Vanished Kingdoms

by Norman Davies

  The House of Savoy entered the twentieth century, therefore, visibly chastened. In conservative eyes, the assassination of 1900 simply added to the continuing humiliation of a Catholic nation evident in the fate of a ‘captive papacy’. Monarchs relying solely on Divine Right were evidently unsafe. In any event, the elaborate bronze and marble complex of seventeen sculptures of princes of the House of Savoy from Umberto Biancamano on, executed in 1903 by Canale and displayed in the Valentino Garden in Turin, was to be the last of its kind. The First World War was a time of intense ordeals for Italy as for many countries, and it proved fatal for several ancient monarchies. If the Habsburgs, the Hohenzollerns and the Romanovs could be toppled, the Casa Savoia had to watch its step.

  Fortunately, the new king, Vittorio Emanuele III, had sworn loyalty to the constitution without demur, and was widely judged to be a man of ‘energy and a lofty sense of duty’.56 Italian Fascism was not his creation, and his policy of trying to tame it rather than confront it cannot be attributed to cowardice. It all happened by a process of creep and fudge. Nonetheless, as the true nature of Europe’s first Fascist regime was revealed in the 1920s, the monarchy undoubtedly complied with some of its excesses. And in one important symbolic respect, by accepting a panoply of phoney titles, it lent its name to the regime’s aggressions. Vittorio Emanuele III did not object when offered the crown of the ‘emperor of Abyssinia’ or the ‘king of Albania’. One of his relatives basked in the title of ‘Zvitomir II, king of Croatia’.

  Nevertheless, throughout the war years, the monarchy acted as a force for stability and continuity. Many of Italy’s elite regiments, like the Cavalleggeri Savoia or the Granatieri di Savoia – named after the House not the Duchy of Savoy – prided themselves on traditions going back to the seventeenth or eighteenth century. ‘Avanti Savoia’ remained the standard battle cry of Italian troops, and high-quality equipment such as the Savoia Marchetti SM 79 bomber benefited from the royal brand. In August 1942, while fighting the Red Army on the River Don at Izbushensky, 600 dragoons of the Prince of Aosta Celere Division achieved a signal victory against overwhelming odds. As they trotted, cantered and then galloped into ‘the last major cavalry charge of European history’, they whirled their sabres and roared out their cries of ‘Carica!’ (‘Charge!’) and ‘Savoia!’

  Whether or not the dynasty could be forgiven was the issue posed by the referendum of 1946. For the first time in Italy’s history, women were permitted to participate in the voting. The opinion of a leading British historian betrays no regrets about the people’s choice: ‘Like the [English] in 1688 and the French in 1789, the Italians had thus carried out their own constitutional revolution… The oldest surviving dynasty in Europe had run its course. After eighty-five years, during which it presided over national unification and enjoyed many triumphs as well as failures, the end came in tragedy and anticlimax’.57 But once again the wording of the referendum may be pertinent. At the time it was first discussed, Vittorio Emanuele III had already ceded his official duties to his son; and it would have been perfectly possible for the referendum to have posed the question whether or not the king should officially abdicate. In that case, the nation could have passed its verdict on one man’s record, while leaving the monarchy intact. Yet the referendum’s authors, heavily influenced by ex-Partisans and Communists, were determined that the vote should be aimed directly at the institution of monarchy. As a result, the king’s conduct and the suitability of his son were overshadowed by weightier considerations. The question posed was ‘republic’ or ‘king’. The House of Savoy was presented as being out of its depth in an age of populist politics and democratic manipulation. Just as it had discarded the Duchy of Savoy through a plebiscite, it now lost the Kingdom of Italy through a referendum. The long story, which began nearly ten centuries before with one Umberto, ended with another. And the vision of Mazzini and Garibaldi finally triumphed over that of Cavour.

  III

  In the view of monarchical purists no throne ever falls vacant. There is always an heir apparent, always a successor, always a claimant (even if some see the claim as that of a false pretender). ‘The king is dead’, they say. ‘Long live the king!’

  Ex-King Umberto II, therefore, was not really an ex-king in the eyes of his most fervent subjects and followers. He was simply an unfortunate monarch in temporary exile – exactly as his great-great-grandfather Carlo Alberto had been, or his maternal grandfather, King Nikola of Montenegro (see Chapter 12). After leaving Italy, and arranging his father’s funeral in 1947, he and his family settled in Switzerland. The royal couple’s marriage, however, had never been happy; and exile permitted them to separate. The ex-queen, Marie-José, who was a Saxe-Coburg-Gotha by birth, stayed in Geneva with her children, and later moved to Mexico. Umberto took up residence in the Villa Italia at Cascais in Portugal, whence, as ‘Europe’s Grandfather’, he could sally forth to royal weddings or jubilees at the invitation of the dwindling company of reigning monarchs. According to gossip, he was bisexual – a personal trait which might explain the Vatican’s strange silence during the referendum of 1946. He died in 1983 and was laid to rest at Hautecombe, where Marie-José would join him twenty years later.58 His last act, irksome to many of his relatives, was to bequeath the Shroud of Turin in his will to the Roman Catholic Church.

  Umberto’s death led automatically to the elevation of his only son and heir to Italy’s virtual throne. Vittorio Emanuele IV, prince of Naples (b. 1937), had shot and killed a man in Corsica and had spent a dozen years proving his innocence in the French courts. (He had fired a rifle in anger at night-time intruders on his yacht, and hit a sleeping tourist on an adjacent boat.) He was also pressing the Italian government to lift the ban on his return to Italy, entering a plea to the European Court of Human Rights. His wish was finally granted in 2002 on condition that he formally renounce all claims. This done, he proceeded to sue the Republic both for compensation, and for restitution, among other things, of the Quirinale Palace. In 2006 he was briefly imprisoned on charges of benefiting from the profits of prostitution at his casino at Campione on Lake Como.59

  In the eyes of true monarchist circles, however, more serious offences had been committed. After quarrelling with his father and marrying a commoner without royal permission, Vittorio Emanuele had long feared that he might be dispossessed, and so claimed that Umberto II had forfeited the crown by agreeing to the referendum of 1946. Though the father was still alive at the time, the son proclaimed himself ‘king’. At this, his angry relatives mounted a counter-claim. By negotiating with the government of the Italian Republic, they argued, Vittorio Emanuele had implicitly acknowledged the Republic’s legitimacy, and had ipso facto committed treason against himself. A substitute claimant was found in his cousin Amadeo, ‘duke of Aosta’ (b. 1943), who during Mussolini’s occupation of Yugoslavia had been the infant ‘king of Croatia’.60

  The two well-funded camps were well capable of pursuing long campaigns of litigious attrition. One of them drew income from the Campione casino, from arms dealing and from a hedge fund registered in Geneva. The other supported itself from the wine trade and from the appellation of Vini Savoia-Aosta. In May 2004 both claimants were invited to a royal wedding in Madrid. There, in full view of the cameras, the elder titular king landed two punches on the nose of the younger one.61 Their battles continued inconclusively in the courts. In January 2010 a court in Arezzo ordered the duke of Aosta to drop the name of Savoia, and to confine himself, like his wines, to the Savoia-Aosta label; another court in Piacenza dismissed the charges of criminal corruption levelled at Vittorio Emanuele. But no ruling was made on the contested headship of the House. Increasingly, it seemed that the issue would eventually be settled by the age-old competition between longevity and fertility; the most likely winner in the long term was yet another Umberto (b. 2009), the duke of Aosta’s grandson. To keep the rumour mill turning, Vittorio Emanuele has been caught on video boasting how he duped the French courts over the murder of whi
ch he had once been acquitted. Neither murder nor manslaughter is a bar to the succession, but the prince’s outburst that preceded the killing cannot have endeared him to his subjects. ‘Voi, italiani di merda’, he was reported to have shouted, ‘You Italian sh–ts, I’ll kill the lot of you’.62

  The land from which the Casa Savoia took its name has now belonged to France for more than a century and a half. The départements of Savoie (chef-lieu Chambéry) and of Haute-Savoie (chef-lieu Annecy) form part of the Rhône-Alpes region. They are endowed with huge areas of exceptional natural beauty, including (western) Europe’s highest mountain, Mont-Blanc (15,771 feet), France’s first National Park in the Vanoise, and scores of world-famous ski-resorts – Chamonix, Megève, Val d’Isère, Les Arcs, Meribel, Tignes and Flaine, among others. They also encompass an officially denominated wine-growing region, which stretches from Crépy overlooking Lake Geneva to the flank of the Massif des Bauges south of Chambéry. The AOC Vin de Savoie, much neglected in Paris, includes fine white, red and rosé wines, the most renowned among its twenty-two registered crus being the aromatic, golden Chignin-Bergeron, the dry Apremont made on the slopes of Mont Granier from white Jacquère grapes, the deep-red Mondeuse d’Arbin, and the Roussette de Savoie cru Marestel, which comes from the village of Jongieux, perched on a plateau high above the abbey of Hautecombe.63 These are among the modern successors to the Vitis Allobrogica, recorded in ancient times by both Pliny and Plutarch.

  Popular guides to the history of Savoy, however, rarely enter into the historical nuances:

  • Early 11th century, ‘Humbert aux Blanches Mains’, Count of Maurienne… receives the title of Count of Savoy. His dynasty became ‘Guardians of the Passes’.

  • 1419, Savoy is united with Piedmont.

  • 1860, April. Savoyard Plebiscite. A crushing majority of ‘Yes’ votes hands Savoy to France.

  The Savoyards, weary of government by Piedmont… turned to France. In 1858, at the interview of Plombières, Napoleon III and Cavour decided that, in exchange for French help in the struggle against the Austrian occupation, Italy would cede Savoy and Nice to France if the population concerned consented. This led to the Plebiscite of April 1860. By a vote of 130,533 for ‘Yes’ against 235 for ‘No’, the Savoyards expressed their desire to become French.64

  This assumes, among other things, that an Italian state existed at the time of the plebiscite.

  An official website explains the plebiscite in terms of discontent with some poorly identified kings:

  The kings of Savoy began to spend increasing amounts of time in their Italian territories and the Savoyards, who had always spoken French, found it difficult [after 1815] to accept the return of the Piedmontese administration… In 1858, during the Plombières talks between Napoleon III and Cavour, minister of the King of Piemonte and Sardinia, France promised to provide military aid against Austria on the condition that Nice and Savoy would be returned to France. King Vittorio-Emmanuele II, whose ambition was the unification of Italy, accepted the deal.65

  The modern visitor to Chambéry is treated to all the sights that pleased Bayle St John more than 150 years ago, and more besides. The castle, adorned with a classical façade, is nowadays the Préfecture, but the cathedral, the rue de Boigne, the place St Léger and the Fontaine des Éléphants are much as they were. The Musée Savoisien, lodged in a former Franciscan convent, contains an extensive collection of religious art, much of it brought from Hautecombe. St John, who devoted a whole chapter to Mme de Warens and Rousseau, would be delighted to learn that Les Charmettes has been preserved and restored: ‘The memory of the philosopher inhabits the rooms… which are decorated in the late 18th century style… The house opens onto a terraced garden in a wooded valley… closed on the horizon by the Dent du Nivolet. It’s here that the visitor will best recover the charm of this “sojourn of happiness and innocence”.’66

  In Bayle St John’s time, alpinism was in its infancy, and skiing had not been invented. The very first ski-station in Savoie, at Megève, was opened in 1921. Nowadays, such places support the region’s biggest business. Most visitors rush past everything else to reach the slopes, or in the summer to power their speedboats across the green-blue waters of the Lac du Bourget and the Lac d’Annecy. But several fine historical sites survive. The ferries still sail to the abbey of Hautecombe, now in the care of an ecumenical order.67 The Château de Thorens, 12 miles up the mountain from Annecy, exudes the atmosphere of pre-plebiscite Savoy. And in Cavour’s former study it displays the table on which the treaty of annexation was signed.68

  The pilgrim route to St Jean-de-Maurienne, where it all began, leads for 40 miles up the valley of the Arc beneath the towering peaks of the Vanoise. On approaching St Jean, one passes the ruined ramparts of the Château de Charbonnières, the earliest known seat of the counts of Maurienne. Immediately before the town, a round tower, La Tour du Châtel, marks the place where Count Humbertus I expired in 1047. In the town square, the eleventh-century cathedral is signalled in the guidebook for its coloured medieval frescoes, its pre-Romanesque crypt, its cloister and garden, and for the side chapel of St Thècle, which houses a most holy relic: the three fingers of St John the Baptist, brought from Alexandria in early Christian times, which give the town its name. The cathedral is a strange building. Its ancient interior and leaning tower are masked by an incongruous, three-arched neo-classical façade erected in the reign of Carlo Emanuele III. But in the shade of the front portico, the destination of all historical pilgrims awaits. The tomb of Humbert aux Mains Blanches shows a warrior reclining on his sarcophagus under a pointed Gothic arch. It is covered by an iron grille bearing the signs and symbols of his house: the Cross of Savoy, the double Savoyan love-knot, and the fert motto. It was built in 1826 by King Carlo il Felice, at the time when he was restoring Hautecombe and when he hoped that Savoy and Piedmont would stay together for ever.69

  None of which prepares the visitor for the news that chronic criticism of the Annexation of 1860 has rumbled on ever since. A dissident minority has always existed in Savoie, and if anything is now gaining strength. Only ten years after the Annexation, the French Second Empire of Napoleon III collapsed and was replaced by the Third Republic. The occasion was used by Savoyard republicans to voice their opinion that the plebiscite had been rigged. At Bonneville in Faucigny, a local committee resolved that the vote ‘did not represent the will of the people’. Paris reacted by sending 10,000 extra troops to Savoy.70

  After the First World War, the French government’s actions were challenged in the International Court of Justice, and the Free Trade Zone was summarily abolished. As part of the proceedings, the full text of the secret Franco-Sardinian agreement was made public. It transpired that France had given guarantees about the demilitarization of Savoy which were subsequently ignored.71

  During the Second World War Savoie was invaded first by Italian and then by German forces. In 1944 the French Resistance suffered a bloody defeat at the Plateau de Glières, the Savoyard counterpart to the fortress of Vercors in Dauphiné. Pro-French sentiment revived. In 1960 festivities marking the centenary of the plebiscite were held without opposition. After 1965, however, a movement for regional autonomy (MRS) began, part of a broader surge of sentiment in France against over-centralization. It did not succeed either in turning Savoie into an official region or in joining Savoie to Dauphiné.

  With some delay, therefore, the Ligue Savoisienne was founded in 1994 with an openly separatist agenda. Its performance in local elections – 6 per cent of the vote in Haute-Savoie, and 5 per cent in Savoie – was modest, but its adherents have since entered into competition with a restructured regionalist movement. With the aid of the Internet, they are conducting a lively ‘identity campaign’ to raise awareness of the distinctness of the Savoyard language and to clarify the contested issues of modern history. They argue, for instance, that the Franco-Sardinian Treaty of Turin of 24 March 1860 has lapsed through non-observance; that the subsequent plebiscite was a travest
y; and that the democratic will of the Savoyard nation has never been tested. In 1998, having made a declaration of independence that everyone else ignored, they published a Constitutional Project for the Federation of Savoy.72

  Preparations in Savoie for the 150th anniversary of the Annexation in 2010 were understandably somewhat muted. The state archive in Chambéry staged an exhibition of posters from 1860; and the official website was adorned by a collection of impartial historical dossiers on la période sarde, ‘the Sardinian Period’.73 Neither Chambéry nor Annecy thought fit to mount a Franco-Italian festival to match that organized in 2008 by the town of Plombières-les-Bains.74 The Savoyard separatists had roundly condemned that festival, denouncing ‘the celebration of a conspiracy which united a dictator and his accomplice in fomenting conquests and massacres’.75

  The one thing missing was any trace of curiosity, let alone regret, concerning the fate of the Casa Savoia. The mixed feelings described by Bayle St John in the days of the ‘subalpine kingdom’ have completely evaporated. According to today’s Savoyards, the Casa Savoia turned their backs on their homeland, and their homeland has forgotten the Savoia. Whatever their origins, the ex-kings of Italy are seen as irrelevant foreigners; they belong to a well-known category of Savoyard migrants – local lads who left home to make their fortune, but who lost touch with their roots. As the sorrowful Savoyard proverb puts it: ‘Toujours ma chèvre monte, et mon fils descend’,* ‘My goat always goes up the mountain, and my son is always going down.’

  Preparations for celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification in 2011 were concentrated very naturally in Turin, although many events were held elsewhere.† Turin’s festival, entitled ‘Esperianza Italia 150’, was poised to present hundreds of concerts, operas, exhibitions, plays and parades. The royal palaces had been renovated, and the ex-royal hunting lodge, the Reggia di Venaria Reale, was fitted out as the venue for an extravagant artistic display.