| Popis: |
In the RSI government, the collapse of law and order proceeded apace. The Germans impaired the royalist Carabinieri, while the National Republican Guard broke down from sheer incompetence. In the resultant void, rogue militias proliferated: Prince Valerio Borghese’s X Mas, the Muti Legion, the Carita band, and an Italian SS. A general free-for-all ensued between federale and rogue militias. Power slipped from the authorities in Salo to a hodge-podge of municipalities, regional authorities, and rogue gangs. Given the competition among provincial heads, federali, questori, and podesta, space was created for the German military to impose their will on local Italian officials. The RSI interior ministry made desultory efforts to harness the militias but was not helped by Mussolini’s lack of willpower to quell the mayhem engulfing the regime. In the general breakdown of authority, Fascist radicals and rogue squads, having seized police functions from local civil and police authorities, were easily able to defy Mussolini’s desultory efforts to reimpose discipline over disorderly local power centers or to break up the disparate irregular Fascist formations. |
