Francesco De Martini | |
|---|---|
 Francesco de Martini in his first official photo as a Lieutenant Colonel of the Italian army in 1957. | |
| Born | 9 August 1903 Damascus, Ottoman Empire |
| Died | 26 November 1981 (aged 78) Rome, Italy |
| Allegiance |  Kingdom of Italy |
| Service/ |  Royal Italian Army |
| Rank | General |
| Commands held | XI Colonial Brigade |
| Battles/wars | |
| Awards | Gold Medal of Military Valor Silver Medal of Military Valor Bronze Medal of Military Valor |
Francesco de Martini (Italian: [franˈtʃesko de marˈtiːni]; 9 August 1903 – 26 November 1981) was an Italian officer of the Military Information Service (Servizio Informazioni Militare, or SIM) in Eritrea, when the Allies invaded Italian East Africa during World War II. He enlisted as a private in the Royal Italian Army in 1923, and left active service as brigadier general and the most decorated soldier of the Royal Italian Army during World War II.
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Transcription
(jazz music) Dr. Zucker: Cities are chaos and it has led people from ancient times to the present to imagine what the ideal city might look like. We're in the Gemaldegalarie in Berlin and we're looking at one image of an ideal city by Francesco di Giorgio. This is a panel that may have originally been part of a piece of furniture or perhaps embedded in the frame of a wall, so that it was probably not meant to be an individual work of art. Dr. Harris: You can see the incredible illusion of space that the linear perspective creates and the intense rationalism that we know was so important to the Renaissance, here applied to an image of a city. Dr. Zucker: The ancient Romans had planned their cities as garrisons that were formed out of a grid, sometimes a rectangle, sometimes a square, but they were rational and they were meant to be rational. During the Medieval Period, that thousand years that followed, cities grew organically and they became complex and did not facilitate the movement of people or goods. As one can imagine now, in this revival of the classical, in the Renaissance, this idea of returning to a kind of geometric purity. What would that city be like and how might it affect its culture? How might a city that was geometrically perfect, that was ideal, affect those that lived within the confines of it. Dr. Harris: If you think about the Italian city states and new notions of being a citizen of a republic and rising to the virtues of living in a republic then we could indeed see how artists of the Renaissance would try to imagine what kind of city space would foster an ideal citizen. Dr. Zucker: It makes so much sense because the medieval feudal tradition had been a kind of organic system, but now people were taking responsibility for the development and planning of government. Why not also take responsibility for the planning of their civic spaces? In places like Florence, there were squares that were cleared very consciously, so that you had ideal vistas, you had ideal views. This notion of urban planning was one that was developing and was very much at the forefront. Dr. Harris: Artists like Leonardo Davinci is applying that kind of geometry to the form of the body. Dr. Zucker: Right, exactly. One might think of the Vitruvius Man, where you actually have this beautiful coming together of perfect geometry and the ideal human form, a man of perfect proportions. You mentioned earlier the severe linear perspective. It's so seductive the way in which our eyes rocket back into space towards those ships. I'm really taken with the playful element that is we can see where the vanishing point would be, but very close to it but not quite there is a ship. There's a dot and and we expect that to be the vanishing point, but it's not and we're reminded that outside of the built environment, on the sea, in the water, these rules don't apply. The idea of the rational is the idea of the man-made. This is a space that we can control. Dr. Harris: What we're seeing here is a coming together of a Renaissance interest in illusionary space, in the architecture of classical antiquity, and in notions of the ideal. Dr. Zucker: That's right, there's a nobling idea of the rational. (jazz music)
Historical background
Many Italians fought a guerrilla war in Italian East Africa after the surrender at Gondar of the last regular Italian forces in November 1941. They fought in the hope of an Italian victory with the help of Rommel in Egypt and the Mediterranean, which would originate a possible return of the Axis in Eastern Africa.
Early life
De Martini was born in Damascus, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire, son of Antonio de Martini, an Italian engineer who worked at the construction of the never completed Berlin-Baghdad railway line and Sofia Mokadié.[1] He accomplished his studies at the National College in Lebanon.
Enlistment in Italian army
In 1923 he was conscripted by the Italian army and sent to Rome to train in the newly created tank regiment.[2]
In 1927 Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi sent as a gift an Italian tank Fiat 3000 to Ras Tafari. De Martini had the task to deliver and train the Ethiopians in the use of it.[3]
After defending with his tank Ras Tafari from a coup d'etat organised by the followers of Empress Zewditu, he was appointed as commanding officer of the imperial guard.[4]
On request of the Italian High Command, he spent 8 years in Addis Ababa, joining again the Italian army in Eritrea, just before the invasion of Ethiopia.[5]
He fought in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War with the "Banda irregolare di Beilul", an irregular colonial band, and was awarded with a silver medal for bravery on the field and promoted officer by war merit.[6]
Service during World War II
After being commissioned as a lieutenant, De Martini was again assigned to Ethiopia as part of the XI Colonial Brigade to fight against the Ethiopian guerrillas and was awarded with a bronze medal.[7]
Immediately after the start of the war, the Italian Military Information Service called him back since he could fluently speak Arabic, Turkish and Amharic.
In the first months of 1941, he fought in the East African Campaign in Assab and Dankalia (southern Eritrea), where he was captured when severely ill with malaria by a British patrol, but a week later he managed to escape from the hospital of the Dessié.[8]
He decided, in accordance with his commander Colonel Alessandro Bruttini to go to Saudi Arabia in order to report the situation to Rome through the Italian consulate in Jeddah.[9]
Returning to Eritrea, on 1 August 1941 Lieutenant De Martini blew up a British ammunition dump in Massaua (Eritrea).[10]
After crossing the Red Sea in the motorboat Zam Zam, De Martini fled to Saudi Arabia. He made contact with the Italian consulate in that country, and from the Yemeni coast organized a group of Eritrean sailors (with small boats called sambuco) in order to identify, and notify Rome with his radio, of the Royal Navy movements throughout the Red Sea.[11]
Major Max Harari, head of British intelligence, offered a reward for his capture. On 1 August 1942, while attempting to come back to Eritrea, De Martini was captured on Dahlak Island by sailors from HMS Arpha and imprisoned in Sudan.[12]
After the war
De Martini returned to Italy on 19 January 1946 after almost four years in a British POW camp, and rejoined the SIM. His first task was to contact the Ethiopian Ambassador in Washington, during a brief visit to Naples, with the purpose of reestablishing diplomatic relations between Italy and Ethiopia.
After the end of World War II, Lieutenant Francesco De Martini received the Gold Medal of Military Valour,[13] was also awarded with "Ordine Militare d'Italia" [14] and received a second promotion to captain for war merits.[15] He died in Grottaferrata in 1981, aged 78.
See also
Notes
- ^ "Francesco de Martini, un eroe da ricordare". 28 October 2014.
- ^ Esercito italiano, Stato di Servizio di Francesco de Martini (matricola 52620), tipo A, impiantato dal Comando 82º Reggimento fanteria "Torino", in Trieste il 20 giugno 1956.
- ^ Esercito italiano, Stato di Servizio di Francesco de Martini (matricola 52620), tipo A, impiantato dal Comando 82º Reggimento fanteria "Torino", in Trieste il 20 giugno 1956.
- ^ Il Settimanale, 1º febbraio 1975, pp. 30-1, Rome, Editore Rusconi.
- ^ http://www.ilcornodafrica.it/st-melevite.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ Esercito italiano, Stato di Servizio di Francesco de Martini (matricola 52620), tipo A, impiantato dal Comando 82º Reggimento fanteria "Torino", in Trieste il 20 giugno 1956.
- ^ «Comandato con la sua banda di scorta ad una autocolonna rifornimenti per un presidio isolato, reagiva prontamente contro formazioni ribelli che lo avevano attaccato in forze preponderanti. Alla testa dei suoi ascari, impegnava un'audace cruenta lotta riuscendo infine a rintuzzare l'aggressività dei ribelli cui catturava armi e munizioni ed a portare a compimento la sua missione, già distintosi in precedenti azioni di guerra.» (A.O.I, 1º giugno 1940, Decreto del Pres. della Repubblica del 29 luglio, 1949. Registrato alla Corte dei Conti il 27.08.1949, reg. n°55 foglio 27).
- ^ Massaua-Daga 1-7 agosto 1941 Mar Rosso 10-16 luglio 1942- Decr. Pres. lì 26 aprile 1957 (2525) registrato alla corte dei conti il 12 luglio 1957, Esercito, (registro n 30 foglio n 252)
- ^ Massaua-Daga 1-7 agosto 1941 Mar Rosso 10-16 luglio 1942- Decr. Pres. lì 26 aprile 1957 (2525) registrato alla corte dei conti il 12 luglio 1957, Esercito, (registro n 30 foglio n 252)
- ^ Massaua-Daga 1-7 agosto 1941 Mar Rosso 10-16 luglio 1942- Decr. Pres. lì 26 aprile 1957 (2525) registrato alla corte dei conti il 12 luglio 1957, Esercito, (registro n 30 foglio n 252)
- ^ Alberto. "'Storie di uomini, di navi e di guerra nel mar delle Dahlak', di Vincenzo Meleca – 'Storia Verità'" (in Italian). Retrieved 12 April 2020.
- ^ War Office Claims Commission, 4 January 1950, rif. CC/ME/812/E.
- ^ Explanation (in Italian) of the reasons why was given to Captain De Martini the italian golden medal of honor Ragioni del conferimento della Medaglia d'Oro al Capitano Francesco De Martini: "Già affermatosi in gesta magnifiche per essenza di valore e temerario ardimento. Braccato dai nemico occupante, venuto a conoscenza dell'esistenza di un deposito di materiali, del valore di miliardi, di grande interesse ai fini operativi dell'avversario, nonostante la stretta vigilanza riusciva ad incendiarlo, per sua iniziativa e da solo, con gravissimo rischio ed estrema abilità, determinandone la totale distruzione. Subito dopo prendeva il mare su mezzo di scarsa efficienza e, lottando contro l'infido equipaggio e la furia degli elementi, raggiungeva la costa araba, da dove riusciva a ristabilire contatti, come da ordine ricevuto, con la Patria lontana. Incaricato di nuova missione, benché fisicamente debilitato e privo di qualsiasi aiuto, animato da ferma volontà e fede inesausta, si avventurava ancora una volta in mare aperto su fragile imbarcazione di fortuna per rientrare in Eritrea. Catturato da unità navali nemiche, che lo ricercavano, destava l'ammirazione dello stesso avversario per il suo eccezionale coraggio e la generosa noncuranza del pericolo. Fulgido esempio, luminosa affermazione e simbolo della eroica resistenza italiana in terra d'Africa. Massaua - Daga, i - 7/8/1941, Mar Rosso 16/7/ - 1/8/1942".
- ^ A.O.I. Marzo 1941- Agosto 1942; D.P. 16.7.1957, reg. alla Corte dei Conti il 30.9.1957 al n°40 foglio 2
- ^ Goggiam settentrionale (Etiopia). Aprile-dicembre 1940, Decreto del Capo provvisorio dello Stato 18.12.1947. Registrato alla Corte dei Conti il 30.12.1947, reg. n°27 foglio 91
Bibliography
- Cernuschi, Enrico (1994). "La resistenza sconosciuta. La guerra in A. O. dopo il 1941". Rivista Storica (in Italian). VII (10): 54–61.
- Rosselli, Alberto (2007). Storie Segrete. Operazioni sconosciute o dimenticate della seconda guerra mondiale. Pavia: Iuculano Editore. ISBN 978-8870727661.
- Ilari, Virgilio. "Francesco Di Martini. La resistenza italiana in AOI e il mancato appoggio all'insurrezione iraqena (1941)", in Virgilio Ilari (ed.), Italy on the Rimland. Storia militare di una Penisola eurasiatica. Vol. II. Rome. Società Italiana di Storia Militare-Nadir Media. 2019. pp. 225–234.
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This page was last edited on 25 May 2024, at 11:41