SAN MARINO: Election No. 1

San Marino, Europe’s oldest (1,600 years) and smallest (38 sq. mi.) republic, which nestles on an Apennine mountainside below Florence, became Europe’s first liberated nation to hold a general election. Six months after they declared war on Germany* and sent their plumed, sworded, 950-man army into action on the Italian front, the San Marinese chose a new Grand Council. They voted resoundingly for the leftist “Committee of Liberty.” Of 60 seats at stake, the Committee won 40 (Communists 18, Socialists 18, Republican Democrats 4). The remaining 20 seats went to the old, purged parties of the right.

* Up to that time, despite Fascist pressure, San Marino had remained neutral.