Carabinieri

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Arma dei Carabinieri

Coat of arms of the Carabinieri.svg

Coat of arms of the Carabinieri
Lineup July 13, 1814
Country ItalyItaly Italy
Armed forces Italian armed forces
Type Armed
Forces Gendarmerie
structure General Command
  • Training command
  • Territorial organization
  • Mobile and Specialized Associations
  • military police
Strength 105,472 Carabinieri
(as of July 3, 2013)
Headquarters of the General Command Viale Romania 45, Rome
Nickname La Benemerita ; L'Arma
Patron saint Virgo Fidelis
motto Nei secoli fedele
Colours Blue, black, red
march La Fedelissima
management
General Commander of the Carabinieri General
Giovanni Nistri
Carabinieri on horseback in traditional uniform
Alfa Romeo 159 of the Carabinieri in Rome
Structure Carabinieri Command Mobile & Special Associations

The Carabinieri (official Italian Arma dei Carabinieri , Karabinier troupe ' ), the gendarmerie of Italy . Since 2000, they have been an independent sub-armed force in the Italian armed forces alongside the army , navy and air force . Organizationally, they belong to the Ministry of Defense , which also finances the Carabinieri budget. Apart from military and administrative matters, however, they are subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior , which is authorized to issue instructions to all Italian police units . Like the Guardia di Finanza, the Carabinieri are structured militarily. Its workforce is around 105,000 men and women. The emergency number is 112.

assignment

The Carabinieri emerged in 1814 as a branch of the Piedmontese , then Italian army, to which they belonged until 2000. Today they are an independent armed force, but their tasks have hardly changed in the last two centuries. The Carabinieri represent the military police of the Italian armed forces and in this respect differ only slightly from other military police such as As the military police of the armed forces . In addition, in the event of a defense they have the task of participating in border security and national defense with their own predominantly infantry units and other units. In this context, they represent a territorial army in the broadest sense .

The majority of the Carabinieri carry out general police services according to the instructions of the Interior Ministry , some specialized units are also active on behalf of other ministries in areas such as consumer protection, health care, environmental protection or the protection of cultural property. Here, the Carabinieri hardly differ from the Polizia di Stato of Italy and other state and national police forces of other countries. The reason for the existence of two national police organizations with general tasks lies in the endeavor to prevent an excessive concentration of power in one hand or in a ministry. In Italy, but also in France ( Gendarmerie nationale ) , Spain ( Guardia Civil ) and other states, the military and civil police not only serve to protect the population, but also to monitor each other. The resulting loss of efficiency due to redundancies is, according to the prevailing view, balanced by the fact that a single national police force can be prevented from abusing power and office by dividing them into two different police bodies. In addition, the relatively pronounced competition between the police forces in Italy improves the motivation of their relatives. The duality of the military gendarmerie and the civilian police emerged (also in the German Reich , see Landjäger ) because of the differences between town and country that were previously pronounced. The bourgeois civil police were responsible for the cities, while the rural areas were left to the military or paramilitary police forces set up for this purpose, such as the Carabinieri. This historically grown police organization can still be recognized today by the close-knit network of Carabinieri stations in the countryside.

organization

Five departments are subordinate to the Comando Generale , German " Generalkommando ":

I. Education

II. Territorial organization

The regional commands or legions in Apulia ( Amendola ), Calabria ( Vibo Valentia ), Sicily ( Sigonella ) and Sardinia ( Abbasanta ) are subordinate to smaller airmobile fighter units .

III. Command Mobile and Special Associations Palidoro

IV. Military Police

Carabinieri of the territorial organization and the 2nd mobile brigade basically also take on military police tasks in the Italian armed forces. In addition, there are Carabinieri military police units at the Ministry of Defense, the Army, Navy and Air Force branches, at international or foreign military establishments in Italy, in the field of military justice and at the AISE foreign intelligence service . These units with exclusively military police tasks have a total of roughly brigade strength .

V. Care, support and leisure activities

  • 5 rest homes
  • 23 bathing establishments / beach sections
  • Pension fund (also as study grants for children of the Carabinieri)
  • Sports
  • Maintenance of tradition

The Carabinieri include the Corazzieri regiment , which is assigned to the President of the Republic as an honor guard and security service. On official occasions, the regiment appears on horseback in a representative cuirassier uniform with shiny armor .

uniform

A carabiniere
Grenade emblem of the Carabinieri

The Carabinieri have been wearing dark-colored uniforms with their own collar tabs and insignia since they were founded . The uniform trousers had single red stripes for the infantry units and double stripes for the cavalry units. This uniform design has been preserved to this day. A traditional piece of uniform is the white bandolier for teams and non-commissioned officers without portepee . Senior NCOs usually wear a black, red-bordered belt with shoulder straps, and officers rarely. Officers only wear a blue sash with their large uniform . A black parade uniform with a bicorn is worn on special occasions . Until the end of the 1980s, the Carabinieri wore a khaki-colored service suit in the summer months , which differed only slightly from those of other army troops, after that the summer uniform consisted of dark blue trousers and a light blue shirt. Today the service suits, with the exception of the shirts, are generally black, there are only differences in the material properties. There are exceptions among other things for training and riot police units that use dark blue emergency suits. Combat units wear flecktarn , the colors of which are based either on the European landscape or on desert areas. The corresponding beret is usually dark blue or black, for paratroopers and special units (GIS) burgundy red, for airborne hunter units coral red, for forest and environmental police units green.

Like many other gendarmerie troops , the Carabinieri wear a stylized grenade as an emblem on their headgear. This emblem comes from the grenadiers , who used to form an elite within the infantry. Their emblem later became the identification mark for elite troops. Since the Carabinieri, like the Piedmontese grenadiers, also had a special position in their area, they (later also other troops, but with modifications) took over this emblem. Napoleon liked to refer to his carabiniers as " grenadiers on horseback " because, like grenadiers and others, they a. were also equipped with hand grenades.

The grenade emblem is silver-colored for crews and NCOs and gold-colored for higher NCOs and officers. In the case of generals, the emblem of the type of service is replaced by the so-called Aquila , which is similar to a Roman legionary eagle, as is the case with the army and Guardia di Finanza , since generals stand above the individual types of service and are supposed to lead them as a whole. The Aquila is silver-colored for one- and two-star generals, otherwise gold-colored.

See also: Rank badges of the Carabinieri

history

Carabinieri in Venice (1924)
Carabinieri officers. From left: Colonel, major general, two brigadier generals
Carabinieri boat in Venice
Carabinieri paratroopers of the 1st "Tuscania" regiment (military parade in Rome, June 2, 2007)
Carabinieri NCO

By decree of King Viktor Emmanuel I of Sardinia on July 13, 1814, the Carabinieri were brought into being as a branch of the army with military and police tasks. The name Carabinieri was chosen because in the course of the restoration, as in the Netherlands with the Koninklijke Marechaussee, there was a conscious decision not to refer to the Napoleonic gendarmerie . Carabiniers had already existed in Sardinia-Piedmont before, they were also common in various other countries, but without specific police tasks. The Carabinieri Corps consisted of troops on foot and on horseback, its equipment and its military mission were similar to the hunters on foot and on horseback or light dragoons . Organizationally, despite their infantry component , they were counted as cavalry , especially since Piedmont had set up a cavalry regiment for internal security tasks with the Dragoni di Sardegna before 1808 . The personnel were mainly recruited from the line infantry and had to meet special conditions for recruitment and transfer, which is why the Carabinieri are also regarded as an elite force and, until they left the army in 2000, had priority over its other branches of service.

The very small Carabinieri troop received the baptism of fire shortly after their formation. When Napoleon returned to France from his exile on Elba in March 1815 , almost all European powers declared war on him. A small Carabinieri unit on horseback was involved in the conquest of the French fortress of Grenoble , and on July 6, 1815, they rode a decisive attack against the French. Even in later wars, Carabinieri were always on duty as military policemen and not infrequently directly involved in combat operations. From 1848 to 1870 the Carabinieri were involved in the Italian wars of unification. They particularly stood out here at Pastrengo . In 1855, among the nearly 19,000 Piedmontese soldiers who took part in the Crimean War , 70 were Carabinieri. They too were involved in the heavy fighting near Sevastopol .

Shortly after the unification of Italy , there were around 18,000 Carabinieri, organized into 13 territorial legions, to which a total of 1,800 stations throughout the country were subordinate to sub-commands. There was also a training legion in Turin .

From 1897 to 1906 the Carabinieri took part in an international mission on Crete , where a popular uprising against the Ottomans had broken out. Here the Carabinieri contributed significantly to the establishment of the "Cretan Gendarmerie". Subsequently, they also provided assistance in setting up police organizations in other countries. The severe earthquake in Messina in 1908 triggered a major domestic operation . They received high honors for saving numerous lives.

In the First World War, the losses of the Carabinieri amounted to 1,423 dead and 5,245 wounded, in the Second World War (1940-1945) to 4,618 dead and 15,124 wounded. Carabinieri battalions were z. Some used like infantry , so in July 1915 on the Podgora ( Gorizia ) or in 1941 in Culqualber (East Africa) and Eluet el Asel (North Africa). During fascism , Carabinieri units participated in war crimes in North and East Africa. From 1943 onwards, numerous Carabinieri worked together with the Italian resistance ( Resistancea ) . The case of Sergeant Salvo D'Acquisto , who gave his life for civilians to be shot by the SS , is particularly well known in Italy .

Carabinieri have always taken part in the international peace missions, which have been increasingly launched by the UN since 1991 . Lately there in the Italian armed forces tend peacekeeping operations ( peacekeeping ) to leave more and more the Carabinieri while peacemaking ( peace enforcing ) rather fall within the remit of the other armed forces. The often cited “hybrid position” of the Carabinieri, ie a military force that primarily has civilian tasks, seems to be experiencing a renaissance in the scenarios of peacekeeping missions. More military components are combined with the experienced investigative forces of the territorial units and work together in a very fruitful way in a uniform organizational framework, even in relatively dangerous areas.

In view of the long tradition of direct participation in military operations, the Carabinieri still maintain their own combat units today. During the Cold War , the Carabinieri had their own mechanized brigade (11th). Today the 2nd mobile brigade in Livorno has corresponding tasks. You are subordinate to a paratrooper regiment (1st "Tuscania") and two infantry regiments (7th and 13th). In recent years, these forces have specialized more and more in humanitarian and police tasks abroad.

In 2000, the first women were accepted into the Carabinieri troop. In 2016, the Carabinieri took over almost 7,200 officers from the dissolved state forest police Corpo Forestale dello Stato . With CFS staff and Carabinieri of the then special units for consumer and environmental protection, a new Carabinieri command for forest, environmental, agricultural and consumer protection (Comando carabinieri per la tutela forestale, ambientale e agroalimentare) was formed and functionally subordinated to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Others

Even after the official removal from the army, the name Arma dei Carabinieri ("Carabinieri troop") was retained. In this case, Arma means armed class or military class and is therefore also used by other army troops, for example the artillery force ( arma di artiglieria ) or the telecommunications force ( arma delle trasmissioni ). The capitalized designation L'Arma ("The Troop") without any further addition has taken on the meaning of a proper name , which is popularly representative of Carabinieri. Even as the new, fourth armed forces , they did not want to do without the traditional old name.

The vehicles of the Carabinieri had military license plates with the abbreviation EI ( Esercito Italiano ) until 2000 . Since 2000 the Carabinieri license plates have started with the abbreviation CC. In Romance languages , abbreviations of nouns in the plural usually have the first letter doubled. Since Carabinieri is the plural of Carabiniere (a single member of the troop is called a Carabiniere ), the abbreviation is CC.

See also

Web links

Commons : Carabinieri  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of the Carabinieri special command on October 25, 2016