8ª Armata

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The 8ª Armata ( German  8th Army ) was an army of the Italian Army in the First and Second World Wars . From July 1942 to March 1943 it was also known as Armata Italiana in Russia (ARMIR) .

First World War

The 8th Army was formed on June 1, 1918 in northern Italy on the Piave River, in a section between Pederobba in the west and Maserada sul Piave in the southeast. From Pederobba to the middle of the Montello hill stood the XXVII. Corps, then the VIII. Corps. After that, the XXX was temporarily added. Corps in reserve.

Second battle of the Piave

Two weeks after its formation, the 8th Army (also known as the Montello Army) ran into considerable difficulties at the beginning of the second Battle of the Piave because one of its divisions on the eastern part of the Montello let the enemy take it by surprise. Because of a wrong assessment of the situation, reports of the critical situation to the Italian high command were delayed; only at Giavera could reserves stop the advance. After it became clear that the rest of the hill could not be taken, the battle focused on the town of Nervesa , which lies at the eastern foot of the Montello on the Piave. The aim of the Austro-Hungarian associations in Nervesa was to come to the aid of the bridgeheads on the right side of the Piave with an advance in a south-easterly direction and thus to roll up the entire Italian Piave front in the lowlands. On June 19, 1918, a poorly coordinated counterattack by the 8th Army on Montello failed. However, the attack led the enemy to believe that the battle could no longer be won. In addition, the pioneers' bridges were lost due to floods and artillery shelling, which made supplying the bridgeheads increasingly difficult. On June 20, the Austro-Hungarian side decided to retreat to the left bank of the Piave. On the Montello the retreat took place on the night of June 21st to June 22nd; he went undetected for two days. Only on June 24, 1918 did the 8th Army advance on this section of the front as far as the Piave. The army had fewer problems in other sections.

In the major Italian offensive scheduled for October 1918, the 8th Army was to be the focus. The opposing Austro-Hungarian 6th Army was to be separated from the Isonzo Army in the south-east in the lowlands by a crescent-shaped advance from Ponte della Priula near Nervesa via Conegliano to Vittorio , the supply route from Sacile interrupted and opportunities to retreat towards Tagliamento and Ponte nelle Alpi were cut off . For this purpose, the 8th Army was significantly reinforced; among other things, they should from the southeast, 3rd Army XI. Corps and thus its section to Ponte di Piave . Since the left wing of the 8th Army was finally included in the attack plans, the front section from Pederobba to Ponte di Piave seemed too long. It was therefore decided to form two small new armies at the two ends of the said section with a French and two British divisions, the 12th Army under French command in the west and the 10th Army under British command in the south-east. Given the contribution of only three allied divisions, the decision to leave two army commands to allied generals was not without controversy in the Italian military leadership.

Battle of Vittorio Veneto

In the now somewhat shortened front section of the 8th Army between Vidor and Ponte della Priula, the XXVII stood from west to east on the northern edge of Montello. and the XXII. Corps, in the southeast at Ponte della Priula the VIII. And XVIII. Corps. In addition, there was the storm corps (not deployed as a closed unit) . The left wing had to throw itself at Sernaglia at the center of the opposing 6th Army, the right wing to lead the aforementioned sickle-shaped advance on Vittorio. The right flank was supposed to cover the 10th Army with an advance on Sacile, the 12th Army was supposed to cooperate with both the 8th Army and the 4th Army in the west. Since Italy, unlike other countries, did not set up any army group commands during World War I , the 10th Army was placed under the command of the 8th Army in the first phase, while the 12th Army operated with its right wing according to instructions from the 8th Army.

In the battle of Vittorio Veneto , which began on October 24, 1918 , the armies on the Piave, like their opponents before, had to fight problems crossing the river, because floods and artillery fire destroyed several bridges. At Ponte della Priula, the VIII Corps did not move. For this reason the XVIII. Corps sent over the bridges of the neighboring 10th Army and pushed along the left bank to the northwest and also to Susegana , which enabled the VIII. Corps the planned advance towards Conegliano and Vittorio. North of Montello, the 1st Assault Division held out counterattacks in the bridgehead near Sernaglia on October 27 and, in turn, went over to counterattack. The attacks from the secured bridgeheads decided the battle on October 28th before the first operational objectives were reached, because the demoralized opponent partly gave up the fight because of the poor supply situation and the disrupted conditions at home.

Vittorio was captured on November 30, 1918. In the further course of the 8th Army with the 10th and 3rd Army took part in the advance towards Tagliamento and Isonzo , some units advanced to Ponte nelle Alpi and further north. After the end of the war, the 8th Army was disbanded on January 31, 1919.

Second World War

Italo Gariboldi, commander of the 8ª Armata, inspects a captured T-34 tank
Italian soldiers with mules on the Eastern Front in July 1942.
Italian anti-tank gun during a Soviet attack
Front from July to November 1942
8th Army on December 10, 1942 on the Don
Soviet breakthrough in December 1942
Alpini unit retreating after the battle of Nikolaevka
Italian prisoners of war 1943

The command of the 8th Army was reactivated in Milan on January 25, 1940 and transferred to Bologna on June 12, 1940 . With its three subordinate corps, the command was subordinate to the Army Group Command East until July 10, 1940 and then "available" to the Army Group Command , with which it was disbanded on October 31, 1940.

After the Italian expeditionary corps in Russia under General Giovanni Messe had integrated well into German operations between Jampol on the Dniester and Stalino on the Donets from August to December 1941 , it was decided in December 1941 to send two more Italian corps to the Soviet Union . These were the II. Corps with the infantry divisions 2  Sforzesca , 3  Ravenna and 5  Cosseria and the Alpini Corps with the mountain divisions 2  Tridentina , 3  Julia and 4  Cuneense . For the expeditionary corps Messes consisting of the 3rd rapid division and the infantry divisions 9  Pasubio and 52  Torino , the designation was XXXV. Corps provided. The three corps, together with the Vicenza Security Division and a number of other support units, were to be subordinated to the 8th Army Command, which was to be reactivated. When Messe heard of these plans, he immediately traveled to Rome to dissuade Mussolini from them. The inadequate degree of motorization of the Italian units in the Soviet Union would continue to deteriorate, and without modern tank units the army would be exposed to great dangers. Messe's objections were dismissed for political reasons.

So in the first months of 1942 in Italy the two additional corps and the other units were put together and sent with the 8th Army Command from the beginning of June to the Soviet Union, where they met with the XXXV. Corps united at Stalino. The army had around 229,000 soldiers and, among other things, had almost 900 guns, 52  anti-aircraft guns 75/46 mod. 34 as well as around 300 Italian anti-tank guns and 54 German PaK 7.5 cm . There were also around 23,000 vehicles of various types, including 19 light armored vehicles.

The 8th Army was assigned 64 aircraft of the Regia Aeronautica . These were aircraft of the types Macchi C.200 , Macchi C.202 , Caproni Ca.311 , and Fiat Br.20 .

In July 1942, parts of the II. Corps with the XXXV. Corps participated in the further German advance and reached the Don . The 8th Army was assigned a 270 km long section of the front along the river northeast of Kantemirowka . It was this too long section of the front that led to the decision not to deploy the Alpini Corps in the Caucasus as planned , but rather with the other two corps in the lowlands. In addition, some German associations were pushed between the Italians.

At the beginning of August 1942, Bersaglieri of the 3rd Rapid Division rejected a Soviet attack at Serafimowitsch with heavy losses of their own . At the end of the month three Soviet divisions attacked and overran the Sforzesca division from two bridgeheads at Serafimovich and Kremenskaya . The situation could only be brought under control with reserves, with Isbuschenskij the cavalry regiment Savoia Cavalleria distinguished itself . In the following months it remained relatively calm, the Italian units took up their winter positions until November.

In the far north-west, the Hungarian 2nd Army was joined by the Alpini Corps with its three divisions, in a south-easterly direction followed by the 2nd Corps with the divisions Cosseria and Ravenna , which was threatened by the Soviet bridgehead opposite Werchni Mamon , followed by the XXXV. Corps with the German 298th Infantry Division and the Pasubio Division and finally the German XXIX. Corps with the Torino Division , the German 62nd Infantry Division and the battered Sforzesca Division . The section of the Romanian 3rd Army began from Veschenskaya . The reserve consisted of the 294th Infantry Division , the 22nd Panzer Division and the 3rd Rapid Division, which was also ailing.

On November 19, 1942, the Soviets began Operation Uranus , which led to the encirclement of the German 6th Army in Stalingrad . For this reason, the German divisions of the 8th Army were withdrawn except for the 298th Infantry Division, which was more in line with the Italian standard. A planned large-scale Soviet offensive against the 8th Army, Operation Saturn , envisaged an advance south to Rostov and the Sea of ​​Azov in order to cut off both the new Don Army Group and Army Group A on the Caucasus . The German reactions made it necessary to change and limit these plans. With the operation Little Saturn , the 8th Army and the German-Romanian should Army Division Hollidt be destroyed, a further advance to Rostov-one wanted to abandon initially for lack of sufficient forces. Shortly before the start of the operation, the 8th Army received some German units again. From December 11, 1942, the Red Army began limited advances with smaller units: the Cosseria division between Novaya Kalitwa and Samodurowka, the German 318th Infantry Regiment near Deresowka, the Ravenna division from the Verkhniy-Mamon bridgehead and the Pasubio division were affected at Ogolew. Until December 15, the Italian associations spent themselves in counter-attacks.

When the Soviet major attack broke out on December 16 with Operation Saturn from the Verkhniy-Mamon bridgehead and from the surrounding area across the frozen river, the II Corps held out for a day and then fell back; the Ravenna division standing in front of the bridgehead was overrun. Also the 298th Infantry Division of the XXXV adjacent to the southeast. Corps withdrew. In the days that followed, the Soviet breakthrough led to a panic and desperate retreat to Taly and Kantemirowka, which the army command could no longer control, also because it no longer received any situation reports from the overrun units and did not have sufficient reserves.

The further Soviet advances into the hinterland, to Chertkowo , Millerowo and finally up to Ternoskaya allowed the union with Soviet units that had broken through in the southeast in the area of ​​the Hollidt Army Detachment. With that, the 8th Army was encircled except for the Alpini Corps in the very north-west. The cut units tried to break through to the southwest in two groups: The northern group was almost wiped out between December 21 and 25, 1942 near Arbusowka, the remnants encountered German troops in mid-January 1943 near Belovodsk. The southern group suffered heavy losses at Verkhne-Tschirskaja, the rest managed to retreat via Skosiskaja to Forschadt am Donets. Units enclosed in Millerovo broke out on January 14, 1943 in the direction of Voroshilovgrad and Kamensk.

On January 12, 1943, the Soviets began Operation Ostrogoschsk-Rossosh , which led to the rapid collapse of the Hungarian 2nd Army north of the Alpini Corps. At the same time, south of the Italian corps, the front held by the German XXIV Panzer Corps and other units in the direction of Rowenki ( Cosseria division headquarters ) and Rossosch (Alpini Corps headquarters) was broken through. In the first few days, the three Alpini divisions and the Vicenza security division held positions together with German units. As the danger of encirclement was not immediately recognized due to the lack of a clear picture of the situation, the order to withdraw was not issued until January 17th, when it was already too late. 70,000 Italians, 10,000 Germans and several thousand Hungarians tried to break out of the pocket in a westerly direction, which was soon 120 kilometers behind the new front line. In a severe frost, loss-making breakthrough battles followed at Postojalij, Varvarowka and Scheljakino, and there were numerous other battles. On January 26, 1943, the Tridentina division prevailed in the battle of Nikolayevka, which cleared the way to Schebekino and the German lines. The remnants of other associations, however, had to give up at Waluiki .

The remnants of the 8th Army gathered near Gomel in early March 1943 , from where they were returned to Italy. The command of the 8th Army moved from Kharkov to Padua in April 1943 . Most recently, the XXIII. and the XXIV. Corps and the XXXV. Corps. After the announcement of the Armistice of Cassibile , the official dissolution took place on September 10, 1943.

Of the 235,000 soldiers, the 8th Army lost 114,520 soldiers on the Eastern Front.

In Italy there is the Veterenenverein Unione Nazionale Italiana Reduci di Russia (UNIRR) (German: "Italian National Veterans Association of Russia Campaign"). In Rome on Via Cassia 737 there has been a memorial in the Giardino dei Caduti e Dispersi in Russia (German: "Garden of the Fallen and Missing in Russia") since 2001 .

Commander in chief

headquarters

See also

literature

  • Pier Paolo Cervone: Vittorio Veneto, l'ultima battaglia. Mursia, Milan 1993.
  • Vittorio Cogno: 400 anni di vita degli eserciti sabaudo e italiano - repertorio generale 1593–1993 . Edizioni Fachin, Trieste 1995.
  • Emilio Faldella: L'Italia e la seconda guerra mondiale. Revisions di giudizi. Capelli, Forlì 1960.
  • Manfried Rauchsteiner : The death of the double-headed eagle. Austria-Hungary and the First World War. Styria, Graz, Vienna, Cologne 1993
  • Giorgio Rochat, Giulio Massobrio: Breve storia dell'esercito italiano dal 1861 al 1943. Einaudi, Turin 1978.
  • Thomas Schlemmer (ed.): The Italians on the Eastern Front 1942/43: Documents on Mussolini's war against the Soviet Union. Oldenbourg, Munich 2007.
  • Filippo Stefani: La storia della dottrina e degli ordinamenti dell'esercito italiano. (Ed. Ufficio Storico Stato Maggiore Esercito-USSME, 3 vols.) USSME, Rome 1986.

Web links

Commons : World War II forces of Italy in the Soviet Union  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alfio Caruso: Tutti i vivi all'assalto , Longanesi, 2003, ISBN 978-88-502-0912-5
  2. ↑ UNIRR homepage
  3. ↑ Monumento ai Caduti e dispersi Csir Armir in Russia