Early life and career Basso attended the military college of Naples from 1892 to 1897 and then the
Military Academy of Modena, graduating as
second lieutenant in 1900. From 1902 to 1911 he served as
lieutenant in the 5th Fortress Artillery Brigade, then in the 3rd Fortress Artillery Regiment and finally in the 10th Campaign Artillery Regiment of
Caserta. In 1912 he became
captain in the 24th Field Artillery Regiment. He fought in the
First World War as battery commander, as adjutant to the commander 24th Field Artillery Regiment and then as commander of the XXX Bombardier Group, where he obtained two
Bronze Medals for Military Valor and was promoted to
major for war merit. He ended the war as
lieutenant colonel in command of a mountain artillery group. Basso then became office head at the artillery command of Naples in 1919, and from 1919 to 1926 he served as Head of office at the
Palermo Artillery Command (XII Army Corps) and group commander at the 22nd Field Artillery Regiment. From 1927 to 1931 he commanded the 2nd Field Artillery Regiment in
Pesaro and from 1932 to 1935 the artillery of the 2nd Army Corps of
Alessandria. In June 1935, Basso became
brigadier general and in 1936 he was appointed commander of the Royal School of Application of the Artillery and Engineers Branches, until 1938. In April 1938 he was promoted to
major general and assigned to the Ministry of War, as general director of artillery, until 1940.
World War II From 6 November 1940, having been promoted to
lieutenant general, he was appointed commander of the
XIII Army Corps in
Sardinia, with headquarters in
Cagliari, where he worked to improve coastal defenses. In May 1943 he was promoted to full
general and appointed civil commissioner for Sardinia as well as commander-in-chief of all troops in the island, numbering 130,000 men divided between the XIII Corps of General
Gustavo Reisoli in southern Sardinia, with headquarters in
Nuraminis, and the XXX Corps of General
Gian Giacomo Castagna in northern Sardinia, with headquarters in
Sassari. Altogether, he had at his disposal three infantry divisions, one paratrooper division, three coastal divisions, three coastal brigades, one motorized armoured group, one
MILMART legion and one autonomous regiment. The Navy (Admiral
Bruno Brivonesi) and Air Force (General
Umberto Cappa) units in Sardinia were also subordinated to him. Basso's headquarters, Armed Forces Command Sardinia, were located in
Bortigali. When the
Armistice of Cassibile was announced, on 8 September 1943, 23,000 German troops under General
Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin were also present in Sardinia. Despite having received explicit orders from
Comando Supremo to attack and destroy all German troops present in the island, Basso negotiated with General Carl Hans Lungershausen, commander of the
90th Panzergrenadier Division, their peaceful evacuation towards
Corsica, which was accomplished by 18 September with only minor clashes near
Oristano and
La Maddalena. In Turin, where Basso's family lived, his two daughters were imprisoned by the Germans at the end of 1943, while his son-in-law was deported to Germany. From 1 November 1943 Basso was transferred by the
Italian Co-belligerent Army to Naples, as commander of the
Campania Military Region, but in October 1944 he was dismissed and arrested under charges of failure to execute orders, due to his behavior in Sardinia in September 1943. In June 1946, after the war ended, he was judged before the Territorial Military Court of Rome for the crime of failure to carry out an assignment (Article 100 of the Military Criminal Code of War) "
... for not having carried out orders for operations, without justified reason". He was acquitted after nearly two years of imprisonment on the following 28 June.
Postwar Basso was transferred to the reserve on 29 June 1946 and discharged on 27 June 1954. In 1947 he published a book about the events following the Armistice in Sardinia, ''L'armistizio del Settembre 1943 in Sardegna''. He ran as a candidate for the Nationalist Movement for Social Democracy at the
1948 Italian general election in
Cagliari, but was not elected. He died in Rome in 1958. ==References==