Giulio Cesare Gotti Porcinari

Count Giulio Cesare Gotti Porcinari (Florence, 17 August 1888 – Rome, 7 September 1946) was an Italian general during World War II.

Biography

Hailing from an old aristocratic family, he held both the titles of Count and Patrician of

Everyone was firm in their purpose to keep the enemy away from the island. Three-fifths of the soldiers in the division had been recruited in districts of Sicily; therefore, they weren’t free of deep concern about their families, given the (constantly growing, in the last period) violence and extension of the bombing and strafing attacks on towns and countryside by enemy aircraft. In October 1942, the division was asked to provide officers and soldiers (volunteers) that would be sent to Russia, replacing troops that in turn would be repatriated from Russia and would replace said volunteers (3,500 men). Thus the units lost one third of their strength, the best educated, most enthusiastic and most willing men, and the division was placed in a terrible state of crisis, as in one stroke the thorough training (specialist troops, non-commissioned officers, officers, shock troops) of men and units, that had been carried out in multiple areas, was nullified. At the end of May 1943 General Testi, the commander of the division's infantry, previously Chief of Staff of the XVI Corps, was transferred to mainland Italy; Colonel De Fonzo, commander of the 54th Artillery Regiment, was appointed Chief of Staff of the Intendance of Sicily; on 15 June Colonel Mazzarella, commander of the 75th Infantry Regiment, a role which he had held firmly, was removed from his position and transferred to the 213rd Coastal Division. We thus lost capable senior officers, who knew well the regions and the units under their command. The troops that had come from Russia were not content with their transfer to Sicily (…) The regiments had between 1/3 and ¼ of their troops that, due to superior orders, were not given any leave, not even in case of death of their parents. When some of these men were granted leave by the divisional command in derogation from these orders, they were sent back to the division under the escort of Carabinieri, and the divisional command was reprimanded by the Ministry for this. Most of them were excellent soldiers who, in great numbers, asked their colonels and the commander of the division the reason for this undeserved mistrust and their different treatment from that of the islanders, who instead enjoyed leaves. With the specious pretext of lack of transport, at the end of 1942 all leaves for mainland Italy were suspended, while troop trains were used exclusively for German troops. (…) Another loss, in addition to that of the commanding officers, was the transfer to the coastal units of all soldiers born in 1910-1911-1912-1913-1914, who were replaced with hastily-trained recruits born in 1923. Still in June 1943, the Division was deprived of 12 officers and 100 enlisted men, chosen among the best, in order to create a unit for a special Arditi battalion elsewhere.^[6]

After the