Brigate Osoppo
[5] After the 8 September, the Italian divisions of the 2ª Armata, already involved in an harsh repression and anti-guerrilla struggle in Slovenia against the Yugoslav partisan units and the indigenous population,[6] broke up.
[12] The situation was particularly confused: beside the Italian disbanded troops left alone without orders and the coming German divisions, the 9th Corps of the 4th Yugoslav Army penetrated in the area shortly after the 8 September with more than 50,000 soldiers who crossed the Julian Alps and advanced through Karst Plateau and Istria, pointing towards Gorizia, Trieste, Pula and Fiume.
[20] In his diaries, Joseph Goebbels talks about annexation project not only for the Adriatic Littoral but even also for the whole Veneto, in order to exploit it as a "tourist attraction area" for the German "master race".
[20] On 9 October 1943, the Julian provinces (Gorizia, Trieste, Pola, Fiume), as well as Friuli, were merged into the OZAL and subordinated to the German military administration,[20] subtracting them from the Italian Social Republic (RSI).
The policy of German authorities in the Adriatisches Kustenland, ruled by Rainer with dictatorial powers, included the ouster of the political-administrative influence of the RSI, the planning and actuation of measures for a subsequent annexation to the Reich, the economic exploitation, the repression of dissent and anti-fascist partisan struggle.
In Carnia, German authorities established even the Cossacks of Don and Kuban led by general Krasnov and prince Zulikize, who created commands in Verzegnis and Paluzza and organized wide plunders and devastations, collaborating into the massive repression of partisans.
[3] Political authorities and military divisions of RSI participated to the repression and the fight against the Resistance formations: divisions of X MAS initially manifested unrealistic anti-Slavic defence purposes on the borderlands but then they ended (completely ousted by Rainer, who did not tolerate any fascist "interference" in the territories he administered) to dedicate themselves in the repression of Garibaldi and Osoppo Brigades,[21] while some members of the republican police, like Gaetano Collotti and Giuseppe Gueli, organized in Trieste violent and aggressive police apparatus against partisans and their supporters.
[23] The two main groups of Resistance in those regions were the communists, from the working class of Eastern Veneto, and the rural populations and bourgeois, firmly anchored to the Catholic Church, both united by the anti-German hate but divided by ideologies, while the socialist and Action formations were particularly weak.
The purpose of Osoppo Brigades, in which converged also the Giustizia e Libertà formations located in the region, was to fight against Germans and fascists for a democratic state within the Resistance, trying to keep an active collaboration with the Garibaldi communist units and protecting moreover the interests of the Italian population of Friuli and Venezia Giulia facing Yugoslav partisan forces.
In the spring of 1944,[1][24] the Brigata Osoppo, with the command headquartered in the Castello Ceconi of Pielungo (comune of Vito d'Asio), was formed by seven battalions led by Candido Grassi with Don Ascanio De Luca as political commissar.
Battalions were dislocated as follows: On 19 July 1944, the headquarter of Pielungo was put on fire by Germans and a situation of instability occurred in the command after divergences between militants of Giustizia e Libertà and the other Osoppo members.
[25] The following repression conducted by over 40,000 men, between Germans, Social Republicans, X MAS, ethnic formations and cossacks, dismantled the Carnia Republic and caused heavy losses to defenders and civil population; nazi-fascist forces devastated the territory, made roundups and deportations; a formation of Osoppo was decimated along with the Garibaldi Brigades, but on 27 November, a chosen Osoppo group was still able to repeal an attack of German mountain troops.
[27] If the Osoppo members were based on principles of defence of national interests, which should have been discussed only after the end of the war, Garibaldi partisans were also very doubtful given the political positions and authoritarian methods adopted by Slovenian in their territories.
It is a serious decision, a big mistake, because it is clear that Slovenians have changed their position on the border issue and we should not accept the request of the 9th Corps.Since July 1944, the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) had begun a linking mission in Friuli with the partisan called Chicago-Texas.
[37][38] Agent Nicholson of the British service, who also supported the Garibaldi groups in negotiations with the Osoppo Brigades, assessed the work of Gozzer with extreme harshness,[39][40] stigmatizing how, in his opinion, the OSS was relying on a "mercenary puppet" completely under the control of "the most violent communist" in northern Italy.
At the same time, Michelagnoli sent reports to the OSS in which he praised the Garibaldi Brigades for their "fighting spirit" and "sure anti-fascism", while he accused the Osoppo of having numerous ex-fascists and politically compromised personalities among their members, while remarking that there were no noteworthy incidents between the two formations.
Lloyd Smith unsuccessfully asked his command to be given the necessary authority to impose his point of view - that it was the political one on the Allied side, considering the pacification and coordination between Osoppo and Garibaldi as useful and necessary - arriving at threaten the withdrawal of their mission.
[39] The tiring but largely unsuccessful attempts of pacification and unification of the Osoppo and Garibaldi Brigades conducted by British agents during the summer of 1944 failed definitively when the area was subjected to violent raids by Germans.
Nicholson could only acknowledge that, among the Garibaldi, the hostility towards the Allies (due to the lack of supply launches and to the poor progress of the advance in Italy) and to the Osoppo had grown, rather than decreased.
On the eastern side of the Tagliamento river (which constituted a true natural border with a large gravel bed about one kilometre wide) the situation was even more difficult, as this territory was openly claimed by the Yugoslav partisans.
Men of the 9th corpus also launched a violent propaganda campaign against the Osoppo Brigades, arresting and deporting some of the relays, and accusing their partisans of capitalism, fascism and collaboration with the Germans.
