X Corpo d'armata

The X Corpo d'armata ( German X. Army Corps ) was a corps of the Italian army . It existed from 1877 to 1942, then as a territorial command in southern Italy. The X Corps took part in the First and Second World Wars . It was destroyed near El Alamein at the end of 1942 .

history

Until World War II

A decree of March 22, 1877 ordered the establishment of ten territorial corps commands; among them was the X. in Palermo in Sicily , to which the territorial military divisions in Palermo and Messina were subordinate. In 1882 two more corps commandos were added, which is why the territorial organization was realigned, the X. Command settled in Naples and the territorial military divisions in Naples and Salerno subordinated to it. In the event of war, these bodies had to mobilize the X Corps. During the First World War, the X. Corps with the 19th and 20th (infantry) divisions initially belonged to the reserve of the Army General Staff and was deployed as required. In 1917 the 9th (later 6th) and 32nd Divisions joined the 1st Army in Trentino and stayed there until the end of the war.

Between the two world wars, the staff of the X. Corps was again in Naples. Subordinate to him from 1926 were the 25th Volturno infantry division in Naples and the 27th Sila infantry division in Catanzaro . At the beginning of 1940 the corps headquarters moved to Libya , where it was subordinated to the 5th Army in Tripolitania and led the infantry divisions 25 Bologna , 55 Savona and 50 Sabratha . In the summer of 1940, with the exception of the X. Corps with the four infantry divisions 17 Pavia , 25 Bologna , 27 Brescia and 55 Savona and a few support units, all other units of the 5th Army went to the 10th Army in eastern Libya ( Cyrenaica ) As part of Operation Compass of Commonwealth units until February 1941 was completely defeated. In February 1941, in addition to the command of the 10th Army, that of the 5th Army was disbanded and the corps remaining in Libya were directly subordinated to the Italian high command there. The X Corps remained in reserve in western Libya. From December 1940 the staff was in Mellaha-Tagiura near Tripoli, from February 1941 in Buerát el-Hsun near Misrata .

In May and June 1942, the X Corps took the divisions Pavia and Brescia at the Battle of Gazala and the other German-Italian advance as far as El Alamein in part, in July at the first battle of El Alamein . In July and August, the corps also received the 185th Folgore Paratrooper Division . In September the X. Corps played a minor role in the battle of Alam Halfa , as it was only marginally involved in the German-Italian encirclement attack in the south and otherwise held the front area south of the heights of El Mireir. Shortly before the start of the second battle of El Alamein , the commanding general of the X Corps, Federico Ferrari-Orsi, fell on October 18. The commander of the Folgore division , Enrico Frattini, took over his post until October 26th , followed by General Edoardo Nebba. The corps, with its three divisions and the German Ramcke paratrooper brigade, was in the southern section between El Mireir and Qaret el-Himeimat, behind which the German 21st Panzer Division and the Italian 132nd Armored Division Ariete were placed . At the beginning of the battle the attacks of the British XIII failed until October 25th and then also on October 27th. Corps. In the further course the mobile reserves were withdrawn behind the X. Corps. At the beginning of November it was unable to escape destruction in the train of the general withdrawal movement due to a lack of means of transport.

After the war

The army remaining to the Kingdom of Italy , which after the armistice of Cassibile had participated in the Italian campaign with some formations on the side of the Allies , set up eleven territorial military commands at corps level, including the IX. in Bari and the X. in Naples, whose area of responsibility included the southern Italian mainland. Initially, in addition to the territorial military administration, the X Command was only subordinate to an infantry regiment and smaller training and support units. 1949 was at the IX. Territorial Command set up the Avellino Infantry Division in Bari . From parts of this division, the Pinerolo infantry division was re-established in Bari in 1952 , while the staff of the Avellino division was transferred to Salerno and placed under the X. Territorial Command in Naples. The downsized division was downgraded to a brigade in 1960 and disbanded in 1965. In addition, the IX. Territorial Command in Bari dissolved, so that the X Command in Naples was responsible for the entire southern Italian mainland and took over the Pinerolo Infantry Brigade in Bari as the only major unit remaining in the region . In addition, there were artillery, engineer and other support units as well as a number of associations for the training of recruits . In the course of the army reform of 1975, the Xth Territorial Command was renamed "Military Region South". In this form it resembled the German military area commands . In 1991 it was given to the Bersaglieri Garibaldi Brigade from northern Italy , whose headquarters were based in Caserta . On January 1, 1998, the military region South changed its name to “2. Defense Forces Command ” (2º Comando Forze di Difesa - COMFOD 2) and transferred the staff to San Giorgio a Cremano near Naples. The new command took over the command of five mechanized brigades in central and southern Italy including Sicily and Sardinia . For the planning and implementation of foreign missions, the division staff Acqui was established in the COMFOD 2 staff in 2002 . COMFOD 2 was dissolved in San Giorgio a Cremano in 2016 and its tasks were taken over by a territorial command in Naples, which is only indirectly in the tradition of the X Corps.

literature

Vittorio Cogno: 400 anni di vita degli eserciti sabaudo e italiano - repertorio generale 1593 - 1993 . Edizioni Fachin, Trieste 1995.
Giorgio Rochat, Giulio Massobrio: Breve storia dell'esercito italiano dal 1861 al 1943. Einaudi, Turin 1978.
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