On 19 May also, the headquarters of general Hans Hube's XIV Panzer Corps was also sent from France to strengthen the command structure of the Commander-in-Chief South (Oberbefehlshaber Süd), Field Marshal Albert Kesselring.

More reports about a speech delivered by the Italian diplomat Giuseppe Bastianini, information from Heinrich Himmler's men in Italy and the presence in Sicily of General Mario Roatta, who was considered untrustworthy, strengthened Hitler's suspicions.

Hitler, more and more worried about an Italian collapse, decided to send the 1st Fallschirmjäger-Division to Sicily immediately, and then sent the headquarters of XIV Panzer Corps (under General Hube) and the 29th Panzergrenadier Division, ready for deployment, to Reggio Calabria.

On the same day, Rome was attacked by over 500 Allied bombers, which accelerated maneuvers by monarchists, high military officers, and even part of the Fascist leadership, more and more concerned with finding a way out of the war.

After another conflict with the Italian Supreme Command, which once again menaced to result in armed clashes, the situation was solved by the intervention of Von Rintelen, and the Division advanced without problems towards Gemona, Gorizia, and Opicina; by 2 September it was fully deployed in the Julian March.

The vast majority of the German troops in Sicily, after an effective fighting retreat, managed to cross the Straits of Messina and even to save a great part of the heavy equipment.

After some unrealistic and fruitless attempts by personalities of minor importance (embassy official Blasco Lanza D'Ajeta, Foreign Ministry official Alberto Berio, industrialist Alberto Pirelli) to contact the Allies and start negotiations for an exit of Italy from the war, possibly avoiding the dangerous consequences of a surrender at discretion and a German occupation, on 12 August General Giuseppe Castellano, Ambrosio's counselor, left Rome for Madrid, where he met the British ambassador Sir Samuel Hoare.

The latter informed Churchill and then directed Castellano to Lisbon where, on 17 August, the first meeting with the Allied emissaries, General Walter Bedell Smith and political advisers Kenneth Strong and George F. Kennan, took place.

On 3 September, Castellano and Bedell Smith therefore signed the Armistice of Cassibile, in presence of the representatives of the British and American governments, Harold Macmillan and Robert Daniel Murphy; there was however a grievous mistake about the timing of the announcement of the Italian surrender.

While they failed their objective and caused heavy civilian casualties, the Allied fleets approached the Gulf of Salerno to launch Operation Avalanche (the main landing of the 5th American Army of General Mark W. Clark).

Faced with the clear instructions transmitted by Eisenhower and the first indiscretions leaking on foreign radios about the armistice, the Italian leadership, after heated discussions where Carboni went as far as to propose that they retracted Castellano's actions, finally agreed with Marchesi, who said that they should unavoidably keep the word they had given to the Allies, and confirm the news.

Even in the morning of 8 September, Rahn met the king and the latter reassured him about his decision not to surrender, and in the afternoon Roatta reaffirmed by telephone that news coming from abroad were a propagandist hoax.

Despite the initial surprise, the German response, having been accurately planned and organized in detail, was swift and effective; Hitler, who at 17:00 came back to Rastenburg after spending a few days in Ukraine at the headquarters of Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, soon learned of the armistice from a BBC transmission, and acted with extreme resolve.

Faced with the efficiency of the German units, which immediately demanded surrender or collaboration with threats and intimidations, most of the Italian commanders, also fearful of the impressive reputation of military capacity of the Wehrmacht and many times tired by a lengthy and disliked war, soon abandoned any intent of resistance; with a few exceptions, the troops, left with neither orders nor leaders, often dispersed.

These units comprised about 26,000 men and some hundreds of armored fighting vehicles, and were activated by Kesselring in the evening of 8 September: already at 20:30 they attacked the Mezzocammino fuel depot, and the German paratroopers immediately started advancing south, overcoming sporadic resistance by the Piacenza Division in Lanuvio, Albano Laziale, and Ardea.

After a series of threats and an ultimatum, Westphal obtained the capitulation of Rome by the afternoon of 10 September, after discussions with Generals Carboni and Sorice and Marshal Enrico Caviglia, while German artillery was already firing directly inside the city.

Field Marshal Kesselring, despite being busy with avoiding the isolation of his forces and containing the Allied attacks launched in three different landing areas (Salerno, Apulia and Calabria), still managed to retain control of the situation and to carry out the tasks assigned within the "Achse" plan.

The army, dispersed between France, Piedmont and Liguria, disintegrated between 9 and 11 September, under the pressure of the converging German forces of Field Marshals Gerd von Rundstedt (from Provence) and Erwin Rommel (from Italy).

Italian forces in the Balkans (Slovenia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and Greece) amounted to over 30 divisions and 500,000 soldiers, who had been engaged for two years in waging counter-guerrilla operations against Yugoslav and Greek partisans.

The 24th Infantry Division "Pinerolo", stationed in Thessaly, rejected Vecchiarelli's orders; General Adolfo Infante, after fighting in Larissa, retreated to the Pindus massif, where he tried to obtain collaboration of the ELAS partisans.

At first the Greek partisans agreed, but then they attacked the cavalry Regiment "Lancieri di Aosta" to capture its weapons; Infante left for Italy, and his men were "dispersed among the local population under the guidance of EAM/ELAS in order to be fed and survive the winter" though many were used as forced labour under harsh conditions for the rest of the war, which resulted in the death of several thousand of Italians.

He contacted the Special Operations Executive (SOE) through the division's counter-intelligence officer, arranging that he and members of his staff sympathetic to the Allied cause be smuggled to Egypt along with the defense plans for the east of the island.

Over 6,500 Italian soldiers of the Rhodes garrison died after surrender, most of them in the sinking of the steamers Oria and Donizetti that were carrying them to mainland Greece; Campioni was later executed by Fascist authorities for having defended the island.

The most tragic events took place in the Ionian Islands, namely Corfu and Cephalonia, which the German command considered to be of utmost importance for defense of the Balkan coast against possible Allied landings.

Like their colleagues of the Army, the commanders of the Italian Navy also showed indecision and a lack of capability; the Chief of Staff, Admiral Raffaele de Courten, who had been forewarned of the armistice, remained undecided till the evening of 8 September whether he should comply and surrender the fleet, or order it to be scuttled.

Moreover, till the evening of 8 September De Courten did not inform Admiral Carlo Bergamini, the commander of the Italian main battleship force based in La Spezia, about the armistice.

Immediately thereafter, De Courten joined Badoglio and the king in their escape towards Brindisi, and he thus abandoned his command, leaving behind in Rome his deputy chief of staff, Admiral Luigi Sansonetti.

Among the casualties was Rear Admiral Federico Martinengo, commander of the Italian anti-submarine forces, killed in action onboard submarine chaser VAS 234 during a skirmish with German R boats.

The lack of clear orders to the subordinate commands, the importance given to the personal safety of the leadership and its institutional continuity, even to the detriment of the capability of resistance of the armed forces, led to the disintegration of the units, abandoned without a leader to the German attacks and reprisals despite some instances of valour and fighting spirit.

[12][13][14][15][16] Considered "traitors" due to their refusal to swear allegiance to the Italian Social Republic, the generals were mistreated and underfed; five of them (Alberto de Agazio, Umberto di Giorgio, Davide Dusmet, Armellini Chiappi and Rodolfo Torresan) died during captivity at the camp, whereas Admirals Inigo Campioni and Luigi Mascherpa were handed over to RSI authorities, tried and executed for having opposed the German takeover in the Dodecanese.