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p Italy’s war with Abyssinia ended formally in May 1936 with the capture of Addis Ababa. This was a great triumph for fascism, not so much militarily as politically. The fascist leaders presented their African adventure to the masses as a campaign undertaken by Italy, wrongfully deprived, in order to ensure a reasonable standard of living for its people. This propaganda device, based on the nationalist slogan of the “great proletarian" rising up to win himself “a place in the sun”, was no new one. It had first been used in 1911, not without a certain degree of success, during Italy’s war with Turkey over Libya. At that time the effect of this imperialist slogan on the masses was weakened, thanks to anti- militarist demonstrations by proletarian organisations.

p In 1935-36 the propaganda efforts of the fascist leaders and their war of annexation with Abyssinia were supported by the hypocritical policies of the League of Nations and the Government of the United States. The “sanctions” against the aggressor announced by the Western powers did not, in fact, impede the conduct of the war in any way whatsoever: strategic war material continued to be sold to the Italian Government, and Italian transport ships carrying troops and arms crossed the Suez Canal as did the ships of the Italian Navy to the coast of Africa, freely. Moreover, the declarations of protest from the governments of the Western “great powers" against Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia in no way affected the friendly relations between them and the Italian fascist state.

p Surrounded by the aura of military victories and success in foreign policy fascist demagogic propaganda assumed vast proportions in Italy. The hardship of the people, made more acute by the economic crisis of 1931-32, was used by Mussolini to deceive the masses with promises of the future prosperity of a great fascist empire. The policy of aggression pursued by Italian fascism was supported by the top hierarchy of the Catholic Church, the pettybourgeois elements, and also the representatives of the leading pre-fascist political circles. Only the vanguard of the working 206 class and a few political groups hostile to the fascist regime were not taken in by the nationalist slogans.

p An appeal by the Italian Communist Party published in its central organ Lo Stato operaio in October 1935 stated that “one of the most tragic aspects of the situation which has arisen in Italy is that the people do not know the true state of affairs and the real course of events".

p Nevertheless, in spite of the fascist propaganda and terror, which reigned in Italy in those years, 1936 heralded the beginning of an upsurge in the anti-fascist movement in Italy. “The great wave of renovation”, to quote Palmiro Togliatti, which the Seventh Congress of the Comintern injected into the international working-class and communist movement, stimulated the Italian Communist Party to take the initiative in applying the tactics of the united front. Unity of action between Italian emigre Communists and Socialists was strengthened. One result of this united action was the convening of a congress of Italians in Brussels on October 12 and 13, 1935, attended by 371 delegates from Europe and America, the representatives of all anti-fascist groups regardless of political and religious persuasions. The congress’s appeal to the workers of the world ended with the demand: “Immediate peace with Abyssinia! Down with Mussolini!”

p During this period in France under the influence of the growing success of the Popular Front more favourable conditions had been created for the legal functioning of Italian emigre anti-fascist organisations, which had previously been victimised and repressed by the French police. The victory of the French Popular Front gave a new impetus to the activity of anti-fascist forces in Italy. The struggle of the French workers exerted an influence on the broad masses and their experience was used in the revolutionary work not only of the Communists, but also of other underground groups.

p The events that took place in Spain in the summer of 1936 had a particularly strong impact on the development of antifascist feeling and the opposition movement in the masses. From the very first days of the fascist military revolt the Italian workers demonstrated their solidarity with the Spanish Republic. Antifascists, particularly those in France and Belgium, began to raise funds to aid the Spanish people. By the middle of August the Committee of Aid had collected 38,000 francs.

p In Italy itself, in Rome, Milan, Genoa, Bologna, Modena and other towns, there were demonstrations of solidarity with the Spanish people, leaflets were distributed and the slogans “Long live Caballero!" and “Down with Mussolini!" appeared on the walls of buildings. The Communist Party organised the raising of funds for the Spanish Republic. The underground newspaper Unita reported that 100,000 francs had been collected in a month. 207 Interest increased in the events taking place in Spain. The number of people listening to underground anti-fascist radio stations grew each day. Italian Communists broadcast daily programmes for them from the radio stations of the Communist Party of .Spain and the United Socialist Party of Catalonia giving detailed accounts of the events in Spain and the Spanish people’s heroic struggle for independence and denouncing the criminal policy of intervention pursued by Mussolini.

p One can get a general idea of the extent of Italian intervention in Spain from a statement made by Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, at a meeting with Hitler in 1940, to the effect that Italy had spent 14,000 million lire on the Spanish war. After lengthy negotiations with Franco this sum was halved in the bill presented to the Spanish Government.

p According to the Italian press, over the whole period of the war Italy dispatched to Spain 1,930 cannon, more than 7,500,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, about 250,000 small arms and 324 million rounds of ammunition for them, 10,135 automatic guns, 7,663 motor vehicles, and 950 tanks and armoured cars. Franco’s fleet was supplemented by 91 Italian warships and submarines. Ninety-two transport ships of the Italian Navy supplied troops and arms to the insurgents. Five thousand, six hundred and ninety-nine officers and men and 312 civilians of the Italian Air Force were engaged in the military operations. They carried out 86,420 combat missions and 5,318 air raids, dropping 11,584 tons of bombs. In addition to the aeroplanes of the Italian Air Force participating in the intervention Mussolini provided the insurgents with 763 fighter aircraft and 1,414 aircraft motors.

p The semi-official Italian newspaper Forze armate announced on June 8, 1939 that a total of one hundred thousand officers and men of the Italian regular army and the fascist militia ( blackshirts) supplied with all the necessary arms and equipment, took part in the war against the Spanish Republic. There are grounds for assuming that the true strength of the Italian expeditionary forces in Spain was at least one-and-a-half times larger.

p Reports of Italian intervention in Spanish affairs appeared in the world press simultaneously with reports on the generals’ revolt in Spain. On July 15, 1936, three days before the revolt, Mussolini signed the first decree on the dispatch of Italian aircraft to Spanish Morocco to land General Franco’s African troops in Spain.

p In the following weeks and months from Gaeta (near Naples) and other Italian ports the ships Lombardia, Sardinia, Sizilia, Liguria and Toscana set sail for Spain carrying arms, ammunition, troops and military instructors, and the Fiat, Caproni and Savoia Marchetti fighter squadrons left Milan and other towns to support the military operations of the Spanish insurgents. The island 208 of Mallorca was to all intents and purposes occupied and turned into the main base for Italian aircraft to carry out operations against Republican troops and the civilian population.

p Italy’s armed aggression against the Spanish Republic was no chance military adventure, but part of a general policy of military expansion dictated by the interests of Italian imperialism—its desire to turn the Mediterranean into an Italian lake.

p As early as 1934 the Italian Government had begun talks with representatives of the Spanish monarchists and financed their subversive activities against the government of the democratic Spanish Republic, promising them its support in the form of money, men, aircraft and military supplies in the event of open conflict.

p The armed intervention by Italian fascism against Republican Spain was not popular with the mass of the Italian people. The mounting scale of the military operations demanded increased mobilisation to supplement the Italian expeditionary forces, the number of dead and wounded rose, and the growth in military expenditure seriously affected the position of the working people. All this intensified discontent among the Italian public. Its sympathies were with the Spanish people. News of Italians fighting for freedom on the side of the Spanish Republic strengthened this feeling and stimulated the activities of anti-fascist groups and organisations. Arrests became more frequent. Special fascist tribunals sentenced many anti-fascists, primarily Communists, for propaganda activities in support of the Spanish Republic and for helping Italian volunteers to cross the border illegally.

p Solidarity with the Spanish people grew steadily and rallied all the Italian anti-fascist forces. On August 25, 1936, the Communist, Socialist and Republican parties signed an agreement to take joint action in giving aid to Spain. Later, on December 31, 1936, these parties launched a joint appeal against the fascist intervention: "All troops must leave Spain!" Thus unity of action by all Italian progressive forces was achieved for the first time on the Spanish fronts in the armed struggle against fascism.

p Italian anti-fascists living in Spain as political emigres immediately joined the People’s Militia to fight against the insurgents. Ettore Gualierini (Pablo Bono) took part in organising the 5th Regiment of the People’s Militia, set up by the Communist Party of Spain. He was later appointed corps commissar when the units of the regular Republican Army were set up. Vittorio Vidali (Carlos Contreras), leader of the Spanish section of the International Red Aid, was commissar of the 5th Regiment from the moment it was formed.

p In persistent fighting with the fascists in the Sierra de Guadarrama in the summer of 1936 divisions of the 5th Regiment halted the insurgents’ advance on Madrid. Guido Giacobini, Fernando 209

Luigi Longo and Vittorio Vidali with Italian volunteers
de Rosa and many other Italians lost their lives in these early battles for the capital.

p The death of Fernando de Rosa, an active member of the Italian and Spanish socialist youth movement, who took part in the Asturian rising in 1934, was a particularly sad loss for the Italian anti-fascists. He died in command of the October Youth Battalion.

p The first Italian volunteers from abroad arrived in Spain in August 1936. They were political emigres who had been living in France. After joining the 22nd Centuria of the People’s Militia, set up in the Karl Marx Barracks in Barcelona, they engaged in battle with the fascists on the Aragon Front. One of the first to lay down his life was the Communist Paolo Comida at Tardienta on August 22.

p Another group of Italian volunteers arrived on the Aragon Front at the end of August. It consisted of several hundred men of varying political convictions under Carlo Rosselli, the leader of the Giustizia e Liberia emigre anti-fascist organisation in France. The group consisted of a machine-gun company and a rifle company. The Republican Mario Angeloni was killed in their first battle near Monte Pelato (Bald Mountain) and five other Italians died with him. Angeloni was a famous lawyer in Italy who used to defend members of workers’ organisations before fascist tribunals, for which he himself was arrested and sentenced.

210

p At the same time a group of Italian volunteers was fighting on the Northern Front, defending the town of Irun against the troopsof the rebel General Mola. Many Italians laid down their lives on the battlefield, including the Communists Remigio Maurovic and Alberto Donati and the Socialist Pietro Bertoni.

p After the fall of Irun the volunteers first retreated to France and then returned to Spain. Together with other Italian volunteers they formed the Gastone Sozzi Centuria, named after an Italian Communist who was killed in prison by the fascist police. This centuria fought on the Madrid Front as part of the Catalan Libertad Column of the People’s Militia. It consisted of 86 Italians, 29 Poles, 10 Frenchmen, one Dane and several Belgians. Its commander, Antonini, and commissar, Francesco Leone, were both Italian volunteers.

p Apart from the above-mentioned formations and military detachments in which most of the Italian volunteers fought, there were small groups of Italians in other detachments of the Aragon People’s Militia and regular units of the Republican Army. For example, ten Italian volunteer pilots were attached to the Republican Air Force at the beginning of the war. On September 30,. in an air battle over Toledo the pilot Giordano Viezzoli was killed, who had been sentenced by the fascist tribunal in Italy to six years in prison for his activities in the Italian RepublicanParty. Another Italian pilot, the Communist Primo Gibelli, whohad come from the USSR, lost his life on a combat mission near Madrid that same autumn.

p The thoughts and feelings of the Italian volunteers were well expressed by Luigi Longo in a speech delivered in Madrid on September 18, 1936, on the presentation of the banner of the Italian Communist Party to the 5th Regiment. He said:

p “The thousands of Italian anti-fascists now languishing in fascist prisons are with you heart and soul. The cause for which they have sacrificed their freedom, and some their lives, is the same cause for which you are fighting. They wanted to give their people bread and work, symbolised by the ears of corn and the hammer embroidered on our banner, and for which you too are striving. Today the people of Spain are fighting for free labour against exploitation, for freedom against oppression, for civilisation against barbarianism.... Therefore your struggle is the struggle of all peoples who are striving for peace, freedom and a better life.

p “Italian fascism, the exploiters and oppressors of the Italian people, are acting together with the enemies of the Spanish people, to whom they are sending arms, aircraft and their own pilots. But the Italian people are with you, soldiers of freedom, with all their hearts!.. . Hundreds of Italians are requesting the honour of being recruited into the ranks of the People’s Militia, 211 in order to fight with you for freedom. This is why the banner which I am handing over to your regiment is not just a gift from the Italian Communist Party, but also an expression of the solidarity of the whole Italian people with Republican Spain___”  [211•1 

p In the autumn of 1936 the Republic’s struggle against the rebels and interventionists assumed the character of a large war. The government of the Popular Front proceeded to form a regular army. Among the first military units of the new army to be organised were the International Brigades, which included both men from the various centurias and columns, and the anti-fascist volunteers who were arriving from many countries.

p One of the first regular international units was the battalion named after Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy’s national hero. It was formed in Albacete in October, when large numbers of Italian volunteers began to arrive there from France, Belgium, Switzerland, San Marino, America, the USSR and Italy itself. The battalion consisted of more than 500 men whose ages ranged from 18 to 50, with varying social backgrounds and political affiliations: Communists, who were in the majority, Socialists, Republicans, members of the Giustizia e Liberia group, and many politically unaffiliated, including a considerable number of Catholics. The battalion commander was Randolfo Pacciardi, a leader of the Italian Republican Party, and its political commissars were Antonio Roasio, a Communist, and Amedeo Azzi, a Socialist.

p Thus the battalion’s composition and leadership reflected the alliance and unity of the main political forces in the Italian antifascist democratic movement. This unity was preserved throughout the Spanish war. Other members of the Garibaldi Battalion were the Italian Communist Party leaders—Palmiro Togliatti (Mario Ercoli), then a representative of the Comintern, Luigi Longo (Gallo), who was inspector-general of all the International Brigades, and the Italian Socialist leader, Pietro Nenni.

p Out of a total of roughly four thousand Italian volunteers, 1,822 were Communists, 137 Socialists, 124 anarchists and 55 members of radical democratic parties. The largest group were those without party affiliations. It should be stressed that almost half the volunteers came from the working class.

p On November 10, 1936, before it was fully formed, the Garibaldi Battalion was dispatched urgently as part of the 12th International Brigade under the command of General Mate Zalka (Lukacs) and Commissar Luigi Longo to the Central Front where the llth International Brigade, whose commissar was the famous Italian Communist Giuseppe di Vittorio (Mario Nicoletti), was already fighting. The battalion first took part in an attack on fascist positions in the Cerro de los Angeles to the south of 212

Volunteers from the Gastone Sozzi Centuria
213

Giuseppe di Vittorio (Nicoletti), commissar of the llth International Brigade, among volunteers in Albacete
Madrid. The monastery on top of this hill, which had been fortified by the insurgents, was an important position on the eastern flank of Madrid’s defence and commanded an excellent view of the roads leading to the capital and Getafe airport, as well as the airport itself which was in the hands of the fascists.

p The brigade’s attack was not successful, although the battalions, including the Garibaldi Battalion, fought their way to the foot of the hill. By the end of the first day’s fighting it became clear that courage and determination alone were not enough to guarantee victory. What was needed was military training for the troops and efficient unit and combat organisation. The brigade lacked proper co-ordination between the command and the various units. Supply of ammunition and food and evacuation of the wounded were badly organised. The results of this lesson were evident six days later, when the battalion and the whole of the 12th Brigade, after rectifying most of these mistakes, went into action on another section of the Madrid Front, the University City. On November 19, the Garibaldi Battalion occupied a position near the San Fernando Bridge on the River Manzanares, and a few days later relieved the Polish Dabrowski Battalion on the section of the front up to the Puertas de Hierro Bridge. In constant fighting that lasted until November 26 and at the 214 price of heavy losses the fierce attacks by Moroccans were repulsed. Twenty members of the Garibaldi Battalion lost their lives and more than 150 were wounded.

p From November 30 the Garibaldi Battalion was engaged in halting a fascist attack in the Pozuelo de Alarcon sector to the northwest of Madrid and launching a counter-offensive. In a letter to the battalion commander Pacciardi, General K16ber who was in command of the sector, wrote: "Thanks to the brilliant action of the Garibaldi Battalion after four days of resistance the enemy’s heavy attacks supported by aircraft, artillery and numerous tanks, were repulsed, and our positions reinforced. The spirit of self-sacrifice shown by the Garibaldi Battalion rallied round it all the units defending Pozuelo”. By December 9 when the 12th Brigade was withdrawn into reserve, the strength of the Garibaldi Battalion had been reduced by almost half—from 600 to 350 men.

p In the middle of December the battalion received reinforcements from the constant stream of new Italian volunteers. The largest group, consisting of 310 men, was led by Guido Picelli, a Communist and former deputy in the Italian parliament, who had lead the "proletarian defence" of Parma during Mussolini’s notorious advance on Rome in 1922. It was he who had hoisted the Red Flag on the Montecitorio, the parliamentary building in Rome, on May 1, 1926.

p In addition two companies were formed from newly arrived volunteers. One of them, under the command of Bocchi and Commissar Locatelli, was attached to the 14th International Brigade, and at the end of December, with the British Company and other units of the advance guard battalion of this brigade, ioined battle with the fascists who were breaking through the front in the south of Spain in Andalucia. At the price of heavy losses—only 200 of the 600 men survived—the company and the whole battalion checked the enemy’s advance, enabling the brigade’s main forces to carry out their combat mission. A group of forty Italians was surrounded in the hills, captured by the fascists and shot. The other company of over 100 men joined with volunteers from the Balkans and Slav countries to form the Dimitrov Battalion in the 15th International Brigade, which was commanded by the Italian volunteer Major Penchienati in the battle of the Jarama.

p After a small-scale operation at Boadilla del Monte on December 20 the 12th Brigade was transferred to the Guadalajara line on New Year’s Eve with instructions to launch a surprise attack and drive the fascists back from the Zaragoza highway. The attack was successful and the Garibaldi Battalion gained possession of the village of Mirabueno. Company Commander Guido Picelli and eight other Italian volunteers lost their lives in this battle.

p The year 1937 began with fresh heavy defensive fighting for 215 Madrid, in which the 12th Brigade took part. On January 3 the fascists, who had concentrated a large combat force, launched an offensive to the northwest of Madrid in the region of Las Rosas and Majadahonda with the aim of surrounding the capital from the north and cutting it off from Republican forces in the Sierra de Guadarrama.

p February brought the Republic new difficulties. Extending the scope of his intervention in Spain, Mussolini concentrated an expeditionary corps in the region of Seville. The first objective of his military operations was the port of Malaga, which was defended by poorly-armed detachments of the People’s Militia. On February 8 the Italians captured the town. But General Fran^ co’s main goal was Madrid. His plan was to strike simultaneously from the Zaragoza highway and the Jarama in the south, encircling and destroying the most efficient Republican troops and gaining control of the capital. On February 6 a large grouping launched an attack southwest of Madrid. The battle of the Jarama began. Like the January offensive on the northwest of Madrid, this large and bloody battle, in which as many as 40,000 troops fought on the side of the fascists, did not bring the enemy any success. The fascists were not able to advance more than four to six kilometres beyond the east bank of the Jarama. Over twenty Republican brigades took part in the fighting which lasted three weeks, including four International Brigades—the llth, 12th, 14th and 15th. The increased organisation and combat efficiency of the units of the Republican Army helped them not only to repulse the fierce attacks of the insurgents’ crack troops, but also to mount a counter-attack. The fascists lost half their men and their units were incapable of further offensive action.

p General Roatta, Commander of the Italian expeditionary force, whose four divisions—the Black Flame, the Black Arrows, the Dio lo vuole and the Littorio Division—were concentrated in the Sigiienza area in February, was now faced with mounting an offensive on Madrid in order to defeat the Republican Army and take the capital with his forces alone. Like Franco, the Italian general was convinced that his 50,000 strong force would gain an easy victory over the weak Republican defence. Roatta confidently instructed his subordinates in the consecutive stages of this operation: "Tomorrow we will be in Guadalajara, the day after in Alcala de Henares, and the day after that in Madrid!" By special command he conveyed Mussolini’s blessing to his troops: "I am observing the course of the battle and am confident that the courage and perseverance of our legions will crush enemy resistance. May the legionaries be assured that I am following their operations which will be crowned with victory!”

p At 7 a.m. on March 8, 1937, fifty guns of the Italian expeditionary force opened fire on the poorly-fortified positions of the 216

A group of volunteers from the Garibaldi Battalion. Second left (standing):
Antonio Roasio
217 Republicans near Mirabueno and on the hills by El Marenchal. Simultaneously up to thirty fascist aircraft began bombing the Almadrones and Mirabueno areas. They were followed by twenty tanks and infantry. The small Republican units retreated. Thus began the Guadalajara operation. The fascist offensive caught the Republicans completely unawares.

p On the night of March 9 the Garibaldi Battalion, numbering about 800 men, was brought up to close the breach in the Brihuega line. The Garibaldis with Commissar Ilio Barontini as acting commander (Pacciardi was on leave) received orders to occupy the hills north of Brihuega and hold their position until the brigade’s other battalions arrived. In the meantime, however, the enemy had already succeeded in capturing Brihuega, and the Garibaldi Battalion joined battle with the advance guard of the Italian expeditionary force.

p At the same time the llth International Brigade was repulsing an enemy attack in the Zaragoza road area. The Garibaldis took their first prisoners, including a major in the Italian army. That night the first deserters from the Black Arrow Division arrived.

p Next day the battle was resumed with renewed force. Roatta moved up two full-strength divisions, supported by all his artillery, to attack the two Republican brigades. Yet in spite of their vast numerical superiority, the fascists could not overcome the stubborn resistance of the brigaders. Republican tanks and aircraft dealt devastating blows to the interventionist columns. That day the fascists succeeded in advancing only six kilometres along the road, capturing the townlet of Trijueque, driving back the 12th Brigade slightly, and occupying a country house known as the Ibarra Palace.

p On March 12 all four divisions of the expeditionary force went into battle. Two of them attacked the 12th International Brigade. Apart from the two International Brigades exhausted by two days of fighting and suffering from heavy casualties, the Republican Command could muster only three more brigades that had been hastily transferred from the Jarama Front, one tank battalion and the brave Republican airmen who attacked the enemy’s mechanised columns from the air in the most difficult weather conditions. The International Brigades formed part of the group under Enrique Lister. On its left, to the north of the Zaragoza road, was the 12th Division under the Italian volunteer and Communist Nino Nanetti. The interventionists could not advance a step in the direction of Madrid. There was a drop in morale among their ranks, and more enemy soldiers surrendered, deserted or came over to the Republicans with their arms.

p This low morale in the fascist troops was assisted by the intensive propaganda work among the enemy soldiers organised by Luigi Longo, Vittorio Vidali, Teresa Noce (Estella), Giuliano 218 Paietta (Camen), Giacomo Calandrone (Canapino) and the commissars of the Garibaldi Battalion. They dropped leaflets behind the enemy lines with the help of simple rockets and used loudspeakers to address enemy soldiers and get prisoners-of-war to describe the truth about the Spanish people’s struggle.

p The turning point came on March 13, when the fascists went over to the defensive. Units of Lister’s Republican forces mounted a counter-attack along the Zaragoza road and freed the townlet of Trijueque. The next day the 12th Brigade under Brignoli attacked the Ibarra Palace. They advanced from two sides supported by artillery and five tanks. After fierce resistance the fascist garrison surrendered and the palace was captured by the Republicans. In this battle the Republicans destroyed two battalions of Italian fascists capturing 150 prisoners, several guns, about 300 rifles and a great deal of ammunition.

p On March 18, after the re-grouping and training of the Republican units, the whole People’s Army on the Guadalajara Front was put on the offensive, causing the fascist divisions to retreat hastily. On March 23 the battle of Guadalajara ended with the total rout of the Italian expeditionary force and the failure of Franco’s new attempt to take Madrid. This victory was of great military and political importance. For the first time the republicans had beaten a well-equipped 50,000-strong fascist army. The hundreds of captured officers and men of the Italian expeditionary force, and the large number of documents, which were subsequently published in the press, were factual evidence of foreign intervention in the Spanish Republic. Mussolini’s sole conclusion from the shameful defeat at Guadalajara was a decision to step up intervention in Spain.

p An important military and political role in the battle of Guadalajara was played by the Garibaldis, whose heroism and selfsacrifice saved the honour of the Italian people. Alvarez del Vayo, Commissar General of the Republican Army, sent a telegram to the Military Commissar of the Central Front with a request to convey through Comrade Gallo his admiration and fraternal greetings to the men of the International Brigades, whose deeds would never be forgotten by the Spanish people, and particularly to the Garibaldi Battalion, which nobly symbolised the heroic struggle for freedom against fascism.

p Many Garibaldis perished at the hands of Italian legionaries in the battle of Guadalajara, including the following: Beniamino Mudado, Domenico Mazza, Giovanni Tremul, Andre Leandro, Pietro Poletti, Gagliardo Delmiro, Giuseppe Javoli, Pietro Rivani, Francesco Jacopini, Fernando Morillo, Severino Bottagisi, Francesco Bret, Nunzio Guerrini, Plasido di Valerio, Giuseppe Carrara, Luigi Pinessi, Luigi Basso, Bernardo Falco, Prieto Cibrario and Alfredo Paternoster.

219

p In April 1937 the Garibaldi Battalion was transformed into the 12th Garibaldi Brigade. Together with the Dabrowski Brigade it formed a divisional group under the command of General Lukacs. After a short rest the 12th Brigade took part in two military operations in April, one on the Jarama and the other in the Casa de Campo near Mount Garabitas.

p At the end of the month it was given leave and reinforced by Spanish troops and volunteers from the Italian company of the Dimitrov Battalion, the Giustizia e Liberia Column and the Antonio Gramsci Battery.

p In June the 12th Garibaldi Brigade together with the Dabrowski Brigade and some Catalan military units, which included the BlackRed Anarchist Battalion under the Italian anti-fascist, Fausto Nitti, took part in an attack on Huesca on the Aragon Front. This operation was not successful. In some bloody battles from June 12 to 16 on the heavily fortified points of Cimillas and Allerre the Garibaldis lost many men including their battalion commander, the Republican Libero Battistelli, a man of high principles who had come to fight for freedom from Argentina where he had emigrated. The divisional commander, General Lukacs (Mate Zalka), was mortally wounded at the beginning of the operation.

p The following month the 12th Brigade took part in a large Republican offensive on Brunete. The brigade’s skilful manoeuvring helped to capture the village of Villanueva del Pardillo on July 9 and a large number of prisoners and equipment, earning it the gratitude of Colonel Vicente Rojo, Chief of Staff of the Central Front. Sergeant Bruno Lugli was killed in this battle.

p In the Brunete operation the old Italian revolutionary Vincenzo Bianchi (Krieger) took command of the 13th International Brigade, and Giuliano Paietta was appointed its commissar in place of the Yugoslav Blagoje Parovic who was killed at the beginning of the fighting.

p The battle of Brunete marked the end of a year of constant and heavy fighting for Madrid.

p In August there was a change of command in the Garibaldi Brigade caused by Pacciardi’s retirement. The reason for his retirement was the attitude adopted by Pacciardi and some of his supporters, mainly members of the Giustizia e Liberia on the organisation of the Italian volunteers and their participation in the national-revolutionary war in Spain. Pacciardi did not agree with the establishment of international units in the People’s Army combining volunteers of many nationalities, including Spaniards, and supported by the whole international solidarity movement. He favoured the formation of an exclusively Italian military unit, with an autonomous command, on funds provided by Italian emigres. He even suggested that the battalion be disbanded in view of the protracted nature of the anti-fascist war in Spain 220 and the heavy casualties in his own brigade, which were becoming increasingly difficult to replace due to the obstacles created by the Non-intervention Committee.

p These views of Pacciardi’s, which combined a narrow nationalistic outlook with lack of confidence in the Spanish people, were not shared by the vast majority of the Garibaldis. Together with him and his supporter, Major Carlo Penchienati, only twenty volunteers from the anarchists and Republicans abandoned the field of battle and left Spain. The unity and solidarity of the Garibaldis were not shaken. True to the ideals of working-class internationalism, as Luigi Longo wrote in his book Le Brigate Internazionali in Spagna, "they saw the war in Spain not only as the struggle of Spanish, French, or Italian anti-fascists, but as the struggle of anti-fascists the whole world over, in the outcome of which all anti-fascists shared an equally profound interest".  [220•1 

p In August the 12th Brigade took part in a large offensive operation on the Zaragoza sector of the Aragon Front, after which it remained on the front until February 1938, when it was transferred to Estremadura to take part in an offensive aimed at diverting a section of the fascist forces from the Teruel Front. In this offensive Captain Ren/o Gua, a member of the Guistizia e Liberia organisation, was mortally wounded.

p Shortly afterwards the brigade was sent back to the Aragon Front and arrived at Caspe where Republican troops were having; difficulty in checking a large offensive by rebels and interventionists. Together with the remaining international and Spanish units which were still in combat condition, the brigade retreated fighting towards Gandesa, and then withdrew to the left bank of the Ebro in the Benifallet area. Alecsandro Vaia (Martino Martini), who had earlier fought on the Basque Front, was appointed the brigade’s new commander. It was here that the last Italian volunteers joined the brigade.

p Three thousand and two hundred Garibaldis—Italians and Spaniards took up defensive positions along a 30-kilometre stretch of the front. As in the other International Brigades, the number of Spanish men and officers in the Garibaldi Brigade had increased steadily in 1937-38. This was explained by the fact that there were not enough new Italian volunteers from abroad to make up for the brigade’s losses in killed and wounded. Moreover, each month it became more difficult to cross the FrancoSpanish border and, particularly, the Italo-French border. Over the whole period of the war only 223 volunteers succeeded in crossing from Italy to Spain. As a result by the summer of 1938 Spaniards accounted for about two-thirds of the troops as a whole and no less than half its command personnel. In September a 221 Spaniard, Major Luis Rivas, a mechanic from Madrid, was put in command of the brigade.

p When the Republican Army attempted to force a passage across the Ebro on July 25, the 12th Brigade continued to held its defensive positions, and did not move up to the front line until September 3. For twenty days the brigade fought hard on the defence line in the Pandols Mountains near Gandesa. The command of the 45th Division praised its heroism, stating in an order of the day that “it showed itself to be the best force in the fighting on the Ebro".

p “I fought in the 1914-18 war as an officer in the German Army,” said Colonel Hans Kahle, Commander of the 45th Division, in an interview published on November 18, 1938, in the’Paris’ newspaper La Voce degli Italiani, “but I never saw such bitter fighting, such a mass of artillery and aircraft, concentrated by the enemy, as on the Ebro Front. There were several reports from the divisional observation post that the Garibaldi Brigade was in a perilous position. Yet each time the fascists attacked, the Gari- baldis popped up miraculously out of the ground, from collapsing trenches and forced them to retreat, with heavy losses.,.. The Garibaldi Brigade displayed invincible courage and fortitude and surpassed in these battles all the feats it had performed previously in the fighting from Pozuelo to Guadalajara.”

p When the brigade was withdrawn from combat it had only 900 men left. It was then that the Garibaldis learnt of the Spanish Republican Government’s decision to withdraw foreign volunteers from the Republican Army. When in the demobilisation centres of Torello and Calella at the end of January 1939, they again took up arms and fought together with a Spanish : battalion for two days to cover the evacuation of civilians to France.

p On February 11 the Garibaldis filed past their commander for the last time and crossed the Franco-Spanish border. Many>W their comrades-in-arms were absent on this last march. No less than 600 volunteers were killed at the front or reported missing, which was the same thing, including 335 Communists; no less than 2,000 were wounded of which 861 were Communists; and no less than 100 were captured of which 23 were Communists. None of the latter ever returned. They lost their lives at the hands of the fascists.

p In France the Italian volunteers—about 900 in all—were interned in the concentration camp at St Cyprien. They bravely suffered the deprivations and misfortune that fell to the lot of all volunteers who had gone to Spain from fascist or fascist-occupied countries. In the first few months about 100 people managed to escape from the camp. Most of the remainder were transferred to a camp at Vernet in 1941, then handed over by the Vichy 222 223 government to the Italian authorities and imprisoned on the small island of Ventotene near Naples.

p In August 1943, two weeks before the truce was concluded between the government of General Badoglio and the Allied Command, they were released as a result of a powerful wave of strikes in the large industrial centres demanding peace and an amnesty. They then dispersed over the country and became the first organisers of guerrilla warfare.

p The Garibaldis began to offer armed resistance to the nazis and Italian fascists even earlier. About 1,000 Italian patriots— former volunteers to Spain—took part in the French people’s struggle for freedom. According to official statistics, about 100 Italians lost their lives in the struggle for the independence and freedom of France, in nazi prisons and concentration camps. An Italian section of a secret military organisation (whose chief- ofstaff was Renato Bertolini, a captain of the Garibaldi Brigade) operated in the Buchenwald death camp, and took part in freeing the camp inmates before the arrival of American troops. Garibaldis also fought in guerrilla units in Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg and Yugoslavia.

p In 1938 a former commissar of the Garibaldi Battalion, Ilio Barontini, left Spain for Abyssinia where, together with two other Garibaldi men, Bruno Rolla and Anton Uchmar (Oghen), he helped to organise the Abyssinian people’s struggle for freedom against the Italian fascists. Returning to Europe, all three took part in the Resistance movement in France and Italy. Barontini and Oghen organised armed uprisings in the south of France, in particular, in Marseilles. Bruno Rolla, who remained in an Italian prison until the end of 1943, became one of the organisers of guerrilla warfare in the Abruzzo Hills. Later all of them and many other Garibaldis led the armed resistance against Italian fascism^ and the German occupation.

p In 1943-45 Luigi Longo commanded Garibaldi units which numerically formed more than two-thirds of the whole 400,000- strong army of Italian guerrillas. Former brigaders Giuseppe Alberganti, Ilio Barontini, Rafaele Pieragostini, Anton Uchmar, Carlo Farini, Aldo Lampredi, Antonio Roasio, Francesco Leone and Alecsandro Vaia who were members of seven regional leading groups in the north and centre of Italy became recognised leaders of a general uprising, in which many other Italian volunteers of the Spanish Republican Army took part.

p After the liberation of Italy from fascism the Garibaldis began to play an important role in the social and political life of their country. Their names can now be found among party and tradeunion leaders of the Italian Republic.

p The Italian Communist leader^. Palmiro Togliatti, who played an active part in the anti-fascist war of the Spanish people, made 224 a profound assessment of the historical importance of international and Italian solidarity with the Spanish Republic in 1936-39. “If it is true that after 1939 the gloomy silence, of the grave and prison descended on Spain, then it is also true that, although the battle was now being fought on another field, the aims had not changed.... If that first bastion had fallen without a struggle, the fate of the world and our country would have been a completely different one. It was on that battlefield that we got to know our friends and our enemies, the dangers and tasks common to all true democrats; it was on that battlefield that anti-fascist unity arose as a real and concrete school of war and politics, a school for peoples, for classes, for parties, for far-seeing statesmen."  [224•1 

The spirit of anti-fascist unity and solidarity which stirred the troops of the International Brigades to heroic deeds and inspired the fighters of the Italian Resistance is still alive today in the struggle of new generations of the Italian people for peace, democracy and socialism.