When Italy surrendered in 1943, it sparked a resistance movement of anti-German, anti-fascist partisans. This book explores the tactics, organizational structure and equipment of the brave Italian resistance fighters. Beginning with low-level sabotage and assassinations, the groups continued to grow until spring 1944 when a remarkable, unified partisan command structure was created. Working in close co-ordination with the Allies, they received British SOE and American OSS liaison teams as well as supplies of weapons. The German response was ferocious, and in autumn 1944, as the Allied advance stalled, the SS and Italian RSI looked to eradicate the partisans once and for all. But when the Allies made their final breakthrough in the last weeks of the war the partisans rose again to exact their revenge on the retreating Wehrmacht. From an expert on Italian military history in World War II, this work provides a comprehensive guide to the men and women who fought a desperate struggle against occupation, as well as the German and Italian fascist security forces unleashed against them.

"Dramatic, heartbreaking and sweeping in scope." —Wall Street Journal The acclaimed author of A Train in Winter returns with the "moving finale" (The Economist) of her Resistance Quartet—the powerful and inspiring true story of the women of the partisan resistance who fought against Italy’s fascist regime during World War II. In the late summer of 1943, when Italy broke with the Germans and joined the Allies after suffering catastrophic military losses, an Italian Resistance was born. Four young Piedmontese women—Ada, Frida, Silvia and Bianca—living secretly in the mountains surrounding Turin, risked their lives to overthrow Italy’s authoritarian government. They were among the thousands of Italians who joined the Partisan effort to help the Allies liberate their country from the German invaders and their Fascist collaborators. What made this partisan war all the more extraordinary was the number of women—like this brave quartet—who swelled its ranks. The bloody civil war that ensued pitted neighbor against neighbor, and revealed the best and worst in Italian society. The courage shown by the partisans was exemplary, and eventually bound them together into a coherent fighting force. But the death rattle of Mussolini’s two decades of Fascist rule—with its corruption, greed, and anti-Semitism—was unrelentingly violent and brutal. Drawing on a rich cache of previously untranslated sources, prize-winning historian Caroline Moorehead illuminates the experiences of Ada, Frida, Silvia, and Bianca to tell the little-known story of the women of the Italian partisan movement fighting for freedom against fascism in all its forms, while Europe collapsed in smoldering ruins around them.

First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

When Italy surrendered in 1943, it sparked a resistance movement of anti-German, anti-fascist partisans. This book explores the tactics, organizational structure and equipment of the brave Italian resistance fighters. Beginning with low-level sabotage and assassinations, the groups continued to grow until spring 1944 when a remarkable, unified partisan command structure was created. Working in close co-ordination with the Allies, they received British SOE and American OSS liaison teams as well as supplies of weapons. The German response was ferocious, and in autumn 1944, as the Allied advance stalled, the SS and Italian RSI looked to eradicate the partisans once and for all. But when the Allies made their final breakthrough in the last weeks of the war the partisans rose again to exact their revenge on the retreating Wehrmacht. From an expert on Italian military history in World War II, this work provides a comprehensive guide to the men and women who fought a desperate struggle against occupation, as well as the German and Italian fascist security forces unleashed against them.

This book covers all classes and types of small arms, from pistols to heavy machine guns, known to have been used by the Italian partisans during WWII. It provides a brief history of the origin and development of the partisan movement in Italy following the 8 September 1943 armistice between Italy and the Allies and subsequent occupation of the northern portion of the country by Germany. There are many relevant examples of correspondence between partisan units relating to acquisition, distribution, use, maintenance, and problems encountered with the various types of small arms available. The majority of the pages of this book are dedicated to a complete, thorough, and extensive coverage of each individual type of weapon known to have been used by the partisans, including specifications, supported by current as well as vintage photographs showing the weapons in use by the partisans.

This landmark work draws on newly released documents and firsthand accounts to tell the dramatic story of Rome's dark days during the German occupation. 8-pages of photos. 2 maps.

From the entry of the Germans into Turin on September 10, 1943 to the liberation of the city on April 28, 1945, Ada Gobetti, translator, educator, and resistance activist, recorded an almost daily account of her life in the resistance movement against the fascist government and the Nazis. Part diary, part memoir, Gobetti's Diario partigiano (Partisan diary) provides a firsthand account of who the anti-fascist partisans in the Piedmont region of Italy were and how they fought.

"Ben Shepherd ... uses Austro-Hungarian Army records to consider how the personal experiences of many Austrian officers during the Great War played a role in brutalizing their behavior in Yugoslavia. A comparison of Wehrmacht counter-insurgency divisions allows Shepherd to analyze how a range of midlevel commanders and their units conducted themselves in different parts of Yugoslavia, and why"--Jacket.

The first of two volumes on the Axis campaigns in the Balkans, exploring Mussolini's fateful decision to move against Greece in October 1940. The Greek President Metaxas rejected the Italian ultimatum with a famous 'Oxi' ('No'), and what followed was Italy's first debacle in World War II. In the wake of Italy's rapid annexation of Albania in April 1940, Mussolini's decision to attack Greece in October that year is widely acknowledged as a fatal mistake, leading to a domestic crisis and to the collapse of Italy's reputation as a military power (re-emphasized by the Italian defeat in North Africa in December 1940). The Italian assault on Greece came to a stalemate in less than a fortnight, and was followed a week later by a Greek counter-offensive that broke through the Italian defences before advancing into Albania, forcing the Italian forces to withdraw north before grinding to a half in January 1941 due to logistical issues. Eventually, the Italians took advantage of this brief hiatus to reorganize and prepare a counteroffensive, the failure of which marked the end of the first stage of the Axis Balkan campaign. The first of two volumes examining the Axis campaigns in the Balkans, this book offers a detailed overview of the Italian and Greek armies, their fighting power, and the terrain in which they fought. Complimented by rarely seen images and full colour illustrations, it shows how expectations of an easy Italian victory quickly turned into one of Mussolini's greatest blunders.

Immediately after the Allied invasion of Italy in September 1943, Mussolini was deposed and the new Italian government switched sides. The German occupying forces swiftly freed Il Duce and ruthlessly disarmed the Italian Army; and from then until the end of the war in April 1945 Italian troops fought on both sides - with the forces of the new Fascist 'Salo Republic', in the Allied 'Co-Belligerent Forces', and in the Partisan movement. This period of bitter struggle saw the appearance of many new units and a wide range of interesting uniforms, described and illustrated in this final part of Philip Jowett's comprehensive three-volume series.