For most of World War II, Italy was Adolf Hitler’s ally.
But then seemingly overnight, the Italians betrayed him.
They would pay dearly for such insolence, but why did Italy betray Hitler in the first
place?
You would think it’d be on moral grounds for the atrocities he committed, but that’s
not the real reason.
In fact, from entering the war, to betraying the Nazis, Italy’s World War II involvement
was questionably bizarre.
The entrance of Italy into World War II was a little shady for a couple reasons.
The first was obviously that they sided with the Nazis, but the second had to do more with
timing.
When Italy joined the war, it looked like Germany was going to win.
Italy had been holding out for a bit, and seemed to be hedging their bets.
It wasn’t until Mussolini and other members of the Italian government thought that Hitler
was going to win the war that they decided to throw their support behind him.
When France fell it seemed like joining the Germans in their conquest of Europe was a
safe bet.
Italian leaders hoped that by joining what looked like the winning side, they would be
rewarded with land and the spoils of war.
It seems that Italy was more interested in gaining power for itself, than the morality
of what was being fought over during World War II.
However, that can be said about many of the countries involved in the conflict.
If the beginning of World War II had been different, and the Allies looked like they
were going to win, Italy's decision of which side to join may have been very different.
But that’s not what happened, and in 1939 Italy signed the “Pact of Steel” with
Germany making them a part of the Axis Powers.
Four years later, on October 13, 1943, Italy would betray their former ally, and switch
sides to fight alongside the Allied Forces to defeat Hitler.
But how did they go from backing one of the world's most terrible, genocidal, maniacs,
to joining the Allies?
There were several key factors, but surprisingly most had to do with the way Italy viewed itself.
As soon as Italy entered World War II they were in trouble.
Benito Mussolini ruled the country as a dictator, which many people were in favor of at the
time.
What the Italians seemed to want more than anything else was a powerful Italy.
Mussolini was the man who promised he could provide this, so much of the population went
along with his fascist agenda.
One of the many problems Mussolini had with running the country, and fighting the war,
was that he cared more about loyalty than experience when it came to appointing generals
and military leaders.
This led to some dire consequences for Italy during World War II, and was the first step
in what would eventually lead to their betrayal of Hitler and the Axis Powers.
Once Italy joined the war, they immediately sent forces to invade Greece, the Balkans,
and North Africa.
The only problem was that the British already had a military presence in parts of these
regions.
The British would do whatever it took to defend the Suez Canal, and protect their oil supply
coming from the Persian Gulf.
If they lost this vital resource, Britain would be in real danger of falling to the
Axis Powers.
A large Italian force of over 100,000 men entered North Africa and were greeted by an
army of around 36,000 British soldiers.
The odds were in Italy’s favor, but due to lack of adequate training and leadership,
the British were able to push the Italian forces back.
In fact, by the end of Italy's campaign in North Africa, the Allies had captured around
130,000 Italian soldiers.
This was not only a huge defeat for Italy early on in the war, but completely embarrassing
and demoralizing for the county.
Things in North Africa were so bad that Hitler had to send his own forces into the region
to help out Italy.
With the loss of so many soldiers in such a short time, the Italian leadership outside
of Mussolini and his inner circle began to question if they had chosen the right side.
This dissent amongst Italian leadership would later lead to their betrayal of Hitler and
the Nazis.
And the embarrassment was not just felt in the military, but in every Italian who supported
Mussolini and his decision to join Hitler.
Many citizens supported the war effort to make their nation more powerful, and to gain
more land and resources for the country.
But that would not happen if the military couldn’t get their act together.
Although Mussolini may have made the trains run on time, other parts of Italy’s manufacturing
infrastructure was far behind the rest of the world.
The factories had a hard time getting the materials they needed, and when they did,
Allied forces would bomb their buildings and set the Italian war machine back even further.
Basically, Italy slowly realized it was in over its head.
They were outmatched by most of the other players in the war, and although Hitler and
his country were a force to be reckoned with, Germany was not able to send the men and resources
that Italy needed to get themselves back into the war after several defeats.
Hitler’s forces were now fighting the war on multiple fronts, and if the Axis Powers
were going to win, they needed Italy to start pulling their weight.
There were also clear signs of unrest within the general populace of Italy just before
the decision to betray Hitler was made.
In 1943, only months before Italy would turn on their ally, a strike in the factories of
Milan and Turin began.
All the workers wanted were evacuation allowances for their families.
The Italian people were starving, and hundreds of thousands of citizens were fleeing the
cities and battle stricken areas for the countryside.
It was clear that Italian morale was incredibly low, and that many of the working class now
wanted to get out of the war.
Not everyone in Italy supported joining the Nazis in the first place, but the vast majority
supported their dictator even if they didn’t agree with what Hitler was doing.
However, that all changed when it became clear Italy would not end up being the powerful
nation its leaders had hoped for as a result of allying the country with Germany.
The citizens were demoralized and disgruntled, the military was in shambles, and Mussolini
himself seemed to care less and less about the outcome of the war.
It was at this point that the leaders of Italy realized a change was needed.
It was time to get rid of Mussolini, and to join the winning side.
The Italians were now on the cusp of betraying the Nazis, there was just one more thing that
needed to be done.
By the middle of 1943 the Italians had been beaten on and off the battlefield.
The once proud nation was slowly falling apart.
The Allies had already invaded southern Italy, and controlled Sicily.
It was becoming clear that Hitler and the Nazis were not going to win the war after
all.
So, the Italian government decided to jump ship, and try to salvage what they could.
Practically everyone from members of the government, to the average citizen, had lost faith in
Mussolini and his ideologies.
An emergency meeting was held on July 25, 1943 where Benito Mussolini was voted out
of office by his very own Grand Council.
The moment that he left the building to meet with King Vittorio Emanuele, Mussolini was
put under arrest.
Surprisingly, Mussolini showed very little emotion, and seemed not to care that he was
being booted out of power.
But there was still time to save Italy as a whole if the new leadership could figure
out a way to betray Hitler and join the Allies without giving away too much of their own
power.
The Italian government made General Pietro Badoglio prime minister of the country.
Badoglio had been Mussolini's chief of staff, but had very different ideas of which direction
the country should take to regain some of its former power.
Badoglio immediately began negotiations with General Eisenhower.
He wanted to surrender to the Allies and help them win the war against Nazi Germany and
Adolf Hitler.
The deal was that Italy would surrender and allow Allied Forces to move through the southern
part of the country without any resistance.
Then, what remained of Italy's military would help the Allied forces push the Nazis north
and out of their country.
Hitler himself must have known there was trouble in Italy when Mussolini was deposed and arrested.
The Nazi leader needed to move fast, but even he may have underestimated how quickly the
Italians would betray him.
In the wake of Italy’s betrayal, Hitler did the only thing he could; he sent his own
forces to invade the country.
The Italian military was already so disorganized that Hitler had no problem securing strategic
positions.
He already had troops in the country that were helping his former ally to fend off enemy
forces.
To make sure the government who had betrayed him would not gain more power, Hitler sent
his forces straight to Rome to capture the capital of the country.
Nazi forces succeeded in their mission, and forced the new government, including General
Badoglio, to flee.
But at this point most of Italy had already betrayed him, and its citizens were more than
willing to help the Allies defeat the Nazis.
Whether Hitler was still friendly with Mussolini or not, he felt the former fascist dictator
had some use left in him.
Hitler found the mountain prison in which Mussolini was being held captive and sent
forces to rescue him.
Hitler then reinstated Mussolini as the new ruler of Nazi occupied northern Italy, and
named the territory the “Italian Social Republic.”
Mussolini was once again the leader of a fascist government in Italy, but his reign wouldn’t
last long.
As the Nazi forces were fighting off the Allies, which now included Italian help, the Italians
in the north captured and executed Mussolini.
This would be the second time Italy betrayed Hitler in a matter of months.
To be fair, it was members of the Italian partisan resistance force who had carried
out the execution, but as 1943 progressed, Italy betrayed Hitler over and over again.
And keeping in character, Hitler started doing some insanely crazy things in Italy to show
his displeasure.
In the regions that the Nazis controlled, Hitler rolled out vicious policies that forced
Italian citizens to support and work for the Nazi troops that occupied their homeland.
It seemed as if Hitler did not take the betrayal of his former ally well, as what he did next
was absolutely nuts; and a breach of the Geneva Convention.
Hitler ordered one of his scientists to release a biological weapon on the populace of Italy.
A Nazi scientist name Erich Martini was put in charge of the biological warfare project.
Martini was a friend of Heinrich Himmler, and a devout Nazi party member.
At the time, Martini was one of Europe's leading epidemiologists, especially around the malaria
virus.
Hitler sent Martini to Italy where his task was to breed malaria carrying mosquitoes,
and release them on the Italian population.
The thought was that as the Allied forces made their way further north, they would encounter
the mosquitoes, contract malaria, and this would decimate their armies.
Hitler didn’t really care what the disease would do to regular Italian citizens as they
had betrayed him and he was not a forgiving man.
During Mussolini’s dictatorship, a drainage project on the Pontine Marshes was carried
out to create more usable land for Italian houses and farms.
Everything went according to plan, and the swampland was turned into fertile farmland.
However, Hitler had his forces reverse engineer the Pontine Marshes and make them swamplands
once again.
This provided the perfect breeding ground for Martini’s malaria carrying mosquitoes.
Martini released over a million Anopheles labranchiae mosquito larvae into the swampland.
Then the Nazis added saltwater making it less habitable for plants and animals, but an environment
that the mosquitoes could thrive in.
This form of biological warfare had very little effect on the Allied forces, but was devastating
to the local Italian population.
Once again, Hitler’s bloodthirsty insanity knew no bounds.
Italy’s betrayal of Hitler was complete when on October 13, 1943 General Badoglio
moved to the next phase of his agreement with Eisenhower.
He provided troops and resources to help the Allies retake Rome.
Surprisingly, as the war was coming to an end, Badoglio resigned his position of power.
This took Italy away from the dictatorship government that had gotten them tied up with
the Nazis in the first place, and set the grounds for an Italian future that would be
slightly more peaceful.
The Italian betrayal of Hitler is a tricky thing because of the underlying reasons for
the country joining the Nazis in the first place.
However, due to numerous military failures, the demoralization of the Italian people,
and the turning of the tide of World War II, Italy decided to betray Germany.
This helped the Allies defeat Hitler and the Nazis in the end.
Now check out “What Actually Happened to Nazi Leaders After World War 2?”
Or watch “Most Horrific Crimes - The Italian Mafia.”