After commanding the 18th Alpini Regiment in the early 1920s he held a variety of staff posts. He was the chief of staff to Bastico during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. For his contributions during the war, Gambara was awarded the knight's cross of the Military Order of Savoy. He was promoted to the rank of colonel in February 1937. In November 1938 he was appointed commander of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie, the Italian Corps that fought in the Spanish Civil War.[1] He was commander-in-chief of the Cuerpo de Ejercito Legionario during the Catalonia Offensive,[2] and the final offensive of the Spanish Civil War. On 30 March his troops occupied Alicante.[3] Gambara was Italian ambassador to Spain from 1938 to 1940.
Second World War
[edit]Gambara with General Alessandro Piazzoni and other Italian officers in North Africa in the autumn of 1941
During the Second World War, he fought in France, Yugoslavia, and Libya. He commanded the XV Army Corps during the battle of France (1940) and the VIII Army Corps during the Greco-Italian War (1941). During the Western Desert Campaign Gambara was appointed Chief of Staff of the High Command in North Africa and commanded the Italian XX Army Corps, formed by the 101st Motorized Division "Trieste", along with the 132nd Armored Division "Ariete", which had 137 M13/40 tanks.[4] The Italian XX Corps did not come under Rommel's control until late November 1941. On 24 November 1941, during the Totensonntag Battle, Rommel sent a telegram to Rome asking German military attaché in Italy, General Enno von Rintelen, to persuade Mussolini to place Gambara under his command. Mussolini answered Rommel's requests by anointing him as commander of the Axis troops in Marmarica and placing Italian XX Army Corps at his disposal.[5][6] Italian units under Gambara's command fought well and bravely. By November 23, the Ariete with assistance from the Trieste and Savona Divisions, had knocked out about 200 British tanks, and disabled or destroyed a similar number of vehicles.[7]
On March 3, 1942, Gambara was replaced as Chief of Staff of the High Command in North Africa by lieutenant generalCurio Barbasetti di Prun.[8] From December 1942 Gambara commanded the XI Army Corps, which was involved in anti-partisan operations and brutal repression of the population in Slovenia. Fifteen hundred innocent people died In the Rab concentration camp from hunger, privation, and lack of medical care. In the Gonars camp, which included a large number of former Yugoslav soldiers, 420 succumbed to malnutrition and brutal treatment.[9]
Gambara was perfectly aware of the situation, but nevertheless thought it could be an advantage. When the High Commissioner for the Province of LjubljanaEmilio Grazioli turned to him to complain about the harsh treatment meted out to those who had been interned ('absolutely all of them reveal the most severe evidence of lack of activity and starvation'), Gambara harshly answered him: “A concentration camp does not mean a fattening camp; a sick individual is a quiet individual.”[10]
In 1945, Gamabra was interned in the Allied POW campatColtano.[12] In June 1945 he was dishonorably discharged from the army.[13] In 1947, Gambara emigrated to Spain at Franco's invitation.[14] He returned to Italy and was reinstated in the Italian Army in 1952. He died in Rome in 1962.[14][15]
^Joseph, Frank (2010). Mussolini's War: Fascist Italy's Military Struggles from Africa and Western Europe to the Mediterranean and Soviet Union 1935-45. Helion & Company. p. 76.
^G. D'Avossa, ed. (1951). Seconda controffensiva italo-tedesca in Africa settentrionale da El Agheila a El Alamein (gennaio–settembre 1942). Rome: Ufficio Storico dello Stato Maggiore dell'Esercito. p. 60.
^Gambara cit. in Tone Ferenc, Rab-Arbe-Arbissima: confinamenti, rastrellamenti, internamenti nella provincia di Lubiana, 1941-1943: documenti (Ljubljana: Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino, 2000), p. 326.
^Ganapini, Luigi (2010). La repubblica delle camicie nere: i combattenti, i politici, gli amministratori, i socializzatori (2 ed.). Milan: Garzanti. p. 79. ISBN978-8811694175.
^Bordoni, Laura (2022). La resa dei conti con la Repubblica Sociale Italiana I processi delle CAS lombarde nel secondo dopoguerra. Viella Libreria Editrice. p. 86. ISBN9791254690482.
^"Gastone Gambara". fondazionersi.org (in Italian). Retrieved 2021-12-03.
^5 “A settantun anni, a Roma, è morto Gambara, il generale anti-Rommel,” Il Corriere della Sera (Milan), February 28, 1962.
^Guerrazzi, Amedeo Osti (2013). The Italian Army in Slovenia. Strategies of Antipartisan Repression, 1941–1943. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 139–144.
^Name: GAMBARA Gastone; C.R. File Number: 149473; Rank, Occupation, Unit, Place and Date of Crime: General, took over command of XI. Army Corps from General Robotti, Prov. of Ljubljana, 41-43 ; Reason wanted: Murder; Wanted by: Yugo. In: The Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects, supplementary Wanted List No. 2, Part 2 - Non Germans (September 1947), Uckfield 2005 (Naval & University Press); p. 82.
Murphy, W. E. (1961). Fairbrother, Monty C. (ed.). The Relief of Tobruk. The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–1945 (online scan ed.). Wellington, NZ: War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs. Archived from the original on 12 July 2015. Retrieved 30 July 2015 – via New Zealand Electronic Text Collection.
Trizzino, Antonino (1963). Gli amici dei nemici. Milan: Longanesi.
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