This will be the last chapter in my review/notes of the book.  

Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Mussolini declared support for Hitler, but knew Italy wasn’t ready to enter the war yet. But in 1940, Mussolini sent over a force to Libya to cross into Egypt and attack the British forces there. Despite being greatly outnumbered, the British held their own.  

Mussolini’s missteps in Ethiopia, Greece in 1940, and the Balkans had all been disastrous, and by 1943, the Italians had had enough. In July ‘43, the allies launched an invasion through Sicily. The Americans used a set of Sicilian-American mafiosi to help them navigate the island and make sure their way was cleared.  

Churchill was convinced that getting Italy out of the war was the first objective. Sicily became a prime objective. Once the Allies held Sicily, they could establish supply and airbases from which to attack the Nazis. 

Both the American general Patton, and the British general Montgomery invaded Sicily jointly. These two men hated each other’s guts. The island was supposed to have been defended by 300,000 axis troops, but most were Italians who, fed up with the Fascist regime, had little stomach for the fight by now. They surrendered in droves as the Allied armies encountered them, and the deluge of prisoners ended up causing huge problems. 

Mussolini was dismissed in July 1943, then promptly arrested. Italian crowds were jubilant, but on Sicily, the American and English armies were dealing with exhaustion, heat, dengue, sandfly and Malta fevers… and then malaria, which killed over 20 thousand soldiers in the combined armies. 

The armies were welcomed in Sicily as a relief from the dictatorship; plus they brought food and drugs to combat malaria. The Mafia had benefited as well from their cooperation with the American intelligence. As a reward, they were appointed to primary positions in the new Sicilian government positions.  

In 1944, the Allies handed Sicily back over to the Italian authorities. Italy finally granted Sicily a large degree of autonomy, hoping it would give the Sicilians a new sense of political responsibility. Sicily had its own cabinet of ministers, and near complete control over industry, agriculture and mining, as well as considerable control over public order and communications. Italy also finally recognized Sicily could not continue as the disgrace it had been for so long, and voted it a substantial subsidy. This essentially ended all the separatist talk. The Mafia, on the other hand, continued as it always had. 

There is a summary chapter in the book, but I won’t bother to recap that since it really adds nothing more to the actual history of Sicily. For my own part, I found myself wishing there were more about Sicily in Sicilian history. But since for nearly all its history, decisions about the island have been made by people ruling from afar, much of Sicily’s history is wrapped up in events that don’t tell us much about Sicily itself. I am looking forward to several other books on Sicilian history, and maybe there I’ll find more about what was happening on the island itself. But it also has to be acknowledged that things that were happening on Sicily were profoundly affected by those external decisions, so any history of what was happening on the island has to reference them.