Editing Umberto II of Italy (section)

===Attempts at armistice===

In 1943, Marie José, Princess of Piedmont, involved herself in vain attempts to arrange a separate peace treaty between Italy and the [[United States]]. Her interlocutor from the [[Holy See|Vatican]] was Giovanni Battista [[Monsignor]] Montini, a senior Papal diplomat who later became [[Pope Paul VI]].<ref name="Queen Marie Jose of Italy">{{cite news|date=29 January 2001|title=Queen Marie Jose of Italy|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1320052/Queen-Marie-Jose-of-Italy.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1320052/Queen-Marie-Jose-of-Italy.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|access-date=2019-01-21}}{{cbignore}}</ref> Her attempts were not sponsored by her father-in-law, the King, and Umberto was not (directly at least) involved in them. Victor Emmanuel III was anti-clerical, distrusting the [[Catholic Church]], and wanted nothing to do with a peace attempt made through [[Papal]] intermediaries.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.298"/> More importantly, Victor Emmanuel was proudly [[misogynistic]], holding women in complete contempt as the King believed it to be a scientific fact that the brains of women were significantly less developed than the brains of men.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.298"/> Victor Emmanuel simply did not believe that Marie José was competent to serve as a diplomat.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.298"/> For all these reasons, the King vetoed Marie José's peace attempt.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.298"/> After her failure&nbsp;– she never met the American agents&nbsp;– she was sent with her children to [[Sarre, Italy|Sarre]], in the [[Aosta Valley]], and isolated from the political life of the Royal House.<ref name="Queen Marie Jose of Italy"/>

In the first half of 1943, as the war continued to go badly for Italy, several senior Fascist officials, upon learning that the Allies would never sign an armistice with Mussolini, began to plot his overthrow with the support of the King.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.300">Denis Mack Smith, ''Italy and Its Monarchy'', New Haven: Yale University Press p. 300</ref> Adding to their worries were a number of strikes in [[Milan]] starting on 5 March 1943, with the workers openly criticising both the war and the Fascist regime which had led Italy into the war, leading to fears in Rome that Italy was on the brink of revolution.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.300"/> The strike wave in Milan quickly spread to the industrial city of [[Turin]], where the working class likewise denounced the war and Fascism.<ref name="Gerhard Weinberg p.485">Gerhard Weinberg, ''A World in Arms'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 485</ref> The fact that during the strikes in Milan and Turin, Italian soldiers fraternised with the striking workers, who used slogans associated with the banned Socialist and Communist parties, deeply worried Italy's conservative establishment.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.300"/> By this point, the successive Italian defeats had so psychologically shattered Mussolini that he become close to being [[catatonic]], staring into space for hours on end and saying the war would soon turn around for the Axis because it had to, leading even his closest admirers to become disillusioned and to begin looking for a new leader.<ref>Denis Mack Smith, ''Italy and Its Monarchy'', New Haven: Yale University Press p. 302</ref> Umberto was seen as supportive of these efforts to depose Mussolini, but as Ciano (who had turned against Mussolini by this point) complained in his diary, the prince was far too passive, refusing to make a move or even state his views unless his father expressed his approval first.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.300"/>

On 10 July 1943, in [[Operation Husky]], the Allies invaded [[Sicily]].<ref>Gerhard Weinberg, ''A World in Arms'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 594</ref> Just before the invasion of Sicily, Umberto had gone on an inspection tour of the Italian forces in Sicily and reported to his father that the Italians had no hope of holding Sicily.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.303">Denis Mack Smith, ''Italy and Its Monarchy'', New Haven: Yale University Press p. 303</ref> Mussolini had assured the King that the ''[[Regio Esercito]]'' could hold Sicily, and the poor performance of the Italian forces defending Sicily helped to persuade the King to finally dismiss Mussolini, as Umberto informed his father that ''Il Duce'' had lied to him.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.303"/> On 16 July 1943, the visiting Papal Assistant Secretary of State told the American diplomats in [[Madrid]] that King Victor Emmanuel III and Prince Umberto were now hated by the Italian people even more than Mussolini.<ref>Ellwood, David ''Italy 1943–1945'', Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1985 p. 35</ref> By this time, many Fascist ''gerarchi'' had become convinced that it was necessary to depose Mussolini to save the Fascist system, and on the night of 24–25 July 1943, at a meeting of the [[Fascist Grand Council]], a motion introduced by the ''gerarca'' [[Dino Grandi]] to take away Mussolini's powers was approved by a vote of 19 to 8.<ref name="Gerhard Weinberg p.597">Gerhard Weinberg, ''A World in Arms'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 597</ref> The fact that the majority of the Fascist Grand Council voted for the motion showed just how disillusioned the Fascist ''gerarchi'' had become with Mussolini by the summer of 1943.<ref name="Gerhard Weinberg p.485"/> The intransigent and radical group of Fascists led by the ''gerarchi'' [[Roberto Farinacci]], who wanted to continue the war, were only a minority, while the majority of the ''gerarchi'' supported Grandi's call to jettison Mussolini as the best way of saving Fascism.<ref name="Gerhard Weinberg p.597"/>

On 25 July 1943, Victor Emmanuel III finally dismissed Mussolini and appointed [[Marshal of Italy|Marshal]] [[Pietro Badoglio]], as prime minister with secret orders to negotiate an armistice with the Allies. [[Baron]] [[Raffaele Guariglia]], the Italian ambassador to [[Spain]], contacted British diplomats to begin the negotiations. Badoglio went about the negotiations halfheartedly while allowing many German forces to enter Italy.<ref name="Gerhard Weinberg p.598"/> The American historian [[Gerhard Weinberg]] wrote that Badoglio as prime minister "...did almost everything as stupidly and slowly as possible", as he dragged out the secret peace talks going on in Lisbon and [[Tangier]], being unwilling to accept the Allied demand for unconditional surrender.<ref name="Gerhard Weinberg p.598">Gerhard Weinberg, ''A World in Arms'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 598</ref> During the secret armistice talks, Badoglio told [[Pietro d'Acquarone|Count Pietro d'Acquarone]] that he thought he might get better terms if Victor Emmanuel abdicated in favour of Umberto, complaining that the armistice terms that the King wanted were unacceptable to the Allies.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.310">Denis Mack Smith, ''Italy and Its Monarchy'', New Haven: Yale University Press p. 310</ref> D'Acquarone told Badoglio to keep his views to himself as the King was completely unwilling to abdicate, all the more so as he believed that Umberto was unfit to be monarch.<ref name="Denis Mack Smith p.310"/>