Page 40 - History of War - Issue 29-16

MUSSOLINI’S DOWNFALL

“THE SITUATION partisans, aided by the Gestapo, the SS
security service, the military-based carabinieri
WAS SELDOM police and barely controllable fascist gangs.
The situation was seldom clear-cut, with
CLEAR-CUT, WITH many young men choosing to join an organised
unit not through any political or ideological
MANY YOUNG MEN conviction, but simply out of desperation
and the need for some form of employment.
CHOOSING TO JOIN Nevertheless, there were enough fanatics
to ensure that ghting between the various
AN ORGANISED factions was often savage.
Historians have long debated the
UNIT NOT THROUGH effectiveness of the partisans, but there can
be no doubt that they increased the scale of
ANY POLITICAL their activities as the Allied Italian campaign
progressed. From less than 500 reported
OR IDEOLOGICAL attacks in January 1944, there were more than
2,000 in March and more than 3,000 in June.
CONVICTION, BUT German soldiers, drew severe retribution. As a
The attacks, especially when they targeted
SIMPLY OUT OF rule of thumb the Germans would execute ten
prisoners or civilians for every German soldier
DESPERATION AND killed by partisans.
Perhaps the most notorious reprisal followed
THE NEED FOR a bombing in Rome, mounted by the communist
Gruppi di Azione Patriottica Centrale (GAP
SOME FORM OF Central). An 18 kilogram bomb was detonated
as a company of SS soldiers marched by on
EMPLOYMENT” 23 March 1944, instantly killing 28 of them.

Above: Hitler and Mussolini’s
relationship deteriorated as
the war continued
Left: Mussolini giving his
last speech in Milan, 1944,
promising that German
arms will turn the tide and
condemning Bolshevism

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