The Origins of the Italian Wars of Independence

Frank J. Coppa

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780582040458
• eBook ISBN: 9781317900436
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

This title focuses on the "Risorgimento", the movement that led to the unification of Italy as a single kingdom. The Italian Wars of Independence were a sequence of three separate conflicts, taking place in 1848-49, 1859 and 1866. This volume examines the role of the major powers outside Italy in these conflicts, particularly France, Austria, Great Britain and Prussia, and in Italy the Italian states, the Catholic Church and the revolutionaries. It also examines the role of: Cavour's Piedmont, Mazzini's Young Italy and the Party of Action, Garibaldi's Red Shirts and Daniele Manin's National Society. It is based on original research, particularly in the Vatican archives and it should to be an invaluable text for all students of Italian and European History from 6th form to undergraduate level.

Chapter One

Introduction: Origins of the Italian Wars of Independence

While the Age of the Risorgimento (1796–1870), which brought both national consciousness and political union to Italy, has captured the historical imagination, various interpretations of the movement which transformed the geographical expression into political reality have emerged. One school has stressed the role of the moderates, another that of the radicals; some have noted the contributions of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy; others have decried the failure to involve the peasantry. The part played by Cavour, Mazzini and Garibaldi, dubbed respectively the ‘brain’, ‘heart’ and ‘sword’ of unification, is still debated. Meanwhile Pius IX, the ‘cross’ of liberals and nationalists alike, has been hailed as ‘the Saint of God’ by conservative Catholics. Even the Contessa di Castiglione, commissioned by Cavour to seduce Napoleon III and enlist his support in a war plot against Austria, boasted that she created Italy while saving the Papacy.¹

Despite the confusion and contradictory claims, two things are clear. First, a period of preparation preceded national consolidation. Second, a series of wars had to be fought to push the Austrians out of the peninsula before it could be united under the aegis of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. The present book delves into the origins of the conflicts of 1848–49, 1859–60, and 1866 that led to the creation of the Italian Kingdom (dubbed respectively the first, second and third wars of Italian liberation, with the campaign of 1870 sometimes upgraded to constitute a fourth). The study includes both the internal developments and the diplomatic intrigues that unleashed the wars of Italian unification.

The precise beginning of the Risorgimento – the nineteenth-century movement that led to the unification of Italy – remains problematic, but it is widely acknowledged that its roots reach back to the Enlightenment and the revolutions which rocked the Western world at the turn of the eighteenth century. The twilight of that century, and the dawn of the nineteenth century, ushered in an age of revolutions in Europe. Intellectual, political, religious, social and economic developments contributed to shake the foundations of life on much of the Continent. The turmoil exploded into the Italian peninsula, arousing some of its people from years of slumber. The French intrusion, Napoleon’s reordering of Italy’s political and religious structure, and the emergence of new classes, especially in the Kingdom of Italy (1805–14), conspired to stimulate national consciousness, and the incubus which weighed down Italians was thrust aside.

By a series of decrees the French altered the basis of life in the peninsula, introducing the Civil Code, which provided for equality under the law, and making Tuscan the common language of the administration, thus assuring an increased cultural and commercial unity. The French also weakened provincialism and particularism by absorbing the smaller Italian states into their orbit. Eventually foreign domination and even religious authority were challenged. The winds of change swept away many of the illusions of Italy’s Illuminati – her eighteenth-century reformers. The secret Società dei Raggi explicitly sought Italian unity, and its members were not alone. The growing realization that freedom and unity were necessary for the well-being of the peninsula and its people, inspired the Risorgimento.

The resurrection which preceded the proclamation of the Italian state in 1861 was initially a spiritual process calling for the transformation of Italian life. Only later did this literary and cultural movement assume political and military proportions. The prospects for a national political programme were not good as the Quadruple Alliance, the coalition against revolutionary France, prepared for the restoration of the petty monarchs and Austrian domination in Italy following the defeat of Napoleon. Those under the spell of Vincenzo Cuoco’s Saggio storico sulla rivoluzione napoletano (1801), which concluded that the Parthenopean Republic had collapsed because of its failure to enlist the support of Neapolitans, sought to avoid this mistake by rousing the Italian masses. There was early and continuing controversy concerning the feasibility and advisability of a popular war of liberation, as against a traditional war of position waged by one of the dynasties bolstered by diplomacy.

In 1814 a group of patriots, which included Pellegrino Rossi, Antonio Maghella and Giuseppe Zurlo, appealed to Napoleon’s Italian origins, urging him to invoke Italian nationalism as a means of arousing the people of the peninsula, and to draw upon their strength to defeat the Powers. Only say the word, they pleaded, and Italy will awake and take form. Napoleon, more of a pragmatist than a prophet, who in his public life admitted no sentiment, ignored their suggestion.² The Austrians, distressed by the agitation in Italy, worried about the reaction of King Joachim Murat of Naples, who they suspected would resort to extreme measures to defend himself.³ Their assessment proved accurate.

During the Hundred Days, Marshal Murat (who was married to Napoleon’s sister Caroline, and had been crowned King of Naples in 1808), appealed to national sentiments in his Proclamation from Rimini (30 March 1815). He called for an Italian state stretching from the Alps to Sicily. His invocation for a people’s war, as Napoleon had foreseen, did not unleash the national energies that would have been required to defeat the Austrians at the battle of Tolentino (3rd May). The prospect of resisting the conservative, anti-national settlement vanished with the forces of Murat, and with Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. Francesco Melzi d’Eril (1753–1816), the former vicepresident of the Italian Republic under Napoleon, realised that the people of the peninsula could not determine their own fate. He invoked the aid of the Powers, pleading for autonomy, if not independence, for northern Italy. Melzi d’Eril’s prayer went unanswered, however, as the European courts proved unwilling to challenge their Austrian ally, opposed to any recognition of Italian nationality.

Friedrich von Gentz, Secretary of the Congress of Vienna, admitted in a contemporary memoir that, for all its discussion of such lofty aims as the reconstruction of the social order and the regeneration of the political system of the continent, to create a lasting peace founded on a just distribution of power, the real purpose of the Congress was to divide among the conquerors the spoils stripped from the vanquished.⁴ Italy, liberated from French influence, was the prize Austria coveted. The Congress thus disregarded Italian national interests, ceding Lombardy and Venetia to Austria, while placing members of the Habsburg family on the thrones of Tuscany, Parma and Modena. Although Austria considered the possession of Ferrara indispensable for the defence of her territories in Italy, the Papal States were restored to the Papacy by means of the skilful diplomacy of Cardinal Ercole Consalvi, thus effectively dividing the peninsula in two.

In order to ensure their control, the Austrians garrisoned Piacenza, Ferrara and the Commacchio, and concluded an agreement with the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which stipulated that their government would not introduce principles irreconcilable with those adopted by the Austrians in their Italian provinces. The reactionary Ferdinand IV of Naples returned as Ferdinand I of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. His repudiation of constitutionalism alienated the liberals, while his subservience to the Habsburgs aroused the nationalists. Modena, more under the influence of the Jesuits than the States of the Church, was governed by the will and whim of Francesco IV, nephew of Leopold II of Austria. Almost everywhere in the peninsula there followed a concerted effort to reimpose the ancien régime, as French civil and legal codes were repealed, privileges were restored to the aristocracy and the Church, and many of the pre-war prohibitions against the Jews reinstated. National aspirations were dismissed as Italy was deemed a ‘geographical expression’.⁵

To be sure, voices and hearts resisted the restoration. The poet and dramatist Vittorio Alfieri (1749–1803), whose works envisioned a free and united Italy, transmitted a legacy of pride to his countrymen. Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873), grandson of Cesare Beccaria and author of I promessi sposi (1827), affirmed as early as 1815 that Italians could not be free until they were united.⁶ Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837), in his ‘All’Italia’, decried the plight of his homeland. This poem, as well as his ‘Sopra il monumento di Dante’ of the same year, inspired nationalists in the peninsula.⁷ Ugo Foscolo (1778–1827), the patriotic poet and dramatist, endured exile in England rather than submit to Austrian control in Lombardy. Back home copies of his Last Letters ofJacolo Ortis (1802) were eagerly sought.

These poetic voices championing a national vision were echoed in the Carboneria, the secret society which opposed the settlement of 1815, and other radical fraternities which fostered discontent and resistance. Patriots such as the Lombard patrician, Federico Confalonieri (1785–1846), resented the terms imposed on the peninsula and schemed against them. Eventually this opposition served as a catalyst for change, provoking a number of revolutions that proved unable to overturn the Vienna settlement. A series of wars, orchestrated in part by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, would be needed to topple the restoration and replace it with the Kingdom of Italy. Thus the ‘lasting peace’ envisioned by Friedrich von Gentz, Secretary of the Congress of Vienna, and architect of the Holy Alliance, proved to be of short duration.⁸

The wars which erupted in Italy in the first half of the nineteenth century led to the creation of the Kingdom of Italy (1861), as well as substantial changes in the European balance of power. The origins of the wars are complex, determined by events within the broader context of the European state system as well as specific Italian developments. The conflicts were instigated by activity within the diplomatic community, the political ambitions of Piedmont-Sardinia, the consequences of the Peace of Paris (1856) and the agitation within the radical and revolutionary camp. Thus the causes of the three wars which saw the emergence of a united Italy, and the ‘fourth war’, which made Rome its capital, are to be sought in Paris and Vienna as much as Turin and Rome, and flowed from the actions of the secret societies as well as the manoeuvres of the European chancelleries.

This book focuses on the causes of the Wars of Italian Independence, emphasizing the role of national forces, including the monarchical and popular ones, which competed for control in the peninsula within the framework of the Concert of Europe. It also stresses the role of the Powers, particularly the rivalry between France and Austria, and the European aspirations of Britain and Russia, as well as the impact of the Crimean War (September 1854-February 1856). Beginning with an examination of Italy in 1815, at the opening of the age of Metternich, specific chapters examine the origins of the First War of Italian Independence (1848), the Second War of Italian Independence (1859), and the Third War of Italian Independence (1866). There is also an account of the avalanche of events that eventually brought Rome under Italian control (1870). In each case the part played by the major powers, the Catholic Church and the Papacy, the Italian states, and the radicals who fostered the ‘Italian Revolution’, is considered.

The Italian loss of life in these wars was small in comparison, say, to the bloodletting of the American Civil War, and minuscule in comparison to the slaughter during the First World War. Indeed it has been calculated that national casualties during the three wars of independence were less than those endured in one single day of carnage during the Franco-Prussian War.⁹ Nonetheless, the consequences were far-reaching politically, religiously and diplomatically.

The dramatic events of the Risorgimento have inspired a broader historical literature than any other period of modern Italy since the Renaissance.¹⁰ The sources for the maze of European diplomatic activity that permitted, and in some instances provoked, the Wars of Italian Unification were published early on by writers who were decidedly favourable to Piedmont.¹¹ More recently Italian scholars have edited a series of volumes of documents shedding additional light on the diplomacy of unification.¹²

There is need for a short history of the origins of the Wars of Italian Independence which synthesizes national developments, including the role of Cavour’s Piedmont, Mazzini’s Giovane Italia, Garibaldi’s Redshirts and Manin’s National Society with the aims and policies of the European powers. This has been my goal, and I hope that this work will shed light both on the causes of the Risorgimento wars and their consequences in the age of transition that led to the new balance of power. Hopefully, it will prove useful for students of Italian unification as well as students of nineteenth-century European diplomacy.

Notes

1. Frédéric Lolilée Women of the Second Empire: Chronicles of the Court of Napoleon III, Compiled from Unpublished Documents (New York: John Lane Company, 1907), p. 19.

2. Domenico Massè, Cattolici e Risorgimento (Rome: Edizioni Paoline, 1961), p. 28; Prince Richard Metternich-Winneburg (ed.), Memoirs of Prince Metternich, trans. Mrs Alexander Napier (New York: Howard Fertig, 1970), I, 283.

3. Ibid., II, p. 584.

4. Ibid., II, p. 553.

5. Countess Evelyn Martinengo Cesaresco, The Liberation of Italy, 1815–1870 (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1972), pp. 16, 51.

6. Luigi Salvatorelli, Pensiero e azione del Risorgimento (2nd edn; Turin, Einaudi Editore, 1963), p. 13.

7. Luigi Ferrante (ed.), Il Risorgimento (Milan: Nuova Accademia Editrice, 1963), p. 13.

8. Antonio Monti, La Politica degli Stati Italiani durante il Risorgimento (Milan: Casa Editrice Francesco Vallardi, 1948), pp. 1–2.

9. Denis Mack Smith (ed.), The Making of Italy, 1796–1870 (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 11

10. For a concise and updated English survey of part of this literature see ‘The conflict of interpretations and sources’, in Harry Hearder’s Italy in the Age of the Risorgimento, 1790–1870 (London and New York: Longman, 1983), pp. 1–14. Also useful, particularly for the reaction of the Counter-Risorgimento see the annotated ‘Selected Bibliography’ in Frank J. Coppa, Pope Pius IX: Crusader in a Secular Age (Boston: Twayne Publishe...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Editor’s Foreword
• 1. Introduction Origins of the Italian Wars of Independence
• 2. From Geographical Expression to Political Consciousness Italy in the Age of Metternich
• 3. The Origins of the First War of Italian Independence
• 4. The Revolutionary Upheaval and War of 1848–49
• 5. The Italian Question during the Second Restoration
• 6. The Origins of the Second War of Italian Independence 1856–59
• 7. Cavour, Garibaldi and Napoleon III in the Wars for the Formation of Italy
• 8. Origins and Consequences of the Third War of Italian Independence
• 9. Italy, the Powers and the ‘Fourth War of Italian Liberation’ 1866–71
• 10. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Glossary
• Maps
• Index