Italian Armistice (Cassibile)
Italy's armistice with the Allies was announced on 8 September 1943, and the country was occupied by its own ally within forty-eight hours. Mussolini had been voted out by the Fascist Grand Council and arrested by the king in July, and Marshal Badoglio's government announced that the war would continue while opening secret negotiations in Lisbon. The terms were signed on 3 September and were unconditional. The announcement was made by Eisenhower and then, an hour later and reluctantly, by Badoglio, who told the armed forces to cease hostilities against the Allies and to react to attacks from any other quarter — a formula so vague that no Italian commander knew whether he was at war with Germany. Nobody had prepared the army for the change of sides. The Germans had eight divisions in Italy and executed a prepared plan within hours, disarming Italian units across Italy, France, Greece and the Balkans; some 600,000 Italian soldiers were deported to Germany as military internees and worked as forced labour, and the garrison of Cephalonia was massacred after resisting. The king, Badoglio and the general staff left Rome for Brindisi before dawn on 9 September, leaving the capital and the army without orders. Italy declared war on Germany in October and became a co-belligerent. The state effectively dissolved for two years: a kingdom in the south, a German puppet republic in the north, and a resistance movement between them. The date is remembered in Italy as the death of the fatherland, meaning the collapse of the state's authority rather than the change of sides. What replaced it in the north over the following twenty months was a civil war between Italians that the republic founded in 1946 was built out of.
- Year: 1943 CE
- Category: Diplomatic
