ITALY UNIFICATION

Risorgimento, (“Rising Again”), 19th-century movement for Italian unification that culminated in the establishment of
the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. The Risorgimento was an ideological and literary movement that helped to arouse the
national consciousness of the Italian people, and it led to a series of political events that freed the Italian states from
foreign domination and united them politically. The main impetus to the Risorgimento came from reforms introduced
by the French when they dominated Italy during the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (1796–
1815). A number of Italian states were briefly consolidated, first as republics and then as satellite states of the French
empire, and, even more importantly, the Italian middle class grew in numbers and was allowed to participate in
government.

In 1796, the re-organisation of the administration and political organisation of Italy as stated earlier by Napoleon was
seen by many as an introduction of a modern state. The opportunity to dismantle the privileges of the aristocrats and
the old order, and the prospects of opportunities based on merit and a modern state fuelled the imagination of the
people. The lack of unification was presented to be the root of all problems in the region. The social difficulty of the
south was portrayed due to the result of Bourbon misrule. Later developments showed that defragmentation
ultimately weakened the nationalist spirit in Italy. After Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, the Italian states were restored to
their former rulers. Under the domination of Austria, these states took on a conservative character.

The restrictions on political opposition led to the formation of secret societies like F. Buonarroti’s ‘Sublime Perfect
Masters’ which aimed at creating a republic based on egalitarian ideas through the dictatorship of revolutionary elite.
In the south, these revolutionary sects were loosely organised and the Carboneria was an important secret
organisation which focused on the overthrow of the rule of Ferdinand I after 1815. Even though the various groups of
the Carboneria had different goals, the ultimate objective was to create a secular, constitutionally based regime.
These political developments left Italy in a fragmented state. The Habsburg state had taken over Lombardy, Venice
and other duchies like Tuscany, Parma through dynastic alliances. Piedmont was the only state which was politically
independent even as Central and Southern Italy were in chaos as the papacy and Bourbons looked to take back
control. In the 1840’s Piedmont showed very little characteristics of leadership which it would ultimately do for the
formation of a new Italian state.

The first asserted republican and national group was Young Italy, founded by Giuseppe Mazzini in 1831. This society,
which represented the democratic aspect of the Risorgimento, hoped to educate the Italian people to a sense of
their nationhood and to encourage the masses to rise against the existing reactionary regimes. G. Mazzini
propagated the idea of a unitary Italian state to the public. He believed that real change in politics would happen only
through the support of the masses and thus, he adopted a broad based revolutionary strategy which had a lot to do
with elaborate propaganda exercise. He played an important hand to the formation of a new movement, La giovine
Italia (Young Italy) which focused on educating people politically and organising popular insurrections for an Italian
state. Italian activists were encouraged to think in terms of a national political structure rather than the traditional,
regional and city based loyalty. Some of the insurrections were successful in Turin and Naples in 1820-21 even as
many of them failed to draw attention of the masses.

Other groups, such as the Neo-Guelfs, envisioned an Italian confederation headed by the pope; still others favoured
unification under the house of Savoy, monarchs of the liberal northern Italian state of Piedmont-Sardinia.
Monarchists-Savoyards and moderate nationalists who wanted union of Italian states under independent and French
backed Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia led by King Charles Albert to usher in Italy’s cultural-linguistic Risorgimento
(Resurgence) from Northern Tuscan region which was dominant in Renaissance era too and had prosperous proto-
industrialization, considered spiritual successor to process of Italian Rinascimento (Renaissance) vide LUCY RIALL;
mainly Savoyard Piedmontese monarchists dominated Italian nationalism post-1848 with four figures declared
Fathers of the Fatherland upon Italian unification in 1871 viz. Mazzini, Cavour, Garibaldi and King Victor Emmanuel II,
all worked for Piedmont. After the failure of liberal and republican revolutions in 1848, leadership passed to
Piedmont.

Cavour played an important role in the process of Italian Unification. a) Consolidation of Piedmont-Sardinia-Prime
Minister Cavour helped new King Victor Emmanuel II retain Albertine republican constitution despite Austrian
opposition, helped shift Piedmont to more favourable international position with risks against Austria backed by
support of France, shifted issue of nationalism from popular uprising to extra burden on Kingdom of Piedmont’s own
treasury and army at cost of economic crisis despite Cavour’s reforms to make Piedmont-Sardinia more
constitutionally and economically capable of being nucleus of Italian unification by 1860s, so Cavour truly brain
behind Italian Unification vide DAVID THOMSON. b) Use of Crimean War for International Support-Cavour’s greatest
masterstroke was internationalization of Italian issue through alliance with Napoleon III in France, assistance to
Anglo-French Great Powers against Russia in Crimean War and radical isolation of Austria through literary
propaganda, pealed with Pact of Plombieres (1858) to assure French support in war against Austria in return for
French receiving territories of Nice and Savoy by 1860, erstwhile Provence and Burgundy territories where the royal
family hailed from Second Italian War of Independence (1859)-In 1859, Austria declared war against Franco-
Piedmont alliance in Austro-Sardinian War, with major Austrian defeat at Battle of Solferino (1859) allowing
Piedmont to annex Lombardy and Milan, with Central Italian client states of Austria also rallied by masses to join
Piedmont, but Napoleon III’s betrayal through alliance with Austria at Treaty of Villafranca (1859) to oppose growing
power of united Italy forced King Victor to end beneficial war through settlement with Austrians in Treaty of Zurich
(1859). d) Reforms and Real politico- Administrative Reforms- initiated major constitutional and economic reforms to
boost aristocratic, liberal and capitalist currents of Italian nationalism and allow enhancement of Piedmont-Sardinia
as strong unifying power like Prussia. Diplomatic Realpolitik-Cavour’s foreign policy was pragmatic, marked by
intervention even in distant conflicts like Crimean War to gain French support to isolate rival Austria, though
backfired due to imperialist designs of Emperor Napoleon III. Unique Nation-Building-Unlike Bismarck’s reactionary
autocratic government, Cavour ensured strong parliamentary governance to ensure strong constitutional monarchy
for Italy to cajole liberal groups; even supported republican militarists like Garibaldi to bring majority of Italy except
Venice and Rome under Piedmontese rule as Kingdom of Italy by 1861.

With start of mass popular upsurge in Kingdom of Two Sicilies in Southern Italy against reactionary Bourbon policies,
local rebels appealed to Red Shirts revolutionaries of republican Garibaldi, battle-hardened from guerilla warfare in
Latin America, to lead expedition of thousand men in voluntary army across Peninsula but stopped before Rome to
avoid war with Papal States and France, gained many supporters due to growing revolutionary cult assisted by
international press to create powerful new Italian identity through conquest vide LUCY RIALL; after plebiscite,
Garibaldi handed over conquests of over entire Mezzogiorno (Southern Italy) region to Piedmont Kingdom of Victor
Emmanuel for legitimacy, with Victor declared ruler of new Kingdom of Italy shaped by Cavour’s policies and
Garibaldi’s campaigns, with all areas except Austrian Venice and Papal Rome guarded by French leading to burning
Roman Question eased by King Victor’s strategic September Convention (1864) with Napoleon III to ensure
withdrawal of French troops from region of Lazio-Rome. b) Third Italian War of Independence (1866)-King Victor
allied with Bismarck of unified Germany for common aim of fighting Austria in the Austro-Prussian War (1866),
allowed Italy to win province of Venice from French allies through Treaty of Vienna (1866) despite poor military
performance except by some units like Garibaldi’s Hunters of the Alps due to Austrian debacle against advanced
Prussians at Battle of Sadowa (1866) that unsettled European balance of power. c) The Italian Conquest of Rome
(1870)-King Victor’s isolation from France and growing alliance with Bismarck led to profitable final French
withdrawal of troops for Franco-Prussian War that allowed Garibaldi’s troops to finally conquer Rome; with final
collapse of Second French Empire with Catholic Napoleon III’s defeat at Battle of Sedan (1870) that ended old
European balance of power, Pope Pius IX forced to abandon all temporal offices and limited to domain of Vatican
City. d) The Final Transfer of Power (1871)-Sardinian capital had been shifted from Turin to Florence in 1860s and
then to Rome in 1871 to mark final formation of great Kingdom of Italy under King Victor Emmanuel II, considered
final end of thousand-year old temporal Papacy that had survived through Napoleon III’s clergy-backed Second
French Empire vide DEREK BEALES.

According to John Merriman, “Italian unification came, not because of the utopian nationalism of Giuseppe
Mazzini nor because of the frenzied dashes of Giuseppe Garibaldi and his followers into the south, but rather largely
as a result of the expansion of PiedmontSardinia”. Diplomatic ties, marital alliances, public support demonstrated
through plebiscite and military insurrection together helped in expanding Piedmont and creating what we call today
Italy.