The Unification Of Italy

1. The Unification Of Italy Chama Chraibi & NarjissBendidane

2. Political Priorities Of Piedmont- Sardania • After the nationalists’ failure in 1848-49, Italy presented a sorry picture. • Austria’s military was stronger than ever • Political reaction was restored I the states of southern and central Italy. • Constitution had been repressed. • The buffer state of Piedmont, in the northwest corner of Italy, was the only exception to this rule.

3. Cavour’s desire for domestic political stability • Aim: create a stable state prosperous to dominate Italy. • In some ways, stability was achieved by methods that wouldn’t have been approved by the English statesmen, he so much admired. • Mazzinian democrats were persecuted • Their press was suppressed, and parliament was overridden when it did not serve the purposes of the Prime Minister. • In 1857, when the elections returned an unexpected right-wing majority, Cavour seized upon a series of dubious technicalities to unseat a number of the successful candidates and so reduce the right wing. • In January 1855, Cavour held all three of the main posts in the administration: Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and the Finance Minister.

4. Cavour’s economic modernization • Cavour concluded a string of free-trade treaties. • France, Britain, and Belgium • Forging international links with the more advanced states of Western Europe, and of attracting into Piedmont the raw materials and the machinery necessary for its development. • Cavour floated large internal and foreign loans to pay off war indemnity owed to the Austrian and to finance the industrial project of the gov. • The level of such project as well as long-term effects of the policy, may be judged from the fact that the public debt of Piedmont rose, between 1847 and 1859, from 120 million lire to 725 million. • Piedmont in 1859 produced a number of impressive projects to advertise its status as the most advanced of Italian states (industrially speaking)

5. Victor Emmanuel II • The new king had inherited the legend that Charles Albert had created by his actions in 1848-49. • His views allowed later generation of Italian historians to create an even more compelling “official” view of the king. • In 1850, V.E was the saviour of P-S and of the Piedmontese constitution forms the victorious Austrians, and his subsequent actions made him the champion of Italian constitutional monarchy, as well as the father of his country. • British view him as a cautious liberal and Austrians as a cautious conservative due to his ambiguous political views. • V.E II was not very likely to be a nationalist or a liberalist in regards of his background • He was educated and trained to an autocracy, and his mother and wife were both members of the Austrian imperial family.

6. The D’Azeglio ministry in Piedmont, 1849-1852 • V.E’s first domestic actions were not exactly those of a liberal. • His first task was to ensure his control of the kingdom by means that included shelling of Genoa to win it back from the radicals who remained entrenched there. • Administration: 25 military men who were to hold ministerial office during his reign • Although by the end of 1849 the administration was in he hands of a group of moderate conservatives under the leadership of Massimo D’Azeglio.

7. Crimean War • Piedmontese Motives • Cavour’s most important contribution to the liberation of Italy was that he was able to place the “Italian question” firmly into the general context of European diplomacy. • It was the forum in which the 1815 settlement had been shaped, and the only forum that settlement could be revised. • It was not until the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854 that a real opportunity presented itself. • Piedmontesecontribution • Piedmont had concluded an agreement with the allies by which 18,000 Piedmontese troops would fight in the Crimea. • Piedmonts would be entitled a place in the congress at which peace would eventually be made. • Piedmont’s contribution to the war was limited. • Cavour travelled to Paris for the peace conference, 1856, still inexperienced. • He couldn’t obtain this from France, which had troops of its own in Rome, and who couldn’t contemplate renewed war so soon after the campaigns against Russia. • The British representative, Lord Clarendon, attacked Austrian excesses and Papal and Neapolitan misgovernment in harsher term than Cavour could have used. • The British were soon to make it clear that they had no intention of intervening actively in so controversial a continental matters. • In the context of 1856, Cavour had failed to achieve diplomatic initiative and had not created the conditions necessary for a military solution to the problem of the Austrian presence.

8. Piedmont and the nationalists Relations between Cavour and E.N were shaky after the Crimean war. • The latter had formed the National Society in 1857, which boasted a membership of some 8,000 and whose main figures were La Farina, Pallavicino and Manin, the hero of the former Venetian Republic. • Piedmont represented Italy’s best hope, they still had doubts about the sincerity of the state’s leadership • Manin wrote in 1855 that Italy must be made, that this is the first and most important question

9. Giuseppe Garibaldi • Giuseppe Garibaldi was responsible for the rapid progress of the Italian cause • His aims were very simple • He worked for a unified and a free stated (a republic) a constitutional monarchy if necessary • His fame and achievement rest upon his actions rather than his thoughts. • His actions fell halfway between Mazzini and Cavour. • Cavour achieved much, but had to dirty himself and his reputation of European politics to do it. • Mazzini kept the flame of nationalism burning at the time of greatest adversity, but in the end, achieved very little. • Garibaldi seemed to many to have avoided both of these traps by his dashing and naïve reliance on direct military action.

10. The Red Shirts • His tactical expertise and personal charisma were major factors in the success of the Sicilian adventure but the roots of this success were more complicated. • The Sicilian Revolt • This event owed nothing to Garibaldi or Cavour. • It was a group of Mazzinian republicans led by Crispi and Pilo. • They had refused to identify with the war of the Piedmontese monarchy in the previous year. • The support that the rising received in Palermo was due to a combination of national factors. • Excitement generated in 1859 + disappointment felt at the continued conservatism of the young King Francis II, newly succeeded to the throne.