The economic depression had given rise to much extremism among the sorely-tried working classes, and
Benito Mussolini took advantage of this instability for his rise to power, which led to the
March on Rome. Prime Minister
Luigi Facta and his cabinet drafted a decree of
martial law, but the King refused to sign it. The King suggested that his armed forces could not have defended the city against the Fascist march, though testimony from the military leaders and surviving military records challenge his claim.
Fascist violence had been growing in intensity throughout the summer and autumn of 1922, climaxing with the rumours of a possible coup. Victor Emmanuel had all the means at his disposal to sweep Mussolini and his rag-tag
Blackshirt army to one side.
General Badoglio told the King that military would be able to rout the rebels, no more than 10,000 men, without any difficulty. Thereupon Victor Emmanuel ordered
Luigi Facta, then Prime Minister, to protect Rome and draw up decree proclaiming martial law.
The troops were totally loyal to the King. Even
Cesare Maria De Vecchi, commander of the Blackshirts, and one of the organisers of the March on Rome, told Mussolini that he would not act against the wishes of the monarch. It was at this point that the Fascist leader considered leaving Italy altogether. But then, in the minute before midnight, he received a telegram from the King inviting him to Rome. By midday on 30 October he had been appointed Prime Minister, at the age of thirty-nine, with no previous experience of office, and with only 35 Fascist deputies in the Chamber. Thus it was that Italian democracy died.
Later, the King's failure, in the face of mounting evidence, to move against the Mussolini regime's abuses of power (including, as early as
1924, the notorious assassination of
Giacomo Matteotti and other opposition MPs) led to much criticism. Though the King claimed in his memoirs that it was the fear of a civil war that motivated his actions, it would seem that he received some 'alternative' advice, possibly from
Antonio Salandra, an ultra conservative politician and former Prime Minister, and
General Armando Diaz, that it would be better to do a deal with Mussolini. There were also pro-Fascist elements in his immediate family, including
Margherita of Savoy, his mother.
Whatever the circumstances, Victor Emmanuel showed weakness in a position of strength, with dire future consequences for Italy and for the monarchy itself. It has been alleged that Victor Emmanuel's decisions showed not only poor judgment but also undemocratic sentiments. What is not in doubt is that Fascism offered political stability and opposition to
left-wing radicalism. This appealed to many people in Italy at the time, and certainly to the King. In many ways, the events from 1922 to 1943 demonstrated that the monarchy and the moneyed class, for different reasons, felt Mussolini and his regime offered an option that, after years of political chaos, was more appealing than what they perceived as the alternative:
socialism and
anarchism. Both the spectre of the
Russian Revolution and the tragedies of
World War I played large roles in these political decisions.
The Italian monarchy enjoyed popular support for decades. Foreigners noted how even as late as the
1940s newsreel images of King Victor Emmanuel and his strikingly beautiful Queen Elena, born a Princess of Montenegro, evoked applause, sometimes cheering, when played in cinemas, in contrast to the hostile silence shown toward images of Fascist leaders. Several of Victor Emmanuel's decisions, however, proved fatal to the monarchy.
Among these was the assumption of the crown of
Ethiopia, which was not universally accepted, after the Italian Army had invaded what was then known in the west as
Abyssinia and overthrown
Emperor Haile Selassie, in 1935-36. In addition, Victor Emanuel kept a public silence in
1938, when the Fascist government, under
Hitlerite pressure, issued its notorious racial purity laws, leaving his
Jewish subjects open to persecution. These laws (about which he did make some complaints to Mussolini in private) constituted a clear violation of both his
Coronation oath and his
oath to the constitution. The fact that large numbers of Italians risked their lives to save not only their Jewish fellow citizens but also Jewish refugees from other countries only deepened their contempt for a King who had dragged them into an alliance with the Germans that they had never wanted.
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