9/6/01

Dear Richard:

I'd like to interject my ...two cents.

I truly appreciate Professor Ben Lawton taking time to translate the
<www.cefalonia.it/> site by Massimo Filippini for the benefit of people who
don't read Italian. As you know I'm more proficient in Italian, my natural
language, than in English, therefore I feel that I can add some information
about the site mentioned above.

I'd like to make an introductory statement. When we read comments by
different persons, it's important that we separate the description of the
facts from what is the "opinion" of the writer in order not to get a
distorted picture of the facts themselves. It's easy for people who write or
report data to include personal comments which might be misconstrued as
factual happenings.  Many people are also inclined to add a political color,
according to their personal political conviction, which adds a shade or a
dye that often doesn't belong there.

In the above site Filippini tends to put the blame of both the Cefalonia
massacre and the 50 years silence of the Italian press on the post-war
Italian governments specifically of the left. Cefalonia was a slaughter of
gigantic proportions and there is no excuse for not bringing it to light
before. It's a disgrace and a shame. 

But in all fairness, particularly in this case, "the left" should be....left out 
of the picture, especially considering that it would have been in the interest 
of the left to bring it up since the Resistance that fought the Germans side 
by side with the Italian soldiers were mostly communist.

Without pointing accusatory fingers on the basis of conjectural assumptions
and after reviewing objectively the historical facts, it would be logical to
come to the conclusion that the responsibility of the Cefalonia massacre
falls mostly on the ineptitude of the Badoglio government that in various
occasions has proven to be extremely weak because of the very poor 
decisions they consistently made.

Without doubt the worst decision of Marshall Pietro Badoglio and his
cabinet, Gen. Vittorio Ambrosio and their staff, goes back to July 25, 1943
when Mussolini was pushed out of the picture. Badoglio, very foolishly
mostly out of fear for his own safety, announced on the Italian radio that
the war would continue on the side of the Germans. Such stupid decision
didn't fool Hitler not even for a second and seven armored divisions were
immediately dispatched to occupy Italy. 

Another gigantic mistake was made on September 8, 1943 when the 
Badoglio cabinet chose to save themselves and the royal family, the 
Savoia's, fleeing Rome without giving any instruction whatsoever to the 
Military (Army, Navy and Air Force). This caused 660,000 Italian soldiers 
to be rounded up, like a bunch of sheep, by a few hundred Germans and 
shipped to concentration camps in Germany (only 60% survived the ordeal). 
What a disgrace that was!

On September 29, during a meeting on Malta, Gen.Eisenhower warned 
Marshall Badoglio that the 10,000 soldiers in Cefalonia wouldn't stand a 
chance unless Italy declared war to Germany, Badoglio still dragged his feet. 
With an official declaration of war the Italians would have been recognized
officially by the Germans as "enemy", subject to all the laws of the Geneva
Convention and not as Partisans which didn't have a legal status, but were
considered irregular troops.

Some of the responsibility, although only indirect, for the Cefalonia
massacre falls also on the British Gen.Mac Farlane for calling back Italian
ships that from Malta had set sail toward Cefalonia to support the Italian
soldiers on the island.

Anthony Ghezzo