Brigate Osoppo information

The Brigate Osoppo-Friuli or Osoppo-Friuli Brigades were autonomous partisan formations founded in the headquarter of the Archbishop Seminary of Udine on 24 December 1943^[1][2] by partisan volunteers of mixed ideologies, already active in Carnia and Friuli before the Badoglio Proclamation of 8 September. The partisans in this brigade adhered to various and often conflicting ideologies, including both secularism and Catholicism, as well as socialism and liberalism.^[3]

The Osoppo aimed to cooperate independently with the communist Garibaldi Brigades and to contribute to the antifascist fight against the occupying German forces. The latter had in fact established the Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral, subtracting the whole territory of Friuli-Venezia Giulia from the authority of the Italian Social Republic and establishing an harsh regime of repression and dispossession, availing of the Waffen-SS formations, cossacks and fascist republican forces.^[4]

This autonomous partisan group was led by Candido Grassi (battle name "Verdi"), Manlio Cencig (battle name "Mario"), two captains of the Royal Italian Army and Don Ascanio De Luca (already chaplain of Alpini in Montenegro and parson of Colugna, Tavagnacco, at the time).

Because of the complex political-military situation of the Friulian territory and Julian March, at the middle of opposite nationalisms and secular ethnic and territorial conflicts, the Osoppo Brigades had often conflictual relationships with Garibaldi formations and they were in contrast with Slovenian-Yugoslav partisan forces.

The name "Osoppo" was a symbolic reference with the history of the region during the Italian unification, when in 1848 the city of Osoppo resisted for seven months against the Austrian troops.^[5]