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Victor Emmanuel III 1869-1947
King of Italy

The son of Umberto I, he was born in Naples. He became king in 1900 and generally ruled as a constitutional monarch with Giovanni Giolitti as premier, but defied parliamentary majorities in bringing Italy into World War I on the side of the Allies (1915), and when he offered Mussolini the premiership (1922). The latter reduced the king to a constitutional façade, conferring on him (1936) the title of Emperor of Abyssinia. The king, however, supported the dictator until the latter's fall (1944). Victor Emmanuel then retired from public life, leaving his son Umberto II as Lieutenant-General of the Realm, abdicated (1946) and died in exile in Egypt.