Unification of Italy
Overview
Unification of Italy
The Kingdom of Italy, created in 1861 in a process known as the Risorgimento, was one of the new nations that emerged in Europe during the nineteenth century based on geographic proximity, cultural affinity, and ethnic identify. In this respect it paralleled the German empire crafted by Prussia ten years later. The Kingdom of Italy also reflected the conservative nature of nation building in nineteenth-century Europe, controlled by national leaders with the goal of limiting political, social, and economic change in these new nations that might impinge upon their own powers and prerogatives. As with the emergence of the German empire, the creation of the Kingdom of Italy was a process that began in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars and the French Revolution.
Learning Objectives
- Explain the consolidation of national states in Europe during the 19th century.
- Outline, explain, and assess the events in the process of the national unification of Italy.
- Explain the historic context of the development of European national in which the national unification of Italy occurred.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
Giuseppe Mazzini: an intellectual and advocate of nationalism and republicanism, who participated in the creation of the Young Italy movement
Giuseppe Garibaldi - Italian nationalist and soldier who led a small army across the southern half of the Italian peninsula in 1860 as part of Italian unification, his march was coopted Count Cavour in the creation of the unified Kingdom of Italy under the auspices of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia
Young Italy: organization founded in 1831 by Italian nationalists, dedicated to the national unification of the Italian states under a republican government
Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia: independent kingdom in northern Italy that was the base for Italian unification
King Victor Emmanuel I: King of Piedmont-Sardinia and first king of the Kingdom of Italy
Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour: prime minister of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia and architect of Italian unification
Otto von Bismarck: a conservative Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until 1890 (In the 1860s he engineered a series of wars that unified the German states, significantly and deliberately excluding Austria, into a powerful German Empire under Prussian leadership. With that accomplished by 1871, he skillfully used balance of power diplomacy to maintain Germany’s position in a Europe which, despite many disputes and war scares, remained at peace.)
Risorgimento: term for Italian unification resulting in the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861
Franco-Prussian War - third and concluding war of German unification, between the French and Prussian empires, paving the way for German unification, in the form of the German empire, also known as the Second Reich
Congress of Vienna
With the final defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815 the Congress of Vienna, an assembly of nations arrayed against Napoleon, pursued a reactionary agenda of trying to restore Europe as closely as possible to what it had been before the French Revolution. The Austrian, Prussian, and Russian empires led this reactionary effort. As part of the settlement, the Italian peninsula, along with Sicily, was divided into seven political entities, most of which were directly or indirectly under the control of the Austrian empire.
While the Austrian empire tried to restore the old order in the Italian peninsula, the French Revolution and Napoleon’s rule spread new ideas that sharpened the desire for republican government and/or national unification among a number of groups across the peninsula. These groups included aristocrats, army officers, and an emerging new bourgeoisie focused on industrialization. Members of these groups discussed their ideas in a number of venues across the peninsula, as well as other areas of Europe, including universities, national and provincial legislatures, and public gathering places, as well as with in print.
1820 – 48 Revolutions
Members of these groups also participated in revolutionary movements from 1820 through 1848, with the goals of political reform. These political reforms included democratization and the establishment of constitutional and/or republican governments, along with national unification. While these uprisings overlapped with each other in terms goals and methods and achieved some success and progress, they were uncoordinated, even disjointed, operating on a local or provincial level, and, often, in conflict in their differing goals. They disagreed over issues of governance, such as republican versus monarchical government, economic reform, and sectional differences, particularly between northern and southern Italian states. They demonstrated the need for one central force and a definitive agenda to secure national unification.
The founding of Young Italy in 1831 illustrates this need. Young Italy was an organization of Italian nationalists who sought the unification of Italian states under a republican government. The founder, Giuseppe Mazzini, was an intellectual who favored republicanism and nationalism. However, neither he nor other members of this new organization possessed the resources necessary to bring together the Italian states. Only a nation-state possessed such resources.
The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia
The central force behind Italian unification was the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, as led by King Victor Emmanuel II and Camillo Benso, who was Count of Cavour and prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia. Cavour was the architect of Italian unification. And their coupled vision for a unified Italy was one led by Piedmont-Sardinia with the King being the focal point of political and national power in the new nation. In this respect, the role of Piedmont-Sardinia paralleled that of Prussia in the unification. Victor Emmanuel II and Cavour of Piedmont-Sardinia played the same roles in the creation of the Kingdom of Italy that King Wilhelm and Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck played in the establishment of the new German empire, also known as the Second Reich. These parallels between the unification of Italy and Germany reflected the concentration of political power in Europe during the third quarter of the nineteenth century.
Italian Wars of Unification
Four wars punctuated the progress toward the creation of the Kingdom of Italy, which became the vehicle for Italian unification. They are known collectively as the Italian Wars of Unification. The third and fourth wars in this series involved Austria and Prussia, and they are also known as the Second and Third Wars of German unification. These wars reflected the shifting diplomatic alliances across Europe and primarily were concerned with national unification and territorial acquisition.
The First War of Italian Unification, in 1848 – 1849, was couched within revolutions that occurred in a number of Italian states in 1848. A number of these uprisings, including those in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, sought to replace monarchical governments with republican governments in various Italian states and territories. The King of Piedmont-Sardinia, Charles Albert, started this war by attacking Austria in order to stymie such uprisings in Piedmont-Sardinia. Austrian forces defeated the Italians, and, in the subsequent peacemaking process, Charles Albert was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel II.
This loss to Austria convinced a number of Piedmont-Sardinian leaders, including the new king and Cavour, who would be his future prime minister, that Piedmont-Sardinia would need allies in its struggle against Austria—the main opponent among European states of Italian unification. Consequently, Sardinia participated along with Britain and France in the 1853 – 1856 Crimean War. These allied powers fought to prevent Russia from gaining access to the Mediterranean Sea from the Black Sea by taking from the Ottoman empire the Bosporus and Dardanelle Straits that connected these two seas. Control over these straits would have given Russian naval forces unimpeded access to the Mediterranean Sea, and, in the process, threatened British and French imperial interests in that sea. Piedmont-Sardinian participation in the successful war effort against Russia bolstered its diplomatic influence in Europe, which would help it attract French help against Austria in the Second War of Italian Unification.
The Second War of Italian Unification, from 1859 through 1861, resulted in the creation of the Kingdom of Italy, with all but Venetia and the Papal State entering the new nation. It progressed in two phases. During the first phase in 1859 Piedmont-Sardinia and France went to war against Austria. As a result of victory against Austria in this war, Piedmont-Sardinia gained Lombardy, a north Italian state, from Austria through a transfer by France. Lombardy was one of a number of Italian states under direct or indirect Austrian control. Acquisition of Lombardy inspired nationalists in other states under Austrian control in the northern half of the Italian peninsula to support annexation by Piedmont-Sardinia's newly emerging Kingdom of Italy.
In the second phase Piedmont-Sardinia coopted the 1860 march through the southern half of the Italian peninsula by nationalists under the leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian adventurer and nationalist. Through this march into Sicily at the southern end of the peninsula, Garibaldi galvanized support for a new Italian nation. Piedmont-Sardinia then exploited this support, declaring the states therein to be part of the new kingdom and announcing Garibaldi as the national hero of this unification. With the defeat of Austria in 1859, neither Garibaldi nor any other Italian leader or state had the power or inclination to oppose Piedmont-Sardinia. Consequently, the Piedmont-Sardinian government formally declared the creation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. However, this new nation was still missing two important pieces: Venetia, in northeastern Italy under Austrian control, and the Papal State in the central portion of the peninsula, which included Rome.
The third war was the Austro-Italian-Prussian War. The primary conflict in this war was between Austria and Prussia, fighting over which would dominate the German states. The Austro-Prussian portion of this war was also the second of three wars that marked the progress of German unification under Prussian auspices. In this war Italy was an ally of Prussia, attacking Austria from the south while Prussia attacked Austria from the north. Italian forces did not do well against Austrian forces in this war; failures included the Battle of Lissa in 1866, which was the first engagement of opposing ironclad fleets fought in the Adriatic Sea; still, Italy acquired Venetia from the Austrian empire by way of a diplomatic exchange with France.
The fourth war, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 – 1871, also the third war of German unification, did not directly involve Italy. With the withdrawal of French troops from the Papal State to fight against the Prussians and their German allies in 1870, troops from the new Kingdom of Italy captured Rome and the Papal State, leading to the Kingdom’s annexation of the Papal State and the completion of Italian unification. The annexation of the Papal State left the Papacy in an awkward situation. Pope Pius IX, pope at the time of this annexation, refused to recognize Italian sovereignty over the Papal State nor Rome as the legitimate capital of the Kingdom of Italy. Until the 1929 Lateran Pact between the Papacy and Italy, the Papacy continued this refusal. With this 1929 pact, the Papacy finally recognized that Rome was part of Italy and was the legitimate capital of Italy. In return the Italian government recognized the sovereignty of the Vatican City as an independent state under the control of the Papacy.
The Papacy and the Kingdom of Italy
The annexation of the Papal State by the Kingdom of Italy was the final step in the weakening of the Papacy’s temporal power in Europe. For over a thousand years the Papal State had been a sovereign entity, which bestowed upon the Pope the status of a temporal leader, among other European temporal leaders. This was in addition to his role as Europe’s spiritual leader. With the Papal State now part of the Kingdom of Italy, the Pope was stripped of that status and power. Pope Pius IX would have to adapt to the new limits on his powers as Pope. These new limits epitomized the larger trend toward the secularization of European society and the West that had been unfolding since the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment.
The unification of Italy, along with the unification of Germany, left Europe and the world with two new powerful and ambitious states that further shook the conservative order so many surviving dynastic powers were trying to maintain. The Kingdom of Italy also further encouraged other ethnic groups without nations across southeastern Europe. Both of these consequences contributed to the coming of the First World War.
Attributions
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Title Image - Satirical 1861 cartoon on Cavour and Garibaldi unifying Italy. Attribution: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Provided by: Wikipedia. Location: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Garibaldiecavour.JPG. License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
"Unification of Italy". Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_Italy. License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
Boundless World History
"The Congress of Vienna"
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-congress-of-vienna/
"The Century of Peace"
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-century-of-peace/