 Marshal Enrico Caviglia wrote in his diary that it was "criminal" the way that Victor Emmanuel refused to act against Mussolini despite the fact that he was clearly mismanaging the war.One Italian journalist remembered that by the fall of 1941 he did not know anyone who felt anything other than "contempt" for the king who was unwilling to disassociate himself from Fascism.The British historian Denis Mack Smith wrote that Victor Emmanuel tended to procrastinate when faced with very difficult choices, and his unwillingness to dismiss Mussolini despite mounting pressure from within the Italian elite was his way of trying to avoid making a decision.