Author(s): Roderick Bailey

Military/War

Drawing on long-classified documents, this is the official history of the war waged by Britain's Special Operations Executive on Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy. Told for the very first time, it is a compelling tale of desperate daring and sacrifice, uncovering missions as remarkable as a plot to assassinate Mussolini and plans to arm the Mafia. It climaxes in one of the most extraordinary clandestine episodes of the war: the delicate and dramatic dealings between the Allies and the Italians that led to Italy's surrender in 1943. This is the first full account of SOE's clandestine efforts to strike at Fascist Italy and sever its alliance with Nazi Germany. It is also the first in-depth history of SOE's attempts at causing trouble inside an enemy country as opposed to an enemy-occupied one. As such, it stands as a sobering study of the terrible dangers that foreign agencies can encounter when trying to encourage resistance to secure, if unpopular, authoritarian regimes.