Quick Facts
Biography
Alessandro Pirzio Biroli (23 July 1877 – 20 May 1962) was an Italian fascist, fencer and army General.
Biography
He won a silver medal in the team sabre event at the 1908 Summer Olympics.
In 1918 Pirzio Biroli became the commanding officer for the 8th Bersaglieri Regiment. Between 1921 and 1927, he headed a military mission to Ecuador. He was commanding general of the Monte Nero Division from 1932 to 1933, and of the Italian V Trieste Corps from 1933 to 1935. He commanded the Eritrean Corps in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, and subsequently was Governor of Amhara province in Italian East Africa from 1936 to 1937.
Pirzio Biroli was made General of the Italian 9th Army in 1941, and served as Governor of Montenegro from 1941 to 1943. He was appointed by Mussolini with complete civil and military powers in Montenegro on 25 July 1941 and as governor of Montenegro in October 1941.
He ruthlessly crushed the Montenegro Uprising of 1941. In 1942 he ordered 50 hostages shot for every Italian soldier killed and 10 hostages shot for every Italian soldier wounded. He also said to his soldiers : "I have heard that you are good family fathers. That is good at home, but not here. Here, you can't steal, murder and rape enough."
Pirzio Biroli was personally responsible for numerous execution and mass terror of the population of Montenegro. Despite being very high on the list of war criminals of the United Nations War Crimes Commission, Pirzio Biroli was never tried and spent his old age in Rome.