Gran Sasso raid in the context of "Military history of Italy during World War II"

Italy entered World War II on 10 June 1940 by invading France, joining the German offensive already in progress. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini did so opportunistically as the Allied powers (chiefly France and the United Kingdom) seemed on the verge of collapse. The Italian war aim was to expand its colonial empire at the expense of the French and the British. While France surrendered on 22 June 1940, the United Kingdom and its allies continued to fight far beyond the point which Mussolini had thought possible, ultimately leading to the defeat and dissolution of Fascist Italy in 1943 when Mussolini was deposed in a bloodless coup d'état.

Italy's Axis partner, Nazi Germany, was ready for its defection and occupied central and northern Italy after the armistice of Cassibile in September 1943. After freeing Mussolini from captivity, the Germans set him up as the leader of a new puppet state in the north, the Italian Social Republic. This provoked Italian resistance against the German occupation and also a civil war between pro- and anti-fascist Italians. In the Allied-held south, the Kingdom of Italy officially became a co-belligerent of the Allies and declared war on Germany on 13 October 1943.