Background
Umberto I was born on March 14, 1844 in Turin, Italy, the son of Victor Emmanuel II and Archduchess Adelaide of Austria.
Umberto I was born on March 14, 1844 in Turin, Italy, the son of Victor Emmanuel II and Archduchess Adelaide of Austria.
Umberto's education was entrusted to, amongst others, Massimo Taparelli, marquis d'Azeglio and Pasquale Stanislao Mancini. From March 1858 he had a military career in the Sardinian army, beginning with the rank of captain.
Umberto took part in the Italian Wars of Independence: he was present at the battle of Solferino in 1859, and in 1866 commanded the XVI Division at the Villafranca battle that followed the Italian defeat at Custoza. Attacked by the Austrian cavalry near Villafranca, he formed his troops into squares and drove the assailants towards Sommacampagna, remaining himself throughout the action in the square most exposed to attack. With Bixio he covered the retreat of the Italian army, receiving the gold medal for valour. Ascending the throne on the death of his father (9 January 1878), Umberto adopted the title "Umberto I of Italy" rather than "Umberto IV" (of Savoy), and consented that the remains of his father should be interred at Rome in the Pantheon, rather than the royal mausoleum of Basilica of Superga. While on a tour of the kingdom, accompanied by Queen Margherita and the Prime Minister Benedetto Cairoli, he was attacked with a dagger by an anarchist, Giovanni Passannante, during a parade in Naples on 17 November 1878. The King warded off the blow with his sabre, but Cairoli, in attempting to defend him, was severely wounded in the thigh. The would-be assassin was condemned to death, even though the law only allowed the death penalty if the King was killed. The King commuted the sentence to one of penal servitude for life, which was served in a cell only 1. 4 meters high, without sanitation and with 18 kilograms of chains. In 1881 King Umberto I, again accompanied by Cairoli, resumed his interrupted tour, and visited Sicily and the southern Italian provinces. In 1882 he took a prominent part in the national mourning for Garibaldi, whose tomb at Caprera he repeatedly visited. When, in the autumn of 1882, Verona and Venetia Were inundated, he hastened to the spot, directed salvage operations, and provided large sums of money for the destitute. Similarly, on the 28th of July 1883, he hurried to Ischia, where an earthquake had engulfed some 5000 persons. Countermanding the order of the minister of public works to cover the ruins with quicklime, the king prosecuted salvage operations for five days longer, and personally saved many victims at the risk of his own life. In 1884 he visited Busca and Naples, where cholera was raging, helping with money and advice the numerous sufferers, and raising the spirit of the population. On the evening of 29 July 1900, Umberto was assassinated in Monza. The king was shot four times by Italo-American anarchist Gaetano Bresci. Bresci claimed he wanted to avenge the people killed in Milan during the suppression of the riots of May 1898.
Compared with the reigns of his grandfather, Charles Albert, and of his father, Victor Emmanuel, the reign of Umberto was tranquil. Scrupulously observant of constitutional principles, he followed, as far as practicable, parliamentary indications in his choice of premiers, only one of whom was drawn from the Conservative ranks. In foreign policy he approved of the conclusion of the Triple Alliance, and, in repeated visits to Vienna and Berlin, established and consolidated the pact. Towards Great Britain his attitude was invariably cordial, and he considered the Triple Alliance imperfect unless supplemented by an Anglo-Italian naval entente. Favourably disposed towards the policy of colonial expansion inaugurated in 1885 by the occupation of Massawa, he was suspected of aspiring to a vast empire in north-east Africa, a suspicion which tended somewhat to diminish his popularity after the disaster of Adowa on the 1st of March 1896. On the other hand, his popularity was enhanced by the firmness of his attitude towards the Vatican, as exemplified in his telegram declaring Rome "intangible" (September 20, 1886), and affirming the permanence of the Italian possession of the Eternal City.
On the 21st of April 1868 Umberto married his cousin, Margherita Teresa Oiovanna, princess of Savoy, daughter of the duke of Genoa (born at Turin on the 20th of November 1851). On the 11th of November 1869 Margherita gave birth to Victor Emmanuel, prince of Naples, afterwards Victor Emmanuel IIL of Italy.