The Battle of Monte Pelato ("Bald Mountain") was an engagement of the Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

 fought on 28 August 1936. It was notable as the first major engagement of the Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 Republican volunteers of the Matteotti Battalion

Matteotti Battalion

The Matteotti Battalion or "Centuria Giustizia e Libertà" or Italian Column was an Italian radical and anarchist exile group which fought with the Spanish Republicans during the Spanish Civil War...

.

Monte Pelato, in Aragon

Aragon

Aragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...

, between Huesca

Huesca

Huesca is a city in north-eastern Spain, within the autonomous community of Aragon. It is also the capital of the Spanish province of the same name and the comarca of Hoya de Huesca....

 and Almudévar, was the site of a Francoist gun emplacement and a concentration of around five hundred Nationalist troops. In bitter fighting from five until nine in the morning, Italians and the Spanish anarchists of the Francisco Ascaso

Francisco Ascaso

Francisco Ascaso Abadía was a prominent Anarcho-syndicalist figure in Spain.A baker and waiter, Ascaso joined the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo and one of its armed groups, Los Justicieros...

Column seized the Nationalist position while suffering heavy losses.

Amongst those Italian volunteers killed were republican Mario Angeloni, commander of the Column, the anarchist Michele Centrone, the "giellista"

Giustizia e Libertà

Giustizia e Libertà was an Italian anti-fascist organization, active from 1929 to 1945.- Italian anti-fascist organization :The anti-fascist organization Giustizia e Libertà was founded in Paris in 1929 by the Italian refugees Carlo Rosselli, Emilio Lussu, Alberto Tarchiani, and Ernesto Rossi...

 Giuseppe Zuddas, the anarchist Fosco Falaschi, the Communist Attilio Papparotto and the anarchist Vincenzo Perrone.

Among those Italians who survived were socialist Carlo Rosselli

Carlo Rosselli

Carlo Rosselli was an Italian political leader, journalist, historian and anti-fascist activist, first in Italy then abroad...

, anarchists Camillo Berneri

Camillo Berneri

Camillo Berneri was an Italian professor of philosophy, anarchist militant, propagandist and theorist....

, Maria Zazzi

Maria Zazzi

Maria Zazzi was an Italian anarchist.She was in the front line in the campaign for Sacco and Vanzetti. In 1932 she moved to Paris, where she met the Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno and the Russian Volin....

, and Leonida Mastrodicasa.