Approximately five thousand of the nine thousand surviving Italian soldiers were executed in reprisal by the German forces. The book "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" (US title "Corelli's Mandolin"), by Louis de Bernières, which was later made into a film, is based on this event. While the war ended in central Europe in 1945, Cephalonia remained in a state of conflict due to the Greek Civil War. Peace returned to Greece and the island in 1949.