The Pope at War, page 56
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Petacci 2011, pp. 174–75, diary entry for August 27, 1939. Each morning Mussolini’s police chief brought him new evidence of his countrymen’s lack of enthusiasm for war. In a typical report, sent the same day as the Duce was waving to the crowd outside Palazzo Venezia, a Roman informant observed: “Here people still don’t believe that Italy is about to be involved in the war, if there is one, and most are, at heart, against it.” Beyond the “Romans’ traditional apathy,” explained the informant, the people were influenced by the pope’s pleas for peace and their recognition that almost no preparations had been made for a war, as no antiaircraft installations had been mounted in Rome nor had any bomb shelters been built. Informativa da Roma (n. 535—Mezzabotta), August 27, 1939, ACS, MI, MAT, b. 220. The identification of police informants in these notes is based on the work of Mauro Canali (2004), who compiled a list attaching a name to each numeric code used in the police files.
Mussolini still harbored some hope that he could play a starring role in Europe’s drama by again acting as mediator. As the German ambassador, who had brought Hitler’s letter to Mussolini, reported: “The Duce repeated, in forcible terms, the view he had already advanced yesterday, namely that he still believed it possible to attain all our objectives without resort to war.” Not wanting to seem weak, Mussolini added that of course in three or four years they might well wage war against the Western powers, and by then they would be in a much stronger position. Mackensen to Ribbentrop, August 27, 1939, DGFP, series D, vol. 7, n. 349.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 14
Montini and Tardini notes, August 28, 1939, ADSS, vol. 1, n. 144; Tardini notes, August 28, 1939, ADSS, vol. 1, n. 143. At the same time, the pope also called on his nuncio to the Italian government to meet with Mussolini’s undersecretary, Buffarini, to see what he could learn. At their meeting, Buffarini said Hitler was convinced he could conquer Poland in three weeks’ time and that neither France nor Britain would go to war on Poland’s behalf. “The Honorable Buffarini,” the nuncio added in reporting the conversation, “sung the praises of the Holy Father, telling me, ‘He is just the Pope that is needed.’ ” Borgongini Duca to Maglione, September 1, 1939, ADSS, vol. 1, n. 178.
To complete these frenetic, last-minute efforts, Cardinal Maglione, who had hurried back from his Neapolitan vacation, summoned the Italian ambassador. The cardinal, the ambassador reported to Ciano, “told me that the Holy See was following with admiration the work of the Duce and of Your Excellency to prevent catastrophe. Cardinal Maglione expressed the hope, on behalf of the Pope, that the Duce and Your Excellency leave no stone unturned in achieving the goal of bringing peace among the opposing parties.” Pignatti to Ciano, August 29, 1939, tel. 4065R, ASDMAE, Gab., b. 1125.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 15
Tardini notes, August 29, 1939, ADSS, vol. 1, n. 148. Tacchi Venturi’s note on his audience with Mussolini, dated August 29, 1939, is found at ARSI, Fondo Tacchi Venturi, Miscellanea, b. 11, fasc. 33, carte non numerate.
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Maglione to Orsenigo, Berlin, August 29, 1939, ADSS, vol. 1, n. 147; Tacchi Venturi to Maglione, August 30, 1939, ADSS, vol. 1, n. 151.
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The ellipsis, something of a favored rhetorical device of Tardini, is in the original. The revised text of the message to the nuncio in Warsaw did, however, reflect some of Tardini’s concerns. Rather than identify the source of the proposal as an unnamed “diplomat,” as had the pope’s message to Berlin, the message to Warsaw referred more generically to a “responsible source.” Longer than the Berlin telegram, it also added language about the pope’s “special affection for Poland.” Tardini to Maglione, August 30, 1939, and Maglione to Cortesi, nuncio in Warsaw, August 30, 1939, ADSS, vol. 1, nn. 152, 153.
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Bérard to Darlan, February 22, 1941, referring to a conversation that took place at Castel Gandolfo on August 30, 1939. MAEC, Guerre Vichy, 551. Again, it was the British who seemed to have the most confidence that the pope might be able to do what the leaders of Europe’s great powers could not. In a telegram marked “extremely urgent,” Attolico advised Ciano that the British ambassador in Berlin had proposed that, all other efforts having failed, the British and Italian dipomats should call on the pope to intervene with a concrete peace proposal that Britain and Italy could then jointly recommend to Warsaw and Berlin. The British and Italian ambassadors in Berlin had discussed how their governments might craft such a plea to the pope and what the proposal might consist of. In urging consideration for the proposed papal intervention, Attolico, eager to prevent Mussolini from throwing Italy into a war at Germany’s side, added that it would have the beneficial effect of allowing Italy to play a key role in mediating the dispute. Attolico to ministro degli esteri, August 30, 1939, tel. 4109R, ASDMAE, Gab., b. 1125.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 19
Charles-Roux 1947, p. 332. The French text of the pope’s message, dated August 31, 1939, is found at MAEN, RSS 576, PO/1, 1108. Maglione’s meetings that day are also described in Tardini notes, ADSS, vol. 1, n. 159. For Bergen’s cover letter to Berlin, dated August 31, along with the text of the pope’s message, see DGFP, series D, vol. 7, n. 473.
On September 2, Cardinal Maglione took the unusual step of going to visit Tacchi Venturi to ask him to bring Mussolini a message from the pope. The pope had followed the Duce’s advice and sent the requested message for the nuncio in Warsaw to give to the Polish president. It was not clear, though, whether the cable to Warsaw had gotten through. “One thing is certain from the events following the night of August 31,” wrote Tacchi Venturi in his letter to Mussolini drafted the following day, “that is to say that the result, whether because the [cable] arrived too late or because the President did not decide to follow the Pope’s advice, was not that which His Holiness and with him all the world’s wise ones desired.” ARSI, Fondo Tacchi Venturi, Miscellanea, b. 11, fasc. 33, carte non numerate.
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Petacci 2011, pp. 184–85, diary entry for August 30, 1939.
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Chapter 8: War Begins
Lewy 1964. Rarkowski was consecrated a bishop the previous year by Nuncio Cesare Orsenigo, alongside two of Germany’s most prominent archbishops: Konrad von Preysing and Clemens August von Galen. See “Bishop Franz Justus Rarkowski, S.M.,” catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/brark.html, and Brandt 1983, pp. 594–95. The quote is reproduced in Friedländer 1966, p. 34.
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Details on the German assault are from Moorhouse 2020 and Rossino 2003.
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Bérard to Pétain, February 22, 1941, MAEC, Guerre Vichy, 551; Roger Moorhouse, “The Brutal Blitzkrieg: The 1939 Invasion of Poland,” BBC History Magazine (2019), https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/brutal-blitzkrieg-1939-invasion-poland-start-ww2-roger-moorhouse/.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 3
Fonogramma della questura di Roma alla DGPS, September 1, 1939, n. 189826, ACS, MI, DAGRA 39, b. 38; Informativa da Roma, September 1, 1939, ACS, MI, MAT, b. 221.
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Charles-Roux to French Foreign Ministry, September 3, 1939, MAEN, RSS 576, PO/1, 1108.
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Ciano 1980, p. 340, diary entry for September 1, 1939; Mackensen to German Foreign Ministry, September 1, 1939, DGFP, series D, vol. 7, n. 507. “I thank you most cordially for the diplomatic and political support which you have been giving recently to Germany,” the Führer’s telegram began. “I do not expect to need Italy’s military support in these circumstances.” DGFP, series D, vol. 7, n. 500.
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Bottai 1989, pp. 156–57, diary entry for September 1, 1939; Grandi 1985, pp. 513–15; De Felice 1981, p. 674.
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Bottai 1989, pp. 159–60, diary entry for September 5, 1939.
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Pignatti to Ciano, September 2, 1939, n. 152, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 116.
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One of the founders of the Fascist movement in 1919, with a well-cultivated reputation of being the most Fascist of the Fascists, Farinacci had long demonstrated a violent streak. He had lost a hand during the Ethiopian war, not as a result of enemy action but, characteristically perhaps, while tossing hand grenades into a lake to catch fish. He was also one of the few Fascist leaders who saw himself as the Duce’s equal. Early in his career, as the Fascist ras, or boss, of the northern city of Cremona, he discovered that having a newspaper would greatly increase his influence. Funded by sympathetic industrialists and major agricultural financial interests, these early efforts evolved into Il Regime Fascista. Having come to Fascism from a revolutionary socialist past, as had Mussolini, he never abandoned the anticlericalism of that earlier time. Among the major Fascist figures, no one was a greater admirer of Hitler than Farinacci. Innocenti 1992, pp. 147–50; Bosworth 2002, pp. 204–5.
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ACS, MIFP, serie B, b. 3, Gonella, September 3, 1939.
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“He told me,” Pignatti reported, “that, as of yesterday, Sunday, L’Osservatore Romano received the order to publish only news and no commentary and, in case of any doubts, to contact the Secretariat of State.” Pignatti to Ciano, September 4, 1939, tel. 157, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 116.
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Pignatti to Ciano, September 6, 1939, tel. 159, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 116; Appunto, September 7, 1939, and Pro-Memoria, September 8, 1939, ACS, MIFP, serie B, b. 3, Gonella; Pignatti to Ciano, September 14, 1939, n. 2998, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 116. Unbeknownst to Maglione or the pope, one of the paper’s journalists was a police spy. Three days after the arrest, he reported that it had “produced an enormous impression at L’Osservatore Romano and in the Vatican.” The other journalists, afraid of being suspected of anti-Fascism, “are all quaking from fear of being arrested themselves.” Informativa da Roma (n. 726—Scattolini), September 5, 1939, ACS, MIFP, serie B, b. 3, Gonella.
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Huener (2021) offers a detailed study of this destruction. It was accompanied, in part, by efforts to transform the Catholic churches in western Poland from Polish to German institutions, including efforts to forbid the use of the Polish language and to insert ethnically German priests in the place of Polish priests. Rossino (2003, p. 134) reports that instructions from Germany’s High Army Command in July 1939 had already noted that “this [Polish] Catholic clergy is primarily responsible for nationalistic rabble-rousing.”
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The September 2 request to the pope is described in Tardini’s diary, Pagano 2020, pp. 145–46. Charles-Roux to French Foreign Ministry, September 2 and 3, 1939, MAEN, RSS 576, PO/1, 1108; Visita dell’Ambasciatore di Polonia, September 12, 1939, AAV, Segr. Stato, 1940, Stati e Corpo Diplomatico, b. 275, f. 3r.
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Charles-Roux to Tardini, September 11, 1939, ADSS, vol. 1, n. 198; Charles-Roux to French Foreign Ministry, September 13 and 15, 1939, MAEN, RSS 576, PO/1, 1108. In meeting with Monsignor Tardini on September 18, the French ambassador let his anger at the pope’s silence show. Tardini recorded the episode in his diary entry that day: “Then the ambassador goes on the offensive to deplore the fact that the Holy See had not said one word on behalf of Poland, which had been so unjustly attacked. He observed that France and England were fighting for morality, justice, Christian civilization, and the Holy See was doing nothing…for Christian civilization!” Tardini, whose ellipsis is in the original diary entry, added, “I laugh and I congratulate His Excellency for his oratorical ability.” Pagano 2020, p. 163.
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Tisserant’s plea was sent to Monsignor Montini, as quoted in Fouilloux 2011, p. 286.
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The pope, it seemed to the ambassador, felt powerless, although this should “never, for a spiritual power, be an excuse to keep quiet.” Charles-Roux to Foreign Ministry, Paris, September 18 and 29, 1939, MAEN, RSS 576, PO/1, 1108.
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The Polish ambassador, his French colleague reported, “had hoped that the Holy Father would at least express his disapproval for the fate inflicted on Poland by the Germans and Russians.” This the pope chose not to do. Responding to the French ambassador’s complaints, Monsignor Montini justified the pope’s failure to say anything about the German invasion by suggesting that the pope had not wanted to risk reprisals against millions of Catholics, not only in Poland but in Germany as well. Osborne, annual report for 1939, NAK, AR 1939, p. 2; Charles-Roux to Foreign Ministry, Paris, September 30 and October 3, 1939, MAEN, RSS 576, PO/1, 1108. Typical of the coverage of the pope’s remarks in the Italian Catholic press was the editorial by the director of L’Avvenire d’Italia: “His Holiness Pius XII gave the Polish people the spiritual vaticum for this dark night of sorrow. Not hatred. Not rebellion…but strength in Faith.” The editorial made no mention of the fact that it was Germany that had invaded Poland. “Pio XII al popolo polacco,” AI, October 1, 1939, p. 1.
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Quoted in Friedländer 1966, p. 34.
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Chapter 9: The Prince Returns
Petacci 2011, p. 188, diary entry for September 10, 1939.
BACK TO NOTE REFERENCE 1
Ciano 1980, p. 343, diary entry for September 6, 1939; Petacci 2011, p. 188, diary entry for September 10, 1939; Visani 2007, p. 36; “Discorso del Duce ai Gerarchi Genovesi,” September 30, 1939, AAV, Arch. Nunz. Italia, b. 24, fasc. 9, ff. 9r–11r. Nor was there much evidence of enthusiasm for their German ally in the Italian military officer corps. At the Church of St. Louis of the French, Rome’s magnificent Baroque church, an Italian officer arrived unannounced with an engineer. He told the priest who greeted them that they had come to take measurements to be prepared for fighting fires that could result from an air raid. But surely there was no need, the priest replied, since neither British nor French planes would ever dare bomb the Eternal City. “It is not against the French or the English that we will be battling,” responded the officer, “but rather against those dirty Germans!” Charles-Roux to French Foreign Ministry, September 23, 1939, MAEN, RSS 576, PO/1, 1108.
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Petacci 2011, pp. 199–200, diary entry for September 19, 1939.
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“Everything the Pope in person and Vatican diplomacy said and did to ward off the approaching war as it grew more imminent,” observed the French ambassador, “was done in harmony with, if not in coordination with, what the Italian government was doing at the same time.” He added that he had recently spoken with Monsignor Montini, who expressed some confidence that Italy would remain out of the war and assured the Frenchman that the Vatican would do everything it could to press Italy to stay out of it. Charles-Roux to Foreign Ministry, Paris, September 28, 1939, MAEN, RSS 576, PO/1, 1108.
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Pignatti to Ciano, September 16, 1939, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 116. Mussolini had reason to be concerned about the Vatican paper, whose circulation continued to grow. “These days,” an informant reported in mid-September, “the public has, as never before, thirst for news and, above all, for the truth, and so they look for it in L’Osservatore Romano.” Notizia fiduciaria [n. 40—Troiani], September 17, 1939, ACS, MI, MAT, b. 241.
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“I will tell the pope tomorrow,” the ambassador said, advising Ciano of his upcoming papal audience, “that the fact that Jews, masons, and all the antifascists in general make such fervent propaganda for L’Osservatore Romano certainly does not redound to the prestige of the Apostolic See.” Pignatti to Ciano, September 28, 1939, n. 3147, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 116.
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“It is exact to say,” Pignatti had reported the previous month, “that Count Dalla Torre, director of L’Osservatore Romano, and thorough Francophile, is not viewed well by the [Vatican] Secretariat of State. I hope and I believe that the Pope will in the end throw him out.” But the pope could act, he cautioned, only if Italy’s press stopped criticizing the paper’s director, for the pontiff could not allow himself to be seen doing Mussolini’s bidding. According to one of the government’s spies in the Vatican—and the Duce was particularly well supplied with spies inside the offices of the Vatican daily—Dalla Torre himself feared he would soon be dismissed. Pignatti to Ciano, March 29, 1939, n. 1079/311, ASDMAE, AISS, b. 113; Informativa da Roma (n. 675—Di Legge), April 4, 1939, ACS, MIFP, b. 379; Informativa da Roma (n. 726—Scattolini), April 27 and May 22, 1939, ACS, MIFP, b. 379. The informant, referring to Dalla Torre, added, “He has the support of Cardinal Maglione, who has been casting about for reasons to have the Pope see him, but the pope does not want to.”
