Rodolfo Graziani

Rodolfo Graziani, 1st

Following the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy in 1943, he was the only Marshal of Italy who remained loyal to Benito Mussolini and was named the Minister of Defence of the Italian Social Republic, commanding its army and returning to active service against the Allies for the rest of the war. Graziani was never prosecuted by the United Nations War Crimes Commission; he was included on its list of Italians eligible to be prosecuted for war crimes but Allied opposition and indifference to the prosecution of Italian war criminals frustrated Ethiopian attempts to bring him to justice. In 1950, an Italian court sentenced Graziani to 19 years of imprisonment for his collaboration with the Nazis; he was released after serving only four months. In the last years of his life, he went into politics, entering in the Italian Social Movement and becoming its Honorary President in 1953, probably for his career during the Fascist period in Italy, and died a few years later in 1955.

Rodolfo Graziani was born in Filettino in the province of Frosinone on August 11, 1882.^[3] His father, Filippo Graziani, was the village doctor. He was educated in a seminary in the town of Subiaco and then went on to study in the Liceo Torquato Tasso in Rome. Due to economic restraints, Graziani could not apply to the Military Academy of Modena and so decided to study law at university instead, at the urging of the father.^[4]

In 1903, he joined the Royal Italian Army as a reserve officer cadet whilst studying at university. In 1906, he passed a competitive examination for reserve officers to be made regular and became a second lieutenant, stationed at the 1st regiment of Grenadiers in Rome.^[5] Graziani's first posting was to Italian Eritrea where he learned Arabic and Tigrinya. In 1911, whilst in the Eritrean countryside, he was bitten by a snake which resulted in him being hospitalized.^[6] Because of this, he never served in the Italo-Turkish War. After his convalescence, he was repatriated to Italy where he was promoted to captain. In 1918, during World War I, Graziani in the Regio Esercito became the youngest Colonnello (Colonel) in Italian history.

In 1930, the Fascist government appointed Graziani Vice-Governor of Cyrenaica and commander of the Italian forces in

In 1935, Graziani was appointed Governor of Italian Somaliland.

During the

Addis Ababa fell to Badoglio on 5 May 1936. Graziani had wanted to reach Harar before Badoglio reached Addis Ababa, but failed to do so. Even so, on 9 May, Graziani was rewarded for his role as commander of the southern front with a promotion to the rank of Marshal of Italy. During his tour of an Ethiopian Orthodox church in Dire Dawa, Graziani fell into a pit covered by an ornate carpet, a trap that he believed had been set by the Ethiopian priests to injure or kill him. As a result, he held Ethiopian clerics in deep suspicion.

After the war, Graziani was made

From 1939 to 1941, Graziani was Chief of Staff of the Regio Esercito.

At the start of

The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini had given Graziani a deadline of 8 August 1940 to invade Egypt with the 10th Army. Graziani doubted the ability of his largely-unmechanized force to defeat the British and put off the invasion for as long as he could.

However, faced with demotion, Graziani ultimately followed orders, and four divisions of the 10th Army invaded Egypt on 9 September against the British screening forces. The Italians captured Sidi Barrani and then prepared a series of fortified camps to defend their positions. In December 1940, in Operation Compass the British counterattacked and completely defeated the 10th Army. On 25 March 1941, Graziani was replaced by General Italo Gariboldi. Graziani remained mostly inactive for the next two years. During his time in Italy, he played a role in suppressing the Italian anti-fascist movement.^[10]

Graziani was the only Italian Marshal to remain loyal to Mussolini after the

At the end of World War II, Graziani spent a few days in the San Vittore Prison in Milan before he was transferred to Allied control. He was brought back to Africa in Anglo-American custody and stayed there until February 1946. Allied forces then felt the danger of his assassination or lynching had passed (many thousands of fascists were murdered in Italy in the summer and autumn of 1945) and so moved Graziani to the Procida prison in Italy.

Before the Second World War, the League of Nations did not prosecute Graziani and the Italian authorities for war crimes in Ethiopia. In one case, Graziani had ordered his troops to use chemical weapons against Nasibu Zeamanuel's troops in Gorrahei on 10 October 1935.^[12] Although the Ethiopian Minister of Foreign Affairs gave the League of Nations irrefutable evidence of what the Italian military had done from within a few hours of its invasion on 3 October 1935 to 10 April of the following year, no action was taken. Incidents included the use of poison gas and the bombing of Red Cross hospitals and ambulances.^[13]

In 1943, the United States proposed to the Allies replacing the League of Nations with a new body, the United Nations. The United Nations War Crimes Commission was created to investigate allegations of war crimes committed by Axis powers in World War II. On 31 December 1946, Ambaye Wolde Mariam from The Ethiopian War Crimes Commission presented to the UN War Crimes Commission its preliminary findings against Graziani. This related, however, to the period before WWII. The Ethiopian government felt it would have no difficulty from the sufficient amount of evidence it had to justify a trial against Graziani, especially for the massacres he ordered in February 1937.^[13] On 4 March 1948, charges against Graziani were presented to the United Nations War Crimes Commission. The commission was presented with evidence of the Italian policy of systematic terrorism and Graziani's self-admitted intention to execute all Amharas authorities and cited a telegram from Graziani to General Nasi, in which Graziani had written, "Keep in mind also that I have already aimed at the total destruction of Abyssinian chiefs and notables and that this should be carried out completely in your territories".^[13] The UN Commission agreed that there was a prima facie case against eight Italians, including Graziani.^[13]

However, the Allies questioned the veracity of Ethiopia's claim against the Italians on the grounds that it was impossible to identify which individuals in the Italian military hierarchy had actually issued the criminal orders. The British government was the firmest supporter of that stance, and the United States pursued a policy "largely characterized by ambivalence towards Italian aggression". The Ethiopian government made a direct request to the "Four Policemen", but that was immediately rejected on technical grounds. In addition, many in the Italian press firmly opposed any Italian officer being put on trial for war crimes. Faced with such resistance and indifference, Ethiopia had no choice but to back down from their requests, to the consternation of many Ethiopians.^[14][15]

In 1950, an Italian military tribunal sentenced Graziani to 19 years in jail for collaborating with the Nazis, but he was released after only four months because his lawyers demonstrated that his actions had been only after he "received orders". He never faced any further prosecutions for any other specific war crimes.^[16] Unlike the Germans and the Japanese, the Italians did not have their commanders subjected to prosecutions by Allied tribunals.

In the early 1950s, Graziani had some involvement with the

During the summer of 1954, Graziani resigned from the MSI.[17]

By autumn 1954, Graziani was losing strength and he began experiencing mounting health issues. His mental health had deteriorated to the point that he sometimes woke up thinking he was still imperial viceroy in Addis Ababa. By years end he was suffering from acute pain and on 26 December 1954, he underwent surgery. It went well and he began recovering during the first week of January 1955. On 10 January, his health suddenly rapidly declined. At midnight he went into a coma, briefly regaining consciousness at 4 am and stated his later words, ‘If my time has come, I'll go calmly to be judged by God’. He died in Rome at 6 am on 11 January 1955 at the age of 72.^[17]

More than 100,000 people came to his funeral in front of the

In August 2012, $160,000 of public money was used to help finance the building of a large monument atop Graziani's tomb in Affile. The subscription was supplemented by private funding from the mayor of Affile, Ercole Viri. The new mausoleum was engraved with the words "Fatherland" and "Honor". Local left-wing politicians and national commentators harshly criticized the monument whereas the town's "mostly conservative" population approved.^[18] Public funding for the Graziani monument was suspended by the newly elected Lazio administration after the 2013 regional elections.^[19] A statement from Ethiopia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Graziani did not deserve to be memorialized but instead be condemned in history for his war crimes, genocidal behavior and crimes against humanity.^[19] In 2017, Viri and two other Affile town councillors were convicted of the crime of "fascism apology" for building the monument and were given jail sentences, although the court did not order the removal of the monument.^[20][21]

Graziani wrote several books,^[22] the most important of which are:

• Ho difeso la Patria (una vita per l'Italia)
• Africa settentrionale 1940–41
• Libia redenta

also:

• Verso il Fezzan
• La riconquista del Fezzan
• Cirenaica pacificata
• Pace romana in Libia
• Il Fronte Sud

• 1915-1918—Service in World War I
• 1921-1934—Service in Libya
• 1926-1930—Vice
  Governor-General of Italian Cyrenaica
• 1930-1934—Governor-General of Italian Cyrenaica
• 1935-1936—Governor-General of Italian Somaliland
• 1936-1937—Governor-General and
  Viceroy of Ethiopia; promoted to Marshal of Italy
• 1940-1941—
  Governor-General of Libya
• 1943-1945—Minister of Defense for the Italian Social Republic

Graziani was portrayed by British actor Oliver Reed in the 1981 war film Lion of the Desert. On its release, it was banned by the Italian government because, in the words of Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, it was "damaging to the honor of the army".^[23]

Graziani was also portrayed by Rodolfo Dal Pra in the Italian film Last Days of Mussolini.

The Italian singer and composer Franco Battiato included a reference to Graziani in his song "Lettera al Governatore della Libia" (Letter to the governor of Libya) with the phrase "Lo sai che quell'idiota di Graziani farà una brutta fine" (You know that the idiotic Graziani will have a bad end).

• Frontier Wire (Libya)

Bibliography

• Canosa, Romano. Graziani. Il maresciallo d'Italia, dalla guerra d'Etiopia alla Repubblica di Salò. Editore Mondadori; Collana: Oscar storia.
  ISBN 9788804537625
• Cova, Alessandro. Rodolfo Graziani: Story of an Italian general. Fonthill Media, 2021,
  ISBN 9781781558515
  .
• Del Boca, AngeloNaissance de la nation libyenne, Editions Milelli, 2008,
  ISBN 978-2-916590-04-2
  .
• Pankhurst, Richard. History of the Ethiopian Patriots (1936–1940), The Graziani Massacre and Consequences. Addis Abeba Tribune editions. ^[ISBN missing]
• Rocco, Giuseppe. L'organizzazione militare della RSI, sul finire della seconda guerra mondiale. Greco & Greco Editori. Milano, 1998 ^{[ISBN missing]}

External links

• Italian War Criminal Rodolfo Graziani, Blaine Taylor, Warfare History Network, 21 February 2020

Wikiquote has quotations related to Rodolfo Graziani.

Media related to Rodolfo Graziani at Wikimedia Commons

• Newspaper clippings about Rodolfo Graziani in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

Government offices
Preceded by Pietro Badoglio	Governor-General of Italian East Africa 11 June 1936 – 21 December 1937	Succeeded by Amedeo, 3rd Duke of Aosta
Military offices
Preceded by Italo Balbo	Governor-General of Italian Libya 28 June 1940 – 25 March 1941	Succeeded by Italo Gariboldi