Victor Emmanuel III

Victor Emmanuel III (1869-1947) was king of Italy from 1900 to 1946. He contributed to the liquidation of the Italian monarchy.

Victor Emmanuel was born on Nov. 11, 1869, in Naples. After his father, Umberto I, was assassinated in 1900, Victor Emmanuel succeeded to the throne. His lifelong preference for matters martial had been set by military training and army service. But the political circumstances of his time prevented him from asserting a commanding personality in either war or peace.

In 1896 Victor Emmanuel married Princes Elena of Montenegro. They had five children, among whom were Umberto, the last legal king of Italy, and Mafalda, whose death in 1944 at the Buchenwald concentration camp enrolled her among the list of victims of that Fascist holocaust her father had helped to unleash upon Europe.

In Italy, as in other countries of Europe, the impact of World War I produced unforeseen shifts in the political spectrum. Particularly important were certain defections from the ranks of the Italian Socialist party. On the left arose a number of splinter factions, some of whom sympathized with the Russian Bolsheviks, but who were slow to form an Italian Communist party. To the right emerged the figure of Benito Mussolini, once a prominent Socialist journalist, now the leader of a band of middle-class ultranationalist bravos called Fascists. While the Fascists loudly supported the Italian claims to territory given to Yugoslavia after the war and vented their ire on striking workers, the left supported and led the strikers and, inspired by the revolutionary leader Antonio Gramsci, encouraged occupation of factories in the leading industrial center of Turin.

Frightened by working-class militancy, the old political establishment veered sharply right and looked on with satisfaction while the Fascists stepped up their punitive raids against labor and Socialist politicians. Yet by the time Mussolini's rabble assembled for its "March on Rome, " the tide of labor militancy had already begun to recede. On the eve of the march (Oct. 28, 1922) the government decided to proclaim martial law against the Fascist threat. But when asked to sign the decree, Victor Emmanuel refused. At this moment, the King occupied the crucial position later held by Paul von Hindenburg in Germany; in both cases the results were the same—the admission to the governing circles of Fascist dictators whose "temporary" rule during the pseudo-emergency would "restore order" and teach conformity to the rebellious left. Needless to say, the emergency never ended, at least not until 20 years of fascism had brought upon the Italian people the horrors of war and foreign occupation.

For the King, the rest was anticlimax. As head of state, he signed the decrees that deprived his countrymen of their liberties and that destroyed the parliamentary system. His only other opportunity to act independently came after Mussolini's downfall, when he handed over the reins of government to the conservative marshal Pietro Badoglio rather than to a representative of the joint anti-Fascist resistance. This was in 1943; the following year Victor Emmanuel, while retaining his title, handed over what was left of the royal power to his son. In May 1946 he abdicated, but the monarchy outlasted him by less than a month. He died in exile in Egypt on Dec. 28, 1947. His career demonstrates that he never really came to terms with democracy and that in his few moments of meaningful political choice he preferred to deal with the representatives of savage reaction rather than concede an inch to the demands of the people.

Further Reading

Discussions of Victor Emmanuel's reign are found in John M. Cammett, Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism (1967); Denis Mack Smith, Italy: A Modern History (rev. ed. 1969); and A. William Salomone, Italy from the Risorgimento to Fascism (1970). □

Victor Emmanuel III 1869–1947, king of Italy (1900–1946), emperor of Ethiopia (1936–43), king of Albania (1939–43), son and successor of Humbert I. In 1896 he married Princess Helena of Montenegro. Though involved with Germany and Austria-Hungary in the Triple Alliance, he sought cordial relations with France and Great Britain. He favored the war of 1911–12 against Turkey, thus acquiring Libya. Though first advocating neutrality, he finally joined (1915) the Allies in World War I. He was unable to handle the confused internal situation of Italy after the war, refused to oppose the Fascist march on Rome, and asked (1922) Mussolini to form a government. Under the Fascist regime he was king in name only, but Mussolini's conquests added to his list of titles. During World War II, when the Fascist grand council voted (1943) against continued support of Mussolini, the king dismissed the dictator, placed him under arrest, and named Pietro Badoglio premier. German troops occupied Rome after Italy surrendered to the Allies, and Victor Emmanuel fled to S Italy. Unpopular because of his long association with Mussolini, he was obliged to transmit (1944) his royal prerogatives to his son, Humbert II, in whose favor he abdicated in 1946. He died in exile in Egypt.

Victor Emanuel III (b. 11 Nov. 1869, d. 28 Dec. 1947). King of Italy 1900–46 A figurehead in theory, his position was enhanced by the instability and the frequency of Italian governments before 1922. In 1915, he supported the controversial decision for Italy to enter World War I. In 1922, he refused to heed Facta's advice to stop Mussolini through the declaration of martial law, appointing him Prime Minister instead. He continued to support Mussolini even after the Matteotti Crisis, out of fear of a socialist government. He was against Italian participation in World War II, so that in 1943 he was ready to accept the request of the Fascist Grand Council to depose Mussolini. As most anti-Fascist parties in the CLN were opposed to the monarchy, he found himself forced to delegate his royal powers to his son, Umberto, though he did not abdicate until just before the referendum on 2 June 1946, which abolished the monarchy.

Victor Emmanuel III (1869–1947) King of Italy (1900–46). He succeeded to the throne after his father's assassination. Under Mussolini, whom he had invited to form a government in 1922 in order to forestall civil war, Victor Emmanuel lost all political power. However, during World War II, after the loss of Sicily to the Allies (1943), he acted to dismiss Mussolini and conclude an armistice. Victor Emmanuel abdicated in favour of his son in 1946, but a republic was established the same year by popular vote and both he and his son went into exile.

Victor Emmanuel III (1869–1947) King of Italy (1900–46). In 1922, he appointed Benito Mussolini as prime minister. Although Mussolini established a dictatorship, the King retained the power to dismiss him, and eventually did so in 1943. Victor Emmanuel abdicated in 1946.