Mediterranean and Middle East Volume VI : Naval & Military Press : 9781783318216 : 178331821X : 09 Feb 2021 : The last of eight volumes in the 18-volume official British History of the Second World War dealing with the war in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern theatres, this book tells the final stage of the story from November 1944 to May 1945. It details the end of the war in Greece and Yugoslavia, but concentrates on the stubborn struggle in northern Italy. The narrative opens with the aborting of Field-Marshal Alexander's plan for a quick thrust to Vienna across north-eastern Italy, and describes political and other difficulties encountered in co-operating with Tito's Yugoslav partisans. Tito's fellow-Communist E.A.M./E.L.A.S. partisans in Greece attempted to take power in Athens in December 1944. Churchill intervened personally with the British army to crush the revolt. In the new year of 1945, a carefully prepared final allied offensive in Italy, Operation Grapeshot, destroyed