THE GERMAN/AUSTRIAN ASSIMILATION OF THE RHETOROMANCE LANGUAGES

In the Alps region there it is an area (formerly very huge) populated by neolatin populations that survives assimilation only in three small territories: in Switzerland (Canton Grisons) and in Italy (Trentino-AltoAdige & Friuli). In these areas are spoken respectively: Romansh, Ladin and Friulan, the languages actually of more than 700000 inhabitants in Switzerland and Italy.

 

Map of the Roman "Italia Annonaria" (northern Italy) in 476 AD, showing that it included Raetia I & II until the Danube river, with the fully Romanized populations that were living in what is actual southern Germany, eastern Switzerland and western Austria.

These languages (sometimes called "dialects") are living relics, echoes of the Roman Empire that have survived for two millennia tucked away in the mountain strongholds of Switzerland and Italy (but disappeared in southern Germany and recently in Austria). They are a testament to the power of geography to both preserve and isolate culture, and their story is a compelling drama of identity, history, and the fight for survival.

When the Romans conquered the Alpine region known as Raetia, the local Celtic and Rhaetic peoples gradually adopted the language of their conquerors: Vulgar Latin. For centuries, this Alpine Latin evolved in relative isolation, separated by formidable mountain barriers from the developing Romance languages in what would become France and Italy. This isolation allowed a unique set of linguistic features to develop and solidify. The result is a group of languages that don’t fit neatly into the Italo-Romance or Gallo-Romance (French) families. Instead, they form a kind of linguistic bridge between them, sharing features of both while retaining their own distinct character.

The very idea of them being a unified “family” was a subject of fierce academic debate known as the Questione Ladina (“Ladin Question”). It was the pioneering Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli who, in 1873, first convincingly argued that Romansh, Ladin, and Friulian were not simply dialects of Italian but remnants of a once-widespread "Latin Continuum" that stretched across the Alps.

HISTORY

In the provinces of the Roman Empire south of the Danube called "Noricum" and "Rhaetia", the Latinized inhabitants did not completely disappear when the barbarian invasions devastated the region. Many were exterminated and others took refuge in Italy, but some survived in the Alps mountains.

Those who lived in Rhaetia gave rise to the Ladin and Rhaeto-Romance languages ​​of Switzerland and northern Italy, but those of Noricum survived only a few centuries until the time of Charlemagne.

That is to say, the Ladin/Rhaeto-Romance language exists today, but the Romance language of Noricum (which roughly coincides with present-day Austria) has disappeared. The explanation seems to be that Noricum and, in general, present-day central and eastern Austria were more exposed than Switzerland to the devastating invasions of the Huns of Attila and later of the Avars.

During the Middle Ages, there were now-extinct Rhaeto-Romance populations in northern Switzerland and in Austria/Bavaria, in areas called: Walchental, Wakhen, Walchengag, Wakhensef, and Winkhen.

Map showing the decrease of areas populated by people of Romansh language from 700 to 2000 AD

Romansh in the early Middle Ages was spoken over a much wider area, stretching north into the present-day swiss  cantons of Glarus and St. Gallen, to the Walensee in the northwest, and Rüthi and the Alpine Rhine Valley in the northeast. In the east, parts of modern-day Vorarlberg were Romansh-speaking, as were parts of Tirol. 

The northern areas, called Lower Raetia, became German-speaking by the 12th century; and by the 15th century, the Rhine Valley of St. Gallen and the areas around the Walensee were entirely German-speaking. This language shift was a long, drawn-out process, with larger, central towns adopting German first, while the more peripheral areas around them remained Romansh-speaking longer. 

The shift to German was caused in particular by the influence of the local German-speaking élites (with the help of the local church priests) and secondarily by German-speaking immigrants from the north, with the lower and rural classes retaining Romansh longer. If interested read https://web.archive.org/web/20131104161427/http://www.liarumantscha.ch/data/media/pdf/facts_figures/facts_figures_english.pdf.

Furthermore, until the time of Napoleon, Rhaeto-Romance was spoken in the Austrian Vorarlberg, while in the Val Venosta of the Italian "Alto Adige" (called also "South Tirol") there were Ladin/Rhaeto-Romance communities until the end of the 19th century.

Currently in the Canton Grisons in southeastern Switzerland, exists the Romansh -with its own literature and many dialects- that is considered the fourth official language of Switzerland (with German, French and Italian) and is the primary language of 60000 inhabitants. It is fragmented into five main dialects (Sursilvan, Sutsilvan, Surmiran, Puter, and Vallader). In the 1980s, a standardized written form, Rumantsch Grischun, was created to unify the language for official use, a move that remains controversial among speakers of the individual dialects. 

The Ladin is spoken in the Alto Adige valleys of northern Italy, in the Dolomites and north of Trento (and also in the province of Udine, near the Tagliamento River, in northeast Italy). It is estimated that around 50,000 people speak this Rhaeto-Romance as a first or second language (excluding the Friulian speakers of northern Italy, who are more than half a million).

Furthermore. it is important to note that the scholar Piccottini asserts that the extinct "Austrian Romance language" (spoken for some centuries -after the Roman empire fall- in central & southern Austria) belongs to the Rhaeto-Romance group (or at least was a proto-Rhaeto-Romance language), based on its geographical proximity to the current Romansh/Ladin/Friulian areas in the Swiss-Italian Alps. He even believes that it assimilated some words from the pre-Roman Raetic language, especially in Austrian Tirol.

Indeed, in the Tirolean region of western Austria, between Innsbruck and Vaduz (the name of the capital of Liechtenstein comes from the Neo-Latin word "avadutz," meaning aqueduct in Romansh), Rhaeto-Romance was also spoken until the time of the French Revolution.

Map of actual (2020) Raetho-Romance languages

The Alto Adige line of haplogroup "R1b-U152"

In all the Tirolean & Austrian propaganda against the Italian Alto Adige there it is always a reference to the fact that this territory is considered to have been ALWAYS a German speaking area, that the Italian fascism (of Tolomei et al) wanted to Italianize after WW1. But the Austrian Tiroleans always forget in their writings that only in the last four/five centuries before 1918 the romance language have become a minority language in what is now called Alto Adige.

The area around Bolzano has always been the most populated in Alto Adige with a huge romance speaking community; and in Napoleon times it was united to his Kingdom of Italy because ethnically romance speaking. Furthermore the valley "Venosta" west of Merano until the second half of the Settecento (XVIII century) was populated mostly by Ladins.

These facts -together with the existence of Ladins in Val Gardena and surroundings even now- clearly explains why Tolomei and other Italian academics & historians considered that the German-speaking Tiroleans were not an autochthonous population in the Alto Adige region.

Tolomei looked as a reference for the "re-italianization" of Alto adige to the process of assimilation done in France after WW1 with the former mostly German speaking Alsace-Lorraine regions. He was well esteemed by the French authorities: in 1935 Tolomei -promoted to "Senator of the Kingdom of Italy"- received the "Légion d'honneur" from the "République française". The award motivation was: "In giving you this high distinction, the Government of the French Republic has taken care to recognize the outstanding services that you have rendered to the Latinity before, during and after the war (...) with your action in the Alto Adige defense outpost of the Latin block against Germanism".

Tolomei correctly pinpointed that the germanization was huge north of Merano and Bolzano, but in the val Venosta area it has only happened since the century before the French Revolution and in the Bolzano area only since the XIX century. So he indicated that there was an approximate line related to the presence of less or more than 20% of blonde hair in the population, that clearly divided in two the Alto Adige: north of the line there were people mostly German speaking since the Middle Ages, while south of the line the presence of romance population was evident in the darker hair of most people.

Curiously in recent years the genetic studies have confirmed this line, with the genetic signature of the haplogroup "R1b-U152". Indeed the ancient Romans, from the original founders of Rome to the patricians of the Roman Republic, should have been essentially R1b-U152 people. See the above map for further understanding, showing the orange line (related to 33% of the population) of the haplogroup "R1b-U152" that is similar to the one of the 20% blonde hairs in the population (north of the line the habitants are more blonde and germanised, while south are less -because more than the 33% of the total population has this kind of haplogroup- like in northern Italy).

Finally we must remember in detail the biggest process of (often forced) german assimilation that happened in the alpine northern region of Italian Alto Adige. Here it is a map of the ethnicity in the Alto Adige in 1900, showing in red the areas of Romance language and in blue those German speaking:

It is noteworthy to pinpoint that it is possible to see in the map that there were areas of Alto Adige with a majority of Italians/Ladins (in red), that now have disappeared, like around Salorno, Merano and near Switzerland (for example, in Val Venosta -near the Switzerland border- until the 1820s was only spoken the "Romansh language"). The following is an interesting essay about this forced assimilation:

(read:also  Archivio Alto Adige; Italiani a Merano e dintorni nell'Ottocento)

The Forced Germanization of the Italian Val Venosta

One of the last Ladin areas to pass to the German language was the Upper Val Venosta (Vinschgau). It was not a voluntary transition from Ladin to a new language, but a forced assimilation which is not often cited or discussed in Tyrolean historiography; indeed, it is often ignored. In the past, Tyrolean historiography was mainly focused on attempting to demonstrate the long history of German culture in South Tyrol from the conquest of the Bavarii onward. Even today, this attitude does not seem to have changed much among German authors.

However, in the 14th and 15th centuries Romansh was the only language used in the court of Glorenza (Glurns). This is an irrefutable sign that the population was exclusively Romansh and monolingual. Up to that time there were many cultural, social and economic contacts with the neighboring people of Müstair and the Engadine, who spoke the same language, which has left an impact on the local culture (architecture, toponymy). The Val Venosta, moreover, belonged to the diocese of Chur.

Around 1600, Romansh in the Val Venosta was in a position very similar to that of Ladin in the Val Gardena today, in other words quite strong. Until about 1620 the Abbey of Monte Maria (Marienberg) called upon the Capuchins of Müstair to preach to the people in Romansh. This demonstrates that the population of the Val Venosta was hardly bilingual at that time.

In 1898 a German historian wrote:

“The Val di Mazia (near Malles Venosta) was still Romansh in the 1600's, and even a century later Romansh was still very common in the Val Venosta. It has already been mentioned that Tubre in the Val Monastero passed to the German language only about 70 years ago, while in nearby Müstair (in Switzerland) Ladin is still spoken today, and even in Stelvio at the beginning of the 19th century there were still people who spoke Ladin.” [1]

“Tubre was cleansed of the Romansh language only after 1750”, says an old history book. [2] The use of the term ‘cleansed’ (German: geräumt) demonstrates quite well the attitude of the Germans at that time. Indeed, the Romansh language was wiped out as a result of a prohibition against using the language. The German language was required for meetings, while the Ladin language was prohibited. Likewise the employment of Romansh maids and servants was prohibited, Romansh customs were prohibited, and even marriages with Romansh people were prohibited. The main promoter of these prohibitions was the abbot of Marienberg Abbey, Mathias Lang, infamous for his fanaticism.

The motive or excuse for this Germanization was the Reformation: it was feared that Protestant ideas could penetrate Catholic Tyrol through the Romansh language (“barbaric Romansh”, as it was also called), since the inhabitants of the neighboring Grisons are partly Protestant. It is of little importance that the prohibition of the language was said to be motivated by these fears. The truth is that when the leader does not understand the language of his subjects, the use of this language is criminalized.

Thus the Upper Val Venosta was Germanized. Despite the methods adopted — methods which anticipated those later used for the assimilation of minorities in the 20th century — the extinction of the Ladin language did not have such a rapid success. According to glottologists, Romansh-speakers still lived in the Upper Val Venosta in the 1820's. Today there are still many testimonies of Ladin heritage in the region: it can be observed in the local dialect, as well as in many toponyms.

MAPS SHOWING THE ASSIMILATION

The Romansh area during Charlemagne rule in the IX century.

Rhaeto-Romance languages now & 1200 years ago

Two maps of Swiss Canton Grisons showing: 

1) in the first (above) for 1860, in yellow the linguistic area of the German language, while in violet the Romansh area. 

2) in the second (bottom) for 2000, the increase of German language (yellow color) in former areas of Romansh

THE BRITISH SUBMARINES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN BATTLE DURING WW2

Great Britain began the war in 1939 with a fleet of 57 submarines, the exact same number as the Germans. The Royal Navy produced quite a large number of different classes of boats but three would be most prominent; the S, T, and U-class boats of which the most famous is probably the "T-class". 

    A "T-Class" british submarine: the "HMS Thorn"

Like the Italians, who had a very large submarine force (more than one hundred in summer 1940: 115 in total, of which only 84 were operational), the British opted for reliability rather than innovation. For instance, like the Italians, they stuck to the old-fashioned impact fuse for their torpedoes rather than the more sophisticated magnetic fuses used by the Germans and Americans. This made them less effective but, unlike both Germany and America, Britain did not have to go through a period of having unreliable or totally faulty weapons while the bugs were worked out of this new technology. Rather, the British compensated for the weaker destructive power of the impact fuses (in which the brunt of the explosion is focused away from the target) by having boats that packed a larger punch than those of any other navy. 

British "T-class" submarines were the best and were built to fire an astonishing 10 torpedoes at a time which, British naval engineers reasoned, would more than make up for the drawbacks of their fuses as well as the less advanced targeting systems of British boats. If ten torpedoes are fired at a single target, one or more will almost have to hit it. 

British submarine success was to be found mainly in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, where British submarines would have their biggest impact on the world war two. 

The largest threat, obviously, was the powerful Italian navy and the extensive coverage over the Mediterranean by the Italian air force. However, due to the shortage of fuel and their industrial inability to keep up with any significant rate of attrition, the Italian surface navy would be forced to remain on the defensive. 

British "T-class" submarines began to operate in the Mediterranean from September 1940 onward. This was the theatre in which the T class were most heavily engaged in operations and correspondingly suffered proportionately heavy losses.

Operations in the Mediterranean posed several substantial challenges for British submarines and the T class in particular. Firstly, the Italian Regia Marina, almost uniquely among the Axis navies, had devoted a substantial amount of resources and training to anti-submarine warfare. Equipped with their own version of sonar, the ecogoniometro (ECG), possessing excellent escort vessels, and making extensive use of mines, the Italians were to prove the most successful of the Axis powers at destroying Allied submarines.

Indeed in the Mediterranean, Italian submarines during WW2 sank 21 merchantmen and 13 enemy warships for a total of more than 100,000 tons; in addition, they were often used for carrying the crews and human torpedoes (nicknamed "Maiali") of the "Decima Flottiglia MAS" (which sank warships totalling 78,000 tons and 20 merchant ships totalling 130,000 tons).

History during WW2

The first British submarine success in the Mediterranean was, due to confusion over their status, the sinking of a French sloop. While screening a convoy, the submarine "HMS Phoenix" spotted the main Italian fleet, leading to a fairly significant engagement, but the Phoenix was then sunk by an Italian torpedo boat on July 16, 1940. On the final day of the July month, "HMS Oswald" was sunk by an Italian destroyer off the coast of Messina. As the Germans had done in the North Sea, Italian shore installations used radio direction-finding (the "idrofono") to locate the British submarine and the Italian destroyers then moved in for the kill (read with google translator from Italian: https://www.ocean4future.org/savetheocean/archives/35220).

Morale fell as British submarine losses continued and though successes did increase when the government in London authorized the use of unrestricted submarine warfare, the latter half of 1940 was fairly disastrous for the Royal Navy boats. 

While sinking less than 1% of Italian shipping to North Africa, Britain had lost nine submarines, five at the hands of the Italian navy and the rest to air attack or mines. At one point, Britain was reduced to only five operational submarines in the full Mediterranean!

 Clearly, something had to be done. Italian shipping losses had been extremely light in 1940, warships were not engaged and overall Italian superiority in the central Mediterranean had been maintained. 

It was a gloomy time as the British came to grips with the fact that, despite what Allied propaganda had told them, their enemy was a formidable one. 

Photo of the Italian "torpediniera Pegaso", that on 6 August 1942 destroyed with deep charges the British submarine HMS Thorn. This torpedo boat was one of the most successful AXIS anti-submarine warships of World War II. It never surrendered to the Allies, preferring to do a scuttling in Spanish Minorca island on 09/09/1943

However, the British did what they have traditionally done; learned from their mistakes and adapted.

As with the Germans (or the Japanese for that matter), Italian underwater detection gear was not good. The British knew this and so finally came to appreciate that, other than aircraft, the primary way their boats were being located was by radio direction-finding. 

The British responded by ordering their subs to maintain radio silence unless communication was absolutely necessary. The British also ultimately adopted the practice of keeping their boats submerged throughout the daylight hours if at all possible, only surfacing at night. This reduced their mobility of course but also made them much less likely to be detected by lookouts on ship or shore or by patrolling Italian aircraft. 

The Admiralty also sent many more submarines to Malta such as 10 new U-class boats in early 1941. With a greater respect for their enemy, more care given to stealth and increased use of mines, British successes began to pick up. In February of 1941 "HMS Upright" attacked and sank the Italian cruiser "Armando Diaz" in a surface attack at night, the biggest victory British submarines had yet had in the Mediterranean.

In March 1941, "HMS Rorqual" laid a minefield, sent two freighters to the bottom and then sank the Italian submarine "Capponi". The same month, another British boat, the "P31", made a successful attack on a large freighter using Asdic (sonar) alone, earning the commander the DSO. 

The following month also saw the beginning of a string of victories for the man who would be the most successful British submarine commander of World War II, Lt. Comm. Malcolm D. Wanklyn of "HMS Upholder". He sank a freighter in April off Tunisia and two more on May 1, beginning what would be a very successful career, albeit a short one. Sadly, Wanklyn was killed in action in 1942 by the Italian navy but by that time had managed to sink 21 Axis vessels, earning the Victoria Cross. 

Because of men like him, things were turning around for the British war under the waves. In the first half of 1941 they managed to sink about 130,000 tons of Axis shipping while losing only two submarines, both to Italian minefields. Still, the rate of success was slow at less than two ships a month. Furthermore, of the shipping interdicted by the Allies, including the movement of Rommel’s Afrika Korps to Libya, less than 5% was lost to British submarines.

However, the British were steadily improving and were aided by two significant events:1) the invasion of the Soviet Union, which meant the redeployment of enemy air forces and 2) the breaking of Axis codes, which allowed the British to have up to date information on Italian naval movements. 

The British also very cleverly took care to move aircraft into the area of Italian convoys before the submarines arrived to make their attack so that the Axis high command would assume the RAF had spotted their ships and not catch on to the fact that their codes had been broken. This allowed for more British submarines successes going forward. 

In September of 1941 the boats at Malta were organized into the Tenth Submarine Flotilla and the “Fighting Tenth” would prove the most successful British submarine force of the war, though also the one with the highest casualty rate.

Having inside information (from Italian antifascist organizations) on when and wear Italian supply convoys would be sailing, the British were able to post their submarines in picket lines in front of the enemy. 

In so doing, the British boats began to really bite into the Axis war effort, sinking four Italian troopships (with some hundreds of Italian soldiers killed) in a few weeks and badly damaging the new Italian battleship "Vittorio Veneto", which was attacked by "HMS Urge" and put out of action for over three months. 

In the second half of 1941 the British lost six submarines but received 13 new boats and, in that time, managed to take a significant toll on Axis shipping (which was critical to the North African war effort). In the desert, logistics were paramount and when the supplies flowed, Rommel advanced; when they did not, the Italo-German forces fell back. 

The losses were serious enough to compel the Germans to dispatch some of their own U-boats to the Mediterranean, adding a new and dangerous foe for the British to deal with: proven when the German "U-81" managed to sink the only British aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, "HMS Ark Royal", in November 1941. 

Moreover, German and Italian air attacks on Malta proved to be devastating, eventually wiping out the RAF defenders, forcing the withdrawal of many ships and damaging three submarines.

Nonetheless, the British boats continued to put up a terrific fight with "HMS Upholder" sinking the Italian submarine "St Bon" in January of 1942 and "HMS Unbeaten" sinking the German submarine "U-374" not long after. In March 1942 the "Upholder" sent another Italian submarine, the "Tricheco", to the bottom off Brindisi. 

However, the Germans had developed better detection gear and shared this with the Italians to great effect. The Italian torpedo boat "Circe" took out two British submarines using the new gear. 

The Italians also made ever greater use of minefields and this, combined with the sinking of the British minesweepers, ultimately made Malta untenable as a naval base. The island was ripe for the picking, however, it was saved by German Field Marshal Rommel who convinced the high command to call off the invasion in favor of his attack into Egypt. At one point only 12 British submarines were on hand in the area and the Royal Navy was more stretched than ever with the Empire of Japan now menacing the British Empire in the Far East. Many of the boats previously stationed in Malta had been transferred from Asia, which was now also under attack.

Dogged determination proved effective though and despite the reduction in numbers in April of 1942, British submarines sank 117,000 tons of Axis shipping along with the Italian cruiser "Bande Nere" (sunk by "HMS Urge"), a destroyer and six Axis submarines. It amounted to only 6% of the materials being sent to Rommel in North Africa but, due to the withdrawal from Malta, was significantly more than what the RAF had managed to intercept. 

British submarines were also being used to carry cargo to keep Malta alive as Italian naval forces prevented much of the surface convoys from landing their supplies. To fight back against this, British submarines were dispatched to prowl outside the main anchorages of the Italian fleet, to attack when possible but also to warn the high command of when they were moving out. The result was a fierce fight for control of the Central Mediterranean with wins and losses for both sides.

 However, the need for Axis air power on the Russian front gave the British some breathing room and soon more and more Royal Navy subs were posted to the Mediterranean with new flotillas organized in Gibraltar and Beirut.

The British war effort was also aided by the fact that the increasingly critical fuel shortages meant that the main Italian battlefield was forced to stay in port most of the time.

This, combined with the determination of British air and naval forces, meant that Malta was able to be built back up and more Axis shipping to North Africa was sunk.

 In October of 1942, even while preparing for the invasion of French North Africa, British submarines still sank 12 enemy ships and one destroyer. When the Axis powers began moving men and supplies into Tunsia to counter the arrival of the Americans, British submarines accounted for 16 ships lost while the RAF took out even more. 

Their actions were making it ever more difficult for the Axis forces in North Africa to be maintained much less take offensive action. By 1943 the Gibraltar flotilla moved to Algeria, Allied air power dominated the Mediterranean and the Axis shipping lanes were devastated with British submarines accounting for 33 Axis ships. I

n early 1943 the subs destroyed more ships at sea than any other force, surpassed only by Allied aircraft whose successes included ships in port.

Axis power was receding in the Mediterranean and the British boats were at the forefront of the naval victory thanks to men like Comm. J. W. Linton of "HMS Turbulent" who was killed in action after sinking 90,000 tons of enemy shipping and an Italian destroyer. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. 

Comm. George Hunt of "HMS Ultor" sank more Axis ships than any other British submarine commander at 30 for which he earned the DSO with bar twice. Comm. Ben Bryant was similarly decorated for sinking over 20 Axis vessels as well as numerous warships. 

With the capture of Sicily by the Allies, the naval war was practically over but, while outpaced by the air forces, Allied submarines, mostly British, accounted for roughly half of all Axis naval losses in the Mediterranean.

Overall, the British submarine force made a significant contribution to the defeat of Germany, Italy and Japan. Early on, they suffered some serious losses and learned some hard lessons against the Germans in the North Sea and the Italians in the Mediterranean. 

However, they adapted and came roaring back, taking a considerable toll on Axis warships and plaguing the supply lines keeping Rommel and his Italo-German forces in the field in North Africa. One of, if not the most decisive factor in the successful British defense of Egypt was Rommel’s lack of sufficient fuel and supplies and the British submarine force played a major part in that.

Photo of the "Leonardo Da Vinci", the most successful Italian submarine in World War II, that sunk 121000 tons of Allied ships and was going to be prepared to attack New York port in summer 1943. But this submarine was sunk on 23 May 1943 by the escorts of British convoy KMF 15. There were no survivors. Leonardo da Vinci was the top scoring non-German submarine of the entire war. (read my: https://researchomnia.blogspot.com/2025/10/tentatives-of-italian-attacks-over-new.html )

In 1943 at Italy's surrender the "Regia Marina" had only 34 submarines operational, having lost 92 vessels in action (over two-thirds of their number), while 3,021 men of the Italian submarine service were lost at sea during the war.

a large num

ber of different classes of boats but three would be most prominent; the S, T, and U-class boats of which the most famous is probably the T-class. Like the Italians, who had a very large submarine force, the British opted for reliability rather than innovation. For instance, like the Italians, they stuck to the old-fashioned impact fuse for their torpedoes rather than the more sophisticated magnetic fuses used by the Germans and Americans. This made them less effective but, unlike both Germany and America, Britain did not have to go through a period of having unreliable or totally faulty weapons while the bugs were worked out of this new technology. Rather, the British compensated for the weaker destructive power of the impact fuses (in which the brunt of the explosion is focused away from the target) by having boats that packed a larger punch than those of any other navy. British T-class submarines were built to fire an astonishing 10 torpedoes at a time which, British naval engineers reasoned, would more than make up for the drawbacks of their fuses as well as the less advanced targeting systems of British boats. If ten torpedoes are fired at a single target, one or more will almost have to hit it.

TENTATIVES OF AXIS ATTACKS OVER NEW YORK IN WW2

During WW2 there were some Axis projects to "attack" the USA territories. Some of the most famous were those against New York studied by the Italians, and -of course- there were also those done by Germany and Japan. 

Here it is my small research about: 1) the two projects made by the Italians, that were not done because the Italian surrender in September 1943 blocked them; and 2) the "attacks" by Germany and Japan.

Italian CA midget submarine on the "Da Vinci" submarine in a photo of April 1943, just before the planned attack against the New York port

I T A L Y

The Italians did two tentatives to attack New York: one by sea (A) and another by air (B). If interested, please read a detailed info in my https://researchomnia.blogspot.com/2016/06/plannded-italian-attack-on-new-york-in.html .

A) The most important and famous (and that nearly happened) was the one studied by the Italian Navy:

It was done by the "X MAS", a special unit of the Italian Navy under the command of Valerio Borghese (see the video:   https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=attacco+a+new+york+1943+X+MAS&mid=E415BC40672627E48A4DE415BC40672627E48A4D&FORM=VIRE. ).

From the beginning of the Second World War, the United States was a distant and difficult target for Axis strategists: the Germans never managed to get their saboteurs past the clutches of American intelligence to strike at the war industries overseas, while after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese had indeed sent a submarine to bomb the California coast, but the result was only minimal damage and a great deal of confusion. An episode more akin to the curiosities and tragic oddities of every war than an action worthy of being remembered in the history books.

Attacking the port of New York, however, would have had a far greater impact, even from a strategic perspective. The commander of the X MAS, Junio ​​Valerio Borghese, knew it well, the Italian Navy leaders knew it, and the men who trained for almost a year for the mission knew it.

The attack on the port of New York, which was to be followed by a similar incursion on the African base of Freetown, Sierra Leone, was not carried out due to the subsequent armistice.

In July 1942, Borghese studied a very ambitious project: an attack by the 10th MAS Flotilla on the port of New York. The Atlantic submarine "Leonardo da Vinci" from the BETASOM base in Bordeaux was chosen as the approach vessel. The submarine was to carry a small CA-class midget submarine to the mouth of the Hudson (the CA 2 was sent by train to Bordeaux for the operation) in a special "well" created in place of the forward gun of the submarine. Borghese was to lead the small CA-class submarine, which, with some "Gamma Group men" (assault divers) on board and 28 explosive charges ranging from 20 to 100 kg, would go to the port to mine ships.

The work was carried out in August 1942 and in September the release tests of the CA 2 from the "Da Vinci" were carried out, under the supervision of Lieutenant Eugenio Massano. The tests obtained appreciable results: the "Da Vinci", submerged at about 12 meters, managed to release the small CA and recover it. In reality, recovery was a very remote hypothesis, and it had already been foreseen that the members of the Gamma Group w ouldwith upgraded new-build ex have to destroy the vessel at the end of the operation and then reach the USA mainland. 

The trials were deemed a success, but the old CA mini sub-boats needed replacement with new units so there was a delay in carrying the plan, during which time the "Da Vinci" was returned to regular submarine operations (see the video: H I Sutton - Covert Shores ). So, the attack was going to be done in July 1943.

But the mission was postponed following the battle loss of the "Da Vinci" on 23 May 1943 and then cancelled following the armistice two months later. It was also foreseen that similar raids against Cape Town (South Africa) and Freetown would follow the attack on the New York port. 

The loss of the Da Vinci saved the New York port from being successfully attacked like in the Gibraltar, Malta and Alezandria raids! ( read: https://regiamarina.net/operations-of-the-10th-light-flotilla/ )

B) The other tentative was done by the Italian Air Force and was called "OPERAZIONE S":

Image of the Italian bomber SM 95B that was supposed to bomb New York in late 1943.

"Operazione S" (or "Operation S" in English language) was an Italian Air Force plan, never implemented, to conduct a demonstration air attack on New York City during World War II. The plan initially called for the use of the record-breaking Piaggio P.23R aircraft, later replaced by a four-engined CANT Z.511 seaplane and subsequently by the Savoia-Marchetti SM.95 transport aircraft.

It was proposed in early 1943 to use for crossing the Atlantic Ocean and bombing New York the airplane Cant Z.511

The Cant. Z. 511 was designed from 1937 for transatlantic passenger transport. Its development as a civilian transport aircraft remained unchanged despite the war. Only in 1942, when the first of two prototypes left the experimental phase, was it considered for military use. Initially, it was considered for long-distance transport of naval saboteurs and spies, and then for evacuating prisoners of war from the Red Sea, but it never saw actual operational use. 

Thus it was that on 7 February 1943, General Ilari, Deputy Chief of Staff for Construction of the Italian Royal Air Force, chaired a technical meeting in which the idea of ​​using the CZ 511 for a flight to New York was outlined, taking off from Bordeaux and splashing down in the Atlantic on the return flight to refuel from a submarine. Initially, the idea was to drop two small bombs over the city from the side door (because the plane was a passenger transport, not a bomber). Then the traditional drop of a large load of propaganda leaflets was decided upon.  Given the negligible damage that the two modest bombs could cause, the aim was to emphasize the propaganda aspects with a flight of high technical value. However, moving on to the operational planning phase, the mission was canceled because a ditch for refueling was deemed too dangerous. In fact, at that time, it was impossible to make any kind of predictions about the weather conditions encountered on the Atlantic route, and especially about the ocean swell at the time of ditching. 

Thus, the plane remained in its prototype stage on Lake Bracciano where, on or around September 8, 1943, it was hit with a pickaxe (yes, a pickaxe!) in its floats and sunk. The second aircraft, in an advanced stage of construction at the Monfalcone factories, was instead damaged by the workers and rendered unusable.

Additionally, in August 1943 (well after the fateful July 25th, when Mussolini was arrested one month earlier) the Air Force General Staff considered using a military prototype of the "Savoia Marchetti 95" (nicknamed SM95), another passenger transport aircraft under construction, to fly over New York, but the surrender of Italy on September 8th was just a few days away...and nothing was done.  It was reported that the fuel load of this SM 95 B was raised to 23,800 kg, for a total of 39,3 tons.

The mission, with a 500 kg (1,100 lb) load, was supposed to be done in late fall 1943.

It is noteworthy to pinpoint that a special version of this aircraft, the SM.95B-GA, was designed to have a range of 6,840 miles, sufficient to bomb New York. But, when reminded of the large numbers of Italian immigrants living there, Mussolini directed that only propaganda leaflets were to be dropped (read:https://www.alieuomini.it/catalogo/dettaglio_catalogo/savoia_marchetti_sm,95.html).

G E R M A N Y

In the autumn of 1943 the Germans began to develop a plan that would have allowed them to attack American cities using the V-2 weapon. The idea came from Dr. Bodo Lafferentz, one of the Third Reich's most brilliant engineers. Lafferentz proposed building sealed canisters big enough to contain a V-2 and towing them behind a submarine to within 100 miles of the US Atlantic coast. 

It was estimated one submarine could tow up to three of these hundred-foot-long, torpedo-shaped canisters. Upon arrival the submarine would surface and remote controls would be used to flood the back end of the canisters to bring them from a horizontal position to a vertical one with just their tops clearing the surface of the ocean. The exposed end of the canisters would then be opened and technicians would enter the floating silos to prepare the V-2s for flight toward New York and other US coastal cities. 

The Germans estimated that within thirty minutes the V-2s could be readied and launched. With the rockets on their way, the U-boat could then cut its connection to the canisters and flood them with water to sink them to the bottom. The submarine could then return to Germany while the three missiles continued on to plow into New York and/or some other American metropolis.​

However the "Amerika Bomber" was the most famous (and possible to happen) German project to bomb New York.

      The "Junker 390" (top) and the "Messerschmitt Me-264" (bottom)

In 1942, German air force chief Hermann Goering sketched out the requirement for the Amerika bomber—a strategic bomber capable of making 7,200-mile round-trip across the Atlantic.  By the end of World War II, Nazi Germany was pursuing a diverse array of "Wunderwaffen" (wonder weapons.) The diversion of valuable production resources to so many experimental technologies reflected an almost megalomaniacal tendency to believe science could compensate for Nazi Germany’s materially untenable position combatting the combined might of the Soviet Union, the United State and the United Kingdom.

The decentralized nature of German military research led to money being funneled into numerous competing projects instead of being efficiently prioritized for faster and more concrete results.

German manufacturers built three different prototype heavy bombers to perform the task: the Junkers Ju-390, the Messerschmitt Me-264 and the Heinkel He-277. While prototypes of the Me 264 and Ju-390 were flown, none entered large-scale production. The Junker-390 was made only in two prototypes; and there are allegations that in January 1944, a Ju 390 made a transatlantic flight from France to within 20 km of the US East Coast and back (https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.php?aircraft_id=409.)

Nazi scientists also began developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, piggy-back aircraft to execute inter-continental strikes and a manned suborbital rocketship called the "Silbervogel" (German for "silver bird"). The Silbervogel was the most futuristic of these projects and was to deliver a 4,000 kg (8,800 lb) bomb over new York.

In 1944, the air ministry issued a revised requirement for bomber with 6,800-mile-long range with 8,800-pound bombload. After other German firms failed to offer viable design concepts, in December 1944 the Horten Brothers proposed their own novel idea: a flying wing powered by six Jumo 004B turbojets embedded on the back of its fuselage pod. These were derived from the same engines then being used on German Me-262 jet fighters. The Horten XVIIIA was in effect a spinoff of the Horten brother’s wooden Ho.229.

Even as American troops poured over the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen into Nazi Germany, Goering still wanted his Amerika bomber and approved the design in February 1945—but he wanted the Brothers to build the jet by committee with engineers from Junkers and Messerschmitt. These new members wanted to install large vertical tail fins, despite the resulting increase in drag.

Perhaps the Nazis mistakenly counted on a political effect. To be fair, the Japan's materially ineffectual one-shot Doolittle raid of 1942 had caused Japan to redirect substantial resources from its offensive operations to home defense. Perhaps Goering hoped a few raids would cause the U.S. to redirect force away from Europe, or motivate the supposedly ‘soft’ democratic citizenry to demand U.S. withdrawal from war.

According to Samuel Eliot Morison's book, "The Battle of the Atlantic," the German submarine U-608 laid 10 mines in New York Harbor on November 10, 1942. The first of these was found by a minesweeper, and as a result, New York Harbor was closed for two days, the only period the port was closed during the entire war. 

"At 1117 Hours, Minesweeper YMS-20 witnessed an under water explosion two miles from Ambrose in 40-25-42N; 73-44-00W, bearing 170 degrees True from minesweeper, range 300 yards. YNS-20 considers explosion actuated by reverse pulse. Column of water 200 feet high was seen. EDC reports all Army mines have been accounted for. Explosion evaluated as magnetic mine or old depth charge. Port entrance closed until 1800/14 while twelve minesweepers operate in area". War Diary of the Eastern Sea Frontier. November 13, 1942

Furthermore, we have to remember that Hitler had ordered that biological warfare should be studied only for the purpose of defending against it. The head of the Science Division of the Wehrmacht, Erich Schumann, lobbied for Hitler to be persuaded otherwise: "America must be attacked simultaneously with various human and animal epidemic pathogens, as well as plant pests." The plans were never adopted because they were opposed by Hitler. And one of the main Schumann's targets was New York.

Image of the futuristic "Silver Bird" (in German language "Silbervogel") flying in the stratosphere over the Atlantic ocean from European Germany to North American New York during WW2.

J A P A N

The Japanese concentrated all their efforts against the USA in attacking the western Pacific coast, but they did also some tentative to hit New York and the US Atlantic coast.

The Imperial Japanese Army launched "Project Z" (also called the "Z Bombers Project") in 1942, similar to the Nazi German "Amerika Bomber project", to design an intercontinental bomber capable of reaching New York and other US cities.

The Project Z plane was to have six engines of 5,000 horsepower each; the Nakajima Aircraft Company quickly began developing engines for the plane, and proposed doubling HA-44 engines (the most powerful engine available in Japan) into a 36-cylinder engine. Designs were presented to the Imperial Japanese Army, including the Nakajima G10N, Kawasaki Ki-91, and Nakajima G5N. None developed beyond prototypes or wind tunnel models, save for the G5N. In early 1945, the Z project and other heavy bomber projects were cancelled.

We have to pinpoint that as the war began to turn against the Japanese, they, like the Germans began to explore the means to take the battle to the U.S. mainland. Both the Germans and the Japanese conducted missions off the U.S. coast in the form of submarine warfare but only the Japanese actually succeeded in using aerial bombing against the United States homeland...these being the well-known "Balloon bombs" which were launched from Japan and drifted in the slip stream to come down on the west coast. Only a handful of the bombs reached the U.S and being at the mercy of the winds, most of them did not hit populated areas. They did cause some deaths, mainly by those who were curious and fiddled with those bombs which landed but did not explode. Overall, they did little to cause any morale problems.

The Japanese were also seeking ways to bring the war to the American homefront and outside of the Balloon bombs and a handful of sub-launched seaplane attacks, no bombers ranged over U.S. airspace and unlike the Germans, no such aircraft capable of conducting such attacks ever took to the air.

This is not to say that the Japanese did not make attempts to do so. The testament to this was a design put forth by Nakajima. In April of 1943, Nakajima undertook the study and design of just such a bomber and they did so on their own volition, not at the request of either the Navy or the Army air arms, although ultimately, the Navy would hold sway over the project. Entitled Project Z, Nakajima looked at the requirements for an aircraft able to attack the United States and it should not be a surprise that they looked to the Boeing B-29 as a basis to begin, given that it had the range and ability, which the Japanese could plainly see as those very planes bombed their cities. The work attracted the attention of the military and the data and concepts worked up by Nakajima formed the basis of an official inquiry jointly conducted by the Navy and Army. Initially, Nakajima wanted to use the powerful Nakajima Ha-505 thirty-six cylinder radial, mounting three per wing. Each would develop 5,000hp. But it was to be seen that the Ha-505 would not be available in any reliable form and the project could not wait for them to be ready and so six Nakajima NK11A radials would have to be used instead, each developing only 2,500hp. This settled on, the aircraft, now designated as the G10N1 "Fugaku" ( Mount Fuji ), began to emerge and take shape.

Bearing a resemblance to the B-29, the G10N1 was ment to cruise at 32,810ft. and be able to carry a 11,023lb. bomb payload for attacks against the United States, able to obtain a maximum range of over 12,000 miles. For shorter ranged missions, the payload could be as high as 44,092lbs.. Defensive weaponry consisted of four 20mm cannon, one in the nose, one in a tail position, and two in a upper fuselage turret. Overall, as the statistics show, the G10N1 was a pretty impressive aircraft with capability close to and in many cases, exceeding the B-29. But the Japanese could ill-afford, like the Germans, to spend critical war assets on building such large aircraft when the usefulness of them was highly dubious by the time they would have appeared on the tarmac.

Image of a Japanese bomber (the "Fugaku") hypothetically flying over New York during the last years of WW2

Indeed, during the final months of World War II, Japan had planned to use bubonic plague as a biological weapon against U.S. civilians in San Diego, California, during "Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night" (and later in other coastal cities of USA, like New York). The plan was set to launch at night on September 22, 1945. 

However, it was shelved because Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945

THE "FASCI ITALIANI ALL'ESTERO" OF LATIN AMERICA

I am following the topic about Fascism in Latin America (including French Canada) with this month essay about the Fascism between Italians, who were resident in these nations from the 1920s to WW2. The main orgabnization was the "FASCI ALL' ESTERO".

It is noteworthy to pinpoint that there it is little documentation on the origin of the Fasci. The bibliography consists of a few superficial works compiled by their organizers. See G. Bastianini, Gli Italiani all'estero (Milan 1939); C. Di Marzio, Il fascismo all'estero (Milan 1923); idem, ‘Fascisti all'estero’ in Civiltà Fascista (Turin 1928); P. Parini, ‘I Fasci italiani all'Estero’ in Il Decennale (Florence 1929), 406– 30; idem, Gli Italiani nel mondo (Milan 1935). There are only two recent scholarly works on the Fasci: E. Santarelli, ‘I Fasci italiani all'estero’ in Ricerche sul Fascismo (Urbino 1971), 123–66; E. Gentile, ‘La Politica Estera del Partito Fascista’, Storia Contemporanea, 25 (December 1995), 897–956.

Fasci Italiani all' Estero (Italian fascists in the world)

After the 1922 March on Roma, the Mussolini's fascist regime sought to exert social control over Italian communities abroad. This required the creation of an umbrella organization, the "Fasci di Italiani all’estero", within which the groups of fascists abroad that had emerged spontaneously between 1920 and 1921 could be brought together. The mission of the Fasci abroad was to create a feeling of community among Italian emigrants within the framework of Italy’s higher interests. They had their press organ: «Il Legionario», written in Italian language and published in Roma.

So, in the autumn of 1922, a loyal collaborator of Mussolini, Ottavio Dinale, agreed to represent the National Fascist Party (PNF) on a trip to South America. His goal was to find an outlet for Italian labor through the colonization of regions of Argentina, thus preventing uncontrolled emigration. Among other mandates, Dinale was responsible for promoting the Fascist Party and—possibly—founding local fascist groups. The goal was to organize fascism beyond Italy, and in this direction, in February 1923 the Grand Council decreed the establishment of a central office for the Fasci abroad within the secretariat of the PNF, tasked with "disciplining and directing" the fascist movement worldwide.

As written last month, Giuseppe Bastianini (one of the founders of Fascism) in late 1922 was appointed in Roma by Mussolini as head of the "Fasci Italiani all'Estero", a movement aimed at co-ordinating the activities of Italian fascists not currently living in Italy. He called on members to seek to diffuse proper Italian fascist ideals wherever they were living. This group soon gained a considerable following amongst Italian expatriates in the mid-1920s, mainly in South America. Indeed, in 1925 he submitted a report to the Fascist Grand Council claiming to have groups in 40 countries worldwide, most of them in Latin America. On 30-31 October 1925 the "Fasci all'estero" held its first congress in Rome. The next year Bastianini resigned in order to work as a diplomat. 

In 1928, Mussolini ordered the organization of Italian youth programs abroad and began to pay particular attention to Italian youth programs. There was a problem of how to “fascistizzare” Italian society and the control of Italian youth was a fundamental tactic. The creation of the Opera Nazionale Balilla (National Balilla Opera) in Argentina was fundamental for the fascist government to attract Italian youth. 

In 1937, “Il Legionario”, the official organ of the Italian Fasci abroad, spoke of Mussolini's network in the world which apparently counted 481 Fasci, 244 after-work sections, 171 Houses of Italy, 200 schools, both subsidized and government-run; furthermore, the regime's youth organizations abroad had 65,000 members. Some of these young members were offered to come back to Italy and know their roots for free.

Italians of the "Fasci all' Estero" from southern Argentina donating a commemorative tribute to the "Monumento della Patria" in Roma's Vittoriale, in the late 1930s.

In early 1940 there were Fasci in all the Latin America countries (including Quebec-Canada, that had nearly one hundred members in 1939).

Indeed a huge amount of the activity of these Fasci was done in South America, mainly in Argentina and Brazil, the countries with the biggest Italian communities:

ARGENTINA

While there was never a completely fascist regime in Argentina, the influence of Italian policies and politics in Argentina was unique. There were Argentine politicians that supported Mussolini’s government and so, “like the Argentine state, Argentine society remained extremely receptive to Fascism between the years of 1919 and 1945. Finchelstein”. The fundamental reason for Italian interests towards Argentina was a result of the huge wave of Italian immigrants in Argentina, the most significant group in the whole of Argentina. Through I Fasci Italiani all’Estero (Italian Fascists Abroad), the different programs for Italian youth and adults, as well as the education reform for Italian schools abroad, Mussolini obtained the support of many Italian immigrants in Argentina. 

In 1933, there was the first fascist summer camp in Argentina and throughout South America. In the months of January and February, a hundred children of Italian origins participated in the camp. In 1935 there were 3 operating camps throughout Argentina and eventually also developed in Uruguay and Brazil. While the creation of a summer camp may not seem extraordinary, the influence of the summer camp had the potential to change the mentality of youth, towards loyalty to fascism, the homeland, and Benito Mussolini.

In 1930, Vittorio Valdini , the main financier of the operation and the leader of the fascists in Argentina, founded a new fascist newspaper, Il Mattino d’Italia, based in Buenos Aires. As fascism grew, its propaganda also grew.

Above all , Il Mattino d’Italia was a fundamental tool of fascist propaganda. According to the historian Bertagna, the initial edition of Il Mattino d’Italia consisted of around 10,000 copies. During the conflict in Ethiopia between 1935 and 1936, the newspaper reached approximately 40,000 copies 

Fascism was embraced by many Italians living outside Italy. Those who were pro-Mussolini did not characterize themselves ideologically; rather, their appreciation of Il Duce was framed within a kind of nostalgic nationalism that identified Mussolini as a redeemer of the homeland. Among those who fought in Ethiopia was a group of Italian volunteers from abroad who enlisted in the Parini Legion of Italian Fascisms of the East.

In Rome on August 6, 1935, less than a month before the start of operations to conquer Ethiopia, a military communiqué was issued, which, among other things, stated: "The formation of a sixth Blackshirt Division is hereby established, made up of Italian volunteers residing abroad and with battalions composed of amputees, veterans, and former arditi volunteers of the Great War. This division will be called Tevere (Tiber) and will be commanded by General Boscardi." The division's units were the 219th Italian Legion; the 220th Italian Legion; the 221st Italian Legion; and the 321st Italian Legion. With its four legionaries units, the 6th "Tevere" Division had 456 officers and 14,111 other ranks. The division's motto was "Molti nemici, molto onore" (Many enemies, so much more honor).

Italians residing in Argentina were also asked to participate as volunteers in the East African campaign. This Italian imperialist project convulsed the Italian community in Argentina like no other. Men who had nothing to do with fascism joined Mussolini's initiative, while others demonstrated their total rejection. The Italian-Argentine Community recruited a contingent of volunteers to participate in the Ethiopian campaign, composed of more than 700 men who departed in four successive waves. Argentina's case was not unique; the number of volunteers was larger in Brazil (around 1000) with a few from Uruguay (100), and even larger in French Africa.

In September 1936 these legionary volunteers from Latin America returned to Italy and paraded in Rome (https://patrimonio.archivioluce.com/luce-web/detail/IL3000020395/12/la-legione-fasci-italiani-all-estero-ritorno-dall-africa-orientale-sfila-via-nazionale-acclamata-dalla-folla-2.html?startPage=0) in a successful reunion with Mussolini.

Furthermore, from 1919 to 1925, approximately 372,000 Italians emigrated to Argentina. However, in 1926 the numbers began to decrease drastically and between 1926 and 1940 only 80.300 Italians immigrated. But even with the decrease the Italians & their descendants were approximately half of the Argentina population in 1940. And the fascist agenda in Argentina continued with the formation of programs such as the "Dopolavoro", the "Patronato del Lavoro", "Balilla (Gioventù Italiana Littorio nell’Estero)" and the control of some Italian schools mainly in the capital region.

In this year there were more than 4000 active members of the Fascio all' Estero in Buenos Aires: after WW2 (when Fascism was outlawed) they actively supported the rise of "Peronism" in Argentina. 

Argentina "Fasci all' Estero" (volunteers in Mussolini's Ethiopia conquest) parading in front of Mussolini in October 1936, when back in Roma.

BRAZIL

The first "Fascio" of Brazil, named after Filippo Corridoni, emerged in the city of São Paulo in March 1923 on the initiative of Emídio Rochetti, who was implicated in the murder of the Communist Party secretary of Macerata in Italy in 1921. Two months later, the "Pietro Poli" Fascio opened in Rio de Janeiro, and a year later, PNF (National Fascist Party) chapters were created in other centers of the country, also responding to the pressure exerted by Ottavio Dinale, who had been sent to Latin America for this purpose in 1923. In quantitative terms, the growth of such structures is, at first glance, significant. 

At the end of 1924, Mussolini himself provided, in a speech to the Senate, the number of forty units in Brazil (equivalent to a little less than a tenth of the total of Fasci abroad, an indication that, however, does not match those of other sources from the same period. In September 1927, their number rose to 52 and in 1934, according to openly partisan estimates, to 82, of which 35 were in the state of São Paulo, where more than 70% of the Italian population resided. Even leaving aside the accuracy of such indications, the sense of an extraordinary diffusion of Party structures weakens if we handle the partial and fragmentary data on registered members. In Rio de Janeiro, the number rose from 130 in 1924 to 1,000 in 1928 and to 1,100 in 1932; In Minas Gerais there were 700 on this last date, a year in which there were a hundred of them in Bahia; in São Paulo, they increased from 400 in 1924 to 1,745 in 1928 and to approximately 2,000 shortly after the mid-1930s. 

Considering that the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro hosted more than 80% of Italians, it is no exaggeration to state that, until the mid-1930s, the total number of registered Italians in Brazil never exceeded 5,000-6,000, a laughable number compared to the number of peninsular residents, which was 558,000 in the 1920 census, 435,000 according to reliable estimates in 1930, and 325,000 in the 1940 census. This inconsistency is also documented in the records seized from the São Paulo Fascio by Brazilian police in the early 1940s, which demonstrates that in 18 years of life, the total number of all affiliations of fascist Italians never exceeded 18,000, a percentage relatively insignificant compared to the adult Italian males residing in the city.

The proliferation of PNF sections in Brazil must, therefore, be related not so much to an effective capacity for rooting among immigrants, but rather to their territorial dispersion over a very broad area, which encouraged the establishment of Party structures – under the impetus of the consular corps or the ethnic elite – in every location where there was even a minimal Italian presence.

On the cultural front, there was a weak effort to open scholastic courses and a stronger one to promote theatrical performances, staged by amateur immigrant companies, sometimes during afternoons or evenings of dancing, in complete harmony with what had been a common practice in previous decades of the ethnic labor movement, especially of anarchist orientation. Ultimately, the organization of free time ended up representing one of the main concerns of the Fasci, who created musical bands, opened dance and singing courses, organized Sunday outings, a perfect copy of the popular trains in Italy, and promoted sports events, sometimes having their own facilities for these latter activities. The custom of creating summer camps was also widespread, and the insistence on such operations was motivated both by the importance of instilling Italian identity in the hearts of the children of immigrants born in Brazil—and therefore Brazilians to all intents and purposes, according to local legislation based on the principle of ius soli—or because of the awareness of the high propaganda value of these initiatives in the political sphere. The colonies and primary schools ended up being centers of indoctrination and proselytism.

The spread of the colonies was also supported by the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (OND) with such energy that it even placed Brazil at the top of the list of Latin American countries for these specific initiatives. In this sense, the ONDs ended up competing with the Fasci throughout the 1930s.

The overlapping of functions was objectively ineliminable, given that the directives given by the regime to the ONDs in the world were to provide physical and sports education for Italian workers, the institution of professional training courses, the organization of free time, patriotic propaganda, economic and moral assistance—that is, in a word, the task of "absorbing every manifestation of the life of our emigrant masses." 

Thus, even working in harmony with the PNF sections, of which they were partially projections and instruments in the eyes of the immigrants, the ONDs took over their space, especially thanks to the favor they found, not so much in terms of the multiplication of branches (19 throughout Brazil at the end of the 1930s) as in terms of registered members: in the city of São Paulo there were 1,500 in 1931, the year of their opening, 5,437 in 1934, and 7,100 in 1937 (while the Fascio members remained only a bit increased in the late 1930s).

In other words: the sport and social organizations of the Italian government were more followed than the Fascism politics of the Fascio all' Estero by the Italians and their descendants in Brazil.

Only with the rupture of diplomatic relations in January 1942 and even more so with the declaration of war in August of the same year would the definitive dissolution of Fasci be achieved, as well as the closure of Italian schools, associations and newspapers.

1936 photo of "Fasci all'Estero" from Brazil, parading in Roma's Vittoriale