He was born in Rome, the son of artillery
Colonel Emilio Attilio Francesco Giuseppe Balotta and Marquise Lavinia Carcano, and in 1904 he enrolled in the Military Academy of
Turin, after which he attended the Army Application School. In 1910 he married Emilia Falorni in 1910, the daughter of an upper-middle-class family from the
Val d'Arno, who gave him two children, Alberto (who also became an Army officer) and Liliana. During the
First World War, Balotta fought as an
artillery officer on the
Karst Plateau, where he was wounded. After the war he commanded the
7th Artillery Regiment and later the 30th Artillery Regiment "Leonessa" in
Brescia. From May 1935 to January 1936 he served as acting Chief of Staff of the artillery of the
XI Army Corps in
Udine; in 1936 he was promoted to colonel and given command of the 30th Artillery Regiment "Leonessa", and from October 1937 to September 1939 he was commander of the
Central School of Artillery, writing several articles for the
magazine Rivista di Artiglieria. In 1939 he participated in the
invasion of Albania. From September 1939 to February 1940, Balotta was in command of the
52nd Artillery Regiment "Torino", and in February 1940 he assumed command of the artillery of the
XIV Corps. After promotion to
brigadier general in May 1940, in July 1941 he was given command of the
132nd Armoured Division Ariete, fighting in
North Africa and leading the division to victory in the
first and
second battle of Bir el Gubi. He left command of the Division in January 1942, and two months later he was promoted to
Major General for war merit and given command of the artillery of the
Italian Army in Russia, deployed on the
Eastern Front. After
the destruction of the ARMIR, he was repatriated, and after the
Armistice of Cassibile he was arrested by the Germans and later also imprisoned by the
partisans. A convinced
monarchist, he retired from the Army in 1946, with the rank of
Lieutenant General. He died from a
heart attack in
Viareggio, where he was on vacation, on 23 July 1963. ==References==