Beyond the Call of Duty

In Rome last week Rodolfo Graziani, once a field marshal of Italy, stood nervously before a military court. Twitching his thin lower lip and fingering a monocle, the Fascist conqueror of Ethiopia heard a fellow officer declare him guilty of military collaboration with the Germans during World War II. The admiral and four generals who made up the court rejected Graziani's proud plea that he had simply done a soldier's duty. Graziani, they decided, had gone well beyond the call of duty when he joined Mussolini's German-supported rump government after Italy surrendered to the Allies in 1943.

The presiding general said, however, that the court had kept in mind Graziani's four decades of honorable service, his "serious war wounds" (from World War I), and "the fact that [he] acted for reasons of particular moral valor." The sentence: 19 years. Because of Italy's general amnesties and the nearly five years he had already spent in confinement, Graziani would have only 14 more months to serve.

When the verdict had been read, the 67-year-old former field marshal stepped over to his carabinieri guard. "Andiamo, andiamo [Let's go, let's go]," he snapped. Then, without raising his eyes, Rodolfo Graziani drew on his gloves and walked with faltering dignity from the courtroom.

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