Fall of Italy
Following the Allied victory in North Africa the next logical step was the Italian mainland
Churchill called Italy the "soft underbelly of Europe"
Sicily was invaded on July 10, 1943
- Allies landed the 15th Army
- August 17, 1943 - Allies occupied all of Sicily - Patton head of the 3rd Army
Italy itself was invaded in September 1943
- Sept. 3, 1943 British 8th Army landed in Calabria in southern Italy
- the mountainous terrain of Italy made the fighting there difficult - the Allies could make little progress
- Sept. 9 - U.S. 5th Army landed at Salerno - Germans counterattacked and threatened to push them back into the sea - intense fighting
- U.S. won and linked with the 8th Army
The allied landings provoked a backlash against the Mussolini government
Mussolini was dismissed as Prime Minister by the king and put in prison - he was later rescued by troops sent in by Hitler
General Pietro Badoglio (Ba-dol-yo) took over - he dissolved the Fascists
On Sept. 8, 1943 he surrendered Italy (they had signed an Armistice on Sept. 3 - and announced it 5 days later)
Germany was prepared for the Italian betrayal and quickly occupied much of the country - Mussolini had never allowed any Italian Jews to be sent to concentration camps. When the Germans took over they rounded them all up and sent them to the camps.
Mussolini was re-installed as a puppet ruler in northern Italy
- He held out until the end of the war...he was executed by Italian Parisians with his mistress Claretta Petacci (they had no orders to kill her but she wouldn't let go of him) and the 16 men who were traveling with him in April 1945 - they strung their bodies up by their feet - because of this Hitler had his body burned because he did not want the same thing to happen to him
Oct. 13, 1943 - Italy became a co-belligerent by declaring war on Germany
Italian soldiers allowed themselves to be disarmed by the Germans
Germany continued to fight Allied advances into the country
Allied drive up the Italian boot was slow
Early Nov. 1943 Allies were 75 miles south of Rome - couldn't pierce the German line
An amphibious (both land and sea) landing at Anzio moved the armies to Rome - it was 33 miles south of Rome - one of the fiercest battles of the war - hemmed in - Germans held the high ground
June 4, 1943 - Allies finally got to Rome - first Axis capital to fall
two months later captured Florence
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