Victor Emmanuel III of Italy

Victor Emmanuel III (Italian: Vittorio Emanuele III; 11 November, 1869 – 28 December, 1947) was King of Italy (29 July, 1900 – 9 May, 1946), Emperor of Ethiopia (1936 - 1943) and King of Albania (1939 - 1943). During his long reign, Victor Emmanuel III saw two world wars and the birth of Fascism.

Biography

Victor Emmanuel was the only child of Umberto I, King of Italy and his consort, Princess Margherita of Savoy, daughter of the duke of Genoa. He ascended the throne in 1900 upon his father's assassination.

The only advice that his father Umberto ever gave his heir was that "Remember to be a king all you need to know is how to sign your name, read a newspaper and mount a horse". His early years showed evidence that, by the standards of the Savoy monarchy, he was a man committed to constitutional government. Indeed, even though his father was killed by an anarchist, the new king showed a commitment to constitutional freedoms.

When World War I, Italy remained neutral at first. However, in 1915, Italy signed several secret treaties committing to enter the war on the side of the Allies. Most of the people opposed war, however, and the Italian Chamber of Deputies forced Prime Minister Antonio Salandra to resign. Victor Emmanuel, however, declined Salandra's resignation and made the decision to enter the war himself. He legally had the right to make this decision under the Statuto Albertino, popular opposition to the war notwithstanding. However, the corrupt and disorganised war effort, the stunning loss of life suffered by the Italian army, especially at the great defeat of Caporetto, and the economic depression that followed the war turned the King against what he perceived as an inefficient political bourgeoisie.

The economic depression had given rise to much extremism among the sorely-tried working classes, and Benito Mussolini took advantage of this instability for his rise to power, which led to the March on Rome. Prime Minister Luigi Facta and his cabinet drafted a decree of martial law, but the King refused to sign it. The King suggested that his armed forces could not have defended the city against the Fascist march, though testimony from the military leaders and surviving military records challenge his claim. The Commander-in-Chief of the defending forces in the Capital was finally ordered by the King, it is said, to remove the blocks and let the Camicie Nere (Black Shirts) pass-- an act that provoked the resignation of the Facta government. Later, the King's failure, in the face of mounting evidence, to move against the Mussolini regime's abuses of power (including, as early as 1924, the notorious assassination of Giacomo Matteotti and other opposition MPs) led to much criticism.

It has been alleged that Victor Emmanuel's decisions showed poor judgment and undemocratic sentiments. What is not in doubt is that Fascism offered political stability and opposition to left-wing radicalism. This appealed to many people in Italy at the time, and certainly to the King. In many ways, the events from 1922 to 1943 demonstrated that the monarchy and the moneyed class, for different reasons, felt Mussolini and his regime offered an option that, after years of political chaos, was more appealing than what they perceived as the alternative: socialism and anarchism. Both the spectre of the Russian Revolution and the tragedies of World War I played large roles in these political decisions.

The Italian monarchy enjoyed popular support for decades. Foreigners noted how even as late as the 1940s newsreel images of King Victor Emmanuel and his strikingly beautiful Queen evoked applause, sometimes cheering, when played in cinemas, in contrast to the hostile silence shown toward images of Fascist leaders. Several of Victor Emmanuel's decisions, however, proved fatal to the monarchy.

Among these was the the assumption of the crown of Ethiopia, which was not universally accepted, after the Italian Army had invaded what was then known as Abyssinia and overthrown Emperor Haile Selassie, in 1935-36. In addition, Victor Emanuel kept a public silence in 1938, when the Fascist government, under Hitlerite pressure, issued its notorious racial purity laws, leaving his Jewish subjects open to persecution. These laws (about which he did make some complaints to Mussolini in private) constituted a clear violation of both his Coronation oath and his oath to the constitution. The fact that large numbers of Italians risked their lives to save not only their Jewish fellow citizens but also Jewish refugees from other countries only deepened their contempt for a King who had dragged them into an alliance with the Germans that they had never wanted.

Nonetheless, it came as a considerable surprise when Victor Emmanuel called Mussolini to the palace on July 25, 1943; removed him from office and named Marshal Pietro Badoglio as Mussolini's replacement. He then renounced the Ethiopian and Albanian crowns.

Victor Emmanuel then made another blunder when he negotiated a surrender to the Allies without ordering the army to defend Rome. Left without orders, the army virtually disintegrated; those who didn't surrender joined forces with the Germans. Fearing a German advance, Victor Emmanuel and his government fled south to Brindisi. This choice, though perhaps necessary for his safety, shocked many, including foreign observers. They drew contrasts to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who refused to leave London during the Blitz, and of Pope Pius XII, who mixed with Rome's crowds and prayed with them after the working class Roman Quartiere San Lorenzo was bombed and destroyed.

Victor Emmanuel transferred most of his powers to his son, Crown Prince Umberto, in April 1943. He appointed Lieutenant General of the Realm after Rome was liberated in 1944, relinquishing his remaining power but retaining the royal title. Within a year, public opinion forced a plebiscite to decide between retaining the monarchy or becoming a republic. In hopes of influencing the vote, Victor Emmanuel formally abdicated on May 9, 1946. It didn't work; 54% of the voters favored declaring a republic in the referendum held less than a month later, and the Savoy family was required to leave the country.

Taking refuge in Egypt, Victor Emmanuel died in Alexandria in 1947 and was buried there.

Before posterity

He has been seldom treated sympathetically by historians. His almost forced abdication on the eve of a referendum on the future of the Italian monarchy achieved nothing, being too little far too late. At worst, it reminded undecided voters of the role the monarchy and the King's own actions (or inactions) had played during the Fascist period, at precisely the moment when monarchists were hoping that voters would focus on the positive impression created by Crown Prince Umberto and Princess Maria José as the de facto monarchs of Italy since 1943. The 'May' King and Queen, Umberto and Maria José, in their brief, month-long reign, were unable to shift the burden of recent history and opinion.

Family

In 1896 he married princess Elena of Montenegro (1873-1953), daughter of Nicholas I, King of Montenegro. Their issue included:

1. Yolanda Margherita Milena Elisabetta Romana Maria (1901-1986), married to Giorgio Carlo Calvi, Count Bergolo, (1887-1977);
2. Mafalda Maria Elisabetta Anna Romana (1902-1944), married to Prince Philip of Hesse-Kassel (1896-1980,) with issue; she died in the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald;
3. Umberto, later Umberto II, King of Italy (1904-1983) married to Princess Marie José of Belgium, with issue.
4. Giovanna Elisabetta Antonia Romana Maria (1907-2000), married to Boris III, King of Bulgaria, and mother of Simeon II, King and later Prime Minister of Bulgaria.
5. Maria Francesca Anna Romana (1914-2001), who married Prince Luigi of Bourbon-Parma (1899-1967), with issue.

References

• Mack Smith, Denis (1989). Italy and Its Monarchy. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-05132-8. 

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