Was Mussolini's Rescue Operation a Model for the Pentagon?

A Modern Version Might Save Zelensky

On the 25th of July, 1943 Benito Mussolini, after being voted out of power by his own Grand Council, was called to a conference with King Vittorio Emanuele in the Villa Ada park at the special bunker known as the Villa Ada Savoia.  The King told Mussolini that the new prime minister would be General Pietro Badoglio.  Tired, unshaven and shaken, Mussolini walked out of the meeting only to be arrested by Carabinieri troops.  He would be held at different hiding places until he was transferred to the  Hotel Campo Imperatore, Emperor's Field Hotel (Albergo di Campo Imperatore) in the Apennine mountains.  Under Hitlers personal orders, a German team made up of Nazi paratroopers (Fallschirmjäger) and a team drawn from the Waffen SS assembled in 10 gliders at Rome's Pratica di Mare Air Base where they were towed to within striking distance of the hotel.  The gliders carried an Italian general whose role was to convince Mussolini's jailers not to fire on the Nazi rescue force.  

Benito Mussolini is shown in front of a hotel in Gran Sasso Mountain area of Italy in Sept. 1943 during World War II. Gathered around the overthrown Italian dictator are German paratroopers who rescued him from imprisonment.

It was 12 September, 1943. Four days before, the Italian government signed an armistice with the allies, an event closely tracked (by communication's intercepts) by Nazi intelligence.  Allied forces had already taken Sicily and were lodged in southern Italy.

Cassibile (Syracuse), 3 September 1943. After the signing of the Armistice between Italy and the allied powers, they pose for a photo in the olive grove near the tent where the ceremony took place. From the left, the English Brigadier General Kenneth Strong, the Italian General Giuseppe Castellano, the US General Walter Bedell Smith (future director of the CIA) and the diplomat Franco Montanari, who had acted as translator and interpreter for Castellano.

Hitler ordered his army to not only free Mussolini, but also to take Rome, which they dutifully did.  As this happened, the new government, headed by Badoglio, and the King, escaped Rome and joined the allies at Bari, on the Adriatic in the south of the country.  The Germans established a military line of defense, called the Gustav line. Mussolini was flown out of Italy, firstly on a Storch light aircraft, and then transferred to more long range aircraft that first took him to Vienna and, after a refresh, on to Berlin.  Hitler would receive him and put him in charge of a rump Italian government called the Italian Social Republic (Repubblica Sociale Italiana, or RSI).  

In April, 1945 as German defenses crumbled, Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci attempted to flee to Switzerland, but they were captured by Italian communist partisans and summarily executed on 28 April near Lake Como.  Their bodies were taken to a service station in Milan where both were hanged by their feet for public display.

This piece of World War II history could well be a model for Pentagon plans to rescue Zelensky should his government in Kiev collapse.  

The US has launched a number of trial balloons and encouraged Emmanuel Macron to propose the idea of sending NATO troops to Ukraine to somehow save the Ukrainians from the Russians.  This sort of thing would not have been discussed in polite circles until the failure of the Ukrainian counter offensive and the collapse of the defense of Avdiivka.  Now it is obvious that Russia has increased the tempo of its operations and is taking gobs of territory held by Ukraine's army.   It is also now clear that Ukraine has significant manpower problems and its attempt to use forceful means to corral potential recruits is causing unrest in the country, including in major cities such as Odesa, Kharkiv and Kiev.

The problem for Washington is the lack of political support for any NATO military operations in Ukraine.  The revelations, especially in the European press, including a recording of German military officers discussing how they could blow up the massive Kerch Strait bridge with Taurus missiles, and how they planned to hide the operation, are undermining the German government's already badly eroded credibility at home.  A French "instant" poll showed two thirds opposed to sending troops to Ukraine.

Lloyd Austin, the US Secretary of Defense, who has emerged from a serious prostate operation, to testify on Capitol Hill, arguing that if Russia "wins" in Ukraine, pretty soon the Russians will attack NATO territory, suggesting that the first attacks might be against the Baltic states.

Austin knows there is no evidence supporting his argument.  The same sort of claims, also coming from European leaders, are based on assumptions and assertions without any facts.  Speaking on the occasion of his State of the Nation address in Moscow, Russian president Putin said emphatically that Russia has no intention of attacking Europe.

Austin and the Pentagon are in a dilemma.  Without a provocation of significant magnitude to justify a NATO intervention (another Gulf of Tonkin exercise of what was a manufactured casus belli), what can the US do to save Ukraine?  How can it get away with an intervention that most wouldn't object to in Europe or the United States?

The US cannot just send in troops to start fighting Russians.  That would surely start a war in Europe.  Putin has already put down a marker that if there was a war in Europe, Russia could use its "tactical" nuclear weapons.  While NATO has been playing chicken with the Russians for many months, urging Ukraine to use NATO supplied weapons to attack Russian cities, for example, or attempting to take down the Kerch Strait bridge or other critical Russian infrastructure, the introduction of NATO front line troops can't be hidden behind a facade of non-intervention or plausible deniability.  On what basis could NATO troops get away with some sort of intervention without a Russian counterattack?

The Nazi example freeing Mussolini may be a model that, in a modern interpretation, might do the trick.

No one can say how long the Zelensky government can hold on in Kiev.  With a steady Russian military advance and growing turmoil at home, the refusal to hold elections, the jailing of people opposed to Zelensky, and a host of unpopular measures, Zelensky's hold on power is entering the zone of desperation.  The Russians may see an opportunity for a power transition to a leadership in Kiev inclined to make deals with Moscow. Zelensky probably can't do that: he is too committed to expelling every last Russian from Ukrainian territory and demanding war crime trials, as he also demands that he will never deal with Putin in Russia.  Zelensky's security situation in Kiev could rapidly come under a terminal shadow.

In these circumstances, the Pentagon could rescue Zelensky and move him elsewhere, with Lviv (Lvov) being the most likely candidate, as it is far in the west and challenging for the Russians (if they wished to deal with Zelensky using military means).  Rescued by NATO "forces" the Russians might happily see Zelensky and his government go.  That would make the relocation possibly unobjectionable, or at least not the worst outcome for the Russians.  They could then deal with a more flexible replacement government.  In effect, just as Italy was temporarily divided (more or less) in half, with the Gustav line the demarcation until allied forces finally took Monte Cassino in May, 1944, Ukraine might be divided, although exactly how would depend on what remained of Ukraine's army supporting Zelensky.  Should someone of the quality of Zaluzhny take over in Kiev, it could mean that Zelensky's stay at Lviv would be brief and he would go into retirement elsewhere.  From the perspective of NATO and the Pentagon, such a process would take some time, perhaps even a year, allowing Biden to hang on until the US elections next November.

There are not many good choices for NATO or for Washington.  Biden cannot afford another Afghanistan debacle, but one is rapidly creeping in his direction thanks to Russian military victories and the crumbling of Ukraine's defenses.  Biden has the option of opening peace negotiations with Russia, but the Russians may not be interested.  There is a lot of water that has poured over the dam.

Of course, the military situation in Ukraine could stabilize, the Russians could decide to wait until after US elections, but this seems unlikely now.  The Russians are under their own domestic pressure to wrap up the Special Military Operation.  There is no reason at present to believe that Putin and the Russian army will slow down or back off.  In this light, the rescue at the Hotel Campo Imperiale model may be one of the few alternatives available.