The Mediterranean and Middle East

The last of eight volumes in the 18-volume official British History of the Second World War dealing with the war in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern theatres this book tells the final stage of the story from November 1944 to May 1945. It details the end of the war in Greece and Yugoslavia but concentrates on the stubborn struggle in northern Italy. The narrative opens with the aborting of Field-Marshal Alexanders plan for a quick thrust to Vienna across north-eastern Italy and describes poltical and other difficulties encountered in co-operating with Titos Yugoslav partisans. Titos fellow-Communist E.A.M/E.L.A.S partisans in Greece attempted to take power in Athens in December 1944. Churchill intervened personally with the British army to crush the revolt. In the new year of 1945 a carefully prepared final allied offensive in Italy Operatioon Grapeshot destroyed the German Army Group C on the River Po. In the final days of the war with secret negotiations for the surrender of Field Marshal Kesselrings German forces in Italy underway in Switzerland Eighth Army crossed the Po and took Trieste. Kesselring surrendered on 2nd May. But as British forces moved in to occupy their alloted zone of Carinthia in southern Austria they again found themselves clashing with Titos partisans. In an epilogue the authors look back at the hard-slogging Italian campaign concluding that it was justified as an important diversion of German forces. Allied losses were limited they argue by the judicious use of overwhelming air and artillery power to save lives. With 10 appendices and 20 maps and diagrams.