The French, allies with a colonial army

In June 1944, as Tuscany prepared to free itself from the Nazi-Fascist yoke, those marching along its roads were not only Americans and British. Alongside the Anglo-American troops, in fact, moved an Allied army corps as effective as it was little known: the Corps Expéditionnaire Français en Italie (CEF), a unit of the French army composed largely of colonial troops originating from Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Among these stood out the so-called goumiers, irregular soldiers from the mountainous regions of the Atlas, whose exotic appearance, tenacity in battle and — in many cases — brutality outside of combat, left an indelible, and often painful, trace in the memory of Italian populations.

After the armistice between Italy and the Allies (September 8, 1943) and the beginning of the advance up the peninsula from the south, Charles de Gaulle's Free France saw in the Italian campaign an opportunity to reaffirm its legitimacy among the victorious powers, after the disgrace of the 1940 armistice signed by the Vichy regime with Nazi Germany. However, metropolitan France was still occupied, and the only available manpower reservoir was represented by the overseas territories. It was precisely in French North Africa, recently liberated thanks to the Anglo-American landing in Algeria and Morocco (Operation Torch, November 1942)¹ , a massive colonial recruitment operation was launched to reconstitute a French army capable of fighting alongside the Allies.

In 1943, the Corps Expéditionnaire Français en Italie was therefore officially constituted, under the command of General Alphonse Juin², an expert colonial officer, former Resident-General of Morocco. The CEF was an integral part of the U.S. Fifth Army, led by General Mark W. Clark, and was deployed as an Allied corps in coordination with Anglo-American troops, but with tactical autonomy and French national command.

Who were the goumiers and why they fought

The term goumier derives from the Arabic noun qawm, which means "group" or "clan". The goumiers originated predominantly from the Moroccan Atlas and were recruited in cohesive groups, often composed of members of the same tribe or family. Their organization included units called goums (approximately 200 men each), assembled in tabors, equivalent to regiments. Unlike regular colonial troops such as the tirailleurs (infantry) or spahis (cavalry), the goumiers were considered irregular and "mountain" troops, specialized in raids, flanking maneuvers and fighting in difficult terrain.

They wore djellaba, turban and koumya (the traditional curved dagger), although over time they equipped themselves with Brodie helmets and regulation boots. Their officers were all French, but many non-commissioned officers were pieds-noirs or troncs de figuier, that is, Europeans born in North Africa and bilingual, often bound to the units by personal relationships rather than hierarchy.³ .

The CEF was composed of over 112,000 men, of which more than half were African: Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians and Senegalese. The units were divided into regular troops, such as the North African tirailleurs, and irregular ones, such as the goumiers Moroccans, structured in units called goums (companies of approximately 200 men) which, in turn, formed tabors (battalions of 800-1,000 men)⁴. The goumiers were recruited in the mountainous regions of the Middle and High Atlas, often among Berber communities still marginal compared to the central colonial power. Their loyalty was more directed toward their own caïd (tribal chief) or to the goum chief, who acted both as military commander and personal guarantor, rather than to an abstract state authority⁵. Recruitment took place through economic incentives, material goods and — in many cases — promises of social recognition. Discipline was rigid, but personal: based on reverential fear of the commander rather than on regulations.

Their uniform often included a djellaba (woolen robe), turban, sandals and the inseparable koumya, the curved dagger typical of the Berbers. Only in Italy were they issued standard military boots and British-type helmets Brodie to improve their protection and standardize their appearance. In combat they were skilled, flexible, silent, capable of undertaking night marches and rapid raids in hostile territory — qualities highly valued by Allied commands, especially in the Apennine theater.

The involvement of the goumiers The involvement of the in the European war was anything but obvious. Many of them had never seen Paris, nor did they know French. They fought for a colonizing country that, in practice, regarded them as second-class citizens. Nevertheless, the reasons for their deployment lay in the long tradition of colonial service within the French army, which since the late nineteenth century had employed indigenous troops in almost all imperial theaters (from Syria to Tonkin), and in the colonial logic of reciprocity: fight for France, and in return you will receive protection, pay, perhaps citizenship.

For Free France, deploying indigenous troops in the Italian campaign was also a strategic necessity. As historian Eric Jennings writes, “France was the only colonial power to re-enter the European conflict by arming its colonies”⁶. The French Expeditionary Corps thus became the main military asset of Gaullist France until 1944, and its success would prove essential in securing a role in the future postwar division of Europe.

For the goumiers, however, the motivations were more concrete: regular pay, access to food, war booty (which in some cases turned into looting), and personal or tribal prestige. Some were driven by a form of loyalty to their commander or by a warrior spirit; others were simply conscripted by force.

The arrival of the goumiers in Tuscany

Landed in Naples in December 1943, the Corps Expéditionnaire Français en Italie (CEF) was immediately committed to the crucial Battle of Monte Cassino. In particular, it was the contribution of the Moroccan goumiers, highly mobile light infantry units, that made the difference in the attack on the Aurunci Mountains, difficult positions that protected the Gustav Line on the southern sector of the Italian front. On the night between 14 and 15 May 1944, the goumiers carried out a bold outflanking maneuver, penetrating a stretch of terrain considered impassable. The move caught the German defenses by surprise and forced the enemy to withdraw, allowing the British 13th Division to advance into the Liri Valley and Polish units to gain ground on Monte Cassino. General Mark Clark recognized this success as crucial, citing it in his autobiography as one of the decisive moments in the breaking of the Gustav Line.⁷.

After the breakthrough, Clark decided to deploy the CEF along the axis between the coast and the Val d’Orcia, a rugged route lacking passable roads. Here the 3rd Algerian Division under the command of General Joseph de Goislard de Monsabert, in coordination with the goumiers, advanced along secondary roads and mule tracks, outflanking German strongpoints from the flank. This area was chosen precisely because of its topographical features: ideal for light, mobile units capable of exploiting tactical surprise⁸.

After Monte Cassino, intoxicated by success, the goumiers were accused of a veritable series of war crimes, known in Italy as marocchinate. In Ciociaria (southern Lazio) – in towns such as Esperia, Pontecorvo, Ausonia – there are harrowing testimonies: massacres, mass rapes, looting. The mayor of Esperia stated that 700 women out of 2,500 inhabitants were raped, many of them to death⁹. According to some sources, the victims may have exceeded 60,000 between Lazio and upper Tuscany⁹.

German propaganda attempted to portray the goumiers as “plainclothes raiders”, accusing them of having been given a “free hand” to kill and loot. However, modern historians such as Douglas Porch describe the maneuver in May 1944 as “one of the most brilliant and daring advances of the war in Italy”¹⁰. The German general Kesselring, in his memoirs, acknowledged that the CEF represented a unique threat, above all thanks to night mobility and the ability to deliver concentrated attacks on terrain with low infrastructural density¹¹.

The “marocchinate” in the Siena area

When the goumiers they entered the Sienese towns, the reception was anything but warm. The population, exhausted by months of war, expected the American “liberators”, with their familiar faces, their star-marked jeeps, chocolate and cigarettes. Instead, they saw men arrive with unfamiliar features, often barefoot, with long curved knives at their belts and exotic clothing, with rough manners and distrustful looks. In many cases, the first contact was traumatic: in Montalcino, Poggibonsi, Abbadia San Salvatore, Colle Val d’Elsa, Murlo, San Quirico d’Orcia, the French troops were responsible for a long series of violence, sexual abuse and looting.

Terror preceded the arrival of the colonial troops, fueled by stories coming from Ciociaria, where entire villages had been devastated and hundreds of women raped. According to estimates by the National Association of Victims of the Marocchinate, over 20,000 cases would have occurred in Lazio alone¹², and the stories had spread along the peninsula, leading Tuscan families to hide the youngest women in cellars or barns as Allied troops approached. In more than one case, it was local parish priests or country doctors who had to deal with the consequences of the abuses, in secret.

The term 'marocchinate', born in Lazio, has by now entered the historical lexicon to designate the mass rapes perpetrated by some French colonial units in the spring–summer of 1944. The Siena area was no exception. According to testimonies collected by partisans of the Spartaco Lavagnini formation, in Abbadia San Salvatore over 60 women were raped, and also some men, regardless of age or condition. Similar episodes occurred in San Quirico, Casole d’Elsa, Monteriggioni, Casciano di Murlo, Colle, Poggibonsi, and Monticiano¹³.

Rapes, as well as acts of brutal violence, also served a symbolic function: they were used to humiliate the community, impose control over the territory and break the enemy’s moral resistance. As historian Maria Oliveri has observed, in colonial war the bodies of women are used as a “symbolic battlefield”, on which the marks of domination are imprinted¹⁴. In this sense, the goumiers did not act in an “anarchic” way, but according to a logic of tribal and military domination that was often tacitly tolerated — if not encouraged — by commanders little inclined toward disciplinary control¹⁵.

The exact number of victims is difficult to determine: many did not report out of shame or fear, others were forced into silence by a community that tended to blame those who had suffered violence. Some historians suggest that the total number of cases in the Siena area alone may exceed one hundred, even though official historiography still tends to minimize.¹⁶.

The problem of shame was probably the most persistent and long-lasting. In many rural communities, abused women were socially excluded, considered “dishonored”, sometimes even rejected by their own families. Some ended up in psychiatric hospitals, others committed suicide, while others still chose to remain silent in order to protect their own reputation and that of their relatives. As evidenced in many compensation claims, in the 1950s victims were asked to prove their “morality” in order to be heard: a further form of institutional violence, which reinforced silence¹⁷.

Executions and silence

Protests by partisans, mayors, and Allied commands reached the highest military authorities. The Americans, outraged by the reports, formally asked the French to intervene forcefully to stop the rapes and violence committed by the goumiers. At first, General Augustin Guillaume downplayed what had happened, dismissing the abuses as isolated episodes attributable to rear-area personnel rather than to frontline combat troops. However, under pressure from the Americans, Italian civil authorities, and the Vatican — which even went so far as to denounce the abuses during a papal audience — Guillaume was forced to resort to drastic measures¹⁸.

One of the most famous and well-documented cases occurred in Casal di Pari: five goumiers were caught in the act while abusing local women. By direct order of General Guillaume, they were executed on the spot, their bodies displayed in the town square as a deterrent warning to the community and to other soldiers. In this way, an appearance of military discipline was meant to be restored. However, the punishment remained in fact an isolated case and did not halt the sequence of violence, which continued for weeks.¹⁹.

Executions were carried out in only a few cases. According to French military sources, about 156 soldiers were convicted for sexual violence during the Italian campaign, of whom 3 were sent to the death penalty; over 360 were instead tried in military courts, with sentences ranging from life forced labor to prison terms²⁰.

Despite the summary punishments imposed by some officers on the spot, regular trials were never initiated in compliance with international military law. Confirming that in war anything is permitted. No justice was guaranteed. The victims were left to themselves, witnesses were discouraged, and many complaints remained “internal acts” without follow-up. Public memory, at the time of the events, preferred to file them away by classifying them as simple “military misconduct”.

On 15 August 1944, the CEF was recalled to take part in the landing in Provence (Operation Dragoon). It remains uncertain whether this redeployment may also have been influenced by the opportunity to remove the implicated units from Italian controversy and international outcry.²¹. Certainly, from a political point of view, the ignoble actions of the goumiers in Italy did not benefit France’s diplomatic reputation in the eyes of the Allied authorities and the Vatican.

An uncomfortable memory

The memory of the goumiers remains ambivalent. On the one hand, they were brave soldiers, fundamental to the Allied victory in Italy, and they suffered heavy losses (almost 30% of their strength in the Italian campaign); on the other, the crimes committed by some of them irreparably stained their image²². In Italy, their image remained positive in many places, starting with the memory of the celebrations of Monte Cassino and Florence, where the soldiers were regarded as liberators and were later invited to local festivities, exchanging parcels and gifts²³. Family memories recount that, at the moment of liberation, people crowned the goumiers with garlands of flowers, as a sign of relief at the end of the Nazi nightmare, so much so that many communities in the Siena area today include accounts and references to the presence of the goumiers in public memorials of the Liberation²⁴.

In France, the involvement of colonial troops was long ignored. French historiography until the 2000s favored the narrative of Parisian heroism, relegating North African troops to a residual contribution lacking protagonism²⁵. It was only thanks to post-colonial studies, such as those by Julie Le Gac, that attention shifted to the centrality of the CEF and to the trauma inflicted on Italian populations, with these studies encouraging the inclusion of such events in school textbooks from 2015 onward²⁶. A small revolution.

In Italy, instead, the marocchinate remain a taboo subject. Resistance-oriented historiography, focused on the narrative of “liberators vs. oppressors,” has struggled to include in its assessment of liberation the history of these systematic acts of violence. Only more recent works, such as La memoria scomoda della guerra by Stefania Catallo (2017), with direct interviews with the victims, and Le marocchinate. Un argomento di antropologia culturale by Margherita Merone (2023), have shaken the silence and brought the stories of abuses and violence against women and civilians to the forefront

However, still, in official ceremonies, monuments and annual Resistance programs, the tragedy experienced in Abbadia San Salvatore, Casciano di Murlo or Casole d’Elsa is not properly acknowledged; while at the same time investment is made in the heroic remembrance of the French colonial corps. Memory is selective. Unfortunately.

Footnote

1. TOperation Torch (8 November 1942) was the Allied landing in Morocco and Algeria that brought an end to the Vichy regime in North Africa and enabled Anglo-American control of the entire region.
2. Alphonse Juin (1888–1967) was one of the most renowned French generals of the 20th century, the first colonial commander to attain the rank of Marshal of France in the postwar period.
3. Cfr. P. Gaujac, Le corps expéditionnaire français en Italie 1943-1944.  Paris, Histoire & Collections, 2003, pp. 31–34.
4. A tabor was composed of 3–4 goums, each of about 200 men, for an average total of 800–1,000 soldiers. Each group had its own officers and logistical personnel, and operated in a semi-independent manner.
5. This relational structure was similar to that of German colonial militias in German East Africa or to the irregularities of the Italian askari. Cf. P. Gaujac, Le corps expéditionnaire français, cit., pp. 9–22.
6. E.T. Jennings, Free French Africa in World War II: The African Resistance, Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. 189.
7. M.W. Clark, Calculations of Close Combat, autobiography, cited in French Expeditionary Corps (1943–44), Wikipedia, sezione “Breaking of the Gustav Line” (Maggio 1944).
8. French Expeditionary Corps (1943–44), Wikipedia, section “Breaking of the Gustav Line”; Clark’s quotation on the capture of Monte Maio and Mt. Girofano.
9. Marocchinate, Wikipedia EN, reports on Esperia; the mayor reported 700 victims out of 2,500 inhabitants. French Expeditionary Corps…, section “Breaking of the Gustav Line” – speaks of 60,000 women raped across Lazio and Tuscany.
10. D. Porch, Resistance and Liberation: Triumph and Dishonor in Italy, Cambridge University Press, 2024.
11. Moroccan Goumier, Wikipedia, quotation from General Kesselring and data on 10,000 goumiers deployed and 3,000 casualties suffered.
12. M. Oliveri, Il silenzio (e la vergogna) sulle ciociare di Sicilia: che cosa furono le “marocchinate”, Balarm, 31 agosto 2023.
13. Associazione Nazionale Vittime delle Marocchinate, dati raccolti e pubblicati in audizione alla Commissione Difesa della Camera dei Deputati, April 2016.
14. M. Luccioli, D. Sabatini, La ciociara e le altre. Il corpo di spedizione francese in Italia, Roma, Tusculum, 1998, pp. 88–90.
15. G. Gribaudi, Guerra totale. Tra bombe alleate e violenze naziste. Napoli e il fronte meridionale 1940–1944, Torino, Bollati Boringhieri, 2005, pp. 185–192.
16. Wikipedia, entry Maria Michetti, section “Marocchinate”, with references to compensation claims between 1950–1996.
17. S. Olmi, Le marocchinate: quella storia dimenticata delle donne italiane violentate nel 1944, CulturaIdentità, 13 ottobre 2023.
18. P. Gaujac, Le corps expéditionnaire français en Italie 1943–1944, pp. 44–45; confirmation in A. Orlandini, G. Venturini, I giudici e la Resistenza… il caso Siena, pp. 14–15.
19. Wikipedia EN, entry French Expeditionary Corps (1943–44), section “Triumph and disgrace” on the punishment and crimes of the goumiers.
20. Idem, section “Order of battle” on the withdrawal to Provence.
21. Chemins de mémoire, “The landings and battle of Provence”: confirmation of the strategic role of the transfer on 15 August 1944.
22. Oral testimony collected in the project “Liberators or predators? Radicofani remembers the Goumiers” (Municipality of Radicofani 2024).
23. Mappa delle lapidi della Liberazione, Municipality of Poggibonsi, consulted 2025.
24. M. Carrattieri, M. Flores (a cura di), La Resistenza in Italia. Storia, memoria, storiografia, goWare, 2018, p. 212.
25. J. Le Gac, Les goumiers marocains en Italie (1943–44): mémoire oubliée, Paris, Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2016.
26. S. Catallo, La memoria scomoda della guerra. Le marocchinate, Universitalia, Roma 2017; M. Merone, Le marocchinate. Un argomento di antropologia culturale, StreetLib, 2023.