Italy wants to seek terms with Russia

18th December 1942: Mussolini finally realises that he has got himself in too deep with Hitler's Eastern adventure - but there is now no way out

Adolf Hitler meets Italian foreign affairs minister Galeazzo Ciano at the Wolfsschanze on 18th December 1942.

The war was going from bad to worse for the Italians. Over 20,000 of their troops had been captured after the British breakthrough at El Alamein in November. Mussolini’s dream of riding his horse in triumph through Cairo, part of his new African …