Fornovo di Taro

FactsBattle fact sheet

Move 1The board: a funnel with its exit to the north

In April 1945 the German front in Italy gives way, and the divisions that were in the Apennines have to come down to the Po plain and head north before the roads are cut. In the Parma region, whoever comes down from the mountains has few ways out, and the valley of the Taro River is one of them.

The valley is a corridor between ridges, with the road along the bottom. It is good for moving fast and terrible for being surprised: whoever is inside has nowhere to turn aside. At the northern mouth of the corridor, already on the plain and southwest of Parma, lies Collecchio.

That is the fact that decides the episode before a single shot. In a funnel, whoever controls the exit does not need to attack anyone. It is enough to get there first and make it clear that he is staying.

That is why the battle has two names. It is usually remembered as Fornovo, where the German column ended up cornered, but the more precise name is Collecchio–Fornovo: Collecchio is where the encirclement closes, and Fornovo, upriver, is where the encircled piece is stuck with nowhere to go.

Move 2The pieces: a column that cannot maneuver

Inside the funnel comes the German 148th Infantry Division, under Generalleutnant Otto Fretter-Pico, with elements of the 90th Panzergrenadier Division and two divisions of Fascist Italy, the Bersaglieri "Italia" and the Alpini "Monterosa". The inventory at the end tells what this column was: 4,000 horses, 80 guns of various calibers and hundreds of horse-drawn vehicles.

A force like that, on a valley road, is long and slow. It does not leave the road, it does not change direction easily. It advances or it stops. From the point of view of the board, it is a powerful piece with very few moves available.

On the other side comes the 1st Expeditionary Infantry Division, under General Mascarenhas de Moraes, coming down in pursuit. Captain Pitaluga's Reconnaissance Squadron makes the contact; behind it come the infantry regiments, and the one that carries the weight of the next four days is the 6th Infantry Regiment, the Ipiranga Regiment, under Colonel Nelson de Melo. The 11th and 1st Regiments also come in.

Photo from 2022

Move 326 April: sitting on the exit square

On 26 April, after two days of marching and fighting, the FEB reaches Collecchio and finds the 148th positioned there. There is a clash between the 6th Infantry Regiment and the Germans on that very first day.

The move is this: the Brazilians do not go after the column to destroy it; they get in front of it and occupy the exit. With American armor in support, the column now has ridges on both sides and Brazilians in the only door that mattered.

What this move demands is not strength, it is speed and direction. The FEB had to reach the exit before the head of the column and have enough infantry there that going through it would cost dearly. Once in place, every hour played in favor of whoever was at the door: the column inside the valley was using up time, and the German front behind it kept falling back.

The capturing piece, here, is not the one that strikes. It is the one that occupies the square the opponent needed to reach.

Move 427 and 28 April: the priest, the question and the clock

At around 15:00 on 27 April, the commander of the 6th Infantry Regiment does not order an attack: he sends a message. The envoy is the priest Dom Alessandro Cavalli, who crosses the lines proposing surrender. At 20:30 he comes back with the German command's answer, which does not refuse. It asks for the terms.

A command that asks for the terms has already read the position. At 9:00 on the 28th the priest crosses again, now with Colonel Nelson de Melo's formal ultimatum and a two-hour deadline. Before noon the answer comes through Major W. Kuhn, the German chief of staff: they are awaiting instructions.

It is neither yes nor no. It is time. Fretter-Pico had asked for time, been given time, and was using the time to wait for orders that did not come, while the whole German front was collapsing behind him. In chess, he is the player who lets the clock run in a position that only gets worse.

Move 513:00 on 28 April: the attack that proves the encirclement

The ultimatum expired without an answer, and at 13:00 the Brazilian commander orders the attack. It is the only thing that kept the ultimatum standing: an encirclement only works if those inside believe in it, and a deadline that expires without consequence turns the encirclement into a bluff.

The attack was not meant to take Fornovo. It was meant to show that the exit was truly closed. The fighting that day is described by the sources as fierce, and Brazilians died in it.

From then on the reckoning on the German side changes in nature. It is no longer a matter of how to escape, but of how much it costs to keep trying.

The whole sequence is worth a look, because it is what answers those who say there was no battle: proposal at 15:00 on the 27th, request for terms at 20:30, ultimatum at 9:00 on the 28th, evasive answer before noon, attack at 13:00. Nine hours after the attack, the same major who had been asking for instructions comes back asking to negotiate. What changed between one visit and the other was the attack.

Move 6From the small hours to the 30th: the surrender

At 22:00 on that same 28th, Major Kuhn reappears, now to negotiate the surrender. The negotiation runs through the night, from midnight to 5:30 on 29 April. At noon there is a new meeting, with General Mascarenhas de Moraes present, and at around 13:00 the surrender begins, with ambulances taking away the German wounded.

The surrender is unconditional. Rounding up the prisoners takes more than a day and only ends at 18:00 on 30 April, when Fretter-Pico gives himself up with 31 officers of his staff.

The final count records 14,779 prisoners, 4,000 horses and 80 guns, plus a great deal of ammunition and hundreds of horse-drawn vehicles. This is not a unit falling apart piece by piece: it is a division handed over all at once, command and all.

The size of the feat lies in its scope, and it must be stated precisely. From the invasion of Sicily, in July 1943, to the spring offensive of 1945, the 148th is the only German division captured whole, with its command, by an Allied force in the Italian Campaign. For the war as a whole, the superlative does not hold up; for the Italian theater, it does.

VerdictWhy it ended the way it did

MythsWhat is told and what the record shows

• What is told

  There was no battle at Fornovo: the Germans were already finished and gave themselves up on their own, in a mere encounter of troops.

  What the record shows

  That version comes from the defeated. Lotar Mull, a former German officer, declared that there was no battle of Fornovo, only an encounter of troops, and Fretter-Pico's daughter said her father called the episode "that thing" (our translation) and found the Brazilian celebration amusing (accounts gathered by Jornalismo de Guerra). The record shows four days of operations, a clash of troops at Collecchio on 26 April, an ignored ultimatum, an attack ordered at 13:00 on 28 April, Brazilian dead and an unconditional surrender of 14,779 men. A division too finished to fight does not need a deadline, a priest as envoy or a night of negotiation.

• What is told

  About 20,000 Germans surrendered to the FEB at Fornovo.

  What the record shows

  These are three different numbers measuring three different things. The formal count of the surrender at Collecchio–Fornovo is 14,779. The "about 20,000" that appears in part of the press describes the men sent to the assembly areas at Ponte Scodogna. And the 20,573 cited in some articles is the total of prisoners taken by the FEB in the whole campaign, not at Fornovo.

• What is told

  It was the only German division captured whole in all of World War II.

  What the record shows

  The superlative has a scope, and the scope is the Italian Campaign: the 148th was the only German division captured whole, with its command, by an Allied force in that theater, from Sicily in 1943 to the final offensive of 1945. Extending it to the whole war is claiming what the sources do not say.

QuestionsFrequently asked questions

SourcesSources

1. Brazilian Army General Personnel Department, "29 April — Capture of Fornovo and surrender of the German 148th Infantry Division"
2. Brazilian Army Blog, "80 years since the surrender of the German 148th Infantry Division"
3. Brazilian Army Blog, "FEB victory at Fornovo — 28 Apr 1945"
4. Forças Terrestres, "73 years ago, the German 148th Infantry Division surrendered to the FEB"
5. DefesaNet, "Surrender of the German 148th Infantry Division to the FEB"
6. Jornalismo de Guerra, "FEB: at Fornovo, the surrender was unconditional, but the defeated made light of it years later"
7. Portuguese Wikipedia, "Batalha de Fornovo di Taro" — pt.wikipedia.org
8. English Wikipedia, "Battle of Collecchio" — en.wikipedia.org

Images

• Fig. 01 — Fornovo di Taro and the Taro valley on the Army Map Service Italy 1:50,000 map, sheet 73-III Salsomaggiore, of 1944. National road 62 runs along the valley floor, toward the Po plain.: Army Map Service, U.S. Army (Italy 1:50,000, series 4229, sheet 73-III Salsomaggiore) · Public domain
• Fig. 02 — Collecchio, at the exit of the valley, and Parma on the Army Map Service Italy 1:50,000 map, sheet 73-II Parma, of 1944. It was at Collecchio that the FEB placed itself in front of the German column.: Army Map Service, U.S. Army (Italy 1:50,000, series 4229, sheet 73-II Parma) · Public domain
• Fig. 03 — The Taro valley seen from Pietramogolana, in Berceto, upstream of Fornovo. Photo from 2022: the vegetation and buildings are today's, but the corridor between the ridges is the same.: Parma1983 · CC BY-SA 4.0
• Fig. 04 — German horse teams and wagons on an Italian road, at night, in 1944. This is not the 148th nor the Taro valley: it is the kind of horse-drawn column that does not leave the road and cannot maneuver.: Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-315-1111-11 / Lüthge · CC BY-SA 3.0 DE
• Fig. 05 — German prisoners taken to the rear of the 5th Army at Campidello, Italy, on 15 April 1945, two weeks before Fornovo. They are not FEB prisoners: the photo shows the same final offensive, in another sector.: U.S. Army Signal Corps (SC 205360) · Public domain
• Fig. 06 — General Mascarenhas de Moraes, commander of the 1st Expeditionary Infantry Division, at Montese. He was present at the meeting of 29 April that opened the surrender of the 148th.: unknown author · Public domain