Target: Italy review Britain's secret war against Mussolini

Roderick Bailey has written a gripping history of Britain's undercover role in fomenting anti-Fascist activity in wartime Italy

In the spring of 1934, Mussolini was informed of a "Jewish plot" to overthrow the Fascist government. An Italian Jew named Sion Segre Amar had been arrested while smuggling anti-Black Shirt propaganda into Switzerland from Turin. He belonged to Italy's pro-British Justice and Liberty movement made up of disaffected Catholics, Jews, army stragglers and a handful of frustrated adventurers. Members were known as giellisti after the movement's initials "G" and "L" (for Giustizia e Libertà). A total of 17 giellisti were held in Turin for questioning. Among them was the painter and doctor Carlo Levi, later famous as the author of Christ Stopped at Eboli .

Only three giellisti were tried and convicted, but the 1934 subversion plot threatened to weaken and divide Italian Jewry at a time when it faced the common threat of Hitler. Dreadfully, a pro-Fascist Italian Jew had betrayed the conspirators: in the Italian resistance where the risk of betrayal was constant, a sense of trust and fellowship was vital. After Hitler occupied northern Italy in November 1943, fortunately, the political movement against Mussolini evolved into an organised mass of factory workers, peasants and intellectuals. Italians now had to take sides for or against Germany.

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