Operation Achse

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Operation Achse
Part of the Italian campaign of World War II
Disarmed Italian soldiers marching to captivity in Bozen.
Date 8 - 23 September 1943 Location Italy, Balkans, Southern France Result Axis victory Italian Social Republic formed Benito Mussolini freed Italian government flees to Southern Italy Italy declares war on Germany German annexation of the Alpine Foothills and the Adriatic Littoral German occupation of North and Central Italy Failure to occupy Sardinia, Corsica, Naples and South Italy Italian Co-belligerent Army, Air Force and Navy is formed by the Allies National Republican Army is formed by the Germans Beginning of the Italian resistance in German-occupied Italy Beginning of the Italian Civil War
Belligerents
Italy	Germany  Croatia  Romania
Commanders and leaders
Vittorio Emanuele III Pietro Badoglio Vittorio Ambrosio Mario Roatta Ezio Rosi (POW) Mario Vercellino (POW)	Albert Kesselring Erwin Rommel Gerd von Rundstedt Maximilian von Weichs Alexander Löhr Miroslav Navratil Horia Macellariu
Strength
60 divisions (26 in Italy, 31 in the Balkans, 3 in France)	40 divisions (17 in Italy, 19 in the Balkans, 4 in France)
Casualties and losses
20,000–30,000 killed 1,006,370 disarmed Captured by Germans: 977 armored vehicles 16,631 vehicles 17,058 artillery pieces and mortars Many warships Captured by Romanians: 496 prisoners[1] 5 midget submarines[2]	Unknown

Operation Achse (German: Fall Achse, lit. 'Case Axis'), originally called Operation Alaric (Unternehmen Alarich), was the codename for the German operation to forcibly disarm the Italian armed forces after Italy's armistice with the Allies on 3 September 1943.

Several German divisions had entered Italy after the fall of Benito Mussolini in July 1943, while Italy was officially still an ally of Germany, despite the protests of the new Italian government under Pietro Badoglio. The armistice was made public on 8 September. German forces moved rapidly to take over the Italian zones of occupation in the Balkans and southern France, and to disarm Italian forces in Italy.

Some Italian troops, with no orders from superiors, and hampered by desertions, resisted the Germans. On the Greek island of Cephalonia, 1,315 Italian soldiers were killed in action against the Germans and over 5,100 Italian soldiers from the 33rd Infantry Division "Acqui" were summarily executed by the German Army after running out of ammunition and surrendering. In Rome, with the royal family and the government having fled, a disorganized defense by Italian troops of the capital was unable to withstand a German attack. Some individual soldiers and sometimes whole units, like the 24th Infantry Division "Pinerolo" in Thessaly, went over to the local resistance. Only in Sardinia, Corsica, Calabria and the southern part of Apulia were Italian troops able to offer successful resistance and hold off the Germans until relieved by the arrival of the Allies.