Italy was the location of a civil war.
The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in military defeat , economic destruction and an Italian civil war.
The Italian Civil War -LRB- Italian : La guerra civile -RRB- is the period between September 8 , 1943 -LRB- the date of the armistice of Cassibile -RRB- , and May 2 , 1945 -LRB- the date of the surrender of German forces in Italy -RRB- in which the Italian Resistance and the Italian Co-Belligerent Army fought together and defeated the forces of the Fascist Italian Social Republic.
