(MacWhite, 31 August 1943)
The Allies and the Badoglio Government announced the signing of the Armistice on 8 September. The German Commander, Kesselring, was taken by surprise but moved fairly quickly to take control of Rome.
An American-born nun, Mother Mary St Luke, was working in Rome at the Vatican Information Bureau. Her diary entries around that time captured the mood:
At half past seven the news of the Armistice broke. The Roman Radio broadcast Eisenhower’s statement involving Badoglio’s short dignified address to the Italian people. Armistice – a sigh of relief went up from the crowds around the loudspeakers. Then a pause. People looked at each other questioningly – ‘Armistice or Armageddon?’ What about the Germans? In country places such as Cori, up in the hills where there were no Germans, the rejoicing knew no bounds; bonfires were lit, and the peasants and the village folk rioted to their heart’s content. But Rome was quiet. Marshal law was still in force, and by 9.30 the streets were deserted. But there were plenty of celebrations indoors.8
(Mother Mary St Luke, 8 September 1943)
In the papers there was a chorus of approval for Badoglio’s measures. The German radio let loose a flood of invective against the ‘vile treason of the Italians’ … People overflowing with optimism began to talk English freely on the telephone. Yes, it was all over. The Italians would have to hold out for just one week and then the Allies would be here; they dropped leaflets to that effect. Everything was lovely … In the afternoon it clouded over and the morning’s optimism clouded over too … By six, knots of people collected in the streets and the word went around in horrified whispers that the Germans were marching into Rome … A lot of Italian soldiers hastily put on civilian clothes. The Roman barracks were evacuated.9
(Mother Mary St Luke, 9 September 1943)
By midday St Peter’s was shut. When, in the memory of man had it been shut in the daytime? … At the Arco delle Campane gate a Swiss with business-like rifle and bayonet instead of his medieval pike, guarded the entrance … By degrees the fighting moved in from the country … and near St Paul’s Italian soldiers appeared in disorder, straggling along the Lungotevere, dusty, hungry and bedraggled. But there were no officers. The men reported that their officers said ‘we have no more ammunition. Do what you can for yourself, boys,’ and left them … the whole thing was a mixture of riot, civil war, real war and anarchy.10
(Mother Mary St Luke, 10 September 1943)
T. J. Kiernan describes the atmosphere in Rome from his perspective:
During the forty days of the Badoglio Regime, Rome was a city of the wildest rumours. One day it was declared ‘an open city. The next day it was not. The Allies were reported to have made a landing at Ostia, the seaside resort of Rome. They had not. And so the rumours went round and round while German Battalions advanced towards the city …11
De Wyss, the journalist, had similar experiences:
People were excited and depressed in turn. They feared the Germans more than ever, which is right, I suppose. All Italians I talked to asked angrily: ‘but where are the Allies? But what are the Allies doing? Why are they not coming here?’12
Some time later MacWhite observed the scene:
Fighting continued through the day. At 5.00 p. m. German tanks came around the corner of the Grand Hotel and proceeded towards the railway station two hundred yards away which was occupied by the Italians who after a half hour cannonading withdrew … situation is very confused. Romans are praying for a rapid arrival of the Allies. The King and cabinet … have left the city for an unknown destination.13
(MacWhite, 11 September 1943)
Meanwhile, Mother Mary was quick to note the changing circumstances in the city.
At 1 o’clock the Roman radio now German-controlled of course, broadcast the following ‘Yesterday an armistice was agreed upon by the commanders of the German and Italian troops in the area. Since then the behaviour of Italian soldiers has been such that the following measures have been taken.
1. It is forbidden to carry arms. Soldiers bearing them will be arrested and disarmed.
2. Anyone killing a German soldier will be shot. Otherwise the armistice remains in force.
So was it an armistice. Or wasn’t it?14
(Mother Mary St Luke, 11 September 1943)
Indeed, as Mother Mary had observed, the Germans were in fact in control of the city by that date. Hitler went on Radio Rome to make an address to the Italian people. This address made it clear that the German authorities would introduce a regime which would make the Italians pay dearly for having deposed ‘her greatest son … since the fall of the ancient world’. Immediate arrangements were put in place to imprison Italian military personnel. By 11 September, Kesselring was in complete charge of Rome and issued a proclamation which, among other things, stated the following:
1. The Italian territory under my command is declared to be a war territory. It is subject throughout to the German martial law.
2. Any crimes committed against the German armed forces will be judged according to German martial laws.15
Later on in the document further regulations were outlined:
6. Until further notice, private correspondence is suspended. All telephone conversations should be as brief as possible, and they will be strictly supervised.
7. Italian civil authorities and organisations are responsible to me for the maintenance of public order. They will prevent all acts of sabotage and of passive resistance to German measures, and they will co-operate fully with the German organisations.16
Less than 24 hours after Hitler’s address, the Germans managed to snatch Mussolini from captivity and he was subsequently moved to Lake Garda where he set up a government which had no real power, merely acting as a front for the German occupation.
The senior German diplomat in Rome at that time was Ambassador von Weizsaecker who, in fact, was not a Nazi. In his own mind, the Ambassador hoped somehow to organise a situation where the Vatican might mediate a peace between the Allies and Germany. Ambassador von Weizsaecker was authorised to inform the Pope in mid-September that the Germans would respect the independence of the Vatican and would protect the Vatican City from fighting.
At that stage there were about 80,000 Allied servicemen and civilians opposed to the regime imprisoned in 72 camps and 12 hospitals throughout Italy. The desertion by the Italian guards in camps all around the country enabled approximately 50,000 prisoners of war to gain their freedom. Of these, 18,000 were not recaptured in the succeeding months. This situation created a new challenge for O’Flaherty: not only were the numbers seeking help increasing greatly but the Germans had now established a military government and the Gestapo became more influential in the security situation throughout the city. Clearly a more formal, secure and organised approach was now necessary. O’Flaherty decided to look for help from the British authorities and so approached D’Arcy Osborne with whom he had developed a friendship on the golf course over the years. Given that so many of those whom he was likely to be assisting were British, the Monsignor was fairly confident of a positive response but the Minister took a very formal position. The British Minister was aware that he was being watched and needed to be very careful to avoid compromising his own role and that of the Vatican authorities. He had adverted to this issue previously in his diary:
I believe that daily reports are sent out on our doings. They must be dammed dull reading. The precise connection between the Italian police outside and the Vatican plain clothes police and gendarmerie inside defies precise definition but it very definitely exists. In its subtlety it is both very Italian and very Vatican. So that, while guests of the Pope, we are at the same time to some extent prisoners of the Italian Government.17
These concerns were shared by others. In December 1938 MacWhite wrote to Walshe advising that plain-clothes men were watching foreign diplomats and that he had heard that even diplomatic pouches were being tampered with regularly.
Certainly there we
re close links between the Vatican gendarmerie and their Italian counterparts probably because many of those in the Vatican had previously been employed in the Roman police force outside. Over and above that of course there was always the danger of agents working inside the Vatican and passing on information. So, while D’Arcy Osborne took the view that he could not get involved, he acknowledged that the Monsignor had offered great assistance to his countrymen and in return he made a promise to provide funds from his own personal resources as distinct from official ones. Far more importantly, however, he suggested to O’Flaherty that it might be useful for the Monsignor to have a discussion with the Ambassador’s man-servant, John May. May proved to be a most valuable ally. Indeed O’Flaherty subsequently described May as ‘indispensable, a genius, the most magnificent scrounger I have ever come across’.18
The man-servant had a particular talent in using the black market, which was to prove invaluable in the months ahead. He also had a range of contacts which kept him very well informed in relation to events on the ground. There are even suggestions that he used bribery, from time to time, to great effect in his ongoing work with O’Flaherty. It became clear when May and the Monsignor had this conversation that the Englishman was already well informed of O’Flaherty’s activities. He strongly impressed on the Monsignor the need to share the burden:
‘Look, Monsignor, this thing is too big for one man, you can’t handle it alone … and it has hardly begun! Oh, I know you have got every ‘neutral’ Irish priest in Rome helping you, everyone knows that. And there are the others, those Maltese, that big New Zealander, Fr Sneddon, isn’t it? Well, excuse me Monsignor, but they are only priests. I mean they don’t know their way about like I do, and some of my … er friends.’19
As a direct result of this discussion, a Council of Three was established, consisting of O’Flaherty, May and Count Sarsfield Salazar of the Swiss Legation. Because of his position as a diplomat from a neutral country, Salazar was in an ideal position to contribute to the work of the group. Many of those who came to Rome seeking help approached the Swiss Legation. The British Embassy at this stage had been closed since the staff had moved into the Vatican but the building was under the care of Secundo Constantini, another Swiss with whom Salazar had close links. Aside from passing on information to O’Flaherty about those who were seeking assistance, Salazar’s main role was to ensure that money and other resources such as food and clothing reached those hidden in the countryside around Rome. Captain Leonardo Trippi was another strong supporter at the Swiss Legation where he worked as Military Attaché issuing Red Cross parcels and generally supporting those who came seeking assistance. There was not much about prisoners and prisoners of war that he did not know as he had spent a lot of time visiting Italian camps on behalf of his own Government which was the neutral power under the Geneva Convention. As well as the Red Cross parcels he supplied money to escapees for which they would sign and which the Swiss authorities charged up to the British Government.
4
A Clerical Coalman
Early clients of the group were French soldiers who arrived at the British Embassy where they were met by Constantini. He in turn contacted O’Flaherty who went to seek accommodation for them. By chance, on the street he met an acquaintance of his, a Maltese priest, Fr Borg, who suggested that a countrywoman of his, Henrietta Chevalier, might be able to help. This episode was the first of many involving the Maltese woman. Indeed her contribution to the work of the Council of Three for the remainder of the War was quite extraordinary.
Mrs Chevalier was a young widow with six daughters and two sons. Her eldest son was imprisoned as soon as Italy entered the War because, being Maltese, he was a British subject. Her second son, Paul, was a clerical officer with the Swiss Legation and so his diplomatic papers protected his freedom. He also lived at the Legation. The youngest daughter, aged nine, was sent to live with Maltese nuns in Rome because of the dangerous situation in the city. This left Mrs Chevalier, her mother and her five remaining daughters, ranging in age from twenty-one to thirteen, living in a small third-floor apartment on the Via dell Impero.
Paul rang home at about lunchtime and spoke to his sister Rosie and asked her to ‘tell Mama that I am bringing home two books’. Neither his sister nor his mother understood what the message meant. However, later in the afternoon, he turned up with two French soldiers whom, he told his mother, he had brought to her at the request of Fr Borg and she should expect a visit from a Monsignor friend of the Maltese priest that evening. O’Flaherty, when he arrived, explained the dangers involved for the Chevaliers if they were to hide the Frenchmen. Similar warnings were given by the Monsignor to Mrs Chevalier on many occasions in succeeding months, all to no avail. The apartment in which her family lived consisted of two bedrooms, a dining room, a kitchen, a box room, a bathroom with toilet, another toilet on the back balcony and a large larder. To cater for the visitors the dining room became a bedroom at night. Mattresses were laid on the floor each night and this practice continued for much of the remainder of the War as the house had innumerable guests. On one occasion there were nine overnight guests in addition to Mrs Chevalier, her mother and her five daughters. Throughout all of this time, O’Flaherty was aware of the grave dangers for Mrs Chevalier and her family as it was certain they would be executed if their activities became known. On this first occasion, he just asked that the Frenchmen be kept for a day or two as an emergency measure until he could find a more suitable location.
Mrs Chevalier and her family were involved in this work for almost all of the rest of the War. She tended to stay at home to look after her ‘boys’, as she called them, while her daughters went out to shop for the necessities. As soon as false papers were provided for the escapees, they were able to go out with the daughters onto the streets of Rome without arousing suspicion. However, security became of huge importance and the girls no longer brought their own friends to the house. Inevitably, in a confined block of apartments, neighbours must have known or at least suspected what was going on, but they kept their counsel. Over and above that, the caretaker of the apartment block, Egidio, and his wife, Elvira, were of great support in alerting Mrs Chevalier to any imminent danger.
Understandably, there were few locals, if any, who were willing to undertake the same level of risk as the remarkable Maltese widow. Aside from any other consideration, the dangers were obvious with an automatic death penalty awaiting anyone who assisted escapees, so O’Flaherty’s next move on behalf of the Council of Three was to rent a flat on the Via Firenze. It surely delighted his sense of mischief that the apartment block backed onto a hotel used as the Gestapo Headquarters. Of all the accommodations used during this period, this was O’Flaherty’s favourite. ‘Faith,’ he chortled, ‘they’ll not look under their noses.’1 He subsequently rented another one about a mile away on the Via Domenico Chelini.
One of the early guests in the Via Firenze apartment was a British officer in the Royal Artillery by the name of Wilson whose role had been as a saboteur behind enemy lines. Wilson found himself unable to connect with a submarine that he was to meet after one such mission and so headed for Rome and the Vatican. Unfortunately for him, the Swiss Guard were now implementing the ‘no admittance for escapees’ policy. It seems that Wilson did not take their instructions in this regard too well and eventually they dumped him outside the Vatican boundary. He stayed there all night. Early the next morning, having been alerted by the Swiss Guard, O’Flaherty made contact with him in the Square and took him to the Via Firenze apartment where he met those already in hiding there, including some other British soldiers, a couple of Yugoslav girls and one Yugoslavian Communist, Bruno Buchner. The first thing Wilson did was sit down and write a letter to the Pope complaining about his treatment at the hands of the Swiss Guard. O’Flaherty was delighted to hand this over and equally amused some days later to deliver a reply from the Secretariat inviting Wilson to visit the Vatican at a more convenient time.
Keeping t
hese two apartments running – paying the rent and providing food for the guests there – together with contributing to food for others who were in hiding elsewhere, began to cost significant amounts of money from the Monsignor’s own resources and from other funds made available through D’Arcy Osborne, including the British Minister’s own personal funds and, at this stage, Government money also. Another source of finance was Prince Filippo Doria Pamphilj, the head of one of the ancient Roman noble families, who had been a friend of O’Flaherty since before the War. The Prince was half-English and had attended university at Cambridge. During his time there he became ill and was hospitalised. One of the nurses he met was Glaswegian and he subsequently married her. Both of them had been publicly anti-Fascist from the beginning. As often happened with O’Flaherty offers of help came in just when they were needed. The Prince contacted O’Flaherty and, having discussed with the Monsignor the work of the Council of Three, gave him 150,000 lire. Between September 1943 and June 1944 the value of the lira depreciated by 500 per cent. This, the first of many donations which the Prince and his family gave, was worth about £2,000 at that time (the equivalent of approximately €100,000 in current terms). Sr Noreen Dennehy a young Kerrywoman, became an unwitting transporter of these donations.
He would bring a letter up to the convent and Mother Superior would give it to me to take down to this princess, wait for an answer and bring it back. He would come back to the convent later on and pick it up. I could never understand what was going on … I wasn’t told anything … why is it that he could not go down and pick it up himself. After all he had a car. After the War was over Mother Superior did say to me one day ‘You were very lucky that you weren’t held up or put in jail.’ I said ‘what did I do’ …‘Never mind ’tis all over now.’2
The Vatican Pimpernel Page 5