Word: alberoni
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Like other dictators, Alberoni confessed to three plausibly well-intentioned ambitions : 1) to put Spain back on its imperial feet; 2) to free his native Italy from Austria; 3) to restore peace to Europe. He reorganized Spain's industry, revitalized its civil service-the equivalent of Mussolini's making the railroads run on time...
...Alberoni had built the biggest Spanish fleet since the Armada. "It is my aim," he wrote, "that the King should remain at peace with everyone, in order that one day he may be in a position to make war on those who may not wish to be his friends." Meanwhile Alberoni shipped a Spanish army against Austrian-held Sardinia and Sicily...
England, worried about the threat of Spanish sea power, swooped down one summer morning and destroyed half the Spanish fleet. To his consternation, Alberoni found himself faced by half the armies of Europe. "When shall I be able to get out of this maze?" he cried...
...suspended while the new costume was passed through the hostile lines to her under a flag of truce), charged at the head of the troops with her quixotic husband. Patrols-under strict orders to avoid "all unnecessary embarrassments"-had a hard time to keep from capturing the royal pair. Alberoni had an equally hard time running the battles and cooking the Queen's meals. "This sort of existence can't go on!" he groaned. When the Quadruple Alliance demanded that Alberoni be ousted as one peace condition, Philip and Elisabeth, bored with war, threw their faithful servant...
...long robes ... of fornication with his mustachioed old housekeeper." He disappeared for a year, reappeared briefly in Rome on a prancing white stallion to cast his vote in the election of Pope Innocent XIII. By then he was almost forgotten by the warring powers. At the age of 88, Alberoni died, leaving behind him a seminary for the education of indigent student priests, a plan for the federation of Europe...