Chapter 149:
Chapter 149
“Look at me, Duce…”
“…Yes, Your Majesty…”
“Duce, do you know the situation in Italy right now?”
Mussolini bowed his head and said nothing.
King Victor Emmanuel III had not expressed much dissatisfaction with the Fascist Party’s rule until now.
But now that things had come to this, the king opened his mouth to Mussolini.
“This is ridiculous. Don’t you know that?”
“Yo-Your Majesty!”
“Rome was bombed and burned. In Milan, Naples, Bologna, Turin, there are workers’ protests every day.”
“…”
Mussolini bowed his head deeper. But nothing changed.
Italy had not won a single battle on its own. Italy’s young men had to bury their bones in the Eastern Front, suffering from terrible conditions.
Germany had promised Italy some compensation for dragging it into the war, but instead of compensation, the country was trampled and burned.
“Do you know who is suppressing them right now?”
“…The armed SS, I believe.”
“That’s right! Damn it, this is interference in domestic affairs! Even if they are allies, they can’t trample on the people of another country with their boots! Duce, tell me. Is this reasonable?”
“…”
And the ones who set fire to the country were also the ‘allies’ German troops.
Under the pretext of cooperating in suppressing the rebellion, the SS divisions recruited in Italy brutally crushed the protests of workers and students.
More people died by the hands of the German troops than by the Soviet bombers that came from Yugoslavia.
Mussolini, the culprit of this disaster, had been half-invalid for a while.
“The economy, the army, the cities of Italy, all shattered. The people hate you. Even the Fascists have given up on you. Do you know what the officers and soldiers told me when they came to me?”
“…”
“‘Mussolini is not the one! We need a new leader!’ That’s what the Blackshirts who made you prime minister said.”
“Your Majesty… Have you made a decision?”
Mussolini looked up at the king with a choked throat, and Victor Emmanuel III nodded.
“Yes. Resign. For Italy… and for the people.”
“…I understand.”
“Don’t be too sad. I’ll follow you soon.”
“Excuse me?”
The king spoke with a determined face, but with a calm and casual tone. As if he was talking about the weather tomorrow.
“I’m also a sinner who appointed you and finally approved the war. How can I be safe? Fortunately, the Communist Party said they would peacefully transfer power and end the war if they guaranteed the lives of me and my family.”
“I’m sorry… Your Majesty, I’m really sorry…”
“See you… next time.”
Mussolini slowly retreated from the palace with a staggering walk.
Victor Emmanuel III slowly lifted the crown above his head and put it on the side table.
“It’s all over now.”
Now the war in Italy was over. It had to end.
The Soviet Union secretly contacted Italy and proposed that if Italy peacefully transferred power and expelled Mussolini and the Fascist Party, it would ease the harsh treatment of the defeated country as much as possible.
Victor Emmanuel, who could not see the people being held responsible for the wrong choices of the politicians, agreed to the proposal.
He wouldn’t have done it otherwise…
‘Please… not the mainland becoming a battlefield…’
The Soviet and Yugoslav liberation armies occupied the major ports on the other side of the Adriatic Sea, the Dalmatian coast. Ports like Dubrovnik were now in the hands of the Soviets.
The Turkish and Greek garrisons surrendered, and the German fleet that should have dominated the Mediterranean was busy fighting the American fleet in the Atlantic.
The Soviet troops crossing the Adriatic Sea could burn the Italian mainland to ashes.
He could not repeat the tragedy of the old Italy, which was ruined by the clashes of foreign powers.
The foreign troops, the German troops, were already trampling on the Italian people and taking away the precious materials to their battlefields.
“Bring me my suit! And prepare the speech!”
***
“Long live Italy! Long live! Foreigners, go away!”
“Death to the Fascists! Drive out the German troops!”
In the major cities of northern Italy, Turin, Milan, Bologna, Venice, there were protests every day.
The Fascist regime in Italy was losing popularity and losing control over the regions.
Even the Fascists in each region turned their backs on Mussolini, and the king appointed a new prime minister and declared to end the war.
But Germany never ignored it.
The armed SS, who had been stationed under the pretext of suppressing the protests, brutally killed the workers who were instigating the strike.
And when Italy showed signs of withdrawing from the war, the German Defense Army retreated strategically from the Balkan Peninsula and entered the Italian mainland.
They fired at the protesters without hesitation, unlike the Italian army who hesitated to shoot at their own people, their fellow citizens.
“Traitors! His Majesty the King, God, and the Virgin Mary bless us. Cavalry, bayonet!”
Clang! The cavalrymen attached their swords to their guns. The serrated blades sparkled in the faint winter sunlight.
Fascism was based on centralization and obedience to the orders of the superiors, but not all Fascists agreed with the king’s declaration.
They claimed that Mussolini was imprisoned by the rebels, and that the king was coerced into making the declaration.
The new prime minister who seized Rome, Marshal Badoglio, was a national traitor under the control of the Soviet Union, and they refused to obey his orders.
“For the Duce! Charge!”
“Wow! Long live Italy! Glory to Rome!”
Their true motive was probably the fear that they would lose their power in the new world, but at least they were brave enough when facing the unarmed ‘thugs’.
The workers who had taken to the streets with red flags and placards with slogans began to crumble under the cavalry charge and the army’s gunfire.
“Ahh!”
“Sa-save me!”
Red blood splattered on the square.
The blood of innocent citizens.
But that could not quell the growing discontent of the people.
Italy had already lost hundreds of thousands of lives in the First World War, but received no decent compensation and suffered only losses.
They cooperated with Hitler’s megalomania, hoping to restore the glory of Rome, and lost tens of thousands more, only to end up losing all the Balkan territories. The people took to the streets to impeach the regime and start a demo.
“Germany, go away, Germans, get out!”
“Advance under the international flag! Advance and advance!”
The Communist Partisans now gathered in the cities, armed and ready to confront the suppression forces. Thousands of young people and workers voluntarily joined the Partisan army and began to resist.
But the German army was not weak, even though they were losing on the Eastern Front.
“Is that… really okay? My Führer?”
“What did you hear me say? Go and do your duty.”
Air Force Marshal Albert Kesselring pondered what he had just heard as he ran out.
“Attack Italy?”
He knew well that the German army was suppressing the protests that were occurring locally. But an attack?
The Führer was furious that Victor Emmanuel III had deposed Mussolini and formed a new cabinet to negotiate with the Allies.
He ordered to rescue Mussolini and restore Italy, but Kesselring wondered if that order made any sense.
“The whole front is full of holes…”
Baltic, Belarus, Ukraine, Hungary… All these fronts were retreating. At least in the Atlantic, the US was distracted by pushing Japan back and fought a fierce battle, but there was no room to pull out the fleet and suppress the Mediterranean.
And then he ordered to mobilize more troops and advance to Italy?
The Italian army was, sorry to say, a terrible weakling, a rabble. They were no help at all, but they took the supplies as they pleased, making them nothing but a burden.
It was not a good choice to wage war in the Italian territory across the Alps.
It wouldn’t help the Soviet Union anyway, and if they wanted to stab the ‘soft underbelly’ in the south, they could just advance from the Balkans that they had already opened.
“Damn it… This is totally…”
A mess. But he couldn’t do nothing.
If Italy, the ally of the Axis Three, withdrew, what would the other Axis countries think? Would the Vichy France government, Spain, Portugal, just watch and let it go?
Or would they see it as a good opportunity to withdraw from the war?
Germany’s industry was now largely dependent on the allied countries. Ammunition produced in French factories, steel produced in Spain, tungsten mined in Portugal, all became weapons for the German army heading to the Eastern Front.
The Eastern European allies mainly provided manpower, and the Western European allies mainly provided industrial capacity and materials, but now the Eastern European barrier was completely collapsed.
He had to keep what was left, even if he had to pour out the troops and stop Italy’s escape, and set up a puppet government to control them, but the Soviet army pushing from the Eastern Front made that impossible.
“And how the hell am I supposed to save Mussolini?”
The half-witted intelligence agency somehow managed to find out that the new Italian government had locked Mussolini in some mountain valley in the Alps.
‘But where is that?’
But they didn’t know the exact location. The Brandenburg special forces and the elite paratroopers who went to capture Tito were all killed or captured.
There was a rumor that Otto Skorzeny, the joker that the Führer wielded, was arrested on the spot and taken to Moscow to be tortured.
This one or that one. Kesselring spat out a low curse.
He could just pick a fascist bastard and make him a figurehead, but it was absurd to be dragged into this kind of battlefield in the first place.
Fortunately, the Führer, though he ordered some crazy things, guaranteed his autonomy within them. Just as Model received the authority in the East, he also guaranteed him the authority in Italy.
He didn’t know when he would flip over with that hysteria.
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