By the time it produced Prince Victor Emmanuel, the 900-year-old House of Savoy was wearing a bit thin. The Prince's father, King Umberto I, decided to improve the breed by marrying off little (5 ft. 3 in.) Victor Emmanuel.to booming, strapping (6 ft.) Elena, daughter of Montenegro's peasant king, Nicholas. In his 46 years as King of Italy, and sometime ruler of Albania and Ethiopia, Victor Emmanuel confirmed his father's early suspicion that there was room for improvement.
King's Ransom. By some standards Victor Emmanuel seemed to do very well indeed. Canny King Umberto took out £1,000,000 insurance a short time before he was assassinated in 1900. Victor Emmanuel III acquired not only a throne but lots of money. He collected old coins, as well as new, and wrote about them in numismatic journals. Tidy and penurious, he was described by a friend as "a good husband, a loving father, a conscientious bureaucrat."
When Italy turned up on the winning side in World War I, Victor Emmanuel reached modest heights of popularity. His subjects referred to him (fondly, at first) as il piccolo—The Little One.
In the postwar turmoil, Victor Emmanuel, appraising unrest at home and tottering dynasties abroad, handed Italy over to Benito Mussolini. It was the first —and last—time he ever defied his ministers; henceforth he was impotent to prevent his downfall. But Benito, the blacksmith's son, promised to look after the little king. The Italian people paid the price for 23 years.
They were busy and important days for Victor Emmanuel. He read long and complicated reports, reviewed parades, pinned medals on heroes and put wreaths on graves. An American visitor was told in 1927: "The most wonderful thing about Mussolini is his loyalty to his King." The words were spoken by King Victor Emmanuel III; by that time a lot of Italians would have disagreed. When Il Duce declared war against Ethiopia, il piccolo swiftly calculated: "If we win I shall be King of Abyssinia; if we lose, I shall be King of Italy."
They won. His father and grandfather who had ruled Italy since its unification in 1861 reigned over some 115,000 square miles. Victor Emmanuel, standing in the shadows, boosted it to 1,358,000.
King's Coffee. But Italians long since had learned to jeer at their little king. Two attempts to assassinate Victor Emmanuel failed prior to World War II. Casualty lists and home-front privations in war did not allay the discontent. Ran one popular coffeehouse rhyme:
When our Victor was plain King,
Coffee was a common thing.
When an Emperor he was made,
Coffee to a smell did fade.
Since he got Albania's throne,
Coffee's very smell has flown.
After Mussolini's fall and Italy's capitulation in 1943, it was only a question of time before opportunism would collect its due. But stubbornly the King procrastinated, hoping somehow to hang on to his throne. In 1944, he named his tall (6 ft.) playboy son and Crown Prince, Umberto, as "Lieutenant General of the Realm," subject to the people's will to be expressed by free vote. Victor Emmanuel remained a king in name only.