title: Iranian rial

text: In 2012, Bank Markazi classified a long list of goods into categories with priorities 1 through 10, leaving it to the parallel market to take of all other needs. Priorities 1 and 2 are food and medicine, receiving foreign exchange at the official rate of Rls 12,260 per dollar, followed by other categories with lower priorities, which are mostly intermediate goods used in industrial production.


title: Iranian rial

text: Because of the current low value of rial, and that people rarely use the term, redenomination or change of currency has been proposed a number of times since the late 1980s. The issue has re-emerged and been under discussion, as a result of issuance of larger banknotes in 2003. Opponents of redenomination are wary of more inflation resulting from psychological effects, and increase in velocity of money leading to more instabilities in the economy of Iran.


title: Iranian rial

text: On April 12, 2007, the Economics Commission of the Parliament announced initiation of a statute in draft to change the currency, claiming redenominations had helped reduce inflation elsewhere, such as in Turkey. In 2008, an official at the Central Bank of Iran said the bank plans to slash four zeros off the rial and rename it the toman. The bank printed two new traveller's cheques, which function quite similar to a banknote, with values of Rls 500,000 and Rls 1,000,000. However, they have the figures "50" (should read 50 thousand toman) and "100" (should read 100 thousand toman) written on their top right hand corners, respectively, which is seen as the first step toward a new currency.


title: Iranian rial

text: In 2010, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran would remove three zeros (not the four that had been proposed) from its national currency as part of the economic reform plan.


title: Iranian rial

text: In April 2011, it was reported that the Central Bank is working on a six-month redenomination project to cut four zeros from the national currency and replace old bank notes with new ones, similar to the revaluation of the Turkish lira in 2005.


title: Iranian rial

text: A website to poll the public on the redenomination plan was launched July 21, 2011; the public was allowed to vote on how many zeroes to cut and what the new currency's name should be. Preliminary results indicate that four zeroes would be cut (in line with the government's recommendation) and that the name will be changed to Parsi.


title: Iranian rial

text: In 2016, the government announced its plan to end the official status of the rial, replacing it with the commonly used unit the "toman" (which represents 10 rials).


title: Iranian rial

text: In July 2019, the Iranian government approved a bill to change the national currency from the rial to the toman with one toman equalling Rls 10, a process which will reportedly cost $160 million. This proposal was approved by the Iranian parliament in May 2020. The changeover is likely to be phased over a period of up to two years.


title: Iranian rial

text: It was reported in 2007 that a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan had been authorized to manipulate the Iranian rial in order to destabilize the country, though the details and outcome of said plan are not known. Iran reported arresting 20 "Forex manipulators" in 2012.


title: Iranian rial

text: In 2013, talking about the sanctions against Iran, US Senator Carl Levin said that "Iranian Rial banknotes are printed in Europe".


title: Iranian rial

text: During the late 18th and early 19th century, silver coins were issued in denominations of , , and 1 rial.


title: Iranian rial

text: The first coins of the second rial currency, introduced in 1932, were in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10 and 25 dinars, Rl , Rl 1, Rls 2 and Rls 5, with the Rls  to Rls 5 coins minted in silver. Gold coins denominated in "pahlavi" were also issued, initially valued at Rls 100. In 1944, the silver coinage was reduced in size, with the smallest silver coins being the Rls 1 pieces. Minting of all denominations below 25 dinars ended in this year. In 1945, silver Rls 10 coins were introduced. In 1953, silver coins ceased to be minted, with the smallest denomination now 50 dinars. Rls 20 coins were introduced in 1972.


title: Iranian rial

text: After the Islamic Revolution, the coinage designs were changed to remove the Shah's effigy but the sizes and compositions were not immediately changed. 50 dinar coins were only minted in 1979 and Rls 50 coins were introduced in 1980. In 1992, a new coinage was introduced with smaller Rls 1, Rls 5, Rls 10 and Rls 50 coins and new Rls 100 pieces. Rls 250 coins were introduced the following year. In 2004, the sizes of the Rls 50, Rls 100 and Rls 250 coins were reduced and Rls 500 coins were introduced. New, smaller types of Rls 250 and Rls 500 were introduced in 2009, along with the new denomination of Rls 1,000. Rls 2,000 and Rls 5,000 rial coins in 2010.


title: Iranian rial

text: In 1932, notes were issued by the "Bank Melli Iran" in denominations of Rls 5, Rls 10, Rls 20, Rls 50, Rls 100 and Rls 500. Rls 1,000 notes were introduced in 1935, followed by Rls 200 notes in 1951 and Rls 5,000 and Rls 10,000 in 1952. Rls 5 notes were last issued in the 1940s, with Rls 10 notes disappearing in the 1960s. In 1961, the Central Bank of Iran took over the issuance of paper money.


title: Iranian rial

text: In 1979, after the Islamic revolution, Iranian banknotes featuring the Shah's face were counter-stamped with intricate designs to cover the Shah's face. The first regular issues of the Islamic Republic were in denominations of Rls 100, Rls 200, Rls 500, Rls 1,000, Rls 5,000 and Rls 10,000. Rls 2,000 notes were introduced in 1986.


title: Iranian rial

text: They are issued by the Central Bank of Iran, each bearing the signature of the President of the Iranian Central Bank. The Rls 100, Rls 200 and Rls 500 banknotes are becoming increasingly uncommon; shopkeepers habitually give out small packages of gum in lieu of the last Rls 500 of change. For day to day means people will carry wads of Rls 100,000 notes.


title: Iranian rial

text: In preparation for an upcoming redenomination whereby Rls 10,000 will become one toman, notes of this series display the numerical value in tomans as well as rials (the latter with the trailing four zeros de-emphasized). Due to a shortage of paper currency, higher denominations have been issued as cheques rather than legal tender banknotes.


title: Iranian rial

text: Printing banknotes larger than Rls 10,000 was first proposed in 1989, and in 1992 the central bank asked for government permission to print Rls 20,000, Rls 50,000 and Rls 100,000 notes. This was not realized at that time, due to fears of inflation and counterfeiting. The Rls 10,000 note remained the highest valued banknote for more than 50 years until 2005, when a Rls 20,000 banknote was introduced and subsequently a Rls 50,000 banknote was introduced with the subject being the Iranian nuclear energy program. The note was issued March 12. The note features a quote by the prophet Mohammed, translated as: "Even if knowledge is at the Pleiades, the people from the land of Persia would attain it".


title: Iranian rial

text: Banknotes currently in circulation are Rls 100, Rls 200, Rls 500, Rls 1,000, Rls 2,000, Rls 5,000, Rls 10,000, Rls 20,000, Rls 50,000 and Rls 100,000. After the death of Ruhollah Khomeini, his portrait was used on the obverse of Rls 1,000 banknotes and greater.


title: Iranian rial

text: Currently the highest valued legal tender banknote issued by the central bank is Rls 100,000 (about US$2.38 on Apr. 13, 2018). However Rls 500,000 and Rls 1,000,000 Iran Cheques circulate freely and are treated as cash.


title: Iranian rial

text: The central bank used to allow major state banks to print their own banknotes known as "cash cheques". They were a form of bearer teller's-cheque with fixed amounts, printed in the form of official banknotes. Once they were acquired from banks, they could function like cash for a year. Two forms of these banknotes were available. One known as "Iran cheque" could be cashed in any financial institution, while the other could be cashed at the issuing bank. They were printed in denominations of Rls 200,000, Rls 500,000, Rls 1,000,000, Rls 2,000,000 and Rls 5,000,000.


title: Iranian rial

text: In 2008, CBI revoked this privilege from banks, and currently issues its own Iran Cheques in denominations of Rls 500,000 and Rls 1,000,000.


title: Iranian rial

text: Security Paper Mill (called TAKAB) is a paper mill and a subsidiary of the Central Bank of Iran responsible for production of security papers, including those of the Iranian rial banknotes located in the city of Amol.


title: Military history of Italy during World War II

text: The participation of Italy in the Second World War was characterized by a complex framework of ideology, politics, and diplomacy, while its military actions were often heavily influenced by external factors. Italy joined the war as one of the Axis Powers in 1940, as the French Third Republic surrendered, with a plan to concentrate Italian forces on a major offensive against the British Empire in Africa and the Middle East, known as the "parallel war", while expecting the collapse of British forces in the European theatre. The Italians bombed Mandatory Palestine, invaded Egypt and occupied British Somaliland with initial success. However the war carried on and German and Japanese actions in 1941 led to the entry of the Soviet Union and United States, respectively, into the war, thus foiling the Italian plan of forcing Britain to agree to a negotiated peace settlement.


text: The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was aware that Fascist Italy was not ready for a long conflict, as its resources were reduced by successful but costly pre-WWII conflicts: the pacification of Libya (which was undergoing Italian settlement), intervention in Spain (where a friendly fascist regime had been installed), and the invasion of Ethiopia and Albania. However, he opted to remain in the war as the imperial ambitions of the Fascist regime, which aspired to restore the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean (the "Mare Nostrum"), were partially met by late 1942. By this point, Italian influence extended throughout the Mediterranean.


text: With the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia and the Balkans, Italy annexed Ljubljana, Dalmatia and Montenegro, and established the puppet states of Croatia and Greece. Following Vichy France's collapse and the Case Anton, Italy occupied the French territories of Corsica and Tunisia. Italian forces had also achieved victories against insurgents in Yugoslavia and in Montenegro, and Italo-German forces had occupied parts of British-held Egypt on their push to El-Alamein after their victory at Gazala.


text: However, Italy's conquests were always heavily contested, both by various insurgencies (most prominently the Greek resistance and Yugoslav partisans) and Allied military forces, which waged the Battle of the Mediterranean throughout and beyond Italy's participation. The country's imperial overstretch (opening multiple fronts in Africa, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean) ultimately resulted in its defeat in the war, as the Italian empire collapsed after disastrous defeats in the Eastern European and North African campaigns. In July 1943, following the Allied invasion of Sicily, Mussolini was arrested by order of King Victor Emmanuel III, provoking a civil war. Italy's military outside of the Italian peninsula collapsed, its occupied and annexed territories falling under German control. Under Mussolini's successor Pietro Badoglio, Italy capitulated to the Allies on 3 September 1943, although Mussolini would be rescued from captivity a week later by German forces without meeting resistance. On 13 October 1943, the Kingdom of Italy officially joined the Allied Powers and declared war on its former Axis partner Germany.


text: The northern half of the country was occupied by the Germans with the cooperation of Italian fascists, and became a collaborationist puppet state (with more than 800,000 soldiers, police, and militia recruited for the Axis), while the south was officially controlled by monarchist forces, which fought for the Allied cause as the Italian Co-Belligerent Army (at its height numbering more than 50,000 men), as well as around 350,000 Italian resistance movement partisans (many of them ex-Royal Italian Army soldiers) of disparate political ideologies operated all over Italy. On 28 April 1945, Mussolini was assassinated by Italian partisans at Giulino, two days before Hitler's suicide. Unlike Germany and Japan, no war crimes tribunals were held for Italian military and political leaders, though the Italian resistance summarily executed some political members at the end of the war.


text: During the late 1920s, the Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini spoke with increasing urgency about imperial expansion, arguing that Italy needed an outlet for its "surplus population" and that it would therefore be in the best interests of other countries to aid in this expansion. The immediate aspiration of the regime was political "hegemony in the Mediterranean–Danubian–Balkan region", more grandiosely Mussolini imagined the conquest "of an empire stretching from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Strait of Hormuz". Balkan and Mediterranean hegemony was predicated by ancient Roman dominance in the same regions. There were designs for a protectorate over Albania and for the annexation of Dalmatia, as well as economic and military control of Yugoslavia and Greece. The regime also sought to establish protective patron–client relationships with Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, which all lay on the outside edges of its European sphere of influence. Although it was not among his publicly proclaimed aims, Mussolini wished to challenge the supremacy of Britain and France in the Mediterranean Sea, which was considered strategically vital, since the Mediterranean was Italy's only conduit to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.


text: In 1935, Italy initiated the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, "a nineteenth-century colonial campaign waged out of due time". The campaign gave rise to optimistic talk on raising a native Ethiopian army "to help conquer" Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The war also marked a shift towards a more aggressive Italian foreign policy and also "exposed [the] vulnerabilities" of the British and French. This in turn created the opportunity Mussolini needed to begin to realize his imperial goals. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out. From the beginning, Italy played an important role in the conflict. Their military contribution was so vast, that it played a decisive role in the victory of the rebel forces led by Francisco Franco. Mussolini had engaged in "a full-scale external war" due to the insinuation of future Spanish subservience to the Italian Empire, and as a way of placing the country on a war footing and creating "a warrior culture". The aftermath of the war in Ethiopia saw a reconciliation of German-Italian relations following years of a previously strained relationship, resulting in the signing of a treaty of mutual interest in October 1936. Mussolini referred to this treaty as the creation of a Berlin-Rome Axis, which Europe would revolve around. The treaty was the result of increasing dependence on German coal following League of Nations sanctions, similar policies between the two countries over the conflict in Spain, and German sympathy towards Italy following European backlash to the Ethiopian War. The aftermath of the treaty saw the increasing ties between Italy and Germany, and Mussolini falling under Adolf Hitler's influence from which "he never escaped".


text: In October 1938, in the aftermath of the Munich Agreement, Italy demanded concessions from France. These included a free port at Djibouti, control of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railroad, Italian participation in the management of Suez Canal Company, some form of French-Italian condominium over French Tunisia, and the preservation of Italian culture on Corsica with no French assimilation of the people. The French refused the demands, believing the true Italian intention was the territorial acquisition of Nice, Corsica, Tunisia, and Djibouti. On 30 November 1938, Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano addressed the Chamber of Deputies on the "natural aspirations of the Italian people" and was met with shouts of "Nice! Corsica! Savoy! Tunisia! Djibouti! Malta!" Later that day, Mussolini addressed the Fascist Grand Council "on the subject of what he called the immediate goals of 'Fascist dynamism'." These were Albania; Tunisia; Corsica; the Ticino, a canton of Switzerland; and all "French territory east of the River Var", including Nice, but not Savoy.


text: Beginning in 1939 Mussolini often voiced his contention that Italy required uncontested access to the world's oceans and shipping lanes to ensure its national sovereignty. On 4 February 1939, Mussolini addressed the Grand Council in a closed session. He delivered a long speech on international affairs and the goals of his foreign policy, "which bears comparison with Hitler's notorious disposition, minuted by colonel Hossbach". He began by claiming that the freedom of a country is proportional to the strength of its navy. This was followed by "the familiar lament that Italy was a prisoner in the Mediterranean". He called Corsica, Tunisia, Malta, and Cyprus "the bars of this prison", and described Gibraltar and Suez as the prison guards. To break British control, her bases on Cyprus, Gibraltar, Malta, and in Egypt (controlling the Suez Canal) would have to be neutralized. On 31 March, Mussolini stated that "Italy will not truly be an independent nation so long as she has Corsica, Bizerta, Malta as the bars of her Mediterranean prison and Gibraltar and Suez as the walls." Fascist foreign policy took for granted that the democracies—Britain and France—would someday need to be faced down. Through armed conquest Italian North Africa and Italian East Africa—separated by the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan—would be linked, and the Mediterranean prison destroyed. Then, Italy would be able to march "either to the Indian Ocean through the Sudan and Abyssinia, or to the Atlantic by way of French North Africa".


text: As early as September 1938, the Italian military had drawn up plans to invade Albania. On 7 April, Italian forces landed in the country and within three days had occupied the majority of the country. Albania represented a territory Italy could acquire for "'living space' to ease its overpopulation" as well as the foothold needed to launch other expansionist conflicts in the Balkans. On 22 May 1939, Italy and Germany signed the Pact of Steel joining both countries in a military alliance. The pact was the culmination of German-Italian relations from 1936 and was not defensive in nature. Rather, the pact was designed for a "joint war against France and Britain", although the Italian hierarchy held the understanding that such a war would not take place for several years. However, despite the Italian impression, the pact made no reference to such a period of peace and the Germans proceeded with their plans to invade Poland.


text: Mussolini's Under-Secretary for War Production, Carlo Favagrossa, had estimated that Italy could not possibly be prepared for major military operations until at least October 1942. This had been made clear during the Italo-German negotiations for the Pact of Steel, whereby it was stipulated that neither signatory was to make war without the other earlier than 1943. Although considered a great power, the Italian industrial sector was relatively weak compared to other European major powers. Italian industry did not equal more than 15% of that of France or of Britain in militarily critical areas such as automobile production: the number of automobiles in Italy before the war was around 374,000, in comparison to around 2,500,000 in Britain and France. The lack of a stronger automotive industry made it difficult for Italy to mechanize its military. Italy still had a predominantly agricultural-based economy, with demographics more akin to a developing country (high illiteracy, poverty, rapid population growth and a high proportion of adolescents) and a proportion of GNP derived from industry less than that of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Sweden, in addition to the other great powers. In terms of strategic materials, in 1940, Italy produced 4.4 megatonnes (Mt) of coal, 0.01 Mt of crude oil, 1.2 Mt of iron ore and 2.1 Mt of steel. By comparison, Great Britain produced 224.3 Mt of coal, 11.9 Mt of crude oil, 17.7 Mt of iron ore, and 13.0 Mt of steel and Germany produced 364.8 Mt of coal, 8.0 Mt of crude oil, 29.5 Mt of iron ore and 21.5 Mt of steel. Most raw material needs could be fulfilled only through importation, and no effort was made to stockpile key materials before the entry into war. Approximately one quarter of the ships of Italy's merchant fleet were in foreign ports at the outbreak of hostilities, and, given no forewarning, were immediately impounded.


text: Between 1936 and 1939, Italy had supplied the Spanish Nationalist forces, fighting under Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War, with large number of weapons and supplies practically free. In addition to weapons, the "Corpo Truppe Volontarie" ("Corps of Volunteer Troops") had also been dispatched to fight for Franco. The financial cost of the war was between 6 and 8.5 billion lire, approximately 14 to 20 per cent of the country's annual expenditure. Adding to these problems was Italy's extreme debt position. When Benito Mussolini took office, in 1921, the government debt was 93 billion lire, un-repayable in the short to medium term. Only two years later this debt had increased to 405 billion lire.


text: In September 1939, Britain imposed a selective blockade of Italy. Coal from Germany, which was shipped out of Rotterdam, was declared contraband. The Germans promised to keep up shipments by train, over the Alps, and Britain offered to supply all of Italy's needs in exchange for Italian armaments. The Italians could not agree to the latter terms without shattering their alliance with Germany. On 2 February 1940, however, Mussolini approved a draft contract with the Royal Air Force to provide 400 Caproni aircraft, yet scrapped the deal on 8 February. British intelligence officer Francis Rodd believed that Mussolini was convinced to reverse policy by German pressure in the week of 2–8 February, a view shared by the British ambassador in Rome, Percy Loraine. On 1 March, the British announced that they would block all coal exports from Rotterdam to Italy. Italian coal was one of the most discussed issues in diplomatic circles in the spring of 1940. In April, Britain began strengthening the Mediterranean Fleet to enforce the blockade. Despite French uncertainty, Britain rejected concessions to Italy so as not to "create an impression of weakness". Germany supplied Italy with about one million tons of coal a month beginning in the spring of 1940, an amount that exceeded even Mussolini's demand of August 1939 that Italy receive six million tons of coal for its first twelve months of war.


text: The Italian Royal Army ("Regio Esercito") was comparatively depleted and weak at the beginning of the war. Italian tanks were of poor quality and radios few in number. The bulk of Italian artillery dated to World War I. The primary fighter of the Italian Air Force ("Regia Aeronautica") was the Fiat CR.42 Falco, which, though an advanced biplane with excellent performance, was technically outclassed by monoplane fighters of other nations. Of the Regia Aeronautica's approximately 1,760 aircraft, only 900 could be considered in any way combat-worthy. The Italian Royal Navy ("Regia Marina") had several modern battleships but no aircraft carriers.


text: Italian authorities were acutely aware of the need to modernize and were taking steps to meet the requirements of their own relatively advanced tactical principles. Almost 40% of the 1939 budget was allocated for military spending. Recognizing the Navy's need for close air support, the decision was made to build carriers. Three series of modern fighters, capable of meeting the best allied planes on equal terms, were in development, with a few hundred of each eventually being produced. The Carro Armato P40 tank, roughly equivalent to the M4 Sherman and Panzer IV medium tanks, was designed in 1940 (though no prototype was produced until 1942 and manufacture could not commence before the Armistice, owing in part to the lack of sufficiently powerful engines, which were themselves undergoing a development push; total Italian tank production for the war – about 3,500 – was less than the number of tanks used by Germany in its invasion of France). The Italians were pioneers in the use of self-propelled guns, both in close support and anti-tank roles. Their 75/46 fixed AA/AT gun, 75/32 gun, 90/53 AA/AT gun (an equally deadly but less famous peer of the German 88/55), 47/32 AT gun, and the 20 mm AA autocannon were effective, modern weapons. Also of note were the AB 41 and the Camionetta AS 42 armoured cars, which were regarded as excellent vehicles of their type. None of these developments, however, precluded the fact that the bulk of equipment was obsolete and poor. The relatively weak economy, lack of suitable raw materials and consequent inability to produce sufficient quantities of armaments and supplies were thus the key material reasons for Italian military failure.


text: On paper, Italy had one of the world's largest armies, but the reality was dramatically different. According to the estimates of Bierman and Smith, the Italian regular army could field only about 200,000 troops at the war's beginning. Irrespective of the attempts to modernize, the majority of Italian army personnel were lightly armed infantry lacking sufficient motor transport. Not enough money was budgeted to train the men in the services, such that the bulk of personnel received much of their training at the front, too late to be of use. Air units had not been trained to operate with the naval fleet and the majority of ships had been built for fleet actions, rather than the convoy protection duties in which they were primarily employed during the war. In any event, a critical lack of fuel kept naval activities to a minimum.


text: Senior leadership was also a problem. Mussolini personally assumed control of all three individual military service ministries with the intention of influencing detailed planning. "Comando Supremo" (the Italian High Command) consisted of only a small complement of staff that could do little more than inform the individual service commands of Mussolini's intentions, after which it was up to the individual service commands to develop proper plans and execution. The result was that there was no central direction for operations; the three military services tended to work independently, focusing only on their fields, with little inter-service cooperation. Pay discrepancies existed for personnel who were of equal rank, but from different units.


text: Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, marked the beginning of World War II. Despite being an Axis power, Italy remained non-belligerent until June 1940.


text: Following the German conquest of Poland, Mussolini hesitated to enter the war. The British commander for land forces in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean, General Sir Archibald Wavell, correctly predicted that Mussolini's pride would ultimately cause him to enter the war. Wavell would compare Mussolini's situation to that of someone at the top of a diving board: "I think he must do something. If he cannot make a graceful dive, he will at least have to jump in somehow; he can hardly put on his dressing-gown and walk down the stairs again."


text: Initially, the entry into the war appeared to be political opportunism (though there was some provocation), which led to a lack of consistency in planning, with principal objectives and enemies being changed with little regard for the consequences. Mussolini was well aware of the military and material deficiencies but thought the war would be over soon and did not expect to do much fighting.


text: On 10 June 1940, as the French government fled to Bordeaux during the German invasion, declaring Paris an open city, Mussolini felt the conflict would soon end and declared war on Britain and France. As he said to the Army's Chief-of-Staff, Marshal Badoglio:


text: Mussolini had the immediate war aim of expanding the Italian colonies in North Africa by taking land from the British and French colonies.


text: About Mussolini's declaration of war in France, President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States said:


text: The Italian entry into the war opened up new fronts in North Africa and the Mediterranean. After Italy entered the war, pressure from Nazi Germany led to the internment in the Campagna concentration camp of some of Italy's Jewish refugees.


text: In June 1940, after initial success, the Italian offensive into southern France stalled at the fortified Alpine Line. On 24 June 1940, France surrendered to Germany. Italy occupied a swath of French territory along the Franco-Italian border. During this operation, Italian casualties amounted to 1,247 men dead or missing and 2,631 wounded. A further 2,151 Italians were hospitalised due to frostbite.


text: Late in the Battle of Britain, Italy contributed an expeditionary force, the Corpo Aereo Italiano, which took part in the Blitz from October 1940 until April 1941, at which time the last elements of the force were withdrawn.


text: In November 1942, the Italian Royal Army occupied south-eastern Vichy France and Corsica as part of Case Anton. From December 1942, Italian military government of French departments east of the Rhône River was established, and continued until September 1943, when Italy quit the war. This had the effect of providing a "de facto" temporary haven for French Jews fleeing the Holocaust. In January 1943 the Italians refused to cooperate with the Nazis in rounding up Jews living in the occupied zone of France under their control and in March prevented the Nazis from deporting Jews in their zone. German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop complained to Mussolini that "Italian military circles... lack a proper understanding of the Jewish question."


text: The Italian Navy established a submarine base at Bordeaux, code named BETASOM, and thirty two Italian submarines participated in the Battle of the Atlantic. Plans to attack the harbour of New York City with CA class midget submarines in 1943 were disrupted when the submarine converted to carry out the attack, the , was sunk in May 1943. The armistice put a stop to further planning.


text: Within a week of Italy's declaration of war on 10 June 1940, the British 11th Hussars had seized Fort Capuzzo in Libya. In an ambush east of Bardia, the British captured the Italian 10th Army Engineer-in-Chief, General Lastucci. On 28 June Marshal Italo Balbo, the Governor-General of Libya, was killed by friendly fire while landing in Tobruk. Mussolini ordered Balbo's replacement, General Rodolfo Graziani, to launch an attack into Egypt immediately. Graziani complained to Mussolini that his forces were not properly equipped for such an operation, and that an attack into Egypt could not possibly succeed; nevertheless, Mussolini ordered him to proceed. On 13 September, elements of the 10th Army retook Fort Capuzzo and crossed the border into Egypt. Lightly opposed, they advanced about to Sidi Barrani, where they stopped and began entrenching themselves in a series of fortified camps.


text: At this time, the British had only 36,000 troops available (out of about 100,000 under Middle Eastern command) to defend Egypt, against 236,000 Italian troops. The Italians, however, were not concentrated in one location. They were divided between the 5th army in the west and the 10th army in the east and thus spread out from the Tunisian border in western Libya to Sidi Barrani in Egypt. At Sidi Barrani, Graziani, unaware of the British lack of numerical strength, planned to build fortifications and stock them with provisions, ammunition, and fuel, establish a water pipeline, and extend the via Balbia to that location, which was where the road to Alexandria began. This task was being obstructed by British Royal Navy attacks on Italian supply ships in the Mediterranean. At this stage Italian losses remained minimal, but the efficiency of the British Royal Navy would improve as the war went on. Mussolini was fiercely disappointed with Graziani's sluggishness. However, according to Bauer he had only himself to blame, as he had withheld the trucks, armaments, and supplies that Graziani had deemed necessary for success. Wavell was hoping to see the Italians overextend themselves before his intended counter at Marsa Matruh.


text: One officer of Graziani wrote: "We're trying to fight this... as though it were a colonial war... this is a European war... fought with European weapons against a European enemy. We take too little account of this in building our stone forts... We are not fighting the Ethiopians now."(This was a reference to the Second Italo-Abyssinian War where Italian forces had fought against a poorly equipped opponent.) Balbo had said "Our light tanks, already old and armed only with machine guns, are completely out-classed. The machine guns of the British armoured cars pepper them with bullets which easily pierce their armour."


text: Italian forces around Sidi Barrani had severe weaknesses in their deployment. Their five main fortifications were placed too far apart to allow mutual support against an attacking force, and the areas between were weakly patrolled. The absence of motorised transport did not allow for rapid reorganisation, if needed. The rocky terrain had prevented an anti-tank ditch from being dug and there were too few mines and 47 mm anti-tank guns to repel an armoured advance. By the summer of 1941, the Italians in North Africa had regrouped, retrained and rearmed into a much more effective fighting force, one that proved to be much harder for the British to overcome in encounters from 1941 to 1943.


text: On 8 December 1940, the British launched Operation Compass. Planned as an extended raid, it resulted in a force of British, Indian, and Australian troops cutting off the Italian 10th Army. Pressing the British advantage home, General Richard O'Connor succeeded in reaching El Agheila, deep in Libya (an advance of ) and taking some 130,000 prisoners. The Allies nearly destroyed the 10th Army, and seemed on the point of sweeping the Italians out of Libya altogether. Winston Churchill, however, directed the advance be stopped, initially because of supply problems and because of a new Italian offensive that had gained ground in Albania, and ordered troops dispatched to defend Greece. Weeks later the first troops of the German "Afrika Korps" started to arrive in North Africa (February 1941), along with six Italian divisions including the motorized Trento and armored Ariete.


text: German General Erwin Rommel now became the principal Axis field commander in North Africa, although the bulk of his forces consisted of Italian troops. Though subordinate to the Italians, under Rommel's direction the Axis troops pushed the British and Commonwealth troops back into Egypt but were unable to complete the task because of the exhaustion and their extended supply lines which were under threat from the Allied enclave at Tobruk, which they failed to capture. After reorganising and re-grouping the Allies launched Operation Crusader in November 1941 which resulted in the Axis front line being pushed back once more to El Agheila by the end of the year.


text: In January 1942 the Axis struck back again, advancing to Gazala where the front lines stabilised while both sides raced to build up their strength. At the end of May, Rommel launched the Battle of Gazala where the British armoured divisions were soundly defeated. The Axis seemed on the verge of sweeping the British out of Egypt, but at the First Battle of El Alamein (July 1942) General Claude Auchinleck halted Rommel's advance only from Alexandria. Rommel made a final attempt to break through during the Battle of Alam el Halfa but Eighth Army, by this time commanded by Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery, held firm. After a period of reinforcement and training the Allies assumed the offensive at the Second Battle of Alamein (October/November 1942) where they scored a decisive victory and the remains of Rommel's German-Italian Panzer Army were forced to engage in a fighting retreat for to the Libyan border with Tunisia.


text: After the Operation Torch landings in the Vichy French territories of Morocco and Algeria (November 1942) British, American and French forces advanced east to engage the German-Italian forces in the Tunisia Campaign. By February, the Axis forces in Tunisia were joined by Rommel's forces, after their long withdrawal from El Alamein, which were re-designated the Italian First Army (under Giovanni Messe) when Rommel left to command the Axis forces to the north at the Battle of the Kasserine Pass. Despite the Axis success at Kasserine, the Allies were able to reorganise (with all forces under the unified direction of 18th Army Group commanded by General Sir Harold Alexander) and regain the initiative in April. The Allies completed the defeat of the Axis armies in North Africa in May 1943.


text: In addition to the well-known campaigns in the western desert during 1940, the Italians initiated operations in June 1940 from their East African colonies of Ethiopia, Italian Somaliland, and Eritrea.


text: As in Egypt, Italian forces (roughly 70,000 Italian soldiers and 180,000 native troops) outnumbered their British opponents. Italian East Africa, however, was isolated and far from the Italian mainland, leaving the forces there cut off from supply and thus severely limited in the operations they could undertake.


text: Initial Italian attacks in East Africa took two different directions, one into Sudan and the other into Kenya. Then, in August 1940, the Italians advanced into British Somaliland. After suffering and inflicting few casualties, the British and Commonwealth garrison evacuated Somaliland, retreating by sea to Aden.


text: The Italian invasion of British Somaliland was one of the few successful Italian campaigns of World War II accomplished without German support. In Sudan and Kenya, Italy captured small territories around several border villages, after which the Italian Royal Army in East Africa adopted a defensive posture in preparation for expected British counterattacks.


text: The "Regia Marina" maintained a small squadron in the Italian East Africa area. The "Red Sea Flotilla", consisting of seven destroyers and eight submarines, was based at the port of Massawa in Eritrea. Despite a severe shortage of fuel, the flotilla posed a threat to British convoys traversing the Red Sea. However, Italian attempts to attack British convoys resulted in the loss of four submarines and one destroyer.


text: On 19 January 1941, the expected British counter-attack arrived in the shape of the Indian 4th and Indian 5th Infantry Divisions, which made a thrust from Sudan. A supporting attack was made from Kenya by the South African 1st Division, the 11th African Division, and the 12th African Division. Finally, the British launched an amphibious assault from Aden to re-take British Somaliland.


text: Fought from February to March, the outcome of the Battle of Keren determined the fate of Italian East Africa. In early April, after Keren fell, Asmara and Massawa followed. The Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa also fell in April 1941. The Viceroy of Ethiopia, Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, surrendered at the stronghold of Amba Alagi in May. He received full military honours. The Italians in East Africa made a final stand around the town of Gondar in November 1941.


text: When the port of Massawa fell to the British, the remaining destroyers were ordered on final missions in the Red Sea, some of them achieving small successes before being scuttled or sunk. At the same time, the last four submarines made an epic voyage around the Cape of Good Hope to Bordeaux in France. Some Italians, after their defeat, waged a guerilla war mainly in Eritrea and Ethiopia, that lasted until fall 1943. Notable among them was Amedeo Guillet.


text: In early 1939, while the world was focused on Adolf Hitler's aggression against Czechoslovakia, Mussolini looked to the Kingdom of Albania, across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. Italian forces invaded Albania on 7 April 1939 and swiftly took control of the small country. Even before the invasion, Albania had been politically dominated by Italy; after the invasion it was formally made a protectorate of Italy and the Italian king took the Albanian crown. Along with the intervention in the Spanish Civil War and the invasion of Abyssinia, the invasion of Albania was part of the Italian contribution to the disintegration of the collective security the League of Nations instituted after World War I. As such, it was part of the "prelude to World War II".


text: On 28 October 1940, Italy started the Greco-Italian War by launching an invasion of the Kingdom of Greece from Albania. In part, the Italians attacked Greece because of the growing influence of Germany in the Balkans. Both Yugoslavia and Greece had governments friendly to Germany. Mussolini launched the invasion of Greece in haste after the Kingdom of Romania, a state which he perceived as lying within the Italian sphere of influence, allied itself with Germany. The order to invade Greece was given by Mussolini to Badoglio and Army Chief of Staff Mario Roatta on 15 October, with the expectation that the attack would commence within 12 days. Badoglio and Roatta were appalled given that, acting on his orders, they had demobilised 600,000 men three weeks prior. Given the expected requirement of at least 20 divisions to facilitate success, the fact that only eight divisions were currently in Albania, and the inadequacies of Albanian ports and connecting infrastructure, adequate preparation would require at least three months. Nonetheless, D-day was set at dawn on 28 October.


text: The initial Italian offensive was quickly contained, and the invasion soon ended in an embarrassing stalemate. Taking advantage of Bulgaria's decision to remain neutral, the Greek Commander-in-Chief, Lt Gen Alexandros Papagos, was able to establish numerical superiority by mid-November, prior to launching a counter-offensive that drove the Italians back into Albania. In addition, the Greeks were naturally adept at operating in mountainous terrain, while only six of the Italian Army's divisions, the Alpini, were trained and equipped for mountain warfare. Only when the Italians were able to establish numerical parity was the Greek offensive stopped. By then they had been able to penetrate deep into Albania.


text: An Italian "Spring Offensive" in March 1941, which tried to salvage the situation prior to German intervention, amounted to little in terms of territorial gains. At this point, combat casualties amounted to over 102,000 for the Italians (with 13,700 dead and 3,900 missing) and fifty thousand sick; the Greek suffered over 90,000 combat casualties (including 14,000 killed and 5,000 missing) and an unknown number of sick. While an embarrassment for the Italians, losses on this scale were devastating for the less numerous Greeks; additionally, the Greek Army had bled a significant amount of materiel. They were short on every area of equipment despite heavy infusion of British aid in February and March, with the army as a whole having only 1 month of artillery ammunition left by the start of April and insufficient arms and equipment to mobilize its reserves. Hitler later stated in hindsight that Greece would have been defeated with or without German intervention, and that even at the time he was of the opinion that the Italians alone would have conquered Greece in the forthcoming season.


text: After British troops arrived in Greece in March 1941, British bombers operating from Greek bases could reach Romanian oil fields, vital to the German war effort. Hitler decided that a British presence in Greece presented a threat to Germany's rear and committed German troops to invade Greece via Yugoslavia (where a coup had deposed the German-friendly government). The Germans invaded on 6 April 1941, smashing through the skeleton garrisons opposing them with little resistance, while the Italians continued a slow advance in Albania and Epirus as the Greeks withdrew, with the country falling to the Axis by the end of the month. The Italian Army was still pinned down in Albania by the Greeks when the Germans began their invasion. Crucially, the bulk of the Greek Army (fifteen divisions out of twenty-one) was left facing the Italians in Albania and Epirus when the Germans intervened. Hitler commented that the Italians "had so weakened [Greece] that its collapse had already become inevitable", and credited them with having "engaged the greater part of the Greek Army."


text: On 6 April 1941, the "Wehrmacht" invasions of both Yugoslavia (Operation 25) and Greece (Operation Marita) began. Together with the rapid advance of German forces, the Italians attacked Yugoslavia in Dalmatia and finally pushed the Greeks out of Albania. On 17 April, Yugoslavia surrendered to the Germans and the Italians. On 30 April, Greece too surrendered to the Germans and Italians, and was divided into German, Italian and Bulgarian sectors. The invasions ended with a complete Axis victory in May when Crete fell. On 3 May, during the triumphal parade in Athens to celebrate the Axis victory, Mussolini started to boast of an Italian Mare Nostrum in the Mediterranean.


text: Some 28 Italian divisions participated in the Balkan invasions. The coast of Yugoslavia was occupied by the Italian Army, while the rest of the country was divided between the Axis forces (a German and Italian creation, the State of Croatia was born, under the nominal sovereignty of Prince Aimone, Duke of Aosta, but actually governed by the Croatian leader Ante Pavelić). The Italians assumed control of most of Greece with their 11th Army, while the Bulgarians occupied the northern provinces and the Germans the strategically most important areas. Italian troops would occupy parts of Greece and Yugoslavia until the Italian armistice with the Allies in September 1943.


text: In spring 1941, Italy created a Montenegrin client state and annexed most of the Dalmatian coast as the Governorship of Dalmatia ("Governatorato di Dalmazia"). A complicated four-way conflict between the puppet Montenegro regime, Montenegrin nationalists, Royalist remnants of the Yugoslav government, and Communist Partisans continued from 1941 to 1945.


text: In 1942, the Italian military commander in Croatia refused to hand over Jews in his zone to the Nazis.


text: In 1940, the Italian Royal Navy ("Regia Marina") could not match the overall strength of the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean Sea. After some initial setbacks, the Italian Navy declined to engage in a confrontation of capital ships. Since the British Navy had as a principal task the supply and protection of convoys supplying Britain's outposts in the Mediterranean, the mere continued existence of the Italian fleet (the so-called "fleet in being" concept) caused problems for Britain, which had to use warships sorely needed elsewhere to protect Mediterranean convoys. On 11 November, Britain launched the first carrier strike of the war, using a squadron of Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers to attack Taranto. The raid left three Italian battleships crippled or destroyed for the loss of two British aircraft shot down.


text: The Italian navy found other ways to attack the British. The most successful involved the use of frogmen and manned torpedoes to attack ships in harbour. The 10th Light Flotilla, also known as "Decima Flottiglia MAS" or Xª MAS, which carried out these attacks, sank or damaged 28 ships from September 1940 to the end of 1942. These included the battleships and (damaged in the harbour of Alexandria on 18 December 1941), and of merchant shipping. The Xª MAS used a particular kind of torpedo, the SLC ("Siluro a Lenta Corsa"), whose crew was composed of two frogmen, and motorboats packed with explosives, called MTM ("Motoscafo da Turismo Modificato").


text: Following the attacks on the two British battleships, the possibility of Italian dominance over the Mediterranean appeared more achievable. However, Mussolini's brief period of relative success did not last. The oil and supplies brought to Malta, despite heavy losses, by Operation Pedestal in August and the Allied landings in North Africa, Operation Torch, in November 1942, turned the fortunes of war against Italy. The Axis forces were ejected from Libya and Tunisia six months after the Battle of El Alamein, while their supply lines were harassed day after day by the growing and overwhelming aerial and naval supremacy of the Allies. By the summer of 1943, the Allies were poised to invade the Italian homeland.


text: In July 1941, some 62,000 Italian troops of the Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia (, CSIR) left for the Eastern Front to aid in the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa). In July 1942, the Italian Royal Army () expanded the CSIR to a full army of about 200,000 men named the Italian Army in Russia (, ARMIR). ARMIR was also known as the 8th Army. From August 1942 to February 1943, the 8th Army took part in the Battle of Stalingrad and suffered many losses (some 20,000 dead and 64,000 captured) when the Soviets isolated the German forces in Stalingrad by attacking the over-stretched Hungarian, Romanian and Italian forces protecting the Germans' flanks. By the summer of 1943, Rome had withdrawn the remnants of the 8th Army to Italy. Many of the Italian POWs captured in the Soviet Union died in captivity due to harsh conditions in Soviet prison camps.


text: On 10 July 1943, a combined force of American and British Commonwealth troops invaded Sicily. German generals again took the lead in the defence and, although they lost the island after weeks of bitter fighting, they succeeded in ferrying large numbers of German and Italian forces safely off Sicily to the Italian mainland. On 19 July, an Allied air raid on Rome destroyed both military and collateral civilian structures. With these two events, popular support for the war diminished in Italy.


text: On 25 July, the Grand Council of Fascism voted to limit the power of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and handed control of the Italian armed forces over to King Victor Emmanuel III. The next day, Mussolini met with the King, was dismissed as prime minister, and then imprisoned. A new Italian government, led by General Pietro Badoglio and Victor Emmanuel III, took over in Italy. Although they publicly declared that they would keep fighting alongside the Germans, the new Italian government began secret negotiations with the Allies to come over to the Allied side. On 3 September, a secret armistice was signed with the Allies at Fairfield Camp in Sicily. The armistice was publicly announced on 8 September. By then, the Allies were on the Italian mainland.


text: On 3 September, British troops crossed the short distance from Sicily to the 'toe' of Italy in Operation Baytown. Two more Allied landings took place on 9 September at Salerno (Operation Avalanche) and at Taranto (Operation Slapstick). The Italian surrender meant that the Allied landings at Taranto took place unopposed, with the troops simply disembarking from warships at the docks rather than assaulting the coastline.


text: Because of the time it took for the new Italian government to negotiate the armistice, the Germans had time to reinforce their presence in Italy and prepare for their defection. In the first weeks of August, they increased the number of divisions in Italy from two to seven and took control of vital infrastructure. Once the signing of the armistice was announced on 8 September, German troops quickly disarmed the Italian forces and took over critical defensive positions in Operation Achse. This included Italian-occupied southeastern France and the Italian-controlled areas in the Balkans. Only in Sardinia, Corsica, and in part of Apulia and Calabria were Italian troops able to hold their positions until the arrival of Allied forces. In the area of Rome, only one infantry division—the Granatieri di Sardegna—and some small armoured units fought with commitment, but by 11 September were overwhelmed by superior German forces.


text: King Victor Emmanuel III and his family, with Marshal Badoglio, General Mario Roatta, and others, abandoned Rome on 9 September. General Caroni, who was tasked with defending Rome, was given duplicitous orders to have his troops abandon Rome (something he did not want to do), and essentially to provide rear guard protection to the King and his entourage so they could flee to the Abruzzi hills, and later out to sea. They later landed at Brindisi. Most importantly, Badoglio never gave the "OP 44" order for the Italian people to rise up against the Germans until he knew it was too late to do any good; that is, he belatedly issued the order on 11 September. However, from the day of the announcement of the Armistice, when Italian citizens, military personnel and military units decided to rise up and resist on their own; they were sometimes quite effective against the Germans.


text: As part of the terms of the armistice, the Italian fleet was to sail to Malta for internment; as it did so, it came under air attack by German bombers, and on 9 September two German Fritz X guided bombs sank the Italian battleship off the coast of Sardinia. A "Supermarina" (Italian Naval Command) broadcast led the Italians to initially believe this attack was carried out by the British.


text: On the Greek island of Cephallonia, General Antonio Gandin, commander of the 12,000-strong Italian "Acqui" Division, decided to resist the German attempt to forcibly disarm his force. The battle raged from 13 to 22 September, when the Italians capitulated having suffered some 1,300 casualties. Following the surrender, the Germans proceeded to massacre thousands of the Italian prisoners.


text: Italian troops captured by the Germans were given a choice to keep fighting with the Germans. About 94,000 Italians accepted and the remaining 710,000 were designated Italian military internees and were transported as forced labour to Germany. Some Italian troops that evaded German capture in the Balkans joined the Yugoslav (about 40,000 soldiers) and Greek Resistance (about 20,000). The same happened in Albania.


text: After the German invasion, deportations of Italian Jews to Nazi death camps began. However, by the time the German advance reached the Campagna concentration camp, all the inmates had already fled to the mountains with the help of the local inhabitants. Rev. Aldo Brunacci of Assisi, under the direction of his bishop, Giuseppe Nicolini, saved all the Jews who sought refuge in Assisi. In October 1943 Nazis raided the Jewish ghetto in Rome. In November 1943 Jews of Genoa and Florence were deported to Auschwitz. It is estimated that 7,500 Italian Jews became victims of the Holocaust.


text: After Mussolini had been stripped of power, he was imprisoned at Gran Sasso in the Apennine mountains. On 12 September he was rescued by the Germans in Operation Eiche ("Oak"). The Germans re-located him to northern Italy where he set up a new Fascist state, the Italian Social Republic ("Repubblica Sociale Italiana" or RSI). Many Italian personalities joined the RSI, like General Rodolfo Graziani.


text: The Allied armies continued to advance through Italy despite increasing opposition from the Germans. The Allies soon controlled most of southern Italy, and Naples rose against and ejected the occupying German forces. The loyalist Italian government (sometimes referred to as the "Kingdom of the South" declared war on Germany on 13 October, aligning Italy within the Western Allies as a co-belligerent. With Allied assistance some Italian troops in the south were organized into what were known as "co-belligerent" or "royalist" forces. In time, there was a co-belligerent army (Italian Co-Belligerent Army), navy (Italian Co-Belligerent Navy), and air force (Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force). These Italian forces fought alongside the Allies for the rest of the war. Other Italian troops, loyal to Mussolini and his RSI, continued to fight alongside the Germans (among them were the "Esercito Nazionale Repubblicano", the National Republican Army). From this point on, a large Italian resistance movement located in northern Italy fought a guerilla war against the German and RSI forces.


text: Winston Churchill had long regarded southern Europe as the military weak spot of the continent (in World War I he had advocated the Dardanelles campaign, and during World War II he favoured the Balkans as an area of operations, for example in Greece in 1940). Calling Italy the "soft underbelly" of the Axis, Churchill had therefore advocated this invasion instead of a cross-channel invasion of occupied France. But Italy itself proved anything but a soft target: the mountainous terrain gave Axis forces excellent defensive positions, and it also partly negated the Allied advantage in motorized and mechanized units. The final Allied victory over the Axis in Italy did not come until the spring offensive of 1945, after Allied troops had breached the Gothic Line, leading to the surrender of German and RSI forces in Italy on 2 May shortly before Germany finally surrendered ending World War II in Europe on 8 May. Mussolini was captured and killed on 28 April 1945 by the Italian resistance while attempting to flee.


text: On 13 October 1943, the Kingdom of Italy, which was now based outside of Mussolini's control, not only joined the Allied Powers, but also declared war on Nazi Germany. Tensions between the Axis Powers and the Italian military were rising following the failure to defend Sicily, with New York Times correspondent Milton Bracker noting that “Italian hatred of the Germans unquestionably grew as the fighting spirit waned, and episodes between German and Italian soldiers and civilians before and after the armistice have shown pretty clearly a complete and incontrovertible end of all sympathy between the former Axis partners."


text: Japan reacted with shock and outrage to the news of the surrender of Italy to the Allied forces in September 1943. Italian citizens residing in Japan and in Manchukuo were swiftly rounded up and summarily asked whether they were loyal to the King of Savoy, who dishonoured their country by surrendering to the enemy, or with the Duce and the newly created "Repubblica Sociale Italiana", which vowed to continue fighting alongside the Germans. Those who sided with the King were interned in concentration camps and detained in dismal conditions until the end of the war, while those who opted for the Fascist dictator were allowed to go on with their lives, although under strict surveillance by the "Kempeitai".


text: The Italian concession of Tientsin was occupied by Japanese troops after resistance from its garrison. The Social Republic of Italy later formally gave it to the Japanese puppet state in China.


text: The news of Italy's surrender did not reach the crew members of the three Italian submarines "Giuliani", "Cappellini" and "Torelli" travelling to Singapore, then occupied by Japan, to take a load of rubber, tin and strategic materials bound for Italy and Germany's war industry. All the officers and sailors on board were arrested by the Japanese army, and after a few weeks of detention the vast majority of them chose to side with Japan and Germany. The "Kriegsmarine" assigned new officers to the three units, who were renamed as U-boat "U.IT.23", "U.IT.24" and "U.IT.25", taking part in German war operations in the Pacific until the "Giuliani" was sunk by the British submarine HMS "Tally-ho" in February 1944 and the other two vessels were taken over by the Japanese Imperial Navy upon Germany's surrender in 1945.


text: Alberto Tarchiani, an anti-fascist journalist and activist, was appointed as Ambassador to Washington by the cabinet of Badoglio, which acted as provisional head of the Italian government pending the occupation of the country by the Allied forces. On his suggestion, Italy issued a formal declaration of war on Japan on 14 July 1945. The purpose of this act, which brought no military follow-up, was mainly to persuade the Allies that the new government of Italy deserved to be invited to the San Francisco Peace Conference, as a reward for its co-belligerence. However, the British Prime Minister Churchill and John Foster Dulles were resolutely against the idea, and so Italy's new government was left out of the Conference.


text: Italy and Japan negotiated the resumption of their respective diplomatic ties after 1951, and later signed several bilateral agreements and treaties.


text: Nearly four million Italians served in the Italian Army during the Second World War and nearly half a million Italians (including civilians) lost their lives between June 1940 and May 1945.


text: Updated studies (2010) by the Ufficio dell'Albo d'Oro of the Italian Ministry of Defence have however revised the military deaths to 319,207:


text: Civilian losses totalled 153,147 (123,119 post armistice) including 61,432 (42,613 post armistice) in air attacks. A brief summary of data from this report can be found online.


text: In addition, deaths of African soldiers conscripted by Italy were estimated by the Italian military to be 10,000 in the 1940–41 East African Campaign.


text: Civilian losses as a result of the fighting in Italian Libya were estimated by an independent Russian journalist to be 10,000. Included in total are 64,000 victims of Nazi reprisals and genocide, including 30,000 POWs and 8,500 Jews Russian sources estimated the deaths of 28,000 of the 49,000 Italian prisoners of war in the Soviet Union (1942–1954).


text: The genocide of Roma people killed 1,000 persons. Jewish Holocaust victims totalled 8,562 (including Libya).


text: After the armistice with the Allies, some 650,000 members of the Italian armed forces who refused to side with the occupying Germans were interned in concentration and labour camps. Of these, around 50,000 died while imprisoned or in transit. A further 29,000 died in armed struggles against the Germans while resisting capture immediately following the armistice.


text: The 1947 Treaty of Peace with Italy spelled the end of the Italian colonial empire, along with other border revisions. The 1947 Paris Peace Treaties compelled Italy to pay $360,000,000 (US dollars at 1938 prices) in war reparations: $125,000,000 to Yugoslavia, $105,000,000 to Greece, $100,000,000 to the Soviet Union, $25,000,000 to Ethiopia and $5,000,000 to Albania. Italy also agreed to pay £1,765,000 to Greek nationals whose property in Italian territory had been destroyed or seized during the war. In the 1946 Italian constitutional referendum, the Italian monarchy was abolished, having been associated with the deprivations of the war and Fascist rule. Unlike in Germany and Japan, no war crimes tribunals were held for Italian military and political leaders, though the Italian resistance summarily executed some of them, including Mussolini, at the end of the war.


text: Allied press reports of Italian military prowess in the Second World War were almost always dismissive. British wartime propaganda trumpeted the destruction of the Italian 10th Army by a significantly smaller British force during the early phase of the North African Campaign. The propaganda from this Italian collapse, which was designed to boost British morale during a bleak period of the war, left a lasting impression. The later exploits of Rommel and German accounts of events tended to disparage their Italian allies and downplay their contributions; these German accounts were used as a primary source for the Axis side by English-language historians after the war. Kenneth Macksey wrote in 1972 that after the split in the Italian state and the reinforcement of fascist Italy by German troops, "the British threw out the "Italian Chicken" only to let in the "German Eagle"", for example..


text: James Sadkovich, Peter Haining, Vincent O'Hara, Ian Walker and others have attempted to reassess the performance of the Italian forces. Many previous authors used only German or British sources, not considering the Italian ones, hampered by the few Italian sources being translated into English. Contemporary British reports ignored an action of Bir El Gobi, where a battalion of "Giovani Fascisti" held up the 11th Indian Infantry Brigade and destroyed a dozen tanks of the 22nd Armoured Brigade. Sadkovich, Walker and others have found examples of actions where Italian forces were effective, yet rarely discussed by most histories. During the Tunisian campaign, where Italian units were involved in most encounters, such as the battles of Kasserine Pass, Mareth, Akarit and Enfidaville, it was observed by General Alexander, "...the Italians fought particularly well, outdoing the Germans in line with them". Rommel also conceded praise on several occasions. Other times, German mistakes were blamed on Italians, or the Germans left the Italians in hopeless situations where failure was unavoidable. Questionable German advice, broken promises and security lapses had direct consequences at the Battle of Cape Matapan, in the convoy war and North Africa. According to Sadkovich, Rommel often retreated leaving immobile infantry units exposed, withdrew German units to rest even though the Italians had also been in combat, would deprive the Italians of their share of captured goods, ignore Italian intelligence, seldom acknowledge Italian successes and often resist formulation of joint strategy. Alan J.Levine, an author who has also extensively worked with Italian sources, points out that while Allied efforts to choke off Rommel's supply lines were eventually successful and played the decisive role in the Allied victory in Africa, the Italians who defended it, especially navy commanders, were not feeble-minded or incompetent at all. He criticises Rommel for ignoring the good advice of Italians during the Crusader Offensive (although he also presents a positive picture of the Field Marshal in general), and in review of Sadkovich's work "The Italian Navy in World War II", criticises it for being unreliable and recommends Bragadin and the Italian official history instead. Gerhard L.Weinberg, in his 2011 George C. Marshall Lecture "Military History – Some Myths of World War II" (2011), complained that "there is far too much denigration of the performance of Italy's forces during the conflict."


text: In addition, Italian 'cowardice' did not appear to be more prevalent than the level seen in any army, despite claims of wartime propaganda. Ian Walker wrote:


text: The problems that stand out to the vast majority of historians pertain to Italian strategy and equipment. Italian equipment was, in general, not up to the standard of either the Allied or the German armies. An account of the defeat of the Italian 10th Army noted that the incredibly poor quality of the Italian artillery shells saved many British soldiers' lives. More crucially, they lacked suitable quantities of equipment of all kinds and their high command did not take necessary steps to plan for most eventualities. This was compounded by Mussolini's assigning unqualified political favourites to key positions. Mussolini also dramatically overestimated the ability of the Italian military at times, sending them into situations where failure was likely, such as the invasion of Greece.


text: Historians have long debated why Italy's military and its Fascist regime were so remarkably ineffective at an activity - war - that was central to their identity. MacGregor Knox says the explanation, "was first and foremost a failure of Italy's military culture and military institutions." James Sadkovich gives the most charitable interpretation of Italian failures, blaming inferior equipment, overextension, and inter-service rivalries. Its forces had "more than their share of handicaps." Donald Detwiler concludes that, "Italy's entrance into the war showed very early that her military strength was only a hollow shell. Italy's military failures against France, Greece, Yugoslavia and in the African Theatres of war shook Italy's new prestige mightily."


title: Mickey Sumner

text: Brigitte Michael "Mickey" Sumner (born 19 January 1984) is an English actress best known for her film roles as Sophie Levee in "Frances Ha" (2012) and Farrah in "The Mend" (2014) and her television roles as Katia on "Low Winter Sun" (2013) and Bess Till on "Snowpiercer" (2020). She also portrayed Patti Smith in "CBGB" (2013).


title: Mickey Sumner

text: Sumner was born at Portland Hospital in London, the oldest daughter of musician Sting (born Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner) and actress Trudie Styler. Sumner is the older sister of musician Eliot Sumner and the younger half-sister of musician Joe Sumner.


title: Mickey Sumner

text: Sumner began her acting career in 2006 with roles in a series of short films. In 2011, she landed the role of Francesca on the Showtime series "The Borgias" appearing in four episodes. Sumner garnered significant attention for her role as Sophie Levee, starring opposite Greta Gerwig, in 2012's "Frances Ha".


title: Mickey Sumner

text: In 2013, Sumner portrayed Patti Smith in "CBGB". She also made her official off-Broadway debut opposite Carol Kane in the Atlantic Theater Company's "The Lying Lesson" in April 2013.


title: Mickey Sumner

text: Sumner was featured as Katia on the AMC Network series "Low Winter Sun". In 2013, Sumner acted in a series of films including "Half the Perfect World", "The Mend" and "Anesthesia".


title: Mickey Sumner

text: Sumner starred in the independent film "The Mend", alongside Josh Lucas and Stephen Plunkett. The film premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in March 2014.


title: Mickey Sumner

text: She became engaged to Chris Kantrowitz in June 2016, and they married in Tuscany in July 2017. As of 2019 they have one son, Akira Rogue Kantrowitz (born 31 December 2016).


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: Douglas (, ) is the capital and largest town of the Isle of Man, with a population of 26,677 (2021). It is located at the mouth of the River Douglas, and on a sweeping bay of . The River Douglas forms part of the town's harbour and main commercial port.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: Douglas was a small settlement until it grew rapidly as a result of links with the English port of Liverpool in the 18th century. Further population growth came in the following century, resulting during the 1860s in a staged transfer of the High Courts, the Lieutenant Governor's residence, and finally the seat of the legislature, Tynwald, to Douglas from the ancient capital, Castletown.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: The town is the Island's main hub for business, finance, legal services, shipping, transport, shopping, and entertainment. The annual Isle of Man TT motorcycle races start and finish in Douglas.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: In the absence of any archaeological data, the origins of the town may be revealed by analysis of the original street and plot pattern. The discovery of a bronze weapon in central Douglas, and the large Ballaquayle Viking treasure hoard on the outskirts (now in the Manx Museum and British Museum, London), both in the 1890s, hint at the early importance of the site now occupied by Douglas. Scholars agree that the name of the town derives from Early Celtic 'Duboglassio' meaning 'black river'. Douglas is twice referred to in the monastic "Chronicle of the Kings of Man and the Isles": first in 1190, when the monks of St Mary's Abbey at Rushen were transferred there for a four-year stay; then again in 1313, when Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, spent the night at the "monastery of Duglas" on his way to seize Castle Rushen. These may be references to the site of the later Nunnery, a little upstream from the port.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: The first detailed documentation shows that in 1511 there were only thirteen resident households in the settlement clustered north of the harbour; most of the property there was classified as "chambers" (unoccupied, unheated, single-celled structures) for which rent was paid by non-residents including clergy, officials and landowners from elsewhere on the island. This suggests that the town's nucleus originated as a non-urban port. Speculation links the store buildings with the Irish Sea herring fishery, and the import/export trade.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: In 1681 Thomas Denton described Douglas as "the place of greatest resort" on the Isle of Man, and by 1705 a clear picture of the early town emerges, with hints that its residential, market, and military defence functions were growing in importance alongside the port facility. The town thrived in the next 60 years, as imposing merchants' houses, large warehouses, quays and a pier were built to accommodate the burgeoning "running trade" (smuggling): one of the stimuli for the town's expansion. Other forms of trade also grew, and after the Revestment Act 1765, Douglas began to reap the benefits of transatlantic trade, due in part to co-operation at a local level with Liverpool. Legitimate merchants who rose to prominence over the period included the Murreys, the Moores, and the Bacons. The town's later prosperity was facilitated by the low cost of living, and the favourable legal status enjoyed by English debtors and half-pay officers. The initial growth and development of the town owed much to its natural harbour (now the Inner Harbour), since greatly expanded and improved. Over the 18th century, the town's population rose from about 800 in 1710 to nearly 2,500 in 1784.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: Throughout the 19th century, the town's demographics followed the same trends as the United Kingdom, due to the Industrial Revolution. The number of holiday visitors grew from the early 19th century, and from around 1870 onwards, the town was transformed into a leading holiday resort. But there were increasingly unsanitary conditions, and poor quality housing; again reflecting a trend seen across the United Kingdom. The open sewage, middens (domestic waste dumps), and smell from the harbour at low tide all contributed to the town's uncleanliness. Oil and gas lamps first appeared in the late 1820s and 1830s, the first hospital to join the Dispensary was built in 1850, and in 1832 the scenic Tower of Refuge was built in Douglas Bay to offer shelter and provisions for sailors awaiting rescue. Douglas in the first half of the 19th century often suffered from the destitution of its population and the many epidemics, in particular cholera.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: The rise of Douglas as the social and economic stronghold was recognised in 1869, when it became the home of the island's parliament, Tynwald, and therefore the capital, an honour previously held by Castletown, a smaller town in the south of the island. Douglas's political landscape also changed significantly in the 19th century, in spite of the conservatism of some townsfolk: in 1844, for example, at a public meeting, the idea of a town council was rejected in favour of retaining the system of Town High Bailiffs; when the Town Bill Act was passed at Tynwald in 1852, the people of Douglas again rejected the idea. However, an Act passed later that decade, which did not include opt-out clauses, was accepted, and in 1860, Douglas elected its first town council, which was predominantly middle class in its makeup. The Town Commissioners could tackle the town's problems with greater efficiency, and by 1869 the sewage problem had been largely resolved.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: The Commissioners also worked to alter the anachronistic architecture of Douglas, built during the era of fishing and trading, and no longer amenable or safe for tourists. The proportion of the total Manx population living in Douglas was also expanding, with 35% living there by 1891. The Victorian and later modernisation of the town was achieved at the expense of the original maze-like layout of the oldest streets. These were cleared away in the new street schemes and slum clearances of the 1870s to 1920s. The town's infrastructure was radically altered for tourists' convenience, and in 1878 the Loch Promenade was constructed. In 1870, there were 60,000 visitors annually; by 1884, this had grown to 182,000. In 1887, 310,916 visited for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: The earliest organised ferry services emerged between Douglas and Whitehaven, established by William Nicholson in the 1750s. More formally, Nicholson's Packet Service began in 1765 or 1766, and the Post Office mail contract was secured by 1782. Sailings were irregular and heavily dependent on weather conditions. Steamer services brought a considerable improvement; the first regular link (en route between Greenock and Liverpool) was available from 1819. The formation of what became the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company in 1830 led to greatly improved services, and also laid the foundations for growth in both cargo and tourist traffic.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has a lifeboat station at Douglas. The first lifeboat station in the port was established in 1802. In 1825 it was one of the first lifeboat stations to be provided with a purpose-built lifeboat; this was at the request of Sir William Hillary, the founder of the Institution. It was not operational between 1851 and 1868, and it closed in 1895. The station, established in 1874, operates the lifeboat "Sir William Hillary". There are three memorials to Sir William in Douglas: one in St George's Church where he was buried in 1847, one on Loch Promenade, and the other on Douglas Head near where in 1832 he established the Tower of Refuge.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: During the First and Second World Wars, Douglas and other parts of the Isle of Man were home to internment camps for "enemy aliens". Douglas held seven out of the ten internment camps on the island during World War II, including: Hutchinson, Metropole, Central, Palace, Granville and Sefton Camp. Sections of the Promenade were cordoned off and many guest houses were used for the purpose. The war dead of the island are commemorated on the Douglas War Memorial.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: Douglas is now the main home of the island's offshore financial services industry, and also of the main shopping centre.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: The town was the birthplace of the Gibb brothers, Maurice, Robin, both deceased, and Barry, the members of the Bee Gees.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: On 20 May 2022, it was announced that, as part of the Platinum Jubilee Civic Honours, Douglas would receive city status by Letters Patent later in 2022.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: Douglas is on the east of the island near the confluence of the two rivers Dhoo and Glass forming the Douglas. At Douglas, the river flows through the quay and into Douglas Bay. A gently sloping valley runs inland and there are hills around the town.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: The town is surrounded by several villages, most notably Onchan to the north-east (which forms a conurbation with Douglas) and Union Mills to the west.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: The weather reporting station closest to Douglas is the coastal weather station at Ronaldsway, about south-west of Douglas. The highest temperature recorded in Ronaldsway stands at


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: , recorded in July 1983. On average, a temperature of or more is recorded 0.8 days per year at Ronaldsway (1981-2010) and on average the highest temperature of the year is .


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: On average, 14.5 days of air frost per year were recorded at Ronaldsway in the period 1981–2010. The lowest temperature recorded in Ronaldsway is , recorded in December 1961. For the period of 1981–2010, the lowest temperature of the year was on average.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: The Isle of Man census 2021 lists the population of Douglas as 26,677, a reduction from the 2011 population of 27,938. The 2001 census gave a population of 25,347. The town has 31.73% of the Island's total population of 84,069.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: Douglas elects eight members of the House of Keys: two each from four constituencies (Central, East, South and North). The House of Keys is the lower house of Tynwald, the Manx parliament. The local authority responsible for the running of services is the Douglas Borough Council. There are 18 elected councillors.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: Douglas is the hub of the island's bus network, with regular services to Port Erin, Peel and Ramsey, as well as various local bus services. The town also has the termini of the two main railway lines on the island: the steam railway to Port Erin and the electric tramway to Ramsey. It is also the home of the ferry terminal, from where the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company operates regular services to Heysham and to Liverpool (Birkenhead in winter) and occasional services to Dublin and to Belfast.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: References to education in Douglas begin in the late 17th century, with mention of the schoolmastership, usually combined with the Chaplaincy of Douglas, and reference to a "petty school" in 1675. William Walker (1679–1729) was appointed to the mastership in 1700, school being probably kept in the old Chapel, (in later Heywood Place.) Later being preferred as Rector of Ballaugh, and the recipient of an honorary Doctorate, Walker is now remembered in his mother's Manx Gaelic lament on her sons: "Illiam Walker "as" Robin Tear".


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: The more formal history of education in the town begins with Bishop Thomas Wilson's establishment of the Douglas Grammar School. Alderman William Dixon (a native of Douglas, but resident in Dublin since at least the 1680s) agreed to hand over his parents' former home, and passed over the New Bond Street property in 1714. The Bishop raised an endowment of £500 (Irish currency), half being funded by the Barrow Trustees, most of the balance being provided by the Bishop's Douglas relatives, the Murrey family. Even after this, the mastership of Douglas Grammar School continued to be combined with the Chaplaincy, now of the new Chapel of St Matthew. Details of the building of the original Grammar School are sparse, but it seems that William Murrey was deeply involved, retaining the use of the capacious storage vault under the school in lieu of repayment of £150 costs.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: Another notable Master of the Grammar School was Rev. Philip Moore (1705–1783) who was a native of the town, his father Robert Moore having been one of the "Undertakers" who organised the construction of St Matthews, and his mother Miss Katherine Kelly. Moore was appointed Master in 1735, and was reckoned to be a good classical scholar, and have "an inherent love of teaching".


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: Today, Douglas has two high schools: Ballakermeen High School and St. Ninian's High School, and numerous primary schools. University College Isle of Man and the International Business School are also located in Douglas.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: Douglas is the start and finish point for the Isle of Man TT. The race had been a part of the FIM Motorcycle Grand Prix World Championship but lost its status when a new British motorcycle Grand Prix was established in 1977.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: The Isle of Man Cricket Club was formed in 1930 and later reformed as the IoM Cricket Association. It was elected a member of the International Cricket Council in 2004.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: The National Sports Centre (NSC), is a large multi-sports centre and athletics stadium located on Pulrose Road. Owned by the Department of Tourism and Leisure it is operated by Manx Sport & Recreation. The King George V Bowl, a multi-use stadium located on Pulrose Road is owned by Douglas Borough Council.


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: Douglas is home to eight of the seventeen football clubs that compete in the Isle of Man Football League:


title: Douglas, Isle of Man

text: Douglas Rugby Club and Vagabonds Rugby Club are based in the town. Their 1st teams play in the English competitions and reserve teams play in the Manx Rugby competition.


title: Blackie Lawless

text: Steven Edward Duren (born September 4, 1956), better known by his stage name Blackie Lawless, is an American singer, songwriter and musician, best known as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist (formerly bassist) for heavy metal band W.A.S.P.


title: Blackie Lawless

text: Duren was born in Tampa, Florida, and raised in Staten Island, New York City. He had a fundamentalist Baptist upbringing, but has also claimed Jewish ancestry.


title: Blackie Lawless

text: He has said that he was "very active" in church as a youth and was born again at age 11. In his late teens, Duren strayed from the church and became interested in the occult. Although he would only study occultism for a short time before leaving that too, he continued to use themes of occultism up until his return to the Christian faith in recent years.


title: Blackie Lawless

text: He has Irish, French and Native American ancestry (his mother is one-quarter Blackfoot). He is the nephew of the late Major League Baseball pitcher, Ryne Duren. Lawless himself considered pursuing a professional baseball career; however, he ultimately opted for music. He credits his older brother with introducing him to the guitar.


title: Blackie Lawless

text: Lawless began his career in music playing with bands such as Black Rabbit and Orfax Rainbow. In 1975, after Johnny Thunders left the glam rock band New York Dolls in the middle of a tour of Florida, the band started auditioning for guitarists. Lawless was hired but only stayed for the remainder of the tour.


title: Blackie Lawless

text: After the tour, he went to California with bassist Arthur Kane and helped found Killer Kane. At that time, Lawless' stage name was "Blackie Goozeman" as stated on the back of Killer Kane's only EP. About a year later Kane returned to New York City but Lawless decided to stay in West Los Angeles. In 1976, he formed Sister, which also featured future W.A.S.P. guitarist Randy Piper. Around 1978, a new lineup was assembled which included Nikki Sixx as bassist and Lizzie Grey on guitar. Later, Chris Holmes joined.


title: Blackie Lawless

text: Lawless later formed a band called Circus Circus in 1979, with Piper again appearing in the lineup. In 1981, following Circus Circus' failure, Lawless joined Lizzie Grey and Nikki Sixx's band London, with whom he played a few gigs and recorded two songs as demos, though by this time Sixx had already departed to form Mötley Crüe. In 1982, Lawless switched to bass guitar and along with Randy Piper formed W.A.S.P. The lineup was soon completed with Chris Holmes on lead guitar and Tony Richards on drums.


title: Blackie Lawless

text: W.A.S.P. underwent numerous lineup changes, with Lawless being the last remaining original member and chief songwriter. Many of his songs tend to deal with religious or apocalyptic themes, due to his Christian upbringing. Lawless has stated in recent interviews that he has returned to the Christian faith and considers himself a born-again Christian.


title: Blackie Lawless

text: His stage theatrics were influenced by Alice Cooper and Kiss, and he often imitated Gene Simmons and/or Paul Stanley very closely during his performances.


title: Blackie Lawless

text: W.A.S.P. was no stranger to controversy, and Lawless found himself defending heavy metal music against a cadre of politicians (and their wives) in the mid-1980s. But beyond headlines and drama, W.A.S.P. enjoyed their biggest run of success during this period, releasing several singles over three albums from 1985 to 1988, the best known of these being "L.O.V.E. Machine", "I Wanna Be Somebody", and "Wild Child".


title: Blackie Lawless

text: W.A.S.P. was also heavily under scrutiny specifically for their single "Animal (F**k Like a Beast)", led by P.M.R.C. lyric watchdogs.


title: Old Man Logan

text: Old Man Logan is an alternative version of the Marvel Comics fictional character Wolverine. This character is an aged version of Wolverine set in an alternate future universe designated Earth-807128, where the supervillains overthrew the superheroes. Introduced as a self-contained story arc within the "Wolverine" ongoing series by writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven, the character became popular with fans. After the Death of Wolverine, Laura Kinney took the Wolverine mantle but an Old Man Logan from the similar Earth-21923 was brought in to serve as an X-Man and featured in his own ongoing series.


title: Old Man Logan

text: Old Man Logan was a principal inspiration for the 2017 film "Logan", starring Hugh Jackman as the title character.


title: Old Man Logan

text: Old Man Logan debuted as a character in Mark Millar's run on "Fantastic Four", which featured characters who are heavily implied to be the aged Wolverine and Bruce Banner Jr. as an adult. "Wolverine: Old Man Logan" started as an eight-issue storyline from the third volume of "Wolverine" ongoing series by writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven, published by Marvel Comics in June 2008. The series ran through "Wolverine" (volume 3) #66–72 and ended in "Wolverine Giant-Size Old Man Logan" #1 on September 9, 2009.


title: Old Man Logan

text: Old Man Logan debuted in his solo series during the 2015 "Secret Wars" storyline, written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Andrea Sorrentino. This story is continued in an ongoing series with the same name beginning in January 2016, written by Jeff Lemire with Sorrentino returning as artist.


title: Old Man Logan

text: The United States and the world of Earth-807128 has been conquered and divided among supervillains, with territories belonging to the Abomination (later conquered by the Hulk), Magneto (later conquered by a new Kingpin), Doctor Doom, and the Red Skull, who has named himself President of the United States. Superheroes have been wiped out of existence, with the few survivors in hiding. Logan lives with his wife Maureen and young children Scotty and Jade on a barren plot of land in Sacramento, California, now part of the territory known as Hulkland. Needing money to pay rent to his landlords the Hulk Gang (the incestuous hillbilly grandchildren of the Hulk and his first cousin She-Hulk), Logan accepts a job from a blind Clint Barton to help him travel east to the capital of New Babylon and deliver a secret package (which Logan assumes to be drugs).


title: Old Man Logan

text: Logan and Barton encounter several diversions on their journey. They rescue Barton's estranged daughter Ashley (who seems to be an aspiring Spider-Girl) from the clutches of the new Kingpin. However, she then murders Kingpin and reveals her intention to seize his territory of Hammer Falls (formerly Las Vegas) herself as the new Kingpin and "Spider-Bitch", before attempting to kill her father; Logan rescues him and the pair escape, as Spider-Bitch sends her forces after them.


title: Old Man Logan

text: They escape a cluster of Moloids who are destroying cities by sinking them from beneath the surface. They then get chased by a Venom symbiote-infused dinosaur (imported from the Savage Land), but they are rescued and teleported by the White Queen and Black Bolt.


title: Old Man Logan

text: Throughout the story it is reiterated that the "Wolverine" persona died the day the villains attacked and that since then, Logan has refused to use his claws. Flashbacks reveal that on the night the attack happened, a group of 40 supervillains attacked the X-Mansion. Unable to locate his teammates, Logan slaughtered the attackers to ensure the safety of the mutant children. As the last "attacker" Bullseye was killed, Logan realized that the entire assault was an illusion created by Mysterio and his perceived enemies were actually his fellow X-Men. This destroyed Wolverine emotionally and mentally, and he fled the mansion and wandered away to a train track in shock and shame. Though he made a subsequent suicide attempt by allowing a freight train to run him over, Logan could not actually kill himself, but had effectively killed "Wolverine".


title: Old Man Logan

text: When they arrive at the capital, Hawkeye delivers his package to an underground resistance group hoping to begin a new team like the Avengers. The package contains Super-Soldier Formula, enough to form an army, but Barton's clients expose themselves as undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. They shoot and kill Logan and Barton. Logan's body heals and he awakens in Red Skull's trophy room amongst the armaments and costumes of fallen superheroes. Without using his claws, he kills Red Skull's men and engages Red Skull himself, eventually decapitating him with Captain America's shield. He grabs a briefcase of money (their intended reward for the delivery) and uses pieces of Iron Man's armor to fly back home. Upon arriving, Logan discovers that the Hulk Gang murdered his family and left the bodies unburied in his absence. His neighbor Abraham Donovan states that Logan's family was killed when the Hulk Gang got tired of waiting for their payment. This results in Logan finally unleashing his claws.


title: Old Man Logan

text: He seeks out and slaughters the Hulk's grandchildren Beau, Bobbie-Jo, Charlie, Elrod, Eustace, Luke, Otis, Rufus, and Woody before encountering Old Man Banner himself who displays monstrous strength, even in his human form. It is implied that the gamma poisoning in his body had begun to deteriorate his sanity in his old age. Banner reveals that while the murder of Logan's family was intended as a message to others, he really just wanted to get Logan angry enough to fight him because he had gotten bored with being a "super-villain landlord", like the others. In his Hulk form, Banner easily defeats Logan and then consumes him. Logan recuperates within Banner's stomach and bursts out, killing the Hulk. Afterward, he discovers a baby Hulk named Bruce Banner, Jr. A month later, Logan and his neighbors hold a small memorial for Logan's family. With nothing left of his old home, Logan then says he plans to defeat all the new world villains and bring peace to the land—with himself and Bruce Banner, Jr. being the first members of a new group of superheroes—before riding off into the sunset.


title: Old Man Logan

text: After a fight with the Ghost Riders, Old Man Logan found that Pappy Banner's head was placed on a gamma-powered robot made from Adamantium by Tinkerer. He used it in his revenge on Old Man Logan. Before Old Man Logan can be finished off by Pappy Banner, he is suddenly attacked by Bruce Banner Jr. who separated Pappy Banner's head from the Adamantium armor. Rather than kill his head, Old Man Logan buried it and planted a tree over him so that its roots can slowly dig into his skull.


title: Old Man Logan

text: Some time later, Old Man Logan and the now adult Bruce Banner Jr. are featured during a scene when the new Defenders, led by an older Susan Storm, travel back in time to use cosmic energy to restore their dying Earth. Now calling himself the Hooded Man, Old Man Logan accompanies Gaia back to his original timeline in order to repopulate the now desolate Earth and keep her from going insane from the lack of inhabitants. He is later seen gardening with Gaia, who is now pregnant with his child.


title: Old Man Logan

text: The history of this Old Man Logan is the same as the one on Earth-807128. When the Multiverse was destroyed and Battleworld was created, a different version from an altered universe version of "Old Man Logan" called Earth-21923 is reborn on the Battleworld domain called the Wastelands, a re-creation of his native reality with his memories still intact, although he does not know how he arrived in Battleworld. After having declared to set his world right, Logan disrupts a poker game between the Gladiator and his Flying Devils, and he ends their human trafficking ring by killing them, freeing those imprisoned. While on the way back to meet with Danielle Cage, Logan witnesses the head of an Ultron Sentinel fall from above. Wishing to investigate further, he brings it along with him back home, where Bruce Jr. and Danielle also reside. After explaining this new development, he investigates the head's origins. He visits Hammer Falls and meets with the dying Emma Frost, and he learns that the head is from beyond the Wastelands, so he begins traveling beyond his domain.


title: Old Man Logan

text: When Logan trespasses upon its borders, he is approached by an unidentified Thor of the Thor Corps. She attacks Logan with a lightning bolt for breaking Doctor Doom's laws, falling into the Domain of Apocalypse in the process. Already healed from the burns caused by the Thor's attack, Logan is attacked by Victor Creed (who is one of the Horsemen of Apocalypse) and his soldiers, but Logan is rescued by the X-Men and taken to their hideout, where they are attacked by Apocalypse and his other Horsemen.


title: Old Man Logan

text: The battle that ensues is intervened by the Thor who attacked Logan earlier and as she argues with Apocalypse, Logan flees and hides. The Thor then demands to know to where he had run, but no one answers. Angry, she attacks both the X-Men and the Horsemen with a lightning bolt and then looks for Logan through the domain. When she is near the domain's walls, Logan climbs it and attacks her from behind. Enraged, the Thor attacks him with another lightning bolt and lets him fall into the neighboring domain of Technopolis, as she is attacked by Apocalypse's Infinite Soldiers. Logan is taken to Stark Tower by Baron Stark and Grand Marshal Rhodes, the Thor of that domain. After healing from his injuries, Logan awakens only to find himself in a totally different domain from the one where he was. He ends up fighting Rhodes, but is defeated and sent to the Deadlands as punishment for breaking Doom's laws.