The repeated political turmoil in Italy has made the entire world war full of variables.

After the initial secret surrender of Bardolio, the Italian army officers and soldiers stationed in northern Italy, which the Germans occupied, and some Italian civilians, began to organize partisan units to carry out military operations against the Germans and those fascist forces still following Mussolini.

They made contact with the Allies and the Bardolio political axe south of Rome. In order to deal with the German occupation and Mussolini's political axe, the Italians were in a brutal atmosphere of internal evidence, assassination and massacre

And the surrender of the Bardolio political axe took its hundreds of thousands of troops in the Balkans completely unexpected; Many of the troops were caught between the local partisans and the Germans who were trying to take revenge, and thus put themselves in a very dangerous situation.

The more than 7,000 Italian garrisons on Corfu were almost all annihilated by their former allies. The Italian troops on the island of Kefalonia resisted until October 22. None were killed, many were shot, and the rest were exiled to other places.

Some of the garrisons of the Aegean islands attempted to flee to Egypt in small groups.

A number of Italian detachments in Albania, the Dalmatian coast and Yugoslavia took part in local partisan detachments. More frequently, they are sent to forced labour and officers are shot.

In addition to the frontal battlefield, the Allies faced constant defeats under the continuous attacks of the Medium [***] team, so the Allies urgently needed to counterattack this operation. The solution was to do everything possible to strengthen the authority of the exiled Italian king and Bardolio, in addition to strengthening military operations. This would enable them to faithfully honour the armistice to the best of their ability to surrender the fleet which they still had control.

In addition, for military reasons, it was necessary to mobilize and concentrate all the forces in Italy that were eager to fight against the German army, or at least to resist and obstruct it.

These forces are already actively active.

Thus, the British and American heads of state issued a declaration:

"The three countries of Great Britain, the United States and France recognize the position of the Kingdom of Italy as declared by Marshal Bardoglio, and accept the active cooperation of the Italian State and the armed forces as a common belligerent in the war against Germany. The military events since October 8 and the brutality of the Germans against the Italian population finally led to the declaration of war by Italy against Germany, which in fact made Italy a common belligerent. On this basis, the political axes of the United States, Britain, and France will continue to work together with the Italian political axe, which recognizes the Italian political axe's promise to obey the will of the Italian people after expelling the Chinese and Germans from Italy. It is self-evident that the absolute and full freedom of the Italian people, by constitutional means, to decide the last form of government they wish to be boiled, must not be compromised in any way. ”

The surrender of the Italian Bardolio Axe would have given the Allies the opportunity to obtain important loot in the Aegean Sea at a very small cost and effort.

The Italian garrison, with the exception of a few hardcore troops who followed Mussolini, were overwhelmingly subordinate to the orders of the King of Italy and Marshal Bardolio.

If the Allies were able to reach their positions before the Italian garrisons were disarmed by the German forces on the islands, the Italian troops would have surrendered.

The local German army was much smaller in number, but not so long ago the Germans doubted the loyalty of their allies and prepared countermeasures.

The three islands of Rhodes, Leros and Kos, were important fortresses of Hitler and Mussolini and had long been an important strategic target for the Allies, and Rhodes was the key to this group of islands because of its good airfields. If the island were acquired, the British and U.S. air forces would be able to take off from there to defend other islands that the Allies might occupy, and would give the Allied navies complete control over the seas. In order to reverse the unfavorable situation in the Aegean Sea, at the end of October, with the assistance of British sea destroyers and submarines, the three battalions of the Army occupied the islands of Kos, Leros and Samos, respectively, while a number of small detachments landed on the other islands.

Strategically speaking, Kos is another important island in addition to Rhodes. It's just that there is an airfield on the island, from which Allied fighters can operate!

Therefore, the island naturally became the primary target of the Chinese and German counteroffensives, and from October 18 onwards, it became the target of frequent air raids.

Allied reconnaissance planes reported that a German convoy was approaching, and at dawn on October 11, German airborne troops, suddenly landing at the central airfield, repelled the defenders of the island, and thus reoccupied the island of Kos.

On the very day of the fall of Kos, the British Admiralty ordered a powerful naval reinforcement, including five cruisers, to sail from Malta to the Aegean Sea.

They showed their might soon after they arrived. On October 18, a German convoy carrying reinforcements to Kos Island was destroyed by naval and air forces.

A few days later, the Navy sank two more German transport ships. However, the long-range fighters retreated on the 19th.

Since then, the Navy has once again faced the same situation as it had been encountered in the Cretan campaign two years earlier.

The Axis armies had air supremacy, while the Allied ships were only active at night to avoid heavy losses.

The retreat of the fighters decided the fate of Leros Island. The Germans, almost without serious disturbances, were able to continue to gather forces using scattered small fleets. On the morning of November 1, the Sino-German forces, under the cover of a powerful naval fleet, landed simultaneously at the northeastern tip of the island and in the bay southeast of Leros. The coalition assault on the city was initially repulsed, but by the afternoon of the same day, 600 Chinese paratroopers landed on the isthmus between Arlen Bay and Garna Bay, thus cutting the British line in two.

Great efforts were made to recapture this isthmus.

In the final stage, the 2nd Regiment of the Royal West Kent, stationed on the island of Samos, was sent to Leros, but it was too late. They themselves fell victim to the Chinese.

The three battalions of defenders on the island, who did not have much air support of their own, were subjected to heavy bombardment by enemy aircraft; They fought hard until the night of November 16, when they were finally forced to retreat because of the disparity in numbers.

Now that Leros has fallen, all Allied hopes in the Aegean Sea have been dashed for the time being

The British immediately managed to retreat the few garrisons on Samos and other islands, as well as rescue the remnants of the troops from Leros. More than 1,000 British and Greek troops were withdrawn

However, this time the navies of the allies suffered serious losses. Six destroyers and two submarines were sunk by enemy aircraft and mines, four more cruisers and four destroyers were damaged.

These losses were shared by the Greek Navy, who always took part in the battles.

And the Allied military operations on land did not go very smoothly.

When the British and American troops heard the news of Badolio's surrender on the radio, many soldiers thought that tomorrow's combat operation would be easy, but in fact it was the opposite.

Clark's troops began to land in Salerno. Despite the night bombardment of German positions and the strong artillery support of the ships, the Fifth Army met strong resistance from the Germans.

For the first time, Chinese naval aviation participating in the war used remote-controlled guided gliding bombs to carry out surprise attacks on Allied artillery support ships.

On the first day of landing, the Allies captured only a small foothold, and it was not until the 11th that Salerno was captured and a landing ground was established. Due to the extremely slow movement of the Allied forces, the Sino-German high command was able to mobilize the forces of two divisions and launch a fierce counterattack in the Salerno area on the 13th, forcing the Allied forces to retreat and dividing them into two parts.

The Allies were already in danger of defeat. At the same time, the British carried out a successful assault on Taranto in southern Italy.

Taking advantage of the announcement of Italy's surrender, Alexander selected 6,000 soldiers from the British 1st Airborne Division to go to Taranto on a seemingly risky mission.

Due to the lack of transport aircraft, this airborne force had to sail directly into the port from the sea by warship, and soon occupied this large harbor that could be used by an army group.

In late October, Hitler took the advice of Marshal Chiang Baili and reversed his original decision on Italian strategy.

He ordered his army to go as far south as possible. The battle line he chosen, the so-called "winter front", began behind the Sangro River on the Adriatic coast, crossed the rugged ridges of Italy, and extended to the mouth of the Garigliano River on the west coast!

Italy's natural features are steep mountains and fast-flowing rivers, making this mile-deep position very fortified.

For a year, the Germans had been retreating almost non-stop from Africa, Sicily and southern Italy, and then, having received full help from the Chinese, they happily turned around and killed the rifles.

Although the onset of winter would have seriously hampered the Allied operations, the main strategic decisions made at the Quebec Conference benefited from the fact that the Germans were deeply entangled in the Italian battlefield.

By this time, the balance of forces between the enemy and us had changed greatly in the Italian battlefield.

In the south, 11 Allied divisions were pitted against 9 German divisions, while about 15 more divisions of the Squadron [***] were ready to enter the battle at any moment, with a known total of 24 divisions, perhaps as many as 28 divisions.

Mussolini was also intensifying his search for stragglers and conscripts, and the Coalition forces had enough lines of communication to gather a total of about 60 divisions in Italy, mainly in the north.

The Germans were clearly going to form a reserve army. This reserve could be used to further reinforce their army in Italy.

In contrast, the position of the Allies was not so favorable. The maximum number of troops they could use in Italy was 12 divisions at the end of October, 13 divisions at the end of November, and 14 to 15 divisions at the end of December.

What's even worse is that the Chinese are already preparing to organize a major battle in Europe before the end of this year that is enough to change the final direction of the war!

(To be continued)