Saturday, July 24, 1943. The fall of Mussolini.

Lesser coat of arms of the Kingdom of Italy.

The Italian Fascist Grand Council voted 19 to 7 to remove Mussolini from power and restore full authority to the crown.

Dino Grandi, who had been a hard line fascist, but who also had opposed anti-Semitism and who had been critical of the war, organized beforehand Mussolini's downfall.  The Grand Council's statement following the decision read:

Grandi's Order of the Day

The Grand Council of Fascism,

meeting in these hours of utmost trial, turns all its thoughts to the heroic fighters in every corps who, side by side with the people of Sicily in whom shines the unequivocal faith of the Italian people, renewing the noble traditions of strenuous valor and the indomitable spirit of sacrifice of our glorious Armed Forces, having examined the internal and international situation and the war's political and military leadership,

proclaims

the sacred duty for all Italians to defend at all costs the homeland's unity, independence, and freedom, the fruits of sacrifice and the efforts of four generations from the Risorgimento to the present, the life and future of the Italian people;

affirms

the necessity of moral and material unity of all Italians in this serious and decisive hour for the nation's destiny;

declares

that to this end the immediate restoration of all state functions is necessary, assigning to the Crown, to the Grand Council, to the government, to the Parliament, and to the corporate groups the duties and responsibility established by our statutory and constitutional laws;

invites

the government to beseech His Majesty the king, to whom turns the loyal and trusting heart of the whole nation, to assume effective command of the Armed Forces of land, sea, and air for the honor and salvation of the homeland, under article 5 of the Constitution, the supreme initiative that our institutions assign to him, and which have always been throughout our nation's history the glorious heritage of our august House of Savoy.

Dino Grandi

While Mussolini seemed to accept the results at the time, he very quickly started acting as if they were not legally binding.

Mussolini had been in power for seventeen years, being the first of the fascist dictators to assume power.  While Italy's defeat in the field brought his end about, his removal did not automatically take the Italians out of the war.

Grandi would flea to Spain after the complete fascist collapse in August, not returning to Italy until 1960.  He died in 1988 at the age of 92.

Operation Gomorrah, the Royal Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force bombing campaign on Hamburg, began. Window was deployed for the first time.