Italian Legion medals for Spain

[PKeating]

The Italians issued some rather good-looking medals for Spain. Mind you, the one with the naked warrior is rather camp! The cross is quite rare and a member was very kind in sending me a length of the correct ribbon a while ago, incorrectly fitted to another medal.

PK

[Scott]

Very nice!! Any idea on how many Italian volunteers served in the SCW?

Scott

[PKeating]

Although not widely known and appreciated, Mussolini actually supplied far more aid to General Franco than Hitler. Apart from ships, hundreds of aircraft, vehicles, cannon and other materials, between 60,000 and 70,000 Italians served in the Italian Legion sent to bolster Franco's revolutionary forces.

Here's a TIME report from Monday, 22.5.1939, which is quite revealing:

FAREWELL

Monday, May. 22, 1939

All the time that Benito Mussolini's tens of thousands of soldiers were swaggering around the Spanish landscape during the recent civil war, Adolf Hitler's men modestly stayed in the background, playing a less conspicuous but no less effective role. II Duce sent not only airmen but infantrymen to help Generalissimo Francisco Franco conquer the stubborn Spanish Republicans. Spectacularly he took over the strategic island of Majorca as a bombing base, bombastically he bragged about the brave exploits of his legionnaires.

The F?hrer, on the other hand, ordered his aviators to try out a few of their latest tricks over Loyalist cities, but spared Germans the tedious life of the trenches. His fine-looking, neatly dressed, clean-shaven, well-behaved warriors were mostly staff officers, expert airplane technicians, artilIerymen and anti-aircraft gunners who stayed back of the lines and kept pretty much to themselves. There were probably never more than 10,000 of them in Spain at one time, but for two years they performed a service which neither Spaniards nor Italians were educated to do.

Last week Generalissimo Francisco Franco held at Barajas Field, some eight miles from Madrid, a final review for the German, Italian and Spanish airmen who fought on his side in the war. Wearing the blue-grey uniform of the Spanish Air Force, flanked by his usual mounted Moorish guards, El Caudillo took the salute from 1,500 Italians of the Littorio Legion, 5,000 Germans of the Condor Legion, 3,500 Spaniards. To 15 German and eight Italian aviators he awarded the Spanish military medal. In a speech characterized by Latin expansiveness, the Generalissimo predicted that Spain's present air strength will be "multiplied a hundred times in the future," added that "it must be prepared on a moment's notice to lift its wings to rebuild the empire and make Spain great."

The Italians will not leave at least until after the big victory parade in Madrid, many times postponed, now tentatively scheduled for May 19. The Condor Legion is expected shortly to return home by way of Vigo. But neither's going means the end of either German or Italian participation in Spanish affairs, and the fact that the Germans are leaving first does not indicate that they are abandoning Spain to their Italian partners.

When the last word is written on the Spanish war, it may well be recorded, in fact, that while the Italians made the bigger splash, the Germans got more out of it. Following the Condor Legion to Spain were German Gestapo agents, builders, contractors, businessmen. Spanish Morocco and the Basque country with their iron, became spheres of German commercial interests. Furthermore, in a future war, the Germans may be able to use the guns they have placed on Spanish territory near British-held Gibraltar, the five submarine bases they have helped build at Pasajes, El Ferrol, Villagarcia, Huelva and Malaga, the modern airports reputedly constructed near the French border.

In fact, I think this article deserves a thread of its own.

PK

[Jacques]

I guess the ribbon of the middle one is white and light blue

[Hendrik]

I guess the ribbon of the middle one is white and light blue

Hello Jacques,

You're probably thinking of the War Merit Cross ... this one is on a ribbon with red, blue and yellow :

Cheers,

Hendrik

[PKeating]

That's the colour scheme of the ribbon I now have on the cross. Thanks for showing this one, Hendrik. Nice, old ribbon.

PK

[Hendrik]

Hello PK,

I had a look to determine what is the medal depicting the warrior (top right in your picture in the first post) as I wasn't familiar with it. I've now found it is a non-official award for the Spanish Campaign as manufactured, in 1938, by the firm of Lorioli well before the official Volunteers Medal was created in 1940. Its ribbon should be crimson with thin white-red-yellow-red-white stripes in the centre.

Between the warrior's feet should be the designer's name AFFER.

Here's pictures of the official type for Spanish Civil War Volunteers :

Cheers,

Hendrik

[PKeating]

I think the version you've just posted is post-WW2. It has the Italian Republic obverse and bears no Nazi or Fascist symbols. As far as these medals are concerned, it seems that every source or reference that mentions or shows them gives different information! There were two or three types made before and during WW2, each with a different ribbon. And then there was this postwar type.

It's quite confusing.

PK

[Panzerpionier]

I think the version you've just posted is post-WW2. It has the Italian Republic obverse and bears no Nazi or Fascist symbols. As far as these medals are concerned, it seems that every source or reference that mentions or shows them gives different information! There were two or three types made before and during WW2, each with a different ribbon. And then there was this postwar type.

It's quite confusing.

PK

IMHO Hendrik is absolutely right:

-The "streaking warrior" medal with the Nazi/Fascist reverse is a 1938 unofficial medal.

-The medal with the "crowned lady" obverse and the "streakingh warrior and old lady" reverse is the official 1940 medal for Italian volunteers in Spain. Obviously the "crowned lady" is not a representation of the Italian republic... what is more, the medal for Italian volunteers in "Africa Orientale Italiana" (Italian Western Africa) has the same obverse and a similar reverse but with aded Fasces.

[James Clark]

This memorial to the Italian airmen and sailors who died in the Spanish Civil War is in the cemetery in Palma de Mallorca. There are meant to be 6 Legion Condor graves there, but I couldn't find them.

[James Clark]

The inscription reads "Ai Marinai e Aviatori d' Italia caduti in Spagna che qui riposano 1936 1939"

[Kev in Deva]

Hallo Gentlemen,

very nice medals.

posted here at: http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=16840 post numbers 15 & 12 show some ribbon bars that match up to the medals displayed in post 1 of this thread.

Kevin in Deva