Italy

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The Revolutions of 1848 and 1849

Revolutions swept through Italy and then Europe early in 1848. They had not been planned, unlike the revolutions of 1820 and 1830, although economic distress and popular unrest meant that they were widely expected. A revolt in Palermo, Sicily, in January 1848 marked the start. After the king of Naples, Ferdinand II, agreed to grant a constitution, other Italian rulers followed suit: the pope, the grand duke of Tuscany, and finally (and most reluctantly) Charles Albert of Piedmont. Vienna, the capital of Austria, became the site of revolution in March, setting off uprisings in Lombardy. After five days of bloody street fighting, Austrian forces withdrew from Milan. The Venetians also revolted against Austria and established a republic.

Conservatives initially hoped to stem the threat of revolution by making minimal political concessions. In Piedmont Camillo Cavour had advised the king, Charles Albert, that a constitution was the only means to avoid revolution. However, the king and his advisers understood that hostility to Austria and nationalist enthusiasm offered opportunities to realize their expansionist ambitions. War against Austria also offered a means of preserving unity among dangerously divided revolutionaries. In March 1848 Charles Albert, leading a Piedmontese army, invaded Lombardy and appealed to the Italians to rally to his cause.

Charles Albert’s aim was to rally Italian opponents of Austrian rule under his leadership, but the outcome was very different. In April 1848 Pius IX denounced the war against Austria, and in July the Austrians defeated the Piedmontese army at the Battle of Custozza. The initiative now swung to the radicals, who gained control in Tuscany and then in Rome, after Pius IX and his cardinals fled from the city in December. In January 1849 Mazzini and revolutionary leader Giuseppi Garibaldi took office in a republican government established in Rome.

By spring 1849 the tide had turned. In the south King Ferdinand II of Naples already had reversed himself and staged a coup against the constitutional government in May 1848. In the spring of 1849 his army suppressed revolts on the mainland and regained control of Sicily by bombarding its main cities. This action earned Ferdinand the title of King Bomba. In northern Italy, Austrian armies led by Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky crushed the revolutions in the Battle of Custoza. Charles Albert abdicated in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel II, in April, after defeat by the Austrians in the Battle of Novara. Austrian troops restored the grand duke of Tuscany and began to besiege Venice. Meanwhile, the pope had appealed for help from Spain, Naples, and France, and they sent armies to destroy the republican government in Rome. Giuseppe Garibaldi directed the defense of Rome against overwhelming odds. In July, French troops entered the city to restore the papal government. But Garibaldi conducted a retreat that enabled most of the republic’s defenders to survive.

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Garibaldi’s defense of the Roman Republic turned defeat into a moral victory, making him the most renowned figure among the Italian nationalists. Born in Nice and a sailor by profession, Garibaldi had initially followed Mazzini. His reputation before 1848 rested chiefly on the experience he had gained fighting for the Liberals in Uruguay. In 1848 his guerrilla tactics had proved effective against Austrian troops, and his defense of the Roman Republic enhanced his military prestige. After 1849 Garibaldi came to admire Victor Emanuel, which caused many nationalists to drop their republican sympathies and rally to the Piedmontese monarchy.

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The Piedmontese Decade

Following the revolutions in 1848 and 1849, constitutional government in Italy survived only in Piedmont. Liberals from all over Italy flocked to Turin, capital of Piedmont, where the dominant figure in the new constitutional government was Count Camillo Benso di Cavour. Cavour was a skilled politician and diplomat who believed that progress and democracy, though not necessarily welcome, were unavoidable. His relations with Victor Emanuel were always tense. However, as prime minister he invested in roads, canals, and railways, attracting foreign capital and introducing measures that expanded Piedmont’s trade.

Despite opposition from conservative forces, Cavour began to take a closer interest in the national question. In 1855 Piedmont entered the Crimean War on the side of France and Britain, providing an opportunity for the kingdom later to seek French support. In 1858 Cavour met secretly with French emperor Napoleon III, who agreed to support Piedmont in the case of an Austrian attack. The next year Cavour provoked the Austrians into issuing a declaration of war, which triggered French intervention.

The Franco-Italian coalition won the battles of Magenta and Solferino in 1859, but the battles proved costly. Fearing the consequences of a long war, Napoleon III concluded a preliminary agreement with the Austrians in July 1859 without consulting the Italians. Victor Emanuel accepted the Treaty of Zürich by which Austria ceded most of Lombardy to France, which in turn transferred two Lombard cities to Piedmont. In the meantime Cavour’s allies in other northern Italian states had been busy staging revolutions to provide a pretext for plebiscites that would approve annexation to Piedmont. In 1860 the people of Romagna and the duchies of Parma and Modena voted for union with Piedmont. France, in return for its collaboration, obtained the regions of Nice and Savoy, although Napoleon III felt that he had been cheated and that France deserved greater reward. However, the British government warned France that any French territorial expansion in Italy would lead to war.

In April 1860 Palermo in Sicily rose against Francis II, king of the Two Sicilies. In May, Garibaldi, with Cavour’s secret support, led an expedition of 1,000 men from Genoa to aid the Sicilian revolt. Garibaldi’s landing triggered a general uprising, and the Bourbon military commanders soon abandoned Sicily. In August, Garibaldi attacked the Italian mainland. Cavour decided to intervene, fearing that control of the south would encourage Garibaldi to attack Rome and almost certainly lead to war with France, the protector of the pope. On the pretext of defending the pope, Cavour sent a Piedmontese army led by Victor Emanuel through the Papal States to cut off Garibaldi’s advance. Garibaldi loyally surrendered his command to Victor Emanuel. Trapped between Garibaldi’s forces and the Piedmontese army, Francis II requested an armistice.

The Bourbon dynasty had collapsed, and the largest of the Italian states, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, no longer existed. Hurriedly organized elections legitimized the annexation of the southern provinces and Sicily to the kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont). Similar elections in the former papal regions of Marche and Umbria also favored union with Sardinia. The pope was left with Rome and its immediate environs.

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The Kingdom of Italy

On March 17, 1861, the kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, with Victor Emmanuel II as its constitutional king and Cavour as prime minister. Italy, however, was not complete; the pope continued to govern in Rome and Venice remained under Austrian control. Cavour, who planned for their peaceful inclusion, died in June. The Italian government wished to move cautiously because the European powers, especially France, were prepared to guarantee the pope’s sovereignty over Rome. Garibaldi and other nationalists were impatient, and Garibaldi went to Sicily in 1862 to relaunch a march on Rome. Fearing French intervention, the Italian government denounced Garibaldi. After Garibaldi landed in Calabria, the troops of Victor Emmanuel blocked his advance. While trying to break through, Garibaldi was seriously wounded and compelled to surrender in August 1862.

In 1866 Italy became the ally of Prussia in the Seven Weeks’ War against Austria. Following the Prussian victory, Italy acquired Venice. Rome still remained elusive. In 1867 Garibaldi and his followers attempted another attack, but this was repulsed with very heavy casualties by French and papal troops at Mentana. Italian troops were able to enter Rome only after the Prussians defeated Napoleon III at the Battle of Sedan in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War. Pope Pius IX abandoned the city and crossed the Tiber River to the Vatican, where he remained a self-styled prisoner. In July 1871 Rome became the capital of a united Italy. In response Pius IX excommunicated Victor Emanuel, denounced the new state as the work of the devil, and instructed Catholics not to hold office or participate in politics.

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The New Italy

The new Italian kingdom was far removed from the aspirations of the nationalists. It was a conservative constitutional monarchy ruled by a dynasty that was identified above all with Piedmont. Less than 2 percent of the population had the right to vote. Moreover, resistance in the south and in Sicily to occupation and rule by Piedmont challenged the integrity of the new state. The government attempted to hide the scale of the resistance by referring to it as brigandage (banditry), but much of the south and Sicily remained under military law until 1864, and more men died in the operations against the “brigands” than in the wars of independence. To add to the sense of unease, Italy suffered two humiliating defeats by the Austrians in 1866 during the Seven Weeks’ War. The wars against Austria and the wars of unification also left the new state with enormous debts. During its first two decades the new government imposed severe financial austerity and heavy taxes. The poorest Italians bore the burden of the financial difficulties, which caused frequent and often violent protests.

Following the principles of Cavour, Italy adopted free trade (trade unrestricted by tariffs). This policy encouraged the development of agricultural exports but seriously damaged the development of textile manufacturing and other industries in the north. In the south free trade destroyed all the industries that had developed earlier in the century. Italy thus became especially vulnerable to a European agricultural crisis caused by the arrival of cheap North American grain and South American beef in the 1870s and 1880s. The collapse in farm prices devastated small farms throughout Europe, and in Italy the scale of the damage was immense. The first major waves of Italian immigration to North and South America began at this time.

Italy responded to the crisis by imposing tariffs designed to protect agriculture and industry. From the early 1880s the government also intervened to develop industries such as steel making, shipbuilding, and railroads that were deemed to be of strategic importance. But Italy remained hampered by its lack of natural resources: It had no coal and few mineral ores. The situation began to change with the development of hydroelectric power at the end of the 1800s. Between 1896 and World War I (1914-1918) the Italian economy grew faster than any other in Europe. An industrial triangle formed by Milan, Turin, and Genoa emerged in the north. Textiles remained the most important product, but the chemical, hydroelectric, and machine industries expanded rapidly.

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Politics and Society

Followers of Cavour dominated Italian politics from 1860 to the mid-1870s, primarily representing the north. In 1874 a new government took power that relied on the support of propertied classes in the south. Political unrest in those years resulted mainly from the poverty and the political exclusion of the masses. Industrial and agricultural workers formed powerful and militant unions, which were banned by law, leading to frequent clashes with the authorities. Anarchism received strong support in the 1870s, and in 1892 the Italian Socialist Party was founded at Genoa. It grew steadily for the rest of the century.

Extreme social and political tension in the 1890s nearly ended parliamentary government in Italy. In response to strikes by peasant farmers and agricultural workers in Sicily, Prime Minister Francesco Crispi decreed a state of emergency in 1894, and placed Sicily (and Lunigiana on the mainland) under military law. In 1898 Crispi’s successor ordered a military occupation of Milan to break a strike. The crisis reached its peak in 1900 with the assassination of King Humbert I, who had succeeded his father, Victor Emmanuel II, in 1878.

A new government headed by Giovanni Giolitti and Giuseppe Zanardelli adopted more conciliatory tactics and attempted to address popular grievances through social welfare and reform measures. Giolitti remained the dominant figure in Italian politics until World War I, during which time Italy experienced political, social, and economic modernization. During his term in office a number of reforms were introduced. The right of workers to strike for higher wages was recognized; changes in electoral law greatly increased male suffrage; Roman Catholics were drawn into Italy’s political life; and the first major legislation on behalf of the economically depressed south was passed. During the Giolitti era, Italy’s rate of industrial growth was 87 percent, and workers’ wages grew by more than 25 percent despite a shortened workday and the introduction of a guaranteed day of rest.

A downturn in the world economy after 1907 caused heavy unemployment in Italy and brought new waves of labor and political militancy. The moderates who had gained control of the Socialist Party at the turn of the century were ousted by more radical leaders. At the same time a new brand of nationalist politician began to challenge both the government and leftist leaders. The victory of the extremists in the Socialist Party encouraged Giolitti to end the government’s conflict with the papacy, which also wished to combat the growing influence of the socialists. In 1911 Giolitti introduced manhood suffrage, which gave the vote to the mainly Catholic peasantry. At the same time the church instructed Catholics to vote for the government slate. But the government also looked to colonial ventures to appease domestic unrest.