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This paper analyzes the propagation of fatigue cracks in pearlitic steel intwo materials, hot rolled bar and cold drawn wire. The experimental procedureconsisted of fatigue tests on cylindrical bars under tensile loading, using steps withdecreasing amplitude of stress and constant stress range during each step. Results showhow the cold drawing process improves the fatigue behaviour of eutectoid steel byretarding the fatigue crack growth rate in the Paris regime. The fracto-metallographicanalysis shows how the microstructural anisotropy of the drawn steel (consequence ofthe drawing process itself) creates a change in the fracture crack path in the form oflocal micro-deflections (and thus multiaxially-driven fatigue propagation at the verylocal microscale). The net fatigue surface increases with cold drawing due to the higherangle of crack micro-deflections in the case of the heavily drawn material, therebyallowing a correction of the Paris law curves by considering the real (experimental)fatigue crack path (multi-deflected; locally multiaxial) and the theoretical fatigue crackpath (non deflected; locally uniaxial).