Editing Victor Emmanuel III (section)

====Coup d'état against Mussolini====
{{Main|Fall of the Fascist regime in Italy}}
On the night of 25 July 1943, the [[Grand Council of Fascism]] voted to adopt an ''Ordine del Giorno'' (order of the day) proposed by Count [[Dino Grandi]] to ask Victor Emmanuel to resume his full constitutional powers under Article 5 of the ''Statuto.'' In effect, this was a [[motion of no confidence]] in Mussolini.

The following afternoon, Mussolini asked for an audience with the king at [[Villa Ada|Villa Savoia]]. When Mussolini tried to tell Victor Emmanuel about the Grand Council's vote, Victor Emmanuel abruptly cut him off and dismissed him in favour of Badoglio. He then ordered Mussolini's arrest.

Publicly, Victor Emmanuel and Badoglio claimed that Italy would continue the war as a member of the [[Axis powers|Axis]]. Privately, they both began negotiating with the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] for an armistice. The king was advised by his generals to sign an immediate armistice, since German troops in Italy were still outnumbered by Italian troops.{{Sfn | Mack Smith | 1989 | p = 307}}  But Victor Emmanuel was unwilling to accept the Allied demand for unconditional surrender, and as a result, the secret armistice talks in Lisbon were dragged out over the summer of 1943.{{Sfn | Mack Smith | 1989 | p = 308}}  Besides rejecting unconditional surrender as "truly monstrous", Victor Emmanuel wanted from the Allies a guarantee that he would keep his throne; a promise that Italian colonial empire in Libya and the Horn of Africa would be restored; that Italy would keep the part of Yugoslavia that had been annexed by Mussolini; and finally the Allies should promise not to invade the Italian mainland, and instead invade France and the Balkans.{{Sfn | Mack Smith | 1989 | p = 309}}  Mack Smith wrote that these demands were "unrealistic" and caused much time to be wasted in the Lisbon peace talks as the Allies were willing to concede that Victor Emmanuel could keep his throne and rejected all of his other demands.{{Sfn | Mack Smith | 1989 | p = 309}}  In the meantime, German forces continued to be rushed into Italy.