Victor Emmanuel III

Victor Emmanuel III (1869–1947),king of Italy from 1900 to 1946 (also emperor of Abyssinia from 1936 and king of Albania from 1939) who acquiesced in Mussolini's take-over of the state in 1922. With the war obviously lost he had already arranged for Mussolini's arrest when the Grand Fascist Council voted, on 25 July 1943, to restrict the Duce's powers, and he then appointed Badoglio prime minister. ‘With the disappearance of Mussolini the king was truly in command for the first time in his reign’ ( D. Mack Smith, Italy and its Monarchy, London, 1989, p. 306), but in the weeks of hesitation that followed he emerged with little credit; and when the armistice with the Allies was announced on 8 September 1943 he was forced to flee Rome before the Germans occupied it. With Allied support, he and his government were established in Brindisi (he later moved to Ravello and the government to Salerno), where it soon became obvious he was more concerned with saving his throne than with helping his country's plight. At first he resisted pressures to abdicate, but when the Allies captured Rome in June 1944, Count Sforza and other liberal politicians forced him to step aside and his son, Umberto II, became Lt-General of the Realm, or regent. He abdicated in May 1946 and died in Egypt. See also Italy, 3(b).