Armistice of Cassibile
The Armistice of Cassibile[1] was an armistice that was signed on 3 September 1943 between Italy and the Allies during World War II. It was made public five days later.
"Italian armistice" redirects here. For the 1918 armistice with Austria-Hungary, see Armistice of Villa Giusti. For the 1940 armistice with France, see Franco-Italian armistice.The armistice of the Italian state to the Allies
3 September 1943
Cassibile, Italy
8 September 1943
Public announcement on 8 September
- Italian High Command
- United Kingdom
- United States
Signed by Major-General Walter Bedell Smith for the Allies and Brigade-General Giuseppe Castellano for Italy, the armistice's signing took place at a summit in an Allied military camp at Cassibile, Sicily, which had recently been occupied by the Allies. The armistice was approved by both Victor Emmanuel III and Marshal Pietro Badoglio, who was serving as Prime Minister of Italy at the time.
Nazi Germany responded by attacking Italian forces in Italy, southern France and the Balkans, and freeing Benito Mussolini on 12 September. The Italian forces were defeated in the north and centre of the country, with most of Italy being occupied by the Germans, who established a puppet state, the Italian Social Republic led by Mussolini. The king, the Italian government and most of the Navy fled to southern Italy under the protection of the Allies. An Italian resistance movement emerged in German-occupied Italy.
Terms[edit]
Badoglio still considered it possible to gain favourable conditions in exchange for the surrender. He ordered Castellano to insist that any surrender of Italy be conditioned on a landing of Allied troops on the Italian mainland. The Allies held only Sicily and some minor islands.
On 31 August, Brigade General Castellano reached Termini Imerese, in Sicily, by plane and was transferred to Cassibile, a town near Syracuse. It soon became evident that the two sides in the negotiations had adopted somewhat distant positions. Castellano pressed the request for the Italian territory to be defended from the inevitable reaction of the German Wehrmacht against Italy after the signing. In return, he received only vague promises, including launching a parachute division over Rome. Moreover, the actions were to be conducted contemporaneously with the signing, not to precede it, as the Italians had wanted.
The following day, Castellano was received by Badoglio and his entourage. Italy's Foreign Minister, Raffaele Guariglia, declared that the Allied conditions were to be accepted. Other generals, such as Giacomo Carboni, maintained that the Army Corps deployed around Rome was insufficient to protect the city because of the lack of fuel and ammunition and that the armistice had to be postponed. Badoglio did not pronounce himself in the meeting. In the afternoon, he appeared before the King, who decided to accept the armistice conditions.
Regia Marina[edit]
Both the Regio Esercito (Italian Royal Army) and the Regia Aeronautica (Italian Royal Air Force) virtually disintegrated with the announcement of the armistice on 8 September. The Allies coveted the Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy), with its 206 ships in total, including the battleships Roma, Vittorio Veneto, and Italia (known as Littorio until July 1943). There was a danger that some of the Navy might fight on, be scuttled, or (most concerningly for the Allies) end up in German hands. As such, the truce called for Italian warships on Italy's west coast, mostly at La Spezia and Genoa, to sail for North Africa and to pass Corsica and Sardinia and for those at Taranto, in the heel of Italy, to sail for Malta.[4]
At 02:30, on 9 September, the three battleships Roma, Vittorio Veneto, and Italia "shoved off from La Spezia escorted by three light cruisers and eight destroyers". When German troops, who had stormed into the town to prevent the defection, became enraged by the ships' escape, "they rounded up and summarily shot several Italian captains who, unable to get their vessels underway, had scuttled them". That afternoon, German bombers attacked the ships sailing without air cover off Sardinia and launching guided bombs. Several ships suffered damage, and Roma sank with the loss of nearly 1,400 men. Most of the remaining ships made it safely to North Africa "while three destroyers and a cruiser which had stopped to rescue survivors, docked in Menorca".
The Navy's turnover proceeded more smoothly in other areas of Italy. When an Allied naval force headed for the large naval base of Taranto, it watched a flotilla of Italian ships sailing out of Taranto Harbour towards their surrender at Malta.[4]
An agreement between the Allies and the Italians in late September provided for some of the Navy to be kept in commission; however, the battleships were to be reduced to care and maintenance and effectively disarmed. Italian mercantile marine vessels were to operate under the same general conditions as the Allies. In all cases, the Italian vessels would retain their Italian crews and fly Italian flags.[5]