Italy's descent into civil war

11:31am Thursday 1st May 2008

by Laura Wurzel

ITALY'S SORROW: A YEAR OF WAR, 1944-45

James Holland (Harper Press, £25)

Holland's book is a enthralling, detailed, exhaustively researched page-turner. He uses over 50 illuminating eyewitness accounts from Italian civilians and partisans, plus military personnel from both Germany and the Allied forces, to trace Italy's entry into the Second World War and descent into civil war.

Despite an alliance with Italy's Fascist dictator Mussolini, Hitler and the German high command could see that the Italians were very reluctant allies and would probably pull out of the war.

In July 1943, their fears were confirmed. Sicily had fallen, Mussolini was deposed - and Hitler was furious.

To the Germans, Italy became a weak former ally who had stabbed them in the back. To the Allies, the Italians only had themselves to blame and were fair game. Both sides pillaged the people and the Moroccan Goumiers raped and murdered over 3,000 men and women. Many Italians died of starvation, malaria or typhoid.

Anti-Fascist partisan groups grew in Italy and were supported by the local communities. In 1944 Field Marshal Kesselring ordered that for every German killed by a partisan, 10 Italian civilians should be shot.

One such violent campaign occurred in the isolated communities of Monte Sole in the mountains of Emilia-Romagna, where partisan group Stella Rossa worked. A survivor, Cornelia Paselli, described how her family were herded into a small walled cemetery and machine-gunned. Over three days, 772 people were killed and their houses burned.

This book vividly brings to life a Second World War conflict that until now has been largely neglected, but which should not be ignored.

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