Kingdom of Naples

The Kingdom of Naples was a short lived, 100 year Kingdom established by Pope Pius VII in 1817 following the Kingdom of Sicily’s defeat in the War of The Mezzogiorno.

Following Sicily’s defeat in 1817, Pope Pius VII demanded the Kingdom of Sicily abandon its land in the Mezzogiorno, excluding its port city of Reggio Calabria. Instead of taking the land, the Pope decided to name Ferdinand IV of Naples, a member of the house of Bourbon, as the King of the newly established Kingdom of Naples. 

In 1849, Giuseppe Garibaldi organized the redshirts and marched into Naples. A two week constant urban fight between the redshirts and the army pursued, with eventally King Fernado II being forced to disolve the absolute monarchy and establish a consitutional monarchy and a parliment, placing Garibaldi as the first prime minister of the Kingdom of Naples.

The Kingdom of Naples remained unaffected by the surrounding regions, and did not attempt to pursue any sort of hostile aggression with anyone. This would change, however, in 1911 the Kingdom of Naples would send a militia army to Reggio Calabria, forcing the Sicilians out of the city. Due to the political instabilty and crippling debt the Kingdom was dealing with, it did not pursue a retaliatory strike against Naples.

In 1915, the Kingdom of Naples would fight alongside the Papal States and other Italian kingdoms against Savoy. Following the victory in 1918, the Kingdom of Naples was granted some minor grants of money and regional support. 

In 1919, Benito Mussolini had traveled from Northern Italy to Naples to begin spreading his idea of Italian unification. On March 3rd, 1919, Mussolini along with his blackshirts stormed the Palazzo Reale di Napoli, and pressured King Alfonso into naming him the prime minister of the Kingdom. As prime minister, Mussolini used his power to unite the other kingdoms of Italy together.

In 1922, Mussolini declared King Alfonso a traitor to the Kingdom of Naples, and overthrew him. Mussolini briefly named himself the King of Naples, before using his power to dissolve the Kingdom, abolish the monarchy and name himself as the absolute Duce, along with forming the Kingdom of Italy, which was only a kingdom by name. He then mandated that the Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF) to be the one official political party of the State, and began persecuting various monarchist factions, officialy ending Bourbon rule in Italy.