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PARTISAN REVIEW
the Fatherland and of Military Honor I would be ready tomorrow
to
lead even Communist legions on the field of battle." His volunteer sup–
porters were startled. Evidently their idol valued CP neutrality in his
trial more than their enthusiasm. (As a matter of fact, in obedience
to the line of consistent appeasement of the extreme Right followed by
the Party, prominent Communist resistance leaders have scrupulously
refrained from taking the stand against Graziani. During the first ten
days of the trial, the defense was left entirely free to conduct the hear–
ings, and it looked very much as if Graziani were going to be acquitted
after all. The situation was saved by Ferruccio Parri who asked to
be
heard
in
his quality of ex-commander in chief of the guerrillas in the
North, and submitted to the court a list of over a hundred people who
could testify as to the executions, reprisals, and massacres ordered by
Graziani, whose line of defense was that he had never done anything
against the partisans, only against the British).
Graziani's behavior before his judges has been the opposite of
petain's. Petain played deaf and dumb, and hardly budged during the
whole procedure. Graziani doesn't do anything but talk, jump up, scream,
shut up everybody including his own attorneys, and have fits of rage
and self-pity, claiming all the time the right to be taken at his word.
He can't stand the witnesses for the prosecution: they just make
him
mad. But above all, he can't stand being tried. Hence, he cares very
little about being consistent, or even dignified,
in
his defense. The
es–
sential fact, the fact that he is His Excellency Rodolfo Graziani (a man
who, as he said himself at one point, should be forever "riding my white
horse, at the head of my troops"), was ignored the moment he was
put under arrest instead of being offered a new title. That was his bad
luck, and now he is powerless. All he can do is kick, scream, and suffo–
cate. "Your Honor, you are killing me," he yelled while the presiding
judge was cross-examining
him.
And since the judge was cruel enough
not to stop the whole thing with apologies, later on poor Graziani almost
burst into tears. "I wish I could appear before the tribunal of the Infant
Jesus," he said. When ex-Resistance leaders began to take the stand
against him one after the other, listing facts and figures, he became
so
unmanageable that he had to be expelled from the courtroom. At one
point, one of the judges having said something in a mufHed voice,
the following exchange took place:
Graziani:
"Thank you, Your Honor,
for having called me Marshal"-The
Judge:
"You must have misun–
derstood me. I couldn't give you a title of which you have been legally
stripped"-Graziani:
"Never mind, Your Honor, I shall be
a
Marshal
to my grave."
