Vittorio Emanuele Orlando

Vittorio Emanuele Orlando ( born May 19, 1860 in Palermo, † December 1, 1952 in Rome) was Prime Minister of Italy 1917 until 1919.

The lawyer was at the age of 25 years in 1885 a Department of Constitutional Law at the University of Modena, 1886 in Messina and Palermo in 1888. In 1897 he moved as a liberal deputy in the Italian Parliament. In 1901 he was appointed as Professor of Public and Constitutional Law at the University of Rome.

In the following years, Orlando has held ministerial posts in several governments. From 1903 to 1905 he was Minister of Education from 1907 to 1909 and from 1914 to 1916 and Minister of Justice 1916/17 Home Secretary. As of 1917, the Battle of Caporetto led to the resignation of Prime Minister Paolo Boselli, Orlando was elected as the new prime minister and resigned the office during a severe political crisis in Italy on 29 October 1917.

He was, together with Woodrow Wilson, Georges Clemenceau and David Lloyd George to Council of Four, the supreme body of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The four leaders had been instrumental in the development of the Paris suburb of contracts. Due to its weak political position and his lack of English proficiency Orlando played only a minor role and could not free himself from his foreign minister Sidney Sonnino. When he temporarily left the conference in protest to enforce Italian territorial demands after the First World War, he won temporary approval in Germany, had his position at the conference but decisively weakened. After a vote of no confidence of Parliament thanked Orlando in 1919 as Prime Minister from.

In the following years he worked with the League of Nations Act. After the assassination of the Secretary General of the Italian Socialists, Giacomo Matteotti, to Orlando graduated in 1925 at the small parliamentary opposition against the fascists in the Parliament. A short time later he resigned and entered from then on no longer politically in appearance. However, he refused the prescribed oath for high school teachers to fascism and 1931 was retired at his own request.

1944, after the fall of Mussolini, Orlando returned to his chair. 1946/47, he was a member of the Constituent Assembly, of which he was appointed in 1948 for his services as honorary senator for life.