The Unforgiving Lion

Until Rodolfo Graziani made it a terrifying reality for thousands of conquered Africans, the Graziani family motto -- "An enemy forgiven is more dangerous than a thousand foes" -- was no more sinister than scores of other Italian family mottoes handed down from the age of feuding dynasties. Soldier Graziani was 32 years old and a loud-voiced, hulking 6 ft. 4 in. when World War I broke out. But though twice wounded and twice decorated, he found himself among Italy's millions of jobless at war's end. When the government called for volunteers to "pacify" Libya, Graziani rejoined the army. A year later Benito Mussolini, the new Fascist leader, took over, and Graziani was on his way to becoming a hero again.

He brought a new trick to desert fighting. Between lines of trucks he strung electrified wires, then drove the sword-swinging Senussi horsemen into the electric net. He rounded up 80,000 noncombatant men, women and children, and put them in concentration camps. In pursuit of the Senussi he sent "flying tribunals," which tortured their captives, hung them in bags from tall trees and dropped them out of airplanes. When Senussi Chief Omar El Muktar surrendered and asked for the status of a forgiven enemy, Graziani had him shot as a bandit.

The Viceroy. Graziani was a natural for the campaign in Ethiopia. Laughingly he asked Mussolini whether he wanted Ethiopia with or without Ethiopians, and Mussolini replied that the task was to carry "Roman civilization" to East Africa. From Italian Somaliland he rode into Ethiopia at the head of an army of 60,000 men, a strapping figure in his desert uniform, wearing a monocle. His "Hell on Wheels" offensive bogged down. Finally, by liberal use of poison gas and bombs, he scattered Ras Desta's barefooted Ethiopians, and on horseback at the head of his troops he entered the village of Neghelli, which he described in flamboyant dispatches as "the Southern capital."

Mussolini created him a Marshal of Italy, later made him Viceroy of Ethiopia. Summoning the populace to the viceregal palace in Addis Ababa, Graziani stood up to address them when a couple of hand grenades bounced in. Graziani fell, crying, "They've killed me." Every Italian who had a weapon began firing into the crowd. In a few minutes there were a thousand dead in the palace grounds. Promiscuous killing, arson and pillaging went on for days. Total dead: 1,600. Even Mussolini protested, but Graziani, whose wounds were superficial, replied: "Mild measures never retained conquered soil." A few months later he was withdrawn from Ethiopia, created hereditary Marquis of Neghelli by King Victor Emmanuel III.

The Vanquished. Back to Africa went Graziani when Italy entered World War II. At the head of a force of more than 250,000 men he advanced from Libya 70 miles into Egypt without much opposition; suddenly he halted his columns and began flagging Mussolini for reinforcements. Said Mussolini: "One should not give jobs to people who are not looking for at least one promotion. Graziani's only anxiety is to remain a marshal." In a two-month battle at the end of 1940 General Wavell's British force, a fifth the size of the Italian, destroyed Graziani's army, captured 130,000 prisoners, and 400 tanks. Retreating to Tripoli, Graziani wrote a letter of recrimination to Mussolini, who said to his son-in-law Ciano: "I cannot get angry because I despise him."

But in 1943 when King Victor Emmanuel and Marshal Badoglio joined the Allies, the retreating Mussolini made Graziani Minister of War in his new Fascist government. Said. Graziani, who had never forgiven Badoglio for beating him to Addis Ababa: "Treachery and unfaithfulness have stained the flag of Italy." His Blackshirt army became the chief Nazi agent for dealing with Italian partisans. In 1945 the partisans caught Graziani.

The Simple Soldier. For five years Graziani languished in Italian jails and military hospitals, and in 1950 he was brought to trial before a military tribunal, a tall, gaunt, white-maned old man still wearing his grey-green army uniform with three rows of military decorations. He told a civilian court that he had been a "Fascist from birth." Now his main line was that he was a "simple soldier," who had to march where he was ordered: "Today I'd march at the order of even a Communist government, provided it was in a good cause." He was sentenced to 19 years; with amnesty remissions and time served, the sentence worked out to four months.

Released in 1950, he was immediately taken up by the Neo-Fascist M.S.I. Party as the leading symbol of Fascist glory. Twice he resigned from it; though the party publicly venerated him, its leaders regarded him at best an embarrassment, at worst an imbecile. Last week their embarrassment was ended. At 72, the Desert Lion, after undergoing an abdominal operation, died of a heart attack.

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