World War II Partisan Warfare in Italy

Pier Paolo Battistelli earned his PhD in Military History at the University of Padua. A scholar of German and Italian politics and strategy throughout World War II, he is active in Italy and abroad writing titles and essays on military history subjects.Piero Crociani acts as a consultant for the Italian Army Historical Branch and is the author of several articles, essays and books on Italian military history. Amongst his published words are The Albanians in the Italian Armed Forces (Rome, 2001) and The Neapolitan Army 1806–15 (Milan, 1987).Peter Dennis was born in 1950. Inspired by contemporary magazines such as Look and Learn he studied illustration at Liverpool Art College. Peter has since contributed to hundreds of books, predominantly on historical subjects, including many Osprey titles.

• Introduction: Italian surrender and German occupationGerman organizationFrom early resistance to partisan warfarePeak of operations: collapse of RSI army security forces and mobilization of Fascist Party ‘Black Brigades’ – SS take over from Wehrmacht – creation of partisan CVT command, and ‘free zones’ – partisans fight with Allied troops – resistance in Florence – the struggle on the Franco-Italian border /Crisis of September 1944–March 1945: major anti-partisan operations – deployment of German combat units against partisansThe Allies and the partisansFinal uprisingThe ‘operational zones’: the NW Italo-French and NE Italo-Yugoslav frontiersEquipment, tactics, and assessment of Italian partisan groupsEquipment, tactics and assessment of German and Italian Fascist anti-partisan forcesBibliographyIndex

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