI, flying Soviet-made MiG fighters and scoring significant victories against the outdated German Spitfires used by Ciano's Loyalists.

Great Britain and France, on the other hand, supported Ciano, less out of support for a quasi-fascist state than out of opposition to a communist-dominated insurgency. Neither country contributed troops to the war, but both governments were happy to sell armaments and supplies to the Ciano regime, not least because the demand gave a long-awaited boost to the industrial sectors of their respective economies. Ciano was ardently supported by the fascist regimes of Antonio Salazar in Portugal and Francisco Franco in Spain, though these states lacked the industrial capabilities to provide material aid. Westphalian President Reinhard Gehlen was similarly deprived, instead sending World War II-era military advisors to help Ciano's regime.

## The War in Italy

The Social Republic of Italy had a strong presence in northern Italy; most of the Communists' support came from workers the north's many industrial metropolei, and the Christian Democratic faction drew support from liberals and democrats throughout the country. Ciano's Kingdom of Italy, on the other hand, was more popular in the unindustrialized and poorer south, which had long been a stronghold of fascism. This gave the SRI a significant advantage: the north's wealth and industrial capabilities made it much easier to sustain a functioning economy and manufacture war materials, and aid from its powerful patron states could easily be ferried over the borders with Austria and Yugoslavia. The Kingdom of Italy, on the other hand, was deprived of these advantages, suffering logistical troubles with communication and transportation and geographically isolated from its Allies in Europe.

For eighteen months, SRI troops gradually pushed southward, using the north's industrial advantages to its benefit. On March 4, 1952, the capital, Rome, was captured by SRI troops, and Alcide de Gasperi, leader of the Christian Democrats and co-ruler of the SRI, was freed from Loyalist captivity. Britain and France finally sent volunteer brigades to aid the Loyalists, but to little effect; in April 1952, a democratic uprising in Sicily ended Ciano's reign over that island, further degrading the influence of his regime.

### The Social Republic Splits

By early 1953, most of mainland Italy was governed by the SRI, with only Sardinia and a small part of southern Italy still in Loyalist control. By that time, however, Christian Democratic leader De Gasperi had become wary of his partnership with Communist ruler Palmiro Togliatti, and began looking for an opportunity to split decisively from the Communists and establish an independent, democratic state. That opportunity soon presented itself: since the 1952 rebellion, Sicily had been governed by a democratic authority which had tacitly promised De Gasperi the position of president, provided he could make it to Sicily. In late March of 1953, De Gasperi and a small force of those loyal to him rushed to the lightly-guarded coast of Latina, where the small naval contingent loyal to De Gasperi carried him safely to Sicily. Almost simultaneously, Ciano fled with his larger and more modernized chunk of the navy to Sardinia, leaving Togliatti (now sole ruler of the SRI) uncontested dominance of the Italian mainland but powerless over Sicily and Sardinia.

## Confrontation of Powers

Togliatti was enraged by De Gasperi's betrayal. Immediately after securing his control over the whole of the Italian Peninsula, Togliatti began planning a naval invasion of Sicily to conquer the renegade island (discarding plans to invade Ciano's foothold in Sardinia, which possessed a much more advanced navy and was rapidly fortifying itself against invasion). This threat drew the attention of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who, along with Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, had been looking for a way to challenge the growing power of Communism in Europe. Seeing this as an opportunity, Churchill announced that Sicily was a protectorate of the Amsterdam Pact; however, France and the rest of the Pact powers announced their neutrality, leaving Britain to confront Togliatti alone. This did not stop Churchill from sending the nuclear-equipped HMS *Hermes* carrier group, which constituted the Royal Navy's largest presence in Europe outside of Britain itself, to the Straits of Messina.

Soviet General Secretary Lazar Kaganovich publicly announced support for Togliatti's Social Republic of Italy "in its proper borders" (despite secretly ordering Togliatti not to invade Sicily out of fear of starting a real war with the western powers). To bolster his claims, Kaganovich dispatched the *Pavelov*, a nuclear-armed aircraft carrier, and its escorts from the Soviet naval base in Constantinople to the Ionian Sea.

### The *Toscano* Incident

In the early morning of May 14, 1953, the Communist Italian cruiser *Toscano Operaio* accidentally rammed a small ship in a British patrol squadron, sinking it and drawing retaliation from the other three boats. By the time the *Toscano* turned away in retreat, eight British sailors and one Italian had been killed. The British government threatened war and ordered the *Hermes* to ready its nuclear arsenal, while Togliatti prepared to go through with his invasion of Sicily. Kaganovich ordered the *Pavelov* to prepare its nuclear weapons despite his fury at Togliatti's defiance in ordering the invasion to commence. Europe seemed on the brink of war once more; U.S. President Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. broke his isolationist stance by calling on the European powers not to plunge the world once more into war.

## The War Ends

On May 20, while preparing to address Parliament with an important message, Churchill suffered a stroke and died. Foreign Secretary Eden picked up the notes he had been holding and revealed to the House that it was a call for peace, and immediately ordered the deescalation of the conflict. By June, the British and Soviet fleets had left the SRI (now ruled by Pietro Nenni), Sicily and Sardinia recognizing each other's existence in practice, if not diplomatically.

## Aftermath

Italy was fractured: Pietro Nenni's Communist SRI on the mainland, De Gasperi's Republic of Sicily, and Ciano's lightly fascist state in Sicily, spitefully named the Republic of Italy. Following the war, the territories of the former Kingdom of Italy settled into an angry, yet stable existence, never attempting to form diplomatic relations with one another. During the tumultuous Summer of 1954, Nenni's government would nervously support Moscow over Belgrade, despite Tito's attempts to create an alliance with Italy against the USSR. De Gasperi's Republic of Sicily would remain a democratic state, becoming one of Britain's few remaining allies in Europe following the collapse of the Amsterdam Pact in 1957.

Sardinia, on the other hand, was less fortunate. After the death of Galeazzo Ciano, his model of an authoritarian, yet somewhat cultivated state devolved into an impoverished military dictatorship ruled over by a series of unremarkable despots with little regard for human rights. By 1970, however, Sardinia's capital of Cagliari was the only city on Earth that housed diplomatic representatives from all of the world's major nuclear powers; for this reason, Sardinia would be instrumental in resolving the Korean Crisis.