Umberto II of Italy to serve the new republic. The monarchy of the House of Savoy formally ended on 12 June 1946, and Umberto left the country. Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi assumed office as Italy's interim Head of State. Umberto and Marie José separated in exile; it had been an arranged marriage of state, following a long tradition of royal families. However, they never divorced, partly for political reasons. Some academics have explored Umberto's possible homosexuality. As early as the 1920s, Mussolini had collected a dossier on his private life for purposes of blackmail. Certainly during the war, newspapers asserted that Umberto was
The King and Country debate King and Country, and you will notice that no one, not Chamberlain, not Halifax, has asked us to". Telford Taylor, chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, wrote "the 'King and Country' debate was a colorful reflection of the British temper between the two great wars. Exhausted and disgusted by the prolonged bloodbath in Flanders Fields, wracked by internal economic strains and already tiring of the burdens of empire, neither the people nor their leaders were in any mood to embark on new crusades". Sixty years after the event, Digby mused, "It was just a debate. I don't know