4558 Istalian coup d'état attempt

The 4558 Istalian coup d'état attempt was a failed military golpe led by high ranking officers of the Armed Forces of Istalia to take control of the country and overthrow the legittimate Government led by the Head of the State Michele Appiano De Borromei. The coup was organized by the at the time Minister of Justice Naval Squadron Admiral Valerio van de Ruit and supported by the Minister of Finance Mauro Craxi, member of the dissolved Liberal Party, at the helm of the nation previously the rise to the power of Appiano De Borromei.

=Events= August 20, 4558, at 10.30 pm, several platoons of the Armed Forces, mainly made up of troops from the Army, but not attended by members of the National Gendarmerie, started an operation concentrated above all in the Capital driven by the desire to persue a coup d'état against the country's democratic institutions. The coup forces, which initially involved about 8,000 men, leaving the main barracks in the capital, quickly took control of Romula's main telecommunications infrastructure and several other centers in the peninsula thanks to several smaller operations conducted in the rest of the peninsula. The two airports of the city were then occupied, the main access roads, and therefore at around 11.30 pm the first coup troops began to occupy the main palaces of power, first of all Travertine Palace (headquarters of the Istalian Defense), therefore several Ministries, the Palace of the Republic and Quattroregni Palace. Meanwhile, numerous platoons unleashed around the city broke into private homes of over sixty parliamentarians, the judges of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Tribunal, six of the Ministers of the Council, the Chief of Defense Staff and those of the Army and Air Force. Meanwhile, through the media still active, the putschists began to transmit a message in which they exposed their motivations, indeed supported by pure and simple falsehoods. The communication announced the establishment of martial law and curfews with immediate effect. A strong resistance was held at Quattroregni Palace, with the forces, albeit small, of the Republican Guard who indefatigably opposed the assault of the coup forces, defending the Head of the Statte first of all and giving time to him to get in contact, albeit with difficulty, with the loyal forces. The State Police as well as the National Gendarmerie immediately responded to the appeal, starting to oppose the coup forces from midnight while the loyalist armed forces were preparing to intervene. Fierce clashes took place between half past one and three, with numerous casualties among the Police Forces, poorly equipped to defend themselves from military assaults, and the coup leaders who did not spare blows, using tanks and rocket launchers against police and gendarmerie vehicles and barricades. Before 4 am the men of the loyalist Armed Forces finally entered the capital quickly, intercepting the convoys with the captured political and military exponents and surrounding the putschists in the city center, and then entering Quattroregni Palace where, despite the enormous efforts of the Republican Guard, the number of the coup troops prevailed and the Head of the State was forced to surrounded and was captured, specifically by Colonel Cristina Anitori who, as she said, acted in the name of the defence of the state from the socialist drift leaning on the country. Colonel Anitori, dragging Appiano De Borromei into his office, took out a printed sheet and ordered him to sign it: it was a document with which the Head of the State would have recognized the legitimacy of the coup by part of the Armed Forces, dissolved the National Congress and instructed the formation of a National Emergency Junta led by the military and under the particular leadership of the Minister of Justice, Naval Squadron Admiral Valerio van de Ruit, with the declared aim of safeguarding the Republic from an attempt of socialist infiltration by foreign hostile forces, a plot as fanciful as false. With all his strength, even under the threat of arms, the Head of the State refused to sign the document, and respecting his duties as Head of State, preserving the innocence of the Democratic Institutions of the country, he also gave time to the loyalist forces to surround the Palace so as to force the coup leaders to surrender. In the meanwhile, civil supporters of the legittimate Government started to took the street and to march in groups towards the pro-coup soldiers, taking the squares demonstrating against the golpe and surrounding the treacherous forces. During the final hours of the coup, the loyalist forces immediately took over 180 officers of the Armed Forces and fifty Government officials, among them over thirty parliamentarians, identified as the civil political officials supporting the attempted coup. Six were the Ministers arrested: the aforementioned Minister of Justice Admiral Valerio van de Ruit, leader of the coup, Finance Minister Mauro Craxi, leader of the politics in support of the coup, Infrastructure Minister Colonel Patrizio Autieri, the Minister of Education and Culture Silvio Thaon de Ravel, the Minister of Agricultural Affairs Colonel Paolo Battisti, the Minister of Industry and Commerce General Arminio Colatelli.

=Aftermath= With the coup just thwarted, Michele Appiano De Borromei decided to issue an Emergency Decree, a prerogative provided by the Constitutional Law on the Head of State, to secure the State and ascertain that all involved in the conspiracy were intercepted, captured and brought to justice. The curfew and martial law remained in force until 7 pm of 21 evening, while the military forces deployed on the territory gradually withdrew within the following three days.

The Emergency Decree enacted by the Head of the State officially conceeded to him the full special powers with which in late September he dissolved the National Congress, given the 40 parliamentarians arrested out of 125, then formed an Emergency Council of Ministers and governed by decree until next elections in 4561, won by Michele Appiano De Borromei and by his Coalition for the Democratic Cooperation.

About the convictions against the coup leaders, the first trials against the military and civilians involved in the attempted coup began already in October 4558 and both the Supreme Court of Cassation and the Joint Military Tribunal have already begun to issue the first convictions in late december, thanks to the special laws on the defence of the State and the Democracy introduced previously under the first term of Michele Appiano De Borromei. Seventy sentences of life imprisonment were issued at the end of the trials and among them results the one of the Admiral Valerio van de Ruit, the leader of the putchists, guilty of high betrayal according to the Military Penal Code of Peace; same sentence for the Finance Minister Mauro Craxi, judged under the civil penal code instead.