Great Britain started it with the announcement that she was taking over the Island of Patrannella. The German armies had barely surrendered to the American Fifth Army in the villages along the French border when the French Army came in, took over the villages, pulled down the American flag, and raised the tri-color with the blunt explanation that "these border cities and this territory is ours" taken away centuries ago. Seizing these villages, they insisted, would make a stronger defense line.
It was with some humiliation that for a time that summer I had to secure a special French pass in order to enter these villages on official business of the Allied Military Government of Italy. This became a very embarrassing situation until -- as we were told -- on orders from President Truman, that the United States, which was supplying France with all of the gasoline and much of the provisions for the French Army, simply cut off that supply until the French behaved.
On the Adriatic side of Italy, however, it was not so easy. Tito of Yugoslavia eyed the old Austrian Hungarian Empire cities of Trieste and Fiume and a large slice of the provinces in that area; territories which were given to Italy in World War I and in which Yugoslav citizens were a majority. The Italian flag was torn down, allied flags were banned, and Tito seized Trieste, Fiume, and a large portion of Udine province.
When we attempted to enter, Yugoslav soldiers in full battle dress virtually ran us out of the area at the point of a gun. As in the case of France, the Allies, which were friendly with Tito, were supplying him with most of the material and arms he used to kick up such a mess. The United States rushed tanks to the area to protect the Italians who fled the sector in droves. Their homes were being raided, ransacked, and their lives threatened as Tito was determined to make his claim to these areas stick. For a time it looked like we were going to start another war; but our tanks did not fire on the Yugoslav regiments, nor did the Yugoslavs actually open fire on our soldiers. The battle was temporarily won by U.S. tanks being turned around and backed into the ranks of the Yugoslav army, the hot blast of the exhaust giving the necessary encouragement to back off.
Apparently neither side wanted to start shooting again. It was a sort of a show of force on both sides which became more or less a standard procedure when Western allies found themselves confronted with Communist pushes which seemed to take everything to the very brink before finally backing down. However, in the peace treaty which was eventually signed some of the former Yugoslav territory, Trieste and portions of Udine province did go to Yugoslavia. IN the years that have followed there have been little or no difficulties between the large Italian population in this area and the Yugoslavs.
At this time there was also a move to cut off Tyrolean Provinces (formally Austria) and make them independent; another move to cut North Italy off from Rome and make Milan the capitol of the new country. This was all talk, but it caused me to write: "I wonder if Italy can walk alone with her complex problems. The Communists, one of the allies who helped us to win the war, are now kicking up trouble all over the place. Now that King Victor Emmanuel and the House of Savoy, who eill be the dominant influence here in the future, has been restored, the royal house is under attack by the Communists and the Liberals. Possibly only the Catholic Church can save the Royalty, or maybe some kind of Republican form of Government. These hard-working, even smiling people -- so glad that it is over -- hardly realize what is in store for them as they go about their hard work of rebuilding."
In mid June, an emissary of Prince Humbert, came to our Military Government headquarters to spend an evening with General Hume and staff. He wanted to know "what are the things which Humbert could do which would be the best for Italy and the Italian people, particularly the future stability of Italy?" Humbert was hoping that the royal house would continue to be part of the Italian government structure.
When it came my time to speak, I rather bluntly said "A major land reform from the tip of Sicily to the Austrian Alps is the first order of business. Begin that job with a return of the major royal lands to ownership of peasants." (The royal house owned most of the sugar land in Italy and was given a heavy subsidy from taxes to support the high-cost production.) "Next," I said, "cut loose the timber lands as well as some or all of the good wheat and rice land owned by the royal family and its many kinsmen." With that, we argued, the other baronal groups -- like my friend Baron Lucifero with 500,000 acres of timber and land in South Italy -- would see the light and make land reform work.
The aide to Humbert took this with rather surprising calmness and invited me to "drop in on Humbert the next time I was in Rome." I did, and on that occasion I spoke just as bluntly as I had that evening beside Lake Maggori. Humbert took the talk without a blink, but in effect said, "Perhaps you are right, but such action would be difficult." He thanked me and said "I wish to award you a medal which is in my power to award, the Crown of Italy."
I advised that as a soldier in the American Army I was not permitted to accept decorations without the explicit consent of my government. I thanked him and went on my way. In one of the outer rooms I met friends and the first Minister of Agriculture under the Badoglio Government, Baron Lucifero. I had made almost the identical suggestion to him in the fall of 1943, shortly after he became minister. He then had said "perhaps you are right, but I must remain with my class." On this last occasion he was the "Kings's Chamberlain" and, as I understand it, went into exile with Humbert to Portugal when the Royal House was voted out of Italy in 1946. Late in 1946, on returning home for discharge I received the Crown of Italy decoration through the War Department. Humbert had kept his word.
The earlier success of my small venture in opening trade between Austria and Italy on the potato deal set off other waves of interest. Northern Italy is a large producer of early apples and peaches; as a boy we called them June apples in our Missouri community. These early peaches and apples were largely distributed around the cities of North Italy and the surplus moved into Switzerland. There was a fine crop in the summer of 1945 and this fruit crop had no place to go except in the limited outlets in nearby Italian cities where money was still scarce and buying power low. Switzerland wanted the peaches and apples but no commercial relations existed yet between the two areas.
This presented a fresh dilemma. We know that to go the military channel route to set up a trade would involve weeks of work and the fruit would be rotted. Again a member of the cooperatives in North Italy concerned with marketing of fruit met with the representative of Swiss farmers on the border and sipped wine. They were to work out an exchange of some Swiss goods for several hundred tons of apples and peaches. In this case some 1500 brown Swiss cows with calves at their sides were to be exchanged for the fruit. Each commodity to be delivered to the border in freight cars and dumped across the border.
In due time this plan was arranged and executed. The Italian coop paid its members in lira for the apples and peaches, the Swiss took the fruit and delivered the cows to the cooperative. The cooperative sold the cows, by then in great demand by Italian farmers, and recovered the lira it paid its members for the fruit. All went well. News of this successful ploy got around and in no time Italian silks were being exchanged for Swiss watches and a lively trade in almost everything that could be moved got going. This was not to last however. The Italian government, not yet in control of North Italy, complained, and the Army clamped down tight on such trading. Still, quite a bit of trade did go on clandestinely for quite awhile.
Two years later, when I returned to Italy to work out a trade deal for Italian oranges for the Military Government in Germany, some of the Italian officials chided the Americans for "opening up illegal trade with Switzerland and Austria two years earlier." I had to admit that I was one of the culprits, whereupon the Italian Minister of Treasury remarked, "Did you not know that duties were supposed to have been paid on each transaction?"
My answer was in no way apologetic. I said frankly, "I considered getting the goods exchanged between people who needed and could use them far more important than customs duties. Let the bookkeepers sort that one out." He agreed, and as I will relate later on that visit to Rome I again participated in opening trade between two European countries, West Germany and Italy, except this time at a very official level.
Things were beginning to quiet down in late July and I went to Austria, and had a talk with Major Williams, former Dean of A & M University, Colege Station, Texas. But things were very quiet in Austria and I saw little more to do up there than to look on as the Austrians sorted things out. There was talk that I would go home, but no orders came.
In the meantime, my old bugaboo, sheep, reared its head again to create problems.
For centuries people along the Swiss, French, and Austrian borders of Italy crossed back and forth in an informal way and carried on their work in peace -- no matter who was boss in Italy or any of the other countries. In northern Italy sheep were traditionally gathered into large flocks in early summer and, with a shepherd and his family behind them, began the trek in the dry season across the Austrian borders into the high Alps to graze during the summer. There were small hostels in the mountains where the shepherds lived while the flocks grazed across the Southern slope of the high Alps. The shepherds brought the flocks home in early fall, down the mountain passes into Udine Province.
In the summer of 1945, however, allied armies occupied both sides of the border, and as I learned when I tried to stimulate commerce in potatoes and other goods, nothing passed across that border without the most elaborate set of permits. The village people in Italy did not know about these regulations or, if they did, they ignored them. In mid-July, I awoke one morning to find what some estimated as high as 300,000 head of sheep moving toward the Austrian border which the American Army had closed tight. The dry grass and even water on the Italian side was soon gone and here were sheep likely to die of starvation. Some shepherd families had passbooks showing that some member of that family had moved sheep into Austria each summer for centuries. Nevertheless, under the allied rule these passbooks were useless and considerable chaos among sheep and people was rapidly developing.
My first effort at breaking the impass was with the Military. But since the army was now more or less a guest in a now friendly country, the army was reluctant to do anything. Somehow I was shoved off on the CID (Criminal Investigation Division) which had responsibility of screening persons wanting to travel between Italy and Austria. They listened, but said, "We cannot undertake to screen several hundred sheep herders overnight." Besides, the CID wanted nothing to do with the sheep problem -- they had enough to do rounding up war criminals.
"Well then," I asked, "what kind of a stamp would be required on each shepherd's passbook to get them by the border guards -- who would issue it?" "Oh, any responsible police or military government officer with authority to issue or stamp passes." the CID advised.
Back in Naples one of my colleagues at the British-American mess had been a Military Government police officer. Colonel Thompson, a former London stockbroker but now the Military Governor of South Tyrol. I called on him and explained the problem saying that we needed the stamp of an official on these passbooks to get the shepherds and their sheep across the border into Austria for their summer grazing. "Send them in." In no time his office was swamped with shepherds and their passbooks (some of them dating back almost a century). In no time, almost all the sheep were on the way to the high Alps. The stamp had done the trick.
Some years later I visited Colonel Thompson in London where he had again returned to the brokerage business and we had quite a chuckle over his assuming authority for the allied armies on both sides of tbe border to solve another Italian sheep problem.
With sheep again out of the way, I decided it was about time to take some leave. I had been in the army since June 1943 with never a day of leave. I decided to take a fling at the West Coast of Italy and go on up to Monte Carlo as many of my colleagues had been doing since the surrender. So, with orders properly cut, bag and baggage in a jeep with a French-speaking driver, I was out in the palazzo in front of our hotel when an orderly came running waving a piece of paper. That piece of paper was a telegram asking me to report immediately to SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force) in Frankfurt for consultation.
After the shock wore off a little I turned to the driver and said, "The Riviera deal is off. We're going to Salzburg to catch a military plane to Germany." I left that day and arrived the next in Frankfurt. General Eisenhower was still in command of everything in Germany, but the Allied High Commission was in the process of formation.
At that time General Eisenhower and his staff were in the I.G. Farben Building, about the only building left standing in Frankfurt. The Allied High Commission headquarters was in the town of Hoehst. The American section of the Commission was headed by General Lucius D. Clay with Brigadier General William H. Draper Jr. as his deputy. It was some boost to my ego to learn later that both the Eisenhower headquarters and the Hoehst headquarters had sought my services. Colonel Hermann, an old Farm Credit associate, chief agricultural officer on General Eisenhower's staff, had originated the first telegram and had then gone to the hospital. Lt. Colonel Roy Kimmel, a former acquaintance in USDA with the Allied Commission, had originated the other cable. The question was, to which outfit I was to be assigned. After looking over the general situation, I suggested that if I was really wanted they might request orders for my transfer from Italy to Germany, and settle the matter of specific assignment later, as the situation dictated.
There were rumors in that SHAEF would soon be disbanded and the Allied High Commission would take over in Berlin. The agricultural staff of SHAEF would either go home or be assigned to the Allied Commission. On this note I returned to Italy to await formal transfer orders. Back at Salo and the comfortable billet on Lake Maggiore the routine was not the same. Nearly all the men on the MG staff were being earmarked for other assignments or going home.
The tier of provinces in North Italy were now being turned over to Rome control. This called for a final wrap-up visit to Rome. Arriving in Rome that July day the city was quite different than little more than a year before. Back then, Rome although relatively untouched by war destruction was almost devoid of vehicles and there had been very little goods in the stores. My main impression then was that Rome was filled with people with nothing to do but to wave us welcome. This time the city had taken on new life. Busses and street cars were running, a few motor cars had been taken out of hiding, and the new Italy was brushing up for a modest influx of tourists.
My mission this time was mainly conferences on the food situation in the north and the take-over of responsibilities of the new Minister of Agriculture, Gullo. I had quite a number of friendly arguments with Gullo following his appointment, but the parting was most friendly, and he was anxious to take hold of Northern Italy where the Communist party was strongest, especially in the industrial cities.
The highlight of my Rome visit was a final fling at Italian opera, this time the summer opera spectacle which has become a main summer attraction in Rome. It is opera under the stars from a stage built in the ruins of the old Roman baths of Caraculla. This is a fantastic spectacle; 15,000 people in seats in a bowl-like garden in front of the baths, a stage as large as a football field, lighted and wired for perfect sound to the most distant seat in the huge amphitheater.
The opera that night was Carmen -- in the full, uncut version. Carmen came on to the stage before the cigar factory on a real live donkey and when the toreadors went of to the stadium they were brought on to the stage in a chariot pulled by four real horses. It was an amazing performance and the acoustics were as near perfect as one could wish for an outdoor performance.
My notes on the opera read: "Here was art and pageantry at its best: Italians are artists -- not soldiers -- they should stick to that." Reflecting upon my work in Italy I wrote, "I must admit that my some 18 months in Italy have been at times most pleasant, often frustrating, but always interesting. Where Italy will be ten years from now is a matter which the Italians can't guess or speculate about. But regardless of what happens there will always be smiles, tenors, dirt, and art and even high intelligence in a people of one of the world's most uncertain temperaments." As a final note on my Rome visit I remarked that "Some damn Italian stole my camera." This camera, one of the cheap Argus 35mm's that came out just before the war, was lent to me by our daughter to whom it had been given as a sort of a going-away-to-school present.
$Id: chapter9.html,v 1.2 2006/11/19 19:41:10 chesnutt Exp $