Editing Umberto II of Italy (section)

===Liberation and republicanism===
Most of the Committee of National Liberation (CLN) leaders operating underground in the north tended to lean in a republican direction. Still, they were willing to accept Umberto temporarily out of the belief that his personality and widespread rumours about his private life would ensure that he would not last long as either Lieutenant General of the Realm or as King, should his father abdicate.<ref>Ellwood, David ''Italy 1943–1945'', Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1985 pp. 88–89</ref> After the liberation of Rome on 6 June 1944, the various Italian political parties all applied strong pressure on Umberto to dismiss Pietro Badoglio as prime minister, as the Duke had loyally served the Fascist regime until the Royal coup on 25 July 1943, which resulted in the social democrat [[Ivanoe Bonomi]] being appointed prime minister.<ref name="Gerhard Weinberg p.727">Gerhard Weinberg, ''A World in Arms'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 727</ref> On 5 June 1944, Victor Emmanuel formally gave up his powers to Umberto, finally recognising his son as Lieutenant General of the Realm.<ref>Giuseppe Mammarealla ''Italy After Fascism A Political History 1943–1965'', Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966 p. 72</ref> After the liberation of Rome, Umberto received a warm welcome from ordinary people when he returned to the Eternal City.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.329"/> Mack Smith cautioned that the friendly reception that Umberto received in Rome may have been due to him being a symbol of normalcy after the harsh German occupation as opposed to genuine affection for the prince.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.329"/> During the German occupation, much of the Roman population had lived on the brink of starvation, young people had been arrested on the streets to be taken off to work as slave labourers in Germany, while the Fascist ''Milizia'', together with the ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' and [[SS]], had committed numerous atrocities.<ref>Giuseppe Mammarealla ''Italy After Fascism A Political History 1943–1965'', Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966 p. 70</ref> Badoglio, by contrast, was greeted with widespread hostility when he returned to Rome, being blamed by many Italians as the man, together with the King, who was responsible for abandoning Rome to the Germans without a fight in September 1943.<ref>Ellwood, David ''Italy 1943–1945'', Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1985 p. 95</ref>

Umberto had ordered Badoglio to bring members of the Committee of National Liberation (CLN) into his cabinet after the liberation of Rome to broaden his basis of support and ensure national unity by preventing the emergence of a rival government.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.332"/> Umberto moved into the [[Quirinal Palace]], while at The Grand Hotel, the Rome branch of the CLN met with the cabinet.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.332"/> Speaking on behalf of the CLN in general, the Roman leadership of the CLN refused to join the cabinet as long as Badoglio headed it but indicated that Bonomi was an acceptable choice as prime minister for them.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.332"/> [[Lieutenant General (United Kingdom)|Lieutenant-General]] [[Noel Mason-MacFarlane|Sir Noel Mason-MacFarlane]] of the ACC visited the Quirinal Palace and convinced Umberto to accept Bonomi as prime minister because the Crown needed to bring the CLN into the government, which required sacrificing Badoglio.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.332"/> As Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin were willing to see Badoglio continue as prime minister, seeing him as a force for order, Umberto could have held out for him. However, as part of his efforts to distance himself from Fascism, Umberto agreed to appoint Bonomi as prime minister.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.332"/> Reflecting the tense "institutional question" of republic vs. monarchy, Umberto, when swearing in the Bonomi cabinet, allowed the ministers to take either their oaths to himself as the Lieutenant General of the Realm or to the Italian state; Bonomi himself chose to take his oath to Umberto while the rest of his cabinet chose to take their oaths only to the Italian state.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.332"/> Churchill especially disapproved of the replacement of Badoglio with Bonomi, complaining that, in his view, Umberto was being used by "a group of aged and hungry politicians trying to intrigue themselves into an undue share of power".<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.332"/> Through the Allied occupation, the Americans were far more supportive of Italian republicanism than the British, with Churchill in particular believing the Italian monarchy was the only institution that was capable of preventing the Italian Communists from coming to power after the war.<ref>Gerhard Weinberg, ''A World in Arms'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 727–728</ref>

Unlike the conservative Badoglio, the social democrat Bonomi started to move Italian politics in an increasingly democratic direction as he argued that King Victor Emmanuel III, who had only turned against Mussolini when it was clear that the war was lost, was unfit to continue as monarch.<ref name="Gerhard Weinberg p.727"/> On 25 June 1944, the Bonomi government, which like Badoglio's government, ruled by Royal Decree as there was no parliament in Italy, had a Royal Decree issued in Umberto's name promising a Constituent Assembly for Italy after the war.<ref>Giuseppe Mammarealla ''Italy After Fascism A Political History 1943–1965'', Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966 p. 73</ref> As Umberto continued as regent, he surprised many, after his rocky start in the spring of 1944, with greater maturity and judgement than was expected.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.331"/> Croce advised him to make a break with his father by choosing his advisers from the democratic parties, and it was due to Croce's influence that Umberto appointed [[Falcone Lucifero]], a socialist lawyer, as Minister of the Royal House.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.332"/> Lucifero suggested reforms, which were implemented, such as reducing the number of aristocrats and generals at the Royal Court, while bringing in people from all the regions of Italy instead of just Piedmont to make the Royal Court more representative of Italy.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.332"/>

Umberto, in September 1944, vetoed an attempt by the Bonomi government to start an investigation of who was responsible for abandoning Rome in September 1943 as he feared that it would show his father was a coward.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.334">Denis Mack Smith, ''Italy and Its Monarchy'', New Haven: Yale University Press p. 334</ref> The same month, Badoglio, who was kept on as an adviser by Umberto, made an offer to the British and the Americans on behalf of the regent in September 1944 for Italy to be governed by a triumvirate consisting of himself, Bonomi and another former prime minister, [[Vittorio Orlando]], which purged the prefects in the liberated areas who were "agents of Togliatti and Nenni" with Fascist-era civil servants.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.334"/> Badoglio also spoke of Umberto's desire not to lose any territory after the war to Greece, Yugoslavia and France.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.334"/> Badoglio's offer was rejected as Admiral [[Ellery W. Stone]] of the ACC was opposed to Umberto's plans to have Bonomi share power with Badoglio and Orlando, seeing this as upsetting the delicately achieved political consensus for no other reason than to increase the Crown's power.<ref>Ellwood, David ''Italy 1943–1945'', Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1985 p. 105</ref><ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.338">Denis Mack Smith, ''Italy and Its Monarchy'', New Haven: Yale University Press p. 338</ref>

In October 1944, Umberto, in an interview with ''[[The New York Times]]'', stated that he favoured a referendum to decide whether Italy was to be a republic or a monarchy instead of having the "institutional question" decided by the national assembly that would write Italy's post-war constitution.<ref>Denis Mack Smith, ''Italy and Its Monarchy'', New Haven: Yale University Press pp. 333–334</ref> Umberto's interview caused controversy as the republican parties widely feared that a referendum would be rigged, especially in the south of Italy.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.335">Denis Mack Smith, ''Italy and Its Monarchy'', New Haven: Yale University Press p. 335</ref> In the same interview, Umberto mentioned his belief that, after the war, monarchies all over the world would move towards the left, and stated that under his leadership Italy would go leftwards "in an ordered, liberal way" as he understood "the weight of the past is the monarchy's greatest handicap", which he would resolve by a "radical revision" of the ''[[Statuto Albertino]]''.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.333">Denis Mack Smith, ''Italy and Its Monarchy'', New Haven: Yale University Press p. 333</ref> Umberto spoke favourably of Togliatti as he was "clever, agreeable, and easy to discuss problems with".<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.333"/> In private, Umberto said he found Togliatti "to be a very congenial companion whose intelligence he respected, but was afraid that he suited his conversation according to his company".<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.334"/>

By late 1944, the question of whether the CLN or the Crown represented the Italian people came to a head.<ref name="Holland, James p.449">Holland, James ''Italy's Year of Sorrow, 1944–1945'', New York: St. Martin's Press, 2008 p. 449</ref> On 25 November 1944, Bonomi resigned as prime minister, saying he could not govern owing to his difficulties with the CLN, and as the politicians could not agree on a successor. Umberto used the impasse to reassert the Crown's powers.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.335"/> The crisis ended on 12 December 1944 with Umberto appointing a new government under Bonomi consisting of ministers from four parties, the most important of which were the Communists and the Christian Democrats.<ref>Holland, James ''Italy's Year of Sorrow, 1944–1945'', New York: St. Martin's Press, 2008 pp. 449–450</ref> In response to objections from the CLN, Bonomi, in practice, accepted their claim that they represented the Italian people rather than the Crown, while still swearing an oath of loyalty to Umberto as the Lieutenant General of the Realm when he took the prime minister's oath.<ref name="Holland, James p.449"/> An attempt by Umberto to have Churchill issue a public statement in favour of the monarchy led Macmillan to warn Umberto to try to be more politically neutral as regent.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.335"/> However, Churchill,  during a visit to Rome in January 1945, called Umberto "a far more impressive figure than the politicians".<ref>Ellwood, David ''Italy 1943–1945'', Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1985 p. 219</ref> As a gesture to promote national unity after the traumas of the war, in June 1945, Umberto appointed as prime minister, a prominent guerrilla leader, [[Ferruccio Parri]].<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.336"/>

In December 1945, Umberto appointed a new, more conservative government under [[Alcide De Gasperi]].<ref>Kogan, Norman ''A Political History of Postwar Italy'', London: Pall Mall Press, 1966 pp. 34–35</ref> One of the first acts of the new government was to announce the High Commission for Sanctions Against Fascism would cease operating as of 31 March 1946 and to start purging from the liberated areas of northern Italy civil servants appointed by the CLN, restoring the career civil servants who had served the Fascist regime back to their former posts.<ref>Kogan, Norman ''A Political History of Postwar Italy'', London: Pall Mall Press, 1966 p. 35</ref> Over the opposition of the left-wing parties who wanted the "institutional question" resolved by the Constituent Assembly, De Gasperi announced that a referendum would be held to decide the "institutional question".<ref name="Kogan, Norman p.36">Kogan, Norman ''A Political History of Postwar Italy'', London: Pall Mall Press, 1966 p. 36</ref> At the same time, Italian women were given the right to vote and to hold official office for the first time, again over the opposition of the left-wing parties, who viewed Italian women as more conservative than their menfolk, and believed that female suffrage would benefit the monarchist side in the referendum.<ref name="Kogan, Norman p.36"/> The monarchists favoured putting off the referendum as long as possible out of the hope that a return to normalcy would cause the Italians to take a more favourable view of their monarchy, while the republicans wanted a referendum as soon as possible, hoping that wartime radicalisation would work in their favour.<ref name="Kogan, Norman p.36"/>