Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of World War II
Italian campaign and Italian Civil War

Following the Allied victory in North Africa the Allies invaded Sicily in Operation Husky on 10 July 1943, with amphibious and airborne landings. The German and Italian forces were unable to prevent the Allied capture of the island but evacuated most of their troops and equipment to the mainland before the Allies entered Messina on 17 August. On 25 July, the Italian government deposed Mussolini, the Italian leader, who was subsequently arrested. The new government announced that it would continue the war but secretly commenced negotiations with the Allies.

The Allied invasion of Italy started when the British Eighth Army landed in the toe of Italy on 3 September 1943, in Operation Baytown. The Italian government signed the surrender the same day, believing they would be given time to make preparations against the anticipated German intervention. The Allies announced the Armistice of Cassibile on 8 September and German forces implemented plans to occupy the Italian peninsula. On 9 September, American and British forces of the US Fifth Army landed at Salerno in Operation Avalanche and more British airborne troops landed at Taranto in Operation Slapstick. German forces which had escaped from Sicily were concentrated against Avalanche, while additional forces were brought in to occupy Rome and disarm the Italian Army in central and northern Italy.

The Germans were unable to prevent the Italian fleet sailing to Malta, although the battleship Roma was sunk by the Luftwaffe on 9 September. In the occupied areas of southern Europe and the Mediterranean, German forces rapidly disarmed and captured Italian troops, putting down any resistance they offered in Yugoslavia, southern France and Greece. Meanwhile, on 16 September, a German airborne force led by Otto Skorzeny rescued Mussolini from the mountain resort in the Gran Sasso where he was being held. A puppet government headed by Mussolini was subsequently set up in northern Italy as the successor state to the former fascist government.

The Italian Co-Belligerent Army was created to fight against the puppet government headed by Mussolini and its German allies, alongside the large Italian resistance movement, while other Italian troops continued to fight alongside the Germans in the National Republican Army; this period is known as the Italian Civil War. Although other European countries such as Norway, the Netherlands, and France also had partisan movements and collaborationist governments with Nazi Germany, armed confrontation between compatriots was most intense in Italy, making the Italian case unique. In 1965, the definition of "civil war" was used for the first time by fascist politician and historian Giorgio Pisanò in his books, while Claudio Pavone 's book Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità della Resistenza (A Civil War. Historical Essay On the Morality Of the Resistance), published in 1991, led to the term "Italian Civil War" being used more frequently by Italian and international historiography.

As the campaign in Italy continued, the rough terrain prevented fast movement and proved ideal for defence, the Allies continued to push the German and RSI forces northwards through the rest of the year. The German prepared defensive line called the Winter Line (parts of which were called the Gustav Line) proved a major obstacle to the Allies at the end of 1943, halting the advance. Operation Shingle, an amphibious assault at Anzio behind the line was intended to break it, but did not have the desired effect. The line was eventually broken by frontal assault at the Fourth Battle of Monte Cassino in the spring of 1944 and Rome was captured in June.

Following the fall of Rome, the Normandy landings (6 June 1944) that began Operation Overlord and the Red Army victories on the Eastern Front, the Italian campaign became of secondary importance to both sides. The Gothic Line north of Rome was not broken until the Spring offensive of 1945. From 1944 to the end of war, the Italian Front was made up of a multi-national Allied force of Americans (including segregated African and Japanese-Americans), Brazilians, British, Canadians, Czechs, French, Greeks, anti-fascist Italians, the 2nd New Zealand Division, Poles, South Africans and Rhodesians as well as members of the British and French empires, including the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division, Gurkhas, Indians, Moroccans and forces raised in Mandatory Palestine.

On April 28, two days before the Death of Adolf Hitler. The remaining German and RSI forces in Northern Italy was defeated by the British 8th Army and the U.S. 5th Army in the Spring 1945 offensive in Italy. Mussolini attempted to escape to Switzerland but was captured and later executed by Italian partisans along with the high-ranking Fascist officials of the Italian Social Republic. On May 1, Marshal Rodolfo Graziani surrendered to the Allies along with the National Republican Army.

On 1 May, SS General Karl Wolff and the Commander-in-Chief of the German 10th Army, General Heinrich von Vietinghoff, after Operation Sunrise (secret negotiations with the Allies), ordered German and RSI armed forces in Italy to make an unconditional surrender to the Allies on 2 May 1945.
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