The efforts of Section D to support the long-established anti-fascist opposition in Italy, and its wider work across the Aegean, was greatly hampered by the fear of the British government in 1939-40 that any action might accelerate the chances of Italy entering the war on the side of Germany. 

 

As in Germany, there was a native resistance in Italy to the rise of fascism, dating back to the rise of Mussolini in 1922. The three main pre-war opposition groups were the social democratic Giustizia e Liberta, the substantial Slovene minority in eastern Italy centred on Trieste, and the Communist Party. After the Armistice of September 1943, opposition exploded into large-scale partisan activity as well as with large sections of the Italian army now fighting on the side of the allies.  Together these made a significant contribution to allied victory.

Although the Communist party came to the fore in 1943 by organising the largest partisan brigades, in the pre-war period they were hampered by a fitful attitude to the concept of a 'popular front', often regarding the social democrats as 'social fascists' and an equal enemy to Mussolini, and then in the early war years by adherence to the Moscow line that the war was an imperialist, rather than an anti-fascist, war in order to protect the Hitler-Stalin pact. As a consequence, the main active pre-war anti-fascist organisation was the social democratic Giustizia e Liberta, founded in 1929. This organised the substantial Italian contingent to the International Brigades in Spain with the slogan: ‘Today in Spain, tomorrow in Italy’. In 1937 the Garibaldi Brigade  were forced to flee back to France and  its members were dispersed after the fall of France, some ending up in Nazi concentratioan camps. Survivors reconstituted themselves in partisan brigades after the Armistice of September 1943. The Giustizia e Libertà partisan brigades, although  soon outnumbered by the new Communist brigades, were highly regarded and in the twenty months of the war their units sustained 4,500 casualties.

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British-born Italian Max Salvadori  was a long-established anti-fascist with links to SIS, although initially the latter were not prepared  to promote  anti-fascist propaganda. In August 1939 he was persuaded to return to Britain from exile in The USA to work with Section D. He was dismissive of any prospect of an internal revolution at the time as ‘useless wishful thinking’ but  believed that a propaganda campaign was the best way forward. Even this was dismissed by the Foreign Office, nervous of any intervention in Italy. Instead, he began to work as a double agent with the Italian government, having convinced the Italian authorities that he was ready to put his country above his previous opposition to the fascist regime. To this end, Section D funded a visit to Switzerland to meet an Italian emissary and he then made contact with the Italian ambassador in London.  Salvadori deftly avoided any suggestion that he should inform on his friends in the Italian opposition but rather suggested that he could be a point of contact to discuss Italy’s future relationship with Britain, all the while trying to gather intelligence for Section D.

 

Nothing came of this scheme but Section D was eventually able to use Salvadori's contacts to  establish a low level operation in Italy itself. Officers first visited Rome in November 1939 to investigate the prospects for the covert distribution of allied propaganda in Italy, as well as using Italy as a route for the insertion of black propaganda into Germany - which might disrupt good relations between the two countries. Bernard Wall was appointed as head agent in Rome, living in the Vatican City with a cover as correspondent for The Tablet. Wall was assisted by John Verney, who worked for the British Council.  Verney was, however, accused of being indiscrete and risked exposing the fact that another member of the British Council was an SIS agent. ​ As late as  mid-April 1940, the consensus of the Chiefs of Staff and Balkan ministers was that Italy still might not enter the war on the axis side and the work of Section D was severely restricted. But in  May 1940 linguist Peter Hope  tried again  to  build up the  Italian section. On 25 May,  Hope and Salvadori met leaders of Giustizia e Liberta to discuss their drafting and distribution of  anti-German propaganda in Italy on behalf of Section D. Giustizia e Liberta was given a subsidy of £20,000 and Section D agreed to deliver 11,000 of the new leaflets to a contact in Turin. 2,000 leaflets and 35,000 stickers were sent to the Rome office before plans were interrupted by the fall of Paris. Plans were also afoot for delivering suitcases of explosives for storage in Florence.  This was too little, too late. 

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More active links were formed by Section D with Slovenian nationalists based in Yugoslavia, who resented the secession of Istria to Italy after the First World War. TIGR and Branizbor were well-armed and became an extremely important reservoir of saboteurs to Section D throughout the Balkans and Austria, with HQs in Belgrade and Ljubljana,  By February 1940, Section D had supplied 12,000 carborundum blocks for railway sabotage to TIGR allies in Italy.  TIGR leader, Albert Rejec recollected how he used to wait on a Belgrade street corner in the evening and meet a Section D officer, who would bring a bag of explosives in his open-topped sports car. Rejec would then take the overnight train to Ljubljana, taking care to store the unwieldy bag on a luggage rack some distance from where he sat in order that he could deny any ownership if necessary.  TIGR would then smuggle the explosives into Italy. Again, the British government feared that the Slovenes might be a potentially dangerous ally whose activities might incite Italy to enter the war and for the time being, the Slovenes were dissuaded from carrying out actual sabotage in Italy, in the British hope that Italy might keep out of the war.

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As the political situation deteriorated, two anxious Section D couriers found themselves stuck on a platform at Milan railway station on 30 May for a day with thirty-five cases of explosives and time fuses, waiting for a delayed train. Two opposition printing presses in Milan and Turin funded by Section D still managed to operate for a time. There was better success from the Mediterranean where Section D  established a radio transmitter in Malta, which could broadcast into Italy. Ostensibly, it was operated by the Free Italian movement but was funded by Section D who also provided scripts.  

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In early June 1940, even as Section D was making a final desperate attempt to expand its Italian operation, the Foreign Office banned all further activity in that country for fear of providing a final excuse for a declaration of war.  Foriegn Office concerns were made redundant by the the speed of the German advance across the Low Countries and France which  finally convinced Mussolini that he needed to establish himself as an ally of Hitler before the war ended and therefore allow him to benefit from any peace settlement. Mussolini declared war on 10 June 1940. 

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TIGR hoped that  the declaration of war might free the way for more active support from Britain and on 20 June, they approached Section D in Belgrade with an optimistic proposal for them to seize Trieste and hold it for up to five days as part of a wider allied offensive in Albania, in return for a guarantee of Slovenian self-determination in Austria and Italy after the war. The plan was submitted to the Commander in Chief, Middle East in Cairo, but General Wavell was already greatly over-stretched and Italy would have to wait for liberation. After the German invasion of Yugoslavia the Slovenian guerrillas were gradually absorbed into Tito’s Communist-led partisans and after the war the earlier history of rheir role with Section D was suppressed. ​