Victor Emmanuel III of Italy
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Victor Emmanuel III (Italian: Vittorio Emanuele III; 11 November, 1869 – 28 December, 1947) was a member of the House of Savoy and he was the King of Italy (29 July, 1900 – 9 May, 1946). In addition, Victor Emanuel was the Emperor of Ethiopia (1936–43) and the King of Albania (1939–43). During his long reign, Victor Emmanuel III saw two world wars and the birth, rise, and fall of Fascism in Italy.
BiographyEarly yearsVictor Emmanuel was born in Naples, Italy. He was the only child of Umberto I, King of Italy (Re d'Italia), and his consort, Princess Margherita of Savoy. Margherita was the daughter of the duke of Genoa. Unlike the 6'-6" tall Amedeo, 3rd Duke of Aosta, Victor Emmanuel was relatively short of stature. On 24 October 1896, Prince Victor Emmanuel married Princess Elena of Montenegro. Ascension to the throneOn 29 July 1900, at the age of 30, Victor Emmanuel ascended the throne upon his father's assassination. He became Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and Elena became became Queen Elena of Italy (Regina Elena d'Italia). 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. Though Italy was a parliamentary democracy, the monarchy possessed considerable residual powers, including the right to appoint the Prime Minister, even if the individual in question did not command majority support in the Chamber of Deputies. A shy and somewhat withdrawn individual, the King hated the day-to-day stresses of Italian politics, though the country's chronic political instability forced him to intervene no less than ten times between 1900 and 1922 to prevent parliamentary crises. When World War I began, 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. Support to MussoliniThe economic depression which followed World War I had given rise to much extremism among the sorely-tried working classes of Italy. This caused the country as a whole to become politically unstable. Benito Mussolini, soon to be Italy's Fascist dictator, took advantage of this instability for his rise to power. March on RomeIn 1922, Mussolini led a force of his Fascist supporters on a March on Rome. Prime Minister Luigi Facta and his cabinet drafted a decree of martial law. But the Victor Emmanuel refused to sign it. The King suggested that his Royal Army (Regio Esercito) could not have defended the city against the Fascist march. However, testimony from the military leaders and surviving military records challenge his claim. Fascist violence had been growing in intensity throughout the summer and autumn of 1922, climaxing with the rumours of a possible coup. Victor Emmanuel had all the means at his disposal to sweep Mussolini and his rag-tag Blackshirt army to one side. General Pietro Badoglio told the King that military would be able to rout the rebels, who numbered no more than 10,000 men, without any difficulty. Thereupon, Victor Emmanuel could have ordered Facta to protect Rome and could have supported a decree proclaiming martial law. The troops were totally loyal to the King. Even Cesare Maria De Vecchi, commander of the Blackshirts, and one of the organisers of the March on Rome, told Mussolini that he would not act against the wishes of the monarch. It was at this point that the Fascist leader considered leaving Italy altogether. But then, in the minute before midnight, he received a telegram from the King inviting him to Rome. By midday on 30 October, he had been appointed Prime Minister, at the age of 39, with no previous experience of office, and with only 35 Fascist deputies in the Chamber. Thus it was that Italian democracy died. 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. Though the King claimed in his memoirs that it was the fear of a civil war that motivated his actions, it would seem that he received some 'alternative' advice, possibly from Antonio Salandra, an ultra conservative politician and former Prime Minister, and General Armando Diaz, that it would be better to do a deal with Mussolini. There were also pro-Fascist elements in his immediate family, including Margherita of Savoy, his mother. Whatever the circumstances, Victor Emmanuel showed weakness in a position of strength, with dire future consequences for Italy and for the monarchy itself. It has been alleged that Victor Emmanuel's decisions showed not only poor judgment but also 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. Image:Victor Emmanuel III of Italy - Project Gutenberg eText 13955.jpg
Victor Emmanuel III in 1893
Lateran TreatyIn 1929, Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty for Victor Emmanuel. The treaty was one of the three agreements made that year between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See. On 7 June 1929, the Lateran Treaty was ratified and the "Roman Question" was answered. Squandered popular supportThe 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 Elena, born a Princess of Montenegro, evoked applause, sometimes cheering, when played in cinemas, in contrast to the hostile silence shown toward images of Fascist leaders. However, several of Victor Emmanuel's decisions proved fatal to the monarchy. Among these decisions were his assumption of the crown of Ethiopia, his public silence when Mussolini's Fascist government issued its notorious racial purity laws, and his assumption of the crown of Albania. Emperor of EthiopiaIn 1936, Victor Emmanuel assumed the crown of the Emperor of Ethiopia. His decision to do this was not universally accepted. Victor Emmanuel was only able to assume the crown after the Italian Royal Army invaded Ethiopia (Abyssinia) and had overthrown Emperor Haile Selassie during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. The League of Nations decried Italy's participation in this war and the illegal use of "chemical warfare" against the Ethiopian forces was well documented. Public silence concerning racial purity lawsIn 1938, Victor Emanuel kept a public silence when the Fascist government, under pressure from Nazi Germany, issued racial purity laws. These laws left his Jewish subjects open to persecution and 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. Victor Emanuel's private complaints to Mussolini did little to lessen this contempt. King of AlbaniaIn 1939, Victor Emmanuel assumed the crown of the King of Albania. Italian forces invaded the nearly defenseless monarchy across the Adriatic Sea and caused King Zog I to flee. The Italian invasion of Albania was generally seen as the act of a stronger nation taking unfair advantage of a weaker neighbor. Final efforts to save crown and countryOn 10 June 1940, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini made the fatal decision to have Italy enter World War II on the side of Nazi Germany. Italy was not prepared for war and, almost from the beginning, disaster followed disaster. In 1940 Italian armies in North Africa and in Greece suffered humiliating defeats. In late 1941, Italian East Africa was lost. In 1942, Italian Libya was lost. Early in 1943, the ten divisions of the "Italian Army in Russia" (Armata Italiana in Russia, or ARMIR) were crushed as an aside to the Battle of Stalingrad. Before the end of 1943, the last Italian forces in Tunisia had surrendered and Sicily fell. After a series of setbacks, the Royal Navy (Regia Marina) became no more than a "fleet in being." The Mediterranean Sea was hardly "Italy's Sea" (Mare Nostrum). The Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica), while generally doing better than the Army and the Navy, was chronically short of modern aircraft and even it was politely uninvited to participate in the Battle of Britain. As Italy's fortunes worsened, the popularity of the King suffered. One coffee house ditty went as follows:
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