Armistice with Italy
Encyclopedia
The Armistice with Italy was an armistice
Armistice
An armistice is a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, but may be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace...

 signed on September 3 and publicly declared on September 8, 1943, during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, between Italy
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...

 and the Allied
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...

 armed forces, who were then occupying the southern end of the country, entailing the capitulation
Capitulation (treaty)
A capitulation , or ahidnâme, is a treaty or unilateral contract by which a sovereign state relinquishes jurisdiction within its borders over the subjects of a foreign state...

 of Italy. It is also referred to in Italy as the Armistizio di Cassibile
Cassibile (village)
Cassibile is an Italian village and civil parish of the city and municipality of Syracuse , in Sicily. As of 2006 its population was of 5,800.-History:...

(from the place in which it was signed) or the Armistizio dell'8 Settembre (more simply 8 Settembre).

Background

Following the 1942 defeat of the Axis Powers in North Africa
North African campaign
During the Second World War, the North African Campaign took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 13 May 1943. It included campaigns fought in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts and in Morocco and Algeria and Tunisia .The campaign was fought between the Allies and Axis powers, many of whom had...

, the Allies bombed Rome
Bombing of Rome in World War II
The bombing of Rome in World War II took place on several occasions in 1943 and 1944, primarily by Allied and to a smaller degree by Axis aircraft, before the city was freed from Axis occupation by the Allies on June 4, 1944...

 on Sunday May 16, 1943, invaded Sicily
Allied invasion of Sicily
The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major World War II campaign, in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis . It was a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat. It launched the Italian Campaign.Husky began on the night of...

 on July 10 and began to land on the Italian mainland
Allied invasion of Italy
The Allied invasion of Italy was the Allied landing on mainland Italy on September 3, 1943, by General Harold Alexander's 15th Army Group during the Second World War. The operation followed the successful invasion of Sicily during the Italian Campaign...

 on September 3, 1943.

In the spring of 1943, preoccupied by the disastrous situation of the Italian military in the war, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

 removed from their positions in the Italian government several figures whom he considered to be more faithful to King Victor Emmanuel
Victor Emmanuel III of Italy
Victor Emmanuel III was a member of the House of Savoy and King of Italy . In addition, he claimed the crowns of Ethiopia and Albania and claimed the titles Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Albania , which were unrecognised by the Great Powers...

 than to the Fascist regime. These moves by Mussolini were described as slightly hostile acts to the king, who had been growing increasingly critical of the poor conduct of Italy in the conflict.

To help carry out his plan, the King asked for the assistance of Dino Grandi
Dino Grandi
Dino Grandi , Conte di Mordano, was an Italian Fascist politician, minister of justice, minister of foreign affairs and president of parliament.- Early life :...

. Grandi was one of the leading members of the Fascist hierarchy and, in his younger years, he was considered to be the sole credible alternative to Mussolini as leader of the Fascist Party. The King was also motivated by the suspicion that Grandi's ideas about Fascism might be changed abruptly. Various ambassadors, including Pietro Badoglio
Pietro Badoglio
Pietro Badoglio, 1st Duke of Addis Abeba, 1st Marquess of Sabotino was an Italian soldier and politician...

 himself, proposed to him the vague possibility of succeeding Mussolini as dictator.

The secret frondeur later involved Giuseppe Bottai
Giuseppe Bottai
Guiseppe Bottai was an Italian lawyer, economist, journalist, and member of the National Fascist Party of Benito Mussolini.-Fascism:...

, another high member of the Fascist directorate and Minister of Culture, and Galeazzo Ciano
Galeazzo Ciano
Gian Galeazzo Ciano, 2nd Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari was an Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Benito Mussolini's son-in-law. In early 1944 Count Ciano was shot by firing squad at the behest of his father-in-law, Mussolini under pressure from Nazi Germany.-Early life:Ciano was born in...

, probably the second most powerful man in the Fascist party and also Mussolini's son-in-law. The conspirators devised an Order of the Day for the next reunion of the Grand Council of Fascism
Grand Council of Fascism
The Grand Council of Fascism was the main body of Mussolini's Fascist government in Italy. A body which held and applied great power to control the institutions of government, it was created as a party body in 1923 and became a state body on 9 December 1928....

 (Gran Consiglio del Fascismo) which contained a proposal to restore direct control of politics to the king. Following the Council, held on July 23, 1943, where the "order of the day" was adopted by majority vote, Mussolini was summoned to meet the King and dismissed as Prime Minister. Upon leaving the meeting, Mussolini was arrested by "carabinieri
Carabinieri
The Carabinieri is the national gendarmerie of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations, and is a branch of the armed forces.-Early history:...

" and spirited off to the island of Ponza
Ponza
Ponza is the largest of the Italian Pontine Islands archipelago, located 33 km south of Cape Circeo in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It also the name of the commune of the island, a part of the province of Latina in the Lazio region....

. He was substituted with Badoglio as PM. This went against what had been promised to Grandi, who had been told that another general of greater personal and professional qualities (Enrico Caviglia
Enrico Caviglia
Enrico Caviglia KCB was a distinguished officer in the Italian Army. Victorious on the bloody battlefields of the Great War, he rose in time to the highest rank in his country, Marshal of Italy; he was also a Senator of the kingdom.-Early years:Caviglia was born in Finalmarina , the sixth son of...

) would have taken the place of Mussolini.

The nomination of Badoglio apparently did not change the position of Italy alongside Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 in the war. However, it was another move of the Royal Savoia
Savoia
Savoia may refer to:-*Savoy*Savoie*House of Savoy, a royal house of Italy until 1946.*Savoia-Marchetti, an Italian aircraft manufacturer.*Savoia Castle, a castle near Prague, Czech Republic....

 family towards peace. Many channels, in fact, were being probed to seek a treaty with the Allies. Meanwhile Hitler sent several divisions south of the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

, officially to protect Italy from allied landings but in reality to control the country.

Towards the signing

Three Italian generals (including Giuseppe Castellano
Giuseppe Castellano
Giuseppe Castellano was an Italian general who negotiated the Armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces on September 8, 1943.-Military career:...

) were separately sent to Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

 in order to contact Allied diplomats. However, to start out the proceedings the Allied diplomats had to solve a problem concerning who was the most authoritative envoy: the three generals had in fact soon started to quarrel about the question of who enjoyed the highest authority. In the end, Castellano was admitted to speak with the Allied diplomats in order to set the conditions for the surrender of Italy
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...

. Among the representatives of the allies, there was the British ambassador to Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, Ronald Campbell, and two generals sent by Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

, the American Walter Bedell Smith
Walter Bedell Smith
Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith was a senior United States Army general who served as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief of staff at Allied Forces Headquarters during the Tunisia Campaign and the Allied invasion of Italy...

 and the British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 Kenneth Strong
Kenneth Strong
Major General Sir Kenneth William Dobson Strong KBE, CB was a British Army officer who served in the Second World War, rising to become Director General of Intelligence. A graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Strong was commissioned into the 1st Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1920...

.

Initially, the Allies were not entirely happy about the proposal of a surrender of Italy. The military campaign against the Axis forces there seemed to have gained steam, and a defeat of Italy was considered only a matter of time. The surrender of Germany's weaker ally would certainly have accelerated that end; however, it would also have reduced the benefits gained by a total conquest of the Italian territory.

Ultimately, though, further examination of the possibilities after the end of the war in Italy led the Allies to seriously discuss the question. In particular, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 wanted to avoid the possible consignment of Italy to Great Britain after the war, as this would have given the British absolute control over the strategic Mediterranean area (including control over oil
Oil
An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....

 trade routes).

On August 27 Castellano returned to Italy and, three days later, briefed Badoglio about the Allied request for a meeting to be held in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

, which had been suggested by the British ambassador to the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

.

To ease communication between the Allies and the Italian Government, a captured British SOE
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive was a World War II organisation of the United Kingdom. It was officially formed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Axis powers and to instruct and aid local...

 agent, Dick Mallaby was released from Verona prison and secretly moved to the Quirinale. It was vital that the Germans remained ignorant of any suggestion of Italian defection and the SOE was seen as the most secure method in the circumstances.

Conditions

Badoglio still considered it possible to gain favourable conditions in exchange for the surrender. He ordered Castellano to insist that any surrender of Italy
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...

 was subordinate to a landing of Allied troops on the Italian mainland (the Allies at this point were holding only Sicily and some minor islands).

On August 31 General Castellano reached Termini Imerese
Termini Imerese
Termini Imerese is a town and comune in the province of Palermo on the northern coast of Sicily, southern Italy.-Ancient:The site where the town now sits has been populated since prehistoric times, as many archeologial excavations have shown through the years...

, in Sicily, by plane and was subsequently transferred to Cassibile
Cassibile (village)
Cassibile is an Italian village and civil parish of the city and municipality of Syracuse , in Sicily. As of 2006 its population was of 5,800.-History:...

, a small town in the neighbourhood of Syracuse. It soon became obvious that the two sides in the negotiations had adopted rather distant positions. Castellano pressed the relatively reasonable request that the Italian territory be defended from the inevitable reaction of the German Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

 against Italy after the signing. In return, he received only vague promises, which included the launching of a Parachute Division over Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. Moreover, these actions were to be conducted contemporaneously with the signing and not preceding it, as the Italians had wanted.

The following day Castellano was received by Badoglio and his entourage. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Baron Raffaele Guariglia declared that the Allied conditions were to be accepted. Other generals maintained however that the Army Corps deployed around Rome was insufficient to protect the city, due to lack of fuel and ammunition, and that the armistice had to be postponed. Badoglio did not pronounce himself in the meeting. In the afternoon he appeared before the King, who decided to accept the armistice conditions.

The way to the signing

A confirmation telegram was sent to the Allies. The message, however, was intercepted by the German armed forces, which had long since begun to suspect that Italy was seeking a separate armistice. The Germans contacted Badoglio, who repeatedly confirmed the unwavering loyalty of Italy to its German ally. His reassurances were doubted by the Germans, and the Wehrmacht started to devise an effective plan (Operation Achse
Operation Achse
Operation Achse , also called Operation Alaric, were the codenames of the German plans to forcibly disarm the Italian armed forces after their expected armistice with the Allied forces...

) to take control of Italian soil as soon as the Italian government had switched allegiance to the Allies.

On September 2, Castellano set off again to Cassibile with an order to confirm the acceptance of the Allied conditions. He had no written authorisation from the head of the Italian Government, Badoglio, who wanted to dissociate himself as much as possible from the upcoming defeat of his country.

The signing ceremony began at 2:00 p.m. on September 3. Castellano and Bedell Smith signed the accepted text on behalf of respectively Badoglio and Eisenhower. A bombing mission on Rome by five hundred airplanes was stopped at the last moment: it had been Eisenhower's deterrent to accelerate the procedure of the armistice. Harold Macmillan
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....

, the British representative in the Allied Staff, informed Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

 that the armistice had been signed "without amendments of any kind".

After the signing

Only after the signing had taken place was Castellano informed of the additional clauses that had been presented by general Campbell to another Italian general, Zanussi, who had also been in Cassibile since August 31. Zanussi, for unclear reasons, had not informed Castellano about them. Bedell Smith, nevertheless, explained to Castellano that these further conditions were to have taken effect only if Italy had not taken on a fighting role in the war alongside the Allies.

In the afternoon of the same day, Badoglio had a briefing with the Italian Ministers of Navy, Air Forces and War, and with the King's representatives as well. However, he omitted any mention of the signing of the armistice, referring only to ongoing negotiations.

The day of entry into force of the armistice was linked to a planned landing in central Italy and it was left to allied discretion. Castellano anyway understood that the date was intended to be September 12 and Badoglio started to move troops to Rome.

On September 7 a small allied delegation reached Rome to inform Badoglio that the day after would have been armistice day. He was also informed about the arrival of an US airborne division into airports around the city. Badoglio told to this delegation that his army was not ready to support this landing and that most airports in the area were under German control; he asked for a deferral of the armistice of a few days. When General Eisenhower knew this the landing in Rome of US troops was canceled but the day of the armistice was confirmed since other troops were already sailing to southern Italy for other landings.

When the armistice was announced by the allied radios, in the afternoon of September 8, the majority of the Italian Army had not been informed about it and no orders had been issued about the line of conduct to be taken in the face of the German armed forces. Some of the Italian divisions that should have defended Rome were still in transit from the south of France. The King along with the royal family and Badoglio fled from the capital city in the early morning of the 9th, taking shelter in the town of Brindisi
Brindisi
Brindisi is a city in the Apulia region of Italy, the capital of the province of Brindisi, off the coast of the Adriatic Sea.Historically, the city has played an important role in commerce and culture, due to its position on the Italian Peninsula and its natural port on the Adriatic Sea. The city...

, in the south of the country. The initial intention had been to move army headquarters out of Rome together with the King and the PM but only few staff officers reached Brindisi. In the meanwhile the Italian troops, without instructions, collapsed and were soon overwhelmed while some small units decided to stay loyal to the German ally. German forces therefore occupied between the 8th and the 12th of September, without meeting great organized resistance, all of the remaining Italian territory still not under Allied control except Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

 and part of Apulia
Apulia
Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...

. In Rome an Italian governor with the support of an Italian infantry division nominally ruled the city until September 23 but practically speaking the city was under German control since September 11.

On September 3, British and Canadian troops had begun landing in the southernmost tip of Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

. The day after the armistice declaration, September 9, the Allies also disembarked at Salerno
Salerno
Salerno is a city and comune in Campania and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea....

 (Operation Avalanche) and Taranto
Taranto
Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....

 (Operation Slapstick
Operation Slapstick
Operation Slapstick was the code name for a British landing from the sea at the Italian port of Taranto during the Second World War. The operation, one of three landings during the Allied invasion of Italy, was undertaken by the British 1st Airborne Division in September 1943.Planned at short...

) but they failed to take full advantage of Italian armistice and they were quickly checked by German troops. It took twenty months for the allied forces to reach northern borders of Italy.

Some of Italian troops based out of Italy, in the occupied Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

 and Greek islands, were able to stand some weeks after the armistice but without any determined support by Allied forces they were all overwhelmed by the Germans by the end of September 1943. Only in the islands of Leros
Leros
Leros is a Greek island and municipality in the Dodecanese in the southern Aegean Sea. It lies 317 km from Athens's port of Piraeus, from which it can be reached by an 11-hour ferry ride . Leros is part of the Kalymnos peripheral unit...

 and Samos
Samoš
Samoš is a village in Serbia. It is situated in the Kovačica municipality, in the South Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority and its population numbering 1,247 people .-See also:...

, with British reinforcements, resistance lasted until November 1943 while in Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....

 Italian troops, reinforced by French units, forced German troops to leave the island.

Italian Navy

While Italy's army and Air Force virtually disintegrated when the armistice was announced on September 8, the Allies coveted the Italian navy which contained 206 ships in total including such formidable battleships as the Roma
Italian battleship Roma (1940)
Roma, named after two previous ships and the city of Rome, was the fourth Vittorio Veneto-class battleship of Italy's Regia Marina...

, Vittorio Veneto
Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto
Vittorio Veneto was the lead ship of her class of battleships that served in the Regia Marina during World War II. She was named after the Italian victory at Vittorio Veneto, during World War I.-Construction:...

 and Littorio
Italian battleship Littorio
|-External links:...

. There was a danger that some of the Italian Navy might fight on, be scuttled or, more importantly for the Allies, end up in "German hands."
As such the truce called for Italian warships on her west coast, mostly located at La Spezia
La Spezia
La Spezia , at the head of the Gulf of La Spezia in the Liguria region of northern Italy, is the capital city of the province of La Spezia. Located between Genoa and Pisa on the Ligurian Sea, it is one of the main Italian military and commercial harbours and hosts one of Italy's biggest military...

 and Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

 to sail for North Africa (passing Corsica and Sardinia) and for those at Taranto
Taranto
Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....

, in the heel of Italy, to sail for Malta.

At 2:30 a.m., on September 9, the three battleships, Roma, Vittorio Veneto, and Littorio "shoved off from La Spezia escorted by three light cruisers and eight destroyers." When German troops who had stormed into the town to prevent this defection became enraged by these ships' escape, "they rounded up and summarily shot several Italian captains who, unable to get their vessels under way, had scuttled them." That afternoon, the ships, sailing without air cover, were attacked off Sardinia by German bombers with guided bombs; several ships suffered damage and the Roma was sunk with a loss of nearly 1,400 men. Most of the remaining ships made it safely to North Africa, "while three destroyers and a cruiser which had stopped to rescue survivors, docked in Minorca
Minorca
Min Orca or Menorca is one of the Balearic Islands located in the Mediterranean Sea belonging to Spain. It takes its name from being smaller than the nearby island of Majorca....

." The Italian navy's turnover proceeded more smoothly in other areas of Italy. When an Allied naval force headed for the big naval base of Taranto, they watched a flotilla of Italian ships sailing out of Taranto harbour sailing towards surrender at Malta.

See also

  • Military history of Italy during World War II
    Military history of Italy during World War II
    During World War II , the Kingdom of Italy had a varied and tumultuous military history. Defeated in Greece, France, East Africa and North Africa, the Italian invasion of British Somaliland was one of the only successful Italian campaigns of World War II accomplished without German support.In...

  • Allied invasion of Italy
    Allied invasion of Italy
    The Allied invasion of Italy was the Allied landing on mainland Italy on September 3, 1943, by General Harold Alexander's 15th Army Group during the Second World War. The operation followed the successful invasion of Sicily during the Italian Campaign...

  • European Theatre of World War II
    European Theatre of World War II
    The European Theatre of World War II was a huge area of heavy fighting across Europe from Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 until the end of the war with the German unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945...

  • Italian Co-Belligerent Army
    Italian Co-Belligerent Army
    The Italian Co-Belligerent Army , or the Army of the South , was the army of the Italian Royalist forces fighting on the side of the Allies during World War II....

  • Italian military internees
    Italian military internees
    Italian military internees was the official name given by Germany to the Italian soldiers captured, rounded up and deported in the territories of the Third Reich in Operation Achse in the days immediately following the Armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces .After disarmament by the...

  • King Michael's Coup
    King Michael's Coup
    King Michael's Coup refers to the coup d'etat led by King Michael of Romania in 1944 against the pro-Nazi Romanian faction of Ion Antonescu, after the Axis front in Northeastern Romania collapsed under the Soviet offensive.-The coup:...

  • Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944
    Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944
    The Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944, also known as the 9 September coup d'état and called in pre-1989 Bulgaria the National Uprising of 9 September or the Socialist Revolution of 9 September was a change in the Kingdom of Bulgaria's administration and government carried out on the eve of 9 September...

  • Moscow Armistice
    Moscow Armistice
    The Moscow Armistice was signed between Finland on one side and the Soviet Union and United Kingdom on the other side on September 19, 1944, ending the Continuation War...

     and Lapland War
    Lapland War
    The Lapland War were the hostilities between Finland and Nazi Germany between September 1944 and April 1945, fought in Finland's northernmost Lapland Province. While the Finns saw this as a separate conflict much like the Continuation War, German forces considered their actions to be part of the...

  • Italian Army in Russia
    Italian Army in Russia
    The Italian Army in Russia was an army-sized unit of the Italian Royal Army which fought on the Eastern Front during World War II...


External links

Il diario del generale Giuseppe Castellano, La Sicilia, 8 settembre 2003 8 Settembre 1943, l'armistizio Centro Studi della Resistenza dell'Anpi di Roma
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