Italy was a major battleground in the first half of world war two. Italy began as members of the axis powers and were allied with Germany, mainly thanks to Mussolini’s fascist ideals and Hitler’s idolization of Mussolini himself. The allied powers saw Italy as the weak under belly of the war and as a way to create a new front for Germany to fight on in the south. The Americans and British fought their way through North Africa and into Sicily in order to get a good base of operations. From here the two allied powers raced to capture Rome first. As they fought their way through southern Italy the allies used Sicily to making bombing runs on Rome’s industrial eras in order to cripple the production power of Italy’s biggest city. As this area was bombed the basilica of saint Lawrence was accidentally hit and the majority of it was destroyed. This gives you an idea of what it was like for the people who lived in Rome at the time. Once this was destroyed and the allies began to gain ground the Nazis decided to take control of the city into their own hands and marched into Rome and put it under their rule. This saw the sprouting up of resistance groups and the deportation of the jews in the city. World war two changed the lives of the romans for a long time to come as monuments were destroyed and damaged and people were killed and taken.