Talk:Pietro Badoglio/Archive 1

Untitled
During the invasion of Ethiopia, isn't Badoglio responsible onlyfor using of chemical weapons (mustard gas or yperite (sp.?)) but also for bombings of Red Cross operated hospitals?

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

Pietro Badoglio, 1st Duke of Addis Abeba seems an unneccessarily complicated title for an article about by far the most important Pietro Badoglio. And indeed Pietro Badoglio already redirects here. (All other Wikipedias use the simple version of his name.) —Ian Spackman 14:37, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Are we also the only Wikipedia that has an article on Pietro Badoglio, 2nd Duke of Addis Abeba? It seems like some form of disambiguation is necessary. Dekimasu よ! 06:14, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Very likely we are—there’s no interwiki link on the page. I suppose there might be something on the Vietnamese wiki, as the second duke’s notability rests on having married an exiled Vietnamese princess and sired the third duke. (His article—except for a mistake which I’ll correct in a moment—is entirely based on part of a single paragraph of a page about the genealogy of the Nguyen Phuoc dynasty.)


 * Certainly we need disambiguation, and we already have it in a hat format on this page:
 * That’s appropriate, I think, because ‘the’ Pietro Badoglio, by contrast, is the well-known Italian prime minister appointed after the fall of Mussolini and who signed the armistice with the Allies; his article will continue to have many more readers and many more incoming links. The natural ways to write those links will be Pietro Badoglio (which even the Duke of Addis Abeba article uses) or simply Badoglio. Both of those already redirect here. In terms of disambiguation it’s an Edward Heath situation, not a George Bush one. —Ian Spackman 08:31, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * That’s appropriate, I think, because ‘the’ Pietro Badoglio, by contrast, is the well-known Italian prime minister appointed after the fall of Mussolini and who signed the armistice with the Allies; his article will continue to have many more readers and many more incoming links. The natural ways to write those links will be Pietro Badoglio (which even the Duke of Addis Abeba article uses) or simply Badoglio. Both of those already redirect here. In terms of disambiguation it’s an Edward Heath situation, not a George Bush one. —Ian Spackman 08:31, 16 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 20:48, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

2nd Duke of Addis Abeba
After his death in 1956, he was succeeded as Duke of Addis Abeba (Duca di Addis Abeba) by his grandson Pietro Badoglio, 2nd Duke of Addis Abeba, who married to Princess Phương Mai of Vietnam, a daughter of Emperor Bao Dai.
 * this paragraph (perhaps a vandalim) it doesn't make in any case sense because Italy after 1945 doesn't accept noble titles (undo) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

Balance
I find the balance of content in this article extremely unsatisfactory. To introduce Badoglio's career by saying he "was an Italian soldier, politician and alleged war criminal for the use of poison gas and systematically bombarding and strafing Red Cross hospitals and ambulances during the Ethiopia campaign. Due to post-war expediencies, however, he was never brought to justice" seems to miss several points entirely. That's 5 words about his military and political career, and 36 about his activities as a war criminal. The war criminal accusation is based entirely on one documentary source which is very short on facts and evidence. If this war criminal accusation is true, it needs to be strengthened with names, dates and places, and some evidence of Badoglio's involvement in the events.

It seems to me far more important to stress the facts that Badoglio was one of Italy's most senior military figures during the Second World War, despite his doubts about Italy's strategic capabilities, and that he became Prime Minister after the downfall of Mussolini. Badoglio's role in the inexplicable two months delay between July and September 1943, when Italy's future role in the war remained ambivalent while Germany rushed troops south to fortify the Italian peninsula, is the most fascinating thing about his career. Whatever the reasons for his failure to act decisively, Badoglio's inaction condemned Italy to suffer another twenty months of grinding war. This article in its present form barely mentions those events. Peter Bell (talk) 00:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree, I think whoever wrote this must have been a drunk or something. It doesn't even mention the most significant role he had... as Prime Minister of Italy. - Gennarous (talk) 17:27, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Why does it seem important to remove sourced material? He was an alleged war criminal. On March 4, 1948 charges against Graziani were presented to the United Nations War Crimes Commission. The UN commission agreed that there was a prima facie case against eight Italians including Badoglio. He  got off not for lack of evidence but because the British argued that the crimes were committed before WW II.  (Baryaw (talk) 20:27, 30 June 2011 (UTC))

Fascist party membership and other issues
The statement in the lede is misleading, at least it should be qualified. B. was granted honorary membership after the end of the war in Ethiopia for his achievements.

It is a well known fact that he was never a fascist, as most of the Italian army officers: he was just a Piedmontese carreer military and an ambitious opportunist.

Some facts:

1. On the eve of the March on Rome he was asked for advice by the government and the king. He replied that the fascists would be quickly and easily repelled and dispersed by military action. This is reflected by an article written by Mussolini on October 14 in his paper. (However the king did not heed his suggestions because he feared civil war. Some think the real reason was the king did not doubt military action would be effective  but  he did no longer have confidence in the Italian political class. Other say he did not sign the decree of state of siege because he was afraid of a later attempt on his life by fascists: he was influenced by the memory  of his father 's fate, who had been killed in an attempt by an anarchist, years after the army led by general Bava Beccaris had suppressed in blood anarchist and socialist demonstrations in Milan).

2. Later  B.  became obsequient to Mussolini for the sake of his own carrer.

3. He was opposed to entering war with Britain and France as he was awareof the poor condition of the Italian army. Moreover there was no plan ready for attacking France on June 3 1940.

4. The following October he  made clear war with Greece would require the deployment of 15 divisions as Greece was able to deploy as many  and this would take 3 months. On December 7 he was demoted but he had already resigned on November 24.

5. The most notorious failure of his carreer was the mismanagment of the very delicate situation in which he was to take Italy out of the war. This entailed making a deal with the Allies while at the same time avoiding the German occupation of Italy. There are various interpretations of the events but clearly B. made several miscalculations: a) Thinking Italy could be neutralized. This was impossible given the stage reached by  the war, with Allied and German armies already fighting in Sicily.  Moreover previous attempts conducted  in 1942 by Duke of Aosta Aimone had already failed.  b) Slowness and lack of  decisiveness in contacts with the Allies. c) Failure in setting up an effective plan for countering the German occupation of Central Italy (the North had already become untenable) at the time of the surrender,  particularly the failed defense of Rome. One interpretation (supported by B. himself through his daughter Vanna Vailati) has it that  the time of the announcement of the surrender was anticipated by D. Eisenhower: this caught the Italian chiefs of staff unprepared on the night between September 7-8 (general Giuseppe Castellano had said the announcement would be made between the 10 and 15, most probably on the 12). The landing of  1 airborne division near Rome, announced by general Maxwell D. Taylor during his mission on the 7-8,  was deemed insufficient  to hold Rome  for the time necessary to reach the city  by the forces landing at Salerno (this proved correct) by general  Giacomo Carboni and B. himself. It seems probable that in order to save the government flight would be the only option, as while the Italian army enjoyed a temporary superiority in Central Italy it could not hold off the German offensive for long enough (B. had previously requested Eisenhower 15 divisions landing North of Rome for resisting in Central Italy). However flight by sea was already impossible in the early hours of Sept. 9 and it seems B. struck a deal with Kesselring: he would have exchanged the failure to effectively resist the inferior German forces around Rome for a pass for the government and the king. This is proved by the fact that they headed towards Chieti and Pescara which were heavily controlled by German forces. The convoy was stopped enroute at least 3 times at German checkpoints but got through. After reaching Chieti they were able to stay overnight and embark on the morning of Sept. 10 at Ortona after passing many German checkpoints unhindered. However only 59 people out of 250 could find a place onboard the corvet Baionetta. Those who remained  on land were to be taken away by another ship (corvet Scimitarra) the following morning. However it seems the agreement with Kesselring expired at 2 a.m. of Sept. 11 and nobody was able to reach the harbour of Ortona. Aldrasto11 (talk) 07:16, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

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