While they were speaking Italy had acted. It is more true to say that
some Italians had acted. The defence of Venice and the five days at
Milan are glorious episodes, but those volunteers who flocked to
Garibaldi, notably from Piedmont, and of whose exploits we can never
hear enough--in what proportion were they to the inhabitants of the
Peninsula? The people as a whole exhibited indifference, which causes
Garibaldi to complain most bitterly. And if it had not been for the
genius of Cavour and his collaborators, for the diplomatic support of
England, the alliance with Prussia and, above all, for the French
army, the redemption of the country would have been delayed. No doubt
the Church had an enormous influence upon the people, no doubt in the
surviving mediaeval States--the duchies and republics--whose government
belonged to the privileged classes, there was little to awaken popular
interest; no doubt great masses of the people were untouched by
education and the spread of new ideas--if freedom is a new idea; no
doubt the peasants in various parts of the country were in as
deplorable a plight as the peasants of to-day, which has had as one
effect the inexpansive manner, as Italian officers have testified,
with which the redeemed peasants of the Trentino and elsewhere often
welcomed their redeemers. And the Italian peasants of 1859 may be
pardoned for imagining that this world never would be made so good as
to include their own salvation. One can find sufficient excuses for
what occurred in Italy. Will not the Italians excuse, rather than
praise, the very, very small number of Yugoslavs who have stood out
against Yugoslavia? When Italy had been united did no Italians choose
rather to go into exile?