 Nonetheless, it still came as a surprise to many observers inside and outside Italy.Unfavourable comparisons were drawn with King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who refused to leave London during the Blitz, and of Pope Pius XII, who mixed with Rome's crowds and prayed with them after Rome's working-class neighborhood of Quartiere San Lorenzo had been destroyed by bombing.Despite the German occupation, Victor Emmanuel kept refusing to declare war on Germany, saying he needed a vote by Parliament first, though that had not stopped him from signing declarations of war on Ethiopia, Albania, Great Britain, France, Greece, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and the United States, none of which had been sanctioned by Parliament.