ITALIAN UNIFICATION, 1848-1870

(Napisao: gosp. Marko Marelić -  S. Francisco - USA)
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Italian Revolts Crushed

The revolts of 1848 in Italy were quickly crushed. The Roman Republic, of which the fiery Giuseppe Mazzini was the life and soul, was brought to an end by the intervention of France. There were many Frenchmen, to be sure, who sympathized with the new republic. But the Catholic clergy demanded that the Pope be given assistance; French statesmen saw that if they did not interfere, Austria would; and Louis Napoleon was eager to curry favor with the French clericals. A French army under Nicolas Oudinot was landed at Civita Vecchia in April of 1849, and after one bloody repulse it entered Rome. Giuseppe Garibaldi and his soldiers fled. Meanwhile the war of Sardinia-Piedmont against Austria in an effort to liberate northern Italy also had failed. The Austrian commander, Johann Radetzky, mustered a powerful army, which finally ended the conflict with one blow. It met the Italian forces under Charles Albert at Novara (March 23, 1849), and decisively defeated them. On the evening of the defeat Charles Albert abdicated in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel II. The Austrian flag flew once more over all Lombardy and Venetia. The hopes of patriots throughout Italy were for the moment dashed to the ground. The revolts were followed by a period of the harshest reaction, with almost all Italy outside of Sardinia-Piedmont under the Austrian heel or Austrian influence. Nearly all the so-called independent princes were ready to accept Austrian protection.

Reaction in Italy

Parma, Modena, and Tuscany depended upon Austrian protection; Romagna was under Austrian military surveillance; even the people of Rome, seeing that they had to turn to Austria or to France, adopted a policy of acquiescence toward the former. Austria did its utmost to encourage the various governments in Italy to repress all liberal movements. The Catholic Church was called in to strengthen the forces of reaction. During 1855 Tuscany, Modena, and Naples joined Austria in signing concordats with the Vatican, which recognized canon law, placed the control of education in the hands of the clergy, and gave a wide jurisdiction to the church courts. In Tuscany and in Modena the governments reverted to the most autocratic type. In Rome Pope Pius IX, instituted - against French advice - a new regime of the most narrow and bigoted nature.

Austria and Naples

But it was in Austrian Italy and in Naples that reaction went to its greatest lengths. In Lombardy and Venetia the Austrian authorities exercised a policy more cruel and outrageous than any nation of western Europe, except Poland, had endured since Napoleonic times. They were placed under the control of Radetzky and martial law. In two years nearly four thousand persons were condemned for political offenses. Enormous fines were levied; even women and girls were flogged; men were bastinadoed (beaten on the soles of their feet) as if they were being tortured by Turks; and a professor in the University of Padua died under the whip. The natural result was that Lombardy smoldered with sullen conspiracies. When these burst out in 1850 in a new movement, centering in Mantua, to overthrow the Austrian authority, the government adopted still harsher measures of repression. Twelve men - "the twelve martyrs of Belfiore" - were hanged amid the protests of Europe. As for Naples, it was misgoverned by Ferdinand in precisely the same manner. The Sicilian rebellion of 1848 had been put down with ruthless cruelty. The constitution was at once shelved. Some forty thousand prisoners in Naples and Sicily were tried and condemned to jail, under circumstances that shocked all unprejudiced observers. William E. Gladstone, who saw the execution of Ferdinand's oppressive measures at first hand, denounced them as "a system of illegality, injustice, and cruelty which one would not have imagined possible in Europe nowadays." It is no wonder that throughout all Italy a great part of the population was soon burning for liberty, and ready to seize any opportunity to throw off its chains.

Freedom in Sardinia

In one Italian state only, Sardinia, the forces of reaction failed to gain an entrance. Victor Emmanuel II stood like a rock in defense of constitutional liberty and the liberal privileges granted by his father. "I will hold the tricolor high and firm," he announced the day he took the throne, and this promise he kept. The result was that Sardinia, as the one free government in Italy, became a place of refuge for tens of thousands of political exiles from the other states. Among them were many of the finest intellects and spirits that modern Italy has produced. Under their influence, in the ten dark years 1849-1859, Sardinia-Piedmont became a great rallying point for liberalism. "Piedmont," declared Camillo Cavour in 1850, "must gather around herself every living force in Italy and lead our nation to those high destinies to which it is called." Circumstances favored such a result. The population of the little Sardinian kingdom was only about five million. But because of the character of its sovereign, of its great minister Camillo Benso Cavour, who stands with Otto von Bismarck as one of the political giants of the century, and of its liberty-loving people, strengthened by the refugees from other parts of the peninsula, it was destined to play a striking role in European history.

The Rise of Cavour

Cavour, fresh from travel in France and Italy and from a long period spent in study and in the management of his family estates, had been almost unknown when in 1847, at the age of 37, he had helped found the journal Il Risorgimento and had plunged into politics. But his rise was rapid. In 1848 he was elected to Parliament as a member from Turin. His figure was squat; his face ugly; his accent was that of a foreigner - for he usually spoke French. But he quickly showed himself a master of argumentative eloquence. In 1849 he was elected again, and gave support to the ministry of d'Azeglio, who declared that it was his mission "to save the independence of this fortress of Italy." A grave crisis shortly developed in Sardinian politics. If the nation was to be really free, the influence of the Catholic Church had to be greatly reduced; a group of laws - called the Siccardi Laws - was brought forward to challenge the church and make it really subordinate to the state; and the opposition of the clericals produced a storm. Cavour supported the Siccardi Laws. When the crisis was at its height, it was seen that Sardinia needed a stronger leader than any it had possessed. Public opinion turned to Cavour, and he began his amazingly swift rise to mastery. In 1850 he was appointed minister of agriculture, industry, and commerce. The next year he became the minister of finance, and began to reorganize the disordered finances of the country. A brief vacation from office enabled him to visit Paris and London again. He found England especially friendly, and Lord Palmerston told him that if the constitutional experiment in Sardinia-Piedmont succeeded, the Italian despots were doomed. On his return he found a new cabinet crisis and in November 1852 he was made prime minister. This office, with two brief interruptions, he held until his death in 1861.

Forces in Italy

There had thus fully emerged in Sardinia-Piedmont one of the great figures who would carry through the unification of Italy. Another of the leaders in this work was the king, Victor Emmanuel II, a sensible, industrious, and devoted monarch of noble character and great popularity. Still another was that somewhat swashbuckling military genius and adventurer, Giuseppe Garibaldi, who fired the emotions of all patriotic Italians. And in the background was Giuseppe Mazzini, whose work in creating an Italian national sentiment was now largely done, and who - a republican at heart - watched the achievements of Cavour with mingled admiration and distrust. These leaders were aided by certain large factors. One was the sympathy and support given the movement for Italian unification in England and Prussia, and to a certain extent also by France. Another was the decline in the prestige of the church, especially its shortsighted and despotic head, Pius IX. Another was the gradual weakening of the Austrian power following the overthrow of Prince Klemens von Metternich and the rise of Prussia.

Cavour's Plans

Cavour was a man of the highest political genius and with a remarkable power of foresight. His ideas were those of a moderate liberal. He believed in constitutional government as it had been developed in Great Britain, but he disliked republicanism. Unlike Otto von Bismarck, he opposed the use of arbitrary methods. "Any fool," he said, "could rule under martial law." Though himself of a noble family, he thoroughly approved of the democratic movement of the time and strove to assist it. He believed in internal reform, and the betterment of education, public health, and the condition of the working classes. One of his chief measures, which he carried in 1855 against the opposition of even the king, was for the suppression of all monastic orders not connected with education, charity, or preaching. No European leader of his day was possessed of such shrewdness in planning for the future. He saw that the Italians must prove to Europe that they could combine order with liberty - as they did in Sardinia-Piedmont. He saw that they must prove to Europe that they were capable of fighting. He saw that war with Austria was sooner or later inevitable, and that Sardinia must provide itself with staunch friends against that day. He laid down his program with the utmost foresight, and carried it through with the most remarkable dexterity.

After Cavour became prime minister in 1852, the economic and industrial development of the state was pushed energetically forward, until Sardinia was looked upon as a model and a leader by the other less fortunate Italian states. Then "the fine Italian hand" of Cavour entered the involved web of European diplomacy, there to enlist aid from powerful nations in the task found impossible by Italy alone, that of expelling Austria from his fatherland. His extensive travels had gained him valuable friendships in foreign lands. He caused Sardinia to join with France and England in the Crimean War against Russia which was fought in 1854-1856, and thus gained for himself a place at the peace conference held at Paris at the conclusion of the conflict. There he lost no time in pleading the Italian cause to the representatives of the French and English governments. No doubt, the "moral support" of the latter was at this time secured, a valuable asset when a "hands off" policy was later desired on the part of the powers likely to aid Austria. The more active aid of Napoleon III of France was sought and secured. The emperor at first hesitated but considered; intervention against Austria in Italy had been the starting point to the greatness of his uncle, the first Napoleon: why should he not follow suit? The Bonaparte family was of Italian origin, and Napoleon III himself had at one time in his early wanderings been a member of the Carbonari in that country; and French liberals would approve his program of Italian intervention against unpopular Austria; economic interests would favor it as an aid to closer Franco-Sardinian commercial ties, an important factor at this time. On the other hand, French clericals would oppose any aid to Sardinia, which had already evidenced strong anti-Papal tendencies, since the Vatican was now definitely resisting proposals of unification. Again, the traditional French policy for centuries had been to foster disunity in the Germanys and in Italy in order to promote the security of France. Cavour continued his plea, but Napoleon III delayed, undecided, until an attempt on his life by an Italian fanatic in the early part of 1859 is said to have caused him to decide upon a program of intervention on behalf of Sardinia against Austria.

The Austro-Sardinian War of 1859

The terms were that in return for French aid to assist in expelling Austria from Lombardy and Venetia, so that a unified north Italian state might be created under Sardinian leadership, France should be given Savoy and the port of Nice. War was declared in April 1859, and soon the combined armies of France under Napoleon and MacMahon, and Sardinia under King Victor Emmanuel, won strategic victories at Magenta and Solferino, driving the Austrians from Lombardy. Meantime patriotic Italians, taking their cue from these events, rose and drove out foreign rulers in Parma, Modena, and Tuscany, and asked annexation to Sardinia. Romagna, of the Papal States, seceded and voted to join the confederation. Napoleon became frightened. He had unenthusiastically agreed to a north Italian confederation, but the movement, sweeping the peninsula, might bring a powerful all-inclusive Italian state, a Mediterranean rival to France. French clericals at home were protesting. Napoleon, inconsistent as usual, signed a hurried secret peace with Austria and withdrew from the war, much to the disappointment of Cavour and the Italian patriots. Sardinia, with Lombardy ceded to it, also made a compromise peace with Austria.

Unification, 1860-1870

A start had been made, however: Austria had been beaten. Sardinia profited more than it expected, for shortly (1860) Modena, Parma, Tuscany, and Romagna voted for annexation to Sardinia, and Austria was now unable to forestall them. Savoy and Nice were given to France.

Garibaldi

The next chapter in the drama is written around the famous "Expedition of the Thousand" led by that soldier of fortune, Garibaldi, into Sicily and southern Italy, freeing those areas from their Bourbon despot, King Francis, and making possible their addition to the north Italian confederation under Sardinia. Giuseppe Garibaldi as a young man had been fired by the eloquence of Mazzini and aided in several early Italian revolts. Forced to flee because of his participation in these revolts, he had gone to South America and fought there. When he returned in 1848 he had raised an army of dare-devils like himself and attempted to defend Mazzini's short-lived Roman Republic. Here he failed and again fled the country, this time to New York, to return to his native land only in 1854. He fought in the Austro-Sardinian War of 1859. How many "secret conversations" the scheming Cavour had with Garibaldi after 1859 no one knows. The two were opposite and unfriendly but they were drawn together in the common cause of Italian nationalism. And then, unofficially, Garibaldi decided upon his daring project, a "private war" on his own accord against the Kingdom of Naples. Gathering a volunteer army of only one thousand men - the famous "thousand red-shirts" - he secretly set sail from Genoa. Landing in Sicily, he was received with wild acclaim as the liberator of the island. The revolutionists flocked to his standard, and he won successive victories there and on the mainland. King Francis II surrendered, and Garibaldi became dictator of the island and all southern Italy. Annexation to Sardinia was overwhelmingly voted in a plebiscite, and the conqueror patriotically withdrew, adding all the southern third of the peninsula to the now rapidly growing Italian state.

Completion of Italian Unification 1870

Attacks upon the eastern portions of the Papal States resulted in the addition of these, establishing contact between the north and the south. Only Venetia in the north held by Austria, and the city of Rome (with some surrounding territory controlled by the Pope and guarded by French troops) remained outside the newly organized Italian monarchy. In February 1861, from Turin, the new state was formally proclaimed, with Victor Emmanuel II as king of Italy. Venetia was secured in 1866 when Prussia aided by Italy, fought and defeated Austria in the Seven Weeks' War of that year. Rome and the surrounding territory were still defended by French troops, but in 1870 these troops were withdrawn upon the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. In September 1870, Italian troops easily entered the Eternal City and it was formally annexed in the face of bitter protest from Pope Pius IX. The capital was removed to Rome and Italian unification was complete.

ITALY, 1871 - 1914

Problems of Economic and Social Unification

Exclusive of its foreign relations, the newly created state of Italy was chiefly concerned, in the period of 1870-1914, with the two great problems of fusing the various parts of the peninsula and adjusting relations with the Papacy. Without forming a federal government, Italy had joined together eight distinct states, some of them almost foreign to each other. There was a particularly strong diversity between the districts of northern Italy, taken as a whole, and the people of the south. Racial differences and economic and social inequalities became startlingly apparent in the newly organized kingdom. Northern Italy was North European, bourgeois, prosperous, and economically advanced with a small amount of illiteracy; southern Italy and Sicily were racially Mediterranean, and backward peasant-farming and fishing communities of whose adult male population only ten per cent could read and write. Economic and social union, the hardest problem of the years after 1870, was thus more difficult than political unification. The new government sought to improve conditions in the south, but that meant greatly increased tax burdens on the wealthy interests of the north. The south complained that it had practically no voice in the administration of the new state, which was largely true. Bitter sectional rivalry, threatening separation at times, characterized the internal history of Italy until after the opening of the twentieth century.

The Problem of Papal Relations

Almost equally difficult was the problem of relations with the Papal establishment. Under the circumstances of unification, carried forward to a large degree at the expense of the Papacy and the Papal States, the Vatican and its most devout supporters were bitter in their attitude toward the new monarchy. An attempt was made to adjust the differences by the passage in 1871 of the Law of Papal Guarantees, by which soverign rights were granted the Pope in the Vatican area. He was to send and receive ambassadors, coin money, and exercise other prerogatives within his own small domain. An annual sum was likewise to be paid to the Popes in return for lands seized by the Italian government during the unification process. The Popes, however, refused to accept the subsidy, protested against the law, and shut themselves up within their own boundaries as "prisoners of the Vatican." Until 1905 Roman Catholics were forbidden by the Papal "non expedit" to hold office in Italy and could not vote except in local elections. A partial modification was effected in 1905, after which Catholics entered national politics, formed their own party, the Clericals and won thirty-five seats in the Chamber of Deputies in the elections of 1913. Fear of socialism helped to break down the church's barrier against participation in politics.

Economic Problems

Italy is not a rich country. Though over one-third of the population is dependent upon farming, agriculture is backward. The Apennine range breaks the central portion; rocky land and swamps are widespread; and only in the north is the soil particularly fertile. Since Italy lacks capital, modern methods have been only slowly introduced, and the yield per acre is much below that of France, Germany, and England. Iron and coal are present only in small quantities; and fast-flowing streams have been utilized to produce some hydro-electric power. The chief exports consist of wines, olive oil, fruits, silk, wheat, and cotton goods. The principal imports are foodstuffs (of which Italy does not produce enough for its population), coal, iron, raw materials, and machinery. This situation usually produced an unfavorable balance of trade and led to a large emigration of Italians to other countries, especially to the United States. In factory laws and social legislation Italy, next to Spain, was the most backward nation in western Europe until 1908. From that date some improvement has been made; but unfavorable economic conditions, coupled with high taxes, have caused constant unrest and frequent disorders.

The Government

The government from 1871 to the advent of Fascism was modeled on that of England, with a king limited in his power, and a bicameral legislature consisting of an elected Chamber of Deputies and an hereditary and pointed Senate. The Senate body was made up of princes of royal blood and of appointees for life, named by the king from the wealthy and those who acquired distinction in intellectual pursuits. There was a responsible ministry, but with blocs or groups rather than a two-party system in politics, its operation was similar to that in France. The franchise was restricted to the bourgeois middle-class until just before the World War, when reforms were forced by the Catholics and socialists which brought practically universal manhood suffrage.

Political Parties and History

From 1870 to 1876, the control of government was in the hands of the "Right," whose chief strength was in the north. High taxes resulted from a great extension of governmental activities and from emphasis upon militarism. From 1876 until 1887 (with two brief interruptions) the "Left" dominated Italian affairs. Agostino Depretis was premier and under him the south was favored and the franchise was extended. However, he adhered to the popular Italian policies of a large army and a great navy, extension of railways by the national government, and heavy expenditures. In 1877 he carried an act which made elementary education compulsory for children between six and nine years; and four years later he reformed the election laws, almost quadrupling the number of voters. He was also responsible for a fairly aggressive colonial policy. Italy was deeply hurt by the French occupation of Tunis in 1881, for she had kept her own eyes upon that country, and a certain duplicity of the French in effecting the annexation seemed treacherous to most Italians. The following year Great Britain invited Italy to occupy Egypt jointly with it, but the government refused. Instead, the Italians turned their attention toward Abyssinia. With British approval, they occupied a point on the Abyssinian coast in 1885 and laid the foundations of their future colony of Eritrea on the Red Sea. The administration of Depretis was marked by much graft and corruption and by a decided lowering of the standards of parliamentary life. He encouraged a species of political intrigue called transformismo, by which real party lines were broken down and all kinds of political trickery stimulated. It was a relief to the better citizens of Italy when he was succeeded by Francesco Crispi.

Crispi, an associate of Garibaldi in 1860, fully established Italy as a colonial power. He consolidated the interests of the Italians upon the coasts of Somaliland, where another colony soon came into existence. He also pressed the occupation of Abyssinian territory, and though he met a crushing defeat at the hands of King Menelik in 1896, he had first completely organized Eritrea. At the same time the Italian government kept a jealous eye upon the territory just across the Adriatic, and particularly upon Albania, which was nominally in Turkish hands. At all costs Italy was determined to prevent Austria-Hungary from occupying this region, and it did so. Under Crispi imperialist tendencies were thus strengthened, militarism was encouraged, and the opposition of clericals, republicans, and socialists was ruthlessly crushed. He finally fell in 1896 after the great defeat in Abyssinia, and a succession of premiers followed him, of whom the most important in the years preceding the World War were Giolitti and Sonnino. The internal condition of Italy remained bad. The people were poor, finances were badly administered, taxes were high, and industry was frequently depressed. Great riots occurred in southern Italy in 1898, and in 1904-05 there were serious labor disturbances and a general strike. The Socialist party, as in other countries of Europe, showed constantly increasing strength. Colonial expansion was still pushed, however, and in 1911-12 a brief war was waged with Turkey which gave Italy control of Tripoli and of the Dodecanese islands in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Meanwhile, since May 20, 1882, Italy had stood with Germany and Austria in the Triple Alliance, which was one of the most important products of Otto von Bismarck's political genius. To Italy this alliance gave assurance that it would never again be invaded by French troops, and that the House of Savoy and not the Papacy would rule in Rome. The greatest Italian and the greatest German leader of the period had much in common. C. Grant Robertson writes, "Crispi had known and fought under great and hypnotic men - Garibaldi and Cavour. At Friedrichsruhe he met another hypnotic personality and succumbed. Bismarck and Crispi, exchanging their memories over cigars and wine, the old revolutionary of the redshirts and The Thousand, and the veteran Junker who had denounced the journey to Canossa, overthrown clerical France and Apostolic Austria were not a pleasant thought, we may be sure, in the Apostolic chancery of the Vatican." In entering the alliance, Italy temporarily renounced the possibility of gaining the Italian districts still under Austrian rule. But it received what it needed even more - security.

One important factor in guaranteeing Italian unity in these troubled years was the popularity of the successive monarchs. Victor Emmanuel II, the idol of all Italians, died in 1878, and was succeeded by King Humbert I, who was also liked. While he was not a great monarch, his generosity and courage won the esteem of the people. When he was killed by an anarchist in 1900, an outburst of national sorrow followed. His successor was Victor Emmanuel III, who was well-educated and broad-minded, with marked democratic leanings. He resolved to help inaugurate a more liberal era in Italian politics. The prevalent unrest made such a policy almost imperative. Steps were taken to reduce the amount of governmental corruption; the administration of the national finances was improved; and a broad program of internal improvements was drafted. Social legislation like that of England and Germany was formulated. In 1912, as we have seen, the franchise was further extended by an electoral act which established universal manhood suffrage for all except those under thirty-five years of age who could neither read nor write, and who had not performed military service.

Another element which made for the unity of Italians was the vigorous feeling of nationalism nourished by the Italian grievances against other nations. A strong resentment was long felt against France for the obstruction it had offered to the liberation of Italy. This was increased by the French annexation of Tunis, and by such unfortunate episodes as the massacre of a number of Italian workmen in southern France in 1893. Still greater was the feeling among most Italians against Austria-Hungary. In spite of factional strife, financial distress, and economic poverty, all Italians were one in longing for the day when their brothers in the redeemed Austrian territories would be freed. Irredentism meant the redemption of Italy by the conquest of Trent, Trieste, and other territories north and east of the head of the Adriatic inhabited by people of Italian blood and speech. Until 1915 hostility to France and a sense of political necessity kept Italy in the Triple Alliance, so that her hands were tied. But when the World War broke out, the bonds of this alliance at once snapped; and Italy lost little time in taking active steps to assail Austria and free the long-subject Italians in the old Dual Monarchy.

Compiled by: Marko Marelich
Retired Mechanical Engineer
San Francisco, California - USA
March 20, 2006