Armistice of Cassibile

Document hastened end of World War II for Italy

Watched by Major-General Smith (right),
General Castellano signs the armistice

A secret agreement to end hostilities between Italy and the Allies during World War II was signed at Cassibile in Sicily on this day in 1943.

The Armistice of Cassibile was approved by both King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and Pietro Badoglio, who was the serving Prime Minister of the country at the time. It was signed by Brigade General Giuseppe Castellano for Italy, and Major-General Walter Bedell Smith for the Allies.

The signing took place at a Sicilian military camp that had recently been occupied by the Allies, but the news about the agreement was not announced by Italy for another five days.

Germany responded to the announcement when it was made on September 8 by immediately attacking Italian forces in Italy, southern France, and the Balkans. 

And four days after the news of the armistice was made public, the Germans freed the ousted dictator Benito Mussolini from his captivity in the Hotel Campo Imperatore, which was situated on a remote plateau in the Gran Sasso mountain range in Abruzzo.

Mussolini had been deposed as leader by the Fascist Grand Council and arrested on the orders of Victor Emmanuel III on July 25, before being placed under house arrest at the mountain hotel.

In a daring mission, personally ordered by Adolf Hitler, German paratroopers used gliders to land on the mountain where Mussolini was being kept prisoner. They overwhelmed the Carabinieri officers guarding the dictator in the hotel and were able to take him away with them on a waiting aeroplane.

The freed dictator was flown to Vienna and then on to Munich. He was taken to meet Hitler at his headquarters in Poland, who put him in charge of a puppet state in the German-occupied area of northern Italy.

Pietro Badoglio, Mussolini's former chief
of staff, succeeded him as prime minister

Mussolini was to lead this state from his stronghold in Salò,  a resort on Lake Garda, until 1945, when he was caught by Italian partisans while attempting to escape to Switzerland and was immediately executed.

After the Armistice of Cassibile had been signed, the Germans forcefully disbanded the Italian army in the north and centre of the country. 

The King, members of the Italian government, and most of the Navy, went to southern Italy, where they were under the protection of the Allies, and an Italian resistance movement sprang up in the northern part of Italy that was still being occupied by the Germans.

When the Armistice of Cassibile was signed, the Allies held only Sicily and some minor Italian islands. But the day after the armistice was made public, on September 9, 1943, the Allies landed in Italy at Salerno and Taranto.

The agreement signed at Cassibile was considered to be the shorter version of the whole armistice document.

On September 29, 1943, the longer version of the armistice was signed at Malta between Italy and the Allies. It was ratified by Badoglio and Eisenhower aboard the British battleship HMS Nelson. The agreement included details such as a requirement that Mussolini and his Fascist officials be handed over to the United Nations, and that all Italian land, air, and naval forces must surrender unconditionally. 

The armistice signed at Malta was considered to be the Additional Conditions for the Armistice with Italy and it was known as the Long Armistice by the Italians. For the Allies, it was referred to as the Instrument of Surrender of Italy.

The war between the Allies and the Germans in Italy was to continue until May 1945.

The Allies established an airfield at Cassibile,
although the armistice was signed elsewhere

Travel tip:

Cassibile is a village in the comune - municipality - of Siracusa in Sicily, situated 18km (11 miles) from the city of Siracusa, and 21km (13 miles), from the beautiful Baroque city of Noto. The necropolis of Cassibile, which is spread over the hills on either side of the Cassibile river, consists of hundreds of rock cut chamber tombs dating back to the late Bronze and Iron Ages, about 1000 to 700 BC. In the 1960s, Fontane Bianche, on the Mediterranean Sea, was built as a seaside resort for Cassibile. There are  small railway stations at Cassibile and Fontane Bianche that are served by a single-track line from Siracusa. When operating, services take only a few minutes. Despite its significance in history, Cassibile did not have its own electricity supply until 1951, the arrival of which prompted the population of the village, whose economy was largely based on agriculture, to swell gradually from a few hundred at the time of the armistice to 5,800 at the census of 2001. In front of the church of San Giuseppe, there is a small memorial that commemorates the fallen of Cassibile during World War Two as well as marking the signing of the armistice.

Find accommodation in Cassibile with Hotels.com

Salò's Duomo, the Chiesa di Santa Maria Annunziata,
was built close to the shore of Lake Garda

Travel tip:

Salò, a town on the banks of Lake Garda, in the province of Brescia in Lombardy, has become famous for being the seat of government of the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945, which was the Nazi-backed puppet state run by Benito Mussolini. The dictator lived in what is now the Grand Hotel Feltrinelli in Via Rimembranza in Gargnano. The resort has the longest promenade on Lake Garda and a Duomo, the Chiesa di Santa Maria Annunziata, which was built in Lake Gothic style in the 15th century to a design by the architect Filippo delle Vacche from Caravaggio in Lombardy. A museum - il Museo di Salò, also known as MuSa - opened in 2015 in la Chiesa di Santa Giustina in Via Brunati, which has exhibitions about the history of the town, including its brief period as a republic. Noted residents of Salò include Gasparo di Salò, one of the earliest violin makers, who was born there in 1542, and the 20th century film director Luigi Comencini. The poet, playwright and military leader Gabriele D’Annunzio had an estate a short distance away above the town of Gardone Riviera, with panoramic views over the lake.

Hotels in Salò from Expedia

More reading:

Palermo falls to the Allies at start of invasion

Mussolini removed from power and placed under arrest

Nazis free captive Mussolini in daring raid

Also on this day:

301: The founding of San Marino

1695: The birth of musician Pietro Locatelli

1895: The birth of Fascist ‘turncoat’ Giuseppe Bottai

1950: Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina becomes first F1 world champion

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Giuseppe Bottai - Fascist turncoat

Ex-Mussolini minister who fought with Allies

Giuseppe Bottai met Mussolini for the
first time at a Futurist rally in Rome

Giuseppe Bottai, who served as a minister in the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini but finished the Second World War fighting with the Allies against Germany, was born on this day in 1895 in Rome.

Bottai helped Mussolini establish the National Fascist Party and served as Minister of National Education under Mussolini between 1936 and 1943. He supported Mussolini’s anti-semitic race laws and founded a magazine that promoted the idea of a superior Aryan race.

However, in 1943, following Italy’s disastrous fortunes in the Second World War, he was among the Fascist Grand Council members who voted for Mussolini to be arrested and removed from office.

Later, after Mussolini was freed from house arrest by German paratroopers and established as head of the Italian Social Republic, Bottai was handed a death sentence and hid in a convent before escaping to join the French Foreign Legion, eventually assisting the Allies in both the invasion of France and the invasion of Germany.

The son of a Roman wine dealer, Bottai studied at the Sapienza University of Rome until Italy declared war against Germany and the Central Powers in 1915.  Bottai enlisted in the Royal Italian Army. Wounded in battle, he obtained a Medal of Military Valour.

He met Mussolini at a Futurist meeting in Rome in 1919 and became an enthusiastic supporter of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, the forerunner of the National Fascist Party.  He became a journalist on the party’s newspaper, Il Popolo d’Italia, and took part in the March on Rome in 1922,

Bottai had fought for Mussolini's cause in
Ethiopia yet was eventually an opponent

A member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1924, he was appointed Governor of Rome in 1935 and then Governor of Addis Ababa after resigning his position in Rome to fight in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, entering Addis Ababa alongside General Pietro Badoglio in 1936.

Once the war in Ethiopia was over, Bottai returned to Rome to take up the position as Education Minister. He implemented laws to safeguard Italian heritage and culture and to preserve places of natural beauty.

He also became a Germanophile, regularly voicing his admiration for that country and establishing a magazine that not only supported Hitler’s vision of an Aryan master race but also advocated military intervention in other countries.  He endorsed Italy’s entry into the Second World War on the side of Germany.

Yet in 1943, following the disastrous campaign on the Eastern Front, in which Italian casualties numbered more 116,000, and with Italy facing inevitable defeat, Bottai sided with Dino Grandi’s proposal to the Fascist Grand Council that Mussolini be overthrown.

The humiliated Mussolini was determined to exact revenge and when he was re-established in power as the head of Germany’s puppet state in northern Italy, the Italian Social Republic, death sentences were passed on all those who conspired against him on the Grand Council, including Bottai.

Bottai’s response was to flee Italy and join the French Foreign Legion, giving himself the name Andrea Battaglia.  He took part in Operation Dragoon, the code name for the Allied invasion of southern France, and later the invasion of Germany itself.

Italian soldiers on the battlefield in Ethiopia after Mussolini
sought to expand his empire in northern Africa

He continued to serve in the French Foreign Legion until 1948.  On being discharged, he was allowed to return to Italy under amnesty because of his part in the overthrowing of Mussolini and his active participation in the fight against Hitler.

He returned in Italy in 1953, Bottai founded the periodical ABC and Il Popolo di Roma, financed by another ex-Fascist, Vittorio Cini, who supported centrist and conservative views.

He died in Rome in 1959.  Among those who attended his funeral was Aldo Moro, the progressive Christian Democrat minister who became Bottai's friend and assistant.

The resort town of Salò sits on the shore of Lake Garda

Travel tip:

The Italian Social Republic was also known as the Republic of Salò after Mussolini established his headquarters in a villa in the town of Salò, on the shores of Lake Garda. For all its regrettable association with such a despised figure as Mussolini, it has recovered to become a pleasant resort visited by many tourists each year. Its promenade is the longest of any of the lakeside towns and it has a Duomo rebuilt in Gothic style in the 15th century as well as a museum commemorating, among other things, the resistance against Fascism.

The Piazza San Sepolcro in Milan, where Mussolini
addressed a historic rally in 1919

Travel tip:

The Fascist party is said to have its roots in a rally of the Fasci Italiani di combattimento held in 1919 in the Piazza San Sepolcro in Milan, not far from the Piazza del Duomo.  The square was adjacent to Palazzo Castani, which would be the national headquarters of the Partito Nazional Fascista from 1921 to 1924, and of the Partito Fascista Repubblicano from 1943 to 1945.   During the Roman period the piazza was a forum.  In 1030 the Participants of this rally were known as sansepolcristi, and were granted special privileges under the regime.

More reading:

Why General Pietro Badoglio turned against Mussolini

The Republic of Salò: Mussolini's last stand

The daring raid that freed captive Mussolini

Also on this day:

301: The founding of the Republic of San Marino

1695: The birth of violinist Pietro Locatelli

1950: Giuseppe 'Nino' Farina wins the first Formula One world championship


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Gasparo da Salò – violin maker

Founder of the Brescian school of stringed instrument craftsmen

The bust of Gasparo da Salò in Salò

One of Italy’s earliest violin makers, Gasparo da Salò, died on this day in 1609 in Brescia.

He developed the art of string making to a high level and his surviving instruments are still admired and revered.

Da Salò was born Gasparo Bertolotti in Salò, a resort on Lake Garda in 1542.

His father and uncle were violinists and composers and his cousin, Bernardino, was a violinist at the Este court in Ferrara and at the Gonzaga court in Mantua.

Bertolotti received a good musical education and was referred to as ‘a talented violone player’ in a 1604 document about the music at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo.

Bertolotti moved to Brescia on the death of his father and set up shop in an area where there were other instrument makers.

He became known as Gasparo da Salò and his workshop quickly became one of the most important in Europe for the production of every type of stringed instrument that was played at the time.

An example of a
Gasparo violin

His business was so successful that he was able to acquire land and property and provide financial assistance to members of his family.

It is not known whether da Salò was the first craftsman to produce a violin in its modern form. But he built violins that conform to the measurements of the modern violin and developed instruments with a powerful tone that decades later were studied by Antonio Stradivari. He built violas of different sizes as well as cellos and double basses.

About 80 of his instruments are known to have survived to the present day and are in museums. One of his most famous double basses is in the Basilica of San Marco in Venice.

After his death on 14 April 1609, Gasparo da Salò was recorded as buried at a cemetery in Brescia, but the exact location of his grave is unknown.

Travel tip:

Salò, where Gasparo Bertolotti was born, is on the western shore of Lake Garda. Mussolini formed a short-lived republic there in 1943, but the resort recovered after the World War II to become a popular tourist destination and now has a museum commemorating the resistance against Fascism.

Brescia's elegant Piazza della Loggia

Travel tip:

Brescia in Lombardy, where Gasparo da Salò worked and died, is of artistic and architectural importance. Brescia became a Roman colony before the birth of Christ and you can see remains from the forum, theatre and a temple. The town came under the protection of Venice in the 15th century and there is a Venetian influence in the architecture of the Piazza della Loggia, an elegant square, which has a clock tower similar to the one in Saint Mark’s square. Next to the 17th century Duomo is an older cathedral, the unusually shaped Duomo Vecchio, also known as la Rotonda.

More reading:

Antonio Stradivari - maker of the world's most valuable violins

How the Amati family helped make Cremona famous for violins

Muzio Clementi - father of the piano

Also on this day:

1488: The assassination of Girolamo Riario, papal military leader

1920: The birth of Lamberto Dalla Costa, the fighter pilot who became Italy's first Olympic bobsleigh champion



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