On the way from Rome airport to the Italian royal palace, Colonel Macchach from France could not help but be amazed at the order of the city: the main roads were clear, the streets were full of armed men dressed as civilians, and some vehicles that had been temporarily requisitioned by the militants, but there were no barricades, no barbed wire, and no nervous and serious expressions on people's faces. When they learned that Colonel Macach and his party were friends from France and were about to rush to the palace to meet with the seizers, a young man wearing a peaked cap and carrying a bolt rifle offered to show them the way

Benefiting from this, Colonel Machach soon arrived at the palace and met the leader of the Italians, Candrone, an unemployed lawyer who claimed to be a modern-day Caesar. Although the two sides had never crossed paths before and could not communicate directly in words, they talked happily like old friends who had known each other for many years, and gave each other great trust.

After initial communication, Colonel Macach realized that this group of ** was a rabble with no organization, loose structure, and no clear beliefs and program, and they had nominally seized the city of Rome and had been given the opportunity to take control of the Italian regime, but they had neither the support of the army nor the real control of the capital region, and the Italian government and military only needed to mobilize an infantry regiment to exterminate this group of troublemakers who did not know the height of the sky. But at this point, he was really unwilling to go home empty-handed, and after repeated considerations, he decided to take a risk and use his ingenuity to help this group of lucky guys take power, and take the opportunity to achieve a goal that was in line with France's strategic interests.

So, Colonel Macach quickly stepped into the role, advising Candrone and his comrades. Although the French do not have so much experience in actual combat command, if we look at the world, when it comes to the experience of citizen uprisings, the French claim to be the second, and no country dares to claim the first.

As for this group of Italians who are still immersed in joy and do not know whether they live or die, although there are retired soldiers among them, none of them have enough rank and seniority to compare with Colonel Macchach, and besides, they feel that Colonel Macchach has come on behalf of the French government, and it is clear that he wants to support them in changing the Italian political system, and they are obedient to his suggestions.

One night later, the paratroop assault force that had high hopes for the Italian **** Umberto arrived in Rome in the morning light, and more than 200 white umbrella flowers bloomed over the Roman airport, and the scene was very spectacular. Until the moment of landing, many Italian paratroopers were still optimistic about the prospects of this trip, after all, the war had just ended, the main forces of the Italian army were in the north, and only a few second- and third-line troops were stationed in the central and southern parts of the Apennine Peninsula.

After the successful landing, more than 200 Italian paratroopers prepared to seize the airport tower, terminal, hangar and gate as planned, and relied on the buildings and existing fortifications of the airport to deploy defenses, waiting for the arrival of subsequent paratroopers and airborne troops. However, before the paratroopers could approach the tower, they were startled by a rumbling roar.

Then they came into view two P-43 vehicles painted in olive green, with several armed men in civilian attire on their turrets and bodies.

Before sending paratroopers to the Rome airfield, the Italian staff felt that there were no armored troops stationed around the capital, and that the paratroopers would encounter at most a few armored vehicles in the process of taking control of the airport, so they only needed to carry light anti-armor weapons such as armor-piercing grenades and steel-core bullets. As the largest number of combat vehicles in service in the Italian army, the P-43 was not very well protected, but it was more than enough to resist shrapnel and bullets, and more importantly, their appearance was completely unexpected by the paratroopers, who were immediately defeated in momentum.

At the time of the armistice, the Italian armored forces were either deployed on the northern front, or stationed in Sardinia, Sicily and Malta, and there were indeed no formed armored units within a radius of 100 kilometers from Rome. There are more than two dozen training vehicles, including six P-43s with better performance, and P-30s that entered service earlier, as well as a large group of cadets in their prime of life. In fact, on the very night that the French intervened in the situation, Candelone personally went to the Panzer School and skillfully persuaded some of the instructors and cadets to join the newly formed National Guard.

Candrone and his assistants were laymen in the military field, and the arrival of Colonel Macchach did make up for this shortcoming. At the suggestion of the French, the National Guard in Candelone occupied a number of railway bridges north of Rome and planted explosives under them, blowing up the railway bridges as soon as they spotted the presence of military columns carrying troops. At the same time, vehicles joining the National Guard were deployed to airports and railway stations to control these important strategic positions

Upon learning that a company of Italian paratroopers had landed at the Roman airfield, Colonel Macach knew that the Italian rulers had begun to counterattack. Although the paratroopers carrying small arms were temporarily stopped at the airport by vehicles driven by cadets of the Armored Forces School, the Italian military would certainly have quickly deployed more troops. The only chance for victory now was to mobilize the disgruntled population of the Italian government and let them create trouble everywhere, so that the Italian army, which was mainly concentrated in the north, could not move smoothly.

Whether it succeeds or not depends on Candelone's flickering skills.

So, in the midst of a confrontation between the National Guard and the Italian paratroopers who had landed at the airport in Rome, Candelone arrived at the National Broadcasting Building with a few redrafted speeches and delivered a speech aimed at establishing a republican system to the entire Italian public. From an objective standpoint, his speech is not well conceived, the level is not clear enough, the cited materials are not so convincing, and there are even one or two logical errors, but Candrone grasped the Italian people's deep hatred for officials, administrative inefficiency, backward armaments, low morale and other problems, and aimed at changing the status quo of economic instability, inability to win wars, and lack of diplomatic strength, and called on the people to abandon the decadent and weak monarchy and support the democratic and enlightened republican system.

In fact, Candelone's speech not only changed his personal fate, but also changed the **** of the whole Italy. According to incomplete statistics, 60 percent of Italians made a rolling radio speech that day, including a considerable number of active military personnel, and Candrone's political views were supported by a large number of people and many military personnel, and more importantly, the Italian business circles, which were deeply dissatisfied with the terms of the armistice agreement, collectively turned to this "coup hero" who was born out of nowhere, and expressed solidarity and support for him in various forms to reorganize the government and promote the republic.

On the other hand, after the first paratroopers were blocked, the Italian **** Umberto and his staff officers hesitated. It took them a lot of time and effort to find out that the vehicles that appeared at the Rome airfield came from the Panzer Academy. The officers were well aware that those training tanks had more or less technical problems and were unlikely to carry sufficient ammunition, but even so, due to the strong opposition of the commanders of the paratrooper and infantry units who were supposed to participate in the operation, **** Umberto had to order the postponement of the operation. After obtaining anti-tank rocket launchers and heavy anti-tank grenades, the second group of paratroopers finally set out on the journey, while the first group of airborne troops carried additional anti-aircraft guns and ammunition, reducing the number of people from 900 to 750.

The movement of the airborne troops was delayed, and the various units ordered to march to Rome by land and sea also encountered various obstacles: the garrison from Pescara was stuck for more than ten hours due to railway problems, and finally had to change to a march on foot; The cavalry troops marching south from Florence were first blocked by roads, and then mutinied in Bolsena, more than 60 kilometers from Rome; The 39th Infantry Division of the Army, stationed in Messina, was supposed to sail from the port of Messina, disembark at the mouth of the Tiber, and sail directly into the city of Rome, but the naval ships responsible for transporting them were delayed for half a day on the way, and after arriving at the port of Messina, they were delayed for a day because of the strike of the port workers; The headquarters of the Army's 56th Infantry Division, which boarded the ship from Cagliari, encountered strong winds and waves on the way to the ferry and had to go to Naples for shelter

For all these reasons, by the time the Italian troops approached Rome, Candrone had already formed a provisional government with all the basic conditions with the help of the French, and won the support of the Italian people from all walks of life. The National Guard, commanded by him, grew from a few thousand to more than 100,000 men, and they obtained firearms and ammunition from police stations, prisons, and militia armories in the city of Rome.

In the battle against the New Austrian forces, the Italian army behaved poorly for the most part, and the soldiers were unwilling to obey the orders of the officers to send the enemy's guns at the enemy's guns, but to aim their guns at the civilian population of their own country, and few were foolish to their officers. As a result, more than 8,000 soldiers from Cagliari and Messina stopped at the mouth of the Tiber, more than 2,000 cavalry from Florence were blocked by a blockade of more than 50 National Guards at a distance of 20 kilometers from the Roman airport, and more than 4,000 soldiers of the garrison who had arrived on the eastern outskirts of Rome from Pescara stopped their advance on the grounds that they were not good at attacking and demonstrated to more than 200 National Guards their ability to dig fortifications

In the days that followed, the only success of the Italian army loyal to the crown was the seizure of control of the Roman airport by paratroopers. In the process of expelling the National Guard from the airport, the paratroopers fired the first shots of the Italian Civil War and destroyed two P-43s and one P-30 one after another, causing more than 30 casualties on the opposing side. The Italian paratroopers were appreciated and rewarded by the **** Umberto for their brave and loyal performance, and they were also criticized and reprimanded by people from all walks of life, causing the morale of the participating troops to plummet.

Although the airport in Rome was lost, the Candelone regime, which had the support of the Italian people and the secret help of the French government, became more and more "kingly". While enlisting the support of the provincial and municipal officials, they telegraphed the Italian army to the ministries to encourage the officers and soldiers to abandon the decaying royal power and support the republican system in Italy, thus putting the Italian royal family and government in an extremely passive position.

(End of chapter)