Part 96

"The Revolution of 1830 [in France] made a natural impression in a country which had many evils to complain of and which had so lately been connected with France. The duke of Modena, Francis IV., sought to make use of the liberal movement to extend his rule over northern Italy. But at the last moment he was terrified by threats from Vienna, turned against his fellow-conspirators, and imprisoned them (February 3, 1831). The people, however, were so alienated by his treachery that he fled with his prisoners to seek safety in Austrian territory. A provisional government was formed, and Modena was declared a free state. Meanwhile the election of a new pope, Gregory XVI., gave occasion for a rising in the papal states. Bologna took the lead in throwing off its allegiance to Rome, and in a few weeks its example was followed by the whole of Romagna, Umbria, and the Marches. The two sons of Louis Bonaparte, the late king of Holland, hastened to join the insurgents, but the elder died at Forli (17 March), and thus an eventful career was opened to the younger brother, the future Napoleon III. Parma revolted against Maria Louisa, who followed the example of the duke of Modena and fled to Austria. The success of the movement, however, was very short-lived. Austrian troops marched to the assistance of the papacy, the rebellion was put down by force, and the exiled rulers were restored. Louis Philippe, on whom the insurgents had relied, had no sympathy with a movement in which members of the Bonaparte family were engaged. But a temporary revival of the insurrection brought the Austrians back to Romagna, and a great outcry was raised in France against the king. {1860} To satisfy public opinion, Louis Philippe sent a French force to seize Ancona (February 22, 1832), but it was a very harmless demonstration, and had been explained beforehand to the papal government. In Naples and Sardinia no disturbances took place. Ferdinand II. succeeded his father Francis I. on the Neapolitan throne in 1830, and satisfied the people by introducing a more moderate system of government. Charles Albert became king of Sardinia on the death of Charles Felix (27 April, 1831), and found himself in a difficult position between Austria, which had good reason to mistrust him, and the liberal party, which he had betrayed."

_R. Lodge, History of Modern Europe, chapter 25._

ALSO IN: _L. G. Farini, The Roman State, 1815-1850, volume 1, chapters 3-5._

ITALY: A. D. 1831-1848. The Mission of Mazzini, the Revolutionist. Young Italy.

"The Revolution of 1830, ineffectual as it seemed to its promoters, was yet most significant. It failed in Italy and Poland, in Spain and Portugal; it created a mongrel monarchy, neither Absolute nor Constitutional, in France; only in Belgium did it attain its immediate purpose. Nevertheless, if we look beneath the surface, we see that it was one of those epoch-marking events of which we can say, 'Things cannot be again what until just now they were.' … The late risings in the Duchies and Legations had brought no comfort to the conspirators, but had taught them, on the contrary, how ineffectual, how hopeless was the method of the secret societies. After more than fifteen years they had not gained an inch; they had only learned that their rulers would concede nothing, and that Austria, their great adversary, had staked her existence on maintaining thraldom in Italy. Innumerable small outbursts and three revolutions had ended in the death of hundreds and in the imprisonment or proscription of thousands of victims. … Just when conspiracy, through repeated failures, was thus discredited, there arose a leader so strong and unselfish, so magnetic and patient and zealous, that by him, if by anyone, conspiracy might be guided to victory. This leader, the Great Conspirator, was Joseph Mazzini, one of the half dozen supreme influences in European politics during the nineteenth century, whose career will interest posterity as long as it is concerned at all in our epoch of transition. For just as Metternich was the High Priest of the Old Regime, so Mazzini was the Prophet of a Social Order, more just, more free, more spiritual than any the world has known. He was an Idealist who would hold no parley with temporizers, an enthusiast whom half-concessions could not beguile: and so he came to be decried as a fanatic or a visionary. … Mazzini joined the Carbonari, not without suspecting that, under their complex symbolism and hierarchical mysteries they concealed a fatal lack of harmony, decision, and faith. … As he became better acquainted with Carbonarism, his conviction grew stronger that no permanent good could be achieved by it. … The open propaganda of his Republican and Unitarian doctrines was of course impossible; it must be carried on by a secret organization. But he was disgusted with the existing secret societies: they lacked harmony, they lacked faith, they had no distinct purpose; their Masonic mummeries were childish and farcical. … Therefore, Mazzini would have none of them; he would organize a new secret society, and call it 'Young Italy,' whose principles should be plainly understood by every one of its members. It was to be composed of men under forty, in order to secure the most energetic and disinterested members, and to avoid the influence of older men, who, trained by the past generation, were not in touch with the aspirations and needs of the new. It was to awaken the People, the bone and sinew of the nation; whereas the earlier sects had relied too much on the upper and middle classes, whose traditions and interests were either too aristocratic or too commercial. Roman Catholicism had ceased to be spiritual; it no longer purified and uplifted the hearts of the Italians. … Young Italy aimed, therefore, to substitute for the mediæval dogmas and patent idolatries of Rome a religion based on Reason, and so simple as to be within the comprehension of the humblest peasant. … The doctrines of the new sect spread, but since secret societies give the census-taker no account of their membership, we cannot cite figures to illustrate the growth of Young Italy. Contrary to Mazzini's expectations, it was recruited, not so much from the People, as from the Middle Class, the professional men, and the tradesmen." In 1831 Mazzini was forced into exile, at Marseilles, from which city he planned an invasion of Savoy. The project was discovered, and the Sardinian government revenged itself cruelly upon the patriots within its reach. "In a few weeks, eleven alleged conspirators had been executed, many more had been sentenced to the galleys, and others, who had escaped; were condemned in contumacy. Among the men who fled into exile at this time were … Vincent Gioberti and Joseph Garibaldi. … To an enthusiast less determined than Mazzini, this calamity would have been a check; to him, however, it was a spur. Instead of abandoning the expedition against Savoy, he worked with might and main to hurry it on. … One column, in which were fifty Italians and twice as many Poles, … was to enter Savoy by way of Annemasse. A second column had orders to push on from Nyon; a third, starting from Lyons, was to march towards Chambéry. Mazzini, with a musket on his shoulder, accompanied the first party. To his surprise, the peasants showed no enthusiasm when the tricolor flag was unfurled and the invaders shouted 'God and People! Liberty and the Republic!' before them. At length some carabineers and a platoon of troops appeared. A few shots were fired. Mazzini fainted; his comrades dispersed across the Swiss border, taking him with them. … His enemies attributed his fainting to cowardice; he himself explained it as the result of many nights of sleeplessness, of great fatigue, fever and cold. … To all but the few concerned in it, this first venture of Young Italy seemed a farce, the disproportion between its aim and its achievement was so enormous, and Mazzini's personal collapse was so ignominious. Nevertheless, Italian conspiracy had now and henceforth that head for lack of which it had so long floundered amid vague and contradictory purposes. The young Idealist had been beaten in his first encounter with obdurate Reality, but he was not discouraged. … Now began in earnest that 'apostolate' of his, which he laid down only at his death. {1861} Young Italy was established beyond the chance of being destroyed by an abortive expedition; Young Poland, Young Hungary, Young Europe itself, sprang up after the Mazzinian pattern; the Liberals and revolutionists of the Continent felt that their cause was international, and in their affliction they fraternized. No one could draw so fair and reasonable a Utopia for them as Mazzini drew; no one could so fire them with a sense of duty, with hope, with energy. He became the mainspring of the whole machine—truly an infernal machine to the autocrats—of European conspiracy. The redemption of Italy was always his nearest aim, but his generous principle reached out over other nations, for in the world that he prophesied every people must be free. Proscribed in Piedmont, expelled from Switzerland, denied lodging in France, he took refuge in London, there to direct, amid poverty and heartache, the whole vast scheme of plots. His bread he earned by writing critical and literary essays for the English reviews,—he quickly mastered the English language so as to use it with remarkable vigor,—and all his leisure he devoted to the preparation of political tracts, and to correspondence with numberless confederates. … He was the consulting physician for all the revolutionary practitioners of Europe. Those who were not his partisans disparaged his influence, asserting that he was only a man of words; but the best proof of his power lies in the anxiety he caused monarchs and cabinets, and in the precautions they took to guard against him. … Mazzini and Metternich! For nearly twenty years they were the antipodes of European politics. One in his London garret, poor, despised, yet indomitable and sleepless, sending his influence like an electric current through all barriers to revivify the heart of Italy and of Liberal Europe; the other in his Vienna palace, haughty, famous, equally alert and cunning, … shedding over Italy and over Europe his upas-doctrines of torpor and decay!"

_W. R. Thayer, The Dawn of Italian Independence, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _W. L. Garrison, Joseph Mazzini, chapters 2-5._

_J. Mazzini, Collected Works, volume 1._

ITALY: A. D. 1848. Expulsion of Jesuits.

See JESUITS: A. D. 1769-1871.

ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849. Insurrection and revolution throughout the peninsula. French occupation of Rome. Triumph of King "Bomba" in Naples and Sicily. Disastrous war of Sardinia with Austria. Lombardy and Venice enslaved anew.

"The revolution of 1831, which affected the States of the Church, Modena, and Parma, had been suppressed, like the still earlier rebellions in Naples and Piedmont, by Austrian intervention. … Hence, all the hatred of the Italians was directed against foreign rule, as the only obstacle to the freedom and unity of the peninsula. … The secret societies, and the exiles in communication with them—especially Joseph Mazzini, who issued his commands from London—took care that the national spirit should not be buried beneath material interests, but should remain ever wakeful. Singularly, the first encouragement came from" Rome. "Pope Gregory XVI., … had died June 1st, 1846, and been succeeded by the fifty-four-year-old Cardinal Count Mastai Ferretti, who took the name of Pius IX. If the pious world which visited him was charmed by the amiability and clemency of its new head, the cardinals were dismayed at the reforms which this new head would fain introduce in the States of the Church and in all Italy. He published an amnesty for all political offences; permitted the exiles to return with impunity; allowed the Press freer scope; threw open the highest civil offices to laymen; summoned from the notables of the provinces a council of state, which was to propose reforms; bestowed a liberal municipal constitution on the city of Rome; and endeavored to bring about an Italian confederation. … After the French revolution of 1848 he granted a constitution. There was a first chamber, to be named by the Pope, and a second chamber, to be elected by the people, while the irresponsible college of cardinals formed a sort of privy council. A new era appeared to be dawning. The old-world capital, Rome, once the mistress of the nations, still the mistress of all Roman Catholic hearts, was to become the central point of Italy. … But when the flames of war broke out in the north [see below], and the fate of Italy was about to be decided between Sardinia and Austria on the old battle fields of Lombardy, the Romans demanded from the Pope a declaration of war against Austria, and the despatch of Roman troops to join Charles Albert's army. Pius rejected their demands as unsuited to his papal office, and so broke with the men of the extreme party. … In this time of agitation Pius thought that in Count Pellegrino Rossi, of Carrara, … he had found the right man to carry out a policy of moderate liberalism, and on the 17th of September, 1848, he set him at the head of a new ministry. The anarchists … could not forgive Rossi for grasping the reins with a firm hand." On the 15th of November, as he alighted from his carriage at the door of the Chambers, he was stabbed in the neck by an assassin, and died on the spot. He was about, when murdered, to open the Chambers with a speech, in which he intended "to promise abolition of the rule of the cardinals and introduction of a lay government, and to insist upon Italy's independence and unity. … The next day an armed crowd appeared before the Quirinal and attacked the guard, which consisted of Swiss mercenaries, some of the bullets flying into the Pope's antechamber. He had to accept a radical ministry and dismiss the Swiss troops. … Pius fled in disguise from Rome to Gaeta, November 24th, and sought shelter with the King of Naples. Mazzini and his party had free scope. A constitutional convention was summoned, which declared the temporal power of the Pope abolished (February 5th, 1849), and Rome a republic. To them attached itself Tuscany. Grand-duke Leopold II. had granted a constitution, February 17th, 1848, but nevertheless the republican-minded ministry of Guerrazzi compelled him to join the Pope at Gaeta, February 21st, 1849. The republic was then proclaimed in Tuscany and union with Rome resolved upon." But Louis Napoleon, President of the French republic, intervened. "Marshal Oudinot was despatched with 8,000 men. He landed in Civita Vecchia, April 26th, 1849, and appeared before the walls of Rome on the 30th, expecting to take the city without any trouble. But … after a fight of several hours, he had to retreat to Civita Vecchia with a loss of 700 men. {1862} A few days later the Neapolitan army, which was to attack the rebels from the south, was defeated at Velletri; and the Spanish troops, the third in the league against the red republic, prudently avoided a battle. But Oudinot received considerable re-enforcements, and on June 3d he advanced against Rome for the second time, with 35,000 men, while the force in the city consisted of about 19,000, mostly volunteers and national guards. In spite of the bravery of Garibaldi and the volunteers, into whom he breathed his spirit, Rome had to capitulate, after a long and bloody struggle, owing to the superiority of the French artillery. On the 4th of July Oudinot entered the silent capital. Garibaldi, Mazzini, and their followers fled. … Pius, for whose nerves the Roman atmosphere was still too strong, did not return until the 4th of April, 1850. His ardor for reform was cooled. … In the Legations they had to protect themselves by Austrian bayonets, and in Rome and Civita Vecchia by French. This lasted in the Legations until 1859, and in Rome and Civita Vecchia until 1866 and 1870. Simultaneously with Rome the south of Italy had entered into the movement so characteristic of the year 1848. The scenes of 1820 and 1821 were repeated." The Sicilians again demanded independence; expelled the Neapolitan garrison from Palermo; refused to accept a constitution proffered by King Ferdinand II., which created a united parliament for Naples and Sicily; voted in a Sicilian parliament the perpetual exclusion of the Bourbon dynasty from the throne, and offered the crown of Sicily to a son of the king of Sardinia, who declined the gift. In Naples, Ferdinand yielded at first to the storm, and sent, under compulsion, a force of 13,000 Neapolitan troops, commanded by the old revolutionist, General Pepé, to join the Sardinians against Austria. This was in April, 1848. A month later he crushed the revolution with his Swiss mercenaries, recalled his army from northern Italy, and was master, again, in his capital and his peninsular kingdom. The following summer he landed 8,000 troops in Sicily; his army bombarded and stormed Messina in September; defeated the insurgents at the foot of Mount Etna; took Catania by storm in April, 1849, and entered Palermo, after a short bombardment, on the 17th of May, having gained for its master the nickname of "King Bomba." "He ordered a general disarmament, and established an oppressive military rule over the whole island; and there was no more talk of parliament and constitution. All these struggles in central and southern Italy stood in close connection with the events of 1848 and 1849 in upper Italy. … In the north the struggle was to shake off the Austrian yoke. … During the month of January, 1848, there was constant friction between the citizens and the military in Milan and the university cities of Pavia and Padua. … March 18th, Milan rose. All classes took part in the fight; and the eighty-two-year-old field-marshal Count Joseph Radetzky … was obliged, after a street fight of two days, to draw his troops out of the city, call up as quickly as possible the garrisons of the neighboring cities, and take up his position in the famous Quadrilateral, between Peschiera, Verona, Legnano, and Mantua. March 22d, Venice, where Count Zichy commanded, was lost for the Austrians," who yielded without resistance, releasing their political prisoners, one of whom, the celebrated Daniel Manin, a Venetian lawyer, took his place at the head of a provisional government. "Other cities followed the lead of Venice. The little duchies of Modena and Parma could hold out no longer; Dukes Francis and Charles fled to Austria, and provisional governments sprung up behind them. Like Naples, the duchies and Tuscany also sent their troops across the Po to help the Sardinians in the decisive struggle. The hopes of all Italy were centred on Sardinia and its king. … Charles Albert, called to the aid of Lombardy, entered Milan to win for himself the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom and the hegemony of Italy. He presented himself as the liberator of the peninsula, but it was not a part for which he was qualified by his antecedents. … He was a brave soldier, but a poor captain. … His opponent, Radetzky, was old, but his spirit was still young and fresh. … Radetzky received re-enforcements from Austria, and on the 6th of May repelled the attack of the Sardinian king south-west of Verona [at Santa Lucia]. May 29th, he carried the intrenchments at Cartatone; but as the Sardinians were victorious at Goito and took Peschiera, while Garibaldi with his Alpine rangers threatened the Austrian rear, he had to desist from further advances, and limit his operations to the recapture of Vicenza and the other cities of the Venetian main-land. In the mean time the Austrian court, chiefly at the instigation of the British embassy, had opened negotiations with the Lombards, and offered them their independence on condition of their assuming a considerable share of the public debt, and concluding a favorable commercial treaty with Austria. But, as the Lombards felt sure of acquiring their freedom more cheaply, they did not accept the proposition. Radetzky was now in a position to assume an active offensive. He won a brilliant victory at Custozza, July 25th. The Sardinians attempted to make a stand at Goito and again at Volta, but were driven back, and Radetzky advanced on Milan. Charles Albert had to evacuate the city," and on the 9th of August he concluded an armistice, withdrawing his troops from Lombardy and the duchies. But in the following March (1849) he was persuaded to renew the war, and he placed his army under the command of the Polish general Chrzanowski. It was the intention of the Sardinians to advance again into Lombardy, but they had no opportunity. "Radetzky crossed the Ticino, and in a four days' campaign on Sardinian soil defeated the foe so completely—March 21st at Mortara, and March 23d at Novara—that there could be no more thought of a renewal of the struggle. … Charles Albert, who had vainly sought death upon the battle-field, was weary of his throne and his life. In the night of March 23d, at Novara, he laid down the crown and declared his eldest son king of Sardinia, under the title of Victor Emmanuel II. He hoped that the latter would obtain a more favorable peace from the Austrians. … Then, saying farewell to his wife by letter, attended by but two servants, he travelled through France and Spain to Portugal. He died at Oporto, July 26th, 1849, of repeated strokes of apoplexy." After long negotiations, the new king concluded a treaty of peace with Austria on the 6th of August. "Sardinia retained its boundaries intact, and paid 75,000,000 lire as indemnity. The false report of a Sardinian victory at Novara had caused the population of Brescia to fall upon the Austrian garrison and drive them into the citadel. {1863} General Haynau hastened thither with 4,000 men well provided with artillery. The city was bombarded, and on the 1st of April it was reoccupied, after a fearful street fight, in which even women took part; but Haynau stained his name by inhuman cruelties, especially toward the gentler sex. Venice was not able to hold out much longer. It had at first attached itself to Sardinia, but after the defeat of the Sardinians the republic was proclaimed. Without the city, in Haynau's camp, swamp fever raged; within, hunger and cholera. On the news of the capitulation of Hungary, August 22d, it surrendered, and the heads of the revolution, Manin and Pepe, went into exile. All Italy was again brought under its old masters."

_W. Müller, Political History of Recent Times, section 16._