Milan, Italy • October 27, 1922 On this date in 1922 in Italy, riots instigated by Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista) erupted in several Italian towns. The Fascists called on the national government to resign. The next day 4 columns of Mussolini’s paramilitary insurgents, Blackshirts (Camicie nere) or squadristi as they were called,…
Cairo, Egypt • August 5, 1942 On this date in 1942 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Gen. Sir Alan Brooke, chief of the Imperial General Staff, flew into Cairo. They arrived in the Egyptian capital 44 days after the British garrison at Tobruk in Eastern Libya (Cyrenaica) had fallen to German Gen. (soon Field…
Kursk, Soviet Union • July 13, 1943 On this date in 1943 Operation Citadel (Unternehmen Zitadelle), Adolf Hitler’s delayed gambit to retake the important Soviet rail hub of Kursk, south of Moscow, and straighten the German line on the Eastern Front failed with devastating losses on both sides, but especially to German strategic armored reserves….
Near Kursk, Russia • July 5, 1943 The pivotal year of the war in Europe was 1943. Early February saw Gen. Friedrich Paulus’ German Sixth Army, the largest army the Wehrmacht (armed forces) fielded in the war, surrender at Stalingrad (modern-day Volgograd) in Southern Russia. Some 850,000 service members from German, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, and…
London, England • June 24, 1942 On this date in 1942 Maj. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in London, England, to assume administrative and operational command of the European Theater of Operations, United States Army. At the time (end of May) the U.S. Army in Europe consisted of 3 infantry regiments. Set up 16 days prior to…
Berlin, Germany • May 22, 1939 On this date in 1939 Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy signed the “Pact of Steel” (German, Stahlpakt; Italian, Patto d’Acciaio). The pack, known formally as the “Pact of Friendship and Alliance,” tied the 2 dictatorships in a 10‑year military and political alliance and stipulated, among other things, that neither…
Salzburg, Austria • April 8, 1943 On this date in 1943 in Salzburg, Austria, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini met for the first time since the collapse of the Axis defense of Stalingrad at the end of January. Ignoring Mussolini’s trial balloon about negotiating a ceasefire with the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, Hitler remained convinced…
Tunis, Tunisia • November 9, 1942 On this date in 1942, one day after the largest amphibious invasion force in history to that time landed Allied troops on the French Algerian and Moroccan coasts, German troops, tanks, and aircraft started pouring into neighboring Tunisia from nearby bases in Italy. Operation Torch, under the command of…
Lisbon, Portugal • July 21, 1943 On this date in 1943 in Lisbon, delegates of Italian King Victor Emmanuel III met with the head of neutral Portugal to explore strategies for extracting Italy from the war. The Crown had begun searching for an exit as early as late 1942. After Allied landings in Axis-occupied North Africa…
Aboard HMS Duke of York • December 12, 1941 On this date in 1941 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, fearing that the immediate impact of Japan’s attack on the U.S. naval and air bases at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii would be a retreat into an “America-comes-first” posture, boarded the British battleship HMS Duke of York,…