So, for almost all of history Italy was not
a country, or at least not a single one. Through to the 19th century the Italian peninsula
was divided into a diverse plethora of states, each with their own cultures, forms
of government, and to an extent, even languages. Some built trade empires
that extended across the Mediterranean, while others were dominated by foreign powers
themselves. For well over a thousand years the peninsula was in flux, and the different
peoples of Italy considered themselves to be, first and foremost, Piedmontese, or Tuscan, or
Neapolitan, or from any one of hundreds of other localities over the centuries. They didn’t think
of themselves as being of one cohesive nation; they were not modern Italians, and there was
no real call for Italian unification. Not yet. So, then, what caused that to begin to change? Why did Italy eventually unite?
And how did it actually happen? Well, Italy’s transition out of being a
mere “geographical expression,” as it was labeled by Klemens von Metternich,
began during the Napoleonic Wars. While under French occupation, Italy
was administered as three units: the so-called Kingdom of Italy, Naples, and areas
controlled directly by the French Empire. Still, it was the most unified that Italy had been in
a long time, and that came with its benefits. The relative lack of borders allowed for internal
Italian trade to flourish. Pre-Napoleonic Italy was still a largely feudal, and economically
backwards, society, but that increased prosperity, the seizure and redistribution of church
lands by the French, and just a generally more meritocratic approach to governing, saw
the birth of a rapidly growing middle-class. The sort of people who would not be all that
happy to return to the way things once were. Which is exactly what the Great Powers of
Europe wanted for Italy after Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. It was in that year
that the Congress of Vienna, at which Metternich, as Foreign Minister, and later Chancellor,
of the Austrian Empire, played a key role, redrew the map of Europe to suit the
victorious powers of the Napoleonic Wars. The peninsula would not look at all
the same as it had under Napoleon as Metternich set out to crush any
aspiration for nationhood among Italians. At Vienna, the states of Italy that had
existed before the French revolution were largely resurrected, though the centuries’ old
Republic of Venice, and the Duchy of Milan, some of the wealthiest areas in Italy, were
reorganized into the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, of which the Austrian Emperor would be king. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, ruled
by members of his Habsburg family, was expanded and the smaller duchies
of Parma, Modena, Lucca, and Massa, in the middle, fell in line with Austrian
policy, whether they liked it or not. In the south, the autocratic Kingdom
of the Two Sicilies was ruled by a branch of the pre-revolutionary
French Royal family, the Bourbons, while in the north the Kingdom of
Piedmont-Sardinia, ruled by the House of Savoy, annexed Genoa, and in central Italy, the Papal
States, headed by the Pope, was restored in Rome. All of which, quite frankly, got under
the skin of a lot of ordinary Italians, who took both to scheming in a number of
secret societies, and to openly revolting. Still, not much would come from any of
that for several decades after 1815. Partly because of Austrian intervention, but also
because while most were dissatisfied with the state of Italian affairs, there was no unified
vision for what Italy should be in the future. Broadly speaking though, there were
four anticipated possibilities. First, and most radically, Italy
could become a centralized, revolutionary republic that would spread notions
of popular sovereignty to the rest of Europe. That was championed by the firebrand Giusseppe
Mazzini. Second, Italy could unite around its Catholic faith and become a loose confederation
led by the Pope, an idea known as neo-Guelphism. Third, the various states of Italy could slowly implement liberal reforms and
then integrate their economies. That was favoured by Camillo Benso, Count
of Cavour. Or fourth, the only Italian state actually ruled by Italians, Piedmont-Sardinia,
could take the peninsula through military force. As for which one Italy would actually go with…
well, none of those. Not exactly, anyway. Although the path towards unification
would soon begin to look more clear. In the year 1848 from France, to
Germany, to Poland, and elsewhere, liberal and nationalist revolts
broke out all across Europe, and in Italy 1848 was the year when Italian
unification or the Risorgimento began. The monarchs of the Papal
States, the Two Sicilies, Tuscany, and Piedmont-Sardinia were all
pressured into doing away with absolutism, and adopting constitutions. The
Piedmontese also adopted a new flag. Klemens von Metternich’s nearly three-decade-long
control of Austrian politics was ended by rioters in Vienna, and with Austria weakened,
the famous Five Days of Milan saw their forces pushed out of the city, and then
the rest of Lombardy-Venetia in March. The Milanese then voted to join Piedmont-Sardinia. The central Italian states also
rallied behind the Piedmontese, though it should be said that their King,
Charles Albert, was a reluctant revolutionary, but he did bow to the demands of his
people, and declared war on the Austrians. Pope Pius IX, on the other hand, hardly
willing to fight devoutly Catholic Austria, chafed against his constitution
and refused to help. That eventually saw his deposition and the
founding of the Roman Republic by Giussepe Mazzini and his fellow revolutionary,
Giussepe Garibaldi, in February, 1849. But despite all of that success, things
quickly went south. Literally, I suppose, in the case of the Two Sicilies, whose
King struck a deal with moderate Liberals, they feared that their more radical
allies would endanger their property. He was then able to recall his troops
from any activity in the north. That sort of inter-revolutionary dispute was
a common trend among those rising up, and it, along with Austrian counterattacks
in late 1848 and 1849 saw most of the rebellions fail. It didn’t help that
their leaders were militarily inept. The Austrian Field Marshal Joseph
Radetsky even derisively ordered his troops to “spare the enemy generals”
as they were too valuable to their side. Piedmont-Sardinia’s constitutional monarchy managed to survive the end
of the revolutions though. So, Italy’s previously unclear path was now
set in place. Mazzinian Republicanism would not unite the country; the Roman Republic
had been destroyed, and the Pope reinstated, by President Louis-Napoleon of France who left
French troops in the city to ensure order, and after failing in Rome, Mazzini
himself was largely sidelined. Nor, of course, could the
revolution-betraying Pope lead the way. Italy would have to
be united under the House of Savoy, which now had a liberal twist to it, but the
country would not come together peacefully. It also was clear that, in order
to take on Austria especially, the Piedmontese needed a powerful ally. So, in 1853 their new king, Victor Emmanuel II,
and his Prime Minister, the aforementioned Count of Cavour (the two men who would lead Italian
Unification from now on) sent soldiers to assist Britain and France in the Crimean War in the hope
that one of them would help the Italian cause. And, one did. President Louis-Napoleon, who had ended the
brief 2nd French Republic and declared himself Emperor Napoleon III, was eager to
emulate the achievements of his uncle and he saw pushing Austria out of Italy
both as a way of increasing France’s, and his, prestige and of growing
his power in mainland Europe. It also helped that an Italian revolutionary
had very nearly assassinated Napoleon III, and he wasn’t overly eager
for that to happen again. Secret negotiations between the
French and Cavour in 1858 resulted in a Franco-Piedmontese military alliance, an
agreement to work together to counter Austria, and to split Italy into French and
Piedmontese spheres of influence. So, Piedmont-Sardinia and France began
to prepare for war, but the Austrians, seeing what was about to happen,
struck first and invaded Piedmont. They very nearly reached their capital, Turin, before French troops arrived and the two
nations forced back the Austrians, then invaded their Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, and
defeated them at the bloody battle of Solferino. A peace agreement was then
reached but the end of the 2nd War of Italian Independence
left pretty much no one happy. Austria lost about half of her
territory in northern Italy, including Milan, to the Piedmontese, and her central Italian client
states had revolted, again, then took some Papal territory,
briefly formed their own country, and then chose to join Piedmont-Sardinia. Cavour and Victor Emmanuel weren’t happy
either though as the French had refused to push farther into Venetia after
Solferino, as they had promised. So, Venice remained out of their hands. To
top it all off, Napoleon III wasn’t happy as his goal of creating a French sphere
of influence in Italy was destroyed as more and more Italians flocked
to the Piedmontese banner. He did get a consolation prize though.
Piedmont-Sardinia begrudgingly handed over the County of Nice and Savoy, the
ancestral home of the House of Savoy, to France; that had also been promised
by Cavour before the war with Austria. The loss of Nice which, unlike Savoy, was
Italian-speaking horrified many revolutionaries, including the old republican Giussepe
Garibaldi who himself was from there. Nevertheless, he was loyal to the idea of a
united Italy and, pragmatically, despite his want of a republic, recognized that Piedmontese
monarchism was what was going to bring it about. As the French and Piedmontese
had fought the Austrians, discontent and a desire to join in had
grown in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. That saw both peasants and the
middle-classes rise up against the Bourbons, so Garibaldi organized his famous
“one thousand” volunteers and sailed south. He landed on Sicily in May, 1860 and
seized the island without much resistance. Then he crossed over to Naples,
and by September, Garibaldi, his original volunteers, and tens of thousands
of locals that he had managed to organize, had, in spectacular fashion, destroyed the
Kingdom, and prepared to attack the Papal States. Which Cavour opposed, not wanting him to gain
too much power, so the Piedmontese invaded first. In October, Garibaldi met up with Victor Emmanuel
II and handed over his conquests to the King. By that point, Piedmont-Sardinia controlled most
of Italy, and to reflect that, it changed its name to the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. Cavour became
its first Prime Minister, Victor Emmanuel II was king. But his kingdom still lacked two
very important cities; Austrian held Venice and Papal Rome. So Italy made a new alliance,
this time with the rising Kingdom of Prussia and together they fought Austria in the third
and final war of Italian Independence in 1866. Italy performed terribly to be honest, but Prussia squashed the Austrians
so they still got what they wanted. Although Austria insisted on
handing Venice over to France first, as they thought that Italy hadn’t earnt it. Four years later, the Franco-Prussian
War broke out and Napoleon III had to pull his troops that had crushed the
Roman Republic two decades earlier out of the Papal States to defend France.
Italy took their absence as an invitation to come on in, and Rome was declared the
capital of a fully united Kingdom in 1871. Italy was now a great power, and it
would go on to involve itself heavily, for better or worse, in European
affairs up till the present day. Republicans like Mazzini and Garibaldi would
eventually get some satisfaction though, admittedly long after their deaths, when the Italian people chose to
abolish their monarchy in 1946. As for the neo-Guelphs, not so much. The Popes
have had to live with just one tiny city. You can find out more about how that
happened in the video to the left, or you can see why the island of Corsica never
ended up joining the new Italian kingdom. Also, if you enjoyed this video and want
to see more just like it, don’t forget to subscribe and hit the notification
bell so you don’t miss the next one. As always, I’ve been James and thank
you for watching Look Back History.
