16.4 The Unification of Italy
The great power decisions made at the 1815 Congress of Vienna returned Italy to the political condition that Italians had known for the better part of the previous thousand years. The Napoleonic effort to consolidate Italy into three major states was undone and the old traditional states were restored. Divided as it was, Italy was not in command of its own destiny. Austria held direct sovereignty over Lombardy (Milan) and Venetia (Venice). The Bourbon monarchy was restored in Naples and Sicily. Habsburgs were placed on the hereditary ducal thrones of Modena, Parma, and Tuscany (Florence). Italy was believed to be secure in the new European order created by Metternich and the other great powers at Vienna. When the citizens of Naples rebelled against Bourbon absolutism in 1820, Metternich's Concert of Europe sent in Austrian armies to restore royal legitimacy. Liberal and nationalist principles would not be allowed to disturb the status quo.
Nonetheless, revolutionary ideals survived, and Italian national identity experienced a dramatic resurgence. The Risorgimento (“Resurgence”) was inspired by the writings and example of Giuseppe Mazzini, a Genoan journalist and republican activist. Many Italians responded to the call to join Mazzini's new "Young Italy" Movement. Young Italy was an illegal nationalist organization pledged to achieve Italian unification as a free and independent nation under republican government. The movement, however, failed to transform itself from a set of idealistic principles to an effective political organization. The revolutions of 1830 and 1848, while having impact in Italy, failed to achieve significant results. It would not be through sentimental identification with ideals that Italy would be united. It would be through the active application of Realpolitik.
Realpolitik (originally a German word) has come into political vocabulary to mean the basing of policies on realistic considerations – practical or material matters – not on ideals or theories. In other words, it means power politics: the basing of political decisions and policy-making on considerations of power. One makes decisions one way if approaching them from a position of strength; another way if from a position of weakness. Realpolitik, in a sense, is very Machiavellian.
The master player of Realpolitik in Italian affairs was Count Camillo di Cavour, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia.[1] Appointed to office in 1852 by the Sardinian King Victor Emmanuel II, Cavour set out to unify Italy under Sardinian rule. Politically talented and energetic, Cavour implemented programs intended to modernize Sardinia and build up its economic potential. Under his able leadership, Sardinia began industrialization and asserted itself in international affairs. In 1855 Sardinia was an ally with Britain and France in the Crimean War against Russia. But it was Italy that was Cavour's primary focus.
Basing his policies on principles of Realpolitik, he would achieve Italian unity through war with Austria, using France as an ally. Recognizing the French ruler Napoleon III (President Louis Napoleon Bonaparte in 1852 had become Emperor Napoleon III of the "Second Empire" of France) as being both ambitious and reckless, Cavour plotted to use the power of France to his advantage. The plan was simple. As Austria continued to rule Lombardy and Venetia, and, as Habsburgs ruled in Modena, Parma, and Tuscany, most Italians saw Austria as a hated focus of Italian nationalism. A successful war against Austria would bring the other Italian states together under Sardinian rule. Sardinia, however, could not defeat Austria alone; therefore, Cavour made Napoleon III a generous offer. In 1858 in a vivid demonstration of Realpolitik, Cavour secretly offered Napoleon the Italian territories of Savoy and Nice in exchange for a French alliance in a successful war against Austria. With the alliance in hand, Cavour provoked war with Austria in 1859.
The war went well for Sardinia. Lombardy was conquered and Venetia was invaded. Tuscany, Modena, and Parma overthrew their Hapsburg rulers and requested annexation to Sardinia, now calling itself the Kingdom of Italy. But Cavour was caught by surprise when the devious French Emperor made a separate peace with Austria. Unable to defeat Austria without France, Cavour bowed to the inevitable and made peace. Italy got Lombardy, but Venetia remained under Austrian rule and the Hapsburgs were returned to their Italian thrones. Although Cavour's aims had been frustrated, the nationalist passions unleashed throughout Italy took on new momentum.
In 1860 Parma, Modena, and Tuscany again rebelled and expelled the Habsburgs. Romagna rebelled against the Papacy and joined the others in voting to join Italy. When France expressed its dissatisfaction with events in Italy and demanded that Cavour cede Savoy and Nice, Cavour decided that partial Italian unity was better than a divisive and losing war with France. Savoy and Nice were surrendered to France. At the same time a republican revolutionary movement led by Giuseppe Garibaldi successfully defeated the Bourbons and won control of Sicily and Naples. Flushed with victory, Garibaldi proclaimed his intention to march his red-shirted army northward to conquer Rome and Venetia. Cavour was justifiably alarmed. Garibaldi sought a unified Italian republic! And, as France had stationed troops in Rome in 1849 and Austria held Venetia, Garibaldi's ambitions would mean renewed war - this time with France and Austria. Cavour, seeing Italian unity at risk if war were renewed, arranged to meet with Garibaldi in Naples and convinced him that Italian unification would be best served under the constitutional rule of the Sardinian king. Garibaldi accepted Victor Emmanuel's sovereignty. A new Italy was created. Cavour's goals were almost met. All of Italy was united except for Rome and Venetia. Cavour would never see his work completed as he died in 1861. The completion of Italian unification would come – in time, and thanks to Prussia.
In 1866 the Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, anticipating war between Prussia and Austria, negotiated a secret alliance with Italy. In return for Italian participation in a victorious war, Prussia would guarantee Austrian cession of Venetia to Italy. Following the brief Seven Weeks War in the summer of 1866, a defeated Austria awarded Venetia to Italy.
In 1870 Bismarck provoked a long anticipated war with France. With French armies involved in the Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon III had to call his soldiers home from Rome. Without French troops to protect the Pope, the people of Rome successfully rebelled. To the enthusiastic welcome of the Romans, an Italian army entered the city. In later elections the Romans voted for unity with Italy. Rome became the Italian capital.
Pope Pius IX refused to accept Italian sovereignty over the Papal States and, in protest, isolated himself in the Vatican. It would not be until 1929 that the Papacy would be reconciled with Italy. Through the Lateran Treaties Pope Pius XI recognized the government of Italy's sovereignty over Rome and the Papal States. In return, the Italian government recognized papal sovereignty over an independent Vatican City, the some 108 acres of St. Peter's and papal palace grounds in the city of Rome.
Unification did not mean that Italy would be without problems. There were more extreme nationalists who were not satisfied with Italy’s 1870 boundaries. They wanted the acquisition of neighboring territories with Italian populations. Such regions included the Tyrol (this region was also called Trentino for the city of Trent) and Trieste, both still held by Austria. These territories, as well as others such as the Adriatic port of Fiume, became known as Italia Irredenta (“Italy Unredeemed”). These territories would later be a major factor relating to Italy’s entering World War One.
Although unified politically, Italy was two countries economically. The north was primarily industrial and commercial. The south was agricultural. The peoples of both regions regarded each other with disdain. The northerners were seen by the southerners as soulless and money-hungry. The northerners saw the southerners as backward, primitive peasants. In Sicily and the south the patriarchal traditions of strong family relationships remained the political and economic reality regardless of laws made in Rome.
The Italian constitution restricted the vote to some 600, 000 wealthy males in a population of some 20 million people. (The franchise would not be extended to a broader population until 1913.) Thus, the Italian parliament was not representative of the people and was often out of touch with the country’s real needs. Corruption was rampant and revolutionary agitation continued.
Yet Italy saw itself as a great power and sought what other great powers had, an overseas empire. Italian imperialists cast their eyes on the weakening Ottoman Empire with aspirations for Tunisia and Tripoli (Libya). Italy would be frustrated in its hopes for Tunisia as the 1878 Berlin Congress awarded that territory to France. In a short war with the Ottoman Empire in 1912 Italy won Tripoli. In the 1890s Italy invaded the Horn of east Africa, taking Eritrea and a piece of Somaliland. An attempt to conquer Ethiopia, however, ended in a humiliating defeat at Adowa in 1896. A “modern” industrial European state had been defeated by primitive tribal peoples armed primarily with spears.
[1] Sardinia: The name Sardinia is often used interchangeably with Savoy, which was actually part of the continental (mainland) region of Sardinia and / or Piedmont ("Foothill”).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The listing of sources for The Great Powers of the 19th Century: Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia follows the section on Russia (16.6).