|

Reaction in the Italian States.

return to Parma, when Lucca would be handed over to Tuscany. | Tuscany and Naples; and Metternich's ambition was to make The pope, Pius VII., who had long been kept under restraint Austrian predominance over Italy still more absolute, by placing by Napoleon at Fontainebleau, returned to Rome in May 1814, an Austrian archduke on the Sardinian throne. and was recognized by the congress of Vienna (not without some demur on the part of Austria) as the sovereign of all the former possessions of the Holy See. Ferdinand IV. of Naples, not long after the death of his consort, Maria Carolina, in Austria, returned from Sicily to take possession of his dominions on the mainland. He received them back in their entirety at the hands of the powers, who recognized his new title of Ferdinand I. of the Two Sicilies. The rash attempt of Murat in the autumn of 1815, which led to his death at Pizzo in Calabria, enabled the Bourbon dynasty to crush malcontents with all the greater severity. The reaction, which was dull and heavy in the dominions of the pope and of Victor Emmanuel, systematically harsh in the Austrian states of the north, and comparatively mild in Parma and Tuscany, excited the greatest loathing in southern Italy and Sicily, because there it was directed by a dynasty which had aroused feelings of hatred mingled with contempt.

There were special reasons why Sicily should harbour these feelings against the Bourbons. During eight years (1806-1814) the chief places of the island had been garrisoned by British troops; and the commander of the force which upheld the tottering rule of Ferdinand at Palermo naturally had great authority. The British government, which awarded a large annual subsidy to the king and queen at Palermo, claimed to have some control over the administration. Lord William Bentinck finally took over large administrative powers, seeing that Ferdinand, owing to his dulness, and Maria Carolina, owing to her very suspicious intrigues with Napoleon, could never be trusted. The contest between the royal power and that of the Sicilian estates threatened to bring matters to a deadlock, until in 1812, under the impulse of Lord William Bentinck, a constitution modelled largely on that of England was passed by the estates. After the retirement of the British troops in 1814 the constitution lapsed, and the royal authority became once more absolute. But the memory of the benefits conferred by "the English constitution" remained fresh and green amidst the arid waste of repression which followed. It lived on as one of the impalpable but powerful influences which spurred on the Sicilians and the democrats of Naples to the efforts which they put forth in 1821, 1830, 1848 and 1860.

This result, accruing from British intervention, was in some respects similar to that exerted by Napoleon on the Italians of the mainland. The brutalities of Austria's white coats in the north, the unintelligent repression then characteristic of the house of Savoy, the petty spite of the duke of Modena, the medieval obscurantism of pope and cardinals in the middle of the peninsula and the clownish excesses of Ferdinand in the south, could not blot out from the minds of the Italians the recollection of the benefits derived from the just laws, vigorous administration and enlightened aims of the great emperor. The hard but salutary training which they had undergone at his hands had taught them that they were the equals of the northern races both in the council chamber and on the field of battle. It had further revealed to them that truth, which once grasped can never be forgotten, that, despite differences of climate, character and speech, they were in all essentials a nation. (J. HL. R.)

Victor Emmanuel I., the king of Sardinia, was the only native ruler in the peninsula, and the Savoy dynasty was popular with all classes. But although welcomed with enthusiasm on his return to Turin, he introduced a system of reaction which, if less brutal, was no less uncompromising than that of Austrian archdukes or Bourbon princes. His object was to restore his dominions to the conditions preceding the French occupation. The French system of taxation was maintained because it brought in ampler revenues; but feudalism, the antiquated legislation and bureaucracy were revived, and all the officers and officials still living who had served the state before the Revolution, many of them now in their dotage, were restored to their posts; only nobles were eligible for the higher government appointments; all who had served under the French administration were dismissed or reduced in rank; and in the army beardless scions of the aristocracy were placed over the heads of war-worn veterans who had commanded regiments in Spain and Russia. The influence of a bigoted priesthood was re-established, and "every form of intellectual and moral torment, everything save actual persecution and physical torture that could be inflicted on the 'impure' was inflicted" (Cesare Balbo's Autobiography). All this soon provoked discontent among the educated classes. In Genoa the government was particularly unpopular, for the Genoese resented being handed over to their old enemy Piedmont like a flock of sheep. Nevertheless the king strongly disliked the Austrians, and would willingly have seen them driven from Italy.

Austrian

rule in Italy.

In Lombardy French rule had ended by making itself unpopular, and even before the fall of Napoleon a national party, called the Italici puri, had begun to advocate the independence of Lombardy, or even its union with Sardinia. At first a part of the population were content with Austrian rule, which provided an honest and efficient administration; but the rigid system of centralization which, while allowing the semblance of local autonomy, sent every minute question for settlement to Vienna; the severe police methods; the bureaucracy, in which the best appointments were usually conferred on Germans or Slavs wholly dependent on Vienna, proved galling to the people, and in view of the growing disaffection the country was turned into a vast armed camp. In Modena Duke Francis proved a cruel tyrant. In Parma, on the other hand, there was very little oppression, the French codes were retained, and the council of state was consulted on all legislative matters. Lucca too enjoyed good government, and the peasantry were well cared for and prosperous. In Tuscany the rule of Ferdinand and of his minister Fossombroni was mild and benevolent, but enervating and demoralizing. The Papal States were ruled by a unique system of theocracy, for not only the head of the state but all the more important officials were ecclesiastics, assisted by the Inquisition, the Index and all the paraphernalia of medieval church government. The administration was inefficient and corrupt, the censorship uncom- in Rome. promising, the police ferocious and oppressive, although quite unable to cope with the prevalent anarchy and brigandage; the antiquated pontifical statutes took the place of the French laws, and every vestige of the vigorous old communal independence was swept away. In Naples King Ferdinand retained As the result of the Vienna treaties, Austria became the real some of the laws and institutions of Murat's régime, and many mistress of Italy. Not only did she govern Lombardy and of the functionaries of the former government entered Venetia directly, but Austrian princes ruled in Modena, Parma his service; but he revived the Bourbon tradition, and Tuscany; Piacenza, Ferrara and Comacchio had Austrian the odious police system and the censorship; and a degrading garrisons; Prince Metternich, the Austrian chancellor, believed religious bigotry, to which the masses were all too much inclined, that he could always secure the election of an Austrophil pope, became the basis of government and social life. The upper and Ferdinand of Naples, reinstated by an Austrian army, classes were still to a large extent inoculated with French ideas, had bound himself, by a secret article of the treaty of June 12, but the common people were either devoted to the dynasty or 1815, not to introduce methods of government incompatible indifferent. In Sicily, which for centuries had enjoyed a feudal with those adopted in Austria's Italian possessions. Austria constitution modernized and Anglicized under British auspices also concluded offensive and defensive alliances with Sardinia, I in 1812, and where anti-Neapolitan feeling was strong, autonomy

E. THE RISORGIMENTO, 1815-1870

Reaction

Naples.

was suppressed, the constitution abolished in 1816, and the | nich, too, had an instinctive dislike for him, and proposed to island, as a reward for its fidelity to the dynasty, converted into a Neapolitan province governed by Neapolitan bureaucrats. To the mass of the people the restoration of the old governments undoubtedly brought a sense of relief, for the terrible drain in men and money caused by Napoleon's wars had caused much discontent, whereas now there was a prospect of peace and rest. But the restored governments in their terror of revolution would not realize that the late régime had wafted a breath of new life over the country and left ineffaceable traces in the way of improved laws, efficient administration, good roads and the sweeping away of old abuses; while the new-born idea of Italian unity, strengthened by a national pride revived on many a stricken field from Madrid to Moscow, was a force to be reckoned with. The oppression and follies of the restored governments made men forget the evils of French rule and remember only its good side. The masses were still more or less indifferent, but among the nobility and the educated middle classes, cut off from all part in free political life, there was developed either the spirit of despair at Italy's moral degradation, as expressed in the writings of Foscolo and Leopardi, or a passion of hatred and revolt, which found its manifestation, in spite of severe laws, in the development of secret societies. The most important of these were the Carbonari lodges, whose objects were the expulsion of the foreigner and the achievement of constitutional freedom (see CARBONARI).

Secret societies. The Car beaarl.

Revolu ties la Naples, 1820,

When Ferdinand returned to Naples in 1815 he found the kingdom, and especially the army, honeycombed with Carbonarism, to which many noblemen and officers were affiliated; and although the police instituted prosecutions and organized the counter-movement of the Calderai, who may be compared to the " Black Hundreds " of modern Russia, the revolutionary spirit continued to grow, but it was not at first anti-dynastic. The granting of the Spanish constitution of 1820 proved the signal for the beginning of the Italian liberationist movement; a military mutiny led by two officers, Silvati and Morelli, and the priest Menichini, broke out at Monteforte, to the cry of "God, the King, and the Constitution!" The troops sent against them commanded by General Guglielmo Pepe, himself a Carbonaro, hesitated to act, and the king, finding that he could not count on the army, granted the constitution (July 13, 1820), and appointed his son Francis regent. The events that followed are described in the article on the history of Naples (q.v.). Not only did the constitution, which was modelled on the impossible Spanish constitution of 1812, prove unworkable, but the powers of the Grand Alliance, whose main object was to keep the peace of Europe, felt themselves bound to interfere to prevent the evil precedent of a successful military revolution. The diplomatic developments that led to the intervention of Austria are sketched elsewhere (see EUROPE: History); in general the result of the deliberations of the congresses of Troppau and Laibach was to establish, not the general right of intervention claimed in the Troppau Protocol, but the special right of Austria to safeguard her interests in Italy. The defeat of General Pepe by the Austrians at Rieti (March 7, 1821) and the re-establishment of King Ferdinand's autocratic power under the protection of Austrian bayonets were the effective assertion of this principle. The movement in Naples had been purely local, for the Neapolitan Carbonari had at that time no thought save of Naples; it was, moreover, a movement of the middle Military and upper classes in which the masses took little revolt in Piedmont, interest. Immediately after the battle of Rieti a Carbonarist mutiny broke out in Piedmont independently of events in the south. Both King Victor Emmanuel and his brother Charles Felix had no sons, and the heir presumptive to the throne was Prince Charles Albert, of the Carignano branch of the house of Savoy. Charles Albert felt a certain interest in Liberal ideas and was always surrounded by young nobles of Carbonarist and anti-Austrian tendencies, and was therefore regarded with suspicion by his royal relatives. Metter

XV 2

exclude him from the succession by marrying one of the king's daughters to Francis of Modena, and getting the Salic law abolished so that the succession would pass to the duke and Austria would thus dominate Piedmont. The Liberal movement had gained ground in Piedmont as in Naples among the younger nobles and officers, and the events of Spain and southern Italy aroused much excitement. In March 1821, Count Santorre di Santarosa and other conspirators informed Charles Albert of a constitutional and anti-Austrian plot, and asked for his help. After a momentary hesitation he informed the king; but at his request no arrests were made, and no precautions were taken. On the 10th of March the garrison of Alessandria mutinied, and its example was followed on the 12th by that of Turin, where the Spanish constitution was demanded, and the black, red and blue flag of the Carbonari paraded the streets. The next day the king abdicated after appointing Charles Albert regent. The latter immediately proclaimed the constitution, but the new king, Charles Felix, who was at Modena at the time, repudiated the regent's acts and exiled him to Tuscany; and, with his consent, an Austrian army invaded Piedmont and crushed the constitutionalists at Novara. Many of the conspirators were condemned to death, but all succeeded in escaping. Charles Felix was most indignant with the ex-regent, but he resented, as an unwarrantable interference, Austria's attempt to have him excluded from the succession at the congress of Verona (1822). Charles Albert's somewhat equivocal conduct also roused the hatred of the Liberals, and for a long time the esecrato Carignano was regarded, most unjustly, as a traitor even by many who were not republicans.

Liberalism

Carbonarism had been introduced into Lombardy by two Romagnols, Count Laderchi and Pietro Maroncelli, but the leader of the movement was Count F. Confalonieri, who was in favour of an Italian federation composed in Lom of northern Italy under the house of Savoy, central bardy. Italy under the pope, and the kingdom of Naples. There had been some mild plotting against Austria in Milan, and an attempt was made to co-operate with the Piedmontese movement of 1821; already in 1820 Maroncelli and the poet Silvio Pellico had been arrested as Carbonari, and after the movement in Piedmont more arrests were made. The mission of Gaetano Castiglia and Marquis Giorgio Pallavicini to Turin, where they had interviewed Charles Albert, although without any definite result-for Confalonieri had warned the prince that Lombardy was not ready to rise-was accidentally discovered, and Confalonieri was himself arrested. The plot would never have been a menace to Austria but for her treatment of the conspirators. Pellico and Maroncelli were immured in the Spielberg; Confalonieri and two dozen others were condemned to death, their sentences being, however, commuted to imprisonment in that same terrible fortress. The heroism of the prisoners, and Silvio Pellico's account of his imprisonment (Le mie Prigioni), did much to enlist the sympathy of Europe for the Italian cause.

During the next few years order reigned in Italy, save for a few unimportant outbreaks in the Papal States; there was, however, perpetual discontent and agitation, especially The Papal in Romagna, where misgovernment was extreme. States. Under Pius VII. and his minister Cardinal Consalvi oppression had not been very severe, and Metternich's proposal to establish a central inquisitorial tribunal for political offences throughout Italy had been rejected by the papal government. But on the death of Pius in 1823, his successor Leo XII. (Cardinal Della Genga) proved a ferocious reactionary under whom barbarous laws were enacted and torture frequently applied. The secret societies, such as the Carbonari, the Adelfi and the Bersaglieri d'America, which flourished in Romagna, replied to these persecutions by assassinating the more brutal officials ans spies. The events of 1820-1821 increased the agitation in Romagna, and in 1825 large numbers of persons were condemned to death, imprisonment or exile. The society of the Sanfedisti, formed of the dregs of the populace, whose object was to murder every Liberal, was openly protected and encouraged. Leo died

I a

Revolu tions of 1830.

in 1829, and the mild, religious Pius VIII. (Cardinal Castiglioni) | in having inspired a large number of Italians with that idea at only reigned until 1830, when Gregory XVI. (Cardinal Cappellari) a time when provincial jealousies and the difficulty of communicawas elected through Austrian influence, and proved another tions maintained separatist feelings. Young Italy spread to zelante. The July revolution in Paris and the declara- all centres of Italian exiles, and by means of literature carried tion of the new king, Louis Philippe, that France, as on an active propaganda in Italy itself, where the party came ȧ Liberal monarchy, would not only not intervene to be called "Ghibellini," as though reviving the traditions in the internal affairs of other countries, but would of medieval anti-Papalism. Though eventually this activity not permit other powers to do so, aroused great hopes among the of the Giovane Italia supplanted that of the older societies, oppressed peoples, and was the immediate cause of a revolution in practice it met with no better success; the two attempts in Romagna and the Marches. In February 1831 these provinces to invade Savoy in the hope of seducing the army from its rose, raised the red, white and green tricolor (which henceforth allegiance failed miserably, and only resulted in a series of took the place of the Carbonarist colours as the Italian flag), barbarous sentences of death and imprisonment which made and shook off the papal yoke with surprising ease. At Parma most Liberals despair of Charles Albert, while they called down too there was an outbreak and a demand for the constitution; much criticism on Mazzini as the organizer of raids in which Marie Louise could not grant it because of her engagements he himself took no part. He was now forced to leave France, with Austria, and, therefore, abandoned her dominions. In but continued his work of agitation from London. The disorders Modena Duke Francis, ambitious of enlarging his territories, in Naples and Sicily in 1837 had no connexion with Mazzini, coquetted with the Carbonari of Paris, and opened indirect but the forlorn hope of the brothers Bandiera, who in 1844 negotiations with Menotti, the revolutionary leader in his state, landed on the Calabrian coast, was the work of the Giovane believing that he might assist him in his plans. Menotti, for Italia. The rebels were captured and shot, but the significance his part, conceived the idea of a united Italian state under the of the attempt lies in the fact that it was the first occasion on duke. A rising was organized for February 1831; but Francis which north Italians (the Bandieras were Venetians and officers got wind of it, and, repenting of his dangerous dallying with in the Austrian navy) had tried to raise the standard of revolt revolution, arrested Menotti and fled to Austrian territory with in the south. his prisoner. In his absence the insurrection took place, and Biagio Nardi, having been elected dictator, proclaimed that "Italy is one; the Italian nation one sole nation." But the French king soon abandoned his principle of non-intervention on which the Italian revolutionists had built their hopes; the Austrians intervened unhindered; the old governments were re-established in Parma, Modena and Romagna; and Menotti and many other patriots were hanged. The Austrians evacuated Romagna in July, but another insurrection having broken out immediately afterwards which the papal troops were unable to quell, they returned. This second intervention gave umbrage to France, who by way of a counterpoise sent a force to occupy Ancona. These two foreign occupations, which were almost as displeasing to the pope as to the Liberals, lasted until 1838. The powers, immediately after the revolt, presented a memorandum to Gregory recommending certain moderate reforms, but no attention was paid to it. These various movements proved in the first place that the masses were by no means ripe for revolution, and that the idea of unity, although now advocated by a few revolutionary leaders, was far from being generally accepted even by the Liberals; and, secondly, that, in spite of the indifference of the masses, the despotic governments were unable to hold their own without the assistance of foreign bayonets.

On the 27th of April 1831, Charles Albert succeeded Charles Felix on the throne of Piedmont. Shortly afterwards he received a letter from an unknown person, in which he was Mazzini and exhorted with fiery eloquence to place himself at the "Young head of the movement for liberating and uniting Italy." Italy and expelling the foreigner, and told that he was free to choose whether he would be "the first of men or the last of Italian tyrants." The author was Giuseppe Mazzini, then a young man of twenty-six years, who, though in theory a republican, was ready to accept the leadership of a prince of the house of Savoy if he would guide the nation to freedom. The only result of his letter, however, was that he was forbidden to re-enter Sardinian territory. Mazzini, who had learned to distrust Carbonarism owing to its lack of a guiding principle and its absurd paraphernalia of ritual and mystery, had conceived the idea of a more serious political association for the emancipation of his country not only from foreign and domestic despotism but from national faults of character; and this idea he had materialized in the organization of a society called the Giovane Italia (Young Italy) among the Italian refugees at Marseilles. After the events of 1831 he declared that the liberation of Italy could only be achieved through unity, and his great merit lies Among the insurgents of Romagna was Louis Napoleon, afterwards emperor of the French.

Romagna had continued a prey to anarchy ever since 1831; the government organized armed bands called the Centurioni (descended from the earlier Sanfedisti), to terrorize the Liberals, while the secret societies continued their "propaganda by deeds." It is noteworthy that Romagna was the only part of Italy where the revolutionary movement was accompanied by murder. In 1845 several outbreaks occurred, and a band led by Pietro Renzi captured Rimini, whence a proclamation drawn up by L. C. Farini was issued demanding the reforms advocated by the powers' memorandum of 1831. But the movement collapsed without result, and the leaders fled to Tuscany.

and

develop

Side by side with the Mazzinian propaganda in favour of a united Italian republic, which manifested itself in secret societies, plots and insurrections, there was another Liberal movement based on the education of opinion and on economic development. Liberalism In Piedmont, in spite of the government's reactionary economic methods, a large part of the population were genuinely attached to the Savoy dynasty, and the idea of a regenera- ment Some writers proclaimed the necessity of building railways, develoption of Italy under its auspices began to gain ground. ing agriculture and encouraging industries, before resorting to revolution; while others, like the Tuscan Gino Capponi, inspired by the example of England and France, wished to make the people fit for freedom by means of improved schools, books and periodicals. Vincenzo Gioberti (q.v.) published in 1843 his famous treatise Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani, a work, which, in striking contrast to the prevailing pessimism of the day, extolled the past greatness and achievements of the Italian people and their present virtues. His political ideal was a federation of all the Italian states under the presidency of the pope, on a basis of Catholicism, but without a constitution. In spite of all its inaccuracies and exaggerations the book served a useful purpose in reviving the self-respect of a despondent people. Another work of a similar kind was Le Speranze d'Italia (1844) by the Piedmontese Count Cesare Balbo (q.v.). Like Gioberti he advocated a federation of Italian states, but he declared that before this could be achieved Austria must be expelled from Italy and compensation found for her in the Near East by making her a Danubian power-a curious forecast that Italy's liberation He extolled Charles Albert would begin with an eastern war. and appealed to his patriotism; he believed that the church was necessary and the secret societies harmful; representative government was undesirable, but he advocated a consultative assembly. Above all Italian character must be reformed and the nation educated. A third important publication was Massimo d'Azeglio's Degli ultimi casi di Romagna, in which the author, another Piedmontese nobleman, exposed papal misgovernment while condemning the secret societies and advocating open resistance and protest. He upheld the papacy in principle, regarded Austria as the great enemy of Italian regeneration, and believed that the means of expelling her were only to be found in Piedmont.

The

Besides the revolutionists and republicans who promoted conspiracy and insurrection whenever possible, and the moderates or Neo-Guelphs," as Gioberti's followers were called, we must mention the Italian exiles who were learning the art of war in foreign countries-in Spain, in Greece, in Poland, in South America--and those other exiles who, in Paris or London, eked out a bare subsistence by teaching Italian or

Kalian exiles.

by their pen, and laid the foundations of that love of Italy which, | bouffe duke of Lucca, who had coquetted with Liberalism in the especially in England, eventually brought the weight of diplomacy into the scales for Italian freedom. All these forces were equally necessary the revolutionists to keep up agitation and make government by bayonets impossible; the moderates to curb the impetuosity of the revolutionists and to present a scheme of society that was neither reactionary nor anarchical; the volunteers abroad to gain military experience; and the more peaceful exiles to spread the name of Italy among foreign peoples. All the while a vast amount of revolutionary literature was being printed in Switzerland, France and England, and smuggled into Italy; the poet Giusti satirized the Italian princes, the dramatist G. B. Niccolini blasted tyranny in his tragedies, the novelist Guerrazzi re-evoked the memories of the last struggle for Florentine freedom in L'Assedio di Firenze, and Verdi's operas bristled with political double entendres which escaped the censor but were understood and applauded by the audience.