A review of the House of Savoy
The following review of the House of Savoy is for the benefit of Italo-American friends that expressed the desire to learn more about the royal dynasty of Italy and its sudden collapse on June 2, 1946, the day Italy changed by referendum its form of government from monarchy to a republic. The King and his family went into exile and were banned from their own country.
Victor Emmanuel III resided in Alexandria of Egypt, where he died a year later at age 78. Prince Umberto who had replaced his father for a very brief time becoming King Umberto II (May 1946) went into exile in Portugal where he died in 1983 at age 79.- The House of Savoy was actually exiled from 1946 to 2002; under the Constitution of the Italian Republic male descendants of the Savoys were banned from entering Italy. But such a provision was removed in 2002 after Victor Emmanuel [IV], the last claimant to the House of Savoy, renounced all claims to the throne.
The House of Savoy originated in Italy in the year 1003 with Umberto I, Count of Sabaudia, known as “Conte Biancamano”, in the historical Savoy belt of the Piedmont region of Italy, approximately 60 miles north-west of Turin and lasted almost a thousand years until its inglorious fall at the end of World War II.
It was the longest surviving royal house in Europe and in the world. In fact it lasted longer that the Shang dynasty of China, longer than the Egyptian Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom and even longer than the biblical House of David, according to the calculations of the Book of Kings. The Shang dynasty,(16th thru 11th century BC), established by King Tang in 1675 BC, lasted approximately 600 years; the Egyptian Pharaohs is the oldest dynasty that goes back to 3100 BC.
In the 11th century the Savoy family rose to prominence as knightly guardians of strategically important Alpine passes. Originally the Savoys were French in orientation and culture, but in the 16th century after establishing their capital in Turin they “Italianized” their ambitions and adopted officially the Italian language. For centuries the Savoys were keepers and protectors of the “Shroud” of Turin (La Sacra Sindone) and showed great tolerance toward Jews and Waldensians, which were the early protestants of Europe.
On October 1922 Benito Mussolini, who was aspiring to form the Fascist party and take the rein of the country, taking advantage of the King’s lack of staunchness and resolution, decided to march on Rome at the head of a few thousands “Black Shirts” for the purpose of intimidating the monarchy and take over the government of Italy.
It was mostly a bluff on the part of Mussolini who was getting anxious to establish himself as the leader of the Fascist party throughout Italy. In Rome, prime minister Luigi Facta proclaimed the state of emergency but the frightened king, fearing a civil war, refused to give his approval. Facta resigned while the king, alarmed and confused decided to support Mussolini entrusting to him the power of forming a new cabinet.
Mussolini excited and encouraged by the unexpected success formed a Fascist government and quickly managed to concentrate all power in his hand. The King’s decision had dire future consequences for Italy and for the monarchy itself: it brought Mussolini to power and opened the door to a dictatorship that will last 23 years. In 1940 “il Duce”, emboldened by the king’s support, entered the Second World War on the side of Germany.
Unfortunately Italy was forced into the war totally unprepared, a war that Italian people did not want, a war that would last six years and cause the destruction of most Italian cities and the death, worldwide, of 55 million people. Historians agree that King Victor Emmanuel III was an incompetent ruler who during his 46 years reign made very few wise decisions mainly due to his tremendous insecurity and weak personality.
The most serious mistakes made by the King are: the use of mustard gas during the 1930 Ethiopian war against the Abyssinian population, accepting the Ethiopian crown (which was restored to Haile Selassie in 1941 by British forces), signing of the Fascists’ anti-Semitism laws and declaring war on the Allies, war that caused the destruction of most Italian cities and of their population.
Probably one of the very few good decisions the King ever made was the removal of Mussolini from office following the Fascist Grand Council’ reunion of July 25, 1943. In that occasion Count Dino Grandi, one of the members of the Council, told Mussolini: “You’re assuming that you have the devotion of the Italian people, but you lost it the day you tied Italy to Germany. You dragged the Italians into a war that was against the honor, the interest and the feelings of the entire nation.”
After removing Mussolini from office Victor Emmanuel named General Pietro Badoglio as head of the government. A few weeks later, following the Italian surrender - September 8, 1943 - the King’s made his most dishonorable decision to save his own life, the shameful flight from Rome together with General Badoglio. The worst part in abandoning the country in disarray is that he failed to instruct the various military headquarters in Italy and abroad to continue the war against the Germans.
Left without orders the army virtually disintegrated, while the Germans, Italy’s former allies, took advantage of the situation and ordered Italian barracks and military posts to surrender all their equipment including weapons, cannons, ships and supplies of all kind. Subsequently over 640,000 Italian soldiers were rounded up by the Germans and shipped to concentration camps in Germany where several thousands died of starvation.
In the middle of the night, September 9, 1943, the two coward leaders, the King and Badoglio, together with their entourage and a score of general staff officers, left Rome eastbound toward the Adriatic Sea in a seven-car cortege. At Ortona, a small harbor just south of Pescara, they boarded the corvette “Baionetta” that immediately sailed south escorted by the cruiser “Scipione”. Early afternoon on September 10 the Baionetta arrived in the harbor of Brindisi, 250 miles south of Ortona, on Italy’s heel.
A few days earlier Brindisi had been liberated by British troops, therefore the city was a safe haven for the fugitives. In the meantime, Rome was undefended while the country lay in chaos and in the process of being occupied by the former allies, the Germans, that overnight had become a vindictive and vicious enemy.
Italians for many years had loved the House of Savoy, but after their shameful flight, the love and respect for the royal family vanished. At the referendum in 1946 they were happy to show the world their preference for a new form of government that would not include the Savoy family.
