Abstract
Alexander Henry’s new book aims to use hitherto under-utilized source material to help deepen our understanding of the wartime attitudes and experiences of Italian servicemen. The main, and most unique, part of his source base are transcripts of recordings of Italian prisoners of war who were held in England. These recordings were made secretly by the Combined Services Detailed Intelligence Centre (United Kingdom) or CSDIC (UK). As Henry makes abundantly clear in his introduction, while the CSDIC transcripts of German prisoner conversations have been used frequently by historians, their Italian counterparts have been neglected (pp.4–6).
Henry identifies two main themes to his argument that cut across each of his chapters: first, a rejection of broadly held ‘stereotypes about the character of Italian soldiers during this period’ and secondly, the dispelling of ‘the myth’ that the war fought between Fascist Italy and the Western Allies was a sideshow (p.2). The seven chapters are divided thematically, with the first two discussing CSDIC (UK) and the source material in general. Chapter three assesses Italian attitudes to their enemies and allies and chapter four looks at views of occupation, war crimes, and antisemitism. Chapters five to seven respectively cover combat experience, attitudes towards the Italian political leadership, and perceptions of victory and defeat.
Over the course of the book, Henry reveals some fascinating individual insights from the sources. While many of the views expressed towards Italy’s allies and enemies are those that might be expected, there is surprisingly frequent praise for the Soviet Union. Some prisoners even ‘discussed the merits of forming a “USSR Republic of Europe to beat the English”’ (p.77). Elsewhere, some reveal apparent instances of military action undertaken against France before the declaration of war in June 1940 (p.91). In another blow to the longstanding stereotype of ‘gli italiani brava gente’ (the popularised idea of the ‘good Italian’ in wartime), there is evidence of broad awareness among the cohort of atrocities committed in the Balkans (pp.94–7) and frequent expressions of antisemitism. This includes one particularly shocking example of open support for the ‘extermination’ of Jews (p.97). Henry also argues that the CSDIC evidence supports the views of historians such as Paul Corner and Emilio Gentile, who argue that not only was the Fascist Party already unpopular with many Italians by 1940 but that Mussolini himself was too, especially so by 1942. In this way, he disagrees with scholars such as Christopher Duggan who have argued that Mussolini retained his popularity for most of the war (p.149).
In this well-written book, Henry has broadly succeeded in his aim of using this under-utilized source material to challenge stereotypes and dispel myths regarding the Italian armed forces and Italy’s war. Italian servicemen are depicted as being capable of fighting hard and to the end (e.g. p.43), but also of casual brutality and support for organised atrocity. Henry also frequently does an effective job of linking the evidence from the CSDIC sources with relevant secondary works from both the English and Italian-language historiography and engaging with existing debates. There are, however, two caveats. First, while Henry frequently engages with the historiography, the depiction of the Anglophone literature as one which still broadly dismisses Italians as militarily incompetent and the war with Italy as a sideshow is not entirely accurate (pp.7–11). He cites James Sadkovich as a rare exception, but Sadkovich is made to seem rarer than is actually the case as Henry does not engage with the works of John Gooch or Bastian Matteo Scianna, for example. The second issue relates to the CSDIC sources. Henry makes a commendable effort to treat his sources critically and discusses their utility across the introduction and chapter two. He accepts that ‘In all, the 563 selected Italian POWs made up just 0.4 percent of the 157,000 servicemen who were interned in the United Kingdom during the Second World War.’ (p.43). This disparity in representation could be viewed as being even wider than this, however. The Italian Army alone, for instance, numbered somewhere in the region of 1.5 million men in June 1940, according to Giorgio Rochat. This is worth bearing in mind when considering the link between the source base and the conclusions offered.
Notwithstanding these two issues, Henry has delivered a welcome addition to the still relatively limited Anglophone literature on Italy’s war that makes interesting use of hitherto under-utilized sources. It is an important contribution to the historiography for those interested in Italy’s war, the fascist period, and broader themes of war, armed forces, and society.