Antonino Di Giorgio (San Fratello, 22 September 1867 – Palermo, 17 April 1932) was an Italian general and politician, who fought in the First Italo-Ethiopian War, the Italo-Turkish War and the First World War, and served as Minister of War of the Kingdom of Italy from April 1924 to April 1925. He resigned after the rejection of his plan for a radical reform of the Royal Italian Army.
Biography
Early life and campaigns in Africa
He was born in San Fratello into a family of the Sicilian landed nobility, the son of Baroness Giuseppina Faraci and of notary Ignazio Di Giorgio. He was admitted to the Nunziatella Military School in Naples first, and later to the Military Academy of Modena, graduating with the rank of infantry second lieutenant in the summer of 1888 and being assigned to the 77th Infantry Regiment in Pescara. In 1895 he passed the exams for admission to the War School, but before entering it he was reached by the news of the defeat at Amba Alagi, and decided to volunteer for service in Eritrea. He thus fought in the second phase of the First Italo-Abyssinian War, being decorated with two bronze medals for military valor for his conduct during the battle of Adwa and during a later clash in May 1896. Having been repatriated due to an illness he had contracted, he resumed his studies at the War School, qualifying as a staff officer. He was promoted to captain and assigned to the VIII Corps based in Florence, where he obtained promotion to major in 1907.
With that rank, he assumed command of a small infantry unit, which led to a series of victories in Somalia against the tribes of the country's interior. Between 11 and 12 July 1908 he captured the city of Merca, subsequently clashing with the Somali rebels in Merére and occupying Afgoi. Following these successes, the Sultan of Ghelédi submitted to the Italian colonial government together with 5,000 soldiers. In 1909, however, Di Giorgio was repatriated after being criticized for his excessive harshness by the civil governor of Somalia, Tommaso Carletti, who was at odds with him due to the different views they held over the methods for the conquest of territory (Carletti favoured a progressive and diplomatic approach through agreements and compromises with local chiefs, whereas Di Giorgio advocated for the use of military force) and accused him of having destroyed entire villages and committed indiscriminate massacres.
The outbreak of the Italo-Turkish war, in 1911, found Major Di Giorgio in command of a battalion of the 89th Infantry Regiment "Salerno", at the command of which he returned to Africa for the last time. The successes of the operation carried out under his command earned him promotion to lieutenant colonel, as well as the Military Order of Savoy and the silver medal for military valor. The popularity he had gained in Messina, his homeland, prompted him to pursue a political career upon his return to Italy after the end of the war; in 1913 he ran as an independent candidate, with a nationalist and anti-Giolittian program, and was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies, being later re-elected in the XXIV, XXV and XXVII legislatures.
In parliament, Di Giorgio mostly dealt with problems of military nature; he argued the need to shift the center of gravity of the Italian armed forces from the north to the south of the country, and from the land to the sea. Such positions had as a military rationale the new role that Italy should have assumed in the Mediterranean in relation to the acquisition of Libya; as well as the need to provide economic support to the disadvantaged areas of the country, with particular emphasis on those of Messina, which still suffered from the destructive consequences of the 1908 earthquake, in which he had lost his father.