The Ossola is an area of Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 situated to the north of Lago Maggiore. It lies within the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola

Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola

Verbano-Cusio-Ossola is the northernmost province in the Italian region of Piedmont. It was created in 1996 through the fusion of three distinct regions which had previously been part of the Province of Novara...

. Its principal river is the Toce

Toce

The Toce is a river in Piedmont, Italy, which stretches the length of the Val d'Ossola from the Swiss border to Lake Maggiore into which it debouches near Fondotoce in the Commune of Verbania. The river is c. 76 kilometres in length and is formed in the upper Val Formazza by the confluence of a...

, and its most important town Domodossola

Domodossola

Domodossola is a city and comune in the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, in the region of Piedmont, northern Italy...

.

It is composed of one main valley (the Ossola proper) and seven side valleys: Anzasca, Antrona, Bognanco, Divedro, Antigorio

Valle Antigorio

The Antigorio Valley is one of the Alpine valleys radiating from the Ossola Valley , in the region of Piedmont, northern Italy.-Geography:The River Toce flows across the Antigorio Valley....

, Formazza, Isorno and Vigezzo. It also includes parts of the Val Grande National Park, Italy’s largest wilderness area.

There are many etymological claims as to the origins of the name Ossola. The most likely is from the Celtic "hoch hill", which means "high lands". The German name for the valley is Eschental ("valley of the ash trees").

Republic of Ossola

In 1944, with the Allied forces still stuck south of the Appennines and Mussolini's puppet state

Italian Social Republic

The Italian Social Republic was a puppet state of Nazi Germany led by the "Duce of the Nation" and "Minister of Foreign Affairs" Benito Mussolini and his Republican Fascist Party. The RSI exercised nominal sovereignty in northern Italy but was largely dependent on the Wehrmacht to maintain control...

 controlling all of Northern Italy, the Italian partisans

Italian resistance movement

The Italian resistance is the umbrella term for the various partisan forces formed by pro-Allied Italians during World War II...

 staged an uprising behind German lines, led by the Committee of National Liberation of Upper Italy

National Liberation Committee

The National Liberation Committee was the underground political entity of Italian Partisans during the German occupation of Italy in the last years of the Second World War. It was a multi-party entity, whose members were united by their anti-fascism...

. This rebellion led to the establishment of a number of provisional partisan governments throughout Northern Italy, of which the Free Republic of Ossola was the most prominent. It received official recognition from Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

and from Allied consulates in Switzerland. Within a few weeks, German reinforcements had crushed the uprising, and the area's liberation had to wait until the final offensives of 1945.

External links

• Comunità Montana Valle Ossola - Official website
• Parco Nazionale Val Grande - Val Grande National Park's official website.