Risorgiomento Project Part 4, Unity, 1848-1861

Dear all,

First of all, sorry for the delay. I have had a busy month and have been unable to work on blogging to the same extent as usual. I may, over the next few months, reduce the quantity or length of blog posts. The idea is to take some weight off my shoulders as well as focus on my university entrance exams in December. Of course, I will be posting, but you should forgive me if this is more erratic.

Onto the article itself.

Today I want to bring you the penultimate part of my five part series on Italian Unification. Today I will be dealing with the actual act of unification itself. This is a relatively complicated period, and has often been compared with revolutionary moments in other countries. Rapid changes has been seen in the past as evidence of the poor political foundations which states across the peninsula were on. In this interpretation, unification was partly as a result of the collapse of regimes across the peninsula. This interpretation has some truth, but assumes a level of inevitability. In fact, the 1859-61 unification was as a result of a very specific co-option of nationalism by the northern Italian state of Piedmont to meet traditional, narrow dynastic objectives. As we will see, Piedmont lost control of events as a result of its shattering of the stability on the peninsula, and as a result, lost the power to restrict nationalism to just the north.

This blog post will attempt to make things clear – I will explain concepts, individuals and motives as I go. However, it is recommended that you read the first three blog posts to fully understand my argument.

A Brief Synopsis

Before I begin with my argument, it is useful to have an idea of the narrative of events in this period, as they are complicated.

After 1848, a semblance of normality returned to the peninsula. In most states, there was some degree of reaction, hoping to repress the nationalist-liberal movement. Austria had informal or formal control of large parts of the peninsula and did not oppose this reaction. However, in Piedmont, there was a degree of compromise between conservative forces and more liberal and nationalist ones. For reasons that I will explain, Piedmont took on the cause of Italian nationalism more explicitly in the late 1850s. It attempted to foster good relations with France, and as a result, gained a commitment from them to go to war with Austria. War with Austria then broke out. The results of the war were complicated, but resulted in Piedmont gaining control of large parts of northern Italy.

Italy after this event lost a critical degree of stability, but it was not necessarily obvious that this would translate into a fully unified peninsula. This was to change as a result of Garibaldi. Garibaldi slipped away from Piedmont with 1000 troops to attack the southern Italian Kingdom of Naples. Garibaldi’s army increased in size as disaffected peasants joined his ranks. This army defeated the Kingdom of Naples’ army, and Garibaldi was proclaimed dictator. Cavour, the Piedmontese Prime Minister took control of the South, or at least was handed it over at the small town of Teano. Italy was proclaimed to be a sovereign state soon after.

The State of Italy from 1848-59

Italy from 1848-59 was peninsula that was becoming less stable, and more open to radical change. However, this in itself was insufficient for Italian nationalists to stand a chance of success. As I have shown in my previous blog posts on this topic, Italian nationalists represented only a part of a relatively restricted social strata. Nationalists, who very often also had liberal sympathies, generally were found predominantly in a small cultural and political elite near the top of Italian society. What’s more, many individuals during this period had some sort of sympathy for the project of Italian Unification, but not many were willing to risk much or translate this general sympathy into something more tangible. A good example of this is the continued failure of risings in Italy by the nationalists. For example, Giuseppe Mazzini, the de facto leader of the revolutionary nationalists, often called the ‘Democrats’ coordinated a failed rising from London. This rising, occurring in February 1853 was a humiliating disaster for the Democrats. In one of the most wealthy, politically important and largest cities in Italy, only a handful of people were willing to risk something for Italy.

This didn’t diminish the perceived threat in the eyes of the authorities. What they saw here was a live issue, something that threatened their regimes. This makes sense in the light of 1848, where ‘Revolutions’ that were in many respects aided accidently by the existing authorities seemed to have a real chance of up-ending the existing regime. As a result, across Italy there was reaction and a lack of willingness by the existing authorities to allow or encourage liberal or nationalist reform. Increasingly, the regimes across the peninsula were unable to garner sufficient support to enable long term stability. The loyalty of the political elite responsible for implementing policy was waning, as the sense that the existing regime represented an unhealthy form of reaction grew. Generally, those in the political elite had a sense that things were wrong, and willing to see new alternatives take the place of the existing regime. This will become clear when we look at how easily the existing state structures withered away in 1859.

The second thing to note is the role of Austria in Europe and on the peninsula. Austria had since 1815 been a dominant political player on the Italian peninsula. It did this through a combination of dynastic, military, diplomatic and legal techniques enabled by its strong position on the peninsula as a result of the 1815 settlement. The rulers of Tuscany, Modena and Parma were Habsburgs. The Austrians also had control of the Venetia-Lombardy region. Most importantly, perhaps, Austrian force on the peninsula would support the rulers of Italian states. The Austrians had control of military bases deep inside Papal territory. As long as Austria was able to maintain this military control, it retained de facto pre-eminence and respect as the major geopolitical player.

However, in the 1850s things did start to change. First, and probably most importantly, there was a significant shift in the alliance system in Europe. This shift in alliances represented a fundamental change to the geopolitical balance of power of Europe, and would leave Austria worse off. In essence, Russia had helped Austria deal with the 1848 revolutions, and had made past commitments that effectively bound it to help Austria in times of domestic revolution or foreign invasion. This alliance was known as the ‘Holy Alliance’. In exchange, there was an expectation that Austria would do the same for Russia. When, in 1853, the Russians were attacked by the British and French, Russia called on Austria to honour its alliance. Austria refused to do so, thereby losing it its most important ally, making it diplomatically isolated. The implication was that now, it would probably be safe for another power to attack Austria without the Russians being involved. This would significantly weaken Austria’s diplomatic clout and ability to project its power. At the same time, the Prussians, who had also been members of the ‘Holy Alliance’ also changed diplomatic alignment. Increasingly, they acted as independent actors and contested Austria for greater control of Germany. As a result, by 1856, Austria had no clear allies. It was now diplomatically isolated, and other powers began to make calculations and risks that would have previously threatened Europe-wide war or probably defeat. This, incidentally, but not crucially came at a time of increasing industrialisation. This mattered as certain powers, namely France and Prussia were gaining in relative strength against previously powerful ones. This is less convincing as a narrative than the diplomatic revolution of the 1850s for Austrian weakness, as Russia and Austria were still strong military powers, but cannot be discounted completely.

Piedmont – Significance, Motives and Aims

Increasingly over this period, Piedmont was seen as the obvious option for unifying Italy. In essence, there is one main reason why this was the case. This was their increasing level of commitment to liberalism and nationalism.

This is evidenced and expressed in many ways. One of the biggest, most symbolic is the continued presence of a constitution in Piedmont – Il Statuto. The king retained considerable power, including direct power over the military – and to an extent, constitutionalism was stronger in name than in presence in Piedmont. However, perceptions are often stronger than fact in politics. To the outside world, especially Britain and France, Piedmont looked like a ‘progressive’ state. This was helped by the fact it had an Anglophilic Prime Minister who believed in the notion of ‘progress’. Count Camillo Benso di Cavour focused on many of the things which liberals in Britain saw as representative of progress. For example, he invested huge amounts into railways, attempting to spur on economic progress. What’s more, he intervened on the side of Britain and France in the Crimean War. By doing so, he made clear which side of history Piedmont was on to emerging middle classes of Britain and France.

Cavour and the constitution were not just convincing to Britain and France. Increasingly, radicals within Piedmont also were taken in by the notion that Piedmont was the state most likely to lead Italian unification. Although there was some scepticism by those ‘Democrats’ around Mazzini, most radicals were keen to accept that unification could happen under the guide of Piedmont. Partly, this was as a result of the legacy of 1848. The sense that armed insurrection – as encouraged by Mazzini – was a failure was strong among Italian nationalists in this period. The centrality of 1848 as the turning point of the process of Italian unification is again made clear. Those political exiles calling for unity were tolerated by Piedmont, and increasingly formed groups that supported a Piedmontese-led process. Most notably, the ‘Italian National Society’ called for a Piedmontese-led unification. This organisation was led by Daniele Manin, the former Venetian revolutionary of 1848 who had realised that armed insurrection was ultimately hopeless. Manin was suspicious of Piedmont’s intentions in Italy – he realised that it could often act in a self-interested way and work towards its own objectives. However, it is nevertheless the case that the paucity of options for nationalists meant that they still saw the possibility of a Piedmont-led process as the most reasonable one.

It was not unreasonable for nationalists like Manin to be suspicious, Piedmont’s aims were in fact mainly self-interested ones. As Piedmont became conceived as the main liberal-nationalist state on the Peninsula, Cavour, the Prime Minister from 1852 to 1860, and King Victor Emmanuele II sought to use this reputation for other ends. Essentially, the Piedmontese kings had a common dynastic mission to control northern Italy – with an especially strong focus on the Austrian region of Lombardy. Cavour shared this conviction, but it was not that simple. He had a relatively complex philosophy. Cavour genuinely believed in liberal principles, opting to find a ‘just milieau’ – or middle way – between progress and reaction. He saw progress as inevitable, but wanted it to be controlled, so progress did not create instability or have adverse effects. As a result, he was open to expanding Piedmont, but he wanted it to be done in a controlled manner. He wanted to avoid too rapid a change to the institutions of the state, and wanted to avoid change happening too rapidly and getting out of hand. For Cavour, then, there was a desire to pre-empt a radical nationalist revolution. The experience of 1848 – where it seemed that regimes were overthrown by the force of revolutionaries – taught him that radical nationalism posed a significant threat that would make itself felt soon. As it turned out the 1848 revolutions were partly self-inflicted, and the small size of the nationalist movement and the robustness of the Italian state system would have probably made it hard for what Cavour feared to actually happen. The Milanese ‘revolution’ of 1853 was typical – small numbers of inexperienced nationalists failing dismally and humiliating themselves. However, in the 1850s, this was far from self-evident. Cavour thus, out of a fear of a revolution that was not likely to happen, co-opted nationalism, thus giving this ‘progressive’ movement a platform and means to influence events.

The nature of Cavour and Victor Emmanuele II’s restricted aims are shown clearly by what happened next . Cavour made attempts to court Napoleon III, initially through helping the French and British in the Crimean War. However, only in 1858, when a bomb was thrown at the person of Napoleon III did Napoleon wake up to the issue. Keen to have a quick, successful war to shore up his reputation and popularity, Napoleon III became receptive to calls from Cavour to attack the Austrians in the name of Italy. Negotiations between the two at the spa town of Plombieres indicate what sort of Italy Piedmont wanted. France and Piedmont agreed that a new Italy would be a federative one. A federation loosely controlled by the Pope and overseen by France would control Italy. Some states, like Tuscany and the Papal States, would be expanded. Some states, like Naples and Tuscany, would get new rulers. Importantly, Piedmont would only gain the majority of Northern Italy – its ambitions were restricted. The Piedmontese rulers probably didn’t want any more – too much land would be difficult to administer and would pose no real significant benefit to Piedmont. The deal was sealed with a kiss - or more accurately a really disgusting marriage. Clotide, the 15 year old daughter of Victor Emmanuele II was given over to Jerome Bonaparte – who was over 30 years old, notoriously unfaithful and a comical figure at even the French Court (which, you should remember, included other ridiculous figures like Napoleon III himself).

It is needless to say that Italy, did not in fact end up like this. The question of why it did not is an interesting one, but one that tells us a lot about the processes at work and the limitations of the ability to control events generally.

The War and The Peace

War almost did not happen in 1859. France promised help in a war, on the conditions that Austria was the aggressor, and not the other way round. So, attempts were made to provoke Austria. The Piedmontese had made very explicitly belligerent noises. The clumsy attempts for Victor Emmanuele II and Cavour to provoke the Austrians are well set out by Christopher Duggan. They include the claim by Victor Emmanuele II in the Piedmontese parliament that there is a gloriously ambiguous ‘cry of anguish’ in Italy for freedom. The hope was that this would spark a spontaneous insurrection in an Italian state which the French and Piedmontese could intervene in to give themselves legitimacy. Nothing better illustrates the chasm between expectation and reality of the size and strength of nationalism in Italy. Cavour’s sense that nationalism was an unstoppable force seems ridiculous in the light of the failure for any sort of concerted action by nationalists to heed the call of the Piedmontese King.

Then, Austria declared war on the Piedmontese. It did so out of a desire to teach the Piedmontese a lesson. By doing so, however, it miscalculated – and fell into a trap made by the Piedmontese. France and Piedmont attacked Austria in accordance with their treaty. Piedmont was the junior partner in this endeavour, having only half as many troops present than the French. The war was a success, but not a decisive one. The battles of Magenta and Solferino in June and July 1859 both resulted in Franco-Piedmontese victories, but neither was sufficient to oust the Austrians completely from the north. The Piedmontese, meanwhile, moved south and occupied several northern Italian states that were most obviously aligned with Austria – including Tuscany, Modena and Parma.

This indecisive and bloody victory made Napoleon want peace. The peace that he did settle for, the Peace of Villafranca in July 1859, represented a disappointment for Cavour. It largely met French demands – a federation under loose Franco-Austrian control and under the presidency of the Pope. It gave France Lombardy, under the assumption Napoleon would hand it over to Piedmont – an unnecessarily provocative move designed to highlight French glory, but in the process attacked Piedmont’s honour. Austria was to retain its informal control of the vast majority of northern Italy.

What actually happened showed in the clearest possible terms the weaknesses of Austrian control on the peninsula. Austria was unable to re-establish control of what was given to it by right in 1859. The reason, essentially, was that the post-1848 Italian states were brittle and fragile political units which had little real support from the political elites. As a result, in the 1859 war and its aftermath they fell apart, giving control to Piedmont. They had small militaries, limited revenue-raising capacity and were largely reliant on Austria to prop them up politically. As a result, attempts at resisting the combination of small number of Piedmontese troops and radical nationalists were unsuccessful. Piedmont took most of northern Italy.

Piedmont maintained legitimacy for this expansion into northern Italy by appealing to liberalism and nationalism. Evidence of street celebrations and the waving of the Italian tricolour indicate this message trickled through. These celebrations were partly encouraged by Piedmont, and indicated a general dissatisfaction with the status quo and willingness to allow an alternative to have a go at ruling. Internationally and geopolitically, this was portrayed as a spontaneous revolution as in 1848, despite the fact that in reality, the combination of Piedmontese force and the fact most northern Italian states were failed states was the critical recipe for Piedmont taking over these regions. Austria did not have the strength to re-establish control – and doing so would have likely led it to provoke France and Piedmont again. As a result, Piedmont gained northern Italy. Cavour and Victor Emanuele II were largely happy. They gained what they wanted. In fact, it is probably that they would have settled for far less. It is not the case, for example, that Piedmont necessarily wanted Tuscany.

Piedmont would continue to only control most of the north of the peninsula. In 1859, the South – under control of the Kingdom of Naples – remained sovereign. In the centre, the Papal States continued to control large amounts of territory, and in the north, there was still one region controlled by Austria. In this way, the Piedmontese state controlled more than it would want to, but not enough to control the vast majority of Italy. The story of how this hybrid state became an Italian one is what we need to explore next.

How Piedmont accidently gained the South

The obvious, most glaring question to ask here is what Piedmont actually was at this moment. Was it Italian? Was it still Piedmontese? This question is the right one to ask. This question is not answered by the Piedmontese political establishment in these turbulent times. Formally, Piedmont was still Piedmont. Victor Emmanuele II was still ‘King of Sardinia-Piedmont’, despite the fact that Piedmontese expansion had used nationalism as a justification for expansion. Several ‘Plebiscites’ across the peninsula, used to legitimise Piedmontese expansion as an expression of the will of the people of Italy, were worded in increasingly ambiguous ways. The first plebiscite in Parma mentioned Piedmont. The next plebiscites just mentioned a ‘constitutional monarchy’, and not whether the provinces would join a new Italian state or be provinces of Piedmont. It is the case that most would be reluctant to remake Piedmont entirely, and there was some reluctance to call the new state ‘Italy’. This tension would continue to be present at the very heart of the Piedmontese-Italian state for around the next 15 years.

In addition to this, the Piedmontese had unleashed some forces that it had little control over. For one, now nationalists were tacitly accepted. It was hard to stop nationalists, as the state was partly justified by nationalism. Those like Massimo d’Azeglio – a moderate nationalist – were given positions in the administration of the new state, in his case as Governor in Milan.

This tension was not existential but became much more of a current tension as a result of the exploits of Giuseppe Garibaldi. Garibaldi was a general and a prominent nationalist who had gained fame as a result of his Campaigns in South America as well as his central and heroic role in the 1848 revolutions. This image was propagated in Britain by the exiled former head of the nationalist movement, Giuseppe Mazzini, who acted as Garibaldi’s press agent.

In 1859, there was a revolt in Sicily. At the time this was owned by the southern Italian Kingdom of Naples. The revolt was as a result of a mix of local pressures. A combination of socio-economic poverty and a traditional desire for Sicilian autonomy both contributed. Garibaldi saw the opportunity to take advantage of this anger against the existing authorities, and planned to land there with 1000 men. His hope was to create a new Italian polity in the south.

For Cavour, if Garibaldi succeeded, there was the potential for disaster. In essence, there had long been tension between two competing strands of nationalists. The more radical ones had wanted a complete break with conservative institutions (apart from the church) and a rebirth of Italy. This was anathema to Cavour, who wanted slow controlled change. The fear for Cavour was that Garibaldi would attempt to create a new, different Italian Republic that acted to oppose his one. Bad things could happen – Piedmont could fall apart, there could be an Italian Civil War or Napoleon could intervene (by this stage Napoleon III was keen to show his support to the Pope to the mainly Catholic French population). For Cavour, it was crucial to avoid these at almost any cost.

Denis Mack Smith’s research on this topic has made clear why Cavour would allow Garibaldi to head to the South of Italy. Elections were going on throughout Piedmont for a new Parliament, and he was worried about alienating both nationalists and those who saw Garibalidi as an Italian hero. Garibaldi being arrested was therefore not a good look. What’s more, it seemed that Garibaldi’s force of 1000 men stood no chance, it was a hopeless gamble that was bound to fail. For Cavour, it was too much of a risk to stop Garibaldi, who he believed to be acting in a way that ignored the facts on the ground.

When Garibaldi landed, his army gained in strength and proceeded to defeat the Bourbons at Calatafimi. With the help of the British naval support – whose Prime Minister was openly pro-Unification - he crossed from Sicily to the mainland and took Naples. Cavour, keen to avoid Garibaldi from reaching Rome and provoking Napoleon or establishing a Republic, rushed down with several thousand Piedmontese troops to stop Garibaldi. It just so happened that Garibaldi had been slowed down by resistance within the Kingdom of Naples. Cavour was therefore able to stop Garibaldi before he threatened the Pope or founded an Italian Republic. Garibaldi, keen to see unification, eagerly handed over the South to Victor Emmanuel when they met at the town of Teano. In this way Piedmontese expansion had limited Piedmont’s options. Cavour was not keen to accept the South into his Kingdom but realised that the consequences of not doing so would be worse than not doing so. As he had already expanded the Piedmontese state, under the justification of nationalism, it was conceivable to integrate the South into the north.

With this came Italian unification, with only two holdouts – Rome, controlled by the Papal States

Conclusion

In this way, Cavour tied his own hands through expanding Piedmont by using the justification of nationalism. Cavour could not disown nationalism, or else have a critical crisis of legitimacy for the hybrid Piedmontese-Italian state. It is therefore the case that Piedmont became Italy almost by mistake.

The other thing that is both interesting and needs to be drawn out is that the number of Italian nationalists was not significant enough to create a revolutionary movement on the peninsula in this period. Instead, Cavour and the Piedmontese state overestimated the significance of their number and power in order to prevent them from becoming victim to a revolution.

Italian Unification was a very odd form of historical change, pre-empted and pushed forward by those within the state without the forces existing at an economic, social and cultural level to have a meaningful effect.

Yours,

WFF