During the Italian campaign, 1943 and 1944, the French expeditionary corps colonial troops were responsible for many acts of violence against the Italian civilian population. Theft, armed robbery, plunder, and especially rape were very frequent. At the beginning they were isolated acts committed by single individuals, and punished by the French or Anglo-American allied authorities. During the 1944 victorious summer offensive that made it possible to cross the Gustav line in the southern Lazio, the French troops garnered from their superiors a relative liberty of action, leading to rapes. During the 1950s, the Unione Donne Italiane counted about twelve thousand victims of sexual violence. This communist women’s organization tried to obtain compensation for these women victims of the French expeditionary corps. This sexual violence was apparently tolerated as a “disagreeable” consequence of the war habits of irregular corps such as Moroccan goumiers [soldiers from a goum, an auxiliary military body of native North Africans, under French officers’ authority]. They were also a clear message to Italians, particularly the men. The humiliation and sexual outrage against their wives served to reassert their status as the conquered during this conflict.