Italian unification

“ But the railway made the old localism impossible, and the widespread nationalist movement of the nineteenth century had its effect in Italy as well as elsewhere. The struggle for the unification of Italy and the redemption of Italian lands from foreign dominion by Mazzini, Cavour, and Garibaldi is one of the romances of humanity, and from it has arisen the modern Italian kingdom (1870 onwards) with its promise of magnificent development. ”

“ By this time a great part of Italy was in revolt. Constitutions were granted to Naples, Rome, Tuscany, and Piedmont by their rulers. The king of Sardinia was forced by public opinion to assume the leadership in the attempt to expel the interloping Austria and ultimately, perhaps, to found some sort of an Italian union which should satisfy the longings for national unity. The pope and even the Bourbon king of Naples were induced to consent to the arming and dispatch of troops in the cause of Italian freedom, and Italy began its first war for independence. ”

“ The difficulty of Italian history lies in the fact that until modern times the Italians have had no political unity, no independence, no organized existence as a nation. Split up into numerous and mutually hostile communities, they never, through the fourteen centuries which have elapsed since the end of the old Western empire, shook off the yoke of foreigners completely; they never until lately learned to merge their local and conflicting interests in the common good of undivided Italy. ”

“ Had there been an invigorating national feeling, any common principle of coalition among the Italian states; had they, in short, been true to themselves, they possessed abundant resources in their wealth, talent, and superior science, to have shielded their soil from violation. Unfortunately, while the other European states had been augmenting their strength incalculably by the consolidation of their scattered fragments into one whole, those of Italy, in the absence of some great central point round which to rally, had grown more and more confirmed in their original disunion. ”

“ It is needless to remark that as yet Italian unity was hardly a dream, and that Italy as such had no voice in the councils that parceled out her territory among foreign rulers. This very fact makes difficult a clear understanding of political conditions below the surface in Italy in the eighteenth century, since the changes in boundaries and in masters were made without reference to the desires of the people and the interests of the country, and hence without reference to the organic development of the national life. ”

“ If any one could conceive of a united Italy having any degree of stability, without Rome for its capital, I would declare the Roman question difficult, if not impossible, of solution. And why have we the right, the duty of insisting that Rome shall be united to Italy? Because without Rome as the capital of Italy, Italy can not exist. This truth being felt instinctively by all Italians, and asserted abroad by all who judge Italian affairs impartially, needs no demonstration. ”

“ Sire, have you never cast an eagle glance upon this Italy, so fair with nature's smile, crowned by twenty centuries of noble memory, the land of genius, strong in the infinite resources that only want a common purpose, girt round with barriers so impregnable, that it needs but a firm will and a few brave breasts to shelter it from foreign insult? Place yourself at the head of the nation, write on your flag, 'Union, Liberty, Independence.' Free Italy from the barbarian, build up the future, be the Napoleon of Italian freedom. ”

“ The republics of elder Italy are no more the proper object for Italian enterprise, than would be the old colonial dependencies for the efforts of Americans. But Italy must be aroused; she must be called up to some general object; her great men must be stimulated to useful efforts, and her humbler citizens must be enticed away from insurrectionary movements to revolutionary action, and that cry which the soonest rouses and unites them is the true watchword of independence. ”

“ Northern Italy is to be under the dominion of the Sardinian King—Central Italy to be given up to the Grand Duke of Tuscany—the Pope to be reduced to the patrimony of St. Peter, and to be guarded there by French troops—Southern Italy to be restored to the Ex-King of the Two Sicilies, with constitutional guarantees. In short, there is to be an Italian Confederation under the protection of France. The French Emperor does not like the prospect of a rival in the Mediterranean. ”

“ Italy comprised many nations; twenty republics had each their own laws, their own interests, and their own history. Those perpetual wars between the citizens of the same cities; those animosities between republic and republic; that necessity of the inhabitants for calling in strangers in their internal quarrels; those mistrusts which bore harder upon the citizens than upon the stipendiary adventurers, tended to efface the true sentiment of patriotism, and at length caused even the name of the Italian nation to be forgotten. ”

“ If Italy had been forced to accept, instead of her longed-for independence, the local self-government which might be conceded to the State of an Austrian Federation, we may be quite sure that the Grist Tax, the Sicilian Banditti, the intrigues of France in Tunis, the perversity of the Pope, the poverty of Italian workmen, the factiousness of Italian politicians, every evil, in short, real or imaginary, under which Italy now suffers, or has suffered since 1870—would have been attributed to her connection with a Union presided over by the Austrian Emperor. ”

“ The union of the French and Spanish kingdoms had gone on natural lines. But Italy had been less fortunate. At the death of Ferdinand her fate was still uncertain. The Spaniards stood firm in Sicily and Naples, the French seemed to stand secure in Milan. Venice had withstood the shock of united Europe. Florence seemed strengthened by the personal protection of the Holy Father. But so long as two rival foreign Powers held their ground in Italy, consolidation had gone too far or not far enough. Italy must be either Italian or Spanish or French. The equilibrium was unstable. ”

“ The petty governments of the Peninsula grew suddenly impossible, and Italy was freed from native tyranny and foreign domination. Austria, not content with the possession of Lombardy, which was ceded to her by the treaty of 1815, had made her power felt in almost every direction, and even at Naples her authority prevailed. The Austrians were not merely an alien but a hated race, for they stood between the Italian people and their dream of national independence and unity, and native despotism could always count on their aid in quelling any outbreak of the revolutionary spirit. ”

“ Nay, were the liberals successful in effecting their daring purpose, which is the separation of the people from the see of Peter, then indeed would the political unity of Italy receive its death-blow; then indeed would the bond which unites the Italian people be severed, the bond of one faith, the bond of the only unity they really can boast of—religious unity. It were well if the demagogues of Italy bestowed the necessary consideration upon the incomparable uniting force of religion to a people, instead of promoting and hailing with delight every measure devised to destroy it. ”

“ The conception of a permanent confederation, bound together in offensive and defensive alliance for common objects, has not occurred to these hard fighters and stubborn asserters of their civic privileges. All they claim is municipal autonomy; the right to manage their own affairs within the city walls, to fight their battles as they choose, and to follow their several ends unchecked. It is vain to lament that, when they might have now established Italian independence upon a secure basis, they chose local and municipal privileges. ”

“ What if some nation, fresh from the woods and fields of the childhood of its growth, come with overwhelming yet preserving strength and infuse new blood into the withered veins of its predecessor? This is the problem we now have before us. How many writers of Italian history have entitled this chapter in its development "A new Italian Nation formed"! It is not the old glories of Rome, which had been Italy, returning; it is a new Italian nation formed. Each word tells a story of its own. It is not the old galvanized to a second life ”

“ The same bells and the same peels would call up the citizens of Florence to withstand or divert an inundation of the Arno which would be used to arouse them to check the destructive progress of a conflagration.
Italy, however, must not be kept too long in chase of the past republics. She needs the confederation of modern democracy, and, when once aroused, must be early directed to the true object. The Italian who spends his power, his wealth and his influence in attempts to restore the ancient confederacy is like the man who starts westward at evening to overtake the departed sun. ”

“ A confederation is undoubtedly that organization which is most suited to the character and the history of Italy, and it is also the best means of reviving Italian nationality and of checking Austria.” Need it be added, that when there should have been question of restraining Austria, there would have been at hand an influence which Austria respected, and to which that mighty empire and its disciplined armies would have yielded more readily than to all Italy in arms. Without a confederation, or an arrangement equally good, there could be no better lot for Italy than civil war and national ruin. ”

“ Arrogating to themselves the right of representing the sentiments of the Italian people at large, and assuming the moral personality of the various regions to which they belonged, they proclaimed to the whole world that the all-absorbing desire of the people was to be united in one nation, and that they sacrificed for ever upon the altar of their country the interests, traditions, jealousies, and local affections which had hitherto divided them, and swore to seek no other glory for the future but the one only glory of Italy united. ”

“ THE REVOLUTION OF 1848-1849.—After the suppression of the uprising of 1830, until the approach of the momentous year of 1848, Italy lay restless under the heel of her oppressor. The republican movements throughout the continent of Europe which characterized that year of revolutions, inspired the Italian patriots to make another attempt to achieve independence and nationality. Everywhere throughout the peninsula they rose against their despotic rulers, and forced them to grant constitutions and institute reforms. ”

“ But the actual and pressing question is, How can Italy be withdrawn from 6the designing men who have managed to get control over her political government under the cloak of Italian unity, and who are plainly leading her on towards a precipice like that of the French Revolution of 1789, to be followed by another of even more atrocious notoriety—that of 1871? He must be blind to the sure but stealthy march of events who does not see that, under the control of the present party at the head of the legislative power, Italy is rapidly approaching such a catastrophe. ”

“ Austria replied like Italy: “It is too late.” On the 9th of August Italy made a declaration of neutrality, and three weeks later Visconti-Venosta informed the powers that Italy was about to occupy Rome. On the 3rd of September the news of Sédan reached Florence, and with the fall of Napoleon’s empire the September convention ceased to have any value. The powers having engaged to abstain from intervention in Italian affairs, Victor Emmanuel addressed a letter to Pius IX. asking him in the name of religion and peace to accept Italian protection instead of the Italian occupation of Rome. ”

“ Centuries of division, of shameful subjection to foreign princes,—French,
Spanish, and Austrian,—of wars and suffering, were yet before the Italian
people ere Rome should become the centre of a free, orderly, and united
Italy.
THE RENAISSANCE.—Though the Middle Ages closed in Italy without the rise there of a national government, still before the end of the period much had been done to awaken those common ideas and sentiments upon which political unity can alone safely repose. Literature and art here performed the part that war did in other countries in arousing a national spirit. ”

“ No doubt it could never be foreseen, never be imagined, by those who brought about and permitted the consolidation of Italy into one kingdom, that the people, nominally free, would become the abject slaves of a municipal despotism and of a barbarous civic greed. None of the enthusiasts for Italian independence possessed that power of foresight which would have told them that its issue would be the daily destruction, by hordes of foreign workmen, of its treasures of art and its landmarks of history. ”

“ Italian unity was impossible as long as Milan and Venice were kept apart from the Italian body by the brute force of the House of Austria; but Italian unity was no less impossible in the days when Milan and Venice—Milan for a moment, Venice for ages—played a part in the affairs of the world as independent commonwealths. Italy, the land of free cities, has, largely because it had been the land of free cities, been of all the lands of Europe that which most thoroughly split asunder, that which most thoroughly became, in the well-known words of her enemy, a mere geographical expression. ”