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This is what they did to Italian women during World War II.

Introduction war is generally regarded as a purely male enterprise.

However, it is often women who suffer the most not only during the war but also in its aftermath.

One of the cruel evidences of this fact came right after the battle of Monte Casino in central Italy during the first months of 1944.

The Battle of Monte Casino was part of the Allied advance across the Italian Peninsula towards Rome, which was still under Nazi occupation.

It was one of the hardest fought battles of World War II and the Allied victory came as a deadly blow to the Germans in Italy.

But instead of going down in history as a heroic struggle to liberate the Italian people, it became infamous thanks to the sheer violence that was exerted upon the civilian population and mainly its women.

The brutality that these Italian girls and women had to endure during months at Monte Casino was so extreme that it became known in history books as the Moroccan night, after the fact that many attackers were foreign soldiers from Morocco.

Who were these guys? The colonial soldiers from the French Expeditionary Corps who unleashed unending savagery against Italian women.

What horrible fates awaited the women of Monte Casino after dark? Monte Casino, one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

The so-called Battle of Monte Casino was in fact four different military engagements that took place between January 17th, 1944, and 18th May of the same year.

The Allies, who were pushing from the south after disembarking in Anzio and other places on the coast, needed to break through the winter line to be able to reach and liberate Rome, the center of Nazi power in the peninsula.

This objective was achieved on June 5th, 1944, after the Italian capital had been held by the Nazis for 9 months.

It was the day before the Allies disembarked in Normandy, effectively commencing the liberation of France.

It were in fact some of the French troops operating in Italy that gave the Battle of Monte Casino its infamous blemish known as the Moroccan night.

At the beginning of 1944, the western part of the winter line, whose main pivot was on the steep slopes of Monte Casino, was held by the Germans who had positions in the Valleys of the Gari Liri and Garigliano rivers and some nearby peaks and crags.

On 14th May, the French army set out to break through a field at Monte Casino in the Italian province of Frosinone in the Lazio region.

Thanks to the devastation wrought in France by years of German occupation, its army in 1944 was composed in part of the so-called Gommier.

The term Gommier referred to a company of armed North African mounted tribesmen who were employed during the French occupation of Morocco from 198.

Later on in World War II, it became synonymous with Algerian, Moroccan, and Tunisian troops in the French army.

The French advanced, destroying the German lines and allowing the British 12th Corps to break through the resistance, giving the Allies a free hand to move on to the next defense of the verar.

Adolf Hitler’s fearsome army, which by this time was suffering from an inexhaustible demoralization in its ranks along with an undisguised retreat in its European advance, Monte Casino was the place where the Germans resisted the most.

Allied forces responded by attacking the Benedictine Abbey at Monte Casino with 350 tons of explosives between February and May 1944.

However, their attacks faltered amid a determined Nazi resistance and Allied exhaustion as the second New Zealand core was held in reserve rather than committed to the tail end of the hard-pressed Allied mountain attack north of the town.

The first battle of Casino ended with the Germans in possession of the town, the heights, and the Mon.

R looming above.

This prompted the Allies to conduct airstrikes on Monte Casino and the proper town of Casino to defeat the Third Reich forces stationed there.

The French Expeditionary Corps that allowed the Allied army to finally break through the German defenses were commanded by General Alfons Jan, a seasoned commander who had fought on different sides throughout the years.

Knowing the significant sacrifice his men had gone through to secure the Allied victory, he congratulated them and gave them freedom of access.

This would prove to be a mistake, as the following hours saw some of the most heinous crimes in the entire war.

Jan is said to have hailed his men beforehand, assuring them that if they won this battle for 50 hours, they would be absolute masters of whatever they could find beyond the enemy.

He also assured them that no one would penalize them for what they did or ask them what they were doing.

The following night, thousands of Gommier marched up the mountain slopes surrounding towns and villages in the region known as Choia.

For the locals, the end of the battle was not a moment of joy where they recovered their freedom lost to the occupying Nazis.

Instead, it was the beginning of an absolute nightmare.

Witnesses would later claim that when the Germans were around, men would have to hide.

But when the North African Gommier came, it was their daughters and wives that would need hiding.

The Gommier reportedly indulged in sexual assault and looting at an unimaginable scale.

It was a true rampage where even young boys and old men were sodomized by the insatiable French troops.

Complaints were made to Jan about the behavior of his men.

Even the pope was called upon to intervene.

Later, he would take the extraordinary step of banning Allied colored troops from entering Rome.

Looting, like sexual assault, is also as old as warfare itself, and Allied veterans from all nationalities cheerfully admit to stealing food, wine, and valuables from the houses of Italian civilians.

So automatic was this practice that the Germans took to booby trapping attractive looking propositions to catch out unwitting Allied troops.

Many Allied soldiers died while trying to steal from Italian civilians.

Prisoners of war were also considered fair game, and few would make it to the prison camp still in possession of their watches.

Other stories are darker and related only with great regret by veterans.

Several have told of their revulsion when a comrade stole from a dead body, in some instances cutting off the finger of a dead German to steal his gold wedding ring.

Perhaps more than anything else, this illuminates the debilitating effects that war has on the behavior and morality of those forced to fight it.

Who were the Gommier? Fearsome but ungovernable troops.

Linguistically speaking, the term Gommier comes from an Arabic word which means to stand up.

The Gommier, mostly Moroccans, made up the French Expeditionary Corps on the Italian front.

There were also Algerians, Tunisians, and Sahali soldiers in the corps.

They were considered the French irregular troops and came from the French colonies in North Africa.

The most prominent Gommier, however, were from Morocco.

They knew they were frowned upon for their savage acts and frequently behaved like animals towards their enemies.

Owing to their bad reputation, these corps were formerly organized into four divisions commanded by General Alfons Jan, a general with extensive military experience who was a friend of Charles de Gaulle, whom he had met at the French military.

Jan was born in French Algeria and fought in both World War I and World War II on behalf of France.

Jan was captured by the Nazis in May 1940.

The Nazi Vichy French regime installed him as commander-in-chief of the French North African army.

However, he quickly joined the Allies soon after the Operation Torch Landings in November 1942.

Jan led his foreign corps mountain warriors from the Maghreb with great military tactical skill and success during the first battle for Casino in late January-early February 1944 and successfully crossed the Rapido River north of the town and monastery.

He criticized Fifth Army commanders for not committing the New Zealand Corps to the assault, which might have enabled the foreign corps and the US 34th division to swing south behind the German positions and into the Ly Valley, thereby outflanking the winter line during the first battle for Casino.

Later under his command, the four foreign corps divisions adroitly moved through a difficult mountainous area during Operation Diadem, contributing greatly to the breakthrough of the winter line in mid-May 1944.

For this, Jan was praised.

But his name would later become forever associated with the senseless abuse of the Gommier, the North African settlers that joined the units led by Jan numbered 7,833 in all, and they were easily identifiable because they wore a characteristic green woolen tunic with multicolored bands and rope sandals.

They were not exactly dressed for combat, but their uniforms would later inspire fear in the enemy and civilians alike.

They also carried the so-called Jambia, a weapon that evokes mystery and tradition.

The Jambia is a dagger with a curved blade that varies in size according to the taste of the bearer, and it is said that they used it to cut off the ears and noses of slain enemies to make necklaces.

It was in the town of Casino that the French army came up against the hard power of the Germans.

Adolf Hitler’s forces put up fierce resistance, not resigning themselves to losing the position.

Up to this point, the Gommier had advanced without any real difficulty across the Italian Peninsula.

Three groups of Gommier under the name “Corde de Montaña” were the vanguard of the French Expeditionary Corps attack through the Orono mountains during Operation Diadem, the fourth and final battle of Monte Casino.

The town was finally captured by the Allies on 18th May 1944, despite this impressive deed.

They are not mainly remembered for having defeated the Nazi army, but for their brutal and inhumane atrocities, for the merciless treatment of their victims.

Innocent civilians, objects of their cruel and atrocious behavior, described as typical of beasts.

After General Jan gave them carte blanche when the battle ended, it seemed as if they immediately took their revenge on every inhabitant of the area, regardless of sex or age.

All the local people became targets of their fiercest sexual appetites.

Frighteningly aggressive and sadistic, not content with this, their material appetites made them break into houses and take everything of value to them.

If anyone resisted, they met even worse fates.

All this was done with the backing of the French commander who motivated them to carry out such a bloody horror and with the complicit silence of General De Gaulle, who definitely knew of these events.

Him being the ultimate military authority, it was under his power to stop the madness, but he chose not to.

The Third Reich forces that had left the Monte Petrella area east of Casino partially undefended knew that only Moroccan Mountain troops could have managed to survive in that region, and they were not wrong.

Knowing what they were capable of, the Germans warned the civilian population of the impending danger with an airdrop of leaflets inciting them to flee.

That same May, despite the impending terror, not everyone was willing to heed the warning message from the skies of their own enemy occupying the country.

The only ones who managed to save themselves were the many children evacuated by the fascist Republican National Guard.

They were sent to colonies in the Rony area where they were saved.

The vast majority of refugees, however, chose to hide on the POA Plateau, a territory at the base of Mount Petrella.

But the highly trained African soldiers, accustomed to the mountains, managed to easily reach them and submit them to the same or worse abuse than the rest of the Monte Casino civilians.

This abuse frequently lasted all night, and the screams of the victims would be heard in the distance by other Allied troops.

On the morning of 14th May, the Americans found that the Germans facing them on the high ground around the town of Santa Maria Infante had gone, having retreated in order to keep contact with their left flank, which was reeling from the French attacks.

After that, they pressed forward through the mountains and had only rear guards, mines, and booby traps to face.

On their right flank were the Gommier, and the Americans were instructed to wear adhesive tape on the backs of their helmets to avoid being mistaken for Germans if they ran into the North Africans during the night.

Even Allies were afraid of what the Gommier could do to them at night.

According to eyewitnesses, the nightfall worked like a spell.

It was the time when men became monsters and unleashed their rage against the civilian population.

American machine gunner Len Zabos was attached to a unit of GES and recounts how when they reached the town of Spino, they could hear firing and screaming coming from the village.

They knew that there were no more German troops there, so they were unsure of what was going on.

A fellow American said, “I think they’re attacking those women.

” One of the sergeants asked whether they should do something about it, but he was informed that they had to await orders.

They continued to hear the screams of women through the sounds of war, a harrowing experience.

A particularly gruesome sight was witnessed by other American soldiers, who recount how they found a preacher who had been horribly beaten and abused, and later his body was thrown to the streets like garbage.

Upon asking other people about the fate of the priest, they were informed that he had the terrible idea of interceding and trying to save three little girls from being abused by Gommier.

They then turned their attention to the priest, who was badly beaten, tied to a post, and sexually assaulted by several men who took turns throughout the night.

Finally, the priest died as a result of his injuries.

The French military command, not pardoning these crimes straight away, executed a certain number of the guilty, but that did not stop the savagery.

In military terms, the French had much to be proud of.

Jan’s audacious attack through the mountains had smashed the southwestern flank of the winter line, and the speed of the subsequent attacks prevented the Germans from holding the Hitler line in the coastal sector.

It also made the German position in the Liry Valley much more difficult.

The British were aware of this, and late on 16th May, Eighth Army Commander Lieutenant General Lease ordered the 78th division to cut Route 6 behind Casino.

At the same time, the Polish Corps, which had taken such a battering on the opening day of the attack, was to try again at the dreaded Monry.

Witness testimony of the unbridled cruelty against women, girls, and priests, there are many witnesses and direct or indirect victims of these atrocities caused by the soldiers.

Locals still recall with horror some of the scenes they saw and experienced firsthand.

Although many are no longer alive to tell the tale, the story of what they experienced has been passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation, and continues to this day to give veracity to one of the many dark chapters of this terrible war.

The wounds inflicted by that unconscionable attack are far from healed, and those who suffered from it cannot forget a single moment of it.

As their stories reflect, many people were forced to leave their homes as they did not feel protected there.

Several people and entire families hid together to be safe, knowing that many did not have that privilege.

Going outside almost certainly meant having to pay the consequences.

Hiding, trying to stay safe, they used to hear constant cries for help, even though they could do nothing.

Many survivors report feeling a sense of cowardice, but on the other hand, there was little they could do to help their fellow human beings.

They preferred not to be the new victims, but instead to protect their loved ones.

When night fell, the nightmare began.

One could hear the moans of the young women who had been abducted during the afternoon.

It was a wailing that found no solace and chilled the blood of those who had to listen to it.

They thought in turn that they might be the next to suffer the same violence, so they kept silent, even though the cries were desperate.

From then on, the Battle of Monte Casino became synonymous with horror.

The word “Marinate” remained in the popular imagination of this region, which experienced the terror of war firsthand.

Entire civilian populations fell victim to the Allies, who in theory had come to Italy to liberate them from Nazi occupation and to rid them of the brutal fascism of the Axis, led first by Benito Mussolini and then by Adolf Hitler.

The French military army on the peninsula consisted of 130,000 men, including almost 8,000 African settlers.

All were tainted by these deeds.

What happened was far more terrible than the worst nightmare imaginable for those to whom it was addressed.

Perhaps most terrible of all is the fact that all this happened in a single night: that of the 18th of May 1944.

After the soldiers had listened to their commanding general, thousands of Gommier left their camps to roam the area, encompassing several villages in the Karia region, feeling free to do as they pleased without punishment.

The most terrifying hell broke loose.

For more than 50 hours, there was no control and no resistance, and group violence took over.

Everything was hellish, and the viciousness with which they treated their victims was terrifying.

The troops were selective at first, picking the most attractive victims to attack first, but then they unleashed their full capacity for evil, with no concern for who was on the receiving end.

Among themselves, no one prevented the aggression.

Quite the contrary, they encouraged each other to encourage and increase their degree of cynicism and go on for more, as if it were a competition.

They strived to create the most dantesque scenes, terrible in magnitude because of the damage caused, where no adjective can describe the aberrant nature of what was experienced.

In many cases, it was simply children who were chosen for the abuse, not even teenagers or mature women as would happen later.

Even grandmothers, who in many cases were over 80 years old, were martyred by the Allied attacks.

In one village in the region that was stormed by hundreds of Moroccan soldiers, 30 women and two men were reportedly attacked in a short time.

Everything happened so fast that no one could warn them to hide.

There was no salvation or escape for the recipients of this disaster.

In another locality, two sisters were forced to satisfy a platoon of nearly 200 soldiers in a shocking act of unprecedented cruelty and viciousness.

The suffering caused during the harassment was deliberately and unnecessarily escalating.

Another truly incomprehensible case is that of around 300 combatants who went on a rampage against an older man and decided to sexually abuse him in groups as a way of entertainment.

Abusing men was a routine act that satisfied their monstrous thirst, and no village in the region was safe from this.

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