For educational purposes
Even as Italian dictator Benito Mussolini struggled in vain to extract his country from World War II.
Adolf Hitler prepared to send the German Army to fully occupy Italy, he had little confidence in his Italian ally.
Winston Churchill hoped to knock Italy out of the war in order to keep the Russians from gaining the upper hand while carving up the post-war pie.
Franklin Roosevelt, bent on ending the war quickly, believed the only solution was an incursion into occupied France, invading Italy seemed wasteful and pointless.
Stalin's priorities lay far to the East. Hitler eyed these rifts widening between his enemies and waited for his chance to exploit them.
On the ravaged shores of newly won northern Africa, the Allies prepared to launch a devastating attack across the sea.
The first objective would be the rugged island of Sicily, from whose shores they could dominate the entire Mediterranean, the crowning glory would be Italy itself.
The aim was to conquer Rome and thus end Italy's participation in the war, then advance further towards Austria in order to be able to exert pressure on the Reich from the south.
But Hitler's ruthless armies, abetted by the breathtakingly savage Italian landscape, refused to give up their glittering prize without a bitter, bloody struggle.
The campaign began in July 1943 with the landings in Sicily, and the fighting in Italy lasted almost to the end of the war, the overcoming of the Gustav Line and the liberation of Rome are now considered the real end of the campaign.
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