When discussing the war crimes of World War II, it's likely Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan
are the first belligerents that pop into your mind. In reality, though, no nation's record is
completely clean. The third Axis power, Fascist Italy, often escapes the flak, overshadowed by
Germany and Japan. But not today. In this video, we're going to provide you with an overview of
Italy's war crimes during the nation's fascist years and up to the end of the Second World War.
Before we get into the war crimes, it's important we understand the context. Italy started building
an empire in the late 1800s, mostly in Africa. It bought the port city of Assab in Eritrea in
1869 and occupied the port city of Massawa in 1885, after which it expanded through Eritrea.
At the same time, Italy occupied territory in what would soon become Italian Somaliland.
After the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1887 to 1889 came to an end, the Italians and Ethiopians defined
their borders under the Treaty of Wuchale, and the Italian Colony of Eritrea became official.
But that wasn't enough for the burgeoning Italian Empire. It set its sight on Ethiopia, and this
resulted in the First Italo-Ethiopian War, in which the Ethiopians emerged victorious in 1896,
cementing Italy as a bit of a meme. Ethiopia was spared Italian occupation—for now. After they won
the Italo-Turkish War in 1912, the Italians annexed Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan,
which would later merge to become Italian Libya. The Libyan resistance movement didn't
make it easy for the Italians, though, fighting the occupation for the next couple of decades.
In 1922, the National Fascist Party rose to power. It was steered by a balding Benito Mussolini,
who decided he would double down on Italy's footholds in Africa. Between 1922 and 1932,
Fascist Italy crushed the Libyan resistance and then, in 1934, created Italian Libya
or, as it was also known, Italian North Africa. This campaign was referred to as the Pacification
of Libya. The following year—allied with its colonies Italian Eritrea, Italian Somaliland,
and Italian Libya—Italy invaded and occupied Ethiopia in what went down in history as
the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. When it was over, the Italians controlled a large chunk
of the Horn of Africa in a territory deemed Italian East Africa. Mussolini also had a
hand in the Spanish Civil War, nudging the Nationalists towards victory in April 1939.
In this pre-WWII era, Fascist Italy gained infamy for its brutality in the Pacification of Libya
and the Second Italo-Ethiopian War more than any of the other conflicts in which it participated.
The Pacification of Libya was anything but
pacifying. The fighting took place all throughout what became Italian Libya,
but the people of the eastern territory Cyrenaica copped it the hardest. The Italians claimed to
have had it out for the Libyan resistance movement (which was organised by the Muslim
Order and their leader, Omar Mukhtar), but they didn't hesitate to target civilians, either.
To make way for Italian settlers, the Italian Empire's military forces, composed mostly
of troops from Libya and Italian East Africa, expelled about 100,000 Bedouins from Cyrenaica,
which was a little under half of the region's population. Many of the people expelled from
their homes were thrown into concentration camps elsewhere in Cyrenaica. They had to travel there,
across the desert, on foot. If they couldn't keep up, the Italians gunned them down. These
were literal death marches. The camps themselves were horrendous, with around 20,000 people crammed
into an area about one square kilometre in size. Disease was rife, and food was severely lacking.
By 1993, 40% of the 100,000 people consigned to the concentration camps were dead.
But that's not all. If the Italians believed someone was assisting the Libyan rebels,
they would execute them, civilians included. And they got fairly creative with this too,
running them over with tanks and throwing them out of moving aircraft. The Italians bombed civilian
settlements and strafed fleeing refugees. They even tested mustard gas on civilian populations.
In 1931, they caught the rebel leader Mukhtar and hung him in public. In June 1930, General
Pietro Badoglio wrote a letter to General Rodolfo Graziani. These were the two Italian generals in
charge of the so-called pacification. A section of the letter read: "[T]he course has been set,
and we must carry it out to the end, even if the entire population of Cyrenaica must perish."
It's also important to note that the Italians claimed the rebels committed war crimes too,
with torturing and mutilating Italian POWs being just one example.
Things weren't any better in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. On the third of October 1935,
some 200,000 Italian troops entered Ethiopia from Italian Eritrea, while two additional
divisions entered from Italian Somaliland. This was before war had even been declared,
and Mussolini had some 685,000 troops ready to go in the Horn of Africa alone. The Ethiopians
were far from defenceless, though, boasting some 800,000 military personnel. As you might recall,
they'd also already claimed a victory against Italy in the *First* Italo-Ethiopian War.
As such, the Italians played dirty. As in Libya, they bombed and otherwise destroyed civilian
settlements, and confiscated vital livestock. All in all, some 382,000 civilians lost their lives,
over half a million houses were destroyed, and millions of cattle, sheep, goats,
and other important agricultural animals were confiscated or slain. Of the civilian deaths,
around 300,000 were the result of starvation; the rest died in bombings or mustard gas attacks,
the latter being a direct violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol. The Italians subjected Ethiopians
to concentration camps here, too, where some 35,000 perished. In the city of Addis Abada,
between 19,200 and 30,000 people were massacred by the Italians over a period of three days
in retaliation for the attempted assassination of the aforementioned Graziani, who was promoted to
marshal during the conflict. The Italians weren't opposed to attacking Red Cross camps either.
According to the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, "Special sprayers were installed
on board [Italian] aircraft so they could vaporize over vast areas of territory a fine,
death-dealing rain. The deadly rain made all those whom it touched fly shrieking with pain.
All those who drank poisoned water or ate infected food also succumbed. In tens of thousands the
victims of Italian mustard gas fell." Some believe the effects of Italian mustard gas
weren't quite so severe, however, and we, of course, haven't touched on Ethiopian war crimes,
which included their use of expanding bullets and the mutilation of Italian POWs
About a month and a half after the Spanish Civil War came to an end—having strengthened
their friendship during that conflict—Italy and Germany signed the Pact of Steel in Berlin.
This essentially stipulated that they would have each other's backs if war broke out.
When, in September 1939, war *did* break out, however, Mussolini wasn't quite ready for it.
His military was still recovering from all that pre-World War II drama. It wasn't until June 1940
that Italy got stuck into the action, invading south-east France while Nazi Germany swept in
from the north. Much of Italy's war occurred in Africa against the British, but the Italians
were especially brutal in Europe, where Mussolini had imperial ambitions. Most Italian war crimes
occurred in Yugoslavia and Greece, which the Italians invaded in league with the Germans.
In Yugoslavia, the Italians expelled people from their homes and sent them to Italian concentration
camps, such as the camp on the island of Rab, in Italian-occupied Dalmatia. At its peak, the camp
contained some 15,000 people, women and children included. With little more than tents for shelter,
many died of exposure. The camp was overcrowded and infested with insects and disease, and food
and water were beyond scarce. The lowest estimates put Rab concentration camp’s death toll at around
one fifth, but it may have been much higher. Back on the mainland, the Italians burnt down villages
and towns to make way for Italian settlers, and executed people without trial. Mario Roatta,
an Italian general tasked with ruining the lives of the inhabitants of Croatia and Slovenia,
gave his men the following order: **[1][**"If necessary don't shy away from using cruelty.
It must be a complete cleansing. We need to intern all the inhabitants and put Italian
families in their place."**][1]** In the village of Podhum, Croatia, on the 12th of July 1942,
some 250 Italian soldiers, under the command of an Waffen-SS officer, rounded up 91 male civilians,
marched them into a field, and shot them dead. The Italians then burned the village
(and the villages around it) to the ground and deported Podhum's women, children,
and elderly men to concentration camps in Italy. These were just some, among many,
of the war crimes the Italians committed in Yugoslavia. In Greece, the Italian occupation
zone may not have been as bad as the German and Bulgarian occupation zones, but it was by no means
a good time. The Italians were responsible for one especially infamous massacre that took place in
Thessaly on the 16th and 17th of February 1943. In the village of Domenikon, the 24th Infantry
Division Pinerolo rounded up 175 male civilians and gunned them down in retaliation for a Greek
resistance ambush that took place earlier. As with Podhum, they then Domenikon to the ground, too.
Unfortunately, we've only scratched the surface here.
But we're eager to know what you think. Did you know the Italians were neck-deep in war crimes
before and during World War II? Can you think of any atrocities we didn't cover in this video?
Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.