The Savory Piedmont Sardines of Italy (Savoy)

House of Savoy Coat of Arms

Ah, at last we meet, fair Savoy. Your intricate plays of second-place during my biweekly quizzes were becoming predictable and thus you finally acted. Well I will try and not shame you now, in your moment of triumph. The House of Savoy is actually a quite old Western European royal house. It has perhaps one of the simplest names for a royal house in Europe and it is named after a region called Savoy.

Duke Amadeus VII of Savoy

Much like the House of Habsburg, Savoy started its life as a small commune in Switzerland in the early 1000s. The region expanded southward toward the modern French and Italian borders. The House of Savoy was never a strong military power and expanded slowly over the centuries through marriage and politics. The first of the family to rule in Savoy was a man named Humbert I of Saxon descent. He was given his land by the last King of Arles, a descendant of the Carolingian dynasty. His house quickly took control of some important mountain passes in the Alps and they began to gain prominence in Franco-Italian politics. When Humbert's son Otto inherited his wife's ancestral lands of Susa, the important cities of Turin and Pinerolo were added to the Savoyard house and the great powers of the eleventh century began to watch Savoy with interest. The acquisition of Nice soon after brought Savoy to the Mediterranean Coast, and the continental borders were fairly-well established for the remainder of the medieval era. Emperor Sigismund acknowledged this new powerbase in 1416 by elevating Count Amadeus VII to the title of Imperial Duke.

Kingdom of Sardinia (in perspective)

The late Middle Ages proved to be a trying time for the House of Savoy. In 1494 France invaded Savoy and the ruling house fled to Turin in Piedmont where the family would remain for the next four centuries. To reclaim the lost lands, Duke Emmanuel Philibert allied with the House of Habsburg, France's enemy, and retook Savoy from foreign hands, reorganizing many aspects of the government in the process. Savoy continued to succeed, expanding its territory outward and being rewarded by foreign governments with lands in Northern Italy and a special prize in the form of the Kingdom of Sicily.

Duchy of Piedmont-Savoy with Kingdom of Sardinia imprinted

King Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia

Sicily was only a Savoyard possession for a few years before Victor Amadeus II traded it with the Kingdom of Sardinia, an island nation in the western Mediterannean. From 1720 onwards, Savoy was an undeniably major player in European politics. The family owned a large swath of land between France and Italy (technically, they were vassals of the Holy Roman Empire), and they had a large island nation. Their prestige had been established through generations of competent duke-generals who had aided whichever side would profit Savoy more. And marriages had placed Savoy in such a position that its members would claim the senior Catholic line of the House of Stuart after 1807. Savoy was set for greatness.

Then Napoleon came. He defeated Piedmont handedly and forced Savoy to sign a treaty allowing them to march right on through Savoy without trouble. It sucked to be Italy in 1796. Two years later, Duke-King Charles Emmanuel IV was forced out of office and the duchy-kingdom was dissolved by French invasion. Sardinia remained nominally a French vassal state but it avoided any further conflict with France. When the war ended in 1814, Savoy returned to the stage, got all its former lands back, and was enlarged with the addition of its eastern Republican neighbor, Genoa. But Savoy decided to play it safe for a while and avoided angering anyone else. The Congress of Vienna had established it as a buffer state between angst-ridden post-Napoleonic France and the increasingly revolutionary Austro-Italian states.

The Revolutions of 1848 were too much for Savoy and the country finally broke, but not in an expected way. Giuseppe Mazzini was fighting for a unified Italy and he looked on Sardinia, the largest entirely independent state, as its leader. Count Camillo Benso di Cavour was the new Sardinian Prime Minister under Duke-King Victor Immanuel II and Cavour was very pro-unification. He influenced Victor Immanuel to join against Russia in the Crimean War, bringing combat experience to the Savoyard people and reminding the other European states that Savoy still was in the game. In 1859, Savoy joined with France to expel Austria and the Bourbons from Italy. The so-called Austro-Sardinian War was short and decisive, with Italy conquering the entirety of northern Italy except Venice, which remained an Austrian possession. The next year, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was conquered, as well as most of the Papal States except Rome. A new Kingdom of Italy was declared on March 17, 1861, with Victor Emmanuel being crowned king. The House of Savoy had reached its zenith.

King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy

The Italian Unification continued well into the subsequent decades and even into World War I. Italy began the war as a member of the Triple Alliance (Central Powers) but military defeats and a lack of motivation caused the country to switch sides in 1915. It was the first time in history that the House of Savoy overplayed its political hand. But it would not be its last. Savoy wanted to use the war to expand its borders into Italian-speaking regions of Austria and Yugoslavia. But Woodrow Wilson wouldn't hear of it and the promises of the alliance with Italy were nullified in the Treaty of Versailles. The Italians grew angry at both the royal government and the allied powers. Victor Emmanuel III had one chance to stop the rise of Benito Mussolini but he didn't take it, forfeiting any chance for forgiveness by the people when World War I ended. It is clear now in retrospect that members of the House of Savoy chose to tolerate Mussolini rather than face civil war or a socialist government. In 1922, in the midst of economic turmoil, Victor Emmanuel permitted Mussolini to become Prime Minister of Italy in exchange for a promise to support and uphold the Italian Savoyard monarchy. Two decades later, in 1943, Victor Emmanuel removed Musollini from office and accidentally caused the defeat of the Italian army to German forces. The monarchy was in trouble and Victor Emmanuel abdicated in favor of his son Umberto in order to save the monarchy. But the people voted and decided that the House of Savoy should rule no longer. The royal family was forced to leave Italy in 1946 and male members of the family were banned from ever returning to Italy. The ban was only removed in 2002 with the proviso that family members must renounce their rights prior to returning to Italy.

Conclusion
As a final aside to the story of the family, two members of the family were granted lands outside of the traditional Savoyard inheritance. Amadeo, son of Victor Emmanuel II, was elected King of Spain in 1870 following the deposition of Queen Isabella II. Unfortunately, the primary person backing his elevation was assassinated soon after and the country fell into a nightmare of a situation. After three terrible years of rule, Amadeo abdicated, declaring to the Spanish Parliament that the country was ungovernable. Amadeo's grandson, Aimone, was chosen in 1941 by the fascist puppet government of Croatia to rule the titular state under the name King Tomislav II. The funny thing is: Aimone was afraid to go to Croatia due to various disputes the state had with Italy, especially recent territorial acquisitions made at their expense. Thus, Aimone never actually ruled IN Croatia and was viewed by the majority of the populace as a relatively powerless figurehead. He abdicated in 1943 soon after Mussolini was removed from power in Italy.

And so you have the House of Savoy, the only "native" ruling kingdom in Italy during much of the Early Modern Era and the eventual unifier of Italy, even if the house itself ceased to rule it sixty-four years ago.