Sebastiano Visconti Prasca

Sebastiano Visconti Prasca

Sebastiano Visconti Prasca (23 January 1883, Rome – 1961) was an Italian general. He led the initial offensive of the Greco-Italian War, but was relieved of his command after two weeks for incompetence and substituted by General Ubaldo Soddu.

Biography

Sebastiano Visconti Prasca was a member of the noble family of the House of Visconti. He took part in World War I, receiving two commemorative medals and a Merit Cross.

Starting from 1924, he served as military attache at Belgrade in Yugoslavia. In 1934 he commanded the Italian corps in Saar. Later he was military attaché at Paris and Berlin, and, in 1938, he became commander of the 2nd Cavalry Division Emanuele Filiberto Testa di Ferro.

In 1940 he was commander-in-chief of the lackluster Italian invasion of Greece. Visconti Prasca personal propaganda in convincing Benito Mussolini that the initial forces under his command would prove sufficient, and that the Italian invasion would meet a feeble resistance, was one of the factors leading to the disaster. Visconti Prasca was replaced on November 13, only two weeks after the beginning of the invasion, by Ubaldo Soddu.

In September 1943 he joined the Italian resistance movement. Captured by the Germans, he was sentenced to death, although later the punishment was turned into life imprisonment in Germany. Visconti Prasca escaped and fought with the Red Army in the final stages of World War II, participating in the battle of Berlin.

In 1946 he published a book of memories, Io ho aggredito la Grecia, in which he tried to justify his personal errors in the War of Greece.