While personal accounts and interpretive overviews have been written about the allied invasion and occupation of Italy during World War II, this study is the first to utilize recently published American Foreign Relations volumes dealing with the wartime conferences. Organized into five chapters, the study surveys allied conferences leading to the invasion of Italy, Italian political developments during occupation, and allied relief and rehabilitation efforts. The conclusions are that Churchill, while correct in .assessing Italy's strategic value, undermined his own policy through political meddling and a desire for revenge. In combination with Roosevelt, whose interest in Italy was political and at best marginal, Churchill needlessly delayed stabilization of Italian economic and political conditions.