Pietro Badoglio, 1stDuke of Addis Abeba, 1st Marquess of Sabotino (US:/bəˈdoʊljoʊ/bə-DOH-lyoh,^[1]Italian:[ˈpjɛːtrobaˈdɔʎʎo]; 28 September 1871 – 1 November 1956), was an Italian general during bothWorld Wars and the firstviceroy ofItalian East Africa.^[2] With thefall of the Fascist regime in Italy, he becamePrime Minister of Italy.

Marshal of Italy The 1stDuke of Addis Abeba Pietro Badoglio
Prime Minister of Italy
In office 25 July 1943 – 8 June 1944
Monarch	Vittorio Emanuele III
Lieutenant General	The Prince of Piedmont
Deputy	Palmiro Togliatti
Preceded by	Benito Mussolini
Succeeded by	Ivanoe Bonomi
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 11 February 1944 – 8 June 1944
Prime Minister	Himself
Preceded by	Raffaele Guariglia
Succeeded by	Ivanoe Bonomi
Minister of the Italian Africa
In office 11 February 1944 – 8 June 1944
Prime Minister	Himself
Preceded by	Melchiade Gabba
Succeeded by	Ivanoe Bonomi
Governor-General of theItalian East Africa andViceroy of Ethiopia
In office 9 May 1936 – 11 June 1936
Monarch	Vittorio Emanuele III
Duce	Benito Mussolini
Preceded by	Offices established
Succeeded by	Rodolfo Graziani
Commissary of theItalian East Africa
In office 28 November 1935 – 9 May 1936
Preceded by	Emilio De Bono
Succeeded by	Office abolished
Governor ofEritrea
In office 22 November 1935 – 9 May 1936
Preceded by	Emilio De Bono
Succeeded by	Alfredo Guzzoni
Governor ofTripolitania andCyrenaica
In office 24 January 1929 – 31 December 1933
Preceded by	Emilio De Bono(Tripolitania) Attilio Teruzzi(Cyrenaica)
Succeeded by	Italo Balbo(Governor of Libia)
Chief of the Italian General Staff
In office 4 May 1925 – 5 December 1940
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Ugo Cavallero[a]
Chief of Staff of the Royal Italian Army
In office 25 November 1919 – 2 February 1921
Preceded by	Armando Diaz
Succeeded by	Giuseppe Vaccari
In office 4 May 1925 – 1 February 1927
Preceded by	Giuseppe Francesco Ferrari
Succeeded by	Giuseppe Francesco Ferrari
Personal details
Born	(1871-09-28)28 September 1871 Grazzano Monferrato,Piedmont,Kingdom of Italy
Died	1 November 1956(1956-11-01) (aged 85) Grazzano Badoglio, Piedmont, Italy
Political party	Independent
Spouse	Sofia Valania ​ ​ (m. 1904; died 1942)​
Military service
Allegiance	Kingdom of Italy
Branch/service	Royal Italian Army
Years of service	1892–1943
Rank	Marshal of Italy
Battles/wars	First Italo–Ethiopian War Italo–Turkish War World War I Pacification of Libya Second Italo–Ethiopian War World War II

Badoglio was born in 1871. His father, Mario Badoglio, was a modest landowner, and his mother, Antonietta Pittarelli, was of middle-class background. On 5 October 1888 he was admitted to the Royal Military Academy inTurin. He received the rank of secondlieutenant in 1890. In 1892, he finished his studies and was promoted to first lieutenant.

After completing his studies, he served with theRegio Esercito (Italian Royal Army) from 1892, at first as a lieutenant (tenente) inartillery. Badoglio was involved in theFirst Italo-Ethiopian War and theItalo-Turkish War.

At the beginning of Italian participation in theFirst World War, he was alieutenant colonel (tenente colonnello); he rose to the rank ofmajor general following his handling of the capture ofMonte Sabotino in May 1916 and by the late months of 1917, by now already alieutenant general, was named as vice-chief of staff (sottocapo di stato maggiore) despite being one of those mainly responsible for the disaster during theBattle of Caporetto on 24 October 1917.

With regard to the Battle of Caporetto, although he was blamed in various quarters for his disposition of the forces under his command before the battle, a commission of inquiry rejected most of the criticisms made upon him.^[3] In the years after the First World War, in which he held several high posts in theRegio Esercito, Badoglio exerted a constant effort in modifying official documents in order to hide his role in the defeat.^[4]

After the war, Badoglio was named as asenator, but also remained in the army with special assignments toRomania and theU.S. in 1920 and 1921. At first, he opposedBenito Mussolini and after 1922 was side-lined by being sent toBrazil as ambassador. A political change of heart soon returned him to Italy and a senior role in the army, as chief of staff from 4 May 1925. On 25 June 1926, Badoglio was promoted to the rank ofMarshal of Italy (Maresciallo d'Italia).

Badoglio was the first sole governor ofTripolitania andCyrenaica^[5] (later amalgamated asItalian Libya) from 1929 to 1933. During his governorship, he played a vital part (withRodolfo Graziani, deputy governor of Cyrenaica) in defeating the Libyan Resistance by waging a near-genocidal campaign. On 20 June 1930, Badoglio wrote to Graziani: "As for overall strategy, it is necessary to create a significant and clear separation between the controlled population and the rebel formations. I do not hide the significance and seriousness of this measure, which might be the ruin of the subdued population ... But now the course has been set, and we must carry it out to the end, even if the entire population of Cyrenaica must perish."^[6] By 1931, well over half of the population of Cyrenaica were confined to 15 concentration camps where many died as a result of overcrowding (and lack of water, food and medicine) while Badoglio's air force used chemical weapons against the Bedouin rebels in the desert.^[7] On 24 January 1932 (the third anniversary of his appointment), Badoglio proclaimed the end ofLibyan resistance for the first time since the Italian invasion in 1911.

On 3 October 1935, because the progress ofDe Bono's invasion of Abyssinia was judged by Mussolini to be too slow, Badoglio, who had in the meantime launched an epistolary campaign againstEmilio de Bono, replaced de Bono as the commander. Badoglio asked for and was given permission to usechemical weapons, using the torture and murder of downed Italian pilotTito Minniti during the Ethiopian"Christmas Offensive" as a pretext for doing so. British historianSir Ian Kershaw wrote the "barbarous initiatives in the conduct of the warin Ethiopia" came as a rule from the military elite rather than from Mussolini himself.

Badoglio employedmustard gas to effectively destroy the Ethiopian armies confronting him on the northern front. He commanded the Italian forces at theFirst Battle of Tembien, theBattle of Amba Aradam, theSecond Battle of Tembien, and theBattle of Shire. On 31 March 1936, Badoglio defeatedEmperorHaile Selassie commanding the last Ethiopian army on the northern front at theBattle of Maychew. On 26 April, with no Ethiopian resistance left between his forces andAddis Ababa, Badoglio launched his "March of the Iron Will" to take the Ethiopian capital city and end the war. By 2 May, Haile Selassie had fled the country.

On 5 May 1936, Marshal Badoglio led the victorious Italian troops into Addis Ababa. Mussolini declaredKing Victor Emmanuel to be theEmperor of Ethiopia, and Ethiopia became part of theItalian Empire. On this occasion, Badoglio was appointed the firstviceroy andgovernor general of Ethiopia and ennobled with thevictory title ofDuke of Addis Ababa ad personam.

On 11 June 1936,Rodolfo Graziani replaced Badoglio as viceroy and governor-general of Ethiopia. Badoglio returned to his duties as supreme chief of the Italian general staff. According toTime magazine, Badoglio even joined theFascist Party in early June.^[8]

Badoglio was chief of staff from 1925 to 1940, and had the final say on the entire structure of the Armed Forces, including doctrine, selection of officers, and armaments, influencing the whole military environment. He did not oppose the decision of Mussolini and theKing to declare war on France and Great Britain. Following the Italian army's poor performance in theinvasion of Greece in December 1940, he resigned from the General Staff. He was replaced byUgo Cavallero.^[9]

By early 1943, there was a widely-held belief among the military elite that Italy needed to sign an armistice in order to exit the war. Mussolini needed to be removed, as he was not willing to sign an armistice, nor were the Allies willing to sign an armistice with him. The two men considered to replace Mussolini were Marshal Badoglio and MarshalEnrico Caviglia.^[10] As Marshal Caviglia was one of the few Royal Army officers who was known to dislike Fascism, the king was unwilling to have him as prime minister. Victor Emmanuel wanted an officer who was committed to continuing the Fascist system, which led him to choose Badoglio who had faithfully served Mussolini and committed an array of atrocities in Ethiopia, but who had a grudge against Mussolini for making him the scapegoat for the failed invasion of Greece in 1940.^[11] Moreover, Badoglio was an opportunist well known for his sycophancy towards those in power, which led the king to choose him as Mussolini's successor as he knew that Badoglio would do anything to have power whereas Caviglia had a reputation as a man of principle and honour.^[12] On 15 July 1943, in a secret meeting Victor Emmanuel told Badoglio that he would soon be sworn in as Italy's new prime minister and the king wanted no "ghosts" (i.e. liberal politicians from the pre-fascist era) in his cabinet.^[13]

On 24 July 1943, as Italy had suffered several setbacks following theAllied invasion of Sicily inWorld War II, Mussolini summoned theFascist Grand Council, which votedno confidence in Mussolini. Thefollowing day, Mussolini was removed from government by KingVictor Emmanuel III and arrested. On 3 September 1943, GeneralGiuseppe Castellano signed theItalian armistice with the Allies inCassibile on behalf of Badoglio, who was namedPrime Minister of Italy. Wary of the potentially hostile German response to the Armistice, Badoglio hesitated to formally announce the treaty.^[14]

On 8 September 1943, the armistice document was published by the Allies in theBadoglio Proclamation, and Badoglio had not informed the Italian armed forces. The units of the Italian Royal Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force were generally surprised by the change and unprepared for German actions to disarm them. In the early hours of the following day, 9 September 1943, Badoglio, King Victor Emmanuel, some military ministers, and the chief of the general staff escaped toPescara andBrindisi seeking Allied protection.^[4]

On 29 September 1943, thelonger version of the armistice was signed inMalta by both Badoglio and Eisenhower. On 13 October, Badoglio and theKingdom of Italy officially declared war onNazi Germany. Badoglio continued to head the government for another nine months.^[15]

Due toincreased tensions with the Soviet Union, the British government saw Badoglio as a guarantor of ananti-communist post-war Italy. Consequently, Badoglio was never tried forItalian war crimes committed in Africa.^[16][17][18]

Badoglio died in thecomune of his birth,Grazzano Badoglio, on 1 November 1956.^[2]

• Royal Italian Army
• Royal Italian Army (1940–1946)
• Italian Co-Belligerent Army

• Pietro Badoglio:Italy in the Second World War, memories and documents. (Transl.: Muriel Currey). Oxford University Press, 1948. Repr. 1976, Greenwood Press:ISBN 0-8371-8485-1
• Pietro Badoglio:The war in Abyssinia. (Foreword:Benito Mussolini). London, Methuen Publishers, 1937.

• Italian Defence Minister website officialbiography of Pietro Badoglio as Chief of the General Staff
• Armellini, Quirino, and Pietro Badoglio.Con Badoglio in Etiopia, Etc. 1937.OCLC 556812967
• Bertoldi, Silvio.Badoglio. Milano: Rizzoli, 1982.OCLC 9862086
• De Luna, Giovanni.Badoglio: Un Militare al Potere. Milan: Bompiani, 1974. For English translation, seeOCLC 883962565.
• Whittam, John.The Politics of the Italian Army, 1861–1918. London: Croom Helm, 1977.ISBN 0-208-01597-3OCLC 2373034
• Del Boca, Angelo.La guerra d'Etiopia. L'ultima impresa del colonialismo. Milan: Longanesi, 2010.ISBN 978-88304-2716-7.

• Newspaper clippings about Pietro Badoglio in the20th Century Press Archives of theZBW