Umberto I of Italy

Biography

Umberto was born in Turin in 1844, the son of Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia and Adelaide of Austria. His father, with whom he had a cold and formal relationship, gave him no training in government. He began a military career in 1858, was present at Solferino in 1859 and commanded a division in the 1866 war against Austria. In 1868 he married his cousin Margherita of Savoy, whose cultivated manner helped the monarchy's popularity.

He succeeded his father as King of Italy on 9 January 1878. A strong admirer of Prussian militarism, he backed the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary formed in 1882 and supported colonial expansion in Eritrea and Somalia, as well as the attempt to conquer Ethiopia that ended in defeat at Adwa in 1896. He was a close ally of Francesco Crispi and showed contempt for parliament.

The last years of his reign were marked by economic hardship, socialist agitation and repression. After troops under General Bava Beccaris fired on food rioters in Milan in 1898, the king decorated the general, angering the left. Anarchists, who had already tried to kill him in the first year of his reign, saw him as an enemy, and on 29 July 1900 the anarchist Gaetano Bresci shot him dead at Monza. His son succeeded him as Victor Emmanuel III.