Benito Mussolini

The destruction of Panzer Armee Afrika left the United Kingdom Eighth Army and the American Seventh Army without a mission.

Italy was a unique blend of old and new at the start of World War II. Her ancient capital of Rome had been the center of the largest Empire antiquity had ever seen, but she had unified her ancestral lands in a great civil war just fifty years before Benito Mussolini was asked to form a government.

Benito Mussolini was the recognized leading dictator of Europe when Hitler was a still a local politician leading a group of thugs against the Weimar Republic. Mussolini had solidified his power across all of Italy through murder, blackmail, and slander campaigns against Italy's press, politicians, and leftists.

The invasion of Sicily was the preliminary step in the invasion of the Italian mainland. The Allies hoped to knock Italy out of the war.