Victor Emmanuel III (Italian: Vittorio Emanuele Ferdinando Maria Gennaro di Savoia; 11 November 1869 – 28 December 1947) was King of Italy from 29 July 1900 until his abdication on 9 May 1946. A member of the House of Savoy, he also reigned as Emperor of Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941 and King of the Albanians from 1939 to 1943, following the Italian invasions of Ethiopia and Albania. During his reign of nearly 46 years, which began after the assassination of his father Umberto I, the Kingdom of Italy became involved in two world wars. His reign also encompassed the birth, rise, and fall of the Fascist regime.
The first fourteen years of Victor Emmanuel's reign were dominated by prime minister Giovanni Giolitti, who focused on industrialization and passed several democratic reforms, such as the introduction of universal male suffrage. In foreign policy, Giolitti's Italy distanced itself from the fellow members of the Triple Alliance (the German Empire and Austria-Hungary) and colonized Libya following the Italo-Turkish War. Giolitti was succeeded by Antonio Salandra, Paolo Boselli, and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando. The First World War brought about Italian victory over the Habsburg Empire and the annexation of the Italian-speaking provinces of Trento and Trieste, completing the national unity of Italy, and the southern part of German-speaking Tyrol (South Tyrol). For this reason, Victor Emmanuel was labelled the "King of Victory". However, a part of Italian nationalists protested against the partial violation of the 1915 Treaty of London and what they defined as a "mutilated victory", demanding the annexation of Croatian-speaking territories in Dalmatia and temporarily occupying the town of Fiume without royal assent.
