VICTOR EMMANUEL III, King of Italy. - Born in Naples on 11 Nov. 1869, died in Alexandria, Egypt, on 28 Dec. 1947. The only son of Umberto I and Margherita of Savoy, he received at birth the title of Prince of Naples.
Strictly educated under the guidance of Col. Osio, he alternated his studies with travels and with the duties of the military commands that were successively entrusted to him. On 24 Oct. 1896 he married Princess Elena Petrovic-Njegos of Montenegro and had five children by her: Jolanda, Mafalda, Umberto, Giovanna and Maria. On account of the assassination of Umberto I (29 July 1900) V. E. ascended the throne at the age of thirty-one and, while maintaining absolute and scrupulous respect for the Constitution, imparted a personal direction to Italian politics. Assisted by Giolitti, who was the statesman in whom he placed the greatest trust, he favored at home the most enlightened social experiments for the benefit of the working classes and of the country's economic development, no less than the reintegration of the Catholic forces into national life. In the field of international relations, while Italy's adherence to the Triple Alliance remained firm, he promoted a rapprochement with the powers of the Triple Entente (France, England and Russia), so as to be able to negotiate with Paris, London and St. Petersburg their consent to the Italian occupation of Libya (1911-12). When the First World War broke out, V. E. took up, outside and above Parliament, the Nation's demand in favor of intervention against the Central Empires: once hostilities began (24 May 1915), he was the "Soldier King," who, far from posturing as a strategist, identified his functions as supreme commander with his continuous presence at the fighting front, in direct contact with the troops. It was, moreover, his personal merit to have designated Gen. Diaz to replace Cadorna after Caporetto and to have convinced the allies (Peschiera conference, 7 Nov. 1917) of the possibility of defending the Piave line, guaranteeing that the Italian army would continue to fight. He thus became the "Victorious King," with the glory of having restored to the fatherland its natural frontiers. In the turbulent postwar period he knew how to keep the crown above partisan struggles, but, once a constitutional solution of the crisis into which the nation had fallen was lacking, for reasons that would take too long to analyze, he accepted the fait accompli of the Fascist insurrection and entrusted the government to Benito Mussolini (Oct. 1922): the vote of confidence given by the Chambers to the new ministry brought the "March on Rome" back, if only formally, within legality. It was precisely his respect for the constitutional organs, albeit innovated and transformed by the regime through legal devices of mere form, that prevented V. E. from opposing the rise and consolidation of the Mussolini dictatorship, from which, as numerous testimonies show, he personally recoiled: hence the accusation of "compromise" with Fascism that the opponents of the regime were later to level at him. The King who in 1929 saw, without fully understanding the moral and political significance of the great event, the Roman Question resolved by the Lateran Agreements, who after the campaign of 1935-36 assumed the title of Emperor of Ethiopia and in 1939 that of King of Albania, was progressively stripped of authority by the "duce," who seemed to enjoy national consent
("diarchy"), and failed to prevent Italy's entry into the Second World War. However, as soon as Mussolini was put in the minority even by a typically dictatorial body such as the Fascist Grand Council, V. E. revoked his presidential mandate and replaced him with Marshal Badoglio (25 July 1943). The events of the war led to the armistice of 8 Sept., after which the sovereign moved to the South, the only means of ensuring the continuity of the legitimate government. Made the target of attacks by public opinion demanding his immediate abdication, V. E. was almost forced by the allies to transfer his powers to the Crown Prince (10 Apr. 1944), but obtained that this take effect with the liberation of Rome (4 June). From that last date V. E. withdrew completely from political life, deciding to abdicate on 9 May 1946 in order to make it easier for Umberto II to exercise power on the eve of the institutional "referendum," and the next day he departed as an exile for Egypt.
Passions are still too heated to allow a serene judgment on the political personality of V. E. from 1922 onward, whereas on the first twenty years of his reign history has pronounced in a favorable sense. To him, moreover, are to be acknowledged distinguished individual virtues, very pronounced family affections, clear scholarly aptitudes, embodied in the publication of the Corpus Nummorum Italicorum. The widespread opinion of his "anticlericalism" is also to be modified, at least in part. Although he had received a rigorously "lay" formation, V. E. came through personal maturation to the faith: he was then sufficiently practicing, he wished his children to be religiously educated, he showed himself respectful of worship and of its ministers and, in dying, asked for the supreme consolations, which he received with piety.
Bibliography3 works
Renzo U. Montini