 As popular as Victor Emmanuel was, several of his decisions proved fatal to the monarchy.Among these decisions was his assumption of the imperial crown of Ethiopia, his public silence when Mussolini's Fascist government issued its notorious racial purity laws, and his assumption of the crown of Albania.Prior to his government's invasion of Ethiopia, Victor Emmanuel travelled in 1934 to Italian Somaliland, where he celebrated his 65th birthday on 11 November.