Church bells tolled with great animation, even though it was not an hour when the bells normally rang out. Conversations were just as animated, whether at the café in the piazzas and town halls in many Italian towns, or on the highways where cars had clustered at the roadside restaurants as their drivers argued about what they had heard.
An armistice between the Italian government led by the Italian general Pietro Badoglio and the Allied forces had been announced.
Before this day such a development was unthinkable. But since the dismissal of Mussolini, rumor had it that the Italian government had been negotiating with the Americans and the British to surrender. On this glorious day in early September, the deal that had been kept hidden from the public was finally announced.
Italy was fr
