20th Infantry Division "Friuli"
Infantry Division of the Italian Army
The 20th Infantry Division "Friuli" (Italian: 20ª Divisione di fanteria "Friuli") was an infantry division of the Royal Italian Army during World War II. The Friuli was formed on 24 August 1939 by splitting the 20th Infantry Division "Curtatone e Montanara" into the Friuli and the 44th Infantry Division "Cremona". The Friuli was named for the region of Friuli, but based in Tuscany, where it also recruited most of its troops. The division's headquarter and its regiments, with the exception of the 87th Infantry Regiment located in Siena, were based in Livorno. The division served as occupation force on Corsica and fought German units after the Armistice of Cassibile was announced on 8 September 1943. The division then served with the Italian Co-belligerent Army and remained active into the early stages of the Cold War.
History
The division's lineage begins with the Brigade "Friuli" established on 1 November 1884 in Milan with the 87th and 88th infantry regiments.
World War I
The brigade fought on the Italian front in World War I. On 15 November 1926 the 87th Infantry Regiment was disbanded, followed by the brigade command on 28 December 1926. The 88th Infantry Regiment "Friuli" was transferred to the XX Infantry Brigade, which also included the 21st Infantry Regiment "Cremona" and the 22nd Infantry Regiment "Cremona". The XX Infantry Brigade was the infantry component of the 20th Territorial Division of Livorno, which also included the 7th Artillery Regiment. In 1934 the division changed its name to 20th Infantry Division "Curtatone e Montanara".
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This entry incorporates text from “20th Infantry Division "Friuli"” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.