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CHAPTER 2

French and Italian Military Cultures

This chapter describes the domestic political conditions under which distinct military cultures emerged in France and Italy in the decades following World War II. It presents the main traits of these army cultures and explores the characteristics of the units studied in Lebanon and Afghanistan. This provides the historical-institutionalist background for the following chapters on the recent operational histories of French and Italian troops in Lebanon and Afghanistan, that describe how their military cultures shaped the perceptions of the deployed units and how they influenced what soldiers did on the ground.

Exploring the Roots of the Current Italian Military Culture

The current Italian army military culture emerged from a slow process of transformation that was completed in the early 1990s. This process originated in the controversial and widely debated postwar period of 1947–1949. This phase was a critical juncture—a period of radical break with the past that led to a completely new domestic political configuration, particularly concerning the relationship between the armed forces, civilian decision makers, and society. This new political configuration was based on strong societal beliefs rejecting war and militarism, and on the marginalization of the armed forces from civilian decision-making processes. These two components led to the emergence, in the early 1990s, of a specific army military culture based on the idea—true or instrumental—that Italian soldiers were “good humanitarians.” This core value was the result of a reinterpretation of the idea of Italian soldiers as good people (brava gente) and the quest for legitimacy in the post–World War II period. This section describes the historical process that led to the critical juncture in 1947–1949, the resulting political configuration, and how it eventually shaped a unique army culture that functionally served the organization. I then reflect on how this army culture is manifested in the specific unit traits of the battalions deployed in Lebanon and Afghanistan.

The Critical Juncture in Italy: A Disbanded Army in a Disbanded Nation?

This section elucidates the complex set of conditions that led to the post–World War II critical juncture in Italy. For reasons that still remain partly unknown, Italian troops came to consider themselves (and to be considered as) ineffective soldiers but good people during World War I and the colonial campaigns. The “good soldier” belief spread quickly and became an important identification marker. The Italian armed forces also enjoyed broad popularity and legitimacy, and were perceived as the apolitical defenders of the nation.¹

In the interwar period, Italy shared many of the challenges of other European countries, namely growing economic hardship, unemployment, and the rise of nationalism, which in Italy became strongly coupled with the bitter issue of irredentismo—a movement to reclaim territories that were lost (allegedly unjustly) during World War I. During that war, Italy changed sides in 1915 and fought against the Central Powers, to which it had been allied at the beginning, and thus ranked among the winning powers at the end of the war. But the general understanding was that it had not gained enough and that the victory was “mutilated, debased and demonized.”² Taking advantage of a general climate of frustration, in 1924 Mussolini staged a coup d’etat and enforced an autocratic dictatorship, which maintained—but marginalized—the monarchy.

Historian Marco Mondini recently illustrated the military’s non-negligible role in mobilizing against the so-called “anti-nationalist” leftist parties after World War I and supporting the coup, which contrasts with the perceived traditional apolitical orientation—at the time—of the Italian military.³ At the time, the military was a popular, highly influential institution that was very close to the king. The fascist dictatorship gave greater public visibility to the armed forces, as it celebrated the values of militarism and military skills and capabilities.⁴ Yet the collusion between the military and the dictatorship, although very natural, should not be exaggerated; it was far from an “idyllic marriage.”⁵ Mussolini tried to divide and control the military, thus “inflicting some huge attacks against the jealous independence of the military world,” in line with what Hitler did with the Wehrmacht.⁶ Even before the decision to intervene in World War II, several high-level generals expressed their concerns to Mussolini about fighting in a war for which they had not prepared enough.

During World War II, when Italy was allied with Nazi Germany, the army was deployed in Northern and Eastern Africa, the Balkans, and Russia. The army managed to win some battles but was defeated in most of them.⁷ These defeats, combined with growing public discontent and dissent within the Fascist Party, resulted in the fall of the Mussolini regime in July 1943—which marked the beginning of the fragmentation between the armed forces, civilian decision makers, and society. The period until the end of the war profoundly changed the army’s sense of its own mission, as well as society’s trust in it.

After Mussolini was ousted, the Italian armed forces continued to fight alongside Germany until the new Italian prime minister, General Badoglio, signed an armistice with the Allies on September 5, made public on September 8; Italy was declared a “cobelligerent nation.” In the aftermath of the armistice, confusion reigned within the armed forces.⁸ Some units continued fighting alongside the Germans, while others disbanded, went home, or joined the resistance. Many soldiers perceived the armistice as a traumatizing and confusing event, including those who were not fighting at the front.

It was a terrible defeat for the military—particularly for the army: the perception was that the organization had failed to fulfill its mission. As the official Italian Army history explains, “obliged to the armistice, the Army was terribly defeated on September 8.”⁹ Rossi argues that Italy was a “disbanded nation” (allo sbando), and a civil war ensued between partisans fighting the liberation war against the German troops that had occupied Northern Italy, and former fascist leaders.¹⁰ These events created an irreparable disconnect between the military, civilian decision makers, and the rest of society.¹¹ In this context, the military, in line with its tradition, became strongly associated with the monarchy, and the resistance movement was linked to the republic. According to some, “the military had let down its own people.”¹² Other, more nuanced, interpretations argue that “the Italian armed forces started to lose their credibility … when they stopped being perceived as the incarnation of the nation and took up one side, only one component among the many fighting in the Italian civil war.”¹³ For four main reasons, this was one of the most dramatic points in Italian history, not only because of the suffering imposed on the civilian population, but also due to the general sense of disorientation it created and the pluralistic, democratic, and “creative” new equilibrium that emerged.

First, the founding myth of the new republic was based on a solid convergence between the Christian Democrats and the Communist Party, and their shared value of pacifism. Article 11 of the 1948 Constitution of the newly established Republic clearly states that “Italy rejects war as a means of settling international disputes.”¹⁴ In such context, the military had to be contained: “The political elite involved in the reconstruction agreed that in the future, Italy could not and should not give military power a central role in its foreign policy.”¹⁵ At the same time, the armed forces were given the important role of the guarantor of stability.

Second, the Italian armed forces entered a profound moral crisis, which is considered to be unique in Europe.¹⁶ Overall, partly because of the military’s inability to adapt to the changing role asked of the armed forces, partly because of the difficulties of purifying the armed forces of its fascist infiltration and of integrating resistant organizations into military ranks, there was the widespread public perception of a link between the armed forces, the monarchy, and the regime, which set the foundation for the events following 1943.¹⁷ Marco Mondini argues that even the Wehrmacht was perceived to be cleaner and less colluded than the Italian armed forces. In this climate of general distrust, the Italian army was unable to renounce to its traditional role as “priest of the nation” and prestige attached to it: “It was like a priest that had lost its sacred aura: tired and without conviction, it was repeating old rituals, unable to engage, to trigger emotion and mainly to unite as it used to do.”¹⁸

Third, the dramatic transition in the immediate post–World War II era provoked “the most profound reshaping of the relations between state, society and the armed forces in the history of unified Italy.”¹⁹ The events following the fall of the fascist dictatorship created a peculiar political spectrum in Italy that became deeply polarized, triggering unusual relationships between the right and the left; the military came to be strongly associated with the extreme right.²⁰ For instance, referring to the 1943–1945 period as the liberation war carries a profound antimilitaristic legacy to this day. Similarly, the role of the resistors and former fascists during the 1943–1945 period still provokes heated debates. The 1946 referendum, in which Italians opted for a republican system of government, reiterated the military’s inability to be perceived as an apolitical body.²¹