Monarch Profile: King Vittorio Emanuele II of Italy

The man who would be the last King of Piedmont-Sardinia was known by the people of that late country, even early on, as the “Honest King” for his sincere devotion to their welfare. After going on to become the first King of Italy he became known to subsequent generations of Italians as the “Father of the Fatherland” and be celebrated and memorialized by one of the most immense and grandiose monuments ever to grace the fatal hills of Rome. Yet, this monarch who was so praised by the other courts of Europe was also, to some extent, snubbed by them and this monarch who the Pope remembered as “an honest man” was also dubbed by the Catholic press as “the Robber King”. There are few monarchs who have been simultaneously so praised and vilified as King Victor Emmanuel II. He was born on March 14, 1820 to King Carlo Alberto of Piedmont-Sardinia and Queen Maria Theresa of Austria. Part of his youth he spent in Florence where he gained a love of politics, sports and the military. The military would dominate much of his life as such service was a sacred tradition in the House of Savoy.

Victor Emmanuel II grew up on stories about the past exploits of his family. The Savoy who defended Rhodes as a Knight of Malta, the Savoy who was one of the greatest generals of Emperor Charles V, those who were blessed by the Church, went on Crusade, preserved the Shroud of Turin and so on and so forth. He was also very aware of strong differences in opinion amongst his forebears. Carlo Felice (Charles Felix) had been conservative and very attached to the sacred nature of monarchy. King Charles Albert was more liberal and, unlike his predecessors, despised the Austrians as much as they him, even to the point that they tried to thwart his succession. Victor Emmanuel II inherited many of the same internal conflicts endured by his father, a devout Catholic and firm believer in monarchy yet one whose nationalist and liberal sentiments were echoed by the “Young Italy” movement. Yet that movement ultimately made itself the enemy of the King and became radically republican. In his own time, Victor Emmanuel II would be expected to walk this same tight rope between enemies on both sides.

At the time similar conflicts were playing out all across Italy. A good illustration was when, in 1848, the people were incited to demand a constitution. King Charles Albert agreed to grant it and appeared on the balcony, waving the tricolor flag alongside his sons Victor Emmanuel and Ferdinand to the jubilant cheers of the crowd while all sang the ‘Hymn of Pius IX’ as the “liberal reformer” Pope who spoke openly of the “Italian nation” was at that time the most popular Italian of all. Things would soon change. Piedmont-Sardinia was spared further turmoil by giving in to the liberals but other states would not and when Austria sent troops to prop up their relatives in other of the minor Italian states, Piedmont-Sardinia went to war against Austria in the name of Italian independence (just as the King had earlier offered to do when Austrian troops violated the Papal States). The result was a crushing Austrian victory and King Charles Albert left the battlefield and the throne, abdicating in favor of his son who became King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont-Sardinia.

In 1842, as Duke of Savoy, he had married his cousin Adelaide of Austria, daughter of the Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia, a small and pretty woman, very religious and very charitable. Victor Emmanuel was often far from an ideal husband but before her tragic death in 1855 she gave him eight children, her end coming from childbirth. She had, so to speak, died ‘in the line of duty’. Meanwhile, after becoming King in 1849, following the defeat at Novara, he obtained an armistice from the Austrians but never lost sight of his primary goal; not so much the unification of Italy under his own rule but rather of the independence of Italy from foreign powers so that the day might come when the peninsula was no longer a battlefield for French and Austrian armies. The first effort had ended in failure, due not only to the Austrian army but, truth be told, also to republicans who undermined the effort as it stood to preserve the existing monarchies of Italy. Independence efforts were put off for a decade.

Tensions remained high, especially so when Piedmont-Sardinia was the only constitutional monarchy on the Italian peninsula. They were most hated by local reactionaries for this reason but also by the radical revolutionaries who feared they would cut out their support by delivering the liberties they promised but doing so within the framework of a monarchy rather than a republic. Yet, this was when Victor Emmanuel II became known as the “Honest King” for being alone among his fellows in standing by the promises all had made to ensure constitutional government. As his popularity grew so did the jealousy of his enemies. He was a pleasure-loving man but not an irreligious one and commented that of all the accusations his enemies threw against him the one that hurt most was that he was anti-clerical. Over time he continued to reference God and the Church in official papers and speeches even when the audience did not react favorably to such references. He favored the plan put forward by the philosopher Gioberti that Italian unification should come about by an alliance of Rome and Turin in a confederation of the Italian states. The Prime Minister, Count Camillo Cavour, argued that it was useless to even try to negotiate with the Holy See and after efforts to make concessions failed the King began to sway to his point of view. That view was likely reinforced when the works of Gioberti were condemned and his book placed on the Index of Forbidden Works.

So, finding scant support amongst the princely states, Victor Emmanuel II turned to an alliance with Great Britain and France. He was anxious to restore the lost glory from the defeat by Austria and was assured by Cavour that joining with Britain and France in their war against Russia (on behalf of Turkey) in the Crimea was the way to do it. The British constitutional monarchy had long been a model for Piedmont-Sardinia, providing liberty enough to maintain a content public but with a strong-enough monarchy to ensure security and an orderly society. France was more worrisome but most came to believe that only an alliance with France would enable Piedmont-Sardinia to eject the Austrian army from the Italian peninsula. So it was that the northern Italian kingdom joined a war in southern Russia despite having no tangible reason to do so. Russia had not offended or harmed them in any way but if it would win the favor of Britain and France, off to the Crimea they would go.

In the end, it took even more to secure the friendship of France, including great personal sacrifices for Victor Emmanuel II; Savoy, Nice and most painful of all his daughter in a marriage to a totally unsuitable Bonaparte relative of French Emperor Napoleon III. Freedom “from the Alps to the Adriatic” was what Napoleon promised but when France and Piedmont-Sardinia marched off to war against Austria, with the moral support of much of Europe since Austria had first invaded, the bloodshed soon turned Napoleon III into a fair weather friend. In the resulting treaty only Lombardy came under the Savoy crown with Austria retaining Venetia. Still, this was seen as a victory and deputations arrived from the central Italian duchies and even the Papal States requesting that Piedmont-Sardinia take them under their wing. King Victor Emmanuel II received them politely and was sympathetic but ultimately had to refuse them. He hoped that diplomacy might yet bring about a union of the existing Italian states to the exclusion of all foreign powers.

Toward that end, his hopes rose upon the death of the King of the Two-Sicilies and the accession to the throne of Francesco (Francis) II. The late Ferdinand II had refused an alliance with the Savoy, and was hostile to Sardinia to the bitter end, but with a new king, Victor Emmanuel II hoped things might be different and he offered an alliance again to King Francis II, uniting the Italian states between them with Sardinia responsible for the north and Sicily for the south. However, Francis II, one of those upright men who have often faced disastrous consequences for holding to their principles rather than practicality, refused the offer of friendship. With the Pope now refusing any sort of unity at all and the rejection of Francis II any hope that Italian independence could be achieved by a union of the existing monarchies evaporated. The only remaining choices were a revolutionary republic, as represented by the likes of Giuseppe Mazzini, or a constitutional monarchy as represented by King Victor Emmanuel II.

The moderates clung to him, in the words of the celebrated poet Alessandro Manzoni, “I see in the character of the king the intervention of Providence. He is exactly the sovereign that circumstances require to accomplish the resurrection of Italy”. And this was no rabid revolutionary but a man who had renounced his youthful rebelliousness for an austere Catholicism and who devoted much of his literary talents to writing, with religious guidance, on Catholic morality. Yet, whether the King liked it or not, events were unfolding rapidly and there was little he could do to control them for long. Immediately after the war, the professional revolutionary and ardent republican Giuseppe Garibaldi was preparing to march on Rome, overthrow the Papal States and force the area to join the slowly uniting Italy. Turin was in an uproar and the King summoned Garibaldi to order him to desist from such brash aggression. Garibaldi, though an ardent republican who had no use for kings, admired Victor Emmanuel II as a man and agreed to stand down. The King had also had a falling out with Cavour but still felt compelled to appoint him as his representative to a congress of the European nations gathering to deal with all the turmoil in Italy in early 1860. The King thought Cavour too rash and Cavour thought his monarch too deliberate. Nonetheless, an accord was reached and Cavour was back in power as head of the government.

The congress was never called as no country was willing to go out on a limb to restore the central Italian princes who had abandoned their thrones. Even the Church garnered little but moral support. Austria was under threat from France and Prussia, the anti-clerical party in France was strong and growing in anger over Papal support for the royalist cause. Belgium was divided on the issue and Spain and Portugal were both ruled by monarchs the Church had recently opposed, even if never officially. The issue of the Papal States soon dominated the “problem” of Italy. The liberals who had once applauded Pope Pius IX now vilified him and after being driven from Rome by a short-lived republic, the Pope had become an ardent reactionary. Only a tiny minority in Italy ever questioned the goodness and piety of the Pontiff but, given his shifting record, many were increasingly willing to question his ability as a monarch. The King and Pontiff exchanged many eloquent letters, each extremely polite and respectful toward the other but neither achieving any progress. The King professed that he took his duties seriously as a Catholic prince but that he also had a duty to safeguard the independence of Italy and, as he pointed out in one such letter, he did so, “following the impulse given from the Vatican” which was a thinly-veiled reference to the rather contradictory policy of the Holy See concerning Italy.

The Pope had righteous principle on his side but little else and it did not present a pleasant picture to the world that so saintly a man as Pius IX was only able to maintain his rule by the presence of, first, Austrian and later French bayonets. The Pope replied, politely and with great refinement, that the annexation of those parts of the Papal States outside Rome were beneath the dignity of so great a king and son of so august and ancient a Catholic royal house as the Savoy. His greatest concern, the Pontiff said, was for the soul of the King which would surely be lost if he persisted in challenging the temporal rule of the Church over central Italy. In short, there could be absolutely no compromise on the subject. Either Italian unity and independence would be abandoned or the theocracy must be destroyed. There could be no other option. Both men were convinced that right was on their side and neither could be moved from their positions even an inch. Conflict was inevitable.

The central Italian states were annexed by Piedmont-Sardinia after referendums which the nationalists hailed as positive proof of popular support and which the Church condemned as totally fraudulent. In truth, and this would continue for a long time in Church-State relations in Italy, the nationalists were probably correct since the Church, which was not about to abide by the referendum, forbid anyone from participating. Today this seems harsh but the Papal position was perfectly understandable. In the Papal States, moral law was secular law. To work on Sunday, miss monthly confession or get too friendly before marriage was not only immoral but illegal; in fact it was illegal *because* it was immoral. Things like moral law, right and wrong, or the legitimacy of papal rule could not be subject to popular opinion. It would have negated what the Papal States stood for (the beginning of an issue that remains problematic for the Church even today). So, the Pope could not recognize the results of the referendum which were unanimously in favor of union with Italy because all of those loyal to the Pope obediently refrained from voting.

King Victor Emmanuel II immediately wrote to the Pope, defending his position and asking the Pope to accept his religious sincerity and to work with him to reconcile their differences. Six days later the Pope publicly excommunicated the King, while still, in his written reply, asking God to bless the King. Such was Pius IX. The King was, naturally, deeply troubled by all this, as were all Italians who were, despite political differences, overwhelmingly Catholic. None could fail to admire the courage of the Pontiff and yet, when he claimed it as his sacred duty to uphold the temporal power, they remembered how he had once granted a constitution and the laity in government and other liberal reforms only to revoke them all later. This lack of consistency allowed the nationalists to pick the version of Pius IX that most pleased them and blame the harsher version on wicked advisors from whom the Pontiff must be rescued and so also be relieved of the “burdens” of temporal rule. There were also plenty of priests and bishops throughout Italy who continued to administer the sacraments despite the blanket excommunication on the King, his government, his army and any who cooperated with him, obeyed him or recognized his authority. Italy was not only split by being forced to choose between “nation” and “religion” but the Church was as well.

The King continued to go to mass, be given communion and so on. He also continued to write to the Pope explaining to him that his position would be unchanged, his authority and inviolability would be guaranteed and that the only difference would be that Italian troops would protect him instead of Austrian or French ones. Each time the Pope responded with two words, “not possible”. Meanwhile the King, who never liked being away from Piedmont, toured his new domain to a rapturous welcome with his record of success having won over most of the liberals as well as the moderates. Only the clerical faction and the most ardent republican revolutionaries remained opposed to the idea of a united Kingdom of Italy under Victor Emmanuel II. The clerical faction was mostly powerless as they refused to participate in the political process and the republicans had diverted their attention southward to the Kingdom of the Two-Sicilies where Garibaldi turned his attentions after being dissuaded from attacking Rome by Victor Emmanuel II.

The southern Bourbon bastion was gripped by crisis. The Swiss mercenaries who made up the backbone of the military had mutinied and been bloodily suppressed. The uncle of King Francis II had even joined the nationalists after his nephew had refused to go along with the liberal movement and turned down two offers of friendship from Piedmont-Sardinia. There had even been an effort, talked about in Naples, Rome and Vienna to form a ‘Holy League’ to oppose Piedmont-Sardinia by bringing in Spanish troops (the only other monarchy where the Bourbon dynasty still ruled). However, Spain refused on the grounds that such an effort would be too unpopular and dangerous. This is not surprising given that the Church had backed the Carlist faction in trying to overthrow Queen Isabella II and bitter divisions remained in Spanish society. Those loyal to the Queen were sympathetic to the liberals, not Francis II or the Pope and the Queen would not dare weaken her army at home and risk being overthrown herself by the Carlists who remained a force to be reckoned with no matter how religious and reactionary (both good things) she herself was seen as being by the liberals in Spain.

Thus Naples was already rife with revolutionary conspiracies when Garibaldi and his red-shirt republicans invaded Sicily and quickly overran the island. Count Cavour supported the expedition which brought down a storm of outrage on Turin. The King had been reluctant to have Cavour back and when he did, made it clear that Cavour would be responsible for his own actions. Cavour refused to back down. They had twice offered Naples an alliance and been twice refused so they felt no great guilt in viewing King Francis II as their unofficial enemy. The King had and would continue to have stringent disagreements with Garibaldi (who certainly felt no great loyalty toward him) yet he could not help but admire the man who showed such audacity, devotion to his nation and strict adherence to his principles -even if those principles made him opposed to the very concept of monarchy. In Naples King Francis II belatedly offered a constitutional government but it was too little, too late. His ministers resigned, most of his military forces melted away and with Sardinian ships looking on, Garibaldi crossed to the mainland (despite the King asking him not to) and occupied Naples, proclaiming a provisional government.

At the end of the year King Victor Emmanuel II decided to intervene directly and Piedmontese troops began investing the port city of Gaeta on November 6. The French had guarded Gaeta by sea but finally their support was withdrawn, yet King Francis II and his lovely Bavarian Queen resisted with great heroism that inspired everyone, friend and foe alike, at the last stand of the Bourbons in Italy. On February 13, 1861 the fortress city finally surrendered. The Two-Sicilies were annexed and, after the usual plebiscites, on March 17, 1861 Victor Emmanuel II was declared the first King of Italy by the first national government based in Turin. However, one final step remained toward full unification and, in some ways, it would be the most difficult. That was the Eternal City of Rome, all that remained of the Papal States and that held up only by the presence of French troops. Napoleon III had shifted positions again, fearing a potential rival rather than a strong ally and was being influenced by his devout and virtuous Spanish wife the Empress Eugenie. Despite their many differences, the French had actually given military support to the House of Savoy in the past and King Victor Emmanuel II wanted no conflict with them. As long as the French army remained in Rome the city every Italian looked to as their capital would remain out of reach of the new kingdom.

Garibaldi felt no such hesitation and tried twice to conquer the city only to be defeated by the French and the Papal army of international volunteers who had made their way to Rome to defend the theocracy, cheering Pius IX as the ‘Pope-King’. In the meantime, in 1866 King Victor Emmanuel II allied with Prussia in another war against Austria. The Prussians effectively used the Italians as a red flag to arouse Austria and then claim self-defense and drive the Austrians from their place of preeminence in Germany. It was not a pleasant affair for Italy but, in the end, Veneto was at long last added to the Italian nation. All that remained was Rome and, in a way, it would be Prussia that proved instrumental in removing that obstacle as well. In 1870 the Prussians provoked France into launching a foolhardy attack and used that to rally the German states in a war against Napoleon III that would result in the creation of the modern Germany.

The French troops were hurriedly pulled out of Rome at this crisis at which point Italy moved to take the city, claiming (rather lamely) to be responding to ‘riots and disorder’. As he had done before, the Pope deployed his army but then tried to prevent them from actually fighting. He knew it was hopeless, yet he wanted some symbolic shots to be fired to show that he was being conquered and not going along with the takeover willingly. However, some of his forces resisted anyway but the poorly maintained force of volunteers from around the world were brushed aside by the Italian army with little difficulty. Rome was taken and, after a brief stay in Florence, the Italian government moved there to make the Eternal City their capital. The Pope withdrew behind the walls of the Vatican, declaring himself a prisoner and refusing to recognize the Kingdom of Italy in any way. It was the start of a stand-off that would last well into the next century.

King Victor Emmanuel II was undoubtedly an ambitious man, yet he was reticent to be seen as a conqueror and had held back at almost every step on the road to unification. He was, however, willing to take advantage of opportunities that presented themselves even while he was troubled about it. For instance, once Rome had fallen the King was reluctant to even visit the city and the first time he did, informally, was after the Tiber flooded, causing great suffering, and he came with a few courtiers to survey the damage and help in any way he could. Later, when he made his formal entry into Rome, he did not want to take up residence in the Quirinal Palace which had formerly belonged to the Pope. He finally did some time after it became clear that no accommodation would be reached. The King felt the offer of his government had been more than generous; guarantees of independence for the Church, exclusive use of Church property, control over all of Rome within the Leonine Wall and a substantial annual pension. When the Pope refused this offer, many admired his principled stand but others, especially in the increasingly anti-clerical government, saw the Pope as unreasonable and lost interest in even trying to come to any agreement and adopted the attitude that the radicals had been right all along about the Church being on the side of their foreign enemies.

When the King came to open the first national parliament in Rome his speech was largely dominated by assurances to the Church, a “free Church in a free State” was the catch phrase of the time. Other than that, he remarked on the historic nature of their meeting that, for the first time since the era of the Roman Empire, the people of Italy were united under one monarch, led by one government in Rome and that no foreign armies stood on Italian soil. They had fought long and hard to see this accomplished and the King wished to embark on a period of rejuvenation after this ordeal and having made Italy united to focus on making Italy prosperous and a member of the community of great European powers. It was a period of seemingly limitless possibilities for Italy and her new Royal Family. In 1870, with some difficulty, the King persuaded his son to accept the offer of the throne of Spain from the provisional government there. To rescue Spain from disorder and anarchy and restore her to benevolent power seemed, to Victor Emmanuel II, a glorious and worthy undertaking for a Savoy prince. He would have been wiser to have listened to his advisors who all warned against it. Queen Isabella II had been overthrown for being too conservative for the liberals and too liberal for the conservatives. Spain was torn by more factions and more pretenders to the throne than any country in Europe. The liberal moderates called for a Savoy but the conservatives supported the line of Isabella II, the Carlists supported the line of her uncle and there were republicans who wanted a President. However, the Duke of Aosta was accepted as King Amadeus I of Spain though it would prove to be a doomed enterprise.

As King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel II toured the country, noting improvements and infrastructure projects that would have to be made. He also accepted friendly visits from princes from Great Britain, Prussia and even Austria. To the surprise of many he was invited to Vienna to be the special guest of Emperor Francis Joseph. The two former enemies met and embraced as friends in a touching moment of reconciliation between two ancient royal houses that had once been the closest of allies. Going on to Prussia the public gave him a rousing welcome and he won over the princes and people alike with his simple manners, good humor and friendly nature. When he told the Kaiser that, were he not bound to follow the advice of his ministers, he would have made war on Germany at the side of his old ally France but was of course now glad to be good friends, Kaiser Wilhelm I thanked him for his honesty. When these monarchs returned the visit of the King there was another touching moment on the part of the gentlemanly Emperor Francis Joseph. He could not come to Rome for fear of offending the Pope, nor could he meet the King at Florence or Naples for fear of offending his relatives so he decided on Venice, which had been his own domain but which showed the bigger man he was in putting the past behind him.

Even toward the end of his life the King kept up his formidable schedule. Some eyebrows were raised in 1869 when he married a commoner-turned-countess named Rosa Vercellana. According to some, he did this while in a fever and later regretted it but nonetheless continued to regard her as his wife for the rest of his years and had two children by her. He was famously punctual, familiar and informal though he could manage proper regal dignity when the occasion demanded. His good nature made him generous with the endless petitioners who came to him for help, despite his very meager allowance, and he was often taken advantage of by fraudsters, but it never dissuaded him. He left debts rather than a fortune behind him which his son, King Umberto I, insisted on paying himself though a grateful nation offered to cover it. The King never refused a favor and even the Pope once asked him for one though he continued to officially refuse to recognize the King or the new country. Victor Emmanuel II had even offered to abdicate if it would spare the Pontiff pain but the Pope, unlike many others then or since, was not so petty a man as to hold a grudge.

When the King, for whom it was always a sacrifice being away from his beloved Piedmont, fell deathly ill in the damp climate of Rome, the Pope lifted his excommunication and sent a priest to administer the last rites, saying his first thought had been to go himself. Few knew that the King and the Pontiff had resumed their secret correspondence in their final years. When word reached the Vatican Palace that the King had died, the Pope was heard to say, “He died like a Christian, a Sovereign and an honest man”. He died on January 9, 1878 surrounded by such of his family as could arrive in time, after being confessed and given the Sacrament by his chaplain, with permission from the Vatican. A great monument was built in his honor and praise poured in from all quarters. There was a great deal of exaggeration at times, to be expected from a nation still young and exuberant but his status as the first King of Italy and “Father of the Fatherland” cannot be denied. All patriotic Italians, not only the monarchists, should remember that and reflect on the man and monarch who brought about the necessary unity and guiding hand to create their country.

Monarch Profile: King Umberto I of Italy

The man who would become the second King of the united Italy was born HRH Prince Umberto Ranieri Carlo Emanuele Giovanni Maria Ferdinando Eugenio di Savoia on March 14, 1844 in Turin to HM King Victor Emanuel II and Queen Adelaide of Austria. It would be enough to judge him by the extent to which the ordinary Italian people loved him and how the radical leftists despised him, but the reasons for these positions reveal a man who was a committed constitutional monarch but who also saw that as no limitation to his desire to see the Kingdom of Italy achieve greatness. As a boy he was given the best education possible by some of the most respected scholars in Italy at the time. Yet, like all royals of the House of Savoy in those days, he was expected to have a military career and do his part to win greater glory for his dynasty and the Italian nation that was then still forming.

Toward that end the young Prince Umberto served as a captain in the army of Piedmont-Sardinia (the highest rated amongst the Italian states) in the Italian Wars for Independence. Promotions followed and he fought at the battle of Solferino in 1859 and led a division at the battle of Custoza in 1866. That engagement was a bitter blow for the Piedmontese, being defeated by a significantly smaller Austrian army, however, Prince Umberto acquitted himself well. Near Villafranca, he and his men were attacked by the Austrian cavalry (which was famous across Europe) and the Prince had his men form square and repelled every charge with the Prince himself remaining with his troops at all times, exposed to constant danger. In the aftermath of the battle, he helped to form the rear-guard, covering the retreat of the Piedmontese army and won numerous decorations for his courage and gallantry.

Not long after, Prince Umberto, or rather his parents, began searching for a suitable wife for him, but this was not an easy process. The rulers of the princely states of Italy were not happy with the House of Savoy for leading the campaign for unification, nor were their Spanish, French or Austrian relatives. The conflict with the Pope, known as the “Roman Question”, also made other Catholic royal houses uneasy about a marital alliance with the heir to the Savoy throne. However, it would be wrong to conclude that the dynasty was being totally ‘blackballed’ as there were some princesses who were considered. An Austrian archduchess was set to be the chosen one but she burned to death in a rather horrible accident while trying to hide a forbidden cigarette she had been smoking. So, on April 21, 1868 Prince Umberto married his first cousin, Princess Margherita Teresa Giovanna of Savoy. The two had a very happy marriage and by the next year the princess gave birth to their first and only child, fortunately a boy, the future King Victor Emanuel III.

Prince Umberto, like his father before him and his son after him, had it impressed upon him at an early age that his duty was to make Italy a great nation and to lead the Italian people to a place of prosperity and greatness befitting their glorious ancient history. The House of Savoy had embraced enemies, alienated friends and risked all in this one mission; to see the unification of Italy and to make the Italian nation a great and powerful kingdom. Prince Umberto would never forget this and his duty to his people and his country always came first. His father had succeeded in the first step, uniting the country and becoming the first King of Italy, and it would be up to Prince Umberto to carry on that legacy and take the nation his father had given him to greater heights. This was firmly in his mind when his father died and he became King Umberto I of Italy on January 9, 1878. Whereas his father had not changed his name when he became King, Umberto specifically chose to reign as King Umberto I rather than “King Umberto IV” using the older Savoy numbering. He did not want to appear as a Piedmontese monarch ruling Italy but as the first King Umberto of an Italian kingdom with a new Italian Royal Family.

Also to further this ideal, as one of his first acts, King Umberto I undertook, along with his prime minister, a tour of the Italian peninsula. Despite the controversy associated with unification he was well received. Even in Naples, large crowds turned out to cheer for him. However, during a parade he was attacked by an anarchist. The King drew his sword and fended off the would-be assassin who was later sentenced to death. However, King Umberto commuted this to life at hard labor and the man later died in a mental hospital. This earned the King greater popularity as did his solemn commemoration of the death of Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1882. Garibaldi had been greatly romanticized and celebrated as a nationalist but he had fallen out with the royal house somewhat over his revolutionary republicanism. Nevertheless, the King gained a wider base of support for honoring the memory of the man who had played such a significant role in Italian history.

King Umberto I became known as the “Good King” or “Umberto the Good” by the common people because of the care and concern he showed them. When Verona and Venice suffered massive flooding in 1882 the King went himself to direct the efforts to minimize the disaster and gave generously from his own funds to aid those displaced. When a massive earthquake struck Ischia the following year the King again intervened, ordering rescue operations to continue five days longer than planned which resulted in many lives being saved. Again, he went himself to lend a hand even though the area remained quite dangerous. He showed similar compassion in 1884 when a cholera epidemic struck southern Italy and by all of these and similar actions was beloved by the Italian people. In securing the dynasty and uniting the country, the reign of Umberto I was an early success. The only ones not satisfied were the radical leftists who opposed the rise to prominence of more conservative elements in government, the most notable being Francesco Crispi.

In the area of foreign affairs, like Prime Minister Crispi, King Umberto favored colonial expansion and it was under his reign that the first foothold was made for what became the Italian colonial empire, eventually encompassing Eritrea, Somalia and (under his son) Libya and the Dodecanese Islands. King Umberto took Italy into the Triple Alliance alongside Germany and Austria, which was met with skepticism by those who still regarded the Austrians as their natural enemies since the wars for independence. He visited Vienna and Berlin but was also careful to maintain the good relations the Savoy had long maintained with Great Britain. In fact, the King considered the Triple Alliance only half effective so long as Italy lacked a naval alliance with Great Britain. However, this string of foreign policy successes came to an end with the disastrous defeat of the Italian colonial army at Adowa, Ethiopia in 1896 in a war over a disagreement concerning a treaty that agreed to Ethiopia being an Italian protectorate. This led to opposition to the war and colonial expansion in general which was hyped by the radical socialists who had always opposed the drive toward empire anyway.

In 1897 the King survived another assassination attempt, by another anarchist, near Rome. The following year came the one most controversial event of his reign. Riots, first over the price of bread but whipped up by leftist agitators, broke out in Milan and the city was placed under martial law. As the situation began to get out of control, General Fiorenzo Bava-Beccaris ordered his artillery to fire on the crowd, killing about a hundred people and wounding many more but putting an immediate stop to the rioting. Many were shocked by this and many people (mostly revolutionaries anyway) were outraged when King Umberto I decorated the general afterwards. This incident has been used to paint the King in a very negative light and it was an unfortunate incident undoubtedly. However, the King only recognized the general for taking decisive action to restore law and order and safeguard lives and property against the already violent crowd of rioters in the streets. It was not an award for butchery but for putting a swift end to an ugly situation that was threatening to become worse. The Socialist Party had been behind the outbreak of violence which included, incidentally, a young radical named Benito Mussolini.

Nonetheless, if the King was unpopular with the radical leftists and socialists before, this incident made them absolutely despise him. However, this was not the only case by which many have misjudged the second King of Italy. Another was his policy of no-compromise regarding the “Roman Question” as the standoff with the Holy See was called. The King, in 1886, famously affirmed that Rome was the capitol of Italy and would always remain so and never return to clerical rule. King Umberto was, however, no anti-clerical and in the end the Church came to accept secular rule for the Eternal City. After the Italian army had occupied Rome in 1870 the Pope had been offered royal honors, sovereign status and rule over the whole of the Leonine City but this was rejected. Catholicism was always maintained as the state religion of Italy and, as we know, in the end an accommodation was reached to the satisfaction of the Holy See even though the territory on offer was reduced only to the Vatican. The King also became more and more religious throughout his life and was always charitable, though not many know it, as he helped others privately without any fuss or fanfare.

In 1900, in what would be the last major foreign policy act of his reign, King Umberto dispatched Italian troops to China as part of the Eight Nation Alliance to suppress the Boxer Rebellion. The Kingdom of Italy would gain a concession in China as a result but Umberto I would never know this. On July 29, 1900 King “Umberto the Good” was driving in Monza when he was shot four times and killed by an Italian-American anarchist named Gaetano Bresci, an act of revenge, the man claimed for the suppression of the riot in Milan. The public mourned heavily for the King they remembered fondly for his good humor and generosity. On August 9, 1900 he was laid to rest in the Pantheon in Rome next to his father.

Monarch Profile: King Vittorio Emanuele III of Italy

The future monarch, who would become known to his people as “the little one” was born Vittorio Emanuele in Naples, Italy to King Umberto I and Queen Margherita (then Prince and Princess of course) on November 11, 1869. In his youth he learned all about his grandfather leading the way for the creation of the unified Kingdom of Italy, the colonial expansions under his father and the desire for Italy to take her place among the great powers of Europe. Duty was stressed, respect for the constitutional monarchy set down by his ancestors and a proper respect for the ancient House of Savoy that he would one day lead. In those days, when radical liberals often had control of the government, one thing that everyone agreed on was the driving ambition for Italy to live up to her past glories and achieve greatness. Responsibility for the continued rise of Italy and the survival and embellishment of the Savoy dynasty was placed on the young Prince of Naples. In an effort to ensure an infusion of new blood into the Royal Family, in 1896 he was married to Princess Elena of Montenegro. In time, five healthy children would follow.

Italian politics had always been contentious in the extreme and the Prince of Naples saw just how far this could go when his father was assassinated on July 29, 1900, bringing him to the throne of Italy as King Vittorio Emanuele III. It was quite a change. King Umberto I had been a strong, even fierce-looking monarch who played an active role in government, supporting certain endeavors and never leaving much doubt as to where he stood. Vittorio Emanuele III, on the other hand, was quite short (and both at home and abroad many people made a good deal of sport about his size) and he took a more detached role from politics. He respected the Italian constitution and was to learn that royal intervention could have severe repercussions. One of these lessons, he learned early, with the onset of World War I. His father had brought Italy into alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary (which was not very popular in Italy) but Italy initially stayed out of the war. However, when Britain and France offered Italy considerable financial support and extensive new territories to be taken from the Germans and Austrians, King Vittorio Emanuele III intervened to take Italy into war on the Allied side.

The King had picked the winners but most of the consequences were still disastrous. Casualties were extremely heavy, allied support had to be called in to stave off defeat and national pride was wounded as a result. Still, the King might have been praised if Italy had emerged better off after the victory when all the promised spoils were delivered. Unfortunately, almost none were forthcoming. Aside from some gains in the Austrian Tyrol region, Italy was given none of the territories she had been promised and this led to outrage, directed against the other Allied powers, the government and, to some extent, the King himself. To further demonstrate the danger of becoming involved in politics, Vittorio Emanuele III survived two assassination attempts and watched as increasingly radical factions took hold in the country and threatened to destroy all the House of Savoy had built with civil war. The dashed hopes for national expansion and the increasing chaos in the country from the First World War to the early 20’s would have a major impact on the most controversial period of history for the Kingdom of Italy as a whole.

In his personal life, the King was known as a very devoted husband, a bit of a “neat freak”, very frugal and a coin collector. Despite what detractors have said, he was committed to the rule of law, constitutional monarchy and he was courageous. During World War I he had set up his headquarters very near the front, visited the front lines numerous times and took an active interest in the welfare of his soldiers. However, the crisis was building and within the framework of the Italian constitution there was little the king could do on his own, there had to be a capable government to work with and the government was rapidly breaking down. Radical socialists were calling for the overthrow of the monarchy, an international communist revolution and the destruction of everything Italian history and culture stood for. On the other side, the fascists of Mussolini were calling for nationalism, authoritarian government but also professing loyalty to the Kingdom of Italy and pledging to restore the values and strength of Italian family life and the glory of ancient Rome. The King, ultimately, had to choose between these two groups and his only real choice was the fascists.

Critics, since that time, have claimed that Vittorio Emanuele III did not need to make that choice. They argue that if he had mobilized the army (which was staunchly royalist) he could have stopped the fascist “March on Rome” and kept Mussolini out of power. There are two major problems with that argument. First, it would have meant Italian soldiers shooting down Italian civilians in the streets. It would likely have sparked a civil war, exactly what the King wished to avoid at any cost, and destroyed the Italian nation. The second problem is that, even if the fascists could have bee suppressed, that still would not solve the political problem. It would have effectively forced all power to go to the radical socialists as there was no other major force to oppose them and Italy would have gone down the nightmarish road of republican Spain. The Savoy monarchy would have been destroyed and Italy would have become a communist satellite in southern Europe. The King knew that many of the fascists were revolutionary in temperament and that Mussolini himself had once been a radical leftist who opposed the monarchy, however, he had no choice but to work with the man who was the only one available to save the situation.

We must also remember how the King was criticized for pushing for Italy to join the Allies in World War I and this probably influenced his decision to some extent to summon Mussolini to Rome and ask him to form a government. Despite his earlier opposition to all traditional authority, Mussolini never moved against the King and even after establishing his dictatorship he maintained the monarchy after reducing the parliament to powerlessness. The King did question some fascist actions but could not ignore the fact that the new Duce was (so far) loyal. Support for the King remained high and government offices began displaying two portraits; one of the King and one of Mussolini. On patriotic occasions two songs would be played; the Royal March (the official national anthem) and then Giovinezza (the unofficial national anthem) which was the song of the National Fascist Party. However, despite this show of dual loyalties there was no doubt that power was being exercised by Mussolini, not the King.

For a time, things got better. The threat of civil war was ended, law and order were restored and a stable government was established. As the saying went, the trains started running on time. In 1929 the people of Italy and Catholics around the world rejoiced at the ending of the stand-off between Church and State in Italy when the Lateran Treaty was signed between Mussolini and Pope Pius XI. The Church recognized the Kingdom of Italy and the Italian government recognized Vatican City as a sovereign state. Catholicism became the official religion of Italy and the past unpleasantness resulting from Italian unification and the occupation of Rome was finally consigned to the past. The Church gave support to the King, Italian clerics swore allegiance for the first time to the King of Italy and Mussolini was praised, in the words of the world press as “the man who gave God back to Italy and Italy back to God”. Italy also intervened in Spain to support the nationalist faction (which had the support of Churchmen and monarchists) against the Soviet-backed republicans, resulting ultimately in the victory of General Franco and the nationalists.

After a border incident Mussolini ordered the invasion of Ethiopia and within seven months the African country was conquered and King Victor Emmanuel III became Emperor of Ethiopia. When the victory was announced, he made no comment but obviously the public could not but be moved by the fact that for the first time in so many centuries there was again an Emperor in Rome. In 1939 Victor Emmanuel also became King of Albania following the annexation of that country which had, in fact, long been occupied by Italy as a protectorate. The year previously Mussolini, by now allied to Nazi Germany, passed new racial laws in Italy which were fairly unpopular. Some since have accused the King of being silent on this issue but that is not the case. He expressed deep misgivings to Mussolini on the subject, shaming him for following in the footsteps of Germany but, of course, there was nothing he could do about it with Mussolini at the height of his power.

When Mussolini decided to enter World War II the King, list most of the military high command, had grave misgivings about Italian preparedness but, as a constitutional monarch, he had to go along with his government and issue the declaration of war in 1940. For a brief time the Kingdom of Italy reached its peak in terms of territory, controlling all of east Africa, the formerly Italian areas of France, all of the Adriatic coast and most of Greece but reverses came quickly and as losses mounted the popularity of the King declined as well as that of the fascists. By 1943 enough members of the Fascist Grand Council no longer supported Mussolini that the King was able to act and after the council voted against Mussolini, King Victor Emmanuel III summoned him to the palace and, with the support of the government and the army, he dismissed Mussolini and placed him under arrest. The King appointed Marshal Pietro Badoglio as Prime Minister, renounced his titles as Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Albania and began negotiations with the Allies for an armistice.

The King was willing to take any action to save his country from the disastrous war but the Germans were not about to tolerate the loss of their primary European ally and German troops were soon pouring down the Italian peninsula armed with orders from Hitler to depose and arrest Victor Emmanuel III. The King and the government were forced to leave Rome and join the Allied armies advancing from the south. To drive the Germans out of Italy the King formally joined the Allied powers and declared war on Germany. However, chaos prevailed with most of the country under German control and Mussolini leading a puppet republic in the north. It is worth remembering that Mussolini said his greatest mistake had been in not abolishing the monarchy when he had the power to do so. But the damage had been done and King Victor Emmanuel III turned power over to his son in 1944. This did not have the desired effect and in 1946 he abdicated in favor of his son who became King Umberto II. Victor Emmanuel III retired to Egypt but the monarchy still did not survive a highly irregular referendum. Only a year later the former King died in Alexandria and was buried in St Catherine’s Cathedral.

In retrospect, probably the most accurate thing that has been widely said about King Victor Emmanuel III was that he was unlucky. He reigned during the peak of power for the Kingdom of Italy as well as the time of her darkest devastation. He was a good man, a responsible man, a devoted husband and father, who was forced to make some very tough decisions. It is an immense injustice that he was held to blame for things which were far beyond his control and punished for crimes he never committed. His people and his country were his paramount concerns and it was thanks largely to him that Italy survived World War II and if anyone is quick to be critical of some of the hard choices he had to make, they would do well to ask themselves first what they would have done if faced with the same alternatives.

Monarch Profile: King Umberto II of Italy

Officially the last King of Italy and last reigning member of the venerable royal house of Savoy, Umberto II occupied the throne for so short a time that he has gone down in popular memory as the “King of May”. His life was one of great early promise and high hopes for the future which ended in one of the (many) gross injustices following World War II. He was born on September 15, 1904 in Racconigi, Piedmont to Their Majesties King Vittorio Emanuele III and Queen Elena of Montenegro. He was their third child but only son and was raised with the certain destiny that he would become King of Italy. From early in his youth he was given a practical education and extensive military training to prepare him to carry on the illustrious military tradition of the House of Savoy. The importance of the monarchy to the unity of Italy and the glorious history they were expected to live up to were heavily stressed on the young man and he became very meticulous about royal protocol and presenting just the right public appearance for any occasion.

As he grew up, his attention to detail paid off as the Italian press hailed him as the handsomest prince in Europe. The tall, dashing, soldierly Prince of Piedmont had mastered perception but he still needed a proper, royal beauty to be his princess. After World War I, the number of reigning Catholic royals had been considerably reduced but an ideal candidate was found in the strong-willed and stunning Princess Maria Jose of Belgium. By this time, Italy was under the rule of the fascist party but radical socialists were still a problem and when Prince Umberto went to Brussels to propose to his Belgian bride one tried to assassinate him. Of course, the effort was unsuccessful and on January 8, 1930 the couple were married in Rome in a magnificent ceremony with all of the pomp and pageantry the ancient House of Savoy could muster. Still, there were problems. The couple were initially happy enough but were not well suited to each other and the antagonism between the new Princess of Piedmont and Mussolini was evident from the start.

In keeping with Italian tradition, Prince Umberto stayed strictly out of political matters. He was expected to deal with those when he became king and not a day before. Nonetheless, Mussolini was wary enough of him to keep him closely watched and under tight control. Aside from the usual royal engagements Prince Umberto was mostly kept busy with his military career becoming commander of the Northern Armies and later of the Southern Armies. He was a good soldier, despite some claims to the contrary, but was kept from active service in most campaigns by the government, due both to concerns over his security as well as (perhaps even more so) worries that he was insufficiently supportive of the fascist regime. Nonetheless, he could not be ignored and in 1942, with the Second World War well under way, he was promoted to the rank of Marshal of Italy. However, by that time it was all too clear that the war was going against Italy.

A sense of duty and deferment to his father kept Prince Umberto out of politics but he was well aware that Princess Maria Jose was working through the Vatican, trying to coordinate anti-fascist elements in Rome with representatives of the United States, to take Italy out of the Axis and into the Allied camp. The Prince himself could not be involved in this but he supported the efforts of his wife and kept silent about the whole affair. A single report could have ended it all but the Prince showed his support by saying nothing even though suspicions were eventually raised enough for the Princess to be sent away. By that time, Allied forces had overrun Italian East Africa, Libya (Italy’s “Fourth Shore”) and when British and American forces invaded Sicily there was no longer any doubt as to the outcome of the conflict. Support for Mussolini fell away and King Vittorio Emanuele III was finally in a strong enough position to dismiss the dictator and have him arrested, after which Italy made a separate peace and shifted to the Allied nations.

However, the Germans quickly occupied northern Italy while the Allies moved into the south. The King was urged by others in the House of Savoy to step aside as many considered him tainted for having been so long associated with the old fascist regime. Torn between what he regarded as his sacred duty and the practical reality of the situation the King declined to abdicate but stepped aside from political affairs in favor of Prince Umberto, naming him Lieutenant General of the Realm with full power to act in his name. The King then left for what he hoped would be a temporary relocation to Egypt where King Farouk had been friendly toward the Italians and had a rather tense relationship with the British. In his absence Prince Umberto won praise from every quarter for his astute handling of the situation, cooperation with the Allies and continued resistance to the German occupation and the fascist puppet-state set up in the north by Mussolini following his rescue by Nazi special forces.

Under Prince Umberto the Royal Italian forces joined the war again to assist the Allies as much as possible, continuing to the final defeat of the Nazis in 1945. Yet, the republican revolutionaries had again come out of hiding once the fascist presence was gone and there were the occupying Allied forces who often were prejudiced against the House of Savoy. A new clique began to push for the overthrow of the monarchy, whether by democratic or violent means, and they had a great deal of Allied support. Finally, King Vittorio Emanuele III was persuaded that the only hope to save the monarchy was to abdicate in favor of his son. He did so on May 9, 1946 at which time his son became King Umberto II. However, the new political factions had already pushed the Royal Family aside and ugly accusations were abounding as the abdication brought back painful memories from the time of Italian defeat. Instead of focusing on King Umberto II and his record of success since 1944 attention shifted back to his father, the fall of Rome and the fascist regime.

Within weeks a referendum was held on the abolition of the monarchy. King Vittorio Emanuele III had once said that no nation was less suited for a republic than Italy and the referendum which created the Italian Republic was enough to prove his words prophetic. The entire process made a farce of the democratic concept. Voters were intimidated, poll numbers skewed and the decision announced before all the votes had even been counted. Indeed, many had been prevented from casting a vote and disenfranchisement was worst in the south where monarchist sentiment was the strongest. Nonetheless, the powers that be had spoken and on June 12, 1946 the Savoy reign and the Kingdom of Italy came to an end.

King Umberto II and Queen Maria Jose were forced into exile and soon separated. King Umberto II spent most of his years in exile in Portugal. He traveled extensively, winning probably more friends and admirers than he had ever had before. However, the new political class in Italy only hardened their position and banned any male heirs of the Savoy dynasty from setting foot on Italian soil. The excuse given for this was that the government had decided to blame the rule of Mussolini on the Royal Family and yet, in the ultimate show of hypocrisy, the Mussolini family itself was not barred from the country or suffered any loss of liberties at all. The true reason, of course, was that a strong royalist element remained and the republican government wanted to see it suffocated by the absence of any Savoy royal in the country. His Majesty Umberto II, the last King of Italy, died still in exile, in Switzerland, on March 18, 1983. It was noteworthy that kings, queens and princes from across Europe came to his funeral to pay their respects, even from countries which had been the enemies of the Kingdom of Italy during the war but not one representative of the Italian government was present.