page_title: World War II by country
section_title: Italy
hierarchical_section_title: World War II by country / Italy
caption_attribution_description: Information added by Wikimedia users.Italiano: Soldati italiani fatti prigionieri dai tedeschi a Corfù dopo l'Otto Settembre 1943. Foto di propaganda di guerra nazista proveniente dal "Deutsches Bundesarchiv", nel settembre/ottobre 1943. Ελληνικά: Ιταλοί στρατιώτες, αιχμάλωτοι πολέμου των Γερμανών μετά την ιταλική συνθηκολόγηση στις 8 Σεπτεμβρίου 1943, κάνουν πορεία σε επαρχιακό δρόμο στην Κέρκυρα. Φωτογραφία της ναζιστικής προπαγάνδας, Σεπτέμβριος / Οκτώβριος 1943
context_page_description: Almost every country in the world participated in World War II. Most were neutral at the beginning, but only a few nations remained neutral to the end. The Second World War pitted two alliances against each other, the Axis powers and the Allied powers; the U.S having served 16 million men, Germany serving 13 million, the Soviet Union serving 35 million and Japan serving 6 million. With millions serving in other countries, an estimated 300 million soldiers saw combat. A total of 72 million people died with the lowest estimate being 40 million dead and the highest estimate being 120 million dead. The leading Axis powers were Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Japan; while the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, were the "Big Four" Allied powers.
  The countries involved or affected by World War II are listed here alphabetically, with a description of their role in the conflict.
context_section_description: Italy had completed conquests (Ethiopia and Albania) prior to its entry into World War II. After the initially successful campaigns of Nazi Germany, Italy joined in the war in June 1940, planning to get a share of Allied territory with the defeat of France.
  The Italians bombed Mandatory Palestine, invaded Egypt and occupied British Somaliland with initial success. A friendly Fascist regime had been installed in Spain, and a puppet regime installed in Croatia following the Invasion of Yugoslavia. Albania, Ljubljana, coastal Dalmatia, and Montenegro had been directly annexed into the Italian state. Most of Greece had been occupied by Italy (despite initial defeat), as had the French territories of Corsica and Tunisia following Vichy France's collapse and Case Anton. However, after the German-Italian defeat in Africa and Eastern Front, the Allies started to invade Italy in the summer of 1943 and Mussolini's government collapsed.
  The new royal government of Marshal Pietro Badoglio signed an armistice with the allies, but most of the country was quickly occupied by the Germans, who established a puppet government under Mussolini in the north, the Italian Social Republic (also known as the Salò Republic, from its headquarters). Badoglio and King Victor Emmanuel III escaped to Brindisi without giving any order to the army, which was left in chaos and without leadership: some divisions surrendered to the Germans, other fought back on their own.
  The royal government remained in control of the south and declared war on Germany; the military forces it still controlled joined the Allies in a position of co-belligerence. It was eventually re-established as the government of all of Italy shortly before the end of the war in the spring of 1945, when partisan uprisings liberated northern Italy. Italy would become a member of NATO after the war, but lost the region of Istria and the Dalmatian city of Zadar to Yugoslavia, and all its colonies excluding Somalia.
caption: Italian soldiers taken prisoner by the Germans on Corfu in the wake of the Massacre of the Acqui Division, September 1943.
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