Working with the enemy: the relationship between Italian partisans and British forces (1943-1945). (original) (raw)

My presentation today will examine the often disregarded topic of the relation between Italian partisans and British forces during the Italian campaign of 1943-1945. I'll start by stating that this relationship had been often portrayed as conflictual. On the one hand, the Italians, who longed for the "Guerra grossa" a direct confrontation with the Germans. On the other, the British, who wanted partisan bands to be small and nimble, in order to strike at selected targets and quickly disappear. On this apparent conflict, much of the Historiography around this topic has been built. This disagreement, in fact, has been connected with explained by the hostility that the British supposedly had towards the Italian Resistance, as they saw it as a potentially dangerous force for political reasons. The Resistance, in fact, was supposedly seen by the British as too politicised in the left-wing direction and a possible transmissive belt for revolutionary unrest in post-war Italy. For this reason, British officers supposedly tried to rig the score against the Italian partisans, to keep the Resistance weak and disjoined, masking this political intent behind military considerations. Roberto Battaglia, for example, claimed how the British played favourite, giving arms and supplies only to right-wing or independent bands, trying to weaken the Communist's position. 1 Hence, the phrase "alleato nemico" referred to the British and, by extension, the idea of a "rivoluzione mancata" which enjoyed a great popularity both in academia and with the general public in the 1970s. However, such idea has been challenged during the years and largely disproved. Scholars such as Elena Aga Rossi and Massimo de Leonardis have pointed out how the British were ultimately more concerned with the contingent factors in Italy and how, indeed, it were the military necessities of the moment what actually dictated their actions to a great degree, rather than political considerations. However, despite these studies the idea of an "alleato nemico" still survives in modern day Historiography and in public memory. As