LIBERATION AND UNIFICATION OF ITALY.
ITALY AT THE DOWNFALL OF NAPOLEON.--The Italian people, as being the most
dangerously infected with the ideas of the Revolution, were, by the
reactionary Congress of Vienna, condemned to the most strict and
ignominious slavery. The former commonwealths were forbidden to restore
their ancient institutions, while the petty principalities were handed
over in almost every case to the tyrants or the heirs of the tyrants who
had ruled them before the Revolution. Austria appropriated Venetia and
Lombardy, and from Northern Italy assumed to direct the affairs of the
whole peninsula. Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Piacenza were given to
princes of the House of Hapsburg. Naples was restored to its old Bourbon
rulers. The Pope and Victor Emmanuel I., king of Sardinia, were the only
native rulers.
"Italy was divided on the map, but she had made up her mind to be one."
The Revolution had sown the seeds of Liberty, and time only was needed for
their maturing. The Cisalpine, the Ligurian, the Parthenopæan, the
Tiberine republics (see pp. 668, 670), short-lived though they were, had
awakened in the people an aspiration for self-government; while Napoleon's
kingdom of Italy (see p. 676, n.), though equally delusive, had
nevertheless inspired thousands of Italian patriots with the sentiment of
national unity. Thus the French Revolution, disappointing as seemed its
issue, really imparted to Italy her first impulse in the direction of
freedom and of national organization.
Arbitrary Rule of the Restored Princes.--The setting up of the overturned
thrones meant, of course, the re-instating of the old tyrannies. The
restored despots came back with an implacable hatred of everything French.
They swept away all French institutions that were supposed to tend in the
least to Liberalism. At Rome even vaccination and street-lamps, French
innovations, were abolished. In Sardinia, nothing that bore the French
stamp, nothing that had been set up by French hands, was allowed to
remain. Even the French furniture in the royal palace at Turin was thrown
out of the windows, and the French plants in the royal gardens were pulled
up root and branch.
THE CARBONARI: UPRISING OF 1820-1821.--The natural results of the
arbitrary rule and retrogressive policy of the restored princes was deep
and widespread discontent. The French Revolution, as we have said, had
sown broadcast in Italy the seeds of liberty, and their growth could not
be checked by the repressions of tyranny. An old secret organization, the
members of which were known as, the Carbonari (charcoal-burners), formed
the nucleus about which gathered the elements of disaffection.
In 1820, incited by a revolution in Spain, the Carbonari raised an
insurrection in Naples, and forced King Ferdinand, who was ruler of both
Naples and Sicily, now united under the name of the Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies, to grant his Neapolitan subjects what was known as the Spanish
Constitution of 1812. But Prince Metternich (see p. 702), who had been
watching the doings of the Liberal party in Naples, interfered to mar
their plans. He reasoned that Lombardy and Venetia could be kept free from
the contagion of Liberalism only by the stamping out of the infection
wherever else in Italy it might show itself. Hence 60,000 Austrian troops
were sent to crush the revolutionists. Ferdinand was re-instated in his
former absolute authority, and everything was put back on the old footing.
Meanwhile a similar revolution was running its course in Piedmont. King
Victor Emmanuel I., rather than yield to the demands of his people for a
constitutional government, gave up his crown, and was succeeded by his
brother Charles Felix, who, by threatening to call to his aid the Austrian
army, compelled his subjects to cease their clamor about kings ruling, not
by the grace of God, but by the will of the people.
THE REVOLUTION OF 1830-1831.--For just ten years all Italy lay in sullen
vassalage to Austria. Then the revolutionary years of 1830-31 witnessed a
repetition of the scenes of 1820-21. The revolution in France which placed
Louis Philippe upon the French throne (see p. 688) sent a tremor of
excitement and hope through all Italy. The centre of the revolution was
the Papal States. But the presence of Austrian troops, who, "true to their
old principle of hurrying with their extinguishers to any spot in Italy
where a crater opened," had poured into Central Italy, resulted in the
speedy quenching of the flames of the insurrection.
THE THREE PARTIES: PLANS FOR NATIONAL ORGANIZATION.--Twice now had
Austrian armies crushed the aspirations of the Italians after national
unity and freedom. Italian hatred of these foreign intermeddlers who were
causing them to miss their destiny, grew ever more intense, and "death to
the Germans" became the watch-cry that united all the peoples of the
peninsula.
But while united in their deadly hatred of the Austrians, the Italians
were divided in their views respecting the best plan for national
organization. One party, known as "Young Italy," founded and inspired by
the patriot Joseph Mazzini, wanted a republic; another party wanted a
confederation of the various states, with the Pope as chief; while still a
third wished to see Italy a constitutional monarchy, with the king of
Sardinia at its head.
THE REVOLUTION OF 1848-1849.--After the suppression of the uprising of
1830, until the approach of the momentous year of 1848, Italy lay restless
under the heel of her oppressor. The republican movements throughout the
continent of Europe which characterized that year of revolutions, inspired
the Italian patriots to make another attempt to achieve independence and
nationality. Everywhere throughout the peninsula they rose against their
despotic rulers, and forced them to grant constitutions and institute
reforms. But through the intervention of the Austrians and the French
[Footnote: This interference by the French in Italian affairs was
instigated by their jealousy of Austria, and by the anxious desire of
Louis Napoleon to win the good-will of the Catholic clergy in France.] the
third Italian revolution was thwarted. By the autumn of the year 1849 the
Liberals were everywhere crushed, their leaders executed, imprisoned, or
driven into exile, and the dream of Italy's unity and freedom dispelled by
the hard present fact of renewed tyranny and foreign domination.
Much, however, had been gained. The patriotic party had had revealed to
itself its strength, and at the same time the necessity of united action,
--of the adoption of a single policy. Henceforth the Republicans and
Federalists were more inclined to give up as impracticable their plans of
national organization, and with the Constitutionalists to look upon the
kingdom of Sardinia as the only possible basis and nucleus of a free and
united Italy.
VICTOR EMMANUEL II., COUNT CAVOUR, AND GARIBALDI.--Sardinia was a state
which had gradually grown into power in the northwest corner of the
peninsula. The throne was at this time held by Victor Emmanuel II. (1849-
1878). To him it was that the hopes of the Italian patriots now turned.
Nor were these hopes to be disappointed. Victor Emmanuel was the destined
liberator of Italy, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that his
was the name in which the achievement was to be effected by the wise
policy of his great minister Count Cavour, and the reckless daring of the
hero Garibaldi.
Count Cavour was a man of large hopes and large plans. His single aim and
purpose was the independence and unification of Italy. He was the genius
of Italian liberty. Garibaldi, "the hero of the red shirt," was the
knight-errant of Italian independence. Though yet barely past middle life,
he had led a career singularly crowded with varied experiences and
romantic adventures. Because of his violent republicanism, he had already
been twice exiled from Italy.
THE AUSTRO-SARDINIAN WAR (1859-1860).--The hour for striking another blow
for the freedom of Italy had now arrived. In 1859 Count Cavour, in the
pursuance of his national policy for Italy, having first made a secret
arrangement with the French emperor, gave Austria to understand that
unless she granted Lombardy and Venetia free government and ceased to
interfere in the affairs of the rest of Italy, Sardinia would declare war
against her. Of course the Austrian government refused to accede to the
demand, and almost immediately war followed. The French emperor, actuated
probably less by gratitude for the aid of the Sardinian contingent in the
Crimean struggle (see p.726) than by jealousy of Austria and the promise
of Savoy and Nice in case of a successful issue of the war, supported the
Sardinians with the armies of France. The two great victories of Magenta
and Solferino seemed to promise to the allies a triumphant march to the
Adriatic. But just now the threatening attitude of Prussia and other
German states, in connection with other considerations, led Napoleon to
enter upon negotiations of peace with the Austrian emperor at Villafranca.
The outcome was that Austria retained Venice, but gave up to Sardinia the
larger part of Lombardy. The Sardinians were bitterly disappointed that
they did not get Venetia, and loudly accused the French emperor of having
betrayed their cause, since at the outset he had promised them that he
would free Italy from the mountains to the sea. But Sardinia found
compensation for Venice in the accession of Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and
Romagna, the peoples of which states, having discarded their old rulers,
besought Victor Emmanuel to permit them to unite themselves to his
kingdom. Thus, as the result of the war, the king of Sardinia had added to
his subjects a population of 9,000,000. One long step was taken in the way
of Italian unity and freedom.
SICILY AND NAPLES ADDED TO VICTOR EMMANUEL'S KINGDOM (1860).--The romantic
and adventurous daring of the hero Garibaldi now added Sicily and Naples
to the possessions of Victor Emmanuel, and changed the kingdom of Sardinia
into the kingdom of Italy.
The king of Naples and Sicily, Francis II., was a typical despot. In 1860
his subjects rose in revolt. Victor Emmanuel and his minister Cavour were
in sympathy with the movement, yet dared not send the insurgents aid
through fear of arousing the jealousy of Austria and of France. But
Garibaldi, untrammelled by any such considerations, having gathered a band
of a thousand or more volunteers, set sail from Genoa for Sicily, where
upon landing he assumed the title of Dictator of Sicily for Victor
Emmanuel, King of Italy, and quickly drove the troops of King Francis out
of the island. Then crossing to the mainland, he marched triumphantly to
Naples, whose inhabitants hailed him tumultuously as their Deliverer.
The Neapolitans and Sicilians now voted almost unanimously for annexation
to the Sardinian kingdom. The hero Garibaldi, having first met and hailed
his Sovereign "King of Italy," surrendered his dictatorship, and retired
to the island of Capri, in the bay of Naples. He had earned the lasting
gratitude of his country.
Thus was another great step taken in the unification of Italy. Nine
millions more of Italians had become the subjects of Victor Emmanuel.
There was now wanting to the complete union of Italy only Venetia and the
Papal territories.
VENETIA ADDED TO THE KINGDOM (1866).--The Seven Weeks' War which broke out
between Prussia and Austria in 1866 afforded the Italian patriots the
opportunity for which they were watching to make Venetia a part of the
kingdom of Italy. Victor Emmanuel formed an alliance with the king of
Prussia, one of the conditions of which was that no peace should be made
with Austria until she had surrendered Venetia to Italy. The speedy issue
of the war added the coveted territory to the dominions of Victor
Emmanuel. Rome alone was now lacking to the complete unification of Italy.
ROME BECOMES THE CAPITAL (1870).--After the liberation of Naples and
Sicily the city of Turin, the old capital of the Sardinian kingdom, was
made the capital of the new kingdom of Italy. In 1865 the seat of
government was transferred to Florence. But the Italians looked forward to
the time when Rome, the ancient mistress of the peninsula and of the
world, should be their capital. The power of the Pope, however, was upheld
by the French, and this made it impossible for the Italians to have their
will in this matter without a conflict with France.
But events soon gave the coveted capital to the Italian government. In
1870 came the sharp, quick war between France and Prussia, and the French
troops at Rome were hastily summoned home. Upon the overthrow of the
French Monarchy and the establishment of the Republic, Victor Emmanuel was
informed that France would no longer sustain the Papal power. The Italian
government at once gave notice to the Pope that Rome would henceforth be
considered a portion of the kingdom of Italy, and forthwith an Italian
army entered the city, which by a vote of 133,681 to 1,507 joined itself
to the Italian nation. The family was now complete. Rome was the capital
of a free and united Italy. July 2, 1871, Victor Emmanuel [Footnote: In
the early part of the year 1878 Victor Emmanuel died, and his son came to
the throne, with the title of Humbert 1., the second king of Italy.]
himself entered the city and took up his residence there.
END OF THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE.--Through the extension of the
authority of the Italian government over the Papal states, the Pope was
despoiled of the last vestige of that temporal power wherewith Pepin and
Charlemagne had invested the Bishops of Rome more than a thousand years
before (see p. 404). The Papal troops were disbanded, but the Pope, Pius
IX., still retained all his spiritual authority, the Vatican with its
11,000 chambers being reserved to him as a place of residence. Just a few
months before the loss of his temporal sovereignty a great Ecumenical
Council of the Roman Catholic Church had proclaimed the doctrine of Papal
Infallibility, which declares decrees of the Pope "on questions of faith
and morals" to be infallible.
CONCLUSION.--Although there has been much antagonism between the Vatican
and the Quirinal, that is, between the Pope and the Italian government,
still reform and progress have marked Italian affairs since the events of
1870. A public system of education has been established; brigandage has
been suppressed; agriculture has been encouraged; while the naval and
military resources of the peninsula have been developed to such an extent
that Italy, so recently the prey of foreign sovereigns, of petty native
tyrants, and of adventurers, is now justly regarded as one of the great
powers of Europe.
[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA ON THE DAY OF HER CORONATION.]