The Pope at War, page 35
While joy and optimism greeted news of Mussolini’s overthrow in the Allied capitals, the reaction in Berlin was very different. The Führer’s outrage was further stoked by his fear that Mussolini had been executed. He immediately summoned Goebbels and others of his inner circle to prepare a response, placing no faith in Badoglio’s public declaration that Italy would continue to fight on the Axis side. Indeed, Hitler suspected that Badoglio had moved against Mussolini only after reaching a secret agreement with the Allies. The Führer’s first thought was to direct a German parachute division based in France to occupy Rome, seize Badoglio, the king, and the whole royal family, and take them to Germany. Hitler suspected, wrongly, that the Vatican had played a key role in the king’s decision to replace Mussolini, and he railed against the pope and the Holy See. Goebbels, his propaganda chief, helped persuade him that taking any action against the pope or the Vatican would be unwise, for it would undercut their claim to be defending Christian Europe from the Jews and the Communist hordes. He described the discussion in his July 27 diary entry: “The Fuehrer at first intended, when arresting the responsible men in Rome, to seize the Vatican also, but Ribbentrop and I opposed the plan most emphatically. I don’t believe it necessary to break into the Vatican, and, on the other hand, I would regard such a measure as exceptionally unfortunate because of the effect our measures would have on the whole of world opinion.”[6]
The fate of Mussolini and his family was on the pope’s mind as well. Two days after the dictator’s arrest, Cardinal Maglione made a note of these concerns. He knew Mussolini was in a nearby military base, although he did not know that he would soon be spirited off to a more remote location. Perhaps the military authorities would allow the Holy See to send Archbishop Bartolomasi, head of the military chaplaincy—and, until then an avid cheerleader for Mussolini and Fascism—to visit the fallen leader to comfort him. The cardinal, shortly after learning of Mussolini’s arrest, had also sent a message urging the police chief to give precise instructions “for the security of the poor woman Rachele Mussolini.” Maglione followed this up later in the month by sending a detailed list of Mussolini’s extended family members—twenty-six in all—and their whereabouts to the Italian embassy with a recommendation that no harm come to them.[7]
Early on the morning of July 30, Dino Grandi, the main author of the Grand Council resolution, came to see the pope.[8] He later recalled: “Pope Pius XII greeted me with paternal benevolence. He asked that I sit near him and tell him in minute detail about the events in which I took part on the eve of July 25, my last conversation with the Duce, the preparations for and the night of the Grand Council, my contacts with the king and with the ministers of the Royal House.” In Grandi’s subsequent account, which must be viewed with some skepticism, he also told the pope that Badoglio’s hopes for Italy to withdraw from the war were illusory and that Italy should prepare to defend itself against a German invasion. While he and the pope were talking, they heard an ear-shattering air raid siren. At first, according to Grandi’s account, the pope did not move, but after a moment he got down on his knees and, with his palms pressed together in front of him, began reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Grandi knelt down next to him, joining the pontiff in reciting the familiar words.[9]
There was a kind of musical chairs quality to the hasty formation of the new government, as evident in the fate of Mussolini’s undersecretary for foreign affairs. On July 31, the king summoned Giuseppe Bastianini, who arrived early the next morning at the king’s study in the Quirinal Palace. Victor Emmanuel wore his military uniform. Bastianini, in tails, sat before him, his cylindrical black top hat perched on his lap. The king first thanked Bastianini for all the work he had done under difficult conditions over the past few months as, in effect, Mussolini’s last foreign minister. He then said he was appointing him ambassador to Turkey. The position was vacant in the wake of the appointment of Raffaele Guariglia, Mussolini’s former ambassador to the Holy See, and for the past several months Italy’s ambassador to Turkey, as the new foreign minister.[10]
Among Guariglia’s first challenges on returning to Rome from Ankara was what to do about Mussolini’s son-in-law, who remained the country’s ambassador to the Holy See. Clearly, he could not stay in that position. But, Guariglia later recalled, “Taking any administrative action against him was repugnant to me given the personal relations I had had with him and the appreciation I had always had of his good qualities.” Instead, he sent a Foreign Ministry assistant to ask for the resignation, and Ciano readily obliged. Placed under house arrest, Ciano remained in his home as he mulled over his options.[11]
Rather than replace Ciano as ambassador to the Vatican, Guariglia decided to leave the position vacant. Having held that post until Ciano took his place earlier in the year, and having a close relationship with Cardinal Maglione, Guariglia decided it best to manage relations with the Vatican by himself. He appointed his longtime colleague, forty-six-year-old Francesco Babuscio Rizzo, to the post of chargé d’affaires of Italy’s embassy to the Holy See. Guariglia’s ties to the Vatican secretary of state did not escape the notice of the German ambassador. “Foreign Minister Guariglia and Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione keep close contact,” Weizsäcker advised Berlin. “Both come from the same region close to Naples. Guariglia is a devout Catholic. I do not think that there are any matters in Italian foreign policy that Maglione does not learn about.”[12]
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Now that Mussolini had fallen, the church faced the urgent task of denying it shared any responsibility for having promoted popular support for his regime. The dangers the churchmen faced were evident from Milan, where despite Badoglio’s ban on popular demonstrations, workers hostile to his government were demonstrating in the streets. On the morning of July 26, a crowd sacked the Fascist Party headquarters in Milan, as similar crowds did elsewhere in Italy. That evening thousands marched in a spontaneous demonstration making their way through the streets of Milan to Piazza Duomo, facing the city’s famed cathedral. Shouts were heard against Cardinal Schuster, Milan’s archbishop, a longtime supporter of the Fascist regime. Smaller groups of demonstrators broke off to gather around orators who called for an end to Fascism and an end to the war. Over the following days, the government vigorously enforced the ban on demonstrations while censorship prevented newspapers from reporting the cases of popular violence against particularly reviled local figures of the Fascist regime. At the same time, strikes broke out in factories as workers called for better wages and better working conditions.
Nor was the turmoil limited to the center and north of the country. On July 28 in the southern city of Bari, police opened fire on two hundred demonstrators, mainly high school and university students and their teachers, as they marched by the Fascist headquarters and called for removal of the Fascist symbols decorating its exterior. Twenty of the marchers lay dead in the street. Similar bloody encounters of protesters with the government’s armed forces occurred in central Italy as well. In all, it is estimated that in the days following the announcement of the new government, ninety-three demonstrators were killed, over five hundred injured, and more than two thousand arrested.[13]
Bishop Colli, who, as national director of Catholic Action, had repeatedly urged all good Catholics to support the Axis war, now issued new instructions to the membership. They were to obey the new government. In what would become the anthem of the Italian church in general, the bishop added: “Italian Catholic Action has nothing to repudiate in its past work.”[14]
In the wake of Mussolini’s fall, the pope worried about the possibility of a popular uprising and the threat it posed not only to the Vatican but to his own personal safety as well. On August 7 the commander of the Swiss Guard warned that Vatican security forces were woefully undermanned and underequipped to deal with the new threats. The “development of the uncertain events, full of surprises,” he advised Cardinal Maglione, “requires a major improvement in the weapons at the Guard’s disposal.” Accompanying his plea was a memo prepared for the pope, who reviewed it on August 9. Should a regular army unit attack the papal residence, there was no hope of prevailing and, the papal officer suggested, only symbolic resistance could be mounted. Fortunately, however, such an assault seemed unlikely. “On the other hand, a defense promises success against the more likely attacks from revolutionary masses in case of possible political disorders.” In such a case, it would only be a matter of holding off the anticlerical mob long enough for the forces of the regular army to come to their aid. But such assistance, the Swiss Guard commander advised, might “only arrive after the rabble had amassed around the Gates and Entrances of the Vatican and had eventually climbed the Vatican’s walls and forced open one or another entrance.”
The commander thought it crucial that his forces be equipped with automatic weapons, including machine guns, weapons they did not have. “The revolutionary crowd, especially after a war, will certainly have armament superior to that of the Vatican, that is automatic arms, cannons, tanks, etc.” The use of heavy weapons by Vatican forces outside the walls of Vatican City to prevent the mob from entering would be politically impossible, advised the commander. Therefore it was crucial they be able to stop the rioters once they had breached the Vatican perimeter. He recommended that a request be made to the Italian government for twenty-four machine guns, as well as “a certain number of defensive hand grenades.” With those arms, they would be able “to guarantee the safety of the Holy Pontiff and all those in the Sacred Apostolic Palaces.” To this he added another note: the Swiss Guards would need to replace their decorative antique helmets with modern ones made of steel and procure sandbags sufficient to protect the papal troops in case of attack.
The pope considered the recommendations but judged some of them a step too far. Among those the pope approved was setting up a direct phone line to the Italian police and finding better ways to protect the entrances to Vatican City and the Apostolic Palace. He also asked that means be examined to disperse any crowds that might gather at a Vatican City gate, suggesting, adding a question mark indicating his hesitancy, “Water hoses? Use of smoke?” The pope put off the question of procuring heavy arms, saying he would discuss the matter with Cardinal Canali, responsible for overseeing Vatican City. The Swiss Guards would never get the heavy weapons their commander had urged on the pope.[15]
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Italy’s new prime minister faced an impossible dilemma. To continue to fight the Allies would be to ensure national ruin, but to announce that the country was abandoning its Axis partner risked disaster as well. Hundreds of thousands of Italian troops were stationed alongside the Germans in the Balkans and elsewhere. The day Italy announced an armistice, the Germans would likely seize them all, if they did not simply shoot them as turncoats. The tens of thousands of German soldiers in Italy itself were undoubtedly a more potent military force than the demoralized Italian troops. Nor was there any doubt that should the new prime minister announce a separate peace with the Allies, Germany would flood thousands more men into the peninsula.
In late July, Badoglio was still mulling over how best to make contact with the Allies without letting the Germans know. He also feared that Hitler might try to restore Mussolini to power. To gain time, he instructed the head of Italy’s military mission in Berlin, General Luigi Efisio Marras, to meet with the Führer. The general’s task was not an easy one, for Hitler was furious with the Italians, and Marras was charged with offering assurances he knew were being made in bad faith.
Thanking the Führer for meeting so speedily, the general did his best to convince him that the change in Italy’s government had nothing to do with Italy’s commitment to the Axis cause. As Badoglio had publicly proclaimed, the war at Germany’s side would continue.
Hitler listened for a while without interrupting. Then when the general paused, he launched into a lengthy lecture. What Italians lacked, said Hitler, was courage. German cities were being bombed too, yet Germans stood strong. “The day will come,” the Führer predicted, “when we will be able to take our revenge.” He reminded the general of Mussolini’s favorite adage, “Better to live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep.” If Italy were to lose the war, he warned, it would also lose not only its hard-won African colonies but Sicily and Sardinia as well.
What most concerned the Führer, it seemed, was the fate of his former comrade in arms, and the general repeatedly tried to assure him that the Duce was alive and well. “All things considered,” Marras concluded in his report to Badoglio, “the Führer exhibited a calm, a composure and even a cordiality greater than could have been expected given the situation.”[16]
The meeting might have been cordial, but Badoglio was getting alarming news from Italy’s northern border. German troops were pouring into the country both at the Brenner Pass in the northeast and across the French border on the northwest. The Germans brushed off the feeble challenges they met from Italian border officials who had no orders to use force to stop them, nor could they. In the northeastern city of Bolzano, German units quickly occupied power stations, bridges, and other strategic points. The same pattern would soon be repeated elsewhere.[17]
Badoglio still clung to the belief, or at least the hope, that Italy could find a path out of the war that did not appear to be a betrayal of its Axis partner. He sent a message to the Führer suggesting that together they find a way to bring the war to a “dignified” end. Told of the message, Hitler erupted, “This is the greatest insolence the world has ever seen! But what is this man thinking? That I believe him?”[18]
Worried that violent conflict with Germany might be about to erupt, Cardinal Maglione convoked a joint meeting with the ambassadors of Portugal, Spain, Argentina, and Hungary, all countries having good relations with the Third Reich. As Italy might soon break off relations with Germany, he told them, Germany might send its troops to occupy key points in Italy, including Rome and perhaps even Vatican City. The cardinal then put the matter diplomatically. He himself had faith that Italy and Germany would find a way to come to an agreement. He also had faith that even if relations between Italy and Germany were broken, Germany, which had recently protested so loudly against the Allied bombing of Rome, would respect the city and its sacred character, as well as Vatican City, which remained neutral in the war. Given all this, asked the cardinal, might it not be opportune for the ambassadors to speak with their German colleague at the Vatican and express their faith in Germany’s good intentions toward the Holy See? After briefly discussing the question among themselves, the ambassadors promised that they would raise the matter with their German counterparts at the first opportunity.[19]
The ambassadors were as good as their word, for the next day Weizsäcker sent a message to Berlin reporting on their visits. The Vatican, they had told him, was worried, for it had received reports that Germany was planning military action in the next few days aimed at toppling the Badoglio government. “When they spoke to me about this,” Weizsäcker informed Berlin, “I said all of this was pure fantasy.” He added, “I could not ascertain whether they believed my denial.”[20]
Italy’s new government, while still publicly reaffirming its commitment to the Axis, was eager to keep the Allies from resuming their bombing of Rome. The government had changed, but its belief that the Vatican offered its best hope to protect the nation’s capital had not. On the last day of July, Italy’s new foreign minister asked Cardinal Maglione for the Vatican’s help in getting the Allies to declare Rome an “open city” and to find out what they would require to do so.
In discussing the matter with the cardinal and most likely with the pope as well, Monsignor Tardini expressed doubts about getting the Vatican involved in such sensitive discussions. It seemed that Italy’s new government was simply stalling for time, since the Allies’ demands regarding demilitarization were well known, and past assurances notwithstanding, the city was still buzzing with military activity. Unwilling to forgo another chance to act as protector of the Eternal City, Pius XII brushed aside Tardini’s reservations. Maglione wrote to the apostolic delegates in both Washington and London to pass on the government’s query.[21]
On receiving Maglione’s note, the papal delegate in Washington contacted Sumner Welles, the U.S. undersecretary of state. The Vatican request, coming on August 2, arrived at an awkward moment, as Eisenhower had scheduled his second bombing mission over Rome for two days later, and Roosevelt was on a fishing trip on a Canadian island in Lake Huron. The American war department sent a radio message to Eisenhower in Algiers: “Italian government via Vatican requested US to prescribe conditions for declaring Rome open city. Pending further instructions it would appear desirable to refrain from air activities against the city of Rome proper.”
Eisenhower replied the next day, after receiving an additional message reporting on a subsequent exchange between the British prime minister and the American president. It was now only a day before the planned attack. “The meaning of the President’s reply to the Prime Minister…quoted in your message is not entirely clear to us,” wrote the American general. “We assume, however, that it means he does not wish to interfere with the attack on the marshalling yards at Rome planned for tomorrow August 4th of which you have already been informed but that further raids on Rome should not be made pending the outcome of Vatican efforts.” Eisenhower followed this up with a message to General George Marshall, army chief of staff, reiterating his plan to attack Rome’s railyards the next day but adding: “I do not intend to overdo operations against Rome as I fully realize all the implications and repercussions which are bound to result, but the presence of our planes over the city, dropping leaflets and, when appropriate, bombs undoubtedly has a marked effect.”[22]
