Here you can find the story: 8th sept 1943 armistice of Cassibile, the darkest page of Italian war history, the coward escape from Rome of the king of Italy, who was the head of the Italian army, and Badoglio, the prime minister with their families and entourage. The Italian army left without orders, the largest navy in Europe in La Spezia without orders moving from the ports to join the south under the fire of German airplanes. The sacrifice of 1.500 Italian soldiers killed in one day in Kefalonia in Greece, the killing of thousand of Italian prisoners by the Germans, the sinking of most of the italian battleships in north of Sardinia with the sacrifice of thousands of sailors. Italy divided into two parts, at north of the Republic of Salo of Mussolini allied with the Germans and the South Italy allied with the Anglo-Americans . My grandmother with my mother at the age of 13 with no money and nothing to eat in the north , my grandfather, a valorous Italian army officer, two silver medals in the world war I, taken prisoner by the Germans and taken to a concentration camp in Poland, asking to survive to help his family.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Italy_during_World_War_II