Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum: The Italian Response to International Insecurity 1830-1848 (Internationale Geschichte International History, 7) 9783700187059, 370018705X

Citation preview

Miroslav Šedivý is a professor at the Institute of Historical Sciences at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy at the University of Pardubice.

ISBN 978-3-7001-8705-9

9

783700 187059 Made in Europe

The Italian Response to International Insecurity 1830–1848

This unity, along with well defensible frontiers, a strong army and navy and good material resources including colonial ones, was to ensure a more secure position within the system of European politics and thereby better prospects for a peaceful future according to the phrase Si vis pacem, para bellum. However, this power-oriented response to insecurity had devastating consequences for the generally shared desire to live in peace with other nations represented by another aspiration deeply rooted in the national movement: the establishment of a better international order. The principal aim of this book is to reveal this important process of pan-European dimension, and the arena of Italian politics in 1830–1848 has been chosen to clarify this sea change in political behaviour.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

By the 1840s, under the influence of various crises and conflicts members of the educated middle and upper middle classes in particular reassessed the way they approached and judged issues of international politics, justice, security and nation building. This process was of special significance in Italy since the search for greater security against external threats became the driving force in the spread of the idea to unite her politically from the Alps to Sicily.

MIROSLAV ŠEDIVÝ

It was before rather than after the revolutionary year of 1848 that Europe witnessed the exploitative proceedings perpetrated by the great powers which undermined the functionality of the post-Napoleonic international order. Even worse, their abuse of power in both European and overseas affairs provoked a feeling of mistrust, pessimism and fear and led to discussions about the increasing lack of justice in the world among a considerable number of Europeans.

Internationale Geschichte International History

7

Internationale Geschichte International History

MIROSLAV ŠEDIVÝ

Si vis pacem, para bellum The Italian Response to International Insecurity 1830–1848

MIROSLAV ŠEDIVÝ SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM THE ITALIAN RESPONSE TO INTERNATIONAL INSECURITY 1830–1848

ÖSTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN PHILOSOPHISCH-HISTORISCHE KLASSE

INTERNATIONALE GESCHICHTE / INTERNATIONAL HISTORY

HERAUSGEGEBEN VON MICHAEL GEHLER UND WOLFGANG MUELLER

BAND 7

MIROSLAV ŠEDIVÝ

Si vis pacem, para bellum The Italian Response to International Insecurity 1830–1848

Angenommen durch die Publikationskommission der philosophisch-historischen Klasse der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften: Accepted by the publication committee of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Austrian Academy of Sciences: Michael Alram, Bert G. Fragner, Andre Gingrich, Hermann Hunger, Sigrid Jalkotzy-Deger, Renate Pillinger, Franz Rainer, Oliver Jens Schmitt, Danuta Shanzer, Peter Wiesinger, Waldemar Zacharasiewicz

This book was written as part of the project The Role of Geopolitics in the Italian National Movement before 1848 financed by the Czech Science Foundation (grant No. 18-05758S). Cover photo: “Trattato di Vienna 1815,” L’Arlecchino, no. 9, 1 April 1848, p. 36.

Diese Publikation wurde einem anonymen, internationalen Begutachtungsverfahren unterzogen. This publication was subject to international and anonymous peer review. Peer review is an essential part of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Press evaluation process. Before any book can be accepted for publication, it is assessed by international specialists and ultimately must be approved by the Austrian Academy of Sciences Publication Committee. Die verwendete Papiersorte in dieser Publikation ist DIN EN ISO 9706 zertifiziert und erfüllt die Voraussetzung für eine dauerhafte Archivierung von schriftlichem Kulturgut. The paper used in this publication is DIN EN ISO 9706 certified and meets the requirements for permanent archiving of written cultural property. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. All rights reserved. Copyright © Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Austrian Academy of Sciences Wien/Vienna 2021 ISBN 978-3-7001-8705-9 Lektorat/Proofreading: Helen Golden, Prag Satz/Layout: Hapra GmbH, Puchenau Druck/Printed: DGS GmbH, BuchDrucker.at, Wien https://epub.oeaw.ac.at/8705-9 https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at Made in Europe

CONTENTS Acknowledgements



7

List of Abbreviations



9

Introduction



11



A Brief Survey of the Topic

12



Objectives

17



The Existing State of Research

20



Methodology

32



Ad fontes

42



The Structure of the Book





Supplementary Remarks

48

45

(1) The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)



51



The Rise of Insecurity



51



The Search for Security



60



1848 and Beyond

72

(2) The Governmental Elites (1830–1840)



79



The Need for Security



79



The Desire for Strength



91



The Quest for Territorial Expansion



97

(3) The Public Response (1830–1846)



103



Geopolitical Deliberations before 1840

103



The Sulphur War

107



The Rhine Crisis

114



The Origins of the Moderate National Movement

123

6

Contents

(4) The Crucial Year (1846)

147

The Salt-Wine Affair

147

The Annexation of Cracow

152

The Long-Term Consequences of the Annexation of Cracow

168

(5) Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

177

The Climax of Insecurity

177

The Pursuit of Power

198

The Sicilian Question

216

The Path to War

224

(6) The Triumph of Realism (1848)

237

The Rejection of the post-Napoleonic States System

237

Hopes for a New International Order

247

Security by Any Means and to All Ends

256

Ambitions for Maritime Strength and Overseas Expansion

274

The Aftermath

293

Conclusion

305

Bibliography

313

Index

343

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The publication of this book and the final phase of the research that preceded it could never have been accomplished without the generous support of the Czech Science Foundation financing the project The Role of Geopolitics in the Italian National Movement before 1848 [no. 18-05758S]. This project, however, represented just the final stage of a scholarly marathon begun in previous years as the topic analysed in this book materialised slowly but clearly before me. On this long journey I met a considerable number of inspiring individuals who assisted me with their magnanimous and unceasing support; without it I could never have gone so far. I cannot enumerate here the long list of diligent and helpful archivists and librarians in many institutions across Europe whose names hardly appear in the monographs although they contributed to their accomplishment with their important day-to-day assistance for which they deserve full recognition. At least I am able to do so in the case of the outstanding scholars who were never deaf to my usually demanding requests: I can thus express my sincere and deep gratitude to Birgit Aschmann, Robert D. Billinger, James Brophy, Frederik Dhondt, John Eibner, Guido Franzinetti, Wolf D. Gruner, David Laven, Matteo Proto, Jan Velaers, Walter Sauer, Wolfram Siemann, Alan Sked, Reinhard Stauber, Arnold Suppan, Karl Vocelka and Radosław Paweł Żurawski vel Grajewski. Special thanks go to the editors of the International History Series of the Austrian Academy of Science Michael Gehler and Wolfgang Mueller and to the redactor of its publishing house, Robert Püringer. For their eternal patience and non-academic support, I cannot fail to express my gratitude to my family. The person to whom I am most indebted is Helen Golden, who patiently revised my manuscript and turned my “Czenglish” into much more comprehensible English; with her extensive knowledge of German and French and perceptiveness of the complicated nuances of the mid 19th century Italian she was also able to revise my usually very imperfect translations from these languages. Without her skills and hard work this book could never have been prepared for publication. Nevertheless, although all these generous individuals accompanied me on my way for either longer or shorter distances, the choice of the direction and decision to persevere in it were mine; therefore, the responsibility lies with me alone if the course taken was the wrong one, or if I did not go far enough.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AB ADA AMAE AN ASF ASN AST ASV BAR BHStA BuZa CP CPC DUA FO GC GStA PK HA HHStA HStAS KA LM MA MAE MdA MKA NA NL-HaNA PP RA RAM-AC RGA SME StA StK StR TNA

Archivio Borbone Archives diplomatiques et africaines, Brussels Archives du Ministère des affaires étrangères, Paris Archives nationales, Paris Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Florence Archivio di Stato di Napoli, Naples Archivio di Stato di Torino, Turin Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Vatican City Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv, Bern Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Munich Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken Correspondance politique/Correspondances politiques Correspondance politique des consuls Departementet for de Udenlandske Anliggender Foreign Office General Correspondence Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin Hauptabteilung Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart Kabinettsarchiv Lettere ministri Ministerium des Äußern Ministero Affari Esteri Ministerium des Auswärtigen Minister-Kolowrat Akten Národní archiv, Prague Nationaal Archief, The Hague Palmerston Papers, Hartley Library, Southampton Riksarkivet, Stockholm Rodinný archiv Metternichů, Acta Clementina Rigsakrivet, Copenhagen Segreteria e ministero degli esteri Staatenabteilungen Staatskanzlei Staatsrat The National Archives of the United Kingdom, London

INTRODUCTION More than 150 years after the unification of Italy historians are still unable to provide a convincing answer to the question why in the mid 19th century a considerable number of Italians desired or at least were ready to accept some kind of political unity. This aspiration can be regarded as extraordinary in view of their traditional municipal and regional loyalties and animosities. The explanation of this process has become increasingly elusive during the last few decades with the refutation of many Risorgimento myths and with this also how the formation of an Italian nation and its unified state has traditionally been explained. To shed light on this complex process, recent scholarship has focused on regional diversity and the cultural sphere to better understand the rise of national sentiment, but it has yet to reach an adequate clarification.1 This book offers a different approach based not on regional but European and simultaneously on political, social and legal rather than on purely cultural perspectives. It introduces the thesis that the increasing inclination to political unity or unification of the Italian states was primarily caused by widespread conviction of the decline of the post-Napoleonic states system. As such it represented just part of a more general response among a considerable number of Europeans to the abuse of power by the strongest countries in European as well as overseas affairs, provoking their feeling of insecurity and influencing their attitudes towards the quality of international relations. In particular it was the members of the educated middle and upper middle classes who under the influence of various crises and conflicts changed their ways of judging and approaching issues of international politics, justice, security, and nation building even before the mid 19th century. This process was all the more important in Italian society since the search for



1

It is impossible to deal here with all these historical approaches nor is it necessary since every scholar dealing with the Risorgimento history is well acquainted with them, and for others reading this book the same issues are not of great importance for understanding its content. For the most prominent analysis of the cultural politics of the Risorgimento see Alberto Mario Banti, La nazione del Risorgimento: Parentela, santità e onore alle origini dell’Italia unita, Torino 2000. For scepticism of this cultural approach see an excellent text by David Laven “Italy,” Timothy Baycroft, Mark Hewitson (eds), What is a Nation? Europe 1789–1914, Oxford 2006, pp. 255–71. For the issue of regional history see Enrico Dal Lago, “Society, Economy, and Politics in Restoration Italy: Towards a Regional Synthesis,” The Historical Journal 45, 2002, 1, pp. 179–93. Both of course are reflected in the latest surveys on the history of the 19th century Italy, some of them cited below.

12

Introduction

greater security against external threats became the crucial driving force in the spread of the idea to unite it politically from the Alps to Sicily. This unity, along with well defensible frontiers, good material resources and a strong army and navy, was to ensure a more secure position within the system of European politics and, thereby, better prospects for a peaceful future according to the maxim Si vis pacem, para bellum. The presented thesis is connected with a more far-reaching claim that the development of European society during the 19th century was not only influenced by constitutional and socio-economic considerations but that there was also a third factor no less significant than these two: the perception of and response to international affairs. To reveal this important interdependence and its strong impact on both European society and international relations is the principal aim of this book, and the Italian arena of politics between 1830 and 1848 has been chosen to clarify this interdependence since it illustrates well this sea change in political behaviour, both in the short and long term. A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE TOPIC Traditional research on international relations throughout the 19th century is negatively influenced by several significant problems. First, historians generally perceive diplomatic affairs as the exclusive business of the political and diplomatic elites and therefore have rarely studied them from the perspective of other social classes. Second, they too frequently analyse historical events and processes through nationalist standpoints, which also holds for popular criticism of the post-Napoleonic international order in the mid 19th century. Another problem is that scholars have traditionally evaluated the development of international relations between 1815 and 1914 in a dichotomous way whereby the first half of the century is regarded through the legacy of the Congress of Vienna as an almost golden age of European diplomacy characterised by peaceful behaviour and willingness for mutual cooperation among states, while during the second half, especially after the 1870s, the relations among European countries are viewed as affected by mutual mistrust, animosity and the inability to establish a stable and enduring system of European interdependency. Lastly, they have placed excessive emphasis on important events generally regarded as turning points, of which the most fitting examples concerning Italian history are the revolutionary year of 1848 and the year of Italy’s unification in 1861. When history is approached in one or more of these ways, usually in all of them, it is all too easy to miss some important points which will be introduced in this book. First, international affairs were often observed by the educated middle and sometimes even lower middle classes and had a significant impact on shaping their worldviews and political programmes. Second, nationalism was just one outcome

A Brief Survey of the Topic

13

of their response to international politics in general and to the decline of the post 1815 order covered by this book in particular. Moreover, this decline was more continuous than scholars have generally claimed, and it had already begun before the mid 19th century owing to the destabilisation of the same system through the abuses of power by the strongest countries at the expense of weaker ones. Finally, the alleged historical milestones had a lesser impact on this process than is generally presumed, and events in both years – 1848 and 1861 – were in part symptoms and in part simply amplifiers of the long and cumulative process fuelled by various factors including a transnational debate about stability and justice in international affairs and the prospect for peace, all of which was often seen as very insecure. Observing the history of 19th century diplomacy and society through this wider perspective, it is possible to reveal an important process in the decline in both the stability of the peace order established at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and its reception by contemporaries particularly represented by aristocratic and bourgeois elites. The founders of this order wished to achieve a stable and lasting peace not only by restoring the balance of power but also by laying the foundations of legal principles ensuring general justice in international affairs. However, it did not last long and the growth of new international disputes and violations of the public law of Europe made the supranational cooperation more difficult and a considerable number of Europeans regardless of nationality, political opinion, social class and gender more inclined to believe that stability and justice were once again disappearing from the world. Long before 1848 they shared the opinion that the states system manifested deficiencies which could jeopardise the security of not only the smaller states but of all countries and finally lead to another general war. Consequently, for a steadily growing number of Europeans the security of individual states, not only of their sovereignty but also their economic interests, and their peaceable coexistence within the family of European states and nations (an expression widely used long before 1848) seemed thus to be at stake. This rise of general distrust of the existing political-legal system of Europe led, first, to criticism of it and, second, to a flood of ideas or even elaborate projects for its reform. The conservatives usually suggested more binding alliances and new legal guarantees of justice and peace in the relations among the countries; the participants of the peace movement, on the rise since the early 1840s, claimed that the best remedy was international arbitrage, a European counsel or even a European parliament. However, besides the plans which were in compliance with the 1815 order and aimed to improve it with a highly normative approach, there also existed more radical visions which were less compatible with it. What was common to the latter was the conviction that if the written law did not suffice to ensure the security of states, then it was necessary to put trust in the law of material force, in other words in the belief in the force of arms (Faustrecht). This shift to a more unilateral and power oriented or, as it was later termed, realist approach to international relations encompassed a large number of Europeans in the 1840s, and its

14

Introduction

inevitable result was the firm belief in the material strength of states and nations: the ideal was a state with well defendable frontiers, vast material resources including colonies and a large and well-armed army and navy. This was generally regarded as a better guarantee of its citizens’ security then transnational solidarity based on ephemeral legal rules. The desire for military strength as the necessary prerequisite for survival in the “brutal world” became peculiar to the movements desiring the unification of several states together: the Scandinavian movement striving for the political unity of Sweden, Norway and Denmark as well as the German one for greater centralisation of the German Confederation. It is no coincidence that the articles, pamphlets and debates of the supporters of Scandinavism and German nationalism covered many geopolitical topics; and it also was no coincidence that in the 1840s in Germany there arose not only the question of national unification but also the need for land as well as naval armament, colonial expansion and the vision of a large German Central Europe extending to the western Black Sea coast. It is not to say that this reliance on material strength led to a conscious refutation of any improved political-legal system ensuring harmony and peace among European states and nations. This definitely was not the case since even the most ardent nationalists who wanted to destroy the post-Napoleonic order regarded it as necessary to establish a new – fairer – one in Europe, and this is also why mid 19th century Europe witnessed a wave of appeals for supranational cooperation even in nationalist camps. However, no improved international order was ultimately established because as the tendency for states to seek the principal guarantee of their own security in material strength prevailed, the creation of a new and better international order became more difficult as each nation’s own territorial aspirations and armaments provoked the spiral of mistrust, jealousy and fear among other nations, in other words the rise of the security dilemma. All in all, in the first half of the 19th century there was already an important but as yet unidentified process whereby the abuse of power by stronger states within as well as outside Europe gradually eroded the faith in the international security ensured by treaties and launched their search for greater security in material force. This tendency was accompanied by a willingness on the part of individual states to act outside the limits of international law and solve disputes with military force, often with the excuse of increasing their own security and thereby prospects for a peaceful future in an insecure world. It was actually at that time and not only in the second half of the same century when this transition from the predominance of what can be labelled as institutionalism to realism in international affairs occurred. The rise of Realpolitik, nationalism, imperialism and colonialism for example, much like a more normative approach in the peace movement, must thus be seen as components of a complex process beyond simply the actions of the governing elites: they resulted from the general public’s deep interest in and response to supranational affairs.

A Brief Survey of the Topic

15

The very same process also occurred in Italy before 1848. For centuries some Italians actually resented the fact that owing to the political disunity of their own princes and republican governments, the great powers viewed the Apennines as a pawn in their geopolitical games. France and Austria were particularly criticised for their struggle for hegemony, with negative consequences for peace and stability in the peninsula. In this respect the new 1815 order changed very little in the two great powers’ quest for predominant influence, merely moderating it in form but not removing it at all. While criticism of the post-Napoleonic order in Italy always existed among a small group of revolutionaries, in particular the emigrants, their objections were for a long time limited to intellectuals advocating first political liberalisation and then – and less often – national unity or unification. Moreover, they were able to attack the same order on humanitarian grounds for freedom and a better life for the people but hardly with legal arguments since the great powers’ actions, including Austria’s anti-revolutionary military interventions, were for over one and a half decades compatible with its own legal framework. The first wave of widespread and intensive criticism of the dysfunctioning of the international order occurred in the early 1830s, in particular within the predominantly conservative ruling class of Italian monarchs and their ministers and diplomats. They watched with increasing displeasure the threat represented by France, namely her principle of non-intervention through which the government in Paris attempted to limit the independence of some Italian states and her occupation of Ancona in 1832 brutally violating the pope’s sovereignty. They denounced not only France as the offender but also the other great powers which, in their opinion, did very little to defend the rights of the Italian rulers. All this weakened their sense of external security, and when they failed with their requests for international guarantees against the great powers’ interference, some of them began to contemplate mutual alliances – even a league – and territorial conquests with the aim to ensure greater security against external threats. The Italian ruling elites’ lack of trust in the integrity of the great powers’ conduct developed further in 1840 when first the British exploited their military superiority against the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the so-called Sulphur War and later when Europe seemed to be on the verge of a new large-scale war during the Rhine Crisis. These two affairs seemed to confirm the conviction that it was necessary to be strong enough to be able to avert the dangers threatening Italy from abroad, and it also was at that time that the members of the non-ruling aristocratic and bourgeois circles adopted the position that this strength could hardly be achieved without pan-Italian solidarity. This explains why geopolitical considerations became more intensive in the case of the educated middle class from 1840 and why criticism of Austrian as well as French and British incursions became part of a more sophisticated and gradually also more widespread political-legal debate, which intensified yet again after 1846 as new real or alleged violations of the public law of Europe occurred.

16

Introduction

Geopolitical themes like the functioning of the European states system, the position of Italian countries in it and the great powers’ egoistic or even aggressive behaviour on the Old Continent as well as overseas became increasingly important for liberals and democrats living both in Italy and in exile – especially in Paris, London, Brussels and Switzerland. They provoked a sense of solidarity among various political factions as well as Italian regions otherwise divided by traditional unconcern or even dislike. What all the groups agreed on was the necessity for Italy to attain greater security in a world where they believed the strong countries dominated and the weak were doomed to exploitation. In their opinion, this was to be achieved by a greater unity among the rulers and their subjects and, simultaneously, among all states in the Apennines. Where the same men differed was the extent of national unity to which they aspired: while the moderate liberals wanted an Italian (con)federation, the republicans often desired an Italian republic. Nevertheless, under the given conditions this difference was less important than their common willingness to improve Italy’s position in world affairs; the external threats which they regarded as common to all of them made them prepared to cooperate regardless of their national (e.g. Sardinian or Tuscan) and social origins and political sympathies. Consequently, the geopolitical platform served as a perfect means of ensuring unity among the Italians and as powerful amplifier of their pan-Italian feelings, and in this way geopolitics successfully fuelled the rise of the Italian national movement. The role of geopolitics was all the more important in this respect when it was easy to find a common enemy against which it was possible to unite. Since Austria was the great power most directly involved in Italian affairs owing to her territorial possessions of Lombardy and Venetia and therefore the one most disliked, the Italians agreed that the first step towards their greater security was the expulsion of the Austrians beyond the Alps. It was for this reason that the war against Austria launched by the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) in March 1848 won such broad popular support. The next step was a federation formed by the states of the Apennines, which was supported by the majority of patriotic Italians. To increase their material strength the same states were also to establish a strong army and naval fleet to protect themselves against not only Austria but also the other great powers. To be able to obtain sufficient financial means, a collective commercial shipping policy was proposed, and the seeds of colonial thought were already sown. The Italians’ decision to wage war against Austria in 1848 was an obvious infringement of the post-Napoleonic states system in Europe since it was directed against the territorial status quo established at the Congress of Vienna; it also was one of the consequences of the Italians’ diminishing loyalty to the same system. Like many Europeans, they saw it as a relic of the Congress of Vienna that no longer provided the desired security guarantees, and therefore its revision by violent means was not only necessary but also morally justifiable. There is a clear progression from their early belief in the inadequacy of the system to protect the

Objectives

17

Italian countries against abuse by the great powers to their fading allegiance to this system and their reliance on the force of arms instead of public law, leading ultimately to the exploitation of Austria’s weakness for their own geopolitical (security) aims. This is where the quest for security in international affairs led Italian society and how it was adopted by the national movement. Much like in Scandinavia and Germany the desire for uniting several countries was also regarded in Italy as a response to the disintegration of the 1815 order. One can thus see that the need for greater security as well as the way the educated classes in particular in various parts of Europe responded to this need was more or less identical. What was also common to them was the goal: they did not want a war of extermination but “merely” a powerful (con)federation, nation state or even an empire, all of them strong enough to avert the existing external threats. Then, they hoped, a more stable and secure peace would be ensured. This desire is also omnipresent in Italian political texts of the studied period in which the expulsion of Austria from the Apennines was just a first step followed by either the reform or the complete reconstruction of the European states system ending in friendly and peaceful relations of all nations. However, like the Germans the Italians also missed the point that their own territorial and colonial aspirations as well as armaments aimed at their own increased safety clashed with the same security interests of the others, the regrettable outcome of which was, as already mentioned above, an even greater belief in the force of arms instead of the rule of international law and the resulting failure to establish a new “better” international order in Europe. OBJECTIVES The principal objective of this book is to reveal the strong but hitherto neglected influence of diplomatic affairs on the development of civic society and the formation of political ideas of individuals as well as groups with significant repercussions on international politics. Its premise is that even before the mid 19th century international relations were matters of concern for the broader public that reacted not only to constitutional and socio-economic but also international affairs, and it simultaneously shows that not only wars and revolutions but also affairs of minor significance – usually those perceived as law breaking – were important in this process for their immediate and simultaneously cumulative impact. This was primarily owing to the interest in the affairs of the world which were regarded as important for the security of own communities. All the more important, it is possible to show some logic in this popular response to what was regarded as the decline in the security guaranteed by the existing international system: when the contemporaries felt that it was inadequate, they tried to reform it and if this was seen as impossible, to replace it with a new one. The desired changes were to be

18

Introduction

implemented on regional as well as pan-European levels due to the belief that there was a strong interdependence in the security of individual states as well as the whole European states system. This is exactly what had already happened in Europe before the mid 19th century in response to the destabilisation of the post-Napoleonic states system by the abuses of power perpetrated by the strongest countries. Various international affairs of seemingly minor significance and almost forgotten today were obvious symptoms of the corrosion of the legacy of the Congress of Vienna and were important for the contemporaries who gradually lost their trust in the strength of law and the prospects of a lasting peace. These affairs and the corresponding public response to them serve as convincing evidence for the continuity and social dimension of the decline of the international order; they help to refute a widespread notion that there was any particular turning point in this process: it was definitely not 1848, the year of European revolutions shaking the old order, nor the Crimean War of 1853–1856 representing the first armed conflict among the great powers since 1815, nor the unifications of Italy in 1861 and Germany ten years later contributing to the shift in the European balance of power. All these historical milestones are more artificial than real, and they are often presented in a way that contributes to the lingering dichotomous evaluation of the history of international relations from 1815 to 1914, something that this book should help to rectify. The hypotheses introduced above will be demonstrated using the example of Italy from 1830 to 1848, which offers a suitable landscape for an analysis that must be meticulously delimited in time and space. It was during this period that the Italian states became victims of undeniable violations of the public law of Europe, the Papal States by the French occupation of Ancona in 1832 and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by the British proceeding in the Sulphur-War of 1840. These last two affairs were joined with those threatening the Italians’ security like the Rhine Crisis in 1840 and the Austrian so-called occupation of Ferrara in 1847 and those threatening economic interests like the Austro-Piedmontese salt-wine dispute in 1846. All of them were attentively observed by the general public. Due to the conviction of the strong interdependence of relations within the European states system, Italians naturally also paid attention to other serious diplomatic affairs like the Austrian annexation of Cracow and the British-French conflict over the Spanish Marriages in 1846. Finally, even the overseas ambitions of some of the great powers like the French conquest of Algeria in 1830, Britain’s seizure of Aden in 1839 and her Opium War with China starting in the same year and Russian military campaigns in the Caucasus were among the topics discussed in public, increasing their apprehension that the same imperialistic conduct would sooner or later impact on Europe. That is why these and other abuses of power on as well as outside the Continent fuelled geopolitical deliberations within the national discourse: they offered an argument on behalf of the political unity of all Italian states to be able to withstand all external attacks. It was exactly this

Objectives

19

geopolitical consideration which could unite various political and social groups of Italian society and, given its generally assessed significance for all of society, create a platform on which intellectuals could win massive support for the concept of Italian nationhood serving in this respect as a security measure. This is how the uneasy position of Italian states within the post-Napoleonic states system in Europe influenced the desire of the Italians for national unity or even unification. With the example of this public response in Italy it is possible to better understand the same process in all European society in the mid 19th century, particularly in Germany and Scandinavia. Although the narration logically climaxes in the topic of nationhood and nationalism, this theme is important but not the principal object of the presented work. It is true that the problems weighing upon international affairs united the most influential groups in Italian society in the belief that the best solution was national unity (if not unification), and therefore the rise of the Italian national movement is one of the most important issues covered by this book. Nevertheless, one must always keep in mind that it was just one of several outcomes of a highly complex process that can be briefly summarised by the subtitle of this book as a response to international insecurity. For this reason, the whole topic is not perceived through the concept of nationalism but of security, as is explained in detail below in the section on methodology. Another innovative instrument is the focus on the legal aspect of the Italians’ debates about international affairs because since the feeling of insecurity was primarily caused by violations of the law (or what was perceived as such), the subsequent criticism of the international order was largely of legal (or pseudo-legal) nature. With this approach combining diplomatic history with the history of international law and political science, the presented work goes beyond traditional nationalist narratives of the Risorgimento historiography although it also tries to help answer the principal question still unresolved by historians: Why did the Italians actually strive for political unity or even unification? As is claimed here, the answer can be found neither in the social-economic aspect of the Italian national movement that was, as the same historians usually agree, unimportant, nor in purely constitutional issues, in other words in the effort to change the political regimes in individual Italian states, since this could have been done even without any supranational unity, which actually happened in early 1848. It cannot even be explained by the traditional reference to the Italians’ animosity towards Austria because this was just a partial demonstration of the general loss of trust in justice in world politics owing to the arrogant policies of all great powers, albeit in the Austrian case it was certainly the most apparent example. It was actually the widespread conviction that Italians were exposed to many security threats against which the individual Italian countries were too weak to survive and therefore it was necessary to unite them; pan-Italian kinship served in this respect not as an aim in itself but rather as a supporting argument. When advocating this thesis, one gets back to the primary

20

Introduction

premise that what happened in Italy was not an isolated reaction but an integral part of a wider process of a genuine pan-European dimension before 1848, which enables a new European contextualisation of Italian history. The last but definitely not the least significant objective is to demonstrate with the example of Italy the origin of a process that was hardly desired by contemporary Italians and most probably was not even foreseen by the majority of them but came into being and ultimately got beyond their control: the rise of the security dilemma. It was not provoked by any great war or the establishment of new nation states in the second half of the 19th century but by an earlier accumulation of negative experiences with the dysfunctioning of the European states system. Although the resulting lack of material power to improve each nation’s own security and the desire for peaceful cooperation among nations went hand in hand, the pursuit of the former undermined the latter’s prospect for success. This was an ominous legacy for later decades since it prevented the creation of a stable states system in Europe that if not better was at least similar to that founded in 1815. This finding is a serious warning for the present time regarding how the loss of confidence in the strength of international law can change, more or less imperceptably, the mood in human society and among governments despite the overwhelmingly predominant human desire to live in a safe and peaceful world. THE EXISTING STATE OF RESEARCH It is impossible to explain the presented topic either on a European or on a purely Italian level with the use of existing scholarly literature. The reason is simple: despite the undisputable intensity and significance of the popular response to international politics in the 19th century, historians and political scholars have greatly neglected the public reaction to what was seen as external threats if not to the general peace then at least to the security of European countries: their de facto complete ignorance of it is all the more shocking when one sees that the feeling of international insecurity continued beyond 1840 and had wide-ranging and often negative consequences for the stability of the post-Napoleonic international order established in 1815 and impacted the formation and rise of nationalism in Europe. There are several important reasons for this omission which can be summarised in the following focal points. First, despite the fact that a great deal has been written on diplomatic history and no less on the impact of nationalism and imperialism on the relations among nations and states, international politics and the broad public are still predominantly regarded as two more or less independent spheres in which the former relates to the decision-making of the social elite representing a small number of people while the latter relates to the disinterested masses. Consequently, while scholars have often paid attention to the broad public’s interest in socio-economic and constitutional affairs and to how these affairs shaped worl-

The Existing State of Research

21

dviews and political programmes, there is a relatively small number of scholarly works dealing with more than simply the passive perception of foreign affairs by the general public in the early 19th century. For the studied period the only authoritative exception is perhaps John H. Gleason’s older but still excellent work on the origins of Russophobia in Great Britain in the 1830s that later played a significant role in Britain’s entry into the Crimean War.2 Although a broad public of middle and sometimes even lower-middle classes observed international affairs alongside the ruling and educated elites,3 and some scholars acknowledge that during the 1840s news about international events penetrated the most “isolated villages,”4 they have not pursued this remarkable feature of reception. Second, the traditional nationalistic point of view evaluating 19th century affairs through the perspective of nations and nation states is still deep-rooted in contemporary scholarship. Unfortunately, it narrows the horizon to such an extent that it is almost impossible to see a more general problem beyond the nationalist aspirations, which also holds for a few scholars who have observed the origins of imperialism in Germany before 1848 exclusively from a nationalist perspective: they missed the important point that the imperialist tendency was a part of a general shift to realism in international affairs among not only German nationalists but also other Germans and Europeans.5 Third, the history of international politics has long been regarded as outdated and for this reason it attracts less attention today. The contemporary focus on the more popular topics of a social, economic or cultural nature rather than John H. Gleason, The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain: A Study of the Interaction of Policy and Opinion, Cambridge 1950. The same lack of scholarly texts, however, is also applicable for the later part of the same century with rare exceptions like Duncan Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860–1900, Princeton 2007; Malcolm E. Carroll, French Public Opinion and Foreign Affairs, 1870–1914, London, New York 1931; Paul M. Kennedy, The Realities behind Diplomacy: Background Influences on British External Policy, 1865–1980, London 1981. 3 Miroslav Šedivý, “The Austrian Empire, German Nationalism and the Rhine Crisis of 1840,” Austrian History Yearbook 47, 2016, pp. 15–36. 4 Jonathan Sperber, Rhineland Radicals: The Democratic Movement and the Revolution of 1848– 1849, Princeton 1991, p. 268. 5 For additional explanation on the limits of the nationalist perspective see the section on methodology below. Hans Fenske, “Ungeduldige Zuschauer: Die Deutschen und die europäische Expansion 1815–1880,” Wolfgang Reinhard (ed.), Imperialistische Kontinuität und nationale Ungeduld im 19. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt 1991, pp. 87–123; Matthew P. Fitzpatrick, Liberal Imperialism in Germany: Expansionism and Nationalism 1848–1884, New York, Oxford 2008; Dirk van Laak, Über alles in der Welt: Deutscher Imperialismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, München 2005; Frank Möller, “Vom revolutionären Idealismus zur Realpolitik: Generationswechsel nach 1848?” Historische Zeitschrift: Beihefte 36, 2003, pp. 71–91; Frank Lorenz Müller, “Imperialist Ambitions in Vormärz and Revolutionary Germany,” German History 17, 1999, pp. 346–68.

2

22

Introduction

the more traditional one of foreign affairs has considerably contributed to a state of research where diplomatic history seems to have been sidelined. There have been, of course, significant attempts to re-evaluate the legacy of the Congress of Vienna since the early 1990s, but they have usually overlooked the popular responses to diplomatic affairs and, second, they have frequently offered unduly positive assessments of the post-Napoleonic states system. In the last quarter of a century, Paul W. Schroeder in the Anglo-American and Matthias Schulz in the German-speaking milieu, followed by a significant number of other historians, have tended to overemphasise the positive aspects of the supranational cooperation among European powers after 1815.6 Political scholars have adopted this tendency and have accordingly developed their theoretical concepts, including the most recent focus on the concept of security and security culture in 19th century international relations.7 This general neglect of the weaknesses of the European states system, however, inevitably runs the risk of not addressing the decline and collapse of the international order. Even worse, scholars feel no need to pose this question at all; they are content to interpret the history of the 19th century in a dichotomous way, distinguishing between the century’s “good” and “bad” periods marked by such “turning points” as mentioned in the previous section like the Crimean War or the Unification of Germany. If they try to find signs of the decay of the system prior to the year 1848, then it is usually in connection with the rise of the new forces like the growth of nationalism (which itself was actually a response to that decay rather than the cause in itself as this book attempts to prove). Such an approach towards the Congress of Vienna’s enduring legacy has already established a canon in the interpretation of the 19th century diplomatic history which historians and political scholars have accepted as an undisputable fact repeated in their works, which themselves often lack references not only to useful archival sources but also to older yet still valuable historical works proving not the stability of the international order established in 1815 but rather that it was Winfried Baumgart, Europäisches Konzert und nationale Bewegung: Internationale Beziehungen 1830–1878, München, Wien, Zürich 1999; Francis Roy Bridge, Roger Bullen, The Great Powers and the European States System 1814–1914, Harlow 2005; Peter Krüger (ed.), Das europäische Staatensystem im Wandel: Strukturelle Bedingungen und bewegende Kräfte seit der Frühen Neuzeit, München 1996; Anselm Doering-Manteuffel, Vom Wiener Kongreß zur Pariser Konferenz: England, die deutsche Frage und das Mächtesystem 1815–1856, Göttingen, Zürich 1991; Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics 1763–1848, Oxford 1994; Matthias Schulz, Normen und Praxis: Das Europäische Konzert der Großmächte als Sicherheitsrat, 1815–1860, München, Oldenbourg 2009; Bo Stråth, Europe’s Utopias of Peace: 1815, 1919, 1951, London, New York 2016. 7 Eckart Conze, “Konzertierte Sicherheit: Wahrnehmung und Wirkung des Wiener Kongresses im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert,” Journal of Modern European History 13, 2015, pp. 439–46; Beatrice de Graaf, Ido de Haan, Brian Vick (eds), Securing Europe after Napoleon: 1815 and the New European Security Culture, Cambridge 2019; Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics, Princeton 2017.

6

The Existing State of Research

23

actually “crumbling” already before 1848.8 Consequently, a more detailed insight into the history of international relations before that year shows that the post-Napoleonic order already contained serious ominous shortcomings. Over evaluating it not only threatens to bring scholarship on the topic into dangerous deadlock but also creates conditions where it is impossible to determine the impact of post-Napoleonic international affairs on shaping the worldviews of Europeans since the increasingly sceptical public opinion towards world affairs was primarily due to the order’s deficiencies.9 For all these reasons the scholarly literature on the general history of Europe and diplomacy offers little that is useful for the understanding of what happened in Italian society during the 19th century in its response to international politics. The same disconsolate situation exists in the vast amount of literature on the Risorgimento history despite the fact that there exists a broad consensus among scholars that the Italian Question was generally regarded before 1848 as a European one, that the process of Italian unification was part of a European movement, that external influences were of great importance in this respect10 and that, as Paul W. Schroeder briefly admits, perhaps in Italy international problems were “the dominant factors in bringing on the revolutions.”11 However, all these statements, while certainly correct, were never fully explained by the same historians who For this opinion see Harold N. Ingle, Nesselrode and the Russian Rapprochement with Britain, 1836–1844, Berkeley, London 1976, p. 170, and Miroslav Šedivý, Crisis among the Great Powers: The Concert of Europe and the Eastern Question, London, New York 2017, p. 287. For a similarly sceptical evaluation of the Concert of Europe before 1848 see James L. Richardson, Crisis Diplomacy: The Great Powers since the Mid-Nineteenth Century, Cambridge 1994, pp. 68, 104. For classical examples of old but still valuable literature see Eugéne de Guichen, La crise d’Orient de 1839 à 1841 et l’Europe, Paris 1921; Adolf Hasenclever, Die Orientalische Frage in den Jahren 1838–1841: Ursprung des Meerengenvertrages vom 13. Juli 1841, Leipzig 1914. 9 Another reason for the ignorance of how the broad public responsed to international affairs is the continuous lack of scholarly interest in the role of smaller countries in the European states system after 1815. Although retrospective evaluation can to a certain extent support Paul W. Schroeder’s statement that in all of history until the 1840s these countries could never feel as safe against the great powers’ aggression as during following decades, for the evaluation of historical processes it is more important to know that as the year 1848 approached, it was particularly the inhabitants of these countries who were coming to a very different opinion. Paul W. Schroeder, “The 19th-Century International System: Changes in the Structure,” World Politics 39, 1986, 1, p. 25. 10 Martin Clark, The Italian Risorgimento, Harlow 2009, p. 7; Antonio Gramsci, Il risorgimento, Torino 1954, p. 89; Wolf D. Gruner, “Italien zwischen Revolution und Nationalstaatsgründung 1789–1861,” Wolf D. Gruner, Günter Trautmann (eds), Italien in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Hamburg 1991, p. 112; Luigi Salvatorelli, Pensiero e azione del Risorgimento, Torino 1962, p. 118; Stuart Woolf, A History of Italy 1700–1860: The Social Constraints of Political Change, London 1979, p. 329. 11 Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, p. 799.

8

24

Introduction

have failed to see the significance of the Italians’ perception of and reaction to the quality of affairs between their own states and how the response across the territorial and social strata of Italian society contributed to the increasing support of the idea of national unity or unification. These scholars remained only on the threshold of a comprehensive analysis with their lasting stress placed on highly selected geopolitical reflections contained in the texts of several prominent intellectuals.12 The recent exception is Maurizio Isabella who introduces the geopolitical deliberations of the Italian patriots and nationalists within a wider European framework, but he predominantly concentrates on the period between the Napoleonic Wars and the early 1830s and consequently leaves room for a new systemic analysis for the subsequent period.13 If one poses the question as to what helped to overcome strong regional and municipal identities and mutual rivalries so that the idea of national unity became acceptable for a considerable number of Italians before 1848,14 then the usual answer is not the desire to live together but to be independent of the great powers, in particular Austria.15 This explanation that Italian nationalism was primarily a de

All this holds for the incalculable number of partial studies as well as surveys on the Risorgimento and Modern Italian history; for the authoritative or most recent works from the latter group and not mentioned in previous footnotes see Alberto Mario Banti, Paul Ginsborg, Il Risorgimento, Torino 2007; Derek Beales, Eugenio F. Biagini, The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, Harlow 2002; George Fitz-Harding Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 1815–1846, Cambridge 1968; George Fitz-Harding Berkeley, Joan Berkeley, Italy in the Making: June 1846 to I January 1848, Cambridge 1968; Giorgio Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna. Volume 3: La Rivoluzione nazionale, Milano 1960; Giorgio Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna. Volume secondo: Dalla Restaurazione alla rivoluzione nazionale, Milano 1994; John A. Davis, Italy in the Nineteenth Century, 1796–1900, Oxford 2000; Christopher Duggan, The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796, London 2007; Manlio Graziano, The Failure of Italian Nationhood: The Geopolitics of a Troubled Identity, New York 2010; Harry Hearder, Italy in the Age of the Risorgimento 1790–1870, London, New York 1986; Luigi Mascilli Migliorini, “Problema nazionale e coscienza europea da Aquisgrana all’unità (1748–1861),” Giuseppe Galasso, Luigi Mascilli Migliorini (eds), L’Italia moderna e l’unità nazionale, Torino 1998; Indro Montanelli, L’Italia del Risorgimento (1831–1861), Milano 1972; Gilles Pécout, Il lungo Risorgimento: La nascita dell’Italia contemporanea (1770–1922), Milano 1999; Lucy Riall, The Italian Risorgimento: State, Society and National Unification, London, New York 1994; Alfonso Scirocco, Il Risorgimento italiano, Milano 2004. 13 For the numerous inspiring works published by Maurizio Isabella see Risorgimento in Exile: Italian Émigrés and the Liberal International in the Post-Napoleonic Era, Oxford 2009; “Il movimento risorgimentale in un contesto globale,” Adriano Roccucci (ed.), La costruzione dello Stato-nazione in Italia, Roma 2012, pp. 87–107; “Nationality before liberty? Risorgimento political thought in transnational context,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 17, 2012, 5, pp. 507–15. 14 Beales, Biagini, The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, p. 11. 15 Giulio Bollati, L’Italiano: Il carattere nazionale come storia e come invenzione, Torino 1983, p. 106; Martin Collier, Italian Unification 1820–71, Edinburgh 2003, p. 30; Ronald S. Cunsolo, Italian nationalism: From Its origins to World War II, Malabar (Florida) 1990, pp. ix, 23. 12

The Existing State of Research

25

fensive reaction to foreign domination is certainly correct, but again it is narrowed by the strong emphasis laid on Austria’s role in Italian affairs and particularly her anti-revolutionary interventions in the early 1820s and 1830s or the later so-called occupation of Ferrara in 1847, while the aversion towards other great powers as well as the dislike of the existing state of European politics have been more or less ignored. In short, the rise of anti-Austrian feelings in the 1840s, the Italians behaviour during the 1848 revolutions and the long-term strategic planning of Sardinian King Charles Albert behind his decision to wage war against Austria in 1848 lack a more elaborated geopolitical contextualisation,16 which also holds for the works on Italian journalism despite the fact that the press paid an immense amount of attention to the international dimension of Italy’s struggle for independence and unity in 1847–1848.17 Another important area of neglect is connected with a striking gap in the narrations on the origins and spread of Italian nationalism between Giuseppe Mazzini’s unsuccessful invasion of Savoy from Switzerland in early 1834 and the accession of Pope Pius IX in 1846. This 12-year period is usually seen as an intermission with certain affairs contributing to the rise of Italian national consciousness, in particular in connection with the formation of the moderate national movement in the works of Vincenzo Gioberti, Cesare Balbo and Massimo d’Azeglio from 1843 to 1846. However, these works are barely linked to the international events of 1840 and their authors’ overall mistrust of the state of European politics to which these events undoubtedly contributed; the only exception to this rule is the 1839– 1841 war in the Ottoman Empire that historians have traditionally and correctly pointed out as being the direct impetus for Balbo’s famous idea of the exchange of Austrian domains in Italy for some Ottoman provinces in the Balkans.18 Scholars have hardly mentioned other important events of 1840 like the Sulphur War and the Rhine Crisis; a rare exception is American historian Dennis W. Thomson, who has offered a brief sketch on the reaction of the Italians to the Sulphur War, albeit Ferdinand Boyer, La Seconde République: Charles-Albert et l’Italie du Nord en 1848, Paris 1967; Frank J. Coppa, The Origins of the Italian Wars of Independence, London 1992; Narciso Nada, Dallo Stato assoluto allo Stato costituzionale: Storia del Regno di Carlo Alberto dal 1831 al 1848, Torino 1980; Pécout, Il lungo Risorgimento, pp. 126–27; Niccolò Rodolico, Carlo Alberto negli anni di regno 1831–1843, Firenze 1936; Denis Mack Smith, “The Revolutions of 1848–1849 in Italy,” R. J. W. Evans, Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann (eds), The Revolutions in Europe 1848–1849: From Reform to Reaction, Oxford 2000, p. 55; A. J. P. Taylor, The Italian Problem in European Diplomacy 1847–1849, Manchester 1970; Cesar Vidal, Charles-Albert et le Risorgimento italien (1831–1848), Paris 1927. 17 Jan-Pieter Forβmann, Presse und Revolution in der Toskana 1847–49: Entstehung, Inhalte und Wandel einer politischen Öffentlichkeit, Köln, Weimar, Wien 2017; Alessandro Galante Garrone, Franco Della Peruta, La stampa italiana del Risorgimento, Roma 1978; Franco Della Peruta, Il Giornalismo italiano del Risorgimento: Dal 1847 all’Unità, Milano 2011. 18 For such an opinion see for example Edgar Holt, The Making of Italy 1815–1870, New York 1971, p. 93.

16

26

Introduction

almost exclusively of those belonging to the ruling and diplomatic elites.19 The same disconsolate situation exists for the year 1846: some attention has been paid to the fear caused in Italy by the so-called Galician massacres, but surprisingly little has been said about the identical effect of the annexation of Cracow.20 What further does not help is the absence of a comprehensive work on the problem of geography in the nationalist discourse before 1848, a topic merely touched on but never fully analysed,21 and the lack of attention those scholars who have recently dealt with the history of emotions have paid to the fears provoked by external threats.22 Nevertheless, the greatest impediment is the same tendency to a dichotomous perception of the Italians’ shift to realism (Realpolitik) as exists for the development of international relations. Historians and political scholars have generally failed to show the continuity of this process in their texts on Italy to the same extent as they have failed to do so in the case of Germany.23 This has primarily been caused by the great importance attributed to the year of 1848 seen by historians as a turning point between the past and the future in many respects: first, in the shift to realism, second, in the formation of Italian and German nationalism and third, in the coexistence of various European nations.24 To summarise the nature of this change in all three points, historians usually claim that while the period before 1848 distinguished itself with a quest for freedom and friendship among nations, the following years were characterised by the policy of political or military power and chauvinism, and it is only this later era to which the disintegration of the post-Napoleonic order is ascribed and seen as an important factor mak-







Dennis W. Thomson, The Sulphur War (1840): A Confrontation between Great Britain and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the Mediterranean, Ann Arbor 1989. 20 Beales, Biagini, The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, pp. 84–85; Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna, vol. 3, p. 13. 21 Ernesto Galli della Loggia, L’identità italiana, Bologna 1998, pp. 7–30. 22 Silvana Patriarca, “A Patriotic Emotion: Shame and the Risorgimento,” Silvana Patriarca, Lucy Riall (eds), The Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy, Basingstoke 2012, pp. 134–51; Maurizio Isabella, “Emotions, rationality and political intentionality in patriotic discourse,” Nations and Nationalism 15, 2009, 3, pp. 427–33. 23 For recent literature on the rise of Realpolitik in the mid 19th century see John Bew, Realpolitik: A History, Oxford 2016, pp. 43–64; Natascha Doll, Recht, Politik und »Realpolitik« bei August Ludwig von Rochau (1810–1873): Ein wissenschaftsgeschichtlicher Beitrag zum Verhältnis von Politik und Recht im 19. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt 2005; Federico Trocini, L’invenzione della «Realpolitik» e la scoperta della «legge del potere»: August Ludwig von Rochau tra radicalismo e nazional-liberalismo, Bologna 2009. 24 For this emphasis on the significance of 1848 see also Eckart Conze, “Wer von Europa spricht hat Unrecht: Aufstieg und Verfall des vertragsrechtlichen Multilateralismus im europäischen Staatensystem des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Historisches Jahrbuch 121, 2001, pp. 230–33; Bruce Haddock, “Italy: Independence and Unification without Power,” Bruce Waller (ed.), Themes in modern European history 1830–90, London 1990, p. 83; Möller, “Vom revolutionären Idealismus zur Realpolitik,” pp. 71–91; Riall, The Italian Risorgimento, pp. 65–66. 19

The Existing State of Research

27

ing the idea of national unification attractive for the Italians and, simultaneously, their coexistence with some other nations more difficult.25 Outstanding scholars like Dominique Kirchner Reill and Konstantina Zanou have recently focused on how the relations between Italians and other nations, especially the neighbouring Greeks and Slavs, deteriorated owing to their gradually diverging nationalist aspirations in 1848 and afterwards. With their focus on several selected individuals they have left open the question as to what actually led a considerable number of Italians to demand the pursuance of a “national” policy that, if actually executed, would have negative consequences for the Greeks and Slavs purely and simply because the Italians wanted to annex the territories these people lived in.26 Here even the same historians’ transnational approach does not help to reveal the principal cause of the transition from understanding and tolerance to aversion and even outspoken hostility simply because they have overlooked the process spreading through the 1840s in the sphere of European geopolitics. The same problem is typical for an almost countless number of monographic surveys on the 1848 revolutions often repeating in the sphere of transnational relations the same “traditional” narratives and using the transnational approach almost exclusively for internal – constitutional, social and economic – but scarcely international affairs.27 All this led to the situation in historical scholarship when 1848 is generally regarded as the beginning of a “realistic turn around” in European nationalism when words like “greatness” and “international prestige” were invoked more than “progress” and “civilisation.”28 The same antithetical evaluation was offered by the legendary Italian historian, Federico Chabod, with the difference that he regarded not 1848 but 1870 with Prussia’s victory over France as such a turning point. According to him, it was then that the egoistic power politics of individual states and nationalist passions engraved the idea of Europe.29 Chabod’s focus on





Amerigo Caruso, Nationalstaat als Telos? Konflikte und Transformationen im konservativen Diskurs in Preußen und Sardinien-Piemont 1840–1870, dissertation, Universität des Saarlandes 2015, p. 404; Alan Cassels, Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World, London, New York 1996, pp. 69–70; Collier, Italian Unification, pp. 122–29. 26 Dominique Kirchner Reill, Nationalists who Feared the Nation: Adriatic Multi-Nationalism in Habsburg Dalmatia, Trieste and Venice, Stanford 2012; Konstantina Zanou, Transnational Patriotism in the Mediterranean, 1800–1850: Stammering the Nation, Oxford 2018. 27 For the latest example of this kind of transnational approach see Douglas Moggach, Gareth Stedman Jones (eds), The 1848 Revolutions and European Political Thought, Cambridge 2018. 28 R. J. B. Bosworth, Italy, the Least of the Great Powers: Italian Foreign Policy before the First World War, London, New York 2005, p. 8; Caruso, Nationalstaat als Telos, pp. 348–49; Emilio Gentile, La Grande Italia: The Myth of the Nation in the Twentieth Century, London, Madison 2009, p. 47; Franco Valsecchi, “Nation, Nationalität, Nationalismus im italienischen Denken,” Historische Zeitschrift 210, 1970, 1, pp. 14–33. 29 Federico Chabod, Italian Foreign Policy: The Statecraft of the Founders, Princeton 1996, pp. 5–67; Roberto Vivarelli, “1870 in European History and Historiography,” The Journal of Modern History 53, 1981, 2, pp. 167, 181–82, 185–86. 25

28

Introduction

Germany to a certain extent resembles the distinction made by his famous Italian contemporary Benedetto Croce on how Italy and Germany were unified: what made the difference was the “fact” that Count Camillo Benso di Cavour was a genuine liberal while Otto von Bismarck was a “hard realist” interested purely in the pursuit of power.30 This ahistorical “boxing” in time and space is exactly what this book refuses to condone. On the one hand, there was the already stated ongoing erosion of the post-Napoleonic order, reflected in the resulting inclination to realism on the other, both beginning long before 1848. Even the dissonance among the nations did not originate in that year but had developed earlier and related to their desire for their own national security and therefore with a willingness to sacrifice the interests of other nations for their own profit.31 Finally, the black and white evaluation of Bismarck and Cavour is also untenable. The gap between the two statesmen’s realism was not as wide as Croce thought, and Italy was by the logic of its creation a similarly power-oriented state although her power was less discernible owing to her considerably weaker material strength. One cannot forget that the two men were of almost the same age and shared highly similar geopolitical desires and apprehensions for their kingdoms. Therefore, the Italian liberals had already shifted their emphasis from constitutionalism and representative institutions to independence and unity before 1848 and, as Maurizio Isabella rightly notes, a considerable number of them simultaneously talked about war and violence even as they expressed a genuine desire to build a new fair and peaceful international order.32 These two seemingly incompatible attitudes were actually connected if conflicting expressions of an effort to increase their own security in an insecure world. The lack of scholarly interest in this fundamental human desire has contributed to the inferior evaluations of both the political-legal and power-oriented aspirations to which it led. In the case of the former, scholars’ neglect of it made it impossible for them to fully appreciate the source of the new legal school of natural law that is principially associated with Pasquale Stanislao Mancini and his famous lecture given at the University of Turin on 22 January 1851 in which he introduced the principle of nationhood as the basis on which the political-legal structure of international relations was to be established. Mancini’s legal innovation is generally regarded as a revolt against the existing legal principles which had traditionally Benedetto Croce, Geschichte Europas im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, Wien, Zürich 1947, pp. 236, 247; Pierangelo Schiera, “Zentralismus und Föderalismus in der nationalstaatlichen Einigung Italiens und Deutschlands: Anregungen zu einem politologischen Vergleich,” Oliver Janz, Pierangelo Schiera, Hannes Siegrist (eds), Zentralismus und Föderalismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Deutschland und Italien im Vergleich, Berlin 2000, pp. 21–24. 31 For the same opinion see Rudolf Jaworski, “Völkerfrühling 1848,” Dieter Langewiesche (ed.), Demokratiebewegung und Revolution 1847 bis 1849: Internationale Aspekte und europäische Verbindungen, Karlsruhe 1998, p. 46. 32 Isabella, “Emotions, rationality and political intentionality in patriotic discourse,” pp. 427–33.

30

The Existing State of Research

29

guided international affairs and had given the great powers superiority, and its aim was to legitimise Italy’s efforts to achieve political unity and the expulsion of Austria from Lombardy and Venetia. However, what historians and political scholars emphasise less is the fact that during the previous decade a considerable number of intellectuals, often educated lawyers, had aspired to replace the post-Napoleonic international order, which they identified with the treaties signed at Congress of Vienna in 1815, with a new one whereby nations would become the bearers of state sovereignty and the rights of all countries regardless of their material power would be respected. As Angelo Piero Sereni summarised in his classical work on the history of international law in Italy, “this doctrine arose toward the middle of the nineteenth century and quickly conquered the whole of Italy. In every part of the peninsula and among the Italian exiles abroad, statesmen, philosophers, and lawyers supported the new doctrine with striking unanimity. It became an act of faith for the majority of the Italian intellectuals of that age.”33 The only issue that was ever analysed – by Maurizio Isabella – are the debates of some Italian emigrants about the public law and the European order in the 1820s, which, however, became an unimportant issue for the early 1830s revolutionaries in Italy due to a lack of popular interest and in fact disappeared from public discourse until the following decade.34 The various scholarly texts written by other historians and mentioning this aspiration in the 1840s offer no more than a passing reference to it, focusing instead on the ideas of several national leaders and explaining their origin with their practical value for the justification of political and territorial changes in Italy and the war against Austria, both of which were incompatible with the post-Napoleonic order: with the changed perception of international law, seen now as the true law of nations, it was easier to reject the validity of the treaties and dynastic legitimism serving this “old” order.35 This historical perspective assessing the use of the law of nations by Mancini and other Italians solely as a measure for attaining national unity and independence is, however, too narrow and for this reason also misleading. It makes it more difficult to fully ap-



Angelo Piero Sereni, The Italian Conception of International Law, New York 1943, p. 157. Isabella, Risorgimento in Exile, pp. 99–107. 35 Besides Sereni’s older work, for the surveys on the international law from the Italian perspective in the mid 19th century see the latest texts published by Walter Rech “International Law as a Political Language, 1600–1859,” Giulio Bartolini (ed.), A History of International Law in Italy, Oxford 2020, pp. 48–78; Edoardo Greppi, “The Risorgimento and the ‘Birth’ of International Law in Italy,” Giulio Bartolini (ed.), A History of International Law in Italy, Oxford 2020, pp. 79–108. For fragmentary reference to some Italian leaders’ dislike of the post-Napoleonic international order in the 1840s see Mario Albertini, “‘Idea nazionale e ideali di unità supernazionali in Italia dal 1815 al 1918’,” Nuove Questioni di storia del Risorgimento e dell’unità d’Italia 2, 1961, pp. 698–99; Paolo Bagnoli, L’idea dell’Italia 1815–1861, Parma 2007, p. 105; Federico Chabod, L’idea di nazione, Bari 1962, pp. 70–77; Valsecchi, “‘Nation, Nationalität, Nationalismus im italienischen Denken’,” p. 19. 33 34

30

Introduction

preciate the continuity and great intensity of the Italians’ debate about the reform of the international order during the 1840s and the fact that their application of nationhood in international law was something more than a calculated measure: it represented their genuine desire to bring justice and a lasting peace into the relations among European countries and nations when these virtues seemed to be disappearing from the world of international politics, as this book seeks to explain. That is why the reform of the post-Napoleonic international order was one of the important topics in the Italian nationalist discourse long before 1851 and was not just a hypocritical argument used to justify the political unity of Italy and war against Austria.36 On the other hand, the same desire serves as futher evidence for the widespread dissatisfaction with this order.37 At the same moment it was exactly this lack of confidence in the existing states system that usually led the same Italians to demand a united and materially strong Italy to give them greater security against external threats. Ultimately, the inherent patterns of the popular response to international insecurity can also help to clarify the problem introduced by Antonio Gramsci as to whether national unification would necessarily lead to military imperialism,38 which also means to solve the puzzle occupying generations of historians regarding whether the roots of later Italian colonial ambitions and desire for hegemony in the Mediterranean actually

The geopolitical background of the rise of legal theories has also gone unnoticed in prominent general surveys on the history of international law, including Harald Kleinschmidt, Geschichte des Völkerrechts in Krieg und Frieden, Tübingen 2013. This historiographical neglect for the first half of the 19th century is all the more surprising since Italian opposition to the existing international order was in the legal sphere paralleled outside Europe during the 1830s and 1840s in the Chinese and Algerian resistence to the British and French imperialism, as recently analysed in Jennifer Pitts, Boundaries of the International Law and Empire, Cambridge (MA), London 2018, pp. 135–38. 37 The failure to establish a new European order in 1848, opening up the path to reliance on material power and ultimately leading to the security dilemma and the race for colonial resources, can also clarify why the term “Europe” declined in public discourse after that year, as pointed out by Claude D. Conter in “Europakonstruktivisten und Modeeuropäer: Antriebskräfte des Europadiskurses zwischen 1815 und 1848,” Ulrich Lappenküper, Guido Thiemeyer (eds), Europäische Einigung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Akteure und Antriebskräfte, Paderborn 2013, pp. 36–37, 41. The reason for the widespread popularity of the term up to 1848 even among nationalists can be easily explained by the general conviction that a state’s own security depended on not only its own material power but also the functionality of European order. This kind of the European kinship resulting from shared political-legal values of a common security space must be regarded as another important source of the allegiance to Europe, so influential exactly at the moment of the late Pre-March Period when the hope for positive change rapidly grew. This perspective as a source of the sense of European conciousness should enrich the more narrowly defined concepts of Europe expressed in terms like the “balance of power,” “congress diplomacy,” “Holy Alliance” or “the United states of Europe.” For these concepts see Claude D. Conter, “Europa,” Norbert Otto Eke (ed.), Vormärz-Handbuch, Bielefeld 2020, pp. 219–28. 38 Gramsci, Il risorgimento, p. 66. 36

The Existing State of Research

31

existed in Italian society prior to unification. In his brief survey on the relevant imperial and colonial thought Maurizio Isabella argues that the historians of the Fascist era like Eugenio Passamonti and Carlo Curcio,39 their anti-Fascist contemporary Federico Chabod as well as more recent historiography40 exaggerated the continuity of the Italians’ colonial ambitions from the early 19th century.41 According to Isabella, no convincing evidence can be found in the pre-unification period for such a “proto-imperial tradition”42 that he claims was later invented under the influence of the Italian Kingdom’s colonial policy. Vincenzo Gioberti’s frequently mentioned desire for Italy’s role as a colonial power was, in Isabella’s opinion, quite exceptional, while in the mid 19th century the predominant mood was “scepticism towards conquest and imperial expansion,”43 and he further states that there was “the widespread belief that the process of nation-building should take precedence over any other project of territorial expansion beyond what were considered to be the natural and historical borders of Italy.”44 According to Isabella “Italian liberalism continued to produce robust anti-imperial arguments well into the 1840s and beyond”45 and “that if there was a turn to empire in Italian liberalism, it is to the post-unification period that we must look.”46 As this book attempts to prove, the seeds of imperialism and colonialism can actually already be found in the deliberations in Italian society on these topics in the 1840s. To be able to reveal them, one cannot limit oneself to a static analysis of the texts of a few leading Italian patriots but must view them as part of a complex process in which the Italians reacted to international insecurity with a reliance on material strength: their quest for security could not logically end with unity and the creation of an Italian frontier on the Alps when the great powers’ activities contained potential threats to Italy in the Mediterranean. Since some of them gradually increased their colonial power, Italy could not fall behind in this contest if, as some nationalist noblemen and intellectuals did not hesitate to claim, she wanted to survive in a predatory world. It was due to this pessimistic





Carlo Curcio, Ideali mediterranei nel Risorgimento, Roma 1941; Eugenio Passamonti, L’idea coloniale nel Risorgimento Italiano, Torino 1934. 40 Federico Barbieri, Dante Visconti, Il problema del Mediterraneo nel Risorgimento, Milano 1948; Federico Chabod, Storia politica del Mediterraneo, Brescia 2014; Francesco Traniello, “Incunaboli d’imperialismo europeo: Cesare Balbo, l’Occidente e il Mediterraneo,” Contemporanea 1, 1998, 2, pp. 263–79. 41 Maurizio Isabella, “Liberalism and Empires in the Mediterranean: The View-Point of the Risorgimento,” Silvana Patriarca, Lucy Riall (eds), The Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy, Basingstoke 2012, pp. 232–54. 42 Ibid., p. 232. 43 Ibid., p. 247. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid., p. 248. 39

32

Introduction

worldview that the growth of Italian nationalism during that decade was closely connected with colonial ambitions. It is certainly true that they were not expressed as loudly as the aspiration for unity, but this was due to the simple fact that for contemporaries colonial expansion was the second security measure after uniting and thus making themselves capable of any effective colonial policy as happened after 1861. In other words, the concept of national unity represented the first phase while colonial ambitions represented the last one in the pursuit of power. What makes this process in Italian society easier to reveal is the comparison with other European regions, above all with Germany. Fundamentally, such an approach is not new because the unifications of Italy and Germany in general have often been compared. However, this comparison was predominantly applied to the period after 1848,47 and also it was never used in studies on Italian colonialism before that year; even Isabella, who fittingly remarks that it is necessary to consider Italian perspectives in the contemporary context in which they came into being and refers to the latest scholarly works on proto-imperial and proto-colonial German nationalist discourse in the early 19th century, has never made use of them.48 What the example of the Germans shows is that although they primarily desired peace, they became increasingly convinced that it was possible to ensure it only when they were powerful enough and respected by other nations – a conviction based upon their critical response to the functioning of the international order identical to that of the Italians – which led to their colonial ambitions that first arose in the 1840s but were adopted by the German Empire only after 1871. Regarding the parallelism between the situations in Germany and Italy it is easy to agree with what Raimondo Luraghi wrote but never explained on Italian colonialism: “As was perhaps inevitable, unified Italy ended up taking part in the colonial race in the second half of the 19th century. Italian colonialism was more or less similar to that of other countries.”49 METHODOLOGY The example of Italian colonialism is just one of many proving that the presented theme precludes in advance the adoption of a narrow nationalist perspective simply because it is highly selective: it targets only a selected group of people today labelled as a nation or even just its representatives conscious of their allegiance to this nation. Therefore, the concept of nationhood diminishes the European dimension and presents its development in Italy as an independent process when it Francesco Traniello, Gianni Sofri, Der lange Weg zur Nation: Das italienische Risorgimento, Stuttgart 2012, p. 26. 48 Isabella, “Liberalism and Empires in the Mediterranean,” pp. 232–33. 49 Raimondo Luraghi, Ascesa e tramonto del colonialismo, Torino 1964, p. 279.

47

Methodology

33

was actually part of a pan-European phenomenon transecting state and national boundaries when public responses to international insecurity demonstrated striking similarities and strong interdependence. The extent to which it is almost impossible to evaluate some important affairs through a nationalist point of view can be succinctly explained with the example of the Rhine Crisis of 1840. Historians have often appraised this “war in sight crisis” as a strong impulse for the qualitative and quantitative change in German nationalism that allegedly became more chauvinistic and widespread owing to the French threats of the invasion in the Rhineland. American historian James M. Brophy and German Johannes Honsell refuted this view with evidence that this kind of public response, at least in the Rhineland and Bavaria, did not cover the entire scope of popular reception of the crisis.50 However, even they were unable to explain what the Rhine Crisis actually meant for German society. This is primarily due to their and other historians’ exclusive focus on German nationalism, which precluded them from seeing the legacy of the crisis in a pan-European context: what was actually symptomatic of the crisis was the increase of the feeling of insecurity among all Germans – not only the nationalists – and other Europeans due to the possible ensuing war and the subsequent debates about the security of individual states and the stability of the international order. There certainly was a chauvinistic response among some German nationalists but by no means among all of them and certainly not among all Germans in general.51 The example of the Rhine Crisis shows that historical events and processes are too often analysed through a narrow nationalist perspective that precludes the popular response to international affairs being seen in a more complex way, which can lead to erroneous conclusions. Nationalism is thus inappropriate for the study of the proposed theme, especially when there are still serious problems affecting this concept which risk miring the topic in a “minefield” of methodological controversy, including just its own definition. For Italy it is even difficult to define who was and who was not a nationalist: nationalism is usually connected with men like Guiseppe Mazzini, who wanted a centralised republic (unification) while moderates like Camillo Cavour, Cesare Balbo, Vincenzo Gioberti and Massimo d’Azeglio, who desired a (con)federation (unity), are mostly called patriots. This, however, can mean patriots of both Italy and Piedmont and, in fact, for these men Piedmontese and Italian consciousness were compatible. By definition all those people who joined the national discourse with political aims can also be called nationalists. Consequently, in this book a more general expression “nation

James M. Brophy, “The Rhine Crisis of 1840 and German Nationalism: Chauvinism, Skepticism, and Regional Reception,” The Journal of Modern History 85, 2013, 1, pp. 1–35; Johanes Honsell, Bayern und die Rheinkrise von 1840, unpublished diploma thesis, München 2002. 51 Miroslav Šedivý, Crisis among the Great Powers: The Concert of Europe and the Eastern Question, London, New York 2017, pp. 241–79. 50

34

Introduction

al movement” is used for all those who strived for any kind of Italian political unity including complete unification and used Italian nationhood as a relevant argument; the word “nationhood” is then used instead of “nationality” as the English variant of Italian “nazionalità” and German “Nationalität” to emphasise its connection with the political aspirations of Italians to achieve independence and unity. Otherwise, when referring to Italian nationalists and patriots, the division introduced above will be strictly observed. In any case, however nationalism or a national movement may be defined, in the presented study their rise in the 1840s must primarily be seen as spin-offs of a more general process in which the concept of Italian nationhood played an instrumental role, and due to the importance of European contextualisation it is necessary to abandon the small field of nationalist and even national history and adopt a transnational approach that helps to better reveal the public responses on national levels. To observe what happened in Italy through the perspective of transnational history makes it therefore easier to disclose that the same was happening at that time in other European countries and that the formation of an Italian response to international insecurity depended to a large extent on foreign influences and the cross-border transfer of experiences and opinions. By overcoming the obstacles put in place by the national-oriented historiography it is also possible to better understand the most important outcome of this response: the so-called revival of the Italian nation. Since, however, transnational research on national and international history constitutes a new perspective but no specific method, it is necessary to adopt a methodology that best suits its purpose.52 And because the process studied in this book was primarily connected with the desire for security, the Italian reaction to international affairs is studied with the use of a hitherto scarcely used method for early 19th century diplomatic history: the concept of security. It is a broadly defined approach for understanding war, peace, international systems and the security of states, often in highly theoretical ways. Although there are various methodological schools dealing with this concept, for the purpose of this study it suffices to define the methodological framework with three fundamental questions relating to the same concept: (1) Security for what? (2) Security from what? (3) Security by what means?53

Most recently on the debate about the transnational approach see: Axel Körner, “Transnational History: Identities, Structures, States,” Barbara Haider-Wilson, William D. Godsey, Wolfgang Mueller (eds), Internationale Geschichte in Theorie und Praxis/International History in Theory and Practice, Wien 2017, pp. 265–90; Brigitte Leucht, “Beyond Morgenthau: The Transnational Turn and the Potential of Interdisciplinary Approaches of International History,” ibid., p. 292; Charles S. Maier, “Dis/Relocating America: Approaches to Global History in the United States,” ibid., p. 322. 53 William Bain (ed.), The Empire of Security and the Safety of the People, London, New York 2006; David A. Baldwin, “The concept of security,” Review of International Studies 23, 1997, 3, pp. 5–26; Barry Buzan, People, States, and Fear: The National Security Problem in Internation52

Methodology

35

The answer to the first question is the security for Italian countries. Since they were gradually regarded by their inhabitants as lacking strong borders against external dangers, they were to be united with the help of the concept of Italian nationhood, and therefore this nationhood, in other words the Italian nation, was seen as something worth making secure. As for the values which were to be protected, they were generally not specified in detail, most probably because it was obvious for the contemporaries what was at stake: their lives, property, social status, political and economic interests. This can be revealed by the texts criticising their contemporary situation with hindsight to foreign invasions from the end of the 15th century depriving the Italian states of freedom, which retrospectively was characterised as the loss of sovereignty, and bringing to the peninsula oppression and wars with epidemics, famine, human and financial losses and the general decline in Italy’s prestige in Europe.54 This retrospection also helps to answer the second question concerning the nature of the security threat. It was obviously the threat from abroad, in other words the external attacks of other countries, particularly the great powers, not only against the territory of the motherland but also its interests, in particular economic ones, abroad. However, it was regarded by many as part of a more general danger arising from the decline in the credibility of the whole European states system. This opinion was based upon a conviction that countries and nations did not exist in isolation but within a mutually interdependent international community and the security of individual countries and the whole states system could not therefore be separated: if the system was stable and fair, then the countries could feel secure; if it had declined owing to the rise of egoistic abuses of power, then especially the weaker countries would be endangered. The perception of the system’s failure to ensure justice for these countries was exactly what led to the feeling defined in this book as “international insecurity,” which was thus associated not merely with the external threats represented by one or more great powers but also with the mistrust of all European politics. Finally, when the threat of harm provoked a logical self-protecting response, the means were to be found for ensuring their own safety. At that moment Italians regarded individual states as insufficient to offer protection against external enemies, especially when the existing political-legal order of Europe was said to offer no practical help against al Relations, Brighton 1983; Barry Buzan, “Peace, Power, and Security: Contending concepts in the Study of International Relations,” Journal of Peace Research 21, 1984, 2, pp. 109–25; Eckart Conze, Geschichte der Sicherheit: Entwicklung, Themen, Perspektiven, Göttingen 2018; Jennifer Jackson-Preece, Security in International Relations, London 2011; Edward A. Kolodziej, Security and International Relations, Cambridge 2005; Emma Rothschild, “What Is Security?” Daedalus 124, 1995, 3, pp. 53–98; Andrea Schneiker, Sicherheit in den Internationalen Beziehungen: Theoretische Perspektiven und aktuelle Entwicklungen, Wiesbaden 2017. 54 For all such opinions see Vincenzo Gioberti, Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani, vol. 1, Brusselle 1843, p. 48 (and the corresponding quotation from his work in Chapter 3 of this book); Carlo Eugenio Rossi, “Caduta e Risorgimento,” Il Risorgimento, no. 5, 5 January 1848, p. 17.

36

Introduction

them, and since they no longer trusted the precepts of international law, they saw material strength personified by a powerful Italy or, what was the same, Italian nation, as the crucial guarantee of security in accordance with the motto “unity makes strength.” Owing to this generally acknowledged interdependence between the security of individual countries or nations and the whole states system, contemporary Europeans attentively observed international affairs of seemingly little geopolitical value in distant regions of the Continent or even the whole world because any infringement of international law, any abuse of power at the expense of others could sooner or later happen to themselves. That is why violations of the security of others were often considered to be a threat to all members of the European family. It is necessary to keep all this in mind to understand the intensity and character of the public response that contained oral as well as written discussions, criticism and various plans for a remedy, all of which in total can be labelled as a “geopolitical security debate.” The term “geopolitical/geopolitics” is useful since it emphasises the fact that this response was to external threats and, second, that it covered the spheres of not only politics and law but also geography, namely territorial aspirations as well as the problem of each nation’s own position in the world, particularly between the countries representing a threat. The concept of security is used in this book also for the fact that it offers a common value through which it is possible to study the public response to the real or alleged decay of the international order and with this also the decline in security everywhere in Europe. This natural human desire for safety is thus implemented as an important synergistic means that enables the analysis of this interaction in all the selected Italian countries and European regions, and correspondingly in all the social classes, political parties and national groups involved; in the Italian case it is particularly useful in comparing the attitudes of ruling elites on one side and liberal and democratic intellectuals on the other, revealing significant similarities in the reactions to what was regarded as international insecurity. In this way it is possible to establish a common methodological basis to detect patterns in the response of the mid 19th century Italians to international politics and how they tried to influence it in order to improve their own position. Their reactions could vary, but yet again, their own security that was the principal motive underlying their interest in international affairs was also the final goal of their reactions. This could scarcely be achieved with the traditional national viewpoint limited to one nation or with a narrow focus on one country, political party or social class. It does not help at all when one proceeds in the traditional frameworks of nationalists versus everyone else, liberals and democrats versus the conservatives and reactionaries, the Italians versus other Europeans. At the same time, the concept of security avoids the simplifications and powerful connotations usually associated with the words “nationalism” (especially in the German-speaking milieu) and “chauvinism” because the concept of security can be considered as a basically neutral value.

Methodology

37

The concept of security thus serves as a fundamental element through which it is possible to decompose, restructure and finally put together anew the whole problem of international politics and the public response to it and by doing so to also understand the “logic” of their complex mutual interaction freed from nationalistic stereotypes and narrow regional perspectives. One can of course admit with this attempt at paradigm shift that there is an even more fundamental motivating force behind human behaviour – fear – and that this could be used in this respect. Nevertheless, the concept of security is actually the only admissible methodological means, in particular because it is the only practicable one. To go into the history of emotions with a focus on human fear could lead the planned research astray for these reasons: first, the history of emotions is still a much discussed and “obscure” field of historical scholarship with historians’ often very contradictory views, which also leads to the opinion that it is almost impossible to correctly evaluate people’s emotions in the past because the expressions used to describe them could considerably differ from those of the present time; second, there is a problem with the definition of fear – what fear actually is and how it differs from apprehension and worry. The concept of security is naturally closely connected with fear and its “derivatives” and as such also with the history of emotions, a fact that must be taken into account, but it is unfeasible as well as unnecessary to use fear as the fundamental perspective for analysing the interaction of society with international politics.55 If there is something else “borrowed” from political science, then it is these two very different approaches to the functioning of international relations: institutionalism and realism. Political scholars have long debated the nature of international order with their evaluations varying according to the emphasis placed on people’s willingness to submit themselves to a kind of supranational cooperation or on people’s egoism and distrust provoking a more “realistic” approach resulting in the search for security in material strength. In this book this debate plays a significant role although the terms “institutionalism” and “realism” are not used for evaluating the international order in itself but for characterising the Europeans’ approaches towards international security.56 According to the main hypothesis, while a consid

Birgit Aschmann, “Das Zeitalter des Gefühls? Zur Relevanz von Emotionen im 19. Jahrhundert,” Birgit Aschmann (ed.), Durchbruch der Moderne? Neue Perspektiven auf das 19. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt am Main, New York 2019, pp. 83–118; Patrick Bormann, Thomas Freiberger, Judith Michel, Angst in den Internationalen Beziehungen, Bonn 2010; Ute Frevert, Emotions in History: Lost and Found, Budapest, New York 2011; Richard N. Lebow, “Fear, Interest and Honour: Outlines of a Theory of International Relations,” International Affairs 82, 2006, 3, pp. 431–48; Rüdiger Schnell, Haben Gefühle eine Geschichte? Göttingen 2015; Shiping Tang, “Fear in International Politics: Two Positions,” International Studies Review 10, 2008, 3, pp. 451–71. 56 Jonathan Haslam, No Virtue like Necessity: Realist Thought in International Relations since Machiavelli, New Haven, London 2002; Schneiker, Sicherheit in den Internationalen Beziehungen, pp. 22–33. 55

38

Introduction

erable number of the Europeans tended towards institutionalism (read: a more normative approach towards relations within the family of European countries) after 1815, with the rise of doubts concerning the feasibility of any peaceful pan-European cooperation they gradually inclined to a more “realistic attitude” towards the system of international relations. This turn to realism was expressed most markedly in the so-called Realpolitik. Of course, it is necessary to admit that the two standpoints usually exist next to each other and, as already explained, the desire for transnational cooperation did not disappear in the mid 19th century, but in the sphere of practical politics the finally prevailing response was exactly the opposite. The theoretical basis is further established using traditional methods from historical science, or those recently widely used by historians, including discourse analysis and historical semantics owing to the necessity to deal with the terms in the studied texts like “power”, “strength”, “force” and, of course, “security.” Since they were not always explicitly mentioned in the studied texts but hidden “between the lines”, the quantitative method was disregarded as insufficient and unnecessarily time consuming.57 The very opposite must be said about the benefit of comparative analysis representing another crucial methodological pillar for the presented topic. Owing to the transnational contextualisation of the studied topic, its use was both a useful and necessary instrument for accomplishing the research. Since at least literate people from various Italian as well as European states, social classes and political groups had similar or even identical fears and shared the same desire for safety, they were also sensitive to violations of international law and ideas of increasing the security of their own states or nations when they came to believe that the world was becoming a dangerous place to live in. Therefore, similar or even the same fears, ideas and hopes can be discovered among the inhabitants of Italian as well as German, Scandinavian and other countries in Europe, and the same can be said about the members of the higher, middle and sometimes even the lower middle classes in urban as well as in rural areas. Although the details always varied according to each country’s own specific location, animosities and needs – and all of this must of course be taken into account – at the same time all geopolitical security debates had an identical basis. A holistic – transnational – approach therefore enables a better understanding of the nature of these debates in particular regions like Italy. Consequently, a comparison of their perceptions and reactions in various regions to international relations is a prerequisite for making a complex model of the Italian security debate – its causes, course and consequences, in other words the understanding of why, how and to what end the members of one social group, country or nation reacted to the deficiencies or even the decline of the international system.

Here is primarily meant the sphere of digital humanities, which would be very suitable for this kind of research, but due to the fact that by far not all Italian newspapers and political pamphlets have been digitilised yet, and if so then in various and sometimes very old-fashioned formats, a digital analysis would be a long and expensive task.

57

Methodology

39

This comparative approach is all the more useful when researchers are confronted with the low number of necessary primary sources for a certain group or territory. The peculiarities of politically fragmented Italy, however, make it necessary to combine this transnational approach with respect for regional diversity. The social, economic and cultural heterogeneity of Italian society is not meant here but rather the different perceptions of external threats by its members. They varied primarily according to the geographical position of their states vis-à-vis European powers. Unsurprisingly, Piedmont situated between France and Austria and possessing territories to the west of the Alps had been the most sensitive to foreign pressures between 1815 and 1848, and the geopolitical debates there seemed to be the most intensive. In the states situated more to the south, especially Tuscany and the Papal States, such apprehensions became strong especially in the mid 1840s when Austria was regarded as a major security threat in the Apennines, but one cannot forget there had already been concerns in Rome in the preceding decade owing to the French interference with internal affairs and leading to their occupation of Ancona in 1832, while the Austrians were suspected of wanting to conquer the papal territory in the north. In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies less threatened directly by Austria, the mistrust was no less directed against France and especially Great Britain after the Sulphur War; in Naples this distrust coincided with the Sicilian separatist inclinations which could be exploited by both maritime powers. A peculiar situation existed in Lombardy and Venetia which were protected by Austria, a strong power, so the motivations in these two states for Austria’s expulsion differed from those in other Italian countries; however, when the war finally began, the inhabitants were forced to consider the security of their own future, which moved them to seek external security in membership of the Italian confederation or unification with Piedmont, or both. In any case as geopolitical fears were most intensive and lasted longer in the northern half of the peninsula, this territory is also the one most covered by this book. In connection with the research on the presented topic some other issues must be taken into account. First of all, since in its analysis of the public response to international affairs it goes far beyond the members of political and diplomatic elites, it is necessary to define what actually “the public” means, which is no easy task. It is possible to find indirect but still convincing evidence about the interest of artisans, peasants and workers in the affairs of the world, although it is extremely limited and found mainly at moments of significant international crises which could escalate to wars with a significantly negative impact on their lives through conscriptions and increased taxes.58 However, it is very difficult to gather a sufficient number of preserved primary sources enabling systematic research on the reactions of lower classes to international affairs. A similar problem occurs in the study of women’s

Miroslav Šedivý, “The Austrian Empire, German Nationalism and the Rhine Crisis of 1840,” p. 26.

58

40

Introduction

responses; it is possible to reveal their interest from the small number of existing primary sources, but given their inferior role in the predominantly male society of the time, written geopolitical contemplations in the style of Princess Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso are quite exceptional. Consequently, the denomination of the general or broad public can be effectively used just for the educated or, more widely, for the literate male members of the middle and upper-middle social classes, mostly in urban areas, in other words for the men within aristocratic and bourgeois society; other expressions used in this book like “contemporaries” and “people” usually cover these groups. Another problem arises from the fact that the strong Italian regionalism makes the definition of a single Italian public almost impossible. Since, however, the nature of popular responses to foreign affairs was often if not identical then at least very similar in all the peninsular states, it is not necessary to overemphasise the regional diversities of the geopolitical security debate in Italy. Another important issue concerns “rumours” because in the geopolitical security debates, as in all human affairs, people reacted not only to what had actually happened but also to what they thought had happened or could have happened. That is why rumours played an important role in the public conversations on world affairs, particularly when they contained information on the hostile and aggressive designs of other countries because such news especially provoked feelings of insecurity. This also holds for the legal aspect of the geopolitical debates, important for its moral dimension, when people responded not only to real violations of international law but also to what they perceived as such violations, especially when the overwhelming majority of them were not laywers and were therefore incapable of making the necessary legal judgements. What should also be borne in mind when reading this book is the negative experience with the various threats to which Italy had been exposed for centuries. Although it introduces the process fuelled by the short-term impact of contemporary affairs, one cannot forget the long-term influence of foreign incursions which were not forgotten by Italians unhappy that their native states were prey to other European countries. This longue durée legacy intensified their negative perception of current international events and contributed to their desire for independence. Nevertheless, historical memory had another significant but altogether different impact: the older generations with personal experience of the Napoleonic Wars inclined more to peaceful solutions of international conflicts as might be offered by the existing European states system, while the younger generation without such experience was more likely to lose faith in that system, a fact often mentioned in contemporary sources as well as obvious from the ages of most of the Italian patriots and nationalists active when the geopolitical security debates reached their peak in the 1840s: even those born during these wars usually reached maturity after 1815.59

Šedivý, Crisis among the Great Powers, pp. 110–11; Sven Externbrink, “Kulturtransfer, Internationale Beziehungen und die ‘Generation Metternich’ zwischen Französischer Revolution,

59

Methodology

41

The complexity of the presented theme can be further demonstrated by two subjects which could not be included in this book due to lack of time and space but still should be mentioned here for their relevance to the topic. The first one relates to the above-mentioned generational difference in the approach to the solution of international problems and the influence of philosophy, namely the shift from a Kantian to Hegelian estimation of peace and war. It was no coincidence that the co-author of the 1815 order and strong advocate of peace, Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich, housed Immanuel Kant’s writings in his library but none of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s, while the younger generation, especially in Prussia where Hegel’s philosophy was widely taught in schools and universities, often referred to Hegel’s respect for war as a plausible means for solving international affairs and agreed that war was an appropriate and morally acceptable way out of Germany’s insecure position in the world for which she needed to increase her material power.60 Hegel’s philosophy also was important during the 1840s in Naples and influenced men like Luigi Andrea Mazzini and Pasquale Stanislao Mancini, who wanted to replace the “old” public law of Europe with a legal system based on nationhood.61 The second subject is the concept of national honour that is today studied in the history of Italian Risorgimento from a cultural perspective since its defence is said to be one of the most important themes in Italian writings.62 What these studies omit is that the same concept played a significant role in the sphere of law and security. The honour argumentation was commonly used by rulers and their governments in international affairs, often when the public law of Europe was not on their side. Therefore, instead of “rights and interests” they claimed that they were defending the “honour and interests” of their countries or nations to mask their own illegal behaviour. This kind of argumentation usually provoked strong and negative reactions from other governments and people, and it also had the potential to cause feelings of insecurity. In Italy’s case this happened when the Restauration und Revolution von 1848,” Wolfram Pyta (ed.), Das europäische Mächtekonzert: Friedens- und Sicherheitspolitik vom Wiener Kongreß 1815 bis zum Krimkrieg 1853, Köln 2009, pp. 76–77; Philip Mansel, Paris between Empires 1814–1852, London 2001, p. 357. 60 Hermann Heller, Hegel und der nationale Machtstaatsgedanke in Deutschland, Aalen 1963, pp. 121–29, 175–201; Thomas Mertens, “Hegel’s Homage to Kant’s Perpetual Peace: An Analysis of Hegel’s “Philosophy of Right”,” The Review of Politics 57, 1995, 4, pp. 665–91; Wolfram Siemann, Metternich: Stratege und Visionär. Eine Biographie. München 2016, p. 95; Veit Valentin, Geschichte des Völkerbundgedankes in Deutschland, Berlin 1920, pp. 65–70. 61 Giuseppe Galasso, “Der italienische Süden im Risorgimento,” Die deutsch-italienischen Beziehungen im Zeitalter des Risorgimento: Referate und Diskussion der 8. deutsch-italienischen Historikertagung, Braunschweig 24.–28. Mai 1968, Braunschweig 1970, pp. 51–52; Fernando Gallo, “The Shaping of European Modernities: Neapolitan Hegelianism and the Renaissance (1848–1862),” History 103, 2018, 356, pp. 451–68; Sergio Landucci, “L’hegelismo in Italia nell’età del Risorgimento,” Studi Storici 6, 1965, pp. 598–617. 62 Banti, La nazione del Risorgimento.

42

Introduction

French justified their non-intervention principle and the occupation of Ancona with the defence of their national honour and when they called for revenge for the allegedly insulted “French honour and dignity” during the Rhine Crisis, while Britain appealed to the defence of her honour in the Sulphur War. Italians were not the only ones disturbed when this form of argumentation was used, but they themselves also took advantage of it in the 1840s, particularly within the nationalist discourse using national honour as an integral part of their attacks against the legal basis of the hated international order. Moreover, this pursuit of honour can also be linked to the lack of security since to be honoured meant to be respected, and a respected state could feel more secure against others.63 How far these theses are well founded and, if they are, how far the concept of national honour was consciously employed in geopolitical security debates is still a matter of further research exceeding the limits of this book, which, however, could be a useful point of departure for relevant studies. AD FONTES While the concept of security represents the fundamental theoretical basis of this book, owing to the lack of relevant scholarly literature, obtaining the necessary “hard data” is based upon meticulous and extensive research into a wide range of both published and unpublished primary sources of a political, diplomatic, personal and cultural nature. What significantly complicates the whole situation is the fact that during most of the studied era freedom of speech was highly limited in all Italian states by strict censorship; it was not until 1847 that laws allowing freedom of the press were introduced in some of them. The lack of this most natural information source on public opinion makes the corresponding research more difficult but still possible and, once again, the use of the comparative method is the first methodological prerequisite for success: various primary sources from different regions and social classes require an in-depth comparison to gain an understanding of the overall popular geopolitical views.64 The primary sources used for the interpretation of geopolitical security debates in Italy can be classified into several basic groups. First there are the despatches of Birgit Aschmann, Preußens Ruhm und Deutschlands Ehre: Zum nationalen Ehrdiskurs im Vorfeld der preußisch-französischen Kriege des 19. Jahrhunderts, München 2013; Miroslav Šedivý, “Honour as a political-legal argument: The French July Monarchy, National Dignity and Europe 1830–1840,” The Czech Historical Review 116, 2018, 1, pp. 86–111, and The Decline of the Congress System: Metternich, Italy and European Diplomacy, London, New York 2018, pp. 81–103, 110, 128–29, 187–88, 241. 64 For research on public opinion in a country with strict censorship see the methodological approach introduced for the Austrian transalpine provinces around 1840 in Šedivý, “The Austrian Empire, German Nationalism and the Rhine Crisis of 1840,” pp. 15–36.

63

Ad fontes

43

foreign representatives accredited at the courts of Italian countries. Placing them at the beginning might seem surprising since diplomatic correspondence is traditionally considered to be a product of the members of a social-political elite who were said to live apart from the “common people” and to be hardly impartial owing to their obvious origins and personal world views, usually conservative ones. However, ambassadors, envoys or chargés d’affaires were instructed not only to negotiate with local officials but also to gather information on the state of affairs in the resident country. Consequently, diplomats served as correspondents and their despatches (much like the political correspondence of consuls) frequently contain analyses – often highly elaborate – on the public mood including popular responses to various international events. They were usually assisted in this duty by their subordinates – the employees of representative offices with their own relationships with local inhabitants – and therefore these offices functioned as “intelligence services.” The information they gathered during conversations with the local population and by reading local printed material including anonymous (and mostly prohibited) political pamphlets was used for writing diplomatic reports addressed to superior ministers and rulers. Consequently, these despatches often contained complex and detailed news about public opinion, sometimes even that of the lower-middle classes. Their content is all the more valuable for the Italian countries which did not enjoy freedom of the press for most of the studied period. The argument that the diplomatic correspondence was influenced by the diplomats’ personal world views is certainly correct, but this can be said about any kind of correspondence. Moreover, the accuracy of their reports was highly valued, and for their authors it was necessary not to be influenced too much by their own prejudices and sympathies; consequently, many diplomats displayed surprising impartiality. In any case, even this problem can be easily solved by the comparative approach when confronting the despatches of different diplomatic agents residing in one place. Since these agents originated from countries with different political regimes, cultures and last but not least also with different and often contradictory interests in Italy, with this method it is possible to come closer to “reality”, especially if the diplomatic correspondence is compared with other primary sources. From documents of institutional/governmental origin, the correspondence of various civil offices and especially of the police sometimes contained information on public moods. Particularly in German-speaking countries police reports (in the Austrian Empire called Stimmungsberichte) included a special section on the public’s perception of international affairs, which can be used for Austrian territories like Lombardy, Venetia and Trieste.65 The problem with this kind of information source is that during the 1840s the informative value of Stimmungsberichte con-



Michal Chvojka, “Situačné správy: Archívny zdroj medzi kritickou a idealizujúcou reflexiou skutočnosti,” Nové historické rozhľady 1, 2011, 2, pp. 77–99.

65

44

Introduction

siderably decreased and in Italian archives the police reports which could offer an insight into public opinions have not been preserved in great numbers. From primary sources of personal provenance, which can also be useful for the years before 1847, private letters must be mentioned in the first place: in so far as it is possible to gain access to personal correspondence, this source is invaluable because it reveals many genuine opinions on international politics although most of the members are of the educated middle and upper classes. The positive aspect is that the personal letters of a considerable number of Italians from these social groups have been published, which also applies to the diaries, memoirs and travelogues offering both personal opinions and comments on the contemporaries’ views. A fundamental source of geopolitical writings are naturally political pamphlets as well as books, including the most authoritative texts of the Risorgimento history. They were published either legally or illegally, in the second case often outside Italy, but against harsh censorship they were smuggled into the Apennines, and despite the low level of literacy among the population they were also read and debated by a surprisingly high number of people. For the final period covered by this monograph, the years of 1847–1848, by far the most significant source of political commentary are the periodicals. Despite the various political orientations and territorial origins of the newspapers and journals it was not necessary to focus on these differencies because they shared surprisingly similar views in fundamental geopolitical issues. Those published in the north certainly paid greater attention to the Adriatic expansion for example, while the Sicilian and Neapolitan press dealt more with the Mediterranean issues, but such differences resulting from their own specific locations were not as striking as one might expect; these and other topics were more or less covered by all of them, either in their own or reprinted articles. And although the democratic press was of course more radical in its geopolitical criticism and visions, in general terms the reasons for their radical approach as well as their geopolitical aims were the same as those of the more moderate and sometimes even the more conservative press. The benefit of this widespread geopolitical unanimity is twofold. First, for the objectives of the presented book it is not necessary to deal with various periodicals in detail. Second, as international politics swiftly became a frequent topic in the press, with numerous authors contributing to the most important newssheets and a considerable number of Italians reading them, its content confirms the validity of contemporary eyewitness accounts on the importance of geopolitics in the public discourse before and during the 1848 revolutions. Cultural production represents the last primary source that is small in number but still one that can hardly be ignored. In general, it includes novels, drawings with political themes, songs and poems, often belonging to anonymous folk culture. Sometimes even their content reflected the people’s interest in international affairs, which is best perceived in the example of satirical illustrations in newspapers. These illustriations also represent the most important source for the Italian

The Structure of the Book

45

milieu although graphics with criticism of the great powers’ diplomacy have usually been omitted in the scholarly editions of political cartoons.66 This neglect is all the more surprising since such cartoons were prominently printed in the early issues of journals, this fact indicating the significance attributed by the editors to geopolitical themes.67 On the other hand, compared to Germany other cultural outputs were of lesser use; the Italians lacked their own version of paintings depicting Germania protecting the Rhine and with this also Germany’s security or their own legend in the style of Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa sleeping in the Kyffhäuser mountain with his knights ready to wake up and come to Germany’s aid at the moment of danger. Taking all of them into account, however, even the low number of appropriate cultural sources can hardly deny their usefulness68 as is shown with the use of one of them on the dust jacket of this monograph. THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK The way this book is structured primarily corresponds with the need for European contextualisation. The overall introduction is necessary for understanding the process in Italy that was identical to that in other countries, while, at the same time, a more in-depth analysis of the Italian response to international insecurity serves as a probe strengthening the validity of the general, that is to say pan-European, thesis. The first chapter offers a broad survey explaining the spread and impact of the geopolitical security debates outside Italy. In accordance with the thesis that they were closely connected with violations of the legal pillars of the 1815 order, their origin is placed in the beginning of the 1830s. The whole chapter is structured in such a way to reveal the patterns of this process as it relates to Italian society, which sometimes leads to the introduction of detailed information, for example the British novel on the imaginary Battle of Dorking, the opinions of German political economist Friedrich List and Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter and the fear of For all see Lothar Gall (ed.), 1848: Aufbruch zur Freiheit, Frankfurt am Main 1998; Le rivoluzioni del 1848: l’Europa delle immagini. Caricatura e illustrazione tra storia e arte, Torino 1998. 67 “Trattato di Vienna 1815,” L’Arlecchino, no. 9, 1 April 1848, p. 36; “Il Concerto Europeo,” Il Fischietto, no. 1, 2 November 1848, p. 2. For a rare exception showing some published political cartoons criticising the post-Napoleonic order see Fabio Santilli, L’Italia s’è desta: Stampa satirica e documenti d’archivio per una lettura storico iconografica dell’Unità d’Italia, Montelupone 2011, pp. 26, 39. 68 Brophy, “The Rhine Crisis of 1840,” pp. 17–25; Šedivý, “The Austrian Empire, German Nationalism and the Rhine Crisis of 1840,” pp. 28–29. Novels could be a cultural source reflecting problems weighing upon the coexistence of states and nations, as they are known from the late 19th century. Nevertheless, for Italy in the studied period none was found. For a brief survey of the national and anti-Austrian dimension of poetry and paintings in Tuscany during 1847–1848 see Forβmann, Presse und Revolution in der Toskana, pp. 261–63.

66

46

Introduction

the United States of America as a future superpower; however, all of these examples always strictly serve the purpose of this book when they are later linked with Italian parallels. For the sake of this useful comparison, special attention is also paid to the important public responses beyond the frontiers of individual states, namely the German national and Scandinavian movements. Owing to the need to limit the length of this chapter, examples of individuals are mentioned only when it is felt to be essential and the use of primary sources is limited to the minimum.69 The following five chapters cover the situation in Italian society itself. The first of them and second chapter of the book deals with the sense of uneasiness among Italian rulers and their ministers and diplomats after the French revolution in July 1830. In fact, it was not the revolution itself that caused the most serious and negative response, an event not covered in the presented analysis, but France’s threatening foreign policy afterwards. Her non-intervention principle proclaimed at the end of the summer of 1830, her unwillingness to acknowledge the neutrality of some Italian countries, the presence of her troops around Italy including Algeria and the Peloponnese and above all the occupation of Ancona in February 1832 all gave rise to and fuelled this geopolitical apprehension. After the failure of the Italian cabinets’ appeals to reinforce the Viennese settlement with new guarantees of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of small countries, the Italians adopted some more practical steps to increase their own safety, namely the reinforcements of armed forces, a military alliance between Piedmont and Austria and the Neapolitan plan for the establishment of an Italian league. The most important consequence of their diminishing trust in the strength of the post-Napoleonic order was the fading allegiance of Sardinian King Charles Albert and his advisors towards this order: they gradually abandoned hope in finding salvation in the written law as a means of increasing their security, and they therefore started to rely on material power. It made them contemplate and even justify an eventual war of conquest against Austria and some other smaller states in the Apennines to gain more territory and thereby greater resources and better defendable frontiers. This transformation went hand in hand with the governmental elites’ general displeasure with the great powers’ policies and became evident during 1840 in connection with the undeclared British-Neapolitan Sulphur War and the Rhine Crisis, which also is the year marking the end of this chapter.70

Regarding the small number of scholarly texts dealing with the public reception of international affairs before 1848 the relevant passages of this chapter are primarily based on my earlier books and articles containing the necessary primary sources, above all on Metternich, the Great Powers and the Eastern Question, Pilsen 2013; Crisis among the Great Powers: The Concert of Europe and the Eastern Question, London, New York 2017; The Decline of the Congress System: Metternich, Italy and European Diplomacy, London, New York 2018; “The Austrian Empire, German Nationalism and the Rhine Crisis of 1840,” Austrian History Yearbook 2016, 47, pp. 15–36. 70 The second chapter is based on my earlier scholarly work presented in The Decline of the Congress System (particularly Chapter 7, pages 145–69) and “The Path to the Austro-Sardinian War: 69

The Structure of the Book

47

The third chapter is dedicated to the geopolitical debates of the broad public covering primarily the political opposition of liberal patriots and democratic nationalists. Although the narration begins with the so-called Restoration Period in 1815, it primarily focuses on the years between 1840 and 1846 when criticism of the egoism and immorality in world affairs on the part of some of the great powers had more to do with the exposure of weaker countries in Europe to proceedings incompatible with international law and in overseas regions hardly compatible with humane conduct. The Sulphur War and Rhine Crisis as well as more remote crises and wars in Algeria, the Eastern Mediterranean and China provoked a debate about the existing state of European politics in Italy to a similar extent as was taking place in Germany and other countries. It was no accident that it was in the early 1840s when the geopolitical security argumentation became rooted in Italian national discourse. Some Italian intellectuals responded immediately to the increasing feeling of insecurity with their texts in 1840 and 1841 to be followed somewhat later by Gioberti, Balbo, Azeglio and other patriots who produced elaborated visions of overcoming Italy’s vulnerability to external threats. In this respect the year 1840 played a key role in the origins of the so-called moderate Italian nationalism aimed at the establishment of a confederation of Italian monarchies; it opened the way for the patriots’ later political rapprochement with Charles Albert and his advisors, who had already denounced the great powers for their “crimes” in the preceding decade and who had also been willing to argue with the security of not only Piedmont but also all of Italy. The acknowledgment of the Sardinian king as the best and actually only protector of Italy’s security from among all the monarchs in the Apennines increased further in 1846, which can be regarded almost as a crucial year for shaping pan-Italian security considerations and solidarity and is covered by the fourth chapter. Contrary to the classic Risorgimento narrative connecting the importance of this year with the accession of Pius IX, for the geopolitical security debates 1846 was primarily significant for two events with a strong and lasting impact on the Italians’ attitude towards not only Austria but also the whole structure of European politics. The first was the Austro-Piedmontese dispute over the sale of salt and wine that was perceived by a considerable number of Italians as another example of Austria’s abuse of power from which no state could feel safe; this affair further contributed to the rise of anti-Austrian resentment and the conviction that any kind of Italian unity was a necessary security measure against future foreign interference into her internal affairs. The second and no less important incident was Austria’s annexation of Cracow. Even if it did not threaten Italian states directly, it was perceived by their inhabitants as doing so. People regarded the destruction of the Free City of Cracow as a violation of international law that could The post-Napoleonic states system and the end of peace in Europe in 1848,” European History Quarterly 49, 2019, 3, pp. 367–85.

48

Introduction

easily be repeated anywhere on the Continent. Moreover, they also perceived the annexation as further proof of all the great powers’ unwillingness to help small countries against the illegal proceedings of each other. Both affairs contributed thus to the spread of insecurity as well as the opinion that the Italians could rely only on themselves in ensuring their safety. The affairs of 1847 and early 1848, namely the so-called Austrian occupation of Ferrara, her military presence in the Duchies of Parma and Modena and last but not least the suppression of popular discontent in Lombardy provoked the same response among Italians. Another positive impact on the rise of geopolitical security debates resulted from the abolition of censorship, which enabled people to be more outspoken: the perception of these and other affairs became a prominent topic of the press from Piedmont to Sicily, and after the expulsion of the Austrians from Milan and Venice in March 1848 also in the liberated regions of Lombardy and Venetia. As the fifth chapter reveals, they also represented an important motivating force behind the massive support for national unity and the decision to wage war, both aimed at increasing the security of Italian states and their people and, when the proposed war ended, ensuring life in peace for all of them, a vision that ultimately did not materialise. The Italians discussed many topics and not only their relationship with Austria and the other great powers but also their future position in Europe and even the world, in particular Italy’s secure frontiers, the form of unity giving her sufficient strength, her commercial navigation in the Mediterranean Sea, the establishment of a national navy and to a certain extent even the prospect for colonies and last but not least the necessity to establish a new fair international order. There were two general aspirations inherent in these ideas: the idealistic vision of a peaceful future enjoyed by all European nations and the need to ensure the security of their own country through material force. The latter was what survived the year of 1848 and with this also the inclination to realism in international relations. The same can be said about the roots of the later tendency to imperial and colonial policies. To make this bridging into the later phase of the 19th century more obvious, the last, sixth, chapter does not end precisely in 1848 but like the very first part of this book goes beyond this framework year with a brief outline of how all these geopolitical considerations influenced Italian society in the following decades. SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS This book is devoted to Italian as well as European history and is meant to be read not only by experienced experts on the Risorgimento but also by other scholars who are not as familiar with its specific details. It was therefore necessary to reach a compromise between the introduction of excessive explicatory information which the former might regard as unnecessarily detailed and the omission of

Supplementary Remarks

49

such explanations necessary to the latter for understanding the issue. Consequently, the most important men and processes in Italian history are sketched briefly, but other contemporaries whose opinions are mentioned or quoted and who are usually introduced just by their names are generally familiar to experts on mid 19th century Italian history and with the availability of Internet resources are easy for others to find. With regard to how the rise of the feeling of insecurity is analysed through several important short periods containing one or more international affairs, it was impossible to completely avoid some repetitiveness of the public’s reactions. However, its intentional use is significant when it is necessary to show the continuity of the whole process before 1848 and prove the thesis that what changed above all was not so much the content but the intensity of the public response that steadily grew during the 1840s. The same holds for the number and nature of the quoted primary sources: their selection and use corresponds with the omission of this topic in historiography and the consequent need to support the principal theses with a greater number of sources giving direct evidence, particularly in last two chapters. Another technical problem resulting from the novelty of this topic was not only the need to gather a considerable number of primary sources but also to solve the problem of citing them in footnotes to avoid making these footnotes longer than the text itself. This issue is all the more important regarding the separation of the public responses into single topics, for example, unity and armament or the criticism of the post-Napoleonic states system and the desire to create a new one, which were usually presented together in the same contemporary texts. There are too many sources to cite in all cases when these issues are analysed, so just the most important of them are cited in the most appropriate places. This solution, however, leads to another problem, namely their apparent brevity when making generalising conclusions. Here it is necessary to point out that the generalisations are based upon the sources cited throughout whole subchapters or even chapters and all contradictory exceptions are explicitly mentioned. Finally, with the way the sources are quoted in the text and cited in the footnotes it is necessary to emphasise that in original texts italics were frequently used, and therefore these can also often be found in the quotations; no additional italics have been inserted in these excerpts.

Chapter 1

THE RESPONSE TO INSECURITY IN EUROPE (1830–1848) THE RISE OF INSECURITY The new international system established at the end of the Napoleonic Wars and particularly at the Congress of Vienna in 1814–1815 was to ensure the enduring preservation of peace in Europe. What was novel and significant was the fact that a considerable number of the participants of the congress wanted to achieve this goal by going beyond the 18th century balance of power and traditional alliances. The new system was thus established on the basis of elaborate treaties that were to ensure the independence and territorial integrity of all European countries regardless of their territorial size and military power. Although the legal obligations were ultimately not as binding as some statesmen and diplomats hoped they would be, the Final Acts of the Congress of Vienna and several other treaties signed at that time actually constituted an important legal framework according to which international relations were to be peacefully managed.1 The outcome of the congress is generally regarded as a success. Europe enjoyed several decades of peace between the countries which had signed the Final Acts and were regarded as the members of the civilised (read: Western or Christian) world, which meant all of them except the Ottoman Empire, which remained outside the political-legal system introduced in 1815. Consequently, leaving aside the war between the Ottomans and Russia in 1828–1829, the first armed conflicts in Europe occurred in 1848 between Austria and Piedmont and the German Confederation and Denmark; the great powers clashed even later in the Crimean War of the mid 1850s while the first general conflagration arose just a century after 1815 with the First World War. A superficial evaluation of the legacy of the congress with a cursory glance over these wars might lead one to see it as almost ideal. However, a more detailed insight into the development of international affairs after 1815 shows the post-Napoleonic states system was far from perfect. The crucial problem was that

1

For the latest surveys on the Congress of Vienna see Wolf D. Gruner, Der Wiener Kongress 1814/1815, Stuttgart 2014; Mark Jarrett, The Congress of Vienna and its Legacy: War and Great Power Diplomacy after Napoleon, London 2013; Reinhard Stauber, Der Wiener Kongress, Wien 2014; Brian Vick, The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon, Cambridge (MA) 2014.

52

The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)

the original idea of settling the new order on the premise of mutual cooperation and justice lasted considerably less time than the general peace. The era of big European congresses aimed at peaceful solutions of international disputes ended in 1822, and by that time the great powers had already returned to their traditional intrigues against each other for influence in various regions. Later, several conferences summoned to solve international crises were also complicated by mutual mistrust and jealousy, which also resulted in an even greater number of desired and proposed diplomatic meetings never taking place. All this led to the gradual decline of the operational ability of the European Concert composed of five great powers: Austria, Prussia, Russia, France and Great Britain. The numerous conflicts on the diplomatic chessboard naturally resulted from the often very contradictory interests of the individual players. What definitely cannot be underestimated are the legal aspects of these disputes: they reflected the increasingly differing perceptions of international law, also called the public law of Europe, and later the undisputable violations of it by the most powerful countries. In the 1820s these differences were still minimal although they had already begun to grow owing to the right claimed by some conservative powers to intervene against revolutions in other countries. The criticism of this pretension, however, came primarily from revolutionaries themselves while the European governments – including those in London and Paris – usually agreed that the bearers of state sovereignty were still the legitimate rulers. Therefore, when Austria’s military intervention in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and Piedmont in 1821 and of France’s in Spain two years later were undertaken upon the official invitation of the Italian and Spanish monarchs, they could hardly be denounced as illegal. Later the question of legality reflected the attitudes of the European cabinets towards the Greek War of Independence. Great Britain, France and Russia’s intervention in this war by force and the destruction of the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827 would certainly have been denounced as a crime if such conduct had been employed against any signatory of the Final Acts, but since the sultan was not a signatory of this contract, the violation of his sovereignty did not lead to a serious outburst of indignation in European society on his behalf.2 The crucial moment for the rise of geopolitical security debates came with the new decade when the self-serving policies of some great powers, which were often unambiguously contradictory to the precepts of international law, began to undermine the European states system. The first incidence involved France after the July Revolution in 1830. The new regime pursued the politics of non-intervention in such a way that it appropriated the right to decide whether the rulers of smaller countries could ask foreign powers for military assistance. By doing so

2

Oliver Schulz, Ein Sieg der zivilisierten Welt? Die Intervention der europäischen Großmächte im griechischen Unabhängigkeitskrieg (1826–1832), Münster 2011; Šedivý, Metternich, the Great Powers and the Eastern Question, pp. 133–216.

The Rise of Insecurity

53

it threatened the independence of smaller countries, particularly those the French included in the zone where they regarded the presence of foreign armies as a national security threat. The designated area covered Belgium, Switzerland and Piedmont and to a certain extent even the German territories on the left bank of the Rhine. Since the same non-intervention policy was also connected with the French struggle for influence, the Papal States were included even though they were not situated on France’s frontier.3 The French conduct closely paralleled the later Brezhnev Doctrine about the limited independence of Soviet satellite states, and the validity of this comparison is further strengthened by the French military invasion into a sovereign state, namely the occupation of the papal town of Ancona in February 1832. It was undertaken at a time of peace against an independent country whose monarch not only did not request the intervention but actually opposed it; therefore, this event represented the first undisputable violation of the public law in Europe since 1815.4 It was not only France that disregarded the legal norms in Italy. Great Britain violated them in no less a serious way during its so-called Sulphur War with the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the spring of 1840. The causes of this conflict can be traced to 1838 when King Ferdinand II gave a French company control over the export of Sicilian sulphur. The British, who had effectively controlled the sulphur trade before 1838, regarded the king’s action as not only detrimental to their commercial interests but also a violation of the British-Neapolitan commercial agreement of 1816. Although European lawyers, including two British ones, European statesmen and diplomats as well as historians and legal experts later almost unanimously agreed on the legality of Ferdinand II’s action, the British government ordered its fleet to capture any commercial ships sailing under the Neapolitan flag and hold them in Malta until Ferdinand II revoked his agreement with the French. Since other great powers refused to meet the king’s request for aid against the British aggression, he was forced to surrender.5

Nicolas Jolicoeur, “La politique étrangère de la France au début de la monarchie de juillet: De la non-intervention à la contre-intervention (1830–1832),” Revue d’histoire diplomatique 121, 2008, pp. 11–29; Reiner Marcowitz, Großmacht auf Bewährung: Die Interdependenz französischer Innen- und Außenpolitik und ihre Auswirkungen auf Frankreichs Stellung im europäischen Konzert 1814/15–1851/52, Stuttgart 2001, pp. 111–23; Miroslav Šedivý, “The Principle of NonIntervention Reconsidered: The French July Monarchy, the Public Law of Europe and the Limited Sovereignty of Secondary Countries,” Nuova Rivista Storica 103, 2019, 1, pp. 75–108. 4 Giuseppe Leti, “La Monarchia del luglio e la spedizione francese del 1832 in Ancona,” Rassegna storica del Risorgimento 16, 1929, pp. 55–78; Francesca Falaschi, “L’occupazione francese di Ancona del 1932,” Rassegna storica del Risorgimento 15, 1928, pp. 118–42; Franz Wolfram, Besetzung und Räumung Ankonas durch Frankreich 1832–1838, unpublished dissertation, Universität Wien 1930. 5 John A. Davis, “Palmerston and the Sicilian Sulphur Crisis of 1840: An Episode in the Imperialism of Free Trade,” Risorgimento 1/2, 1982, pp. 5–22; Vincenzo Giura, La Questione degli zolfi siciliani 1838–1841, Geneva 1973; Miroslav Šedivý, “Metternich and the Anglo-Neapolitan 3

54

The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)

The third and yet more important breach of the legal structure established in 1815 was Austria’s annexation of the Free City of Cracow in November 1846. The Viennese cabinet decided to undertake this action after another rebellion had broken out in its territory and the Russian tsar threatened to conquer it himself. The erasure of this small republic from the map of Europe was an even more serious illegal act than the two previous ones because it represented the first territorial modification of the Viennese settlement that was not formally sanctioned by all the great powers.6 The above-mentioned violations of the norms of the public law of Europe crucially contributed to the modification of geopolitical deliberations in European society. Before 1830 some contemporaries, particularly from liberal and democratic camps, were already dissatisfied with the results of the Congress of Vienna and the state of international affairs, but their criticism was primarily based on their own constitutional and humanitarian preferences. It was from this perspective they criticised the great powers’ anti-revolutionary proceedings or their hesitation to help the Greeks against the Turks in the 1820s.7 That is not to say that the denunciation of the established international order and their visions of its modification were completely devoid of legal considerations, but it was very difficult to attack it with juridical reasoning for the reason mentioned above. This situation, however, changed in the early 1830s and even more during the following decade. The violations of international law and the affairs perceived as such, along with deterioration in relations among the great powers, brewed a cauldron of mistrust of the great powers’ intentions as well as of justice in general within the entire states system. This popular response grew in time and spread across territories, social classes and political movements. Since international justice was particularly connected to the observance of international contracts and the respect for the independence of sovereign states, the first strong wave of geopolitical security debates arose with the French occupation of Ancona because it represented an assault against both the sanctity of treaties and the sovereignty of the pope. Sharp criticism of the French proceeding arose across the Continent in large as well as small states, and although the British liberal government with Foreign Secretary Henry John Temple 3rd Viscount Palmerston did not denounce the conduct of its liberal ally from a legal Sulphur Crisis of 1840,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 16, 2011, 1, pp. 1–18; Dennis W. Thomson, The Sulphur War (1840): A Confrontation between Great Britain and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the Mediterranean, Ann Arbor 1989. 6 Radosław Paweł Żurawski vel Grajewski, Ognisko permanentnej insurekcji: Powstanie 1846 r. i likwidacja Rzeczypospolitej Krakowskiej w „dyplomacji” Hotelu Lambert wobec mocarstw europejskich (1846–1847), Kraków, Łodż 2018, pp. 182–89. 7 For European Philhellenism see William St Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free: The Philhellenes in the War of Independence, Cambridge 2008; David Howarth, The Greek Adventure: Lord Byron and Other Eccentrics in the War of Independence, London 1976.

The Rise of Insecurity

55

point of view, later during the Rhine Crisis Palmerston stated that what had happened in Ancona was a brutal blow to the public law of Europe. Disagreement with the occupation also prevailed in France, where some political and diplomatic elites had serious problems concealing their objections to it. In Germany it became particularly compelling when almost at the same time as the French entered Ancona a representative of France in Munich threatened the Bavarian king with a war if certain military measures were to be adopted in the Bavarian Rhineland. In both cases France meddled with the internal affairs of sovereign countries whose conduct had violated no legal norms or diplomatic practices, which moved some contemporaries to pose this important question: Who will be next after the pope and the Bavarian king?8 The answer was given eight years later when Britain with Palmerston at the helm of foreign affairs again violated international law with an undeclared war against the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Across Europe and even in the British Isles many people generally agreed that Palmerston’s policy was incompatible with written legal norms as well as the unwritten precepts of justice.9 To be able to fully appreciate the intensity of popular reaction to these as well as other “problematic” international affairs it is necessary to introduce them in greater time and space. With regard to time, Europeans often connected current events to earlier “crimes”. It was no coincidence that they recalled the occupation of Ancona during the Sulphur War, and the same can be said about their linking these events to even older examples of the abuse of power, namely the British destruction of the Danish fleet in Copenhagen in 1807 at a time of peace between Britain and Denmark, the violations of Swiss neutrality during the Napoleonic Wars, the destruction of the Venetian Republic in 1797 or even more distant events from the 17th and 18th centuries. People even compared the violation of legal norms in Ancona to the brutal murder of the Duke of Enghien by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804 when the French violated the sovereignty of an independent state by kidnapping the duke. These historical parallels intensified the conviction of many participants in the geopolitical debates that nothing had really changed for the better in the coexistence between European states.10 The second important impetus for these debates were the parallels with the unscrupulous policies of some great powers outside the perimeter established by the public law of Europe. The most striking was the connection of the Sulphur War to the First Opium War. Both conflicts resulted from the British imperialism of free trade, but in the first case it was directed against a member of the European family that was protected or rather should have been protected by international law. Consequently, the Europeans were able to see that what happened to

Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, pp. 61–79. Ibid., pp. 107–23. 10 Šedivý, Crisis among the Great Powers, pp. 174–240. 8 9

56

The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)

a country situated outside Europe could also happen to themselves; their doubts about the justice of the European Concert and the functioning of the European states system consequently became more acute.11 The great powers’ relations with the Ottoman Empire, which in 1815 extended from the Balkans over Asia Minor to the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Arabian Peninsula, Sudan and Algeria, likewise raised the same apprehensions but with a more lasting impact than the war in a distant region like the Far East. The French occupation of Ancona was viewed in connection with the Battle of Navarino in 1827 and the French invasion of Algeria three years later. Although in the years when these hostilities occurred they were mostly considered by the Europeans as credible chapters in the war of the Western civilised world against oriental barbarism, with the attack against the Papal States in 1832 some people began to perceive them in a different way: they realised that the French ambitions were of a more general and for the Old Continent dangerous nature since what France had not hesitated to undertake against Moslem rulers she was also ready to do against the head of the Catholic Church.12 Even though the perspectives of civilisation and religion remained inherent to the Europeans’ attitude towards the Ottoman Empire, as mutual rivalries in the Near East caused the deterioration of the great powers’ relations during the 1830s this attitude became more pragmatic. When the French took possession of Algeria, the British immediately viewed the French designs in the Mediterranean Sea with suspicion, which later contributed to the collapse of the alliance between two liberal powers; when the tsar sent his warships and troops to the Bosporus to help the sultan against his rebellious Egyptian pasha in early 1833, the mistrust of the governments in London and Paris of the tsar’s real intentions in the Ottoman Empire not only made their policies anti-Russian but also contributed to the spread of strong Russophobia in Britain and France.13 Although there was nothing to seriously fear from Russia in the Near East at that time, a considerable number of Europeans suspected her of wanting to conquer the decaying Ottoman Empire and harm the interests of other nations there. This apprehension helped to create many accusations of which the most influential was the rumour that the tsarist regime was trying to assert control over the Danube delta by limiting commercial navigation on this river. As some British claimed, with the aim of promoting their own trade with grain, the Russians had the river mouth silted to prevent this commerce between the Danubian Principalities and Europe. This mistrust successfully spread in the late 1830s to Germany owing to the fact that besides the Rhine the Danube was also considered to be another important commercial artery for the Germans, enabling their trade with the Black

Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, pp. 121–22. Ibid., p. 72. 13 Gleason, The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain, p. 204; Margaret Lamb, “Writing up the Eastern Question in 1835–1836,” The International History Review 15, 1993, 2, pp. 239–68. 11

12

The Rise of Insecurity

57

Sea and through the Straits also the Near East.14 It was no coincidence that at the end of the same decade the Germans evaluated the Ottoman Empire much more through the perspective of economic and geopolitical interests than during the Greek War of Independence.15 The growing economic potential of the Danube was significant but certainly not the most important cause of the Germans’ and other Europeans’ interest in Ottoman affairs. What made the sultan’s state such an important topic of discussions in governmental corridors as well as among the broad public was its dangerous potential for the preservation of general peace. From Italy to Scandinavia people feared the consequences of the unwillingness on the part of some great powers to cooperate or, even worse, their creation of needless disputes with their conflicting policies in the Near East. That such fears were well founded was proved in late 1840 when the great powers’ dissenting views on the settlement of an internal conflict within the Ottoman Empire gave rise to a “war in sight crisis” in Europe. This affair is known today as the Rhine Crisis because France threatened the conquest of the left bank of the Rhine. Since some territories belonging to the German Confederation were situated there, the French bellicosity provoked a strong negative reaction from the Germans. And if other countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden with Norway and the Italian states could be dragged into a war, then other Europeans saw the looming threat of war on the horizon and a considerable number of them regarded one as imminent. What made the crisis really dangerous in their eyes was not only the dissent among the great powers but also the same powers’ anticipated unwillingness to respect the neutrality of small countries.16 Despite the fact that the Rhine Crisis did not lead to war, it left its mark on European society, of which the immediate outcome was an immense wave of geopolitical security debates among the inhabitants of not only the great powers but also other countries. A considerable number of political pamphlets dealing with the precarious situation of individual states as well as the whole international order were printed, and the press published the same geopolitical analyses as Constantin Ardeleanu, International Trade and Diplomacy at the Lower Danube: The Sulina Question and the Economic Premises of the Crimean War (1829–1853), Braĭla 2014; Manfred Sauer, “Österreich und die Sulina-Frage 1829–1854, Erster Teil,” Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 40, 1987, pp. 184–236; Manfred Sauer, “Österreich und die Sulina-Frage 1829–1854, Zweiter Teil,” Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 41, 1990, pp. 72–137; Šedivý, Metternich, the Great Powers and the Eastern Question, pp. 587–623. 15 Steffen L. Schwarz, Despoten, Barbaren, Wirtschaftspartner: Die Allgemeine Zeitung und der Diskurs über das Osmanische Reich 1821–1840, Wien 2016, p. 301. 16 Guichen, La crise d’Orient de 1839 à 1841 et l’Europe; Hasenclever, Die Orientalische Frage in den Jahren 1838–1841; Šedivý, Crisis among the Great Powers; Letitia W. Ufford, The Pasha: How Mehemet Ali Defied the West, 1839–1841, Jefferson 2007; Irmline Veit-Brause, Die deutsch-französische Krise von 1840: Studien zur deutschen Einheitsbewebung, Köln 1967.

14

58

The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)

reflected in diplomatic correspondence and parliamentary records concerning the dangerous development of affairs. The authors reacted not only to the unfolding events but also to the writings of the others. This transnational polemic was of course nothing new in 1840, but after the outbreak of the crisis it reached unprecedented proportions, contributing to the further increase of mistrust and even animosity among European nations: the war of words was particularly strong between the French and the British, and between the French and the Germans. It was in France and Germany where it expressed itself in the cultural sphere of the so-called Rhine poetry where the authors from both nations defended “their” Rhine in numerous verses.17 A yet more important factor was that the Rhine Crisis was generally seen as a portent of war threatening the security of many nations. Besides the group reacting to the danger of war in writing, there was a much larger one reading their texts and discussing the events at home as well as in public. Even in states with strict censorship people read the domestic and foreign newspapers – legally as well as illegally – and were hungry for news about the development of the affair. This interest was also typical for the lower middle classes attentively observing the crisis with concern about where it would lead. The overwhelming majority were opposed to the idea of a new armed conflict in Europe and this also seemed to be the prevailing attitude in France. What they regarded as particularly absurd was the possibility of a general war owing to a quarrel between two Oriental despots in distant Syria, a region that the Europeans did not care about and were usually unable to find on a map; to learn about it, the general public read the numerous articles on the Ottoman Empire in general and Egypt in particular. All the worse was their discovery that the great powers could destroy the peace in Europe that had lasted for a quarter of a century for what they often perceived as a trivial affair.18 Even when the crisis was finally over in 1841, the intensified interest of the masses in international affairs did not cease, including those in distant regions, because it was obvious more than ever before since 1815 that the relationships between individual countries were so interwoven that the security of any one of them depended not only on the strength of the whole post-Napoleonic states system but also on their competition anywhere in the world. This recognition of the importance of international events together with the rise of modern commu-



Brendan Simms, “Nationalismus und Geopolitik in Deutschland vor 1847,” Vincenc Rajšp, Ernst Bruckmüller (eds), Recht, Geschichte, Nation, Ljubljana 1999, pp. 397–403; Lorie A. Vanchena, “The Rhine Crisis of 1840: Rheinlieder, German Nationalism, and the Masses,” Nicholas Vazsonyi (ed.), Searching for Common Ground: Diskurse zur deutschen Identität 1750–1871, Köln 2000, pp.  239–51; Klaus Rudolf Wenger, Preußen in der öffentlichen Meinung Frankreichs 1815–1870, Zürich 1979, pp. 116–21; P. E. Caquet, “The Napoleonic Legend and the War Scare of 1840,” The International History Review 35, 2013, 4, pp. 702–22. 18 Šedivý, Crisis among the Great Powers, pp. 174–279. 17

The Rise of Insecurity

59

nications networks like steam navigation and railways and the growth of literacy contributed to the increase in the number of geopolitical security debates in the following years. Since there is no space here to offer comprehensive evidence, it must suffice to quote the fitting remark of American historian Jonathan Sperber that in the Rhineland these themes “were not esoteric issues but a constituent part of popular political agitation: No mass meeting lacked a speech on international affairs; no weekly political overview at a club session was without a discussion of events in Venezia, Galicia, or the Hungarian plain. Schoolteachers reading leftwing newspapers out loud brought news of these struggles even to isolated villages.”19 The reason why the Rhine Crisis served as a highly significant amplifier of popular interest in world affairs can be explained with just two words: it was a memento mori experience, revealing in full the fragility of both the international order and peace in Europe. This perception was particularly strong in smaller countries, especially those situated between enemies and therefore the most threatened by foreign invasions. In Belgium people debated the value of perpetual neutrality, and a considerable number were convinced that the legal guarantees meant little and had to be strengthened either by an alliance with another country, or by their own armament or by both. The second option was finally chosen and even after the end of the crisis not only the king but many of his subjects saw the principal guarantee of the kingdom’s safety in a strong Belgian army and not in treaties.20 The same conclusion was reached in Switzerland as she prepared her armed forces for the defence of the country in late 1840.21 France’s policy of threats, the other great powers’ unwillingness to cooperate and the reluctance of all of them to respect the rights of some smaller countries had the same effect as the previous unlawful affairs like the occupation of Ancona and the Sulphur War: they also contributed to the diminishing faith in the stability and justice of the European states system. This was all the more important when this way of evaluating the system seemed to be justified during the 1840s by other international controversies like the British-French dispute over Tahiti in 1844 and the Spanish Marriages two years later.22 By far the most important event that accomplished the collapse of its credibility was Austria’s annexation of Cracow in Sperber, Rhineland Radicals, p. 268. Henri-Thierry Deschamps, La Belgique devant la France de Juillet: L’opinion et l’attitude françaises de 1839 à 1848, Paris 1956, pp. 49–102; Horst Lademacher, Die belgische Neutralität als Problem der europäischen Politik 1830–1914, Bonn 1971, pp. 97–125. 21 Marcel Godet, Dernières nouvelles d’il y a cent ans: La Suisse et l’Europe en 1840, Neuchâtel 1940, pp. 50–53; Paul Schweizer, Geschichte der Schweizerischen Neutralität, Frauenfeld 1895, pp. 766–67. 22 C. J. Bartlett, Defence and Diplomacy: Britain and the Great Powers 1815–1914, Manchester, New York 1993, p. 44; Roger Bullen, “Anglo-French Rivalry and Spanish Politics, 1846–1848,” The English Historical Review 89, 1974, 350, pp. 25–47.

19 20

60

The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)

November 1846. The illegal annihilation of this small remnant of Polish independence was a serious blow to anyone who still hoped for an elementary degree of morality in relations between states.23 An atmosphere of anxiety about the future spread over Europe because, as the Belgian envoy to the German Confederation Camille de Briey aptly summarised, “we seem to recognise that we have completely departed from the rule of law to enter the realm of fact, that is to say of force, that is to say of distrust, of armed peace, [where] the only consideration is the individual interests of peoples. [When] the constitution, whether it be good or bad, that has regulated international relations and the rights of the peoples of Europe has once been perverted on one point, what guarantee remains to them that it will not be violated on others?”24 THE SEARCH FOR SECURITY The popular reaction to international affairs before 1848 did not confine itself to simply expressions of people’s own opinions. Members of the upper class and the educated middle class responded to the increasing insecurity around them with their own ideas or even elaborated plans for a remedy. These plans can be divided into two categories according to their compatibility with the existing states system. The first one aimed at improving the 1815 order by adding more binding rules or establishing a supranational organisation ensuring peace and justice in the world. It encompassed not only the traditional alliances against external threats but also detailed projects like Metternich’s plan for a league to preserve peace in Europe drafted during the Rhine Crisis. The Austrian chancellor formulated this plan because he believed that the political-legal pillars established in 1815 no longer sufficed to ensure a stable and lasting peace. In six articles he offered a practical guideline for obliging the league’s member states to solve disputes peacefully and to aid any of them attacked from abroad with all necessary means. This admirable intention, having nothing in common with the famous Holy Alliance of 1815 but a lot with the later NATO Treaty of 1949, failed owing to the rejection of it in London.25

Żurawski vel Grajewski, Ognisko permanentnej insurekcji, pp. 189–280; Harald Müller, “Die Annexion der Republik Krakau und die deutsche Öffentlichkeit (1846/47),” Jahrbuch für Geschichte der sozialistischen Länder Europas 26, 1983, 2, pp. 147–58. 24 Briey to Dechamps, Frankfurt am Main, 24 November 1846, ADA, CP, Confédération germanique 3. 25 Frederick S. Rodkey, “Suggestions during the Crisis of 1840 for a ‘League’ to preserve peace,” The American Historical Review 35, 1930, 2, pp. 308–16; Šedivý, Crisis among the Great Powers, pp. 42–45, and Metternich, the Great Powers and the Eastern Question, pp. 807–10.

23

The Search for Security

61

A special category of these highly normative deliberations was represented by the peace movement that sought a stable and, ideally, permanent peace. Despite the numerous scholarly texts on the topic, historians have often neglected to explain why this movement was on the increase in Europe from only the early 1840s.26 The answer is obvious: it was a logical outcome of the increasing feeling of geopolitical insecurity in European society. Although its followers often claimed that western civilisation had reached such a high level that a new general war was almost out of the question, something that Europeans also thought before 1914, they admitted in the same breath that nothing was completely certain in human society and, as the Herald of Peace stated in January 1841, “the relationships of the different countries of the civilized world, at the present time, are very far from being such as the true friend of peace can look upon with pleasure.”27 This uneasiness was caused by an accumulation of serious international affairs of which the Rhine Crisis, the Opium and Afghan Wars (both 1839–1842) and the British-American boundary disputes were mentioned the most often within the peace movement in 1837–1842 and 1845–1846 and Britain’s groundless fear of French invasion in the mid 1840s.28 Moreover, the movement’s adherents also reacted to the mood in European society debating “what and where the law of nations actually was.”29 They became convinced that securing a lasting peace was an urgent necessity. This was to be achieved by strengthening international justice that was, according to them, weakening at that time. The proposed solutions lay in the general rejection of offensive wars and in general disarmament, a new codification of international law, consent to international arbitrage or even the establishment of a European council and parliament.30 The second kind of response to the intensifying feelings of insecurity around the world was the opinion that possessing military power was the best protection for a country. This move away from trust in the written law to reliance on armed force was certainly more widespread in European society than the response based



Antony Adolf, Peace: A World History, Cambridge 2010, p. 135; A. C. F. Beales, The History of Peace: A Short Account of the Organised Movements for International Peace, London 1931, pp. 58–65; Sandi E. Cooper, Patriotic Pacifism: Waging War on War in Europe, 1815–1914, New York, Oxford 2014, pp. 15–28; David Cortright, Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas, Cambridge 2010, pp. 29–34; Jill Liddington, The Long Road to Greenham: Feminism and AntiMilitarism in Britain since 1820, London 1989, pp. 15–16. 27 The Herald of Peace for the Years 1840 and 1841, vol. 2, London, p. 205. 28 The Proceedings of the First General Peace Convention Held in London, June 22, 1843, and the Two Following Days, London 1843, pp. 13–24. 29 Louis Bara, La science de la paix: Programme, Paris, Bruxelles, 1872 (originally written in 1849), p. 35. 30 Peter Brock, Pacifism in Europe to 1914, Princeton 1972, p. 386; Martin Ceadel, The Origins of War Prevention: The British Peace Movement and International Relations, 1730–1854, Oxford 1996, pp. 282, 290; Christina Phelps, The Anglo-American Peace Movement in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, New York, London 1930, pp. 23–25. 26

62

The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)

on faith in the law to increase security. Although this shift was motivated by identical experiences with affairs in which the stronger side won the upper hand, it led to a different conclusion, namely the opinion that under the given conditions the 1815 order could not be improved. As Briey anticipated in his reaction to the end of the Free City of Cracow, if one abandoned the 1815 order and “its general principles, one comes down to politics closer to us and more practical.”31 Practical actually meant material, that is, a strong country protected by an easily defendable border, a large army and navy, a prosperous economy and colonies if they were necessary for adding resources of power. There were special cases in Europe when the creation of a strong country or empire was possible only if several smaller states were united or other territory conquered. Here the concept of nationhood served as a useful excuse and simultaneously as a perfect mobilisation force. The case of Germany offers the best example of how geopolitical deliberations stimulated the trend in society towards nationalism and its shift to realism. It also reveals the continuity of this process from its origins before 1848 and even before 1840. As far as it is possible to determine the beginning of the geopolitical debates on a broad scale, the crucial moment actually occurred in 1839 with the outbreak of a new Near Eastern crisis threatening peace in Europe and the publication of an anonymous pamphlet Die europäische Pentarchie (The European Pentarchy) exploiting this Oriental affair to promote Russian influence in Central Europe. The suggestions contained in the pamphlet provoked hostile reactions from German liberals and democrats including their views on international relations in general. Their most prominent example was Wolfgang Menzel’s Europa im Jahre 1840 (Europe in 1840)32 written in 1839 in a spirit of realism and nationalism within the wider European context and under the influence of British Russophobia. Although Menzel wanted the preservation of general peace, he did not believe in any supranational cooperation in the form of a pan-European organisation. Therefore, he proposed a strong Germany. For his opinions he can be regarded as one of the forerunners of Realpolitik.33 Under the influence of Near Eastern affairs, the British and French Russophobia and their own economic interests, the Germans turned their attention to the Balkans and particularly to the Danube even before the end of the 1830s. A considerable number of them, especially from among the younger generations, abandoned the peaceful way that the now elderly Metternich and his diplomats

Briey to Dechamps, Frankfurt am Main, 24 November 1846, ADA, CP, Confédération germanique 3. 32 Wolfgang Menzel, Europa im Jahr 1840, Stuttgart 1839. 33 Heinz Gollwitzer, Europabild und Europagedanke: Beiträge zur deutschen Geistesgeschichte des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, München 1951, pp. 313–16; Dieter Groh, Ruβland und das Selbstverständnis Europas, Neuwied 1961, pp. 180–89. 31

The Search for Security

63

tried to maintain navigation on the Danube down to the Black Sea: they demanded direct German control over the river. This project of a large German Central Europe (Mitteleuropa) won considerable support from 1840 due to the widespread anxiety about the closure of this river to German commerce and the presence of the Russians in the north-west Balkans, something inadmissible for geopolitical reasons. However, the inevitable outcome of this project would be the German hegemony over the other nations living along this important waterway. With this example it is possible to show how their own feelings of insecurity contributed to the rise of imperialistic designs and how fundamentally the Germans’ perception of the Balkan nations had changed since the Greek War of Independence due to their growing fear of Russia, soon to be intensified even more by the rise of panSlavism in the 1840s.34 If one sees how some Germans reacted to what they perceived as a threat to their vital interests in the distant Balkans, then how they responded to external dangers in the immediate vicinity of their fatherland is hardly surprising. The French territorial aspirations during the Rhine Crisis caused the expected reaction in German society where all political groups and social classes strongly opposed the loss of the federal territories on the left bank of the Rhine. For them Germany was not merely a common cultural, social and economic bloc but also a security space under the federal umbrella. Consequently, even the inhabitants of eastern member states regarded French ambitions as unacceptable and displayed solidarity with other Germans. Some of them included in their objections a counterclaim on French eastern provinces if France should start a war and be defeated: in such a case at least Alsace and Lorraine would have to be annexed by the Confederation to reinforce its western border that was, according to some Germans, overly vulnerable to a French invasion.35 Besides Russia in the east, France was seen as another rival, if not enemy, and the resulting security deliberations became closely linked to what can be called “the geography of threat” (Bedrohungsgeografie).36 Around 1840 a third serious geopolitical threat occurred on the German horizon. Seeing Britain’s egoistic and aggressive policies in China, Afghanistan, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and her conduct during the Near Eastern affairs and the Rhine Crisis, for some Germans she became the object of fear to the same Jacques Droz, L’Europe centrale: Évolution historique de l’idée de «Mitteleuropa», Paris 1960, pp. 53–62; Henry Cord Meyer, Drang nach Osten: Fortunes of a Slogan-concept in GermanSlavic Relations, 1849–1990, Bern 1996, p. 36; Klaus Thörner, „Der ganze Südosten ist unser Hinterland“: Deutsche Südosteuropapläne von 1840 bis 1945, Freiburg 2008, pp. 19–47. 35 Thomas Müller, Imaginierter Westen: Das Konzept des „deutschen Westraums“ im völkischen Diskurs zwischen Politischer Romantik und Nationalsozialismus, Bielefeld 2009, pp. 67–77. 36 Alexa Geisthövel, Restauration und Vormärz 1815–1847, München, Wien, Zürich 2008, p. 47. See also Hans-Dietrich Schultz, “Deutschlands „natürliche“ Grenzen: „Mittellage“ und „Mitteleuropa“ in der Diskussion der Geographen seit dem Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 15, 1989, pp. 248–81.

34

64

The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)

degree as she was admired for her maritime and economic supremacy.37 The best example is offered by German political economist Friedrich List who published two articles under the same title Dr Bowring and the German Customs Union, 1839 (Dr. Bowring und der Deutsche Zollverein, 1839), the first one in 1839 and the second one two years later. They reveal an obvious shift of opinion that can be summarised as the increase of apprehension combined with respect. In 1841, under the influence of Britain’s world-politics he explicitly wrote about Germany’s threatened security, or even existence, and invoked German power, honour and greatness.38 What was symptomatic for List and his German compatriots was the equivocal desire to cooperate with Great Britain while simultaneously wanting to be able to compete with her. That is how the dream of a German fleet originated at the beginning of the 1840s. This idea of making commercial shipping respected and the Confederation more secure from an attack from the sea with their own fleet became a popular topic of public debates. Its other use was to defend German colonies which were to be founded to cope with the British, French and Russian empires and later with the United States of America that was expected to become a superpower. This “geopolitical futurology” occurred in reaction to the United States’ war with Mexico for Texas when by no means only the Germans began to perceive this ex-British colony as if not a threat then at least as a rival to Europe in world affairs.39 The desire for new territories, a powerful navy, reforms of the federal armed forces and even a federal constitution that would make Germany more centralised and thus more operational – all that occurred around 1840 due to the influence of foreign affairs and the belief in Germany’s inferiority in power in comparison with France, Russia and Great Britain. This pursuit of material strength, this power-oriented approach had other two important consequences. First, relations between the countries were viewed more from the perspective of their military power, which made Prussia a greatly respected protector of the German fatherland due to her increasing economic and military might, while Austria with her internal problems was losing the Germans’ respect because of her allegedly weakening ability Christopher A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons, Malden 2004, pp. 136–37; Raymond James Sontag, Germany and England: Background of Conflict, 1848–1894, New York 1964, pp. 51–54. 38 “Dr. Bowring und der Deutsche Zollverein, 1839,” Erwin von Beckerath (ed.), Friedrich List: Schriften, Reden, Briefe, Band V: Aufsätze und Abhandlungen aus den Jahren 1831–1844, Berlin 1928, pp. 165–66, 186–92. 39 Hans Fenske, “Imperialistische Ansätze in Österreich im 19. Jh.,” Hans Fenske, Wolfgang Reinhard, Ernst Schulin (eds), Historia integra: Festschrift für Erich Hassinger zum 70. Geburtstag, Berlin 1977, p. 245; Frank Lorenz Müller, “Der Traum von der Weltmacht: Imperialistische Ziele in der deutschen Nationalbewegung von der Rheinkrise bis zum Ende der Paulskirche,” Jahrbuch der Hambach Gesellschaft 6, 1996/97, pp. 99–129.

37

The Search for Security

65

to defend it. Second, society became more ready to accept the use of armed force and act at the expense of other nations. This in no way meant that the Germans desired war per se and were motivated by animosity towards other peoples; on the contrary there were many still who actually wanted a new international order based more on justice. However, “the instinct of self-preservation is paramount to all others, in nations as in individuals,”40 as Briey noted after the annexation of Cracow when a considerable number of Germans accepted Austria’s new territorial acquisition not because of any animosity towards the Poles but since they were convinced that it served their safety in the east. The seizure of the “stronghold” on the Vistula was important at the moment when, as the liberal newspaper Deutsche Zeitung wrote in August 1847, hardly anyone could believe in a lasting peace in Europe and although the Germans did not want war, they would inevitably face one sooner or later. Consequently, they had to prepare for one because “it was not until the middle of the 19th century that the Roman proverb si vis pacem, para bellum gained its full meaning.”41 It was not hostility but the pursuit of security in a period regarded as insecure which fundamentally weakened the relations among some countries and nations before 1848. Although hardly anyone desired this outcome, this is exactly what happened when a nation’s own security interests clashed with those of others, something detrimental to the sense of safety of all. The best examples of this unwelcome process were the incompatible aims of the Germans on one side and the Italians and Scandinavians, particularly the Danes, on the other; the same examples also reveal the extent to which the geopolitical security debates were interwoven during the 1840s. Before 1848 German liberals and democrats sympathised with the constitutional and national aspirations of the Italians and even though some questioned the possibility of any political unity of Italian states, they usually had nothing against this idea, at least not until it coincided with the Germans’ desire to ensure their own territorial security as well as maritime and colonial expansion. When this happened, regard for their own safety outweighed respect for other nationalities, which made the Germans refuse to surrender the territories in the northern Apennines demanded by Italian nationalists and patriots. They did not want to give up Trieste with its Italian-speaking inhabitants since the city was regarded as the principal naval base for German commercial and military navigation in the Mediterranean, and some of them even wanted to keep Venice in Austrian (German) hands. With the aim of making both cities safer from foreign attacks, they wanted to preserve the Venetian mainland as a necessary advanced position, and South Tyrol, where a considerable number of Italians lived, was also regarded as essential for the successful defence of German lands. In all these regions strategic

Briey to Dechamps, Frankfurt am Main, 28 January 1847, ADA, CP, Confédération germanique 3. Deutsche Zeitung, no. 34, 3 August 1847, p. 267.

40 41

66

The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)

considerations were soon victorious over the principle of nationhood. What eased this decision was the memory of the Napoleonic Wars when the French armies in Italy threatened Germany from the south; for example in 1839 Menzel feared the restoration of French influence in northern Italy, in other words on the flank of Germany.42 During the 1840s, as the Italians’ verbal attacks against the Austrians increased, Germans living in Austria as well as other federal states feared a close cooperation between Italy and France. Therefore, it was another reason for them to prefer the continuous presence of Austria in the Apennines.43 It was the same motivation towards better security that led to the widespread popularity of the Mitteleuropa concept ensuring Germany’s security against Russia on the Danube and against France in northern Italy; the need of German supremacy in both regions was even sometimes mentioned simultaneously for their alleged strategic interdependence.44 When the so-called spring of nations arrived with 1848, the Germans had already established their territorial claims. In the Frankfurt Parliament, the German national assembly, deputies of all political colours refused to surrender the areas inhabited by Italian-speaking inhabitants but regarded as strategic for the Germans. They agreed on the preservation of South Tyrol and Trieste and many of them also wanted to maintain the north-eastern territory delimited with the Mincio River in the west and the Po in the south. This possession would enable them to keep the strategic fortress of Verona, and some even wished to add the second fortress of Mantova situated on the other, western, bank of the Mincio. In any case, Austria’s complete withdrawal from the Apennines was out of the question for fear that their northern region would fall under France’s hegemony while the south would be controlled by Britain.45 Since the geopolitical conflict between the Menzel, Europa im Jahr 1840, p. 184. Wolfgang Altgeld, “Zur Rezeption der Risorgimento-Literatur in Deutschland vor 1848,” Risorgimento 1981, 1, p. 15; Sandro Bortolotti, “La stampa germanica nei riguardi del movimento nazionale italiano negli anni 1841–1847,” Rassegna Storica del Risorgimento 25, 1938, pp. 528–30; Karl Buchheim, Die Stellung der Kölnischen Zeitung im vormärzlichen rheinischen Liberalismus, Leipzig 1914, pp. 255–83; Jens Petersen, “Politik und Kultur Italiens im Spiegel der deutschen Presse,” Arnold Esch, Jens Petersen (eds), Deutsches Ottocento: Die deutsche Wahrnehmung Italiens im Risorgimento, Tübingen 2000, pp. 15–16. 44 Wolfgang Altgeld, “Deutsche Nation und Habsburger Monarchie: Die Entstehung des Mitteleuropagedankens vor 1848,” Luigi Cotteri (ed.), Die Einheit Europas: Das Problem der Nationalitäten, Meran 1990, pp. 287–89. 45 Federico Curato, Scritti di storia diplomatica, Milano 1984, pp. 77–79; Gabriele B. Clemens, “Torino e il Piemonte visti dalla Prussia,” Umberto Levra (ed.), Il Piemonte alle soglie del 1848, Torino 1999, pp. 629–39; Christof Dipper, “Revolution und Risorgimento: Italien 1848/49 aus deutscher Perspektive,” Historische Zeitschrift: Beihefte 29, 2000, p. 75; Dietmar Stübler, Deutschland-Italien 1789–1849: Zeitgenössische Texte, Leipzig 2002, p. 271; Günther Wollstein, “Die Paulskirche und Oberitalien 1848/49,” Risorgimento: Europäische Zeitschrift für die neuere Geschichte Italiens 1, 1980, 3, pp. 276–92.

42 43

The Search for Security

67

Germans and Italians was about security, it was easy to abandon the concept of nationhood even for the democratic deputies who so often talked about the rights of nations; one of them even confessed that he would “rather die a thousand times than, for instance, renounce Trieste because they [its inhabitants] speak Italian.”46 For the same reason it was not difficult to vindicate this anti-national approach: it merely sufficed an Austrian deputy to declare with the general acclaim of all political parties: “Beati possidentes [we are the most fortunate owners]; we own South Tyrol and so we shall keep it; that is my law of nations.”47 Whereas the Italian-German dispute remained limited and without any tangible effect on the formation of nationalism in both regions until 1848, in the very north of the Continent the same geopolitical debate immediately gained much more significance. In September 1841 the idea of German naval power put forward by Friedrich List was connected with the proposal to admit Denmark into the German Confederation as a so-called admiral state – a country with naval power that German states were lacking in the North and Baltic Seas. In support of this was the argument that the Danish king was already a member of the Confederation as the duke of Holstein and Lauenburg and that his kingdom could only benefit from this union: Denmark would obtain sufficient security against the non-German great powers towards which she was completely defenceless on her own and that the national disputes between the Danish- and German-speaking inhabitants in Holstein and Schleswig would also be settled.48 It is useful to add that a very close alliance with other countries was a popular topic for the Germans’ geopolitical deliberations at that time, including not only Denmark but also the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland. Their association with Germany was to increase the safety of all the parties involved from an economic, geostrategic and military point of view; the Netherlands was to add naval power in the same way as Denmark was expected to. The argument of alleged common Germanic roots was used to justify this huge conglomeration exceeding the limits of Central Europe, in other words to add a higher value to the desired security measure. Once again and not for the last time the national card was used in one group’s search for greater security.49 This early phase of pan-Germanism failed owing to the dissenting attitudes of the people in the countries mentioned simply because they had different opinions R. J. B. Bosworth, Nationalism, Abingdon, New York 2013, p. 73. Dieter Hein, Die Revolution von 1848/49, München 1998, p. 77. 48 “Das Königreich Dänemark als deutscher Bundesstaat,” Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung, no. 260, 17 September 1841, pp. 2075–76, and Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung, no. 261, 18 September 1841, pp. 2083–84; Steen Bo Frandsen, Dänemark: Der kleine Nachbar im Norden. Aspekte der deutsch-dänischen Beziehungen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Darmstadt 1994, pp. 55–58. 49 For all see Die Grenzboten, Leipzig 1841, pp. 1–10; Ernst von Bülow-Cummerow, Preuβen, seine Verfassung, seine Verwaltung, sein Verhältnis zu Deutschland, Berlin 1842, pp. 311–15.

46 47

68

The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)

about their future security. Particularly after the Rhine Crisis they usually agreed with the Germans that they lived in a dangerous world, but at the same time they saw no salvation in uniting themselves with them; they primarily sought the preservation of the sovereignties of their own native states. In Denmark, like in Germany, the Rhine Crisis provoked similar scepticism about the possibility of maintaining lasting peace in Europe and their own neutrality when surrounded by the great powers. However, the Germans’ idea of an admiral state increased this feeling of mistrust because, together with the increasing national animosities in the duchies, it was regarded as an imminent threat not only to the independence but also the territorial integrity of the kingdom.50 Some liberal nationalists were ready to ensure a secure future with a compromise whereby they would give up Holstein, which was inhabited by Germans, and thus create a natural border on the Eider River, but in general all Danes rejected the admiral plan.51 The Germans’ naval aspirations were caused by feelings of insecurity on the issues of the northern border as well as maritime trade. The principal problem was that their desire to improve their own security through the amalgamation with Denmark increased the feeling of insecurity among the Danes, the same outcome that had earlier occurred between the Germans and the French during their Rhine dispute. Here it is necessary to emphasise the word “increased” because the geopolitical security debates in Denmark had begun before 1841, in part owing to the Schleswig-Holstein Question, in part because of the Russian-British competition in the Near East. The latter cannot be underestimated since it had negative repercussions in the Baltic area, including Sweden united with Norway.52 The apprehensions primarily caused by these great powers’ ambitions, which had the potential of making Northern Europe a battlefield and forcing the Scandinavian countries to participate in a war in which they had no interests and certainly did not want to be engaged, were already apparent when British-Russian relations significantly deteriorated after the tsar’s military intervention on the Bosporus in early 1833. Therefore, at the end of the same year Sweden-Norway and Denmark notified other countries of their determination to preserve their neutrality in the case of war, and the king of Sweden and Norway, Charles XIV John, Henrik Becker-Christensen, Skandinaviske Drømme og politiske Realiteter 1830–1850, Århus 1981, pp. 72–73; Claus Bjørn, “Fra Helstat til nationalstat 1814–1914,” Carsten Due-Nielsen, Ole Feldbæk, Nikolaj Petersen (eds), Dansk Udenrigspolitiks Historie, vol. 3, København 2003, pp. 66–67, 76–77; Knud J. V. Jespersen, “Die Nationalbewegung und Dänemark 1750–1850,” Heiner Timmermann (ed.), Die Entstehung der Nationalbewegung in Europa 1750–1849, Berlin 1993, p. 184. 51 Armin Schütz, Nils Groes, Der nationale Gegensatz 1800–1864, Flensburg 1984, pp. 86, 88; Roar Skovmand, Geschichte Dänemarks: 1830–1939: Die Auseinandersetzungen um nationale Einheit, demokratische Freiheit und soziale Gleichheit, Neumünster 1973, p. 70. 52 Mircea-Cristian Ghenghea, “About Pan-Scandinavianism: Reference points in the 19th century (1815–1864),” The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies 6, 2014, 2, pp. 133–41.

50

The Search for Security

69

even proposed an alliance with Denmark to increase the chance that this neutrality was respected by the great powers. During the Rhine Crisis Charles XIV John repeated this resolution and tried to win the support of his Danish counterpart with reference to the need of solidarity of all Scandinavian countries.53 The king’s comment about Scandinavian solidarity is all the more important in that he has generally been regarded by historians as being opposed to the Scandinavian movement that at that time desired a closer political union of Denmark, Sweden and Norway: it shows that Charles XIV John in fact supported the idea proposed by some Danes and Swedes and to a lesser extent even Norwegians to increase his nation’s own external security. Their conviction that a Scandinavian alliance or league with a common army and navy was the only possible source of strength necessary for survival in a world dominated by large states had been gradually growing since the 1830s precisely because of the tensions erupting in the Near East, the negative experience of the Rhine Crisis and later with German ambitions in the Baltic.54 Although one cannot underestimate the role of constitutional aspirations within the Scandinavian movement, it seems to have been particularly fuelled by the geopolitical deliberations on which it flourished during the 1840s and brought a considerable number of people to its ranks.55 Just to mention here one example: Danish patriot Orla Lehmann linked his desire for Scandinavian unity with not only the security of the three northern kingdoms but also the preservation of peace in Europe. Although he was sceptical with regard to the value of the written law, which made him believe that it was military power that won the upper hand, he also respected the authority of law and was aware of the existence of the family of European nations and wished to live in harmony with both. Consequently, he saw the creation of a Scandinavian empire as a sufficiently strong bulwark between Russia, Britain and Germany and, simultaneously, as a new pillar of the

Gabriel Girod de l’Ain, Jean Baptiste Bernadotte: Bürger, französischer Revolutionsgeneral, schwedisch-norwegischer König, Konstanz 1989, p. 455; Šedivý, Crisis among the Great Powers, p. 207. 54 T. K. Derry, A History of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, London 1979, p. 239; Steen Bo Frandsen, “1848 in Dänemark: Die Durchsetzung der Demokratie und das Zerbrechen des Gesamtstaates,” Dieter Dowe, Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, Dieter Langewiesche (eds), Europa 1848: Revolution und Reform, Bonn 1998, p. 396; Martin Gerhardt, Walther Hubatsch, Deutschland und Skandinavien im Wandel der Jahrhunderte, Bonn 1950, pp. 321, 332; Theodore Jorgenson, Norway’s Relation to Scandinavian Unionism 1815–1871, Norhfield, Minnesota 1935, pp. 89–90, 114; Knud Berlin, Zur Problematik des Nordischen Gedankens, Riga 1943, p. 13. 55 Jorgenson, Norway’s Relation to Scandinavian Unionism, pp. 127–28; Raymond E. Lindgren, Norway-Sweden: Union, Disunion and Scandinavian Integration, New Jersey 1959, p. 48; Frantz Wendt, The Nordic Council and Co-operation in Scandinavia, Copenhagen 1959, pp. 23–24.

53

70

The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)

stability of “the system of European powers” and through this also the way to strengthen the general “balance of power”.56 What also should not be underestimated was the popular support for Scandinavism. In Denmark Lehmann was certainly not isolated with his geopolitical deliberations; German pressure from the south convinced a considerable number of his compatriots that help from the north was necessary for their survival. Although intellectuals and students represented the largest and most active groups in the movement, there was also a considerable number of supporters among military officers and the members of the upper-middle class bourgeois.57 This solid support explains very well why an evening assembly prepared by the student supporters of the movement in Tivoli in Copenhagen on 27 June 1845 was attended by around 15,000 people58 and why it gradually won greater popular support in the other two northern kingdoms including that of Sweden’s new King Oscar I.59 Here it was primarily owing to the Russian threat, but in the course of time Germany also became a source of apprehension. Some Swedes and Norwegians even joined the Danish army at war with the Germans as volunteers during the spring of 1848 because they believed that “without Schleswig, Denmark is destroyed. Without Denmark, Norway and Sweden cannot exist.”60 In brief, a supranational unity of Scandinavian countries seemed just a matter of time simply because it was generally regarded as “an effective response to an unstable geopolitical order.”61 The resulting movement was thus a pragmatic power-oriented aspiration for international security identical in this respect to the national movements in Germany and Italy.62 The fact that it finally failed is usually explained by its lack of a strong leading power like Prussia and Piedmont,63 certainly a valid argument, but another and no less important one must be added: the lack of popular agreement on an enemy representing a common security threat because while the Danes feared

Christian Degn, Orla Lehmann und der nationale Gedanke: Eiderstaat und nordische Einheit, Neumünster 1936, pp. 78, 109, 131–32. 57 John Peter Collett, “The Christiania University’s 50 Years Celebration in 1861: National Pride and Scandinavian Solidarity,” Pieter Dhondt (ed.), National, Nordic or European? Nineteenth-Century University Jubilees and Nordic Cooperation, Leiden, Boston 2011, pp. 89–92. 58 Lagerheim to Peyron, Copenhagen, 28 June 1845, SE/RA/221/2210.01.1/E/E 2/E 2 D/j/311. 59 Wolfram Dufner, Geschichte Schwedens: Ein Überblick, Neumünster 1967, pp. 213–14. 60 Halvdan Koht, Die Stellung Norwegens und Schwedens im deutsch-dänischen Konflikt, zumal während der Jahre 1863 und 1864, Oslo 1908, p. 4. See also Jorgenson, Norway’s Relation to Scandinavian Unionism, pp. 145–64. 61 Aladin Larguèche, “Resistance as the Creation of a ‘Natural Frontier’: The Language of 19th-Century Scandinavism (1839–1867),” Luďa Klusáková, Martin Moll (eds), Crossing Frontiers: Resisting Identities, Pisa 2010, p. 181. 62 Åke Holmberg, “On the Practicability of Scandinavianism: Mid-nineteenth-century Debate and Aspirations,” Scandinavian Journal of History 9, 1984, 2 pp. 171–82. 63 Henrik Becker-Christensen, “The idea of Scandinavianism,” E. I. Kouri, Jens E. Olesen (eds), The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, Volume 2: 1520–1870, Cambridge 2016, p. 933. 56

The Search for Security

71

Germany, the Swedes and Norwegians feared Russia. Consequently, when Denmark was fighting against the German Confederation again in 1864, the refusal of the other Scandinavian kingdoms to help her buried the whole idea of political Scandinavism.64 The rise of Scandinavism reveals the interdependence between the geopolitical security debates in various regions. On the one hand this movement was influenced by the Germans’ ambitions in the Baltic region, on the other it had strong repercussions on the increase of insecurity in German society. At the beginning of the 1840s the Germans usually regarded the Scandinavian nations as brothers who could help establish a common bulwark against other great powers. When, however, it became clear that the northern kingdoms preferred to find a way of ensuring their own security independent of Germany, the Germans started to see in them another threat and felt even more surrounded by enemies or at least rivals from all quarters. The famous feeling of encirclement from the Wilhelminian era at the turn of the 19th century actually had its precedent before 1848. The logical consequence was the growth of insecurity and the Germans’ rejection of the Eider compromise solution for the same reason that they refused to give up strategic points in Italy. In the way they perceived the geographical and, subsequently, economic, political and military importance of Schleswig and Holstein, the Germans from various regions, political groups and social classes regarded the future of the duchies as a matter of Germany’s life and death.65 That is how these two small provinces became so important to the Germans’ own survival, how this territorially marginal dispute was able to fuel efforts to increase the political and military effectiveness of the German Confederation and the request for national unification, and how the same dispute intensified the conviction that might was right. The often and positive use of expressions like “right of the stronger” and “the law of the jungle” (Faustrecht) offer further evidence for the continuous shift to realism long before 1853 and even 1848. However, the increasing realism was still accompanied by a normative approach: those who were strongly in favour of material power also expressed the desire to reform the “old”

Péter Bajtay, “Nordische Nationalbewegungen und der politische Skandinavismus in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Heiner Timmermann (ed.), Entwicklung der Nationalbewegungen in Europa 1850–1914, Berlin 1998, p. 394; Knut Gjerset, History of the Norwegian People, vol. 2, New York 1915, pp. 503–504; Bernd Henningsen, Dänemark, München 2009, p. 55; Mary Hilson, “Denmark, Norway and Sweden: Pan-Scandinavianism and Nationalism,” Timothy Baycroft, Mark Hewitson (eds), What is a Nation? Europe 1789–1914, Oxford 2006, p. 204. 65 William Carr, Schleswig-Holstein 1815–1848: A Study in National Conflict, Manchester 1963, pp. 158–278; Alexa Geisthövel, Eigentümlichkeit und Macht: Deutscher Nationalismus 1830– 1851. Der Fall Schleswig-Holstein, Stuttgart 2003, pp. 222–23; Arthur Erwin Imhof, Grundzüge der nordischen Geschichte, Darmstadt 1970, p. 148; Jorgenson, Norway’s Relation to Scandinavian Unionism, pp. 128–29. 64

72

The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)

international order and replace “classical” diplomacy with something new and more just. They hoped that the sufficient strength of their own country or nation, or even supremacy over others, together with an improved states system would ensure a peaceful future.66 1848 AND BEYOND The realist-institutionalist mixture was typical not only for the Germans but also other European nations around the mid 1840s. Its source can be found in the same geopolitical experiences that provoked identical feelings of insecurity among Europeans who nonetheless shared the same conviction of a European kinship and mutual responsibility for the preservation of peace. With this understanding of what was happening in European society it is possible to better appreciate what happened in 1848. This year is well known for its revolutions which began with people’s claims of a new era in international relations characteristic of peaceful and fair coexistence among free nations but ended with their mutual animosities or even enmity. However, there is nothing surprising in this shift that had already been predetermined before 1848. There was certainly no hypocrisy in the words of peace and brotherhood, but whenever their own security was at stake, then people’s transnational idealism inevitably faded. Such an attitude towards the problem of security was dual rather than dichotomous, and what was later termed as national chauvinism can be seen more as an over-sensitiveness to the requirements of a nation’s own existence taking precedence over the achievement of a generally desired life in peace with other countries and nations.67 The opinions of the overwhelming majority of Germans reveal there is nothing in their geopolitical deliberations that did not exist before 1848. Their war with H. von O., Die Nothwendigkeit großer deutscher Colonien und Kriegsflotten, Leipzig 1845, pp. 64, 68; Gustav Droysen, Johann Gustav Droysen, Erster Teil: Bis zum Beginn der Frankfurter Tätigkeit, Leipzig, Berlin 1910, p. 277; Wolfgang Hock, Liberales Denken im Zeitalter der Paulskirche: Droysen und die Frankfurter Mitte, Münster 1957, pp. 166–67; Erich Krauβ, Ernst von Bülow-Cummerow, ein konservativer Landwirt und Politiker des 19. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 1937, pp. 142–50; Frank Lorenz Müller, Die Revolution von 1848/49, Darmstadt 2009, p. 97; Vollquart Pauls, Schleswig-Holstein zwischen Nord und Süd, Neumünster 1950, p. 23. 67 Thomas Brendel, Zukunft Europa? Das Europabild und die Idee der internationalen Solidarität bei den deutschen Liberalen im Vormärz (1815–1848), Bochum 2005, pp. 406–10, 423–33; Ulrike von Hirschhausen, “Nationale Machtpolitik oder europäische Integration? Frühliberale und ihr Verhältnis zur Macht in der „Deutschen Zeitung“ 1847–1850,” Jahrbuch der Hambach Gesellschaft 6, 1996/97, pp. 75–97; Manfred Kittel, “Abschied vom Völkerfrühling? National- und außenpolitische Vorstellungen im konstitutionellen Liberalismus 1848/49,” Historische Zeitschrift 275, 2002, 2, pp. 376–79; Eberhard Meier, Die Auβenpolitischen Ideen der Achtundvierziger, Berlin 1938, p. 175; Wilhelm Ribhegge, Das Parlament als Nation: Die Frankfurter Nationalsammlung 1848/49, Düsseldorf 1998, p. 43.



66

1848 and Beyond

73

Denmark, their refusal to agree with the Italians’ territorial aspirations in South Tyrol and the northern Adriatic, their conviction that a Polish independent state could not form a sufficient barrier against Russian expansion and their subsequent aversion to surrendering the territories inhabited by the Poles, their animosity towards other Slavs in Central Europe, particularly the Czechs who were regarded as potential allies of the tsarist empire and, consequently, an unacceptable security threat, their dislike of Russia and mistrust of Great Britain and France, and the intensity with which all these affairs were discussed in the Parliament in Frankfurt am Main, all of this resulted from a long process characterised by the loss of faith in the guarantees offered by the public law of Europe.68 Consequently, the year 1848 was no milestone but just another episode in the general shift to realism: it became another geopolitical experience that weakened the belief in the feasibility of a new and more equitable international order. In conformity with famous Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter’s warning of May 1848 that Europe would either find such an order or it would face the most sombre future,69 the latter situation proved to be the case. The general disappointment with the outcome of the revolutions, although primarily in the internal affairs of Germany, was most famously expressed by liberal August Ludwig von Rochau in 1853 in his famous work on Realpolitik. Rochau did not want to live outside the legal boundaries established in human society but pointed out the inefficiency of written law without material power. Although he paid only brief attention to international affairs in the final part of his book, it is definitely here where his analysis of realism shows that its origins can be traced back at least to the Rhine Crisis

Jürgen Angelow, Von Wien nach Königgrätz: Die Sicherheitspolitik des Deutschen Bundes im europäischen Gleichgewicht (1815–1866), München 1996, pp. 148–52; Helmut Bleiber, “Deutsche Polenfreundschaft 1848,” Lars Lambrecht (ed.), Osteuropa in den Revolutionen von 1848, Frankfurt am Main 2006, pp. 89–103; Manfred Botzenhart, “Die österreichische Frage in der deutschen Nationalversammlung 1848/49,” Michael Gehler (ed.), Ungleiche Partner? Österreich und Deutschland in ihrer gegenseitigen Wahrnehmung: Historische Analysen und Vergleiche aus dem 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart 1996, pp. 115–34; Jörg Duppler, Der Juniorpartner: England und die Entwicklung der Deutschen Marine 1848–1890, Herford 1985, pp. 19–23; Frank Eyck, The Frankfurt Parliament 1848–1849, London, Melbourne, Toronto, New York 1968, pp. 254–314; Gunther Hildebrandt, Politik und Taktik der Gagern-Liberalen in der Frankfurter Nationalversammlung 1848/1849, Berlin 1989, pp. 87–92; Hans-Werner Hahn, Helmut Berding, Reformen, Restauration und Revolution 1806–1848/49, Stuttgart 2010, pp. 593–602; Rüdiger Hachtmann, Berlin 1848: Eine Politik- und Gesellschaftsgeschichte der Revolution, Bonn 1997, pp. 657–69; Wolfram Siemann, Die deutsche Revolution von 1848/49, Darmstadt 1985, pp. 147–57; Ulrike Ruttmann, Wunschbild, Schreckbild, Trugbild: Rezeption und Instrumentalisierung Frankreichs in der deutschen Revolution von 1848/49, Stuttgart 2001, pp. 69–89. 69 Robert Fleck, “L’‘Europe’ et la Révolution de 1848 en Europe centrale,” Helmut Reinalter (ed.), Europaideen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert in Frankreich und Zentraleuropa, Frankfurt am Main 1994, pp. 100–101.

68

74

The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)

and not merely to the failure of the German liberals in 1848–1849 as is usually claimed by historians.70 With regard to international affairs, Rochau’s principles concerning power and law had already been established around 1840 by the latest, ideas shared by German liberals who had realised that material power was taking precedence over written law. This had made them more power oriented, and, despite their sincere words about transnational cooperation, as already seen they had inclined towards realism in the issues of Germany’s external security.71 That the realist perception of power in (international) politics existed in people’s minds explains well why Rochau’s work provoked no great controversy: it was compatible with the Europeans’ perception of world affairs and therefore with the attitude prevailing in their geopolitical security contemplations. This popularity of realism was further increased with their experiences with the Crimean War 1853–1856 and the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859. Egoism seemed to dominate international relations and the world appeared to be more dangerous than ever since 1815, and this also applied to the Germans’ conviction that they were living in the centre of the Continent surrounded by dangerous and hostile powers, especially France and Russia but also Britain and, after 1861, unified Italy. Consequently, Otto von Bismarck readily found more security for his beloved Prussia in the German Empire despite the fact that he was no German nationalist, and other Germans mostly accepted this Prussian solution to the German Question that gave them a greater sense of safety although many of them still leaned towards federal national consciousness and their own native federal states.72 The unification of Germany in 1871 resulted from Prussia’s dominance rather than the general consent of the Germans, but, and what is more important here, the majority of them appreciated or at least tolerated this radical change in the organisation of Central Europe. The significance of the geopolitical considerations Bew, Realpolitik, p. 19; Doll, Recht, Politik und »Realpolitik«, p. 10; Möller, “Vom revolutionären Idealismus zur Realpolitik,” pp. 72–73; Trocini, L’invenzione della «Realpolitik», pp. 83–86. 71 Kurt Gerhard Fischer, Die Pädagogik des Menschenmöglichen: Adalbert Stifter, Linz 1962, p. 125; Walter Buβmann, “Zur Geschichte des deutschen Liberalismus im 19. Jahrhundert,” Historische Zeitschrift 186, 1958, 3, pp. 531–32. 72 Nikolaus Buschmann, Einkreisung und Waffenbruderschaft: Die öffentliche Deutung von Krieg und Nation in Deutschland 1850–1871, Göttingen 2003, pp. 181–201, 309–33; Ernst Engelberg, Bismarck: Urpreuβe und Reichsgründer, Berlin 1991, pp. 152–54; Karl-Georg Faber, “Realpolitik als Ideologie: Die Bedeutung des Jahres 1866 für das politische Denken in Deutschland,” Historische Zeitschrift 203, 1966, 1, pp. 1–45; Heinz Gollwitzer, Geschichte des weltpolitischen Denkens, Bd. 1: Vom Zeitalter der Entdeckungen bis zum Beginn des Imperialismus, Göttingen 1972, pp. 446–53; Halda Gramley, Propheten des deutschen Nationalismus: Theologen, Historiker und Nationalökonomen 1848–1880, Frankfurt, New York 2001, pp. 197–202; Hajo Holborn, “Bismarck’s Realpolitik,” Journal of the History of Ideas 21, 1960, 1, pp. 88–95; Otto Pflanze, Bismarck: Der Reichsgründer, München 1997, p. 82; Wolfram Siemann, Gesellschaft im Aufbruch: Deutschland 1849–1871, Frankfurt am Main 1990, pp. 194–98.

70

1848 and Beyond

75

in this process, in other words the acceptance of the new state that gave a greater feeling of security, cannot be underestimated. However, “greater” did not mean “full” and when the German Empire was established, its people soon realised that they could not abandon the pursuit of security through the build-up of material power. Since this strength could be won primarily outside the empire’s boundaries, the ideas of German Mitteleuropa, colonisation and a powerful navy flourished more than ever before.73 Unsurprisingly, when a powerful Germany entered the international scene with such ambitions, the feeling of insecurity spread quickly in other European countries including the most powerful ones. The Germans’ hunger for yet greater security became a serious source of insecurity for them after 1871. Great Britain, France and Russia reaped now what they had sown several decades earlier with their egoistic and unscrupulous policies in Europe and around the world. Facing now an unprecedented threat from the core of the Continent they also felt compelled to participate eagerly in the race for arms and colonies. It was no accident that the late 19th century witnessed the transition from informal to formal imperialism that represented another response to international insecurity. To conquer overseas territories and gain direct control of them before a rival could do so was the motto of the day. Colonial competition was, however, “a reflection of the European state of mind”74 owing to geopolitical anxieties rather than an expression of actual economic needs, and the “deeply rooted psychological and emotional factors”75 fuelling it primarily resulted from the fact that after 1848 no new and more secure international order was created to mitigate dangerous rivalries.76



Klaus J. Bade, “Die „Zweite Reichsgründung“ in Übersee: Imperiale Visionen, Kolonialbewegung und Kolonialpolitik in der Bismarckzeit,” Adolf M. Birke, Günther Heydemann (eds), Die Herausforderung des europäischen Staatensystems: Nationale Ideologie und staatliches Interesse zwischen Restauration und Imperialismus, Göttingen, Zürich 1989, pp. 183–215; Michael Fröhlich, Imperialismus: Deutsche Kolonial- und Weltpolitik 1880–1914, München 1997, pp. 17–31; Imanuel Geiss, Die deutsche Frage 1806–1990, Mannheim 1992, p. 36; Horst Gründer, Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien, Paderborn 2012, p. 24; Günter Moltmann, “Die deutsche Flotte von 1848/49 im historisch-politischen Kontext,” Deutsches Marine Institut/Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (ed.), Die Deutsche Flotte im Spannungsfeld der Politik 1848– 1985, Herford 1985, pp. 21–41; Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Bismarck und der Imperialismus, Köln, Berlin 1969, pp. 424–25. 74 Raymond Betts, The False Dawn: European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century, Minneapolis, Oxford 1976, p. 116. 75 Matthew S. Anderson, The Ascendancy of Europe 1815–1914, New York 2013, p. 291. 76 Carroll, French Public Opinion, pp. 84–86; Raoul Girardet, L’Idée coloniale en France 1871– 1962, Paris 1972, pp. 21–65; Robert Johnson, British Imperialism, Basingstoke, New York 2003, pp. 39–40; James Joll, The Origins of the First World War, London, New York 1990, pp. 149–54; John F. V. Keiger, France and the Origins of the First World War, London, Basingstoke 1983, pp. 2–11; Richard Langhorne, The Collapse of the Concert of Europe, New York 1981, p. 69; Simon C. Smith, British Imperialism, 1750–1970, Cambridge 1998, p. 77. 73

76

The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)

The crucial question is why such an order was not established and why, on the contrary, such dangerous bellicose tendencies grew in Europe before 1914. Of course, this can be explained neither by an increase in the number of warmongers nor by the Europeans losing their desire to live in peace or their feeling of being geographically, culturally and politically the members of one family. Even the most ardent nationalists and realists usually understood that the prosperity of their own countries always depended on the welfare of Europe and that some kind of solidarity and common responsibility for the law among them was therefore necessary. For example, a prominent realist such as Bismarck, who pursued an unscrupulous foreign policy to ensure Prussia’s greater security within the German Empire, changed his attitude when he attained this goal and from then onwards tried to make Germany secure with emphasis on peaceful coexistence within the political-legal framework of European state community. The desire for some pan-European solidarity can also be found among other statesmen usually considered to be hawks in foreign affairs like Napoleon III and ardent imperialists like Jules Ferry and Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the 3rd Marquis of Salisbury. For example, Salisbury did not hesitate to claim: “We are part of the community of Europe and we must do our duty as such.”77 Some of them were even personally convinced that the best security could be achieved not by territorial expansion and military expenditure but the creation of a European federation according to the pattern of the United States of America.78 The answer must be sought in the growth of envy, mistrust and fear among the countries and nations. These feelings were stimulated by an overwhelming number of new negative experiences with international events, which made the Europeans believe that the world was a place where everyone was of necessity fighting with everyone else and that only the strongest would survive, regardless of whether they were in the right or not; this conviction, already existing in the 1840s, seemed to be confirmed later in a scientific way by the ideas of Social Darwinism

Brendan Simms, Britain’s Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation, London 2017, p. 134. 78 Holger Afflerbach, “Das Deutsche Reich, Bismarcks Allianzpolitik und die europäische Friedenssicherung vor 1914,” Ulrich Lappenküper (ed.), Otto von Bismarck und das „lange 19. Jahrhundert“: Lebendige Vergangenheit im Spiegel der „Friedrichsruher Beiträge“ 1996– 2016, Paderborn 2017, pp. 35–37; William E. Echard, Napoleon III and the Concert of Europe, Baton Rouge, London 1983, pp. 208, 301–305; Jörg Fisch, Europa zwischen Wachstum und Gleichheit 1850–1914, Stuttgart 2002, pp. 349–50; Michael Gehler, “Otto von Bismarck und die Europa-Ideen im Zeichen des nationalstaatlichen Prinzips,” Ulrich Lappenküper, Karina Urbach (eds), Realpolitik für Europa: Bismarcks Weg, Paderborn 2016, pp. 87–117; Dominik Haffer, Europa in den Augen Bismarcks: Bismarcks Vorstellungen von der Politik der europäischen Mächte und vom europäischen Staatensystem, Paderborn 2010, pp. 644–65; Brendan Simms, “The European great power System after 1870,” Ulrich Lappenküper, Karina Urbach (eds), Realpolitik für Europa: Bismarcks Weg, Paderborn 2016, pp. 67–68.

77

1848 and Beyond

77

which, unsurprisingly, immediately became very popular in European society.79 More than ever before people expected the worst of others, and numerous articles and novels with their alarmist visions of the future intensified this sombre mood, like the novel The Battle of Dorking of 1871 in which Britain was defeated by the stronger and more aggressive German Empire. As one British writer warned nine years later, the nations were “matching every other with suspicion, jealousy, or menace,”80 and many were even convinced that a widespread war among them was inevitable. In 1892 the editor of the illustrated weekly Black and White warned its readers: “The air is full of rumours of war. The European nations stand fully armed and prepared for instant mobilization. Authorities are agreed that a GREAT WAR [emphasis in original] must break out in the immediate future, and that this War will be fought under novel and surprising conditions.”81 The fear of foreign attack and their own defeat further contributed to the increase in the number of geopolitical security debates, while the spread of literacy and wider suffrage enabled greater participation of the masses in a passive way through their reading of newspapers as well as in an active way in elections and various associations like navy and colonial leagues.82 These popular moods exerted certain pressures on governmental circles where however a considerable number of men did not need them to share the people’s geopolitical anxiety. They were already convinced of the impossibility of placing trust in others and of establishing a common kind of pan-European organisation even if they had wanted one, or even of meeting the appeal for at least a partial disarmament submitted by the peace movement responding to the serious situation in the world on the turn of the 19th century in the same way as it had done in the 1840s.83 All this fuelled the so to speak “defensively aggressive behaviour”84 of European countries and precluded their return to the post-Napoleonic greater





Mike Hawkins, Social Darwinism in European and American thought, 1860–1945: Nature as model and nature as threat, Cambridge 1998, pp. 123–38; Hanns Joachim Koch, “Social Darwinism as a Factor in the ‘New Imperialism’,” Hanns Joachim Koch (ed.), The Origins of the First World War, London 1984, pp. 319–42; Hanns Joachim Koch, Der Sozialdarwinismus: Seine Genese und sein Einfluβ auf das imperialische Denken, München 1973, pp. 88–106; Richard Weikart, “The Origins of Social Darwinism in Germany, 1859–1895,” Journal of the History of Ideas 54, 1993, 3, pp. 469–88. 80 Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain, p. 37. 81 Ibid., p. 39. 82 Anton Grabner-Haider, Klaus S. Davidowicz, Karl Prenner, Kulturgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts, Göttingen 2015, p. 63; Kennedy, The Realities behind Diplomacy, pp. 26–59; William L. Langer, Diplomacy of Imperialism 1890–1902, New York 1951, pp. 95–96; Parker Thomas Moon, Imperialism and World Politics, New York 1926, p. 68; Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism 1850–1970, London, New York 1975, pp. 74–130. 83 Manfred Görtemaker, Geschichte Europas 1850–1918, Stuttgart 2002, pp. 246–47. 84 David P. Abernethy, The Dynamics of Global Dominance: European Overseas Empires, 1425– 1980, New Haven, London 2000, p. 209. 79

78

The Response to Insecurity in Europe (1830–1848)

normative cooperation. Consequently, the spiral of the security dilemma that had originated already before 1848 was able to continue to grow and reach immense proportions when the Great War finally broke out in 1914.

Chapter 2

THE GOVERNMENTAL ELITES (1830–1840) THE NEED FOR SECURITY The restoration of general peace in 1815 brought back to Italy the majority of the regimes expelled during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The map did not therefore change that much during the years from the late 18th century, and what also remained almost unchanged was the unwillingness of local rulers to cooperate against external threats. Although from their experience with Napoleon Bonaparte they learned a hard lesson of where their weakness and disunity could lead, even after his downfall they continued in their hypersensitive opposition to everything that they regarded as an infringement to their sovereignty. Consequently, they refused to establish any kind of Italian league as promoted by Metternich; to impede it, they readily exploited the great powers’ pursuit for influence over Italy, which began immediately after 1815 with Russia’s new policy and France traditionally trying to undermine Austria’s supremacy. Fortunately for the Italian princes, during the first fifteen years of peace no great power exceeded the limits of public law of Europe at their expense, including the Austrian Empire whose military interventions against the revolutions in Naples and Piedmont in 1821 were entirely compatible with its precepts since they were undertaken at the formal requests of the legitimate rulers.1 The situation changed in the decade after 1830 with the actions of some European powers towards Italian countries that can be regarded as not only beyond the limit of propriety but also in breach of the legal rules on which the European states system was founded after the Napoleonic Wars. The French July Monarchy was primarily responsible for this at first. Pressured by public opinion demanding the revision of the 1815 treaties but not strong enough to repudiate them openly with the force of arms, King Louis Philippe and his ministers tried to increase France’s influence and prestige at the expense of Austria with a more assertive foreign policy. Their most important weapon was the non-intervention principle that they promulgated in the late summer of 1830 to preclude foreign military intervention in Belgium, and they soon extended it to Italy where it was intended to prevent Austria’s freedom of action against eventual revolutions. As successive cabinets in Paris claimed, with military operations beyond Austria’s own possessions of

1

For a brief summary of the 1815–1830 period and authoritative scholarly works see Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, pp. 19–37.

80

The Governmental Elites (1830–1840)

Lombardy and Venetia the Viennese cabinet risked French invasion into the Apennines, and this was possible even in the case when the Austrians were formally invited by Italian rulers.2 The principle of non-intervention pursued by France was not in support of liberalism but simply for geopolitical reasons: its real purpose was to establish a security perimeter on the French border and prevent the presence of other great powers’ armies there. In Italy her application of this principle was also motivated by her perception of the traditional French sphere of influence where both France’s security and public opinion demanded the weakening of Austrian influence. When a revolution finally broke out in February 1831 in the Papal States, the French refused to accept the presence of Austrian troops there primarily for reasons of their own prestige, and they opposed it in Piedmont situated between the two great powers mainly for reasons of security.3 Due to her geographical position between France and Austria, Piedmont was by far the most affected by this policy of which the practical effect was the limitation of her freedom of action: the cabinet in Paris tried to deprive the government in Turin of the right to call on other states for military assistance and threatened to invade if it allowed the presence of Austrian troops on its territory. In the spring of 1831, the French even contemplated such an invasion if the Austrians entered the Papal States and Piedmont refused to allow the passage of French troops to Lombardy.4 These warnings were often repeated by the French agents in Turin as well as by the ministers in Paris, for example by Premier Casimir Périer during a discussion with the Sardinian envoy on 27 March 1831: “We are demanding from you passage [for our troops] and if you refuse to give it to us, it will be for you to decide whether you are for or against us. If we are compelled to wage war, we cannot accept your neutrality, [and] we need to be able to enter Italy to reach Austria.”5 French diplomacy used the same tactic until the end of 1833 when it repeated that foreign interventions, regardless of whether they were officially requested by the legitimate authorities, could not be tolerated in the countries sit-



Šedivý, “The Principle of Non-Intervention Reconsidered,” pp. 75–108. Nicolas Jolicoeur, La politique française envers les états pontificaux sous la monarchie de juillet et la seconde république (1830–1851), Bruxelles 2008, pp. 70–71. 4 Schoultz von Ascheraden to Frederick William III, Turin, 12, 21 and 23 February 1831, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5491; Apponyi to Metternich, Paris, 23 March 1831, HHStA, StA, Frankreich 277; Barante to Sébastiani, Turin, 10 February 1831, Armando Saitta (ed.), Le relazioni diplomatiche fra la Francia e il Regno di Sardegna, 1830–1848, vol. 1, Roma 1974, p. 124; Bombelles to Metternich, Turin, 21 March 1831, Narciso Nada (ed.), Le relazioni diplomatiche fra l’Austria e il Regno di Sardegna, II serie: 1830–1848, vol. 1, Roma 1972, p. 166; Francesco Lemmi, La politica estera di Carlo Alberto nei suoi primi anni di regno, Firenze 1928, pp. 34–35; Pietro Silva, La Monarchia di Luglio e l’Italia: Studio di storia diplomatica, Torino 1917, pp. 75–76. 5 Sales to La Tour, Paris, 28 March 1831, AST, LM, Francia 257. 2 3

The Need for Security

81

uated beyond France’s eastern border, which of course included Piedmont again. The explanation delivered to Turin was that “the right of sovereignty cannot be extended so far that it is detrimental or dangerous for a neighbouring country.”6 The non-intervention doctrine severely infringed the sovereignty of those countries to which France wanted to apply it because it deprived their legitimate governments of the right to request the military assistance of a third country, a right that was generally acknowledged as inherent to all independent states. For this reason, Italian cabinets refused to accept the principle of non-intervention and sharply denounced it as a blatant assault on the existing rules of international law. Their negative response arose immediately after its proclamation. In Rome in mid-September 1830 the cardinal secretary attacked the principle of non-intervention with the argument that every independent country had the right to conclude an alliance with another state, and later he wrote about the “anti-social principle of non-intervention that makes a pretence of all treaties.”7 At the same time it was also rejected in Turin as a “principle of revolution”,8 which was connected with the fear of revolutionary upheaval as well as the breakdown of public law.9 In Florence the government claimed “that the principle of non-interference however far applicable to the affairs of the great powers must (if rigidly acted upon) be fatal to the security of the minor states of Italy.”10 This criticism did not cease in the following years, and when France openly tried to limit the independence of Piedmont in late 1833 with the threat of sending her troops into the kingdom if it were to invite the Austrians, Sardinian King Charles Albert and his Foreign Minister Marshal Victor-Amédée Sallier de La Tour replied that such a step would be regarded as a declaration of war.11

Barante to Broglie, Turin, 31 December 1833, Armando Saitta (ed.), Le relazioni diplomatiche fra la Francia e il Regno di Sardegna, 1830–1848, vol. 2, Roma 1976, p. 355. 7 Elisabeth Mucha, Der Kampf um Macht und Einfluß im Kirchenstaat: Rudolf Graf von Lützow, Vorgeschichte und Verlauf der Konferenz von 1831 in Rom, unpublished dissertation, Universität Wien 1969, p. 75. See also Albani to Spinola, Rome, 21 September 1830, ASV, Vienna 258A. 8 Senfft to Metternich, Turin, 15 September 1830, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 1, p. 57. 9 Bombelles to Metternich, Turin, 21 February 1831, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 1, p. 120; Lemmi, La politica estera, p. 24; Luigi M. Manzini, Il cardinale Luigi Lambruschini, Vaticano 1960, pp. 178–80. 10 Seymour to Palmerston, Florence, 13 February 1831, TNA, FO 79/58. See also Fossombroni’s memoir on the non-intervention principle, undated, attached to Saurau to Metternich, Florence, 20 February 1831, HHStA, StA, Toskana 52. 11 La Tour to Pralormo, Turin, 11 November and 14 December 1833, 4 January 1834, AST, LM, Austria 156; Pralormo to La Tour, Vienna, 17 and 24 December 1833, AST, LM, Austria 132.2; San Martino to La Tour, Berlin, 13 November 1833, AST, LM, Prussia 28; Lützow to Metternich, Rome, 23 November 1833, HHStA, StK, Rom 49; Lebzeltern to Metternich, Naples, 13 December 1833, HHStA, StA, Neapel 81; Waldburg-Truchsess to Frederick William III, Turin, 18, 21 and 28 December 1833, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5494; Ostini to Bernetti, Vienna, 10 December 1833 and 10 January 1834, ASV, Vienna 275; Foster to Palmerston, Turin, 10 and 6

82

The Governmental Elites (1830–1840)

The Italian princes’ and their ministers’ sharp criticism resulted not only from their opposition to the principle undermining the sovereignty of their countries but also from their fear of France’s aggressive intentions, intensified by the considerably threatening speeches of some French ministers and agents in Italy. For example, when the revolutions broke out in the Papal States, Modena and Parma in early 1831, the envoy in Turin was so hostile that La Tour regarded a French invasion as imminent. At the same time a feeling of similar anxiety prevailed in Naples and Rome, particularly owing to the earlier extension of France’s military power in the Mediterranean surrounding Italy from Marseille and Toulon in the west, through Algeria seized by the French during 1830 in the south, to Greece with their troops deployed in the Peloponnese in the south-east. From all these lands a naval expedition could be undertaken against any point on the Italian coast, something that was explicitly and repeatedly mentioned as a possibility by the French and eventually undertaken in February 1832 when they captured Ancona on the Adriatic Sea. With this action their lack of respect for the independence of Italian states reached its climax.12 The French occupation of the papal town was a shock for the Italian governments. This was primarily because it was the first indisputable abuse of power against a country that was inferior in strength but still protected, or theoretically protected, by international law since 1815. The occupation was regarded as such across the Apennines. In the words of the Neapolitan Foreign Minister Prince Antonio Statella di Cassaro, the occupation without the consent of the aggrieved monarch was nothing other than the application of “the law of the mightiest.”13 It was actually even compared to an act of piracy, and it brought to mind Napoleon I’s brutality as well as affairs connected with the conduct of some great powers in areas unprotected by the legal precepts of the existing European states system. The intervention of Great Britain, Russia and France in the Ottoman Empire on behalf of the insurgent Greeks in 1827 leading to the destruction of the sultan’s fleet in Navarino Bay was one, this “incident” having also occurred at a time of peace between the two parties. The French invasion of Algeria in 1830 when King Charles X seized this North African Ottoman province without a declaration of war to win popularity at home – exactly the same reason that Périer sent French 31 December 1833, TNA, FO 67/89; Heldewier to Verstolk, Turin, 1 January 1834, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1519; Bombelles to Metternich, Turin, 14 December 1833, Narciso Nada (ed.), Le relazioni diplomatiche fra l’Austria e il Regno di Sardegna, II serie: 1830–1848, vol. 2, Roma 1973, p. 94; Barante to Broglie, Genoa, 6 December 1833, Barante to Rigny, Turin, 8 May 1834, Saitta, Sardegna, vol. 1, pp. 340, 417; Barbara Allason, “Carlo Alberto nel 1833: Attraverso il carteggio Metternich–De Bombelles,” Nuova Antologia 39, 1914, 1015, p. 406. 12 Menz to Metternich, Naples, 24 September 1830, HHStA, StA, Neapel 75; Polidori to Spinola, Rome, 20 January 1831, ASV, Vienna 258B; Saturnino to La Tour, Naples, 20 January 1831, AST, LM, Due Sicilie 48. 13 Lebzeltern to Metternich, Naples, 6 April 1832, HHStA, StA, Neapel 79.

The Need for Security

83

troops to Ancona – was another. Since the Ottoman Empire was not included in the family of European nations and was also regarded in the West as an alien and inferior civilisation, the Italians could easily cope with the great powers’ actions in Greece and Algeria. In the case of the leader of the Catholic world, however, the situation was completely different, and they considered the French incursion into the Papal States to be completely unacceptable. Furthermore, since it showed the Italians that the way the great powers proceeded in the areas located outside the boundaries of the international law could also be applied to the states formally under its protection, it was no coincidence that their criticism often contained references to the Battle of Navarino and the occupation of Algeria, in particular when France was directly involved in both of them. That the French would stay in Ancona “forever” as they had in Algeria caused great apprehension particularly in Rome and Turin.14 The geopolitical debate in Italy was not, however, fuelled only by earlier and overseas affairs. The Italian courts observed the sabre-rattling of the French minister in Munich, Baron Édouard Mortier, warning the Bavarian government against military reinforcements and engineering works in its territory on the left bank of the Rhine (Palatinate), which would be regarded in Paris as a declaration of war. The Italian dignitaries had another reason to distrust the conservative powers – Austria, Prussia and Russia – which did not censor France’s illegal conduct in Ancona, and Britain, which even sanctioned it formally.15

Castelalfero to La Tour, Lucca, 11 and 16 February 1832, Florence, 1 March 1832, AST, LM, Toscana 12; Seymour to Palmerston, Florence, 23 February 1832, TNA, FO 79/63; Frank to Metternich, Florence, 25 February 1832, HHStA, StA, Toskana 53; Latour-Maubourg to Sébastiani, Naples, 19 and 28 February, 5 March 1832, AMAE, CP, Naples 156; Lebzeltern to Metternich, Naples, 9, 13 and 30 March 1832, HHStA, StA, Neapel 79; Lottum to Frederick William III, Naples, 6, 24 and 29 February, 6 April 1832, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5588; Cassaro to Ferdinand II, Naples, 26 February 1832, ASN, AB 807; Foster to Palmerston, Turin, 20, 24 and 29 February, 3 March 1832, TNA, FO 67/86; Gizzi to Bernetti, Turin, 29 February 1832, ASV, Torino 97; Schoultz von Ascheraden to Frederick William III, Turin, 29 February and 17 March 1832, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5493; Bernetti to Garibaldi, Rome, 3 March 1832, Giuliano Procacci (ed.), Le relazioni diplomatiche fra lo Stato pontifico e la Francia, II serie: 1830–1848, vol. 2, Roma 1963, p. 143; Barante to Périer, Turin, 25 February 1832, Saitta, Sardegna, vol. 2, p. 80; Bianca Maria Cecchini (ed.), Per il Re, per l’Imperatore: Gli Stati italiani nei rapporti della diplomazia segreta francese e asburgica (1815–1847), Roma 1998, p. 196; Lemmi, La politica estera, pp. 94–95; Italo Raulich, Storia del Risorgimento politico d’Italia: Volume secondo (1844–1848), Bologna 1923, p. 123; Eva Schmid, Wenzel Philipp Leopold Baron von Mareschal, ein österreichischer Offizier und Diplomat, 1785–1851, unpublished dissertation, Universität Wien 1975, p. 200; Cesar Vidal, Louis-Philippe, Metternich et la crise italienne de 1831–1832, Paris 1931, pp. 219, 270. 15 Pralormo to La Tour, Vienna, 28 March 1832, AST, LM, Austria 132; Solaro to Sambuy, [?] October 1835, Carlo Lovera, Ilario P. Rinieri (eds), Clemente Solaro della Margarita, vol. 3, Torino 1931, p. 377; Nello Rosselli, Inghilterra e regno di Sardegna dal 1815 al 1847, Torino 1954, pp. 516–20. 14

84

The Governmental Elites (1830–1840)

This tolerance contributed to the general discontent in Italy where the French occupation of Ancona was regarded as an affair affecting all of them, in the words of Charles Albert “an act of aggression against the independence of Italian sovereigns.”16 La Tour certainly expressed the opinion of many when he stated that “all countries, and particularly those which do not have great means to defend themselves, are interested in the preservation of the principle of independence of states, the principle that has just been violated in such a disgraceful manner.”17 Quoting the opinions of Sardinian leaders is appropriate here because it was Piedmont, due to her position as a buffer state and the closest to France, whose ruler and his advisors were always extremely sensitive to the question of their own as well as Italy’s security in a world that was, according to Piedmont’s leaders, becoming increasingly ruthless after 1830. That is why they attentively observed the abuse of power by some great powers, especially France and Great Britain, not only in Italy but also in other parts of Europe, fearing that at some point in the future Piedmont could also become a victim of it and why expressions of anxiety and distrust of the security guarantees offered by the existing state of European politics were voiced above all in this small north-Italian kingdom. The Sardinian envoy in Vienna, Count Carlo Beraudo di Pralormo, warned his government in March 1832 that “the silence of the European powers in response to the events in Ancona would sanction the right of armed force and restore things to the same footing as they were during the times of the [French] Convention, the Directory or the Empire.”18 La Tour complained that the sword of Damocles hung over Italy situated between aggressive France and the passive conservative powers, which, he maintained, had to oppose such crimes with force in the future, otherwise the small states would lose confidence in their protection: “These conditions of [peace] must consist in genuine observation of existing treaties and the great powers’ respect for the independence of small states. If the conservative powers again allow, now when they have practically reached the utmost limit of their [military] power, the two revolutionary governments [in Paris and London] to attack without a shadow of due cause and with the use of the most brutal force those states which are unable to resist them, the confidence which these states place in the conservative powers as the last hope will necessarily be shaken. This protection, to be effective, must not allow such an assault to triumph with impunity anywhere because otherwise it risks seeing it triumph everywhere.”19



Bombelles to Metternich, Turin, 18 and 29 February 1832, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 1, pp. 357, 364. Bombelles to Metternich, Turin, 28 February 1832, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 1, p. 364. 18 Pralormo to La Tour, Vienna, 2 March 1832, AST, LM, Austria 132. 19 Bombelles to Metternich, Turin, 14 January 1833, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 1, pp. 457–58. See also Waldburg-Truchsess to Frederick William III, Turin, 31 March 1833, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5494. 16 17

The Need for Security

85

The French occupation of Ancona left a deep impression because it showed that after February 1832 faith in the strength of law could not be absolute. Together with the non-intervention principle it diminished the Italian governmental elites’ trust in the stability of the legal system and the justice of the European Concert, especially when France was supported in her doctrine and tolerated in her aggression by Great Britain. The affair led to the general decline of the feeling of security, and the memory of the French presence in the town continued even after the troops’ withdrawal in 1838. This experience lived on in the minds of all Italians and was strengthened in times of crisis when France or any other great power threatened to repeat the so-called “Anconade” with a new military expedition somewhere on the Italian coast.20 Against this background such fears were rekindled several times during 1840 because that year witnessed two international disputes which further weakened the confidence of the Italian ruling class in justice in world affairs. The first was the undeclared Sulphur War. Like the earlier occupation of Ancona, the illegal British proceeding against the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was closely observed and perceived in the wider context of the arrogant policies of the great powers in Europe as well as overseas. While the Ancona affair represented an obvious link to the Battle of Navarino and the French expedition to Algeria, the Sulphur War constituted a connection between European commercial imperialism veiled with a pretext of free trade – the so-called imperialism of free trade – overseas and in Europe, as seen in the Opium War, in progress since 1839, with Great Britain again the aggressor. Britain’s disregard for the norms of the law of nations – in this case through the ruthless promotion of the import of opium into China – seemed to be a “principle” transferred to Europe in general and to Italy in particular. If the great powers were ready to violate the public law in Europe in the way they had been doing in other parts of the world, then no country of secondary importance could feel secure.21 This was how the Italian dignitaries usually perceived the Sulphur War within the context of world affairs. The Neapolitan envoy in St Petersburg, Prince Giorgio Wilding Butera, talked a good deal about the belligerent nature of Great Britain, her lack of respect for the independence of secondary countries as demonstrated in Central Asia, where she was waging another war with Afghanistan in 1840, and in

Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, pp. 76–78. That the attack did not necessarily have to come from France can be shown with the example of Duke Francis IV of Modena who complained in a letter to Metternich in May 1836 that Britain’s naval armament was probably aimed at an attack on Italy, following those she had already made on Greece and that France had inflicted on Ancona. Francis IV of Modena to Metternich, Reggio, 22 May 1836, NA, RAM-AC 1/4. 21 Davis, “Palmerston and the Sicilian Sulphur Crisis,” p. 23; Thomson, The Sulphur War, p. 151.

20

86

The Governmental Elites (1830–1840)

China, the Levant, Portugal and finally the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies,22 and he claimed that British policy towards Naples proved that “the powers of [the] second and third order will no longer be able to regard themselves as independent among the European powers.”23 Other Italian diplomats also denounced British greed and arrogance. For example, Sardinian envoy in Vienna, Count Vittorio Balbo Bertone di Sambuy, pointed out that Great Britain put her national interests above international law in Sicily much like she did in Aden, which she had conquered at the beginning of 1839, and China, where she had decided to “poison the Chinese with the use of force because it is she who sells them the poison,”24 and he simultaneously criticised Russia for her similar imperialistic conduct outside as well as within Europe.25 And like the occupation of Ancona, the Sulphur War also evoked memories of the great powers’ past violations of smaller countries’ sovereignty; in Italian courts the Ancona affair in 1832 and the destruction of the neutral Republic of Venice by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797 were the ones most commonly recalled in 1840.26 The principal significance of the Sulphur War was that it offered further evidence that it was not the written law but the use of armed force that set the tone in international affairs. Britain’s aggression and the other powers’ reluctance to help the Neapolitan king further contributed to doubts about the conduct of all the great powers towards smaller countries and provoked a discussion about the rights of the latter in Italy. The Sardinian envoy in London, Guiseppe Nomis di Pollone, criticised the great powers’ scant respect for the interests of the smaller countries: “Since 1814, according to my observations, the principles of justice on the part of the dominant powers in confrontation with the secondary powers have gradually but steadily weakened. When a secondary power does not immediately bow down to the former, there is no attempt to search for reasoning or arguments to persuade her; it is more convenient to say to her ‘we are more powerful,’ an argument that, in fact, considerably shortens the discussion. If the secondary states do not pay solicitous attention to this tendency towards the adoption of this new code of international laws, they will eventually disappear to the benefit of their powerful neighbours.”27 In Vienna Sambuy entirely shared this opinion about the arrogant dominance of the European powers: “The Neapolitan affair has just offered a new confirmation of this fact, and no one does anything for this

Clanricarde to Palmerston, St Petersburg, 20 April 1840, TNA, FO 65/260; Barante to Thiers, St Petersburg, 16 May 1840, Claude de Barante (ed.), Souvenirs du Baron de Barante de l’Académie française 1782–1866, vol. 6, pp. 447–48. 23 Giura, La Questione degli zolfi siciliani, p. 76. 24 Sambuy to Solaro, Vienna, 21 May 1840, Mario degli Alberti (ed.), La politica estera del Piemonte sotto Carlo Alberto Secondo il carteggio diplomatico del Conte Vittorio Amedeo Balbo Bertone di Sambuy ministro di Sardegna a Vienna (1835–1846), vol. 2, Torino 1915, p. 265. 25 Ibid., pp. 265–66. 26 Thomson, The Sulphur War, p. 128. 27 Rosselli, Inghilterra e regno di Sardegna, p. 743. 22

The Need for Security

87

country that is the victim of the British dominance … The conclusion that can be drawn from the events in Naples is that a great power can demand whatever she wants from another less powerful one, that no one will do anything to prevent it, and that she will do with the latter as she pleases.”28 And he continued on this theme of tyrannical aggression: “Since the Congress of Vienna we have become quite accustomed to count only five great powers in Europe. They have arrogated to themselves the monopoly of high politics and the general government of the world, and they have occupied themselves not only with their own affairs but also with those of others, even if the latter have not asked them to do so. The majority of the small countries have bent under this yoke, and our sovereigns are the last who wanted to recognise this right of supremacy that is a real usurpation to the detriment of each state’s independence.”29 Consequently, Britain’s policy in this affair was sharply condemned, not only in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies but also in Piedmont, Tuscany and the Papal States, along with the complicity of the other great powers, which gave no great hope for the protection of small Italian countries in legal disputes with powerful ones.30 Clemente Solaro della Margarita, Sardinian foreign minister from 1835, claimed that if it became necessary, Austria “would do no more for us than she did for Naples, she would abandon us as soon as it suited her interests to do so, and we could at best hope for beautifully written but inconclusive phrases or superficial dispatches.”31 The Italian governments had a second negative experience with the great powers’ policies in late 1840 during the Rhine Crisis. The possibility that the general peace could be disrupted because of Oriental affairs which had nothing in common with the interests of Italian countries alarmed their rulers. As Charles Albert claimed, “it would be very unfortunate to see all the useful accomplishments of the last 25 years compromised, without any reason, for an entirely foreign cause.”32 However, such a regrettable development of affairs was hardly surprising: much like in other European regions, the Italians had expected and feared the negative consequences for peace resulting from the great powers’ rivalry in the Near East during the 1830s.33 After the outbreak of the crisis this apprehension materialised

Sambuy to Solaro, Vienna, 18 May 1840, AST, LM, Austria 137. Sambuy to Solaro, Vienna, 21 May 1840, Alberti, La politica estera del Piemonte, vol. 2, p. 261. 30 Ludolf to Scilla, Rome, 18, 21, 27 and 30 April 1840, Ramirez to Scilla, Turin, 14, 17, 18, 26 and 30 April 1840, Grifio to Scilla, Florence, 11 April 1840, ASN, MAE 4130; Olry to Ludwig I of Bavaria, Turin, 21 April 1840, BHStA, MA, Sardinien 2884; Meuricoffre to Muralt, Naples, 25 April 1840, CH-BAR#D0#1000/3#1195*, Az. D.1.3.2, 1833–1848; Buch to Frederick William III, Rome, 28 April 1840, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 11621; Heldewier to Verstolk, Turin, 17 April 1840, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1189. 31 Solaro to Sambuy, Turin, 2 June 1840, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie I, 8. 32 Stassart to Lebeau, Turin, 13 October 1840, ADA, CP, Italie 1832–1872. 33 Ostini to Bernetti, Vienna, 9 and 15 April 1833, ASV, Vienna 275; Lützow to Metternich, Rome, 30 March, 6 April, 4 May and 15 June 1833, HHStA, StK, Rom 49; Olry to Ludwig I of Bavaria, 28 29

88

The Governmental Elites (1830–1840)

with France’s bellicose reaction threatening not only the Rhineland but also the Apennines situated between her and Austria and therefore constituting the most probable battleground in the event of war, especially when the French made it clear that they would not respect Piedmont’s desire for neutrality. While the government in Turin particularly feared a French invasion of Italy over its own territory or the seizure of Savoy and Nice, in other states the predominant source of anxiety was the repetition of a French naval expedition in the style of Ancona.34 The Rhine Crisis was considerably dangerous for Italy, whose rulers wanted to preserve their neutrality in the event of war, an attitude entirely in compliance with the public law of Europe. They felt caught between two equally impossible choices: on the one hand was France, a country from which they had learnt to expect nothing good in the past and whose readiness to accept the neutrality of the secondary countries was generally distrusted; and on the other hand were the other powers, whose toleration of France’s illegal conduct in the early 1830s and Britain’s recent abuse of power against the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies gave these rulers little confidence in those powers’ effective defence of Italy in late 1840. This lack of trust in the actions of all the Concert members increased the fear that the Italian states would almost certainly be dragged into a military conflict regardless of whether or not they wanted to become involved and that none of the great powers would offer them sufficient protection.35 The mistrust of the great powers’ respect for the rights and interests of smaller states – which already existed before mid 1840 – hardly diminished afterwards. In fact, the Rhine Crisis represented a new negative experience deepening the Italian rulers’ conviction that the behaviour of the great powers towards them was not limited by any norms of international law and that they suffered under their yoke. They usually regarded the European Concert as an exclusive club for promoting the interests of its members while disregarding the norms of international public law. The preceding years as well as the way the crisis unfolded had taught the

Turin, 2 March 1833, BHStA, MA, Sardinien 2882; Waldburg-Truchsess to Frederick William III, Turin, 31 March 1833, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5494; Solaro to Sambuy, 8 October 1835, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie II, 18; Grouchy to Soult, Turin, 2 June 1839, Rumigny to Soult, Turin, 24 June 1839, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 313; Garibaldi to Bernetti, Paris, 8 April 1833, Bernetti to Garibaldi, Rome, 23 April 1833, Procacci, Stato pontifico, vol. 2, pp. 282–84, 289; Garibaldi to Bernetti, Paris, 25 June 1834, Procacci, Stato pontifico, vol. 3, pp. 89–90; Chasteau to Broglie, Turin, 17 May 1833, Barante to Rigny, Turin, 25 April 1834, Saitta, Sardegna, vol. 2, pp. 251, 397; Sambuy to Solaro, Vienna, 29 November 1837, 11 and 30 March, 5 May and 5 November 1838, Alberti, La politica estera del Piemonte, vol. 1, pp. 342, 402, 421, 431, 503; Sambuy to Solaro, Vienna, 23 April 1839, Alberti, La politica estera del Piemonte, vol. 2, p. 79. 34 Miroslav Šedivý, “Italy during the Rhine Crisis of 1840,” European Review of History 22, 2015, 3, pp. 486–504. 35 Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, pp. 125–43.

The Need for Security

89

Italian rulers that they should not rely very much on any of them. When in January 1841 Sambuy criticised the “tyranny” exercised over the less powerful states as a result of the “unjust arrogance”36 of the five powers, Solaro unequivocally agreed with him: “I entirely share your opinion of what you tell me about the necessity for the secondary states to free themselves of the tyrannical influence of the five great powers that is so harmful to their independence.”37 The above-mentioned affairs from 1830 to 1840 were the most important but certainly not the only ones that caused anxiety for the ruling elites and led to their criticism of the great powers’ behaviour in international affairs. They stimulated the intensity and sharpness of the geopolitical security debates, which also reflected the same rulers’ changing attitudes towards the post-Napoleonic states system. This process can be fittingly summarised as a gradual decrease in faith in the states system, and it was in Piedmont where the shift to realism was the most pronounced of all the Italian states during the 1830s. Owing to France’s threatening policy soon after the July Revolution, smaller countries started to regard the system of European politics established in 1815 as inadequate for the preservation of peace or at least for the protection of the rights of smaller countries. The lack of trust in the security guarantees established at the Congress of Vienna is clearly visible in the ideas introduced during late 1830 and early 1831 by the governments in Turin, Rome and Naples for improving this system through a more binding commitment on the part of the great powers to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Italian states. The Sardinian court presented several plans whose common aim was to commit the great powers to their defence, which at that time basically meant a security measure against France. However, all these demands were rejected by the great powers, particularly Britain and Russia.38 This rejection was yet another blow to the Italian rulers’ trust in the great powers’ willingness to defend them against external attacks and, unsurprisingly, the appeals to collective security guarantees were never officially repeated. There were, however, other means for the Italian governments in their search for security which had been discussed since the early 1830s and were to play an im Sambuy to Solaro, Vienna, 18 January 1841, Alberti, La politica estera del Piemonte, vol. 2, p. 427. 37 Solaro to Sambuy, Turin, 18 February 1841, Nicomede Bianchi (ed.), Storia documentata della diplomazia europea in Italia dall’anno 1814 all’anno 1861, vol. 3, Torino 1867, p. 366. 38 Foster to Aberdeen, Turin, 15 and 23 September 1830, TNA, FO 67/81; Foster to Palmerston, Turin, 10 January 1831, TNA, FO 67/83; Albani to Gizzi, Rome, 21 September 1830, ASV, Torino 96; Spinola to Albani, Pressburg, 2 October 1830, ASV, Vienna 256B; La Tour to Pralormo, Turin, 23 October 1830, AST, LM, Austria 156; Pralormo to La Tour, Vienna, 2 and 7 January 1831, AST, LM, Austria 132; San Martino to La Tour, London, 13 March 1831, AST, LM, Gran Bretagna 110; Senfft to Metternich, Turin, 4 and 15 September 1830, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 1, pp. 52–58; Rosselli, Inghilterra e regno di Sardegna, pp. 438–42.

36

90

The Governmental Elites (1830–1840)

portant role later in the following decade. The first one was the idea of the Italian states’ collective security. In November 1830 the Duke of Modena proposed the formation of a defensive alliance of all the Italian states, including Austria.39 In 1832–1833 the King of the Two Sicilies, Ferdinand II, presented a project for a league of Italian states without Austria’s participation to serve against the negative consequences of the great powers’ interference, “in order to repel foreign influence on Italian affairs and prevent the sovereigns of Italy from becoming involved in problems against their interests.”40 His plan for an Italian league along the lines of the German Confederation to better ensure their independence was introduced again during the Rhine Crisis.41 During the summer of 1840 the alliance between the Papal States, Austria and Piedmont was promoted in Rome under the influence of the general war scare in Europe.42 All these projects failed owing to the mutual distrust of Italian rulers, and in the case of the Duke of Modena’s proposal it was because Austria was to be a member state, which was unacceptable to the other governments. This does not mean, however, that the ruling elites did not see the positive effect of a pan-Italian defensive alliance. As the number of experiences with the arrogant conduct of some great powers grew, there were those prepared to admit that such a collective security measure could well ensure the safety of individual states. For example, Solaro lamented in 1839 that if only the Italian states had united in an alliance before 1830, France could not have interfered with their affairs as much as she did after the July Revolution.43 Another political-legal means of increasing security was the extension of Swiss perpetual neutrality guaranteed by all great powers to Piedmont, which would also be recognised by other European countries. This idea was not entirely without logic since a part of North-Savoyan territory had already been protected by this neutrality since the Congress of Vienna. Its application to the whole kingdom was seriously considered in Turin first in early 1831 but was soon abandoned when it





Lajos Pásztor, “I cardinali Albani e Bernetti e l’intervento austriaco nel 1831,” Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia 8, 1954, pp. 100–101. 40 Lebzeltern to Metternich, Naples, 20 December 1832, HHStA, StA, Neapel 79. See also Harold Acton, The Last Bourbons of Naples (1825–1861), London 1961, p. 72; Ruggero Moscati, Ferdinando II di Borbone nei documenti diplomatici austriaci, Naples 1947, p. 27; Niccolò Rodolico, “Un disegno di Lega italiana del 1833,” Archivio storico italiano 93, 1935, pp. 232–43; Miroslav Šedivý, “Metternich and the Italian League Myth in 1833,” Prague Papers on the History of International Relations 2015, 2, pp. 7–15. 41 Broglia to Solaro, Rome, 15 August 1840, AST, LM, Roma 342; Broglia to Solaro, Rome, 3 November 1840, AST, LM, Roma 343; Ricci to Solaro, Naples, 15 November 1840, AST, LM, Due Sicilie 55. 42 Broglia to Solaro, Rome, 11 August and 3 September 1840, AST, LM, Roma 342. 43 Solaro to Sambuy, Turin, 17 April 1839, Francesco Lemmi, “Carlo Alberto e Francesco IV.: lettere inedite,” Il Risorgimento italiano 20, 1927, 4, p. 373. 39

The Desire for Strength

91

became obvious that France would hardly tolerate such a neutrality should she go to war with Austria.44 It was considered for a second time and was even proposed to the Swiss government during the Rhine Crisis but was rejected by the Swiss.45 Both ideas, the first for an Italian league and the second for using Switzerland for Italy’s security needs, show that when they were discussed by Italian governments in 1847 and 1848, they did not appear as deus ex machina but had their origins in the previous decade. THE DESIRE FOR STRENGTH When political solutions failed, Italian rulers had no other alternative than the traditional and practical way to increase their defence capability: armaments. The expansion of land and naval forces reveal the extent to which they felt threatened, with the biggest waves of reinforcement occurring in the early 1830s and in 1840. To strengthen the position of Piedmont towards France just between the end of 1830 and the following summer, the Sardinian army was increased from 30,000 to 70,000 soldiers.46 Ferdinand II planned to reinforce his army to 80,000 men shortly afterwards and also felt it necessary to arm on land and sea during his dispute with Britain over the sulphur trade.47 During the Rhine Crisis all Italian states felt it necessary to improve their defence forces.48 Convinced that neutrality based upon mere trust in treaties was foolhardy, the rulers wanted to improve their security by armed neutrality. However, the principal problem of their build-up of armaments was their dubious effect as a deterrent. They had to bear in mind their financial limitations and inferior military strength compared to France and the other great powers. Armies of 70,000 or 80,000 men were beyond the financial means of Piedmont and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies but even so could not ensure their sufficient protection against the might of European giants; even worse was the situation of Tuscany and the Papal States. Consequently, since the Italian states were unable to unite among themselves, the only sufficient security guarantee under the given political-legal conditions of European politics was a strong ally among the great powers. When in the summer of 1831 Charles Albert felt that Piedmont urgently needed one against France, he concluded an alliance with Austria. The secret defensive convention was signed on 23 July 1831, obliging the two parties to their mutual defence against an attack



Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, pp. 48, 59. Šedivý, Crisis among the Great Powers, pp. 225–26. 46 Scirocco, Il Risorgimento italiano, p. 167. 47 Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, p. 153. 48 Ibid., p. 129. 44 45

92

The Governmental Elites (1830–1840)

from France and in such an eventuality to form together an army of 102,000 men (37,000 Sardinians and 65,000 Austrians).49 Charles Albert did not form this alliance due to any affinity for Austria but simply because he desperately needed her support as he regarded war with France as inevitable. The fact that he distrusted the aims of all the great powers including Austria’s as well as their readiness to effectively defend his kingdom is evident from the convention’s stipulation that despite the numerical inferiority of the Sardinian army he made his appointment as its commander-in-chief a condition of his signing it. In general, the convention manifested Piedmont’s sense of insecurity leading to the need for additional protection to that offered by the post-Napoleonic states system, which her government regarded as insufficient for the defence of the nation’s independence and territorial integrity. When attempts at the improvement of the collective security failed, it had no other choice than to seek diplomatic and military support in Vienna. Much like the considerable reinforcement of the Sardinian army, the defensive alliance with Austria was just another attempt of the small Italian kingdom to improve its position against external threats.50 Even the Austro-Sardinian defensive alliance, however, did not give a great sense of security to Charles Albert and his advisors, especially La Tour, who regarded France’s behaviour as so aggressive and dangerous for the future that they became convinced that the stability of peace could be established only if France were beaten by armed force, and for this reason an offensive war was advocated in Turin. It is true that this warmongering had existed at the Sardinian court since before Charles Albert’s accession to the throne in April 1831 and the young prince had expressed the same desire for war in the preceding summer, but it increased dramatically only after the experience of France’s assertiveness in her Italian policy in 1831 and 1832 and the failure of repeated requests for the great powers’ security guarantees.51 The Sardinian king and his ministers argued that nothing good could be expected from the revolutionary regime in France, that this great power would sooner or later wage a war of conquest and revolution and that the need to maintain strong armies for such a moment was financially ruinous for European countries. On the other hand, a brief and victorious campaign aimed at the restoration of the Bourbons would lead to the triumph of the conservative cause and strengthen

Nada, Dallo Stato assoluto allo Stato costituzionale, pp. 41–44; Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, pp. 59–60. 50 Marziano Brignoli, Carlo Alberto ultimo re di Sardegna 1798–1849, Milano 2007, pp. 151, 182; Adriano Viarengo, “Il mezzogiorno nella diplomazia piemontese da Carlo Alberto a Cavour,” Giuseppe Galasso (ed.), Mezzogiorno, Risorgimento e Unità d’Italia: Atti del convegno Roma, 18, 19 e 20 maggio 2011, Roma 2014, pp. 191–92. 51 Senfft to Metternich, Turin, 19 August 1830, Bombelles to Metternich, Turin, 18 February 1832, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 1, pp. 38, 357; Lemmi, La politica estera, pp. 94–95.

49

The Desire for Strength

93

peace and order in Europe.52 Especially after the French occupation of Ancona, Charles Albert and La Tour hoped that Austria would immediately start an offensive war with France53 and were eager to participate in it because, as the king claimed, an occupation “if tolerated once, would bring an end to the independence of all small states.”54 There was an obvious link between this distrust and the Sardinian desire for war, the latter being a response – which was seen as a kind of solution – to the problems weighing upon the state of European politics. In other words, its lack of confidence in the political-legal system of Europe diminished the Sardinian government’s faith in it, which can be seen in its readiness to act beyond the legal limits of the system by violating the law of nations established by the treaties. However, there was no chance for a war against France since Piedmont’s ally, Austria, did not want one. Metternich hoped to solve international disputes by diplomatic means and was ready to go to war against France only if there was no other option. He constantly tried to persuade the government in Turin of the necessity to preserve peace, which was what Louis Philippe also wanted, and avoid an illegal act of aggression against the French.55 Metternich’s unwillingness to wage war with France led Charles Albert and La Tour to sharp criticism of Austria and other great powers for their silence that sanctioned their use of armed force and, in the opinion of the two Sardinians, actually made those powers accomplices in the crimes against the law of nations. Therefore, Metternich’s desire for peace was regarded in Turin as a sign of weakness or even cowardice. By 1832 Charles Albert had already labelled the policy of the Austrian chancellor as such. Together with the decreasing faith in the justice of the great powers’ acions, which meant the conduct of the European Concert, and with this also the doubtful security of those countries trusting too much in the force of law, Charles Albert increasingly doubted Austria’s willingness to come to his aid in the event of a French invasion. His doubts were raised by the fact



La Tour to Pralormo, Turin, 13 September 1830, 11 February 1832, 14 February and 28 September 1833, AST, LM, Austria 156; Pralormo to La Tour, Vienna, 6 April 1832, AST, LM, Legazioni 21; Bombelles to Metternich, Turin, 29 September 1831, Turin, 1 June 1832, Genoa, 30 November 1832, Turin, 4 January 1833, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 1, pp. 333–35, 401, 434, 455; Bombelles to Metternich, Turin, 22 December 1834, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 2, p. 195; Rodolico, Carlo Alberto negli anni di regno 1831–1843, pp. 119, 167. 53 Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, p. 197. 54 Bombelles to Metternich, Turin, 29 February 1832, in Nada, Sardegna, vol. 1, p. 364. 55 Pralormo to La Tour, Vienna, 25 March 1832, AST, LM, Austria 132; Foster to Palmerston, Turin, 18 October 1833, PP, GC, FO 45–49; Metternich to Bombelles, Vienna, 7 October 1831, 11 June and 27 December 1832, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 1, pp. 335–36, 403–45, 445–51; Metternich to Bombelles, Vienna, 14 March 1834 and 5 August 1835, Metternich to Brunetti, Vienna, 31 August 1835, 13 April and 24 December 1836, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 2, pp. 127, 268–70, 283–84, 458. 52

94

The Governmental Elites (1830–1840)

that Austria refused to help the pope in the Ancona affair or the Dutch king in the Belgian Question. Her aversion to using the occupation of Ancona by the French and their military intervention in Belgium as a pretext for a “just war” particularly displeased the government in Turin and revived the traditional suspicion that the Viennese cabinet wished to use Piedmont simply as an advance guard for Austria’s defence of Lombardy-Venetia. If there was something that started to sour Austro-Sardinian relations after 1831, then it was primarily this difference of opinion on the matter of war and peace.56 Whereas criticism of Austria for her weakness originally resulted from what was regarded in Turin as an excessive indulgence towards France, after 1835 it was linked more and more to the deteriorating internal situation of the empire. This deterioration was caused by the lack of a strong central government after Emperor Francis I’s death in 1835, increasing state debt with its negative impact on the power of the army to fight a war and the slowly but constantly accumulating national problems, especially in Hungary, Galicia and Bohemia. The whole empire began to resemble a colossus with feet of clay. Consequently, Charles Albert and his ministers closely observed its fading power and did not fail to see that Austria was not as strong in the late 1830s as she had been after 1815.57 The negative account of Austria’s strength was taken seriously in Turin since the empire’s precarious situation was dangerous for the security of Piedmont and some other Italian countries guaranteed by this great power. This apprehension seemed to be confirmed by the economisation in the empire’s army leading to the gradual decrease of the number of Austrian troops in the Apennines. Together with Metternich’s desire to maintain peace, these military deployments crucially contributed to Charles Albert’s political defection in 1835 because he distrusted Austria’s ability to defend Piedmont according to the 1831 convention.58



Pralormo to La Tour, Vienna, 2 March 1832, AST, LM, Austria 132; Bombelles to Metternich, Turin, 14 January 1833, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 1, pp. 457–58; Waldburg-Truchsess to Frederick William III, Turin, 31 March 1833, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5494; Nada, Sardegna, vol. 1, p. xiii; Nada, Sardegna, vol. 2, p. x; Nada, Dallo Stato assoluto allo Stato costituzionale, p. 44; Rodolico, Carlo Alberto negli anni di regno 1831–1843, pp. 168–71. 57 Solaro to Sambuy, [?] October 1835, Lovera, Rinieri, Clemente Solaro, p. 387; Solaro to Sambuy, Turin, 17 April 1839, 2 June 1840, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie I, 8; Sambuy to Solaro, Vienna, 8 October 1836, 11 and 31 March 1838, Alberti, La politica estera del Piemonte, vol. 1, pp. 170, 403, 424–26; Sambuy to Solaro, Vienna, 29 November and 6 December 1839, 31 July 1841, Alberti, La politica estera del Piemonte, vol. 2, 127–28, 131, 520–21; Rodolico, Carlo Alberto negli anni di regno 1831–1843, p. 408. 58 Sambuy to Solaro, Vienna, 11 December 1835, AST, LM, Austria 133; Sambuy to Solaro, Vienna, 20 February and 15 April 1836, Alberti, La politica estera del Piemonte, vol. 1, pp. 114, 160; Bombelles to Metternich, Turin, 20 February and 11 March 1835, Brunetti to Metternich, Turin, 10 January, 3 and 4 May 1836, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 2, pp. 213, 221–22, 326–27, 385–89; Adolfo Omodeo, Difesa del risorgimento, Torino 1951, p. 230. 56

The Desire for Strength

95

The change in Piedmont’s foreign policy manifested itself especially in the change of Sardinian foreign minister in 1835: the pro-Austrian La Tour was replaced by Solaro, who was a conservative and a truly Piedmontese patriot convinced that the kingdom could not rely much on Austria’s help against France: “It would be a fatal error for us to rely too heavily on the promises of the Austrian court. The cabinet’s extremely feeble acceptance of the French seizure of Ancona, which they perhaps even secretly sanctioned, has dispelled all illusions: Austria, who had pronounced herself to be an extremely conservative power, has been seen to be far from wanting to or being able to keep her promises for the general peace of all people and the legitimacy of the rights of sovereigns.”59 That was why “the Sardinian court has no less sure friend than the imperial cabinet”60 that “would consider Piedmont as nothing more than an outpost for whose defence it did not intend to show its strength and that would never act seriously except for the defence of its own frontiers. The tolerance of the escapade in Ancona has changed such suspicions into certainty and, revealing a secret connivance, has dictated to the Sardinian cabinet a new course of action.”61 This truly “Sardinian” political line signified a more independent course. The security considerations of the new foreign minister were intensified by historical experience dating back to the 18th century. As has already been shown, the Ancona affair and the Sulphur War were linked to incidents in the more remote past and served to stimulate people’s fear and mistrust. If the Danes liked to recall Copenhagen in 1807 and the Italians the destruction of Venice ten years earlier, then Solaro and other Sardinian ministers and diplomats could not forget the joint struggle of Austria and Piedmont against Revolutionary France in the 1790s and particularly in 1796 when, as they claimed, the small kingdom was abandoned by its ally and left to the mercy of the French. This earlier example of the great power’s betrayal played an important role in security considerations and served as a cogent warning of how little a small country could expect from a more powerful one, especially if the latter, as Solaro was convinced, continued in its treacherous policy.62 Since Charles Albert shared Solaro’s suspicious of Austria from which he never expected “any firm or noble conduct”63 and because there was no further need of the Austro-Sardinian alliance imposed on him by necessity – in 1835 the likelihood of revolution in his kingdom as well as war with France more or less



Solaro to Sambuy, 8 October 1835, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie II, 18. Solaro to Sambuy, 9 October 1835, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie II, 18. 61 Solaro to Sambuy, 8 October 1835, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie II, 18. 62 Solaro to Sambuy, 8 and 9 October 1835, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie II, 18; Pierangelo Gentile, Carlo Alberto in un diario segreto: Le memorie di Cesare Trabucco di Castagnetto 1832–1849, Torino 2015, p. 41. 63 Charles Albert to Solaro, Nice, 15 April 1836, Lovera, Rinieri, Clemente Solaro, p. 27. 59 60

96

The Governmental Elites (1830–1840)

faded – he shifted his foreign policy from one of cooperation to one of more overt independence.64 In the spring of the following year by the latest, he also decided to regard Austria’s disarmament as a process “releasing us from the military commitments that we have accepted by helping us to better understand how we must defy this great power and not count on anyone other than ourselves in [dangerous] events.”65 Later he added that regarding the reduction in the number of her troops in her Italian provinces, Austria would soon be unable to wage an offensive war against France beyond the Alps which could effectively protect Savoy and Nice: “Reducing itself to the defence of just the Alps means the complete ruin of my country, which is naturally far from my intentions. Consequently, this [1831] convention is almost annulled by this fact.”66 Charles Albert’s unwillingness to fulfil his treaty obligations to Austria manifested itself again in 1840 and was once more caused by his doubts about the empire’s sufficient strength to defend its Italian allies, as seemed to be confirmed by the important affairs of that year. Ferdinand II had to bow under British might in the Sulphur War because no European power helped him, including Austria with vital interests in Italy and bound with Naples through a defensive alliance treaty. This is what made the Neapolitan king disregard his own legal obligations when he told his friends during the Rhine Crisis that since Austria had refused to help him against the British during the Sulphur War, he felt under no obligation resulting from his treaties of 12 July 1815 and 4 February 1819 to enter into a defensive alliance with her in the event of a war in Italy.67 And this also moved Solaro in early June to the gloomy prediction quoted above that in the case of war with a third party Austria would abandon Piedmont, followed by this no less pessimistic conclusion fittingly expressing the feelings prevailing at the Sardinian court: “In all circumstances the king should not count on anybody except himself.”68 The foreign minister repeated the very same warning just several months later during the course of the Rhine Crisis when the presumption that Piedmont could hardly expect Austria’s effective protection in time of need seemed to be correct.69 The reports of Sardinian and other Italian diplomats from Vienna depicted the sorrowful state of the Austrian armed forces, which confirmed Charles Albert’s belief in Austria’s inability to provide effective military assistance. He feared that in a war with France he could expect very



Solaro to Charles Albert, 23 February 1835, Solaro to Sambuy, [?] October 1835, Lovera, Rinieri, Clemente Solaro, pp. 361–71, 274–78; Nada, Dallo Stato assoluto allo Stato costituzionale, p. 47; Attilio Simioni, Carlo Alberto: Principe di Carignano e re di Sardegna I (1798–1846), Padova 1944, p. 371. 65 Charles Albert to Solaro, Nice, 23 April 1836, Lovera, Rinieri, Clemente Solaro, p. 28. 66 Charles Albert to Solaro, Rocconi, 16 August 1836, Lovera, Rinieri, Clemente Solaro, p. 34. 67 Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, p. 134. 68 Solaro to Sambuy, Turin, 2 June 1840, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie I, 8. 69 “The king must not count on anyone except himself.” Solaro to Pollone, Turin, 20 October 1840, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie I, 8. 64

The Quest for Territorial Expansion

97

little support from the empire and that his kingdom would bear the brunt of the fighting. Therefore, he told his collaborators that he regarded the alliance of 1831 as dead, using as an excuse the affairs which had taken place in Europe since then, obviously alluding to those like the occupation of Ancona, for which there had been no retribution. He was prepared to go to war with France only if new terms for an alliance were settled, which also meant territorial gains in Italy in return for Piedmont’s participation in the armed conflict. The Rhine Crisis was not a turning point but an important phase in his growing negative attitude towards Austria and his desire for independence that was revealed later in the 1840s.70 In the mid 1830s, virtually all the members of the Sardinian political and diplomatic elites supported a policy less dependent on Austria. Even the traditionally pro-Austrian La Tour who, despite his criticism of Metternich’s policy, was in 1833 still “convinced that a common interest in conservation and security should unite the two powers [Piedmont and Austria],”71 soon after his recall from the foreign ministry agreed with the idea of an alliance with a great power that was strong enough to grant Piedmont more efficient support.72 From Paris Envoy Paolo Francesco di Sales openly advocated a union with France, whose earlier threatening action in Italy became unimportant for pragmatic reasons as he argued in January 1836: when the occupation of Ancona was not penalised by war, the best defence against such a revolutionary step was rapprochement with its architect.73 No new alliance with France or any other power was finally concluded since Charles Albert’s distrust of all the great powers led him to the decision to keep them all at arm’s length; as he wrote Solaro in April 1836: “I always groan more and more whenever I witness the proceedings of the great powers: it is necessary to do everything we can to be on good terms with the whole world but to rely on ourselves alone.”74 THE QUEST FOR TERRITORIAL EXPANSION The consequence of this shift in Piedmont’s foreign policy in 1835 was to be disastrous for Austria, and by far more than merely the factual loss of the defensive alliance with her Italian neighbour: the ominous extent of the new policy lay in the kingdom’s territorial aspirations in northern Italy, in particular towards Parma and



Gentile, Carlo Alberto, p. 70; Paola Notario, Narciso Nada, Il Piemonte sabaudo: Dal periodo napoleonico al Risorgimento, Torino 1993, p. 198; Simioni, Carlo Alberto, p. 379; Šedivý, “Italy during the Rhine Crisis,” pp. 491–95. 71 Notices demandées à l’Ambassade de France à Turin par une dépêche ministerielle en date du 24 [?] 1833, AMAE, Mémoires et documents, Sardaigne 23. 72 Bombelles to Metternich, Turin, 20 July 1835, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 2, p. 264. 73 Sales to Solaro, Paris, 11 January 1836, Lemmi, “Carlo Alberto e Francesco IV.,” pp. 369–70. 74 Charles Albert to Solaro, Nice, 14 April 1836, Lovera, Rinieri, Clemente Solaro, p. 26. 70

98

The Governmental Elites (1830–1840)

Modena but also including those at Austria’s expense. These aspirations can be regarded as traditional since they had existed since the 18th century and were also apparent in expressions of Sardinian diplomacy after 1815: in 1818 a memorandum was sent from Turin to St Petersburg condemning Austrian supremacy over the Apennines and demanding the transfer of Lombardy and Venetia to Piedmont, which would become the protector of the peninsula and a loyal ally of Russia. The same can be said about Charles Albert’s dream of territorial expansion in northern Italy held long before 1848 and even before 1835.75 Nevertheless, 1835 witnessed an important step in Piedmont’s strategic planning. Although conservative and certainly no Italian nationalist, Solaro prepared in a memorandum for the king, and according to the kingdom’s old territorial ambitions, a plan for the eventual exploitation of Austria’s internal problems and the seizure of Lombardy and Venetia. He revealed the increasing internal weakness of the empire which could enable Piedmont to fulfil her geopolitical aspirations aimed at replacing the empire’s hegemony in northern Italy with her own to win greater security for the kingdom.76 Charles Albert agreed with this plan which completely corresponded with his increasing aversion to Austria and simultaneously with his desire for Piedmont’s safety. He was firmly convinced that it was impossible to trust the precepts of international law, the conduct of the Concert members and even his Austrian ally: he suspected her of wanting not only to use his kingdom as a bulwark against France without offering sufficient military aid but also to conquer the papal Legations and Parma and Piacenza, which would be a real geopolitical disaster for Piedmont and therefore a casus belli for him.77 Since the security of his kingdom entirely depended on its own resources, regard for its safety made him an expansionist ruler and he told his personal secretary in June 1835 of his readiness to turn Austria’s internal problems to his own advantage for the invasion of her Italian domain because “if we cannot count on any help from the people there [the Austrian government], at least we must try to expand our territory as much as possible.”78 And he therefore hoped to turn his country into a “power”79 by extending its territory, increasing its population and, through all this, augmenting the state incomes – all



Bombelles to Metternich, Turin, 13 April 1831, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 1, 200–201; Barante to Argout, Paris, 5 September 1832, Saitta, Sardegna, vol. 2, pp. 208–10; Giuseppe Berti, Russia e stati italiani nel Risorgimento, Torino 1957, p. 423; Rodolico, Carlo Alberto negli anni di regno 1831–1843, p. 439; Rosselli, Inghilterra e regno di Sardegna, pp. 488–89; Francesco Salata (ed.), Carlo Alberto inedito, Milano 1931, p. 203. 76 Solaro to Charles Albert, 23 February 1835, Lovera, Rinieri, Clemente Solaro, pp. 361–73; Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, p. 198. 77 Solaro to Sambuy, 8 October 1835, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie II, 18; Gentile, Carlo Alberto, pp. 41, 43, 145, 162. 78 Gentile, Carlo Alberto, p. 125. 79 Ibid., p. 41. 75

The Quest for Territorial Expansion

99

necessary for sustaining a strong army and navy. The conquest of the Habsburg duchies of Parma, Piacenza and Modena, together with Lombardy and eventually Venetia would ensure all this and, moreover, would provide Piedmont with frontiers that could be better defended against Austria.80 With the king’s approval, Solaro’s memorandum of 1835 made the territorial expansion of the kingdom a long-term but important and in effect official goal of its foreign policy. Solaro explained the project in more detail in his instructions to the Sardinian representatives in Berlin, St Petersburg and Vienna in the same year. These documents are of great importance since besides the territorial aspirations they also explain the motivations of Charles Albert, who of course approved their content, as well as the strategies which were to be used at the opportune moment. With regard to the king’s motives, the documents focus predominantly on Austria’s actions after the July Revolution and particularly on her indulgent attitude towards the French occupation of Ancona. The considerable attention paid to this 1832 affair clearly shows how influential the French aggression and Austrian moderation were for the political transformation of the government in Turin in European politics.81 Regarding the question of how to deal with Austria, Solaro claimed that Piedmont could take advantage of any eventual revolts in Galicia and Hungary that would occupy Austrian forces and thus enable Piedmont to take Lombardy, either with the agreement of the Viennese government in exchange for Piedmont’s help with the maintenance of order in Venetia, or without it with the use of armed force under the pretext of defeating a revolution that could spread to other Italian states including Piedmont. Then the entry of the Sardinian army into Austria’s Italian domain would not be an act of aggression but of justifiable defence. In this way Solaro tried to legitimise the fact that “the king aspires to extend the limits of his dominion in Italy as his noble predecessors did.”82 He argued that Piedmont’s territorial expansion under the conditions mentioned above had to be regarded as the “triumph of a good cause and the principles of order, as well as the return to the traditional wisdom of European politics and the end of the revolutionary era in Italy.”83 Austria’s weakness was an important motivating factor behind Piedmont’s hostile designs since it clearly offered an opportunity. Lombardy was a traditional object of the Savoyan dynasty’s territorial ambitions and after 1815, leaving aside the small duchies neighbouring the kingdom, the only possible one since a conquest at the expense of France or Switzerland was for various reasons less

Ibid., p. 161. Solaro to Sambuy, 8 October 1835, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie II, 18. 82 Solaro’s instructions for the Sardinian representatives in Berlin and St Petersburg, [?] 1835, Lovera, Rinieri, Clemente Solaro, p. 392. 83 Ibid., p. 393. 80 81

100

The Governmental Elites (1830–1840)

profitable and more difficult, and in the case of France even suicidal. Solaro later explained candidly in his memoirs: “We cannot desire or expect any expansion at the expense of France, with regard to Switzerland it is difficult, but beyond the Po and Ticino it is not impossible.”84 Shortly before the outbreak of the Rhine Crisis he stated that Austria was in decline and her fall was inevitable; he believed that the Savoyan dynasty was predestined to seize Lombardy and Venetia, but he never seriously contemplated war, not due to any respect for the existing treaties but simply because Piedmont was too small and an alliance with France was too dangerous. During the crisis, Charles Albert wanted to obtain some territorial compensation for his eventual participation in a war against France, but since he could hardly expect the gain of Lombardy, he explicitly mentioned only the territories on the right bank of the Po – Parma, Modena and Piacenza – whose rulers were to be recompensed with territory from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which he expected to be a French ally.85 Only the Sardinian minister of war, General Emanuele Pes di Villamarina, a liberal who hated Austria, preferred an alliance with France against Austria, a means by which he wanted to seize Lombardy and Venetia during the Rhine Crisis. An interesting feature in Villamarina’s attitude is that it contained no regard for the legal aspect of the affair but, much like in the case of the king and his diplomats after the mid 1830s, the distribution of material force: Austria was weak and useless, despite the alliance of 1831, while France was strong and that is why she could be helpful.86 Villamarina’s option was unfeasible in late 1840 owing to the situation on the international scene favouring Austria’s position: the empire was still too strong for small Piedmont to attack and it was supported by the other three great powers. In addition, Charles Albert was not completely sure of the loyalty of his subjects. Consequently, he disagreed with Villamarina about concluding an alliance with France and conquering Lombardy and Venetia with her help. This was a calculation based on the balance of power during the crisis and the awareness that the loss of Savoy and Nice would have been the price of an alliance with the French.87 The same calculation of the balance of power made Charles Albert search for allies in the years following the Rhine Crisis for a war against Austria, which was becoming weaker but was still too strong for Piedmont to risk taking on alone. Since Piedmont could hardly expect effective military support from the other great powers, it had to find allies in Italy. For this purpose, the government in Turin was

Clemente Solaro della Margarita, Memorandum storico politico, Torino 1851, p. 563. Charles Albert to Solaro, 8 and 17 August 1840, Lovera, Rinieri, Clemente Solaro, pp. 92, 99; Lemmi, “Carlo Alberto e Francesco IV.,” pp. 312, 314, 322; Nada, Dallo Stato assoluto allo Stato costituzionale, p. 49; Rodolico, Carlo Alberto negli anni di regno 1831–1843, pp. 423–24. 86 Bianca Montale, Emanuele Pes di Villamarina (1777–1852), Roma 1973, p. 216; Rodolico, Carlo Alberto negli anni di regno 1831–1843, pp. 433–34. 87 Notario, Nada, Il Piemonte sabaudo, p. 198; Vidal, Charles-Albert, p. 81.

84 85

The Quest for Territorial Expansion

101

ready to legitimise Piedmont’s territorial expansion with Italy’s welfare – security, independence and peace, something that Solaro had already proposed in his memorandum of 1835 and that also later served Italian patriots and nationalists as an excuse for the modification of the post-Napoleonic order in this part of the Continent. Although it must be repeated here that Solaro was no Italian nationalist and his designs were rooted in the traditional policies of the Savoyan dynasty,88 he suggested in the memorandum that the kingdom’s allies were to be found among those capable of assisting Piedmont in a war of conquest against Austria and, to win their support, the courts of Florence, Rome and Naples were to be persuaded “to regard the expansion of the House of Savoy as the only means for attaining the real independence of Italy, [and] as the only guarantee of her future peace.”89 Solaro was certainly not alone among the Sardinian officials and diplomats who played the “Italian card” in support of Piedmont’s hostile designs against a weakening Austria. A considerable number of them connected the security of the kingdom with the security of Italy and used both as an argument of the need for Piedmont to conquer Lombardy and Venetia.90 In 1835 Villamarina advocated territorial expansion because otherwise both – Italy and Piedmont – would be exposed to interventions and even conquest by Austria and France.91 In 1839 Sardinian Envoy to Russia Count Carlo Rossi called Piedmont “the only genuine national power in Italy”92 because “it is indisputable that sooner or later and due to circumstances the supremacy of Austria must finally weaken in Italy, and it is no less evident to the whole world that we are by virtue of our position the natural heirs of all that this great power will lose there, of their territory as well as of their influence.”93 As Rossi explicitly added, Austria’s weakness was to be exploited for her expulsion from Italy, which was to be protected by Piedmont against foreign interference or even aggression as had happened in Ancona.94 This so to speak pan-Italian connection to Ancona, the moment when the states system was severely shaken at its foundations, was also important in Charles Albert’s geopolitical considerations, as is obvious from the remark left in his diary in reaction to Metternich’s refusal to wage war over the French occupation of the town: “We learn from all over Italy that the hatred of Austria seems to be increasing a hundredfold and that the voices of all honest men are calling to us: but the moment to show our intentions has not yet come.”95 Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, pp. 228–29. Solaro to Charles Albert, 23 February 1835, Lovera, Rinieri, Clemente Solaro, p. 370. 90 Beales, Biagini, The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, p. 213. 91 Gentile, Carlo Alberto, p. 34. 92 Rossi to Solaro, St Petersburg, 24 November 1839, Nicomede Bianchi, Storia documentata della diplomazia europea in Italia dall’anno 1814 all’anno 1861, vol. 4., Torino 1867, p. 389. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid., p. 388. 95 Rodolico, Carlo Alberto negli anni di regno 1831–1843, p. 23.



88 89

102

The Governmental Elites (1830–1840)

Charles Albert’s ominous words foretold his invasion into Lombardy in March 1848 as well as where the loss of trust in the existing political-legal order could lead. His decision to start a war against Austria was an obvious infringement of the post-Napoleonic states system in Europe since it was directed against the territorial status quo established at the Congress of Vienna; it was also one of the consequences of the king’s loss of faith in the same system and of his and his ministers’ shift to realism in international affairs. There is a clear progression from their belief in the inadequacy of the system to protect the kingdom against abuse by the great powers after the July Revolution to their unsuccessful attempts to improve the same system through treaty guarantees, to their fading allegiance to this system and their reliance on the force of arms instead of written law, leading ultimately to the exploitation of Austria’s weakness for Piedmont’s own territorial aims. The principal purpose of this conquest was to increase the kingdom’s material strength and, thereby, security vis-à-vis Austria and France. To cite the authoritative Risorgimento scholars, Charles Albert with Solaro and others “had simply bowed to the dictates of realpolitik.”96 The king, his ministers and diplomats obviously intended to use the pan-Italian argumentation to justify the conquest of Lombardy and Venetia and win popular sympathy outside Piedmont. This was not to be difficult since the expulsion of Austria in the name of the peninsula’s greater security was an objective shared by an overwhelming majority of Italians who also were losing their respect for the strength of international law and practices in the way they had been introduced in 1815. The only difference was that while this process was already accomplished in 1840 by the latest among the governmental elites, in the general public it was exactly this year when if it did not start, it certainly had its fundamental impetus.



Beales, Biagini, The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, p. 52. Eugenio Passamonti wrote about Solaro’s “conservative realism”, which is a quite fitting expression. Passamonti, L’idea coloniale, p. 18.

96

Chapter 3

THE PUBLIC RESPONSE (1830–1846) GEOPOLITICAL DELIBERATIONS BEFORE 1840 The end of the Napoleonic Wars brought relief to the masses but not everybody was satisfied with the new peace order. There were individuals as well as organised groups of monarchical liberals and democratic republicans who found it wanting for various reasons. The Italians living to the south of the Alps as well as those in exile particularly felt the lack of political liberalisation and sufficient independence of the Italian countries. Their dissatisfaction was intensified by Austria’s successful military interventions against the revolutions in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and Piedmont in 1821 preventing constitutionalism and only bringing new foreign interference into Italian affairs. Some regarded the lack of any kind of Italian unity as another deficiency of the new international order, but this conviction was certainly not as widespread as it became during the 1840s.1 Until the beginning of the 1830s there was no large organised national movement among the Italians, who remained divided into a considerable number of secret and regional organisations with often very different aspirations across the Apennines and in Sicily, of which the Carbonari are the best known although they were by far not the only one. If anything united them in their attitude towards world affairs, it was the desire to rid Italy of foreign domination, particularly Austria’s, along with their aversion to the anti-revolutionary spirit of the Holy Alliance that was seen as the main symbol of not only reactionary oppression but also the whole international order.2 Since the European powers had not yet undermined the political-legal foundations of the post-Napoleonic states system with any illegal actions, the Italians usually led their attacks against it in the name of freedom and social reform. This standpoint was typical of the way they viewed the Greeks’ fight for independence, which they generally perceived as a clash between advanced Christian civilisation and Moslem barbarism. If there was something that can be seen as geopolitics, Clark, The Italian Risorgimento, p. 27; Collier, Italian Unification, p. 24; Cunsolo, Italian nationalism, p. 55. 2 Bagnoli, L’idea dell’Italia, pp. 45–64; Hearder, Italy in the Age of the Risorgimento, pp. 177–78; Holt, The Making of Italy, p. 53; Franco Della Peruta, Conservatori, liberali e democratici nel Risorgimento, Milano 1989, pp. 11, 23, 68, 70; R. John Rath, “The Carbonari: Their Origins, Initiation Rites, and Aims,” The American Historical Review 69, 1964, 2, pp. 366–70; Alfonso Scirocco, In difesa del Risorgimento, Bologna 1998, p. 47.

1

104

The Public Response (1830–1846)

then it was above all the expectation of how the fall of the Ottoman Empire, regarded by many as inevitable, could destabilise the European order and help the Italian revolutionaries to achieve their goals at home. The belief in the strong mutual interdependence between East and West was strengthened by the diplomatic disputes which the Greek uprising provoked among the great powers and the military intervention of three of them against the Turks in the late 1820s. All this made Italians even more aware of the significance of the Eastern Question for the future of not only the Ottoman Empire but also Europe, of which the most immediate evidence was the wave of various visions they had of the reorganisation of Ottoman territory and its impact on territorial changes in the Apennines. Across society people recognised the significance of Near Eastern affairs for the Italian cause, and the moderate patriots exploited it in their programme of national unity in the 1840s.3 That is not to say that after 1815 the criticism of the new international order was completely devoid of legal considerations. There were actually liberal-minded intellectuals, mostly living in exile, who used legal argumentation in their attacks against what they saw as the great powers’ oligarchy imposed on the smaller countries at the Congress of Vienna without the latter’s consent and to their detriment. Referring to Emmerich de Vattel’s theory introduced in Le droit des gens (The Law of Nations) of 1758 that all countries regardless of their material strength enjoyed the same sovereign rights, they demanded the reform of the post-Napoleonic order. New international law was to be introduced to ensure this equality as well as more justice and peace in relations among all states. For the practical promotion of these noble goals some of them proposed the creation of a pan-European organisation in the form of either a monarchical confederation or a congress of nations. If all this happened, the sovereignty of secondary countries would be fully respected, and their voices would be heard more in the decision-making in their own as well as European affairs.4 These visions primarily resulted from the exiles’ own cosmopolitism that made them believe that the future of Italy greatly depended on the future of all Europe. At the same time, however, the same cosmopolitism made them less interested in the issue of Italian political unity. A similarly low level of interest existed among the patriots living in Italian countries and who still preferred internal reforms. Taking into account also the great diversity in opinions of what form this unity should take – whether there should be one centralised republic or, what was gen Giuseppe Galasso, Il Regno di Napoli: Il Mezzogiorno borbonico e risorgimentale (1815–1860), Torino 2007, p. 590; Isabella, Risorgimento in Exile, pp. 18, 31. 4 Maurizio Isabella, “Mazzini’s Internationalism in Context: From the Cosmopolitan Patriotism of the Italian Carbonari to Mazzini’s Europe of Nations,” C. A. Bayly, Eugenio F. Biagini (eds), Giuseppe Mazzini and the Globalisation of Democratic Nationalism 1830–1920, Oxford 2008, pp. 47–50, 54, 56; Isabella, Risorgimento in Exile, pp. 99–106.



3

Geopolitical Deliberations before 1840

105

erally a more popular vision, a confederation of sovereign monarchies – the whole idea remained obscure when a new revolutionary wave struck Europe in the early 1830s. Neither the idea of Italian nationhood nor the geopolitical deliberations of some liberal exiles won the attention of the masses, and this lack of broad support also contributed to the failure of the Italian revolutions in 1831.5 The notion of one Italian nation became popular on a greater scale owing to Giuseppe Mazzini and his revolutionary organisation Young Italy founded in 1831. This can, however, hardly be said about his influence in the sphere of geopolitics. Although Mazzini was a qualified lawyer and shared the exiles’ criticism of the post-Napoleonic order as well as their conviction that Italy’s security depended on it, he was too radical to profit from their elaborate legal analyses of the order, which he actually wanted to completely destroy and replace with a new Europe of free nations with democratic regimes. Consequently, he offered no legal arguments simply because he did not care for the nuances of the old system, which he attacked with general criticism of the classical diplomacy for its immorality and tendency to wage wars.6 In 1835, he claimed that this “diplomacy has erased entire nations and entire peoples – just think of how it dismembered Poland and killed the Venetian republic. It has built an organised structure of deception, and treason has become all but institutionalized,”7 and he looked forward to the moment when “all hate and international jealousies have been overcome and even the very memory of the Vienna settlement of 1815 along with its reactionary politics have been erased.”8 These quotations represent the most detailed insight into the political-legal aspect of international affairs in Mazzini’s nationalist texts from the 1830s. There was another important difference between how Mazzini and the exiles observed the world outside Italy: their attitude towards France. After 1815 the exiles believed in her political support and were ready to agree to her leadership in European affairs. Mazzini was one of them, but in 1831–1832 he began to dislike this great power almost as much as he hated Austria. His about-turn was caused

Beales, Biagini, The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, pp. 29–30; Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna, vol. 2, p. 185; Clive H. Church, Europe in 1830: Revolution and Political Change, London, Boston, Sydney 1983, pp. 127–42; Isabella, Risorgimento in Exile, p. 107; Carlo Morandi, L’idea dell’unità politica d’Europa nel XIX e XX Secolo, Roma 2018, p. 72; Peruta, Conservatori, liberali e democratici, pp. 312–34. 6 Isabella, “Mazzini’s Internationalism,” p. 57; Alessandro Levi, La filosofia politica di Giuseppe Mazzini, Bologna 1917, pp. 292–93; Rosario Romeo, “Mazzinis Programm und sein revolutionärer Einfluβ in Europa,” Adolf M. Birke, Günther Heydemann (eds), Die Herausforderung des europäischen Staatensystems: Nationale Ideologie und staatliches Interesse zwischen Restauration und Imperialismus, Göttingen, Zürich 1989, pp. 15–30. 7 Stefano Recchia, Nadia Urbinati, A Cosmopolitanism of Nations: Giuseppe Mazzini’s Writings on Democracy, Nation Building, and International Relations, Princeton, Oxford 2009, p. 169. 8 Ibid., p. 170.

5

106

The Public Response (1830–1846)

by her non-intervention principle and the occupation of Ancona. In February 1831 revolutionaries in Modena, Parma and the Papal States rose up in the expectation that France would not allow Austria to intervene against them with force of arms, but they were immediately disappointed by her lack of assistance on their behalf: they realised that the government in Paris wanted to weaken Austria’s influence but was not about to support political liberalisation and therefore willingly sacrificed them. The belief of France’s betrayal became even stronger after her occupation of Ancona which she did not follow with the promotion of constitutionalism. What had been obvious in 1831 became certain in the following year: France’s foreign policy served only her own interests and any declarations about supporting freedom abroad were nothing but empty phrases.9 Mazzini’s turnaround in his attitude towards France was also typical of some other Italian liberals and democrats. Their disillusionment contributed to an evaluation of the occupation of Ancona similar to that of the ruling elites: the presence of French troops in the papal town was seen as a brutal violation of the sovereignty of an independent country.10 In the words of Felice Orsini, who tried to assasinate Napoleon III in 1858, “the travesty of the occupation of Ancona”11 continued to be remembered as a generally unwanted aggression against Italy. This perception of the whole affair became predominant particularly with the later negative geopolitical experiences of the 1840s. When, for example, Andrea Luigi Mazzini sharply denounced the Austrian annexation of Cracow, he brought to mind the occupation of Ancona that he regarded in the same way: “The occupation of Ancona, according to the role that the France of the July [Monarchy] played in Italy, was an act unworthy of a great nation, unworthy of a liberal country, a bitter and bloody derision of Italy’s freedom and independence.”12 An important outcome of what Giuseppe Mazzini labelled the French sacrifice of Italy in 1831–1832 in the same manner as she had sacrificed the Italians during the Napoleonic Wars was a deep conviction that the Italians could count on no one but themselves because they could expect no positive support from abroad: any foreign assistance against Austria would merely lead to the replacement of one foreign protectorate by another one. It was particularly the memory of the Ancona

Montanelli, L’Italia del Risorgimento, pp. 16, 23; Laura Fournier Finocchiaro, Giuseppe Mazzini: Un intellettuale europeo, Napoli 2013, pp. 40–43. 10 Lottum to Frederick William III, Naples, 29 February 1832, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5588; Schoultz von Ascheraden to Frederick William III, Turin, 29 February 1832, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5493; Lebzeltern to Metternich, Naples, 30 March 1832, HHStA, StA, Neapel 79; Heldewir to Verstolk de Soelen, Turin, 29 February 1832, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 897; Duggan, The Force of Destiny, p. 127. 11 Leopoldo Marchetti, Felice Orsini: Memorie politiche, Milano 1962, p. 27. 12 Andrea Luigi Mazzini, De l’Italie dans ses rapports avec la liberté et la civilisation moderne, vol. 2, Paris 1847, p. 562.

9

The Sulphur War

107

affair that made this conviction almost an absolute dogma of the geopolitical security debates in Italian society during the 1840s.13 What, on the other hand, the French presence in Ancona did not change was the way Italian liberals and democrats attacked the international order in general. Contrary to the conservatives who increasingly criticised it for its growing deficiencies which threatened the security of individual countries, for the political radicals it continued to be inacceptable in its entirity. They did not waste time with more detailed criticism of its actual decline although they were well aware of it like Mazzini himself who understood that the occupation of the papal town violated the existing public law of Europe: “Those who decided on the occupation committed an error against their own system.”14 For the rest of the 1830s they continued to use purely ethical arguments when they condemned the great powers’ policies not because of any illegality but due to their basic immorality.15 When Niccolò Tommaseo published his book Dell’Italia (On Italy) in Paris in 1835, he denounced them for their lack of humanity and justice with a generalising reference to the prevailing principles of Metternich and Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord.16 THE SULPHUR WAR A quarter of a century after the Congress of Vienna a considerable number of Italians shared both a common desire for independence and a dislike of the post-Napoleonic order, and they were simultaneously convinced that the two issues were inseparable. Within the national movement and despite the considerable support for Mazzini’s republican nationalism, federalism was a still much more acceptable solution for Italian unity. However, even that vision still lacked universal support from all Italian states, political groups and, as far as was possible, from “all” social classes. In 1815 and the years that followed, the absence of any general interest in uniting Italian countries was due to various reasons, among others the general desire for peace, the preference for internal reforms for which no national unification was necessary, and the regional diversity in the negative perception of foreigners: the aversion towards them was strongest in the northern part of the

“D’alcune cause che impedirono finora lo sviluppo della libertà in Italia,” 1832, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti politici, Torino 1972, pp. 239–40; Christoph Friedrich Karl von Kölle, Italiens Zukunft: Beiträge zu Berechnung der Erfolge der gegenwärtigen Bewegung, Stuttgart, Tübingen 1848, p. 236; Adolfo Omodeo, Die Erneuerung Italiens und die Geschichte Europas, 1700– 1920, Zürich 1951, p. 437. 14 “Romagna,” 1832, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti politici, p. 210. 15 Franco Della Peruta, “Mazzini dalla letteratura militante all’impegno politico,” Studi Storici 14, 1973, 3, p. 525. 16 Niccolò Tommaseo, Dell’Italia, vol. 1, Paris 1835, pp. 3–12. 13

108

The Public Response (1830–1846)

peninsula, while in its centre and in the south people did not regard their presence as such a threat and were therefore less willing to include expulsion of foreigners in their own political programmes.17 As the years went by, all this changed with the coming of a new generation without any personal experience of the Napoleonic Wars, modernisation within individual states being hampered by military interventions from Austria and the lack of interest of other great powers, and finally the important crises of 1840 making Italian society as a whole believe that the world was becoming less peaceful and that all Italian people were exposed to foreign threats from all sides and that it was therefore necessary for all of them to cooperate to ensure their common security. It was first the Sulphur War that significantly contributed to the growth of fear and mistrust of the international order and thereby to the rise of geopolitical security debates within Italian society. The conflict was attentively observed across all classes of society not only in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies but also in other states of the peninsula for the simple fact that the kingdom was so close. As a Dutch envoy reported from Turin, “it has also made a big impression here. Too much affinity binds all parts of Italy together for such a serious event taking place in one of its states to be viewed with indifference in the others.”18 According to an article published at the end of May in the Milanese Annali universali the affair was a topic of all debates in the capital of Lombardy.19 This British-Neapolitan dispute was generally assessed by a considerable number of people outside governmental circles in the same negative way as by the ruling elites. When the legal analyses of British legal experts condemning Britain’s proceeding became known during April, her conduct was sharply criticised across Italy from a political as well as a legal point of view: it was seen as unjust, incompatible with the precepts of advanced civilisation, even as an act of piracy. Some Italians linked it with Napoleon I’s aggressive actions or British conduct against overseas regions like China in the Opium War. A considerable number of them, even in Rome and Turin where the Neapolitan regime was not popular, sided with Ferdinand II and posed this important question: if Great Britain behaved in such an appalling way towards one Italian country, would she sooner or later not behave in the same way towards all of them? Consequently, the opinion was shared by many that the affair was not merely Neapolitan but Italian. The abuse of power at the expense of one Italian state thus raised doubts about the security of them all.20



A. William Salomone, “Statecraft and Ideology in the Risorgimento: Reflections on the Italian National Revolution,” Italica 38, 1961, 3, p. 174; Scirocco, In difesa del Risorgimento, p. 57. 18 Heldewier to Verstolk, Turin, 17 April 1840, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1189. 19 “Lo zolfo di Sicilia: Questione tra l’Inghilterra e Napoli,” Annali universali di viaggi, geografia, storia, economia pubblica e statistica, no. 64, 1840, p. 194. 20 Ludolf to Scilla, Rome, 18, 21, 27 and 30 April 1840, Ramirez to Scilla, Turin, 14, 17, 18, 26 and 30 April 1840, Grifio to Scilla, Florence, 11 April 1840, ASN, MAE 4130; Olry to Ludwig 17

The Sulphur War

109

What facilitated the spread of public debate in reaction to the Sulphur War was the proximity of this affair to Italians living in other peninsular states without freedom of the press. However, one should not overestimate the effectiveness of censorship that, first, was not primarily directed against the spread of information on international affairs, and, second, was incapable of establishing an impenetrable barrier in this respect even if it had wanted to. This holds for the countries with more severe censorship like Piedmont, the Papal States and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, while the situation in Austria and Tuscany was somewhat better. Although the governmental newspapers usually lacked analytical comment, they offered a basic overview of international events and sometimes, for example in the case of the Gazzetta di Milano, the news was surprisingly detailed. Italians could also read the foreign press, either permitted officially, which sometimes covered newspapers seen by local governments as “liberal” like in Tuscany the French Le Constitutionnel, Le Journal des Débats, La Quotidienne, Le Siècle and the British The Morning Chronicle, The Edinburgh Review, The Times, or otherwise more or less easily smuggled into Italy.21 Furthermore, there were local non-governmental journals commenting on foreign events, the most prominent of which were the Milanese Annali universali and Rivista europea for their significant influence on the formation of liberal public opinion not only in Lombardy, something very important for the later rise of the moderate national programme in Piedmont.22 There was no Italian journal that would have sided with Britain. According to the Annali universali Ferdinand II was punished for his understandable desire to profit from Sicilian sulphur for his own kingdom and not just leave it to the foreigners’ unscrupulous exploitation.23 In the Rivista europea Giacomo Sega sharpI of Bavaria, Turin, 21 April 1840, BHStA, MA, Sardinien 2884; Buch to Frederick William III, Rome, 28 April 1840, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 11621; Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 113, 22 April 1840, p. 901; Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 129, 8 May 1840, p. 1029; Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 134, 13 May 1840, p. 1069; Deutsche Volkshalle, no. 89, 3 May 1840, p. 357; Deutsche Volkshalle, no. 90, 5 May 1840, p. 359. This fear was further strengthened by the expected immediate consequences of the war for Italy: if the Sicilians exploited it for revolution against Ferdinand II and Austria sent her army in support of the king, the French could retaliate by repeating their naval raid eight years earlier by sending their troops over the sea to Ancona or Civitavecchia. Kolb to Beroldigen, Rome, 28 April and 20 June 1840, HStAS, E 50/60 Bü 122; Giura, La Questione degli zolfi siciliani, p. 78; Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, p. 75. 21 Giuseppe Farinelli, Ermanno Paccagnini, Giovanni Santambrogio, Angela Ida Villa, Storia del giornalismo italiano: Dalle origini ai giorni nostri, Torino 1997, p. 87; Forβmann, Presse und Revolution in der Toskana, pp. 73, 82–84; Franco Della Peruta, L’Italia del Risorgimento: Problemi, momenti e figure, Milano 1997, pp. 170–71; Šedivý, “The Austrian Empire, German Nationalism and the Rhine Crisis of 1840,” pp. 21–22. 22 Nelson Moe, The View from Vesuvius: Italian Culture and the Southern Question, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 2003, p. 112. 23 “Lo zolfo di Sicilia: Questione tra l’Inghilterra e Napoli,” Annali universali di viaggi, geografia, storia, economia pubblica e statistica, no. 64, 1840, pp. 194–99.

110

The Public Response (1830–1846)

ly denounced the way Britain had behaved in the affair against a small kingdom that was too weak to resist the arrogance of her merchants.24 When he posed this eloquent question “in what natural or written code is it prescribed that all the nations of the earth should contribute to the luxury and power of England?,”25 he obviously contextualised the sulphur affair with the British proceedings overseas. This was something widespread at that time because it was easy to connect the Sulphur War with the Opium War for their striking similarities, including the same culprit and negative consequences for the affected countries.26 In January 1840 the Milanese La Fama had informed its readers about the British merchants’ import of opium into China and they were regarded in this business as all but the champions of civilisation.27 Then Giacomo Sega openly condemned Britain’s trade with opium and refused to accept the popular justification of her conduct with the characterisation of the Chinese as barbarians in the Rivista europea: “If we treat the Chinese according to the English rules, it is beyond doubt that they are extremely barbaric because according to the English the level of civilisation of people depends on the more or less effective manner by which they contribute to filling the bags of the so-called English traders, whom we should rather call speculators.”28 He also criticised Britain’s readiness to use force of arms against China during 1840: “If England feels strong enough to give ‘a lesson in civilisation’, it certainly will not miss a favorable opportunity. If the British government does not send a large fleet to force the Chinese to be drugged by her opium, it will certainly not be because she doubts her right to do so but because it would not be certain that the fleet would return.”29 Sega introduced the Sulphur War in a greater territorial and historical context of Britain’s harsh foreign policy: he turned attention to her attack against Copenhagen in 1807 as well as more contemporary affairs like her occupation of Aden in 1839 and war in Afghanistan in the same year.30 The parallels with past and current overseas events intensified the fear that the great powers would apply their ruthless conduct to European countries as had happened in the case of Naples, and for this reason from 1840 Italians closely followed the other great powers’ aggressive behaviour like the Russian military campaign against the Khanate of Khiva and the French campaign in Algeria against Abdelkader El Djezaïri. The Sulphur War’s principal role in their geopolitical deliberations was that it linked Rivista europea, no. 5/6, 1840, pp. 550–51. Rivista europea, no. 3, 1840, p. 316. 26 Rivista europea, no. 1, 1841, p. 131. 27 “La questione dell’oppio,” La Fama: Rassegna di scienze, lettere ed arti, no. 2, 3 January 1840, s.p. 28 Rivista europea, no. 3, 1840, p. 249. 29 Ibid. 30 Rivista europea, no. 3, 1840, pp. 249–50, no. 5/6, 1840, pp. 488–89, no. 17/18, 1840, p. 522, no. 5/6, 1840, p. 551.

24 25

The Sulphur War

111

all these affairs into one global problem with potential negative consequences for Italy’s own position in the world.31 Unsurprisingly, if in the 1820s the Italians had compared their situation with the Greeks fighting against the Turks, then now some drew comparisons with the Algerian Arabs defending themselves against the French.32 While the Germans turned from support for the Russians in their fight against the Ottoman Empire in the late 1820s to opposition to their supposed ambitions on the lower Danube threatening Germany’s security at the end of the following decade, Italians stopped applauding the policies of the so-called civilised countries overseas for very similar reasons as explained above. In the first number of the Rivista europea of 1841 Sega accused Britain of wanting to subordinate everything to her commercial interests, even justice, in her dealings with other nations and of being hypocritical in her justification of her egocentric conduct: “She must seem unjust towards other peoples, tyrant to her friends, cruel to her enemies, oppressive to those who hold out their hands pleading for help. Therefore, her philanthropists use all their mental faculties in trying to associate the English interest with humanitarianism.”33 He continued that her injustice gave other people the right and even the necessity to defend themselves against her dominance, and after this statement he immediately referred to the latest text on the maritime power of various countries Della potenza proporzionale degli Stati europei sui mari e sulle colonie (On the Proportional Power of European States on the Seas and in the Colonies) published by Cristoforo Negri in July 1840. Negri paid attention to the material strength of various European countries but Britain was the principal object of his interest. He referred to her Sulphur War with the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies considerably inferior to her in naval power and her strategic occupation of Aden in early 1839 in order to control the communication line between Europe and Asia leading over Suez and the Red Sea, but he was not hostile to Britain’s supremacy and her commercial policy. On the contrary, he admired her power.34 Sega naturally disagreed with Negri but he still found his text useful



Liedekerke to Verstolk de Soelen, Rome, 27 March 1840, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1188; Bernardino Biondelli to Cattaneo, Valenza, 1 April 1840, Jacopo Gråberg da Hemsö to Cattaneo, Florence, 21 April 1840, Carlo Agliati (ed.), Carteggi di Carlo Cattaneo, Serie II, Lettere di corrispondenza, Volume I, 1820–1840, Firenze, Bellinzona 2001, pp. 327, 331; La Fama, no. 48, 20 April 1840; “Sulla questione dell’Oppio fra l’Inghilterra e la China,” Annali universali di viaggi, geografia, storia, economia pubblica e statistica, no. 64, 1840, s.p.; “Della potenza proporzionale degli Stati Europei sul mari e sulle colonie, Memoria del dott. Cristoforo Negri,” Annali universali di viaggi, geografia, storia, economia pubblica e statistica, no. 66, 1840, pp. 321–22; Museo scientificio, letterario ed artistico, no. 48, 1840, pp. 377–84. 32 Lucio Villari (ed.), Il Risorgimento: Storia, documenti, testimonianze, vol. 3, Roma 2007, p. 365. 33 Rivista europea, no. 1, 1841, p. 136. 34 Cristoforo Negri, Della potenza proporzionale degli Stati europei sui mari e sulle colonie, Milano 1840, pp. 63–64, 127. 31

112

The Public Response (1830–1846)

for this reason: “An exact calculation by Mr Negri could also have instructed us about the means of resistance that people have at their disposal to oppose the invading commercial power of England. And let us say advisedly to resist because the strength of people, as with individuals, is really effective [only] when they can resist.”35 However, Sega did not want a war with Britain but a peaceful development of Italy’s own “internal trade, arts, industry: here are the means of defence that every people, every government, can use to oppose the invading British commercial dominance.”36 The creation of a powerful navy of their own was left to a more distant future when the Italians had sufficient means.37 Sega also rejected Negri’s admiration for Britain’s power in the Annali universali, much like her use of armed force against China and Afghanistan because it was justice that was the prerequisite for real equilibrium among the nations.38 Rivista europea offered the same generalising and negative opinions if not from Sega then from Michel Chevalier’s article Europe and China originally published in the Revue de Deux Mondes. The Frenchman opposed the British “speculations” incompatible with “the morality and law of nations,”39 and reached this conclusion: “Trade must be regulated by universal public law, and commercial greed, however much it may be legitimised by violence, will never be legitimised by the universal morality of men.”40 Going much farther in his analysis, his criticism of British foreign policy was connected with the same aversion to Russian diplomacy and the tensions among the great powers in as well as outside Europe. All this made Chevalier doubt the stability of general peace.41 This conclusion seemed to be shared by some Italians including Sega, who in the following years continued to denounce the British abuse of their superior power around the world.42 The widespread interest in both the Opium War and British imperialism can also be detected in Giuseppe La Farina’s book on China reviewed in the Bolognese Felsineo in May 1843 when it was introduced with reference to the British maritime and commercial dominance around the world.43 The fact that Giuseppe La Farina was interested in the affairs of the Far East is not unimportant because he was one of those men who are seen today as the leaders of the Italian Risorgimento. Without doubt these foreign events shaped their

Rivista europea, no. 1, 1841, p. 136. Ibid., p. 137. 37 Ibid. 38 “Della potenza proporzionale degli Stati Europei sul mari e sulle colonie, Memoria del dott. Cristoforo Negri,” Annali universali di viaggi, geografia, storia, economia pubblica e statistica, no. 66, 1840, pp. 318–22. 39 Rivista europea, no. 5/6, 1840, p. 547. 40 Ibid. 41 Michel Chevalier, “L’Europa e la China,” Rivista europea, no. 21/22, 1840, pp. 235–95. 42 Rivista europea, no. 1/2, 1842, p. 218. 43 Il Felsineo, no. 49, 9 May 1843, s.p. 35 36

The Sulphur War

113

worldviews and consequently their politics within the national movement. The Sulphur War was certainly one of them: there is evidence for the reaction to it of Giuseppe Mazzini, Cosimo Ridolfi,44 Raffaello Lambruschini, Luigi Settembrini and Michele Amari. Whether because of his dislike of the Neapolitan king or respect for the country where he lived in exile or for other reasons, Mazzini did not criticise the British proceedings, but his low estimation of justice in the world is obvious from his correct expectation that the dispute would end as always: by the submission of the weak party. It is not without interest that he linked the Sulphur War with the Opium War and opposed British imperialism in China.45 The same scepticism of international justice is also apparent from Raffaello Lambruschini’s comment that the other great powers would allow Britain to proceed towards Naples without impunity.46 The other prominent personalities turned back to this affair later in their memoirs to express the same criticism of British conduct. Luigi Settembrini was certainly no admirer of Ferdinand II, and in 1848 he advocated Sicily’s independence and simultaneously the island’s membership in an Italian confederation as the only guarantee of its security against foreign powers, Great Britain not exempted. Although it is difficult to convincingly trace the roots of his later Italian patriotism to the sulphur dispute, they most likely originated at that time not only because of his desire for Sicily to have Italian protection but also because of his objection to the resolution of the British cabinet in its conflict with Naples to take by force what it could not gain by treaties and thereby cause financial damage to one small Italian kingdom.47 Sicilian Michele Amari expressed a similar resentment: he recognised that right was plainly not on the British side and, although a republican, he was personally sympathetic to Ferdinand II’s attempt to defend his kingdom by force of arms because “against force there was only one similar argument.”48 According to Amari, even after the crisis there were some Sicilians who preferred the British to the Neapolitans, but there were also others who disliked the former while at the same time they expected very little from the French.49 The Sulphur War was of course remembered during the 1840s outside the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. As an example, one obvious but unspoken reference was offered in a pamphlet published in Milan in 1848 by Giacomo Lombroso, who compared the Austrian soldiers blowing cigar smoke in the faces

Ridolfi to Vieusseux, Bibbiani, 23 April 1840, Marco Pignotti (ed.), Cosimo Ridolfi – Gian Pietro Vieusseux. Carteggio II (1839–1845), Firenze 1995, p. 89. 45 Mazzini to his mother, London, 8 and 22 April, 11 June 1840, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 19, Imola 1914, pp. 57, 79, 155; Denis Mack Smith, Mazzini, New Haven, London 1994, p. 27. 46 Raffaello Lambruschini to Gian Pietro Vieusseux, 26 April 1840, Veronica Gabbrielli (ed.), Carteggio Lambruschini – Vieusseux, vol. 3, Firenze 1999, p. 284. 47 Luigi Negri (ed.), Opere scelte di Luigi Settembrini, Torino 1955, pp. 144–45. 48 Michele Amari, Memorie sugli zolfi, Palermo 1990, p. 62. 49 Ibid., p. 67. 44

114

The Public Response (1830–1846)

of the Milanese with – unsurprisingly – the Opium War in which Britain attacked the Chinese who did not want to “let themselves be poisoned by her opium, and in a short time two wars broke out, one in Asia, one in Europe for the same reason, that is, because of the people’s refusal to let themselves be debased.”50 The Sulphur War made an immediate and strong impact on Italian society and was never entirely forgotten. However, its significance as a long-lasting experience should not be overestimated. There is no evidence that it left a deeper impression among the masses. The explanation can be found in several facts: first, contemporaries did not usually call this crisis a war because no war had been officially declared and some Europeans were actually happy that it did not end in this way; second, liberals and democrats generally disliked Ferdinand II and his regime, which undeniably muted their compassion with the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the dispute with liberal Britain; third, the distance of Naples from the northern Italian countries was not only physical but also cultural as their inhabitants claimed that Italy actually ended at the Garigliano River, situated half way between Rome and Naples, which could have the same diminishing effect.51 Finally, there is another, fourth, clarification: the British-Neapolitan dispute was settled just as the Rhine Crisis broke out. Since this crisis was generally regarded as a more outspoken threat to general peace, in Italy as well, it provoked greater and longer lasting attention that overshadowed the experience with the sulphur affair. THE RHINE CRISIS It can be regarded as a paradox that although the Rhine Crisis influenced Italian society to a greater extent than the Sulphur War, historians have not given it as much attention in this respect. It is true that it provoked a less impassioned response in Italy than in Germany, but it still aroused similar emotions of apprehension and mistrust. Across the Apennines, geopolitical debates reached a great intensity owing to the inhabitants’ concerns about their own safety vis-à-vis foreign countries; anxiety spread among various social classes including the members of the lower-middle class, particularly in October 1840 when the crisis reached its peak and with it also the conviction of the inevitability of a war in Europe. This feeling can be summarised by the statement of the Piedmontese nobleman Roberto d’Azeglio from mid-December: “We do not know what turn the affairs in Europe will take when from one moment to the next an event can occur which brings consequences of which one can foresee neither the character nor the outcome, when our motherland could be called upon to play an important role, and we all have Giacomo Lombroso, Complicazioni promosse dall’Austria dal Congresso di Vienna sino all’esaltazione di Pio IX per conservare la Lombardia, Milano 1848, p. 45. 51 Moe, The View from Vesuvius, p. 87.

50

The Rhine Crisis

115

to be ready, each of us at our posts. The moment is solemn. All intelligent people recognise that the world has arrived at one of those social transitions that leave a large imprint on the history of mankind. The crisis seems to be imminent.”52 The fact that must be emphasised is that the Italians’ readiness to fight, obvious from the quotation, resulted from their expectation of being attacked but certainly not from any desire on their part to be the aggressor. It was fear of war and not a desire to wage one that was typical of the public response both in Germany and Italy. There is some but not much indirect evidence that some Italian radicals wanted to exploit the crisis for their own revolutionary aims,53 for example Gaetano Scalini, who expressed – in fact only much later in his memoirs – the desire to wage war in the name of Italian nationhood,54 but the overwhelming majority of Italians did not want to be dragged into an armed conflict for a dispute that had nothing in common with their interests, a conflict to which, as some claimed, Europe had never been so close since 1815.55 This desire for the preservation of peace was characteristic not only of moderate men like Raffaello Lambruschini56 and Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti, the Narciso Nada, Roberto d’Azeglio I: 1790–1846, Roma 1965, p. 257. Captain Rolland’s report, Leghorn, 15 August 1840, AMAE, CP, Toscane 175; Reviczky to Metternich, Florence, 24 November 1840, HHStA, StA, Toskana 61. 54 Gaetano Scalini, Memoria letta il 20 marzo 1888 al circolo monarchico ordine e libertà, Como 1889, p. 21. 55 Montebello to Thiers, Naples, 23 August and 13 September 1840, AMAE, CP, Naples 165; Bernstorff to Frederick William IV, Naples, 7 August 1840, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5596; Ricci to Solaro, Naples, 25 August 1840, AST, LM, Due Sicilie 55; Lebzeltern to Metternich, Naples, 6, 14 and 28 August 1840, HHStA, StA, Neapel 92; Carrega to Solaro, Florence, 4 and 7 August, 7 September 1840, AST, LM, Toscana 19; Reviczky to Metternich, Florence, 18 August 1840, HHStA, StA, Toskana 61; Ohms to Metternich, Rome, 8, 15 and 29 August, 24 October 1840, HHStA, StK, Rom 63; Schwarzenberg to Metternich, Turin, 12 August and 26 October, Genoa, 21 November 1840, HHStA, StA, Sardinien 77; Police report on public opinion in Trieste in July and August 1840, HHStA, KA, StR, MKA, 152; Police reports on public opinion in Milan in August 1840, Venice in August and September 1840, Trieste in September 1840, HHStA, KA, StR, MKA, 153; Police reports on public opinion in Milan in September and November 1840, Trieste in October and November 1840, HHStA, KA, StR, MKA, 154; Police report on the public opinion in Trieste in December 1840, HHStA, KA, StR, MKA, 155; Police reports on public opinion in Venice in December 1840, Trieste in January 1841, HHStA, KA, StR, MKA, 156; Police reports on public opinion in Milan in December 1841, Venice in January 1841, HHStA, KA, StR, MKA, 157; Costanza d’Azeglio to Emanuele d’Azeglio, 15 September 1840, Daniela Maldini Chiarito (ed.), Costanza d’Azeglio: Lettere al figlio (1829–1862), vol. 1 (26 juin 1829 – 27 mai 1849), Roma 1996, p. 253; Ridolfi to Vieusseux, Meleto, 22 October 1840, Pignotti, Cosimo Ridolfi – Gian Pietro Vieusseux, p. 117; Deutsche Volkshalle, no. 177, 7 October 1840, p. 723; Franz Adlgasser (ed.), Viktor Franz Freiherr von Andrian-Werburg: „Österreich wird meine Stimme erkennen lernen wie die Stimme Gottes in der Wüste.“ Tagebücher 1839–1858, Band 1: 1839–1847, Wien, Köln, Weimar 2011, pp. 107–108. 56 Raffaello Lambruschini to Gian Pietro Vieusseux, 13 October 1840, Gabbrielli, Carteggio Lambruschini – Vieusseux, vol. 3, p. 326.

52 53

116

The Public Response (1830–1846)

future pope Pius IX, who anxiously observed the development of affairs,57 but also of the republicans seeing nothing positive in a war that would bring foreign invasions over the Alps to Italy or a “coup de mains” by sea in the style of Ancona.58 Even Mazzini, who was still residing in London, was hostile to the outbreak of war: although he would have otherwise welcomed it as a means of bringing the old order to an end, he found the Italians too weak at that time to profit from it in any desirable way. Mazzini preferred Italy to remain passive because an armed clash among the great powers would bring the French into Italy but hardly freedom and unification for the Italians: if defeated, nothing would change, if victorious, France would simply replace Austria as the dominant power in the region, and in both cases the Italians would suffer in vain.59 He expressed this opinion not only in private but also in public when in November 1840 he started to publish L’Apostolato popolare to promote the idea of independence and unity.60 The timing of its publication could have been accidental, but what definitely was not was the attention paid to the state of European politics in its very first issue. In an article Situazione presente (The Present Situation) Mazzini answered the question raised by some Italians as to whether there would be war between France and the four powers and what position the Italians should assume if there were, and his response was as mentioned above: such a war was possible because the relations among European governments had never been so serious since 1830, but because the monarchs feared popular revolutions, they would do their best until the last moment to avoid one; if one broke out anyway, no great power would do anything to help Italy.61 Nothing could even be expected from France which could hardly be regarded as waving a banner of freedom, and Mazzini offered evidence for this in



Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti to Cardinal Amat, Imola, 2 November 1840, Giovanni Maioli (ed.), Pio IX. Da Vescovo a Pontefice: Lettere al Card. Luigi Amat (Agosto 1839 – Luglio 1848), Modena 1949, p. 75. 58 As in their reaction to the Sulphur War, the Italians were seized with fear of a French naval expedition to any point on the Italian coast also during the Rhine Crisis. Spaur to Ludwig I of Bavaria, Rome, 15 August 1840, BHStA, MA, Päpstlicher Stuhl 2498; Ohms to Metternich, Rome, 26 September and 24 October 1840, HHStA, StK, Rom 63; Broglia to Solaro, Rome, 3 September 1840, AST, LM, Roma 342; Broglia to Solaro, Rome, 8 and 10 October 1840, AST, LM, Roma 343; Moore to Palmerston, Ancona, 18 November 1840, TNA, FO 43/32; Kolb to Beroldigen, Kreuznach, 21 September 1840, HStAS, E 50/60 Bü 122; Reviczky to Metternich, Florence, 18 August and 6 October 1840, HHStA, StA, Toskana 61; Reviczky to Metternich, Florence, 27 August 1840, HHStA, StA, Toskana 62; Bellocq to Thiers, Florence, 3 and 9 September 1840, AMAE, CP, Toscane 175; Aubin to Holland, Rome, 28 October 1840, Holland to Palmerston, Florence, 2 November 1840, TNA, FO 79/97. 59 Mazzini to his mother, London, 17 August, 3 September 1840, Mazzini to Luigi Amedeo Melegari, London, 2 October 1840, Mazzini to Giuseppe Lamberti, London, 17 October 1840, Guiseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 19, pp. 225, 256, 296, 317–18. 60 Finocchiaro, Giuseppe Mazzini, p. 110. 61 Apostolato popolare, no. 1, 10 November 1840, p. 6. 57

The Rhine Crisis

117

her passive Italian policy in the early 1830s and Périer’s well-known justification for why the French did not support the Italian revolutionaries with force of arms: “The blood of the French belongs only to France.”62 Mazzini continued to believe that Italians should never look to foreigners to ensure their true independence, and he therefore insisted that “better slaves than only half free – free by virtue of others.”63 That he was not alone in this opinion is evident from the opinion of the Piedmontese left-wing liberal Lorenzo Valerio: “I am definitely no Francophile; instead of seeing Italy under French domination, I would prefer to leave her as she is, broken, crushed and debased.”64 That exchanging independence for dubious freedom was unacceptable was neither the first nor the last common characteristic of the stand taken by the Germans and Italians during the crisis. There were other and yet more striking similarities: like the Sulphur War, the Rhine Crisis fuelled further interest in international affairs in as well as outside Europe, and the repercussions of the great powers’ interference in the Turkish-Egyptian war had more than sufficiently proved that their competition anywhere in the world could jeopardise general peace. In line with what Salvatore Pes di Villamarina, the son of the Piedmontese minister of war, had written in August from Turin that “the Western world has its eyes fixed on the East; Turkey, Egypt, India have taken first place in the European political movement,”65 Mazzini became more interested in the great powers’ policies towards the Ottoman Empire and the situation within it,66 and other Italians observed and usually censured the British war in Afghanistan,67 the French quarrel with Argentina leading to the naval blockade of Buenos Ayres68 and the Russian presence in the Danube delta and her fighting in the Caucasus.69 The European press itself offers indirect evidence of this concern because to profit from it the newspapers nurtured public curiosity with information, graphics and maps on these distant events, and with this of course further excited popular interest in “exotic” regions. One cannot therefore be surprised that in 1840 the Politecnico published an arti



Ibid., p. 7. This article was republished in Guiseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 25, Imola 1916, pp. 23–29. 63 Mazzini to Nicola Fabrizi, 1 December 1840, Tommaso Palamenghi-Crispi (ed.), Giuseppe Mazzini: Epistolario inedito 1836–1864, Milano 1911, p. 45. 64 Lorenzo Valerio to Camilla de La Rüe, Turin, 23 November 1840, Adriano Viarengo (ed.), Lorenzo Valerio Carteggio (1825–1865), vol. 1, Torino 1991, p. 347. 65 Chiarito, Costanza d’Azeglio, p. 254. 66 Apostolato popolare, No. 2, 23 July 1841, p. 16; Mazzini to his mother, London, 8 October 1840, Guiseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 19, pp. 300–301. 67 “Della potenza proporzionale degli Stati Europei sul mari e sulle colonie, Memoria del dott. Cristoforo Negri,” Annali universali di viaggi, geografia, storia, economia pubblica e statistica, no. 66, 1840, pp. 321–22; Museo scientificio, letterario ed artistico, no. 48, 1840, pp. 377–84; Rivista europea, no. 12, 1841, p. 393. 68 Rivista europea, no. 1, 1841, p. 130, no. 2, 1841, p. 401. 69 Rivista europea, no. 2, 1841, p. 401. 62

118

The Public Response (1830–1846)

cle with statistical and geographical information on Central Asia and particularly on the Khanate of Khiva,70 or that in 1847 Charles Albert made Caucasian leader Imam Shamil’s fight for independence against the Russians an obvious analogy for his own eventual clash with the Austrians: “If God ever graces us with the ability to wage a war of independence, it is I alone who will command the army and I am determined to do for the Guelph cause [the pro-papist party in the Middle Ages] what Shamil did against the immense Russian Empire … Ah! What a fine day it will be when we can claim national independence.”71 Nevertheless, an even more important outcome of the Rhine Crisis was the widespread debate about the justice and stability of the whole international order, something which the Sulphur War had not provoked to such an extent by any means.72 If Italians had had little faith in the integrity of the great powers before mid 1840, then it further diminished due to their own negative experience with their conduct and the influence of the same scepticism imported from abroad in political writings, particularly from France since the French language was the one most widely understood by Italians. The best example is an article published by Louis de Carné in the Revue des Deux Mondes in 1841 with the title De l’équilibre européen (On European Equilibrium). He introduced an idea already widespread across Europe that “the laws underpinning European stability are no longer sufficient today to guarantee the peace of the world and satisfy the public conscience” and that the political-legal structure established at the Congress of Vienna had already been deprived of its moral force “which alone establishes the law and guarantees the future.”73 Therefore, he longed for “the new law which is beginning to rise today on the ruins of the politics of egoism and the science of equilibrium [balance of power].”74 The article was reprinted in the same year in the Annali universali,75 but even without it the French journal was surely known to many Italians living abroad and to some living to the south of the Alps. A considerable number of them were therefore able to read G. Libri’s article published in the Revue des Deux Mondes in 1841 on Italy’s independence and the impossibility of achieving it with the assistance of liberal powers; this scepticism was based on the experience with their foreign policies, including the Sulphur War, which in Libri’s eyes made Britain a rapacious great power that might even want to conquer Sicily.76

Il Politecnico, no. 3, 1840, pp. 207–49. Vidal, Charles-Albert, p. 312. 72 Rivista europea, no. 1, 1841, pp. 124–26, no. 2, 1841, p. 396. 73 Louis de Carné, “De l’équilibre européen: Politique de la France avant et depuis les Traités de Vienne,” Revue des Deux Mondes, no. 24, 1841, p. 466. 74 Ibid., p. 483. 75 “Dell’equilibrio di Europea,” Annali universali di viaggi, geografia, storia, economia pubblica e statistica, no. 69, 1841, p. 261. 76 G. Libri, “De l’influence française en Italie,” Revue des Deux Mondes, no. 25, 1841, pp. 670–75.

70 71

The Rhine Crisis

119

Regarding all this, it is easy to conclude that the fundamental significance of the Rhine Crisis was that it cast a huge element of doubt on justice in international affairs and the durability of peace. Some Italians felt they should depend only on themselves and their own material resources instead of relying on other Europeans and the written law,77 which moved them to think about a policy of strength and pushed the idea of pan-European solidarity into the background.78 The logical outcome of this was the conviction that the security of states particularly depended on material power, as Mazzini himself stated in the Situazine presente writing that “only the strong find allies among the strong, while the weak find only betrayal and contempt.”79 So while the German and Italian rulers were more or less preparing their armies for defence, their subjects were much more concerned about the state of the European powers’ armies, which was obviously due not only to their superior armament but also the fear that their armed forces could be mobilised more easily than had been presumed before 1840.80 It is how Adriano Balbi justified the publication of his overview of the European powers’ armed forces in 1841: “Knowledge of the military forces of those states, which by virtue of their power govern the destinies of the world, is important at all times, but it becomes even more so in those circumstances in which these forces can be used by those governments.”81 The existence of popular interest in the distribution of military power in Europe is further evidenced by other texts on this topic.82 They also prove that the whole issue was perceived from the perspective of an aversion to war and the functioning of the European states system. In 1840 the Annali universali offered an analysis of the great powers’ huge naval and land forces accompanied with the question why their efforts “are not used for the general harmony and the industrial and commercial well-being of the great European family?”83 In the following year Cristoforo Negri published his new book under the title Del vario grado d’importanza degli Stati odierni (On the Varying Degrees of Importance of States Today). More important than this long survey of the distribution of wealth and power among the nations of the world in which Negri mentioned, among others, the British bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807,84 is its reception by Emilio Broglio in Rivista europea. First, because Broglio informed his readers that the journal was obliged

Charles Edwards Lester, My Consulship, New York 1858, pp. 57–61. Federico Chabod, Idea di Europa e politica dell’equilibrio, Napoli 1995, pp. 67–68. 79 “Situazione presente 1840,” Guiseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 25, p. 27. 80 Costanza d’Azeglio to Emanuele d’Azeglio, 28 October 1840, Chiarito, Costanza d’Azeglio, p. 258. 81 Adriano Balbi, Delle forze militari delle cinque grandi potenze, Milano 1841, p. 3. 82 “Forza dell’esercito francese,” Supplimento al Felsineo, no. 28, 7 December 1841, p. 229. 83 “Forze militari e marittime, entrate e debito pubblico delle potenze di Europa confrontate a quelle della Francia,” Annali universali di viaggi, geografia, storia, economia pubblica e statistica, no. 66, 1840, p. 250. 84 Cristoforo Negri, Del vario grado d’importanza degli Stati odierni, Milano 1841, p. 43. 77 78

120

The Public Response (1830–1846)

to deal with Negri’s book, seen as “a science of the state, a practical policy,” since it had provoked “a turmoil of discussions and theories in public.”85 Second, because Broglio used the book for the criticism of the domination of the European powers over smaller countries: Great Britain, the queen of the seas, and the four great powers dominating the Old Continent, constituted an “Areopagus” of the “great European family”86 while “the other smaller states, more or less, according to their respective political strength and different geographical position, all had to endure this supreme and vigilant protectorate of the strong over the weak; and while the great powers were restrained from fighting by certain beneficial and reciprocal reverence, the minor states were instead often and openly informed: they should expect in their disputes that judgement was not dispensed from the thunderous mouths of the cannons that Frederick of Prussia called with admirable ingenuity ultima ratio regum, but surely from the unquestionable wisdom of the powerful Areopagus laid down in the protocols, where, if nothing else, the conflict of interests guarantees impartiality.”87 Third, because Broglio revealed how political statistics fitted in the perception of the European states system. For him the European countries found themselves in a situation of reciprocal dependence, of which the written expression was “international law.” However, the material force of which the principal elements were “cannons and bayonets”88 was no less significant since it determined the position in this intercommunity and consequently “the publication of those works whose aim is to tell us the respective strength of the individual states is of the utmost importance: the degree of political importance that each of them occupies in the world depends on this strength.”89 The conviction that the world is dominated by predatory countries and it is therefore necessary for a nation to ensure its own security by dependence on material power instead of transnational cooperation is inherent in realism in international affairs. In the mid 19th century this belief was connected to the rise of Realpolitik, for some seen as outspoken allegiance to Macchiavellian pragmatism. How the Italians reacted to the Rhine Crisis offers evidence that the process had already started in 1840, including the positive reception of Niccolò Macchiavelli’s texts. It was in this very year that Andrea Zambelli, a professor of political sciences at the University of Pavia, published an article on Machiavelli in the Politecnico, to reissue it as a booklet in the following year.90 Zambelli paid great



Rivista europea, no. 7/8, 1842, p. 119. Ibid., p. 112. 87 Ibid., pp. 112–13. 88 Ibid., pp. 118–19. 89 Ibid., p. 118. 90 Il Politecnico, no. 3, 1840, pp. 431–61, 509–34; Andrea Zambelli, Sul libro del Principe: Considerazioni, Firenze 1841. It is not without interest that the copy of Zambelli’s booklet (shelf mark Var. L. Var. 1661) in the Milanese Biblioteca Sormani seemed to be owned by Marco 85 86

The Rhine Crisis

121

attention to Machiavelli’s deliberations on Italy, Europe, war and power, all of them noticeably applicable in 1840 and corresponding with the desire to free Italy “from invasions and foreign domination.”91 The topicallity of Machiavelli’s views was further emphasised by Giovanni Pavia who in the following year published in the Rivista europea an article in two parts on this Renaissance thinker92 in which he wanted to prove that the latter’s views were “not only necessary but also accurate.”93 Pavia was not only sympathetic to them but he also produced a text where it is difficult to distinguish whether he was writing about Machiavelli’s time or his own. In fact, he was writing about both, and by referring to Italy’s problems in the early 16th century he was also describing those of the 1840s. According to Pavia, if the moralists “cannot praise him [Machiavelli], they will at least have a duty to understand and tolerate him as the one who [was ready to] use force, cunning and arms against the unjust aggressor to defend the most necessary rights and welfare of man and society.”94 Pavia welcomed the fact that Macchiavelli desired “a prince who prefers national to foreign weapons”95 and would create “a powerful and prosperous principality and extend it so far as to embrace the greatest part of Italy and in this way would be able to restore to Italy political unity and independence.”96 The significance of this process would be that Italy would be capable of defending herself against “the abuses of the powerful”97 and ensuring thus “internal and external security.”98 In fact Pavia was writing more about his own period than the distant past when he expressed his desire for “a great political association governing a proportionally extended and strong territory, surrounded by states of equal power and prosperity, which, in order not to be small and poor, would not aim to expand but rather to preserve and defend themselves legally.”99 This dream resulted from the interest Pavia paid in his article to the oppression of the weak by the strong and his obvious mistrust of the security guaranteed by written law, which led to his desire for peace among Italian states, a national army and a strong policy, not necessarily a moral one, on behalf of Italy’s own survival among the more powerful countries.100

Minghetti and shows underlining in pencil under several passages on Machiavelli’s preference for a national army instead of foreign mercenaries or under expressions like “power” (page 8). 91 Carlo Curcio, Machiavelli nel Risorgimento, Milano 1953, p. 26. 92 Giovanni Pavia, “Alcune considerazioni sul libro del Principe di Macchiavelli del dottore Andrea Zambelli,” Rivista europea, no. 7, 1841, pp. 65–85, no. 8/9, 1841, pp. 202–17. 93 Rivista europea, no. 8/9, 1841, p. 202. 94 Rivista europea, no. 7, 1841, p. 67. 95 Ibid., p. 76. 96 Ibid., p. 67. 97 Ibid., p. 78. 98 Ibid., p. 79. 99 Ibid. 100 Ibid., pp. 80, 84–85.

122

The Public Response (1830–1846)

For the first since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 a wave of interest in Machiavelli arose in 1840 to continue and increase in the following years.101 It also appeared in the national discourse, something understandable since he had advocated the independence of Italy from foreign rule and the mutual cooperation of Italian rulers who were also to ensure the support of their own subjects in order to be stronger at the times of crisis.102 All this was exactly what the Italian patriots wanted, and they therefore generally regarded Macchiavelli as an Italian hero. In 1846 Vincenzo Gioberti called him “the shrewdest of our writers” and did not dispute his pragmatic methods.103 However, what made his political teaching popular was its relevance to the nature and orientation of the geopolitical security debates after 1840. As the Allgemeine Zeitung reported in September 1847, Italians with a strong aversion to foreigners inclined towards a “Machiavellianism” that was related to the conviction that their own interests were superior to all others.104 Although the memory of the Rhine Crisis was never as strong among Italians as among Germans, it certainly existed and survived until 1848 as an important shared experience. In 1847 Andrea Luigi Mazzini recalled its dangerous potential for the general peace, an ominous situation for Italy because “as I have already said, and I will always repeat it, the political problem of Italy is intimately connected with the general problem of Europe.”105 Articles recalling the Rhine Crisis, together with the Turko-Egyptian war that gave rise to it and other serious incidents in which the great powers had abused their power at the expense of weaker countries in Italy, Europe and the world since 1830 regularly appeared in the Italian press in 1847–1848 and resonated in Italian society.106 The Patria, an influential newspaper published in Florence, offered one of many reminders in January 1848: “There are always economic questions hidden in all political issues, but the great powers have so far succeeded in resolving them peacefully, making each other mutually afraid, or sacrificing the weak to the strongest. Egypt, Turkey, China, Spain, Portugal and Poland offer sufficient proof of this.

101 Giuliano Procacci, Machiavelli nella cultura europea dell’età moderna, Roma, Bari 1995, p. 393. 102 Hearder, Italy in the Age of the Risorgimento, p. 158. 103 Curcio, Machiavelli, p. 28. 104 Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 247, 4 September 1847, p. 1972. The term “Machiavellianism” was explicitly used in this German newspaper in its survey on the popularity of Machiavelli’s ideas in Italian society. 105 Andrea Luigi Mazzini, De l’Italie, vol. 2, p. 52 (for the Rhine Crisis and European peace see pages 71, 74 and 368). 106 For all see L’Apostolato, no. 8, 12 February 1848, p. 29, no. 10, 17 February 1848, p. 37; Messaggiere torinese: Giornale di politica e di letteratura, no. 8, 26 January 1848, p. 30; Il Felsineo, no. 19, 12 May 1847, p. 92, no. 27, 8 July 1847, p. 132; Il Riscatto italiano: Giornale politico, legislativo, scientifico e letterario, no. 9, 29 February 1848, p. 34.

The Origins of the Moderate National Movement

123

For her part, Italy has unfortunately proved it enough; and in the future all Italian questions will also be resolved by sacrificing us if Italy cannot provide for her own defence by sea and by land.”107 THE ORIGINS OF THE MODERATE NATIONAL MOVEMENT As already supported with evidence on the previous pages, after 1840 a great number of Italians believed that the defence of individual Italian states could be achieved primarily by increasing their material strength. However, whatever they did on their own, they still remained too weak against the great powers. Therefore, another important step in the search for security was their political unity. This is exactly what Princess Cristina di Belgiojoso, who paid considerable attention to the international affairs of that year and was informed about them by such personalities as French Orientalist Jules Mohl and Prime Minister Adolphe Thiers,108 meant when she wrote that “the idea of freedom and independence was reborn in 1840.”109 Her evaluation corresponds with the contents of other sources introduced above, revealing how a considerable number of contemporaries assessed their hapless situation: the security of individuals was primarily guaranteed by the independence, in other words sovereignty, of a state: if the state was seen as insufficient in this respect, then it could either conquer or unite with others. The latter was the desired option for a considerable number of Italians who realised during 1840 that such a unity was an urgent necessity. In 1841 Count Terenzio Mamiani della Rovere responded in this way to the two crises of the previous year with a text entitled Nostro parere intorno alle cose italiane (Our Opinion on Italian Matters) in which he introduced the Italian Question together with the events in France, Germany, the Near East and Russia. He found Italy vulnerable to foreign invasion, primarily a French one over the Alps, which brought him to the conclusion that only a union of the Italian rulers and their people could ensure their safety by making them strong, which also meant independent.110 Two years later Tuscan lawyer Vincenzo Salvagnoli warned that there would soon be only politically and economically strong great powers in Europe and that Italy should therefore unite in a customs confederation that would give her sufficient strength.111

107 La Patria: Giornale quotidiano, politico e letterario, no. 119, 4 January 1848, p. 472. 108 Aldobrandino Malvezzi, La Principessa Cristina di Belgiojoso, II: La seduttrice 1833–1842, Milano 1937, pp. 303–305. 109 Ibid., p. 306. 110 “Nostro parere intorno alle cose italiane,” 1841, Terenzio Mamiani, Scritti politici, Firenze 1853, pp. 6–31. 111 Scirocco, In difesa del Risorgimento, p. 70.

124

The Public Response (1830–1846)

As already seen in the previous chapter, in reaction to the Rhine Crisis even several Italian rulers, ministers and diplomats contemplated forming an alliance. However, since it was generally recognised that traditional alliances among monarchs did not last for long, a considerable number of intellectuals were ready to apply the concept of an Italian nation to make this union more than a temporary alliance. At the same time, however, they were willing to remain loyal to their rulers. Both tendencies became dominant features of the so-called moderate national movement that originated between 1843 and 1846, so not long after the Rhine Crisis ended. The movement’s most prominent intellectual leaders were Vincenzo Gioberti, Cesare Balbo, Massimo d’Azeglio, together with other personalities including the father of Italy’s unification in 1861, Count Camillo Benso di Cavour and Giacomo Durando. Before looking at all five in greater detail, it is necessary to offer a general framework of their worldviews and desires. First, to understand what they wanted and how they wished to achieve it one must always bear in mind that these men were Piedmontese and their political aims were primarily formed by their strong loyalty to their native country. Second, their Piedmontese patriotism influenced their attitude towards the concept of the Italian nation. Although one cannot deny their sense of Italian kinship, they were certainly far removed from the Mazzinian sense of utopian, semi-religious and centralising nationalism. Their approach was much more pragmatic and they became Italian patriots primarily because it served the interests of Piedmont; when they felt it was necessary to improve her security vis-à-vis the great powers or even win massive support for the expulsion of Austria from Italy, which they regarded as an essential measure for achieving the first goal, they turned to other Italians and introduced a vision that was to serve well both Piedmont and Italy. For these men the unity of the Italian nation, in other words the appeal to pan-Italian solidarity against external threats, was not a goal in itself but a security method. Here there is a fitting comparison between Cavour and Bismarck: the Prussian statesman, born just five years later than Cavour, was not a convinced nationalist and saw in the Prussian domination in Germany a useful symbiosis for increasing the safety of both Prussia and Germany although the welfare of his native country was always more important for him. Exactly the same can be said of Cavour who, incidentally, never visited the Italian regions to the south of Piedmont but recognised the usefulness of the national sentiment for Piedmont’s security goals and as a skilled pragmatist was able to take advantage of it. Third, the same pragmatism was more or less typical of the other above-mentioned moderates. They aimed at what was not only useful but also attainable for Piedmont under the given conditions in Italy and Europe; the safety of their kingdom was to be achieved by a limited territorial conquest in northern Italy and its dominance over the rest of Italy in a confederation with other peninsular states. The Mazzinian vision of one republic was for them not only chimerical but also useless in this respect. In return they offered a more powerful Piedmont guarding

The Origins of the Moderate National Movement

125

the rest of Italy from the north, something that would cost them little but would still be attractive to other Italians. Fourth, the independence of Piedmont and Italy, regarded as one and the same thing, was prioritised to internal freedom. The moderates actually demanded political liberalisation not only to a very different level but often also to a severely limited one. Their moderation in internal politics was demonstrated by the low inclination towards liberalism among some of them as well as the respect they all had for Italian monarchs and other great powers since they wanted to cooperate with the former and not fight with all the latter.112 One of many who left the democratic republican position and joined the moderates in the 1840s, Pier Silvestro Leopardi, rejected the revolutionary conduct of Italian radicals because it had hitherto moved Italian rulers to search for foreign protectorates, undermining their own as well as the independence of the whole of Italy.113 There was another, fifth, common trait among the moderates: the conviction that the Italian Question was simultaneously a European one.114 This opinion has traditionally been clarified by the fact that the territorial changes in Italy depended on the expulsion of one great power and the acceptance of it by the others and, moreover, that a military clash between the Italians and Austrians could provoke a general war in Europe while, at the same time such a war could offer an opportunity to attack Austria. There is nothing wrong in this explanation except that it is incomplete: it was the mistrust of the whole European states system that made the moderates reason not only in an Italian but also in a European dimension. Their lack of faith in the security granted by the 1815 treaties led them not only to strive for a materially strong and united Italy but also to claim that if the same greed and arrogance continued to dominate the relations among European countries, all of them, including a united Italy, would have little chance for a peaceful and prosperous future. Consequently, confederation was just one of two crucial geopolitical security aims, the second one being the improvement of the whole system of European politics. At this point they differed again from Mazzini’s vision: they did not want to destroy the existing order completely but just reform it enough to bring more justice, stability and peace into European affairs. The overall scepticism regarding the basis on which relations among European countries were established was obviously caused by personal negative experience 112 Nicola Antonacci, “Centralismo e federalismo nell’Italia del XIX secolo: Una riflessione,” Scienza & Politica 15, 1996, pp. 24–25; Bagnoli, L’idea dell’Italia, pp. 326–27; Collier, Italian Unification, pp. 101–107; Croce, Geschichte Europas, p. 117; Antonio Gramsci, Die süditalienische Frage: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Einigung Italiens, Amsterdam 1971, p. 57; Harry Hearder, Cavour, London, New York 1994, pp. 42–46. 113 Garrone, Peruta, La stampa italiana del Risorgimento, p. 250. 114 Mario Albertini, “Idea nazionale e ideali di unità supernazionali,” pp. 698–99; Marziano Brignoli, Massimo d’Azeglio: Una biografia politica, Milano 1988, p. 112; Marco Soresina, Italy Before Italy: Institutions, Conflicts and Political Hopes in the Italian States, 1815–1860, London, New York 2018, p. 80.

126

The Public Response (1830–1846)

with international affairs after 1830 and particularly in 1840. Consequently, these affairs played an important, if not the crucial role in the formation of the moderate programme of Italian unity drafted by the men who “incidentally” came from the Italian country whose security was most endangered in late 1840. Vincenzo Gioberti was the first one who developed it with his Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani (On the Moral and Civil Primacy of the Italians) in 1843. The book was published in Brussels where Gioberti had lived for years and witnessed the Rhine Crisis, and one need not doubt its influence since he could hardly escape the debates about war, peace and Belgium’s neutrality. It probably was no accident that he later rejected neutrality because he regarded it as insufficient protection against external threats, an opinion shared by a considerable number of Belgians who wanted at least an armed neutrality.115 To live in Brussels during the Rhine Crisis meant to be close to the bellicose Parisian outcry. In August 1840 Gioberti had already expressed his distrust of France and her conduct towards Italy, an opinion he in no way abandoned during following years.116 In March 1841 when the crisis was virtually over, he felt that the situation in Europe forced Italy to seek greater external security. In a private letter to Giuseppe Massari he explained that the way to do this was a confederation of Italian countries: “They would benefit from uniting and making themselves stronger against foreign powers surrounding the peninsula.”117 The confederation would not only be a sufficient bulwark against the great powers but also the only feasible one owing to the expected opposition of Britain and France to the creation of one Italian nation state representing a new power threatening their maritime dominance in the Mediterranean Sea.118 Austria was not to be a member of this Italian confederation because she would dominate the others, and, furthermore, she was to abandon her Italian possessions from which she was able to jeopardise the other states. All this was to be achieved through peaceful negotiations at an international congress where Italian rulers would be backed by France, Britain and other Mediterranean countries, and the Viennese cabinet would be unable to oppose their joint diplomatic pressure, especially if it had been compensated somewhere else for the loss of Italian territory.119 Gioberti actually did not mention where, but it is certain that he meant the Balkans because he explicitly stated this possibility in another letter addressed to Terenzio Mamiani,120 and he indicat-

115 For Gioberti’s dislike of neutrality see the first volume of his Primato cited below. 116 Gioberti to Carlo Rapelli, Brussels, 14 August 1840, Giovanni Gentile (ed.), Vincenzo Gioberti: Epistolario, vol. 3, Firenze 1928, pp. 36–51. 117 Gioberti to Giuseppe Massari, Brusels, 23 March 1841, Gentile, Vincenzo Gioberti: Epistolario, vol. 3, p. 164. 118 Ibid., pp. 162–64. 119 Ibid., p. 165. 120 Montanelli, L’Italia del Risorgimento, p. 101.

The Origins of the Moderate National Movement

127

ed it in the above-mentioned letter to Massari in March, in which he also acknowledged that the change of status quo in Italy was dependent on the situation in the Ottoman Empire as well as the improvement of the whole European states system: “The only case in which this can happen is a revision of the treaties of Vienna, and the [creation of] a new European order more in line with the rights and natural state of nations. Such an order will certainly take place either by means of war or without war with the break-up of the Ottoman states, which does not seem so very long from now.”121 From his letter to Massari it is obvious that the Rhine and Near Eastern Crises had an immense impact on Gioberti’s assessment of the imminent break-up of the Ottoman Empire, his dislike of the post-Napoleonic states system and lack of confidence in the security of Italian countries and how all this materialised in his decision to advocate the idea of unity in public. This happened in his Primato, which he began writing in September 1842 and published in the following May. The fact that he reacted above all to international insecurity in his national aspirations is obvious from its Contents alone: two chapters of the first volume were entitled L’Europa attuale è in continuo stato di anarchia e di Guerra (The Constant State of Anarchy and War in Present-Day Europe) and La sicurezza e la prosperità d’Italia non si possono conseguire altrimenti che con un’ alleanza italica (The Necessity of an Italian Alliance for the Security and Prosperity of Italy).122 Then he went into detail in the following text claiming that during the previous three centuries Europe had found herself in an almost constant state of war and the present situation was not much better.123 Italy had often been the victim of her own disunity that made her weak and therefore not respected by other countries not only from a military but also political point of view. Consequently, if war cries arose anew in Europe as had happened in 1840, Italy would again be exposed to the nightmare of foreign invasions.124 This disconsolate state of affairs made finding a solution that would make Italy stronger and thereby more respected, thereby more secure and finally more independent in international affairs a matter of urgency. Gioberti was among the overwhelming majority of Italians including Mazzini who disliked the idea of robbing Peter to pay Paul: he did not want to win independence with foreign assistance because sometimes, as he claimed, a powerful friend was more dangerous than victorious enemy. Here he meant France as the traditional rival of Austria in Italy since the end of the 15th century. For evidence he turned to 1832 when “the French planted their hateful banner on the fort of Ancona” and “violated in 121 Gioberti to Giuseppe Massari, Brussels, 23 March 1841, Gentile, Vincenzo Gioberti: Epistolario, vol. 3, pp. 164–65. 122 Vincenzo Gioberti, Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani, vol. 1, Brusselle 1843, pp. 440–41. 123 Vincenzo Gioberti, Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani, vol. 2, Brusselle 1843, p. 349. 124 Ibid., pp. 386–87.

128

The Public Response (1830–1846)

the majesty of the Pontiff the independence of the nation and the dignity of every Italian prince.”125 Gioberti did not want to see a repeat of such a proceeding that was unacceptable among civilised nations.126 Then he went even further back in history and with his criticism of the negative impact of the Napoleonic Wars on Italian affairs he made it clear why the independence – security – of all Italy was so dear to him: “She saw her ravenous liberators come down from the Alps like a flock of rapacious birds or a pack of wolves, panting in hot pursuit of their prey: she saw them lay waste to her fields, plunder houses, shame women, desecrate churches, rob public treasuries, steal from alms boxes, squander and steal the marvels of the arts, violate her laws, ruin her traditions, break up her republics, overthrow her kingdoms, disperse her princes, squeeze the sweat, blood and tears out of her wretched people, leave brutal signs of lust and rage everywhere, violate consciences and all things sacred, put their infamous hands on the venerable head of the Church and the nation, make the peninsula a French province, and Rome (great sacrilege) a suburb of Paris.”127 The recent experience with the Rhine Crisis seemed to contribute a lot to his scepticism about the durability of peace128 and he did not doubt that “unfortunately the turbid and stormy times will return.”129 To avoid the repetition of foreign invasions with devastating effects for the sovereignty of Italian countries and the lives of their inhabitants, Italy had to become strong, and for this purpose Gioberti repeated his idea of March 1841 of establishing an Italian league in the form of a lasting confederation (i.e. the system of confederated states respecting the sovereignty of its members), peaceful in its nature but possessing a united navy and army strong enough to repel any attack.130 This was by far the best security option because the traditional political alliances were neither reliable nor long-lasting guaranties of safety and the same had to be said about neutralities which Gioberti considered to be worthless as the examples of the unhappy fate of Venice and Genoa in 1797 had shown.131 The only difference from his earlier private letter was that he neglected to mention the expulsion of the Austrians from Italy, and in fact he did not mention Austria at all. If his plan were accepted, Italy would no longer be an easy target for foreigners.132 However, for the overall stability, general peace and the security of all people Gioberti went even further with his vision when he saw the unity of Italy and Europe as interdependent, especially because he regarded Europe as Italy on 125 Gioberti, Primato, vol. 1, p. 48. 126 Ibid., p. 398. 127 Ibid., p. 48. 128 Ibid., pp. 106–107. 129 Ibid., p. 182. 130 Ibid., pp. 388, 407. 131 Ibid., pp. 92, 103–105. 132 Vincenzo Gioberti, Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani: Avvertenza per la seconda edizione, Losanna 1846, p. 49.

The Origins of the Moderate National Movement

129

a larger scale: a conglomerate of many countries needing a union uniting them all.133 That is why in his Primato he tried to answer the question of how to ensure it. From the position of a Catholic priest, he applied to Italy the concept of an Italian nation combined with Catholicism as the practical means with which to bring all the Italian rulers and their subjects together. Because of the split between the Catholics and Protestants he decided to use universal Christianity as a unifying force for all of Europe and, simultaneously, the means for revising the system of international relations since he did not trust the ability of classical diplomacy and armies to ensure durable peace; all that the treaties of Westphalia (1648) and Vienna (1815) had offered were mere truces. In his opinion, the present international politics was barbarous as evidenced in the example of the annihilation of Poland in the late 18th century,134 and he continued: “Europe, which continually speaks of good order, law and peace, is in a state of anarchy and continuous rancor and there is no justice for the people, except for a meaningless and deceptive shadow. The laws governing people, as taught and practiced from the time of Grotius to our own, can be compared to that of duelists: they cannot kill each other, except according to certain rules, and approach each other, speaking quietly, before reaching for their pistols or their swords. In this way the law, which links nations, governs only truces and battles and venerates the state of war, which certain philosophers agreeably call a state of nature. It [war] is inevitable in the present condition.”135 Consequently, the moral precepts of Christianity were to lay the foundation of a new more just and stable international order with a united Italy as one of its fundamental pillars.136 The principal problem of the Primato was the lack of any practical settlement of the Austrians’ withdrawal from Italy, as noticed by Luigi Carlo Farini in early 1844: “In fact the author speaks of a league of Italian princes, but does not mention Austria, which is the strongest Italian power. If Austria joins the league, goodbye nationhood; if it is rejected, goodbye peace. So I do not understand how nationhood and peace can be brought together in the proposed system.”137 This omission was soon remedied by Cesare Balbo who published Delle speranze d’Italia (On the Hopes of Italy) in the same year. Although influenced by Gioberti, he was politically more explicit when he proposed Austrian reorientation from Italy to the Balkans, where he expected the imminent fall of the Ottoman Empire and where Austria could be compensated for the surrender of her Italian provinces. Here he demonstrated a sound knowledge of Near Eastern affairs including the Germans’ 133 Gioberti, Primato, vol. 1, p. 274; Gioberti, Avvertenza per la seconda edizione, p. 67. 134 Gioberti, Primato, vol. 1, pp. 262–63. 135 Ibid., p. 264. 136 Ibid., p. 265. 137 Carlo Maria Fiorentino, “Torino e il Piemonte visti dallo Stato della Chiesa,” Umberto Levra (ed.), Il Piemonte alle soglie del 1848, Torino 1999, p. 789.

130

The Public Response (1830–1846)

aspirations on the Danube to its mouth in the Black Sea.138 As with Gioberti the impact of the last Near Eastern crisis on Balbo was obvious, but contrary to him Balbo proclaimed in public the idea of Austrian reorientation from Italy to the Balkans.139 As a member of a well-situated noble family serving the Piedmontese state he knew a great deal about international affairs, not only the second Turko-Egyptian war but also other incidents, which made him dislike the great powers, mistrust the whole states system and see the question of Piedmont’s independence as Gioberti did: as a matter of not only Italy but also Europe.140 In his opinion, both Piedmont and Italy lacked independence because they were not strong enough in a world where the more powerful nation was also the one who was “right” in international disputes. The Italians could not expect help from any great power, not even France and Great Britain because the French interests ended in the Alps after the conquest of Savoy and Nice and Britain was motivated only by her own commercial interests.141 Therefore, the Italians had to ensure justice for themselves by their own means, which meant changing the status quo in Italy even at the expense of the violation of the 1815 treaties, namely by the expulsion of the Austrians representing a security threat and the creation of an Italian confederation.142 Balbo even more than Gioberti emphasised the problem of material power with his reasoning on international law and claimed that it was this material power that was dominating international relations at that time.143 He was convinced that the Italians had to gain strength quickly because otherwise they could easily reach a hardly imaginable level of inferiority compared with other nations who were very active in their pursuit of power.144 For this reason he also called attention to the decline of power of the Austrian Empire and admired Piedmont for her ability to expel it and protect Italy – the latter he used for the legitimisation of the small kingdom’s future leadership in the Italian confederation.145 To achieve all these aims, he did not need Catholicism because the concept of an Italian nation sufficed to unite 23 million Italians and make them strong and independent.146 And a strong Italy, as he explicitly emphasised, meant not only united but also equipped with a strong army and war fleet.147

138 Cesare Balbo, Delle speranze d’Italia, the 2nd edition, Capolago 1844, pp. 148–60. 139 Ibid., pp. 189–92. 140 Ibid., p. 126. 141 Ibid., pp. 114–18. 142 Ibid., pp. 9–14. 143 Ibid., p. 222. 144 Ibid., p. 453. 145 Ibid., pp. 36, 47–50. 146 Ibid., pp. 101–102. 147 Ibid., pp. 209–17.

The Origins of the Moderate National Movement

131

Balbo’s regard for the existing international order with the distribution of power detrimental to the Italian states strongly convinced him that the future of Italy depended on the attitude of the great powers and the situation in Europe. Although he disliked the 1815 treaties, he understood that it would be difficult to revolt against them since that would mean going against not only Austria but also all the Concert members. This made him prefer a peaceful solution to war, but he was ready to accept the latter if an opportune moment occurred and saw in the Eastern Question not only a highly probable source of a general war but also a favourable occasion for the solution of the Italian Question.148 He took it for granted that such a war for whatever reason would occur sooner than later, a belief based on his pessimistic estimation of the unsettled situation of the current international order.149 The last of the “Holy Trinity” of the moderate movement was Piedmontese nobleman Massimo d’Azeglio. As far as it is possible to trust his memoirs, his inclination to geopolitical scepticism was discernable already in the early 1830s owing to the French July Monarchy’s assertive conduct in Italian affairs. He became convinced particularly after the occupation of Ancona that Italy should act on her own and not count on foreign help.150 Therefore, under the “given conditions of modern politics”151 Italy was to get rid of the great powers’ tutelage and became truly independent. This meant, as the first step, expelling Austria, and because Piedmont had the greatest forces for this task, other Italians were to support her and her hegemony in Italian affairs.152 Although no reaction of his to the Sulphur War or the Rhine Crisis has been found, regarding the comments of his relatives Costanza and Roberto on the latter at least the influence of the second affair on his worldview can hardly be doubted. To achieve all this, Azeglio used the Italian card for winning the support of the masses in the Papal States and Tuscany, which he visited in the mid 1840s.153 He spread Balbo’s theories to persuade local inhabitants that Charles Albert could defeat the Austrians. When he returned to Piedmont, he published in March 1846 his book Degli ultimi casi di Romagna (On Recent Events in Romagna) in which he followed Gioberti and Balbo in the protest against foreign interference, advocating Italian nationhood and independence, the former to win the latter.154 Much like his two predecessors he presented the problem of Italy within the wider context of the state of European politics and pointed out that he was doomed to live in a peri-

148 Niccolò Rodolico, Il Risorgimento vive, Palermo 1961, p. 138. 149 Ercole Ricotti, Della vita e degli scritti del conte Cesare Balbo, Firenze 1856, pp. 153, 214. 150 Massimo d’Azeglio, Recollections, vol. 2., London 1868, p. 350. 151 Ibid., p. 453. 152 Ibid., p. 451; Ronald Marshall, Massimo d’Azeglio: An Artist in Politics 1798–1866, London, New York, Toronto 1966, p. 81. 153 Massimo d’Azeglio, Recollections, pp. 460–63. 154 Massimo d’Azeglio, Degli ultimi casi di Romagna, Venezia 1848 (first published in 1846), p. 5.

132

The Public Response (1830–1846)

od when not generous ideas and justice but self-interest and material force decided the question of peace and wars and Italy suffered under the post-Napoleonic order that had been forced on her and was unable to ensure stable peace in Europe.155 The united masses of Italians, well aware of this, were needed to make changes in their insecure position in such a world and prepare for a big fight that would be carried out with two hundred thousand men and two hundred cannons because this and not the revolts of small groups gave hope for success in their struggle for the destruction of foreign hegemony.156 With Azeglio the programme of the moderates was formulated, and other Italian patriots were able to establish their own ideas on it. From among them two more must be mentioned: Cavour and Durando. Cavour was certainly affected by the Rhine Crisis because he witnessed it personally in its Parisian hotbed, where he was shocked with the French bellicosity and lost a large sum of money with his speculative operations at the stock exchange in the expectation of war.157 On 1 May 1846 he published his famous article on railways in Italy in the Parisian Revue nouvelle in which he claimed that Italy’s problems were primarily caused by foreign political influence against which the Italian states and people had to unite, particularly against Austria’s. Then he connected the construction of an Italian railway system with bringing people together and provoking in them the spirit of Italian nationhood that was necessary for achieving Italian independence.158 The need for unity and independence was also linked to strong criticism of the whole European states system as was usual for other Italian patriots: “The organisation that Italy obtained at the time of the Congress of Vienna was as arbitrary as it was defective. Not relying on any principle, no more on that of the legitimacy violated with regard to Genoa and Venice than on that of national interests or the will of people ... acting only by virtue of the right of the strongest, it erected a political structure devoid of any moral basis.”159 Cavour’s article was printed just a day before Charles Albert’s public appeal to his subjects during the salt-wine affair, which represented an important impetus for the growth of geopolitical security debates across Italy, as explained in detail in the following chapter. When the Piedmontese military officer, Giacomo Durando, wrote Della nazionalità italiana: Saggio politico-militare (On Italian Nationhood: A Political-Military Essay), this affair had already been in progress

155 Ibid., pp. 16–17. 156 Ibid., pp. 18–19, 100–101; Bagnoli, L’idea dell’Italia, p. 105. 157 Hearder, Cavour, p. 26; Rosario Romeo, Cavour e il suo tempo: Vol. 1: 1810–1842, Roma 2012, pp. 648–52; Adriano Viarengo, Cavour, Roma 2010, pp. 97–100; Paul Matter, Cavour et l’unité italienne, 1: avant 1848, Paris 1922, pp. 221–22. 158 “Des chemins de fer en Italie,” Carlo Pischedda, Giuseppe Talamo (eds), Tutti gli scritti di Camillo Cavour, II: 1835–1847, Torino 1976, p. 954. 159 Ibid., p. 951.

The Origins of the Moderate National Movement

133

a long time, but Durando’s book should be mentioned here since, first, there was an obvious continuity between his and the ideas of other moderates, second, the dispute about salt and wine did not seem to influence those introduced in his text, and, third, besides his extensive focus on international politics Durando attached great importance to geography. Following his predecessors Durando also contextualised Italy’s situation in a European framework in which he attacked the 1815 treaties as the principal cause of all evil.160 He accused the resulting international order of being a conquest based solely upon the right of the stronger and therefore just a temporary measure for settling European affairs. Since it was incompatible with Italy’s geographical needs, in other words security ensured by natural frontiers, that this order should be modified was for her a matter of not only justice but also necessity for her future survival.161 The ultimate goal was to make Italy “independent, strong and respected”162 to be more secure; to achieve it, it was necessary to take from the Austrians their Italian possessions.163 At this moment Durando faced the same problem as Balbo had two years earlier: an attack against Austria meant a violation of the public law of Europe.164 He posed the question: What would be the reaction of other countries in the event of a war between her and Italy? He concluded that it would provoke panic since it would be much closer to them than the war in the Ottoman Empire in 1840 that forced the large as well as small states to arm.165 Nevertheless, he did not expect them to help Austria, in particular if the Italians were not the aggressors. This condition was particularly important for the attitude of the German Confederation whose neutrality was vital for the Italians’ victory.166 That is why Durando did not reject war but claimed that it should be merely defensive.167 In this way Durando advocated respect for the 1815 treaties despite the fact that he disliked them.168 Austria had to start the conflict in which the Italians would be on the side of justice and right, and, if victorious, they could take Lombardy and Venetia by right of conquest.169 At this point he repeated Balbo’s conviction about a general war that was highly probable owing to the instability of the international order – one could break out at any moment owing to the affairs of the Near East, 160 Giacomo Durando, Della nazionalità italiana: Saggio politico-militare, Losanna 1846, pp. 21, 23, 29. 161 Ibid., pp. 259–66. 162 Ibid., p. 9. 163 Ibid., pp. 150, 240. 164 Ibid., pp. 29–43. 165 Ibid., p. 208. 166 Ibid., pp. 209–10, 255, 274. 167 Ibid., p. 239. 168 Ibid., pp. 44–45. 169 Ibid., pp. 52, 56.

134

The Public Response (1830–1846)

and he also saw in such a war an opportunity for Italy to attain her geopolitical aims.170 Like other moderates his geopolitical views were greatly influenced by the Eastern Question that made him believe that “all the questions of the East are connected to that of our national revival.”171 During such a war, Austrian military intervention outside her Italian domains was highly probable and if done so without the consent of local rulers, she would be breaking treaties and the Italians would have the right to expel her from the peninsula.172 Since he did not expect any support from other great powers including France and Britain, Italians would fight without foreign alliance, but considering Austria’s internal problems their victory was feasible.173 For that purpose the Italians had to prepare militarily on land as well as at sea, and an alliance was to be concluded between the two strongest Italian countries, Piedmont and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.174 These two also had to share the peninsula between them when the war was over simply because they possessed the greatest military means and were essential for Italy’s future security and, moreover, the division of the peninsula into two halves would not harm the balance of power in Europe so it would be acceptable to the great powers.175 Although the origin of political geography is generally associated with the rise of European imperialism at the end of the 19th century, it was no coincidence that the first indications of it occurred before 1848 with the rise of the geopolitical security debates within the Italian national movement. Since sovereignty was a legal and geography a physical guarantee of the state’s political existence, the idea of a united Italy and her position in Europe vis-à-vis other countries was also linked with geographical considerations of the territorial delimitation of an Italian confederation or republic. Unsurprisingly, this fuelled the rise of geography as a science.176 In 1844 and 1845 a leading Italian geographer Count Annibale Ranuzzi published his Annuario geografico italiano to educate Italians about geography and turn their attention to Italy’s “lost power and past greatness,”177 which shows that even geography was influenced by the widespread regard for material power. The same was inherent in the ideas of Durando who was later labelled as “a fore 170 Ibid., p. 375; Mario G. Losano, “Alle origini della geopolitica italiana: Il generale Giacomo Durando (1807–1894) dal ‘2.º Regimento da Rainha’ al risorgimento italiano,” Estudos Italianos em Portugal 6, 2011, pp. 58–62. 171 Durando, Della nazionalità italiana, p. 285. 172 Ibid., pp. 166–67. 173 Ibid., pp. 199–205, 267, 350, 367–77. 174 Ibid., pp. 219–23. 175 Ibid., pp. 275, 325–28, 277–78. 176 Federico Ferretti, “Inventing Italy: Geography, Risorgimento and national imagination: the international circulation of geographical knowledge in the nineteenth century,” The Geographical Journal 180, 2014, 4, pp. 402–13. 177 Annuario geografico italiano, 1844, p. 6.

The Origins of the Moderate National Movement

135

runner of Geopolitik”.178 He was not a professional geographer but his importance for the geographical aspect of the geopolitical security debates cannot be underestimated: in his book he based his visions of Italy’s political reorganisation on a strong regard for geography and he even used the new term “geostrategic system” (sistema geo-strategico), in a sense greatly resembling the later coined term “geopolitics”.179 From personal correspondence, memoirs and of course political writing it is obvious how much the Italian moderates reflected in their national programme on the state of European politics in general and some international affairs in particular. They simultaneously reveal an obvious tendency to pragmatism and greater realism in the effort to find the desired solution for Piedmont and with this also for all of Italy. They had already learnt that might is right and even though they criticised this modus operandi, they shaped their moderate national programme accordingly, and they were also willing to act ruthlessly to attain the desired goals although this tendency was neither outspoken nor intentional at the beginning. In short, they believed in the usefulness of international law, but they decided to make military power numero uno since relations among the countries like the method of solving the Italian Question were primarily perceived from the basis of armed force and actually required a practical solution.180 To understand the moderates’ pragmatism it is necessary to see the whole problem as they did: primarily not from an Italian but from a Piedmontese perspective. For them it was above all their native kingdom that was endangered, and the expulsion of the Austrians and the creation of an Italian confederation with the Sardinian king as the leader was the way to improve its position and justify its territorial conquest, while the unifying concept of an Italian nation was a means to find allies among other Italian rulers and people. Even Gioberti was not as utopian as he was believed to have been in the past: his idea that the Catholic faith should be a means of uniting Italians served the same interest as the use of the concept of an Italian nation: it was to help form a solid alliance of people and their princes living in a territory demarcated by the mountains and sea and forming a common space not only because of a perceived cultural kinship but predominantly also because of identical negative experiences with the outside world. In this unity the necessary strength was to be found and everything that served this purpose was positive.181 178 Sereni, The Italian Conception of International Law, p. 160. 179 Durando, Della nazionalità italiana, p. 72. See also Ferruccio Botti, “Il concetto di geostrategia e una sua applicazione alla nazionalità italiana nelle teorie del generale Giacomo Durando,” Informazioni della difesa, 1994, 3, pp. 51–62. 180 Traniello, Sofri, Der lange Weg zur Nation, p. 93. 181 Bruce Haddock, “Political Union without Social Revolution: Vincenzo Gioberti’s Primato,” The Historical Journal 41, 1998, 3, pp. 709–13, 717. Everything meant also historical reminiscences offering many examples of foreign interference and less numerous ones when the Italians successfully joined against foreign invaders in alliances like the Lombard League, the

136

The Public Response (1830–1846)

As he wrote on page 35 of the first volume of the Primato, this was nothing other than “the application of realism”.182 The use of Catholicism for this tactical rapprochement led Gioberti to promote the pope as an ideological Italian leader, but even here he came close to other moderates including Balbo who countered with the promotion of the Sardinian king. This was a minor difference of opinion for Gioberti, who as expressed in the Primato already regarded Charles Albert as the principal guardian of all Italy due to Piedmont’s military strength and her strategic geographical position at the foot of the Alps and between France and Austria representing the two most immediate security threats; this made the king the co-leader alongside the pope.183 Gioberti also shared the sense for the need of material power and although Balbo and Durando laid even greater emphasis on it, fundamentally all the moderates inclined to the same realism in their approach towards international affairs. A so to speak geopolitical perspective confirms the conclusions of historians who regarded Cavour and his compatriots of the 1840s as realists in politics (Realpolitiker)184 or, as one historian labelled Durando, even “cold realist[s]” resulting from the way they evaluated power.185 Durando himself labelled the moderates as “rationalists” (razionalisti).186 The moderates demonstrated their realism not only in their response to the existing international order but also in their approach towards the Italian public: they offered a less radical programme than Mazzini and one therefore also more acceptable to the masses, and they calculated that independence had great potential for them to win broad public support. However, all this still does not explain why men like Gioberti, Balbo and Azeglio actually won the support of the masses in the

twelfth-century alliance of the cities in northern and central Italy and the pope against Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and interpreted as an example of national unity giving the necessary strength against foreign oppression. Although very popular among the public, the historical examples seemed to be merely instrumental as were the concepts of an Italian nation or Catholicism and could hardly be successful in themselves without the Italians’ actual dislike of the state of international relations. On the other hand, the rise of international insecurity in the 1840s could help to explain the popularity of these historical events concerning the fight against foreigners. Monika Flacke (ed.), Mythen der Nationen: Ein europäisches Panorama, Berlin, München 2001, p. 211; Peter Herde, Guelfen und Neoguelfen: Zur Geschichte einer nationalen Ideologie vom Mittelalter zum Risorgimento, Stuttgart 1986, pp. 61, 71–73; David Laven, “The Lombard League in Nineteenth-Century Historiography, c.1800–c.1850,” Stefan Berger, Chris Lorenz (eds), Nationalizing the Past: Historians as Nation Builders in Europe, Basingstoke 2010, pp. 358–83. 182 Gioberti, Primato, vol. 1, p. 35. 183 Ibid., p. 125. 184 Bosworth, Italy, p. 2; Cassels, Ideology and International Relations, pp. 70–71. 185 Ludo M. Hartmann, 100 Jahre italienischer Geschichte 1815–1915, München 1916, pp. 116– 28; Franco Valsecchi, L’Italia del Risorgimento e l’Europa delle nazionalità: L’unificazione italiana nella politica europea, Milano 1978, p. 30. 186 Durando, Della nazionalità italiana, p. 402.

The Origins of the Moderate National Movement

137

mid 1840s, especially when their ideas were not quite so original as is possible to illustrate with the example of the book Indépendance de l’Italie: Moyen de l’établir dans l’intérêt général de l‘Europe (The Independence of Italy: Ways to Establish It in the General Interest of Europe) published in Paris in 1829.187 Its author, Piedmontese exile Giovanni Battista Marochetti, claimed in the expectation of the fall of the Ottoman Empire that Austria would exchange her Italian provinces for Balkan regions. Piedmont was to obtain not only Lombardy and Venetia but also the Swiss Canton of Ticino to improve her role as guardian of the Alps against Austria and France, and for the same reason an Italian confederation was to be established by all Italian princes. These measures would improve Italy’s position in Europe where the countries of the second and third order suffered under the great powers’ dictatorship – in his opinion in 1815 Europe merely gained five tyrants instead of one, Napoleon I – and this would also contribute to peace and justice in the relations among all Christian countries.188 Unsurprisingly, Marochetti’s ideas inspired Balbo and he did not even conceal this fact. Nevertheless, although both books were published outside Italy, only Balbo’s Speranze found a strong and positive response from the Italian masses while Marochetti’s Indépendance fell into oblivion. One must of course admit that the latter was written in a foreign language, but the widespread knowledge of French in aristocratic and the educated bourgeois society and its similarity to Italian does not offer a clear reason for this. What seems to be the most logical explanation is that the atmosphere in Italian society had changed since the late 1820s, which could have many reasons but one of them was particularly important: the impact of international affairs from 1840 with a significant double effect. First, they motivated the moderates to advocate their visions and, second, they prepared the public to adopt them – they increased Italians’ sensitivity to foreign interference by persuading them that the state of European politics was in such poor condition that the same interference could occur more often and with many disastrous consequences for not only their rulers but also themselves. This made a considerable number of them prefer independence, in other words external security, to internal freedom, which seemed to confirm the validity of what American statesman Alexander Hamilton had claimed in 1787 about the desire for safety from external danger as “the most powerful director of national conduct” when liberty had to give way to security because to be safer people were ready “to run the risk of being less free.”189

187 Giovanni Battista Marochetti, Indépendance de l’Italie: Moyen de l’établir dans l’intérêt général de l’Europe, considéré spécialement sous le point de vue de l’équilibre politique, Paris 1829, p. 129. 188 Ibid., pp. vi–viii, 13–21, 44–46, 48, 60, 73–75, 106–107. 189 Edward Mead Earle, “Adam Smith, Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich List: The Economic Foundations of Military Power,” Edward Mead Earle (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler, Princeton 1943, pp. 117–18.

138

The Public Response (1830–1846)

Hamilton’s remark can surely be regarded as exaggerated, but it was not only Italians who discussed the importance of security over liberty at that time: the Germans did the same, although strictly speaking they debated whether it was better to have freedom without unity as Karl von Rotteck claimed or unity without freedom as was argued by Johann August Georg Wirth.190 It was symbolic that Rotteck died in late 1840, just when unity seemed to have won the upper hand in Germany, which it did in the Italian moderate movement during the following years. This preference was expressed by Balbo with the words taken from the New Testament porro unum est necessarium, which also well summarised the main idea of his Speranze.191 He claimed in 1846 that “independence should have been the first and only aim of the Italians”192 and to Gioberti’s desire for Italy’s supremacy reacted with these laconic words proving the geopolitical meaning of independence: “Before attaining primacy we would like to attain parity; and . . . the first form of parity with independent nations is independence.”193 Not only Balbo but also the other moderates made the question of independence an absolute priority. In 1848 Gioberti echoed this sentiment when he stated that “liberty is a nice thing but national independence is much better: the former brings a nation happiness, the latter gives it a name, an existence, life.”194 The same explanation was given by Giorgio Pallavicino in 1851 that “first independence, then liberty: first I want to live; then I will think about living well.”195 Since Piedmont with her soldiers and cannons could ensure independence, Pallavicino became a Piedmontese, and because Piedmont was a monarchy, he was against a republic. His emphasis on Piedmont’s military power fitted well with the Italians’ increased concern for the practical considerations of armed force.196 The evidence for this can be found first in the simple fact that the moderate national programme subordinating liberty to independence quickly won massive support,197 and, second in written testimonies. In May 1848 Costanza d’Azeglio expressed herself in the style of Wirth preferring to be independent without good institutions than to have Reinhard Voß, Der deutsche Vormärz in der französischen „öffentlichen Meinung“: Die Verfassungskämpfe in Norddeutschland und das französische Deutschlandbild (1837–1847), Frankfurt am Main, Bern, Las Vegas 1977, p. 168. 191 Cesaro Balbo, Pensieri ed esempi: Opera postuma di Cesare Balbo, Firenze 1856, p. 387; Ricotti, Della vita e degli scritti del conte Cesare Balbo, pp. 99, 138; Luigi Ambrosini, Cronache del Risorgimento, Bologna 1972, pp. 104–105; Luigi Salvatorelli, Il pensiero politico italiano dal 1700 al 1870, Torino 1935, pp. 259–60. 192 Cesare Balbo, Sommario della storia d’Italia, Firenze 1856 (first edition in 1846), p. 458. 193 Moe, The View from Vesuvius, p. 22. 194 Niccolò Rodolico, Carlo Alberto negli anni di regno 1843–1849, Firenze 1943, p. 41. 195 Giorgio Pallavicino, Memorie, vol. 2, Torino 1886, p. 438. 196 Ibid.; Raymond Grew, A Sterner Plan for Italian Unity: The Italian National Society in the Risorgimento, Princeton 1963, p. 10. 197 Giampietro Berti, “I moderati e il neoguelfismo,” Il movimento nazionale e il 1848, Milano 1986, pp. 243–47. 190

The Origins of the Moderate National Movement

139

these institutions without independence, and she was convinced that “many people are of this opinion here [in Turin].”198 Her brother-in-law, Massimo d’Azeglio, shared Balbo’s porro unum est necessarium199 and emphasised in his memoirs that during the 1840s “questions about the form of government, the exclusiveness of secret societies did not seem to interest anyone, and everything disappeared or was silenced in the presence of the other idea – a general redemption of the peoples of the Peninsula from the yoke of the foreigner.”200 Although Azeglio’s claim that no one was interested in the form of government must be taken with a pinch of salt, there was much validity in it as other primary sources, like the free press first introduced in 1847–1848, prove that the dominant political aim and simultaneously the principal driving force behind the spread of the idea of an Italian nation was independence.201 The support of independence was so widespread that it even included the Catholic clergy, which also explains how this idea could be preached to illiterate lower classes. While the role of clergymen in the rise of anti-Austrian moods after the accession of Pius IX in 1846 has already been analysed, the report of the French consul in Ancona from 1845 shows that the priests’ Italian patriotism had existed even earlier: “If one reflects on it, the role of the priest has been the strongest shield of national independence until now: the Roman [Catholic] priest is neither French nor Austrian, he is, remains and will always remain Italian and Roman and, remarkably, although hostile today to any spirit of freedom and progress, in case of need one will find him without any doubt if not one of the most active and energetic defenders then at least one of the most constant and patient protectors, one of the strongest supporters of Italian independence.”202 The fact that the moderates remained restrained on the issue of internal modernisation but strict on that of external security made them not only popular among many Italians but also acceptable to those who continued to have different constitutional views on the very left as well as the very right of the political spectrum.203 That is not to say that such a symbiosis ever happened but at least they made one feasible with their emphasis on the common need for security from the outside world, and they were well aware of it. Azeglio stated that the “cause of independence” was “more powerful to bring together and strengthen a nation than the cause of institutions and freedom.”204 198 Costanza d’Azeglio to Emanuele d’Azeglio, 27 May 1848, Chiarito, Costanza d’Azeglio, p. 874. 199 Eugenio di Carlo, Lettere inedite di Cesare Balbo e Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio, Palermo 1921, p. 11. 200 Massimo d’Azeglio, Recollections, pp. 487–88. 201 Spencer M. Di Scala, Italy: From Revolution to Republic: 1700 to the Present, Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford 1995, pp. 71–72. 202 Armand Duauly to Guizot, Ancona, 5 November 1845, AMAE, CPC, Rome 1. 203 Clara M. Lovett, The Democratic Movement in Italy 1830–1876, Cambridge 1982, p. 28. 204 Claudio Gigante, “La nazione necessaria: Massimo d’Azeglio e il diritto di unirsi ovvero di dividersi,” Between 2, 2012, 3, p. 9.

140

The Public Response (1830–1846)

It was simply because the moderates’ vision of Italy’s future was an expression of a widely shared geopolitical opinion rather than a strictly delimited political movement that enabled a considerable number of people to identify with its principal aims. The Austrian representative in Florence was certainly correct when he wrote in March 1846 that Azeglio’s Degli ultimi casi di Romagna with its principal appeal against foreign oppression offered “a reasoning easily grasped by all classes of society.”205 It was exactly why the moderate programme as a whole quickly won considerable support and decisive superiority over republican centralism among both the Italians living at home and in exile.206 Originally a republican, Giuseppe La Farina was ready to accept it because “in any case, I am for unity first of all because for me Italy must exist ... if we could only have unity without a republic, or a republic without unity, I would prefer unity to a republic ... A republic is for me the way to exist, and unity means to exist.”207 There were just rare exceptions like the Milanese democratic cosmopolite Carlo Cattaneo who unambiguously preferred liberty to independence: he also observed international affairs and was sceptical of the great powers’ policies but did not want to contribute to the deterioration in relations among the nations and for a long time preferred political modernisation in Lombardy under Austrian domination.208 Mazzini was cast in a different mould from Cattaneo. Despite his sincere desire for internal freedom, he hungered more for independence and he was therefore ready to accept a tactical rapprochement with the moderates at least before the Austrians were expelled from the peninsula. In 1831 he wrote a letter to Charles Albert demanding that he liberate Italy from Austria’s yoke and help her reach the power needed to get rid of all foreign tyranny; nationhood was to give the king the necessary power, not international protocols. In such a case Mazzini was willing to agree with the concept of a unified Italian kingdom. Although he later claimed that he wanted to show the Italians that Charles Albert was unfit to be a national leader, most likely he had faith in the king on the issue of national independence. That is why he also did not oppose him when the Piedmontese army invaded Lombardy in March 1848; in fact, he was even ready to support him against Austria under certain conditions.209

205 Neumann to Metternich, Florence, 17 March 1846, HHStA, StA, Toskana 66. 206 G. Gallavresi, Quattro anni di attività giornalistica della Principessa Cristina Trivulzio di Belgioioso (1845–1848), Milano 1926, p. 44; Adolfo Omodeo, Die Erneuerung Italiens und die Geschichte Europas, 1700–1920, Zürich 1951, p. 468. 207 Ausonio Franchi, Epistolario di Giuseppe La Farina, vol. 1, Milano 1869, p. LXVI. 208 Ugo Dotti, I dissidenti del risorgimento: Cattaneo, Ferrari, Pisacane, Roma 1981, p. 4; Filippo Sabetti, Civilization and Self-Government: The Political Thought of Carlo Cattaneo, Lanham 2010, p. 191. 209 Mazzini to Charles Albert, 1831, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti politici, pp. 143–63; Finocchiaro, Giuseppe Mazzini, p. 131.

The Origins of the Moderate National Movement

141

What could also have made the understanding between Mazzini and the moderates easier was their agreement that the Italian Question was a European one. He repeated in 1845 his earlier conviction that all of Europe bore most of the responsibility for Italy’s bondage, the fact that she had not reached the desired state of “security, peace, independence,”210 and for tolerating the existing status quo in the Apennines.211 However, he still attacked the existing states system or, rather traditional diplomacy and the old international law with reference to its general injustice but without specific reference to the violations of law and war scares since 1815.212 Contrary to the moderates, his geopolitical deliberations were less political-legal, but at least he also criticised the legacy of the Congress of Vienna and the tyranny of all the great powers based on the 1815 treaties; and he wanted to change this system, although in a more fundamental way by destroying it completely and then radically redrawing the map of Europe on national principles instead of partial improvements.213 Mazzini had thus already shown a preference for independence before the outbreak of the 1848 revolutions, something that an uknown author signed as “A Traveller in Italy” recalled in The Times on 2 December 1855 writing that as an eyewitness he had heard “a speech made by Mazzini, when Triumvir at Rome, in which he said – ‘The Constitutionalists of Piedmont and the Republicans of Rome are brothers; the only real distinction of parties which can ever exist among Italians is between those who desire the independence of their country and those who do not.’ This speech was applauded throughout Italy and found an echo in the breast of every patriot. It should always be borne in mind that the question has never arisen among the Italians whether constitutional monarchy or republicanism was, abstractedly, the best form of government; they have been judged of as a means rather than an end. The object to be obtained was the national independence, for, that once achieved, all knew that free institutions of some sort must follow.”214 The issue of the future international order was marginal for Mazzini’s relationship with the moderates. A wider gap lay between them in the question of Italy’s future political form. While the moderates claimed that one republic was incompatible with her traditions and therefore would make her weak, Mazzini countered with exactly the same argument for a confederation: its member states would be mutually jealous and less effective against foreign invasion or influence than a 210 Giuseppe Mazzini, Italien, Österreich und der Papst: Ein Brief an Sir James Graham, Bern 1847 (first published in English in 1845), p. 66. 211 Ibid., p. 8. 212 Ibid., pp. 82–84. 213 Ibid., pp. 121–28. 214 “A Traveller in Italy,” The Times, 2 December 1855, p. 12. It can be regarded as symptomatic for the whole issue of independence that in the following summer the same author published an article entitled The Balance of Power in which he sharply criticised the post-Napoleonic system of international relations. The Times, 18 August 1855, p. 6.

142

The Public Response (1830–1846)

single strong nation state; Switzerland which had been exposed to the great powers’ pressure for years served him as sufficient evidence.215 More important in this dispute, however, is the fact that both sides perceived the problem from the perspective of power and external danger: stronger made safer. For Mazzini material strength was all the more important since there were “really only two alternatives to consider: either to succeed in getting to the top of the European structure, or to sink to a power of the third order.”216 Another antifederalist, Count Giuseppe Ricciardi di Camaldoli, saw it in the same way when he claimed that “the primary purpose of the unity that I envisage is to make the country strong in the face of foreigners, and in war as well as in peace; in war, to make it impossible for them to violate our soil, in peace, to defend our interests and our rights against all their greed or injustice.”217 Ultimately, Mazzini stated in April 1846 that he had to bow, albeit temporarily, under the strength of the moderate federalist movement, and of course he did so in order to achieve Italian independence.218 The impact of international affairs on the origin of the moderates’ programme is obvious. That the massive popular support was won due to them is probable although not conclusive owing to the lack of direct evidence; however, it is possible to deduce this from the Italians’ immediate response to the wars and crises of 1840, their retrospectively negative attitude towards the occupation of Ancona as well as their later hostile reactions to international events from 1846 to 1848. Where it is impossible to deny these affairs a positive role was in the understanding that the moderates reached with some conservative members of the ruling elite. The mistrust of the great powers, the loss of faith in the strength of the written law and the emphasis placed on material power – all these were attitudes common to the two groups, and the way both groups arrived at them was also almost identical. The only important difference was that the rulers and their ministers and diplomats had already reached these positions in the 1830s while the moderates did not do so until the following decade. What both groups objected to above all was what can be summarised by the introduction to Guglielmo Pepe’s L’Italia militare (Military Italy) published already in Paris 1836: “Small countries have only nominal independence, and their princes are but satellites subordinated to some great powers.”219 Therefore, both were ready to use the “Italian” card for a kind of rapprochement between the 215 Apostolato popolare, no. 12, 31 September 1843, pp. 97–98; Giuseppe Mazzini, “Istruzione generale per gli affratellati nella Giovine Italia,” 1831, “I collaboratori della Giovine Italia ai loro concittadini,” 1832, “Simbolo politico della Giovine Italia,” 1843, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti politici, pp. 167, 288–93, 555, 558; Stuart Woolf, The Italian Risorgimento, London, Harlow 1969, p. 49. 216 Giuseppe Mazzini, Italien, Österreich und der Papst, p. 127. 217 Bagnoli, L’idea dell’Italia, p. 101. 218 Peruta, L’Italia del Risorgimento, p. 171. 219 Guglielmo Pepe, L’Italia militare, Parigi 1836, s.p.

The Origins of the Moderate National Movement

143

princes: Ferdinand II’s project for the league of Italian rulers or the Sardinian court’s search for support against Austria, and the moderates with their federalist project. Since this project offered more external security while leaving the monarchic power almost intact, the moderates’ texts were not only tacitly tolerated but also appreciated by the Italian rulers.220 Not only Charles Albert in Turin but also the queen mother in Naples read the Primato and both liked it for its principal idea of getting rid of the foreigners.221 The same holds for other conservatives in both cities: although satisfied with the suppression of the early 1820s revolutions, they disliked Austria and lamented the weakness of their own governments and their dependence on foreign support222 and, consequently, they liked the work of Gioberti and his followers. Metternich, standing on the other side of the political barricade, understood very well why the moderates’ programme was so dangerous for Austria. It could easily find a positive response among the members of the Italian ruling elite because “the parties which revive [the idea of] the unity and independence of Italy excite against us minds which are easy to direct against foreign influence. Governments themselves, although Austria has restored them and rescued them from three revolutions and still supports their existence, these governments, on the other hand, have had difficulty admitting the gratitude that they owe us. Behind the adulations and the flattery of the Italian governments, they hide (and sometimes rather badly) the jealousy that Austria inspires in them, the fear that she would want to encroach on their independence, the suspicion that she is aiming at enlarging herself at their expense. The states are afraid of us without being able to exist without our support. Weak as they are, sometimes they see and even encourage the animosity of the Italians against the German court with a secret pleasure.”223 The rapprochement between the moderate leaders and Charles Albert was the most intensive one, a logical outcome of, first, their common Piedmontese origin and shared primary goal of ensuring the security of their kingdom, and, second, a similar highly negative estimation of the existing international order that with the creation of the moderate programme offered a kind of déjà vu. The king’s sympathies were even more predetermined because after 1840 new affairs occurred which increased his feeling of insecurity and simultaneously his dislike of Austria. The best known is his desire to construct a railway between Genoa and 220 Carlo Ghisalberti, “Einheitsstaat und Föderalismus in Italien,” Oliver Janz, Pierangelo Schiera, Hannes Siegrist (eds), Zentralismus und Föderalismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Deutschland und Italien im Vergleich, Berlin 2000, pp. 69–78; Haddock, “Political Union without Social Revolution,” p. 720. 221 Luigi Negri (ed.), Opere scelte di Luigi Settembrini, Torino 1955, pp. 179–80; Vidal, CharlesAlbert, pp. 105–20; Rodolico, Carlo Alberto negli anni di regno 1843–1849, p. 35. 222 Friedrich von Raumer, Italien: Beiträge zur Kenntnis dieses Landes. Zweiter Theil, Leipzig 1840, p. 490. 223 Metternich to Schnitzer, Vienna, 9 June 1844, HHStA, StA, Toskana 64.

144

The Public Response (1830–1846)

southern Germany over the territory of Piedmont and some Swiss cantons, an endeavour aimed at the improvement of the kingdom’s wealth and commercial importance in Europe. Since Austria was said to want to prevent this project, the government in Turin as well as the moderates regarded it as a security threat. The latter then turned it into an affair of pan-Italian importance since they claimed that Austria’s conduct was hostile not just to one country but all of Italy.224 Another affair less known today but still very important for shaping Charles Albert’s attitude was the negotiation about territorial changes related to Tuscany, Modena, Parma and Lucca at a secret conference in Florence in 1843–1844. They had nothing to do with Piedmont, but the king forced the negotiators to accept him as a contracting party because he regarded the affair as a matter of the kingdom’s security: he feared that Austria would gain Pontremoli by which Piedmont would be encircled and cut off from central Italy.225 He wrote to the Tuscan grand duke in November 1843 that “to see myself almost completely surrounded by such a great power on all the borders of Italy is absolutely against the interests of my country.”226 Regarding all this, it is easier to understand Charles Albert’s inclination to see Austria as an unfriendly neighbour, and his resulting oversensitive reactions to everything that he regarded as incompatible with his sovereign rights, like the affair in Castelletto Ticino in 1843 when an Austrian officer forced the local major to release several Austrian soldiers imprisoned for inappropriate behaviour, which upset the king so much that he angrily wrote to Villamarina that he would not mind launching an attack to Lombardy.227 This anger reveals the king’s increasing animosity towards Austria, contributing to the process started in the previous decade: his readiness to cooperate with other Italian rulers against her. As he wrote to Solaro in August 1843, three months after the Primato had been published: “I think that the papal government should, like ours, do everything possible to free itself from the German yoke. We must strive with all our efforts to achieve Italian independence … If [the government] in Rome has high-level political ideas, they can unite with us and in time we can achieve great things for the independence and the good fortune of our states.”228 The identical geopolitical apprehensions and interests enabled the conservative king and the more or less liberal minded moderates to find common ground, especially if their views were very similar in their details. For example, Charles Albert and Solaro easily agreed with the moderates on the negative consequences

224 Paul Mechtler, “Die österreichische Eisenbahnpolitik in Italien (1835–1866),” Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchivs 14, 1961, pp. 176–77; Rodolico, Carlo Alberto negli anni di regno 1843–1849, pp. 87–89. 225 Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, pp. 295–96; Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, p. 179. 226 Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, p. 297. 227 Notario, Nada, Il Piemonte sabaudo, p. 270; Daniela Orta, Le piazze d’Italia 1846–1849, Torino 2008, p. 89. 228 Omodeo, Difesa del risorgimento, p. 228.

The Origins of the Moderate National Movement

145

of the destruction of the Republic of Venice in 1797 and her annexation by Austria that survived 1815 and was seen, together with Austrian presence in Lombardy, as “flagrant oppression”,229 or on the idea of Austria’s territorial recompense at the expense of the Ottoman Empire since Charles Albert and his ministers had contemplated the possibility of the exchange of Moldavia and Wallachia for Lombardy and Venetia since the early 1830s.230 It was, of course, more important that both sides were ready to exploit the concept of an Italian nation for security aims in a more or less identical way. Already around 1840 by the latest Charles Albert and those surrounding him contemplated the reinforcement of their position through the strength of public opinion not merely in Piedmont but also in the rest of Italy by relying on pan-Italian solidarity in the common desire to attain independence from European powers in general and Austria in particular. The king personally expressed his belief in the Italians’ support during the Rhine Crisis when he was dissatisfied with Austria’s backing against France, and he continued to nurture his faith in the crowds of Italian volunteers coming to fight on his side.231 Consequently, although he certainly was not an Italian nationalist, he saw Italian and pro-Sardinian national spirit less as a threat to his throne and more as “one of the greatest forces of our country”232 for achieving his geopolitical designs at Austria’s expense, and it was quite unimportant that his foreign policy was first and foremost Piedmontese because such was also the motivation of the moderates.233 Enmity to Austria as well as loss of faith in the European states system thus became a platform on which Italian patriots and Charles Albert could unite and reach a mutually profitable alliance. The moderates’ backing could provide the king with not only the legitimisation of his territorial conquest but also popular support in an eventual war with the Austrian Empire, whose population was almost six times larger than Piedmont’s. In brief: the moderates made the practical exploration of the concept of an Italian nation by the Sardinian government feasible. On the other hand, the king’s support enabled the transformation of Turin into the centre of the moderate movement, criticising both Austria and the Viennese settlement and demanding the expulsion of the former and the revision of the latter. That is why before 1848 it was difficult to find a republican pamphlet in Piedmont (as well as in other Italian states) while the texts of Azeglio, Balbo and Gioberti circulated almost freely.234 229 Solaro to Sambuy, 8 October 1835, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie II, 18; Gentile, Carlo Alberto, p. 131. 230 Gentile, Carlo Alberto, pp. 43, 95, 135, 145; Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, p. 179. 231 Gentile, Carlo Alberto, pp. 166, 174. 232 Rodolico, Carlo Alberto negli anni di regno 1843–1849, p. 52. 233 Simioni, Carlo Alberto, p. 388. 234 Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, pp. 291, 309–10; Anthony L. Cardoza, Geoffrey W. Symcox, A History of Turin, Torino 2006, p. 176; Wilhelm Deutsch, Das Werden des italienischen Staates: Der Sieg der italienischen Einigungsbewegung im XIX. Jahrhundert, Wien 1936, p. 63; Filippo Mazzo-

146

The Public Response (1830–1846)

In the course of time Charles Albert displayed his sympathies more and more obviously. In 1844 he issued a medal with his own likeness on one side and a lion with the Savoyan coat-of-arms crushing an eagle on the other one, the eagle obviously symbolising Austria while the lion represented either Piedmont or Italy, since the names of four Italians (but not Piedmontese) were engraved on the medal: Dante, Galileo, Colombo and Rafael. An inscription in French was added which read “I await my star”.235 On 12 October of the following year when Massimo d’Azeglio told him about the strength of Piedmont and that it should be exploited at an opportune moment like a war in Europe, the king surprised Massimo with his famous answer about his willingness to sacrifice himself and his sons for the Italian cause.236 He explicitly declared: “Tell those fellows that they must keep quiet for the present because nothing can yet be done; but they may rest assured that, when the occasion comes, my life and the lives of my sons, my arms, my gold, my troops – nay, my all will be spent in the cause of Italy.”237 At that time Charles Albert was really ready to exploit Austria’s internal problems and an eventual conflict in Europe for his own territorial conquest in northern Italy.238 Their similar opinions of the post-Napoleonic states system and their own position towards Austria and the other great powers made if not an alliance then at least a tacit understanding between Charles Albert and the moderate patriots possible before 1846. After 1830 international affairs played an important role in this respect: they convinced both parties that something had to be done for the external security of Piedmont, which for many also meant Italy, which was regarded as threatened from abroad and in no way shielded by the precepts of the European public law. This antipathy towards the Austrian Empire and scepticism of the European states system were to significantly increase in Piedmont and throughout Italy during 1846 and helped spread the popularity of the moderates’ vision of Italy’s federal future.

nis, La Monarchia e il Risorgimento, Bologna 2003, p. 33. What also contributed to the good relationship between Charles Albert and the moderates was the fact that the latter pushed the issue of a liberal constitution to the background for the time being. This fact is too well known to be described here in detail, but it is useful to emphasise an interesting fact that the king argued against the necessity to promulgate a constitution in his kingdom with the same security considerations used by Mazzini on a greater scale against Italian federalism, namely that it would divide the Italians and make them weaker against foreign threats. In late 1835 Charles Albert stated in this respect that “a constitution is not for us. Placed as we are between two great powers, France and Austria, it would soon happen that some of the members of parliament would be won over by one or the other. The secrets of the state would soon be disclosed and see what that would do for our independence.” Gentile, Carlo Alberto, p. 132. 235 Vidal, Charles-Albert, p. 126. 236 Massimo d’Azeglio, Recollections, pp. 480–82. 237 Ibid., p. 482. 238 Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, pp. 298–300; Gentile, Carlo Alberto, p. 98.

Chapter 4

THE CRUCIAL YEAR (1846) THE SALT-WINE AFFAIR The conservatives led by Charles Albert and other Italians finally united on the platform of security during the 1840s. However, for the years following the Rhine Crisis this so to speak geopolitical rapprochement was still to come and a considerable number of Italian patriots and nationalists still mistrusted the king. This lasted until the spring of 1846 when the salt-wine dispute between Turin and Vienna began to drive them in large numbers into the Sardinian camp as Gioberti, Balbo and Azeglio had wanted for some time. This affair is mentioned less by historians than the accession of Pius IX later in the same year, but its significance should not be underestimated for two related reasons: it increased the aversion to foreign dominance that seemed to harm the political as well as economic interests of the Italian states and made Charles Albert the obvious defender of their independence. The origins of the salt-wine affair are to be found in the treaty of 1751 by which Piedmont gained Austria’s permission to import salt from Lombardy in return for the agreement not to trade in this commodity with the Swiss Canton of Ticino, which was to be supplied exclusively by Austria. In 1844, however, a treaty was signed between Piedmont and Ticino allowing the transport of salt from Genoa over the kingdom’s territory to the canton with the justification to Vienna that the 1751 treaty prohibited active commerce but not transit. Since the Viennese cabinet disagreed with this legal interpretation and its protests received no response from Turin, it imposed a surtax on Piedmontese wines in April 1846 to take effect from 1 May. At this point, however, the governor of Milan announced without official approval from Vienna that this measure was a punitive response to Piedmont’s agreement on the transportation of salt to the Canton of Ticino. This undiplomatic statement transformed what had originally been a commercial issue into a political one and gave Charles Albert a weapon against Austria.1



1

For the history of the salt-wine dispute and corresponding primary sources see my Decline of the Congress System, pp. 180–89; Roy A. Austensen, “Metternich and Charles Albert: Salt, tariffs, and the Sardinian challenge, 1844–1848,” The Consortium of Revolutionary Europe, 1750–1850, Athens (OH) 1986, pp. 384–94; Sandro Bortolotti, Metternich e l’Italia nel 1846: Saggio di storia diplomatica, Torino 1944, pp. 21–80; Adolfo Colombo, “Carlo Alberto e la vertenza austro-sarda nel 1846,” Il Risorgimento italiano 68/69, 1932, pp. 1–75.

148

The Crucial Year (1846)

The king knew how to use it to his advantage against his neighbour whom he now detested even more. He regarded the proceeding of the Viennese cabinet as treachery and the affair as more than merely an economic one: in his eyes, Austria wanted to apply “the law of vassalage”2 in violation of his sovereignty, something he had always feared. Actually, it was also a geopolitical issue for him because in return for the transit of salt he expected the Canton of Ticino to grant him permission to construct a railway over its territory from Piedmont to south Germany, something regarded as vital from a commercial and strategic point of view. For all these reasons the affair upset the king so much that he did not conceal from his confidants his desire to wage war against Austria.3 Charles Albert was supported by his ministers and diplomats who saw the saltwine affair in the same way as he did,4 in the words of the Sardinian envoy to France, Marquis Antoni Brignole Sale di Groppoli, as “a real German quarrel, in other words a bad squabble,”5 or even worse as stated by the Sardinian envoy in St Petersburg, Count Augusto Avogadro di Collobiano, who claimed the surtax was a case of “real aggression.”6 With this support it was easy for the king to stand firm in the whole affair and refuse to revoke his treaty with the Canton before Austria cancelled the surtax on wine. Although Piedmont’s resistance to Austria was compared to the fight between David and Goliath, Charles Albert’s bold political move was calculated in the knowledge that in reality he had nothing to fear from the cabinet in Vienna. From his envoy’s reports he knew very well that the retaliation was an obligatory action on the part of the Austrian Imperial Treasury with which the Chancellery disagreed because Metternich did not want to damage his relations with the Torinese court over a few tons of salt. For this reason Charles Albert obtained numerous concessions from Vienna during the following one and a half years although none had any chance of placating him, despite the fact that the legal aspect of the dispute was not only complicated but also not entirely in favour of Piedmont.7 In fact, Metternich’s attempts at conciliation proved to be counterproductive since the whole dispute was perceived in Turin primarily as a matter of strength versus weakness. Owing to the increasing number of reports about Austria’s worsening internal situation, the government in Turin had even less respect for the empire’s strength than ever before, making the kingdom’s policy towards it gradually



Gentile, Carlo Alberto, p. 99. Colombo, “Carlo Alberto e la vertenza austro-sarda,” p. 11; Vidal, Charles-Albert, pp. 165, 171–72. 4 Ricci to Solaro, Vienna, 10 May 1846, AST, LM, Austria 141; Pollone to Solaro, London, 31 May 1846, AST, LM, Gran Bretagna 117. 5 Brignole to Solaro, Paris, 26 June 1846, AST, LM, Francia 275. 6 Collobiano to Solaro, St Petersburg, 1 September 1846, AST, LM, Russia 23. 7 Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, pp. 186–89. 2 3

The Salt-Wine Affair

149

more assertive, and Metternich’s continuing moderation was seen as a further sign of weakness. In his memorandum of 2 June 1846 Solaro emphasised the Viennese cabinet’s existing difficulties in Galicia, Hungary and Bohemia and anticipated that in the near future it would be unable to react effectively against a revolution in Lombardy-Venetia. Reiterating his opinion first expressed in 1835, he again recommended the king should take advantage of such an event and conquer these provinces even at the cost of war with Austria. Solaro considered Austria’s conciliatory gestures in the salt-wine affair to be further validation of this low estimation of Austria’s power: “This proves that Austria is weak. Yes, she is.”8 The king agreed with his foreign minister and decided on firmness.9 Charles Albert deliberately frustrated any settlement with a policy of obstruction not only because he had little respect for Austria’s power but also since his unyielding attitude made him popular while at the same time it was damaging for Austria’s reputation. In an unprecedented measure he had an article printed in the governmental newspaper Gazzetta piemontese on 2 May in which he defended his conduct from the point of view of the “law of nations”: the article stated that Piedmont had the right to allow the transit of goods as transit had not been explicitly prohibited by the 1751 treaty and called the Viennese cabinet’s surtax an unjust “reprisal.”10 It was the first time that he appealed to the public to direct its sentiment from the outset in order to win popular support. His censors, otherwise quite severe, then became noticeably more tolerant towards anti-Austrian articles ascribing to “foreign influence the cause of all of Italy’s misfortune,”11 and the police assumed the same attitude towards the circulation of anti-Austrian and pan-Italian pamphlets and newspapers in which, as the French agent in Turin claimed, “the independence of Italy is glorified and foreign domination is fading.”12 The article in the Gazzetta piemontese provoked a wave of public enthusiasm. On 7 May a demonstration in support of the king in Turin heard cries of “Down with the Austrians!” and “Death to Metternich!” and some were even ready to call Charles Albert the king of Italy if he appeared in public. Anti-Austrian sentiment reached fever pitch in the kingdom and the affair was attentively observed and widely debated in all Italian states – in homes, in the saloons, in the streets – including Austria’s Italian provinces and Naples; everywhere the Italians sided with Piedmont and regarded the wine surtax as arbitrary and another example

Colombo, “Carlo Alberto e la vertenza austro-sarda,” p. 22. Albert de Ricci to Solaro, Vienna, 3 and 30 May 1846, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie I, 9; Charles Albert to Solaro, 25 July, 9, 17 and 20 August 1846, Lovera, Rinieri, Clemente Solaro, pp. 191–92, 198, 200–201; Solaro to Charles Albert, Turin, 2 June 1846, Margarita, Memorandum storico politico, p. 373; Buol to Metternich, Turin, 9 June 1846, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 3, pp. 434–41; Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, pp. 186–87. 10 Gazzetta piemontese, no. 99, 2 May 1846, s.p. 11 Redern to Frederick William IV, Turin, 15 June 1846, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5538. 12 André to Guizot, Turin, 7 October 1846, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 319. 8 9

150

The Crucial Year (1846)

of Austria’s hostile conduct towards all of Italy. They also shared the Sardinian king’s conviction that Austria wanted to use the affair to prevent the railway connection between Piedmont and Germany. The demand for Austria’s expulsion from Italy became very loud in public.13 Italians regardless of social class discussed not only the rights of one small peninsular state vis-à-vis one great power but also the whole states system and the future of all Italian countries. For example, in Turin the inhabitants avidly read a compilation of recent articles published in Italy, France and Germany on the saltwine dispute of which the editor urged readers “not to forget the first step taken by the Italian prince to free himself from the yoke of Austria and to strip away the humiliating state of vassalage attached to all Italian crowns.”14 In his report about the strong public response to the affair in Rome the Dutch envoy stated that “it would be futile to stifle that feeling of independence and nationhood, which is manifested every day among the Italians, and in all classes without exception. This is the powerful lever that must, sooner or later, undermine the work of the Congress of Vienna, and open to Italy her new destiny.”15 And an anonymous pamphlet printed in Tuscany in May in the name of a “national party” expressed hope in connection with the Austro-Piedmontese dispute that the existing “situation in Europe cannot last long.”16 The affair gave a great opportunity to the moderates to make their ideas even more popular with the masses who, as Massimo d’Azeglio delighedly stated, “are really enthusiastic to see that the government is finally putting itself in an independent, dignified position and could be said to be hostile towards those who have kept us as vassals until now.”17 The dispute was immediately exploited by the





Neumann to Metternich, Florence, 16 and 19 May, 12 and 30 June 1846, HHStA, StA, Toskana 66; Schwarzenberg to Metternich, Naples, 29 May 1846, HHStA, StA, Neapel 100; Abercromby to Aberdeen, Turin, 7 and 8 May 1846, TNA, FO 67/137; Marogna to Ludwig I of Bavaria, Turin, 10 May 1846, BHStA, MA, Sardinien 2885; Redern to Frederick William IV, Turin, 14 May 1846, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5538; Mortier to Guizot, Turin, 15 May 1846, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 318; Mortier to Guizot, Turin, 19 June 1846, Bourgoing to Guizot, Turin, 2 August 1846, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 319; La Rochefoucauld to Guizot, Florence, 19 May 1846, AMAE, CP, Toscane 179; Montebello to Guizot, Naples, 8 June 1846, AMAE, CP, Naples 171; Brockhausen to Frederick William, Naples, 10 July 1846, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5601; Desmaisiéres to Dechamps, Turin, 2 July 1846, ADA, CP, Italie, Sardaigne 2; Police report on public opinion in Milan in May 1846, HHStA, KA, StR, MKA 208; Antonucci to Lambruschini, Turin, 9 May 1846, E. Piglione, “Contributo alla storia delle relazioni tra Piemonte e S. Sede (1835–1846),” Il Risorgimento italiano 25, 1932, 3/4, p. 410; Bortolotti, Metternich e l’Italia nel 1846, pp. 25–28; Vidal, Charles-Albert, p. 155. 14 Bourgoing to Guizot, Turin, 13 July 1846, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 319. 15 Liedekerke to De La Sarraz, Rome, 19 June 1846, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1412. 16 “Doc. 1846/V: Italia,” May 1846, Giovanni Luseroni (ed.), La stampa clandestina in Toscana (1846–1847): I “bullettini”, Firenze 1988, p. 106. 17 Massimo d’Azeglio to Luisa d’Azeglio Blondel, Turin, 2 May 1846, Georges Virlogeux (ed.), Massimo d’Azeglio: Epistolario (1819–1866), vol. 3, Torino 1992, p. 83. 13

The Salt-Wine Affair

151

moderate party in the same way as Balbo had when he blamed Austria for wanting to destroy the flourishing commerce among the Italians. Their efforts met with success and their influence in Piedmont and other Italian states increased, and the concept of Italian nationhood became more plausible. A particularly strong and positive response came from Tuscany where the moderates already had some sympathisers, and it seemed to be more influential than during Massimo d’Azeglio’s earlier stays in Tuscany and Romagna where he had tried to win political support for his king. On behalf of pan-Italian solidarity, the subjects of Leopold II of Tuscany even demanded that he cooperate with Charles Albert.18 The salt-wine affair strengthened an already existing impression that Austria represented a threat for Italy’s political and economic independence. If only a few Italians had considered her to be the archenemy before May 1846, the following months saw the number grow considerably. At the same time it improved Charles Albert’s position towards Italian patriots and nationalists who could now believe that they finally had a real Italian prince.19 In their eyes he became a hero defending the independence of not only Piedmont but the whole peninsula, even in traditionally republican-minded Genoa where the inhabitants discussed the expulsion of the Austrians and celebrated Charles Albert as much as Pius IX, who became pope in June 1846.20 Gioberti and Balbo were right when they claimed that Piedmont was now regarded as an Italian sword against foreign domination.21 It is also how the salt-wine affair was evaluated retrospectively, at least in the kingdom itself: on the first page of its first issue the Risorgimento recalled 2 May 1846 and the whole affair as a manifestation of Charles Albert’s quest for independence,22 and another Torinese newspaper, Opinione, saw the same date as the “day our legal independence was established.”23







Desmaisiéres to Dechamps, Turin, 29 May 1846, Vilain to Dechamps, Turin, 21 July 1846, ADA, CP, Italie, Sardaigne 2; Bourgoing to Guizot, Turin, 30 June 1846, André to Guizot, Turin, 23 August 1846, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 319; Redern to Frederick William IV, Turin, 6 August 1846, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5538; Briolly to Frederick William IV, Turin, 23 April 1847, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5506; Buol to Metternich, Turin, 27 April 1847, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 4, p. 76; “Doc. 1846/V: Italia,” May 1846, Luseroni, La stampa clandestina in Toscana, p. 106. 19 L’Ausonio: Rivista italiana mensile, 1847, p. 8; Scirocco, Il Risorgimento italiano, p. 254; Notario, Nada, Il Piemonte sabaudo, p. 273. 20 Mortier to Guizot, Turin, 19 June 1846, Bourgoing to Guizot, Turin, 13 July and 2 August 1846, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 319; Brignole Sale to Pasquale Gitti, Genoa, 15 September 1846, Marini to Pasquale Gitti, Livorno, 1 October 1846, Fiorella Bartoccini, Silvana Verdini (eds), Sui congressi degli scienziati, Roma 1952, pp. 73, 77; Vidal, Charles-Albert, p. 254. 21 Ferdinando Martini (ed.), Memorie inedite di Giuseppe Giusti (1845–49), Milano 1890, pp. 52–58. 22 Il Risorgimento, no. 1, 15 December 1847, p. 1. 23 L’Opinione, no. 1, 26 January 1848, p. 1. 18

152

The Crucial Year (1846)

THE ANNEXATION OF CRACOW Another and undoubtedly greater source of mistrust and even apprehension were two events that took place in the region that until the late 18th century had been a part of the Polish Kingdom, which after being partitioned had ceased to exist and was not restored in 1815. The first important affair was the Polish revolt in the Free City of Cracow and Galicia, the latter belonging to the Austrian Empire. It broke out in February 1846 but was quickly suppressed. Before the Austrian army could restore order in both territories, about a thousand Polish noblemen and landowners were massacred in Galicia by local peasants who remained loyal to the emperor and turned their anger against their own masters. The Austrian officials were accused by some contemporaries of not only doing nothing against the massacres but also paying the peasants for every murdered landowner. Although no convincing evidence has ever been found, this accusation became popular in European society and the Viennese cabinet was blamed for the Galician slaughter.24 Before the “popularising” of the salt-wine affair in early May the Galician massacres had been the most discussed international topic in Italy. As an Austrian agent reported from Florence in mid April, “the Italians are currently entirely preoccupied with the events in Galicia.”25 The accusation that the Austrian government was directly responsible for the massive slaughter spread at the same time as when the salt-wine affair broke out. For some Italians there was an obvious link between Austria’s proceeding in Galicia and her policy towards Piedmont.26 What happened in Galicia was thus seen as further proof of her treachery of which they had to beware, and it was all the easier for Charles Albert to think that the Austrian authorities directly participated in the massacres; after an audience with the king the French consul in Genoa reported: “The massacres in Galicia in which, as H[is] M[ajesty] told me, employees of the Austrian government themselves participated, inspired in him several very bitter words addressed to this great power.”27 Despite the lack of evidence, in Tuscany and Lombardy the landowners as well as the educated bourgeois believed this accusation and feared that Austrian agents would instigate their own peasants against them if they dared to request liberal reforms. Consequently, the discontent of Italian peasants caused by the famine during the autumn and winter of 1846–1847 was readily attributed to the activities of such reactionary agents.28 This rumour was very strong particularly in



Iryna Vushko, The Politics of Cultural Retreat: Imperial Bureaucracy in Austrian Galicia, 1772–1867, New Haven 2015, pp. 207–19. 25 Schnitzer to Metternich, Florence, 14 April 1846, HHStA, StA, Toskana 66. 26 Miscellanea del giorno, no. 1, 1847, pp. 293–94. 27 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 3 November 1846, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 4. 28 Beales, Biagini, The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, pp. 84–85; Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna, vol. 3, p. 13; Paul Ginsborg, Daniele Manin and the Venetian Revolution of 24

The Annexation of Cracow

153

Tuscany where the patriots suspected Austria of hostile designs in Italy consisting of a plan to incite the peasants to riot in the Galician style and then exploit the subsequent massacres as a pretext for military interventions.29 Sometimes it was even believed that the Austrians intended to do so in their own Italian provinces: in April 1847 the journal Notizie italiane published an accusation that “Metternich is inciting the Milanese peasants against the landowners urging them to the same carnage as he did in Galicia, he is spreading communist writings among these simple men and removing the troops from the most agitated provinces.”30 The fear provoked by the Galician massacre among some Italians simultaneously fuelled their conviction that it was necessary to proceed in union to avert a repetition in the Apennines.31 However, the events in Galicia became considerably more influential in this regard after the second important affair that occurred on the ruins of the old Kingdom of Poland: the annexation of the Free City of Cracow by Austria on 16 November 1846. This small independent republic was created at the Congress of Vienna by Austria, Prussia and Russia and their agreement was written into the Final Acts in which they pledged to protect its independence and neutrality; its subjugation thirty-one years later was thus regarded as a flagrant violation of the law of nations and as such denounced by the French and British governments: they claimed that the Final Acts could be modified only with the consent of all the signatories, which had not happened – the two liberal powers were simply informed about the decision. However, since the cabinets in neither Paris nor London wanted to antagonise the conservative powers, their protests were only pro forma and Austria therefore had nothing to fear from them.32 Despite the fact that Cracow was far away from the Apennines and its political annihilation did not directly violate the rights and security of any Italian states, its dismal fate caused a real sensation there. The same criticism that had been levelled earlier against France following the occupation of Ancona or Great Britain because of the Sulphur War was directed now against Austria and to a much greater degree in view of her already existing unpopularity in the peninsula. The significance of this affair lay not only in that it fuelled the geopolitical security debates in both governmental corridors and among the broad public but also that the response of both groups was basically identical. The decision to annex Cracow united all political groups and social classes in a dissenting attitude towards



1848–49, Cambridge, London, New York, Melbourne 1979, p. 79; William K. Hancock, Ricasoli and the Risorgimento in Tuscany, London 1926, p. 84. 29 Enrico Francia, “Il pane e la politica: Moti annonari e opinione pubblica in Toscana alla vigilia del 1848,” Passato e presente 17, 1999, 46, p. 149. 30 Notizie italiane, no. 8, 7 April 1847, Luseroni, La stampa clandestina in Toscana, p. 218. 31 Luseroni, La stampa clandestina in Toscana, p. 30. 32 Bridge, Bullen, The Great Powers and the European States System, p. 104. For the annexation of Cracow and the French and British reactions see Żurawski, Ognisko permanentnej insurekcji, pp. 189–98.

154

The Crucial Year (1846)

Austria on the turn of 1846. The only difference was the way in which they expressed their disagreement. In governmental circles it was inadmissible to criticise the annexation in the presence of Austria’s agents or the representatives of the conservative powers since it was felt that her assistance against an eventual revolution might still be needed; during such meetings their reactions were extremely evasive. However, in private and during discussions with other Europeans the rulers and their advisors were more outspoken.33 In Naples the ministers and even Ferdinand II did not agree with the annexation34 and in Rome it “produces a painful impression and is the cause of grave fear”35 in “the diplomatic world and Roman society.”36 Even Pius IX expressed his concern about the future consequences of the annexation during a discussion with the Belgian envoy.37 In Tuscany there was hardly a minister who did not condemn it as “a most iniquitous act and the one most jeopardising European peace.”38 The hostility to this measure was – unsurprisingly – most revealed in Turin where Charles Albert did not hide his “indignation at such an unexampled infraction of the engagements of the Treaty of Vienna”39 from the British envoy. In a conversation with a French consul in Genoa the king labelled Austria’s conduct as “abominable”40 and exclaimed with indignation: “Unhappy Poland, has it not had enough iniquitous partitions and must we now expect to see it completely destroyed? There was just one fragment left; there was no fear of violating the Treaties in wiping it out, and this despite the fact that it was Sobieski, a king of Poland, who once [1683] saved Austria from the invasion of the Turks!”41 Marquis Brignole-Sale who was in Genoa at the same time regarded “this destruction of the Republic of Cracow as one of the most serious events which have occurred in European politics since 1830.”42 Such a sharp reaction resulted from the small countries’ fears for their security when facing the rapaciousness of powerful ones, and for this reason the destruc-





Lützow to Metternich, Rome, 28 November and 12 December 1846, HHStA, StK, Rom 75; Schwarzenberg to Metternich, Naples, 4 and 11 December 1846, HHStA, StA, Neapel 100; Neumann to Metternich, Florence, 8 December 1846, HHStA, StA, Toskana 66; Rossi to Solaro, Berlin, 29 November 1846, AST, LM, Prussia 31; Buol to Metternich, Turin, 12 December 1846, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 3, p. 541. 34 Montebello to Guizot, Naples, 8 December 1846, AMAE, CP, Naples 171. 35 Chimay to Dechamps, Rome, 30 November 1846, ADA, CP, Italie, Saint-Siège 2. 36 Chimay to Dechamps, Rome, 3 December 1846, ADA, CP, Italie, Saint-Siège 2. 37 Chimay to Dechamps, Rome, 8 December 1846, ADA, CP, Italie, Saint-Siège 2. 38 La Rochefoucauld to Guizot, Florence, 29 November 1846, AMAE, CP, Toscane 179. 39 Abercromby to Palmerston, Turin, 12 December 1846, TNA, FO 67/137. 40 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 3 November 1846, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 4. 41 Ibid. 42 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 24 November 1846, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 4. 33

The Annexation of Cracow

155

tion of one Polish republic provoked scarcely concealed outcries of indigation and alarm at Italian courts in general and in Turin in particular. According to the British envoy in Turin, Solaro “was fully alive to the consequences to which this infraction of a Treaty so important to the general interests of Europe, and more especially to those of this country, might possibly lead; and he did not conceal his apprehension that when, for particular interests, it was possible to set aside, in so flagrant a manner, one of the most important provisions of a Treaty, the danger that the remainder might not be found to be more binding by those whose interests were different, was seriously increased.”43 La Tour, the foreign minister before 1835, was appalled by the annihilation of Cracow’s independence and feared for the future of “international law and European peace” when Austria had weakened the “rights of the weak against the strong” by an act that “undermines the security of Europe.”44 Therefore, he as well as his king agreed with the official protest of the cabinet in Paris against the annexation because “the weak will find, under its aegis, security for the preservation of the benefits of peace and protection against the unjust aggressions of the strongest.”45 Solaro also expressed his agreement with this protest for the same reason: “It is clear, it is sharp and precise; it is the expression of truth and of right, without conceit and without threats. This document will get unanimous approval, especially from the weak, whose rights are called into question by the fall of Cracow.”46 How much the Torinese court was unnerved by the fate of Cracow can be derived from the content of the Gazzetta piemontese that largely reprinted the anti-Austrian articles from the French press – something impossible without the explicit consent of the king who continued with his “discreet” anti-Austrian press policy originally provoked by the salt-wine dispute. In the words of the French consul in Genoa, “every day the Piedmontese and Genoese newspapers reproduce in their entirety the most vehement articles of the French press against Austria concerning the incorporation of Cracow into her domains.”47 The Piedmontese could thus learn48 the view of the Journal des Débats that the whole affair “is about a principle on which rests the public law of Europe and the independence of

Abercromby to Palmerston, Turin, 11 December 1846, TNA, FO 67/137. Mortier to Guizot, Turin, 17 December 1846, AN, François Guizot 84. 45 Ibid. 46 Mortier to Guizot, Turin, 18 December 1846, AN, François Guizot 84. For Charles Albert’s negative reaction to the destruction of the Republic of Cracow see also Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, pp. 326–27. According to Brignoli this affair completed the process of the king’s defection from Austria. This would surely add further importance to it, but, as already seen, this political turnaround had probably already been accomplished in 1840. 47 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 11 December 1846, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 4. 48 As far as it is possible to trust French sources, the Piedmontese actually read and agreed with the contents of the French newspapers in this affair. Mortier to Guizot, Turin, 4 February 1847, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 319. 43 44

156

The Crucial Year (1846)

all states, small and large,”49 or the one expressed in the Époque: “The treaties of 1815 no longer exist ... Now a treaty violated in one point is violated in every part, since good faith is not split ... the public law of these thirty years has therefore ceased to exist. Nations have the right and almost the duty to place themselves in a state of mutual, legitimate suspicion towards each other; for where the realm of good faith ceases, that of cunning and force begins. Strictly speaking, Europe and the world can live without the Republic of Cracow, but Europe and the world cannot live without good faith and without treaties. It is above all from the point of view of the peace of the world, from that of the morality of diplomatic conventions, of the security of states, of civilisation, that we are surprised and deeply distressed by the resolution taken by the three noble courts.”50 The content of the Piedmontese governmental newspaper serves as a good bridge between the opinions of the governmental elite and general public because it shows not only what the ministers in Turin thought but also what and how easily the common people could learn of the affair. This holds more or less for the situation in other Italian states as well. In all of them, however, people showed no restraint in the defiance they displayed during conversations in the streets, coffee houses, saloons, in the anonymous pamphlets and wall inscriptions. From the very north to the very south of the peninsula they fiercely condemned the annexation as proof of Austria’s political immorality. The Bavarian envoy reported from Rome that there “the moral impression produced by this concerted measure devised by the three great powers is no less significant and in Italy the governments and subjects envisage the future with the kind of fear that is caused by uncertainty.”51 In the words of the French representative in the Eternal City “the affair of Cracow has had a devasting effect on public opinion,”52 which, according to his Prussian colleague, unleashed hatred of the Austrians “in a really alarming way.”53 Besides general uncertainty and anti-Austrian resentment it also provoked fear that Austria would sooner rather than later pursue the same policy in Italy with the aim of intervening in the Papal States and conquering the Legations; it was no coincidence that a rumour about Austrian military reinforcements in Lombardy in preparation of her intervention spread across central Italy in December 1846.54 In the eyes of Italians this rumour was what

Gazzetta piemontese, no. 266, 23 November 1846, s.p. Ibid. 51 Spaur to Ludwig I of Bavaria, Rome, 8 January 1847, BHStA, MA, Päpstlicher Stuhl 2501. 52 Rossi to Guizot, Rome, 18 December 1846, AN, François Guizot 198. 53 Usedom to Frederick William IV, Rome, 27 December 1846, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 11626. 54 Liedekerke to De La Sarraz, Rome, 23 November 1846, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1427; Rossi to Guizot, Rome, 18 December 1846, AMAE, CP, Rome 986; Lützow to Metternich, Rome, 19 December 1846, HHStA, StK, Rom 75; Chimay to Dechamps, Rome, 17 December 1846, ADA, CP, Italie, Saint-Siège 2; Chimay to Dechamps, Rome, 17 January 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Saint-Siège 3; Luigi C. Farini to Angelo Bertini, Viareggio, 9 December 1846, Luigi Rava 49 50

The Annexation of Cracow

157

linked Austria’s policy against the Poles with her expected hostile actions to the south of the Alps. The fear that such an event could occur was also stimulated by the way the Viennese cabinet explained the annexation – as a necessity, something observed by the Italians and summarised by the Felsineo in this generally shared way: “If they have the power to break a treaty, they will do it and we will not be able to condemn them for it. This is the new theory that we especially recommend weak states to consider.”55 All this moved the Belgian envoy in Rome to summarise the public mood at the beginning of 1847: “On all points at once, events seem to be uniting against world peace and leading inevitably to the outcome that everyone foresees while at the same time dreading it.”56 In Naples the situation was identical and “despite the distance and the usual indifference of the public in this part of Italy for everything that happens in the North of Europe”57 the inhabitants paid surprisingly close attention to this disturbing affair; the intensity of the public response shocked the French ambassador who reported that “public opinion has spoken out against this manifest violation of the Vienna Treaties with a force and vitality of which I have not seen an example in this country.”58 In Tuscany some houses were painted with wall inscriptions “Death to the Germans!”59 and the whole country was flooded with anonymous pamphlets recalling the massacres in Galicia; as their authors claimed, Austria was no less dangerous for Italy and particularly for Tuscany, which she could easily annex.60 Italian-speaking people in Austrian territories read the debates in the French and British press about the annexation of Cracow which caused similar doubts about the preservation of general peace. In Lombardy the memory of the death of hundreds of Polish noblemen and landowners also stimulated the debate about Cracow.61 In Piedmont the sorry fate of Cracow provoked a no less intensive explosion of anger and fear.62 From Turin, the French envoy wrote that the public was horrified



(ed.), Epistolario di Luigi Carlo Farini, Volume Primo (1827–1847), Bologna 1911, p. 559; Enrico Bottrigari, Cronaga di Bologna, Volume Primo (1845–1848), Bologna 1960, p. 127. 55 Il Felsineo, no. 3, 20 January 1847, p. 12. 56 Chimay to Dechamps, Rome, 17 January 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Saint-Siège 3. 57 Brockhausen to Frederick William IV, Naples, 4 December 1846, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5579. 58 Montebello to Guizot, Naples, 8 December 1846, AMAE, CP, Naples 171. 59 La Rochefoucauld to Guizot, Florence, 8 December 1846, AMAE, CP, Toscane 179. 60 “Doc. 1847/II: Italiani!,” Pistoja, 12 January 1847, “Doc. 1847/IV: Fratelli,” “Doc. 1847/V: Al popolo,” “Doc. 1847/VII: All’erta!,” Firenze, 21 February 1847, Luseroni, La stampa clandestina in Toscana, pp. 124, 130–32. 61 Police report on public opinion in Trieste in November 1846, HHStA, KA, StR, MKA 212; Police report on public opinion in Trieste in December 1846, HHStA, KA, StR, MKA 213; Police report on public opinion in Milan in December 1846, HHStA, KA, StR, MKA 216. 62 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 24 November and 11 December 1846, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 4; Matter, Cavour et l’unité italienne, p. 306.

158

The Crucial Year (1846)

at the news since Austria had “in the eyes of all annihilated international law and for the least practical advantage destroyed the mutual trust of the governments which had assured peace in the world for more than thirty years.”63 The impact of the annexation on public opinion as analysed by the same French diplomat in January 1847 accurately reflected the views of not only Piedmont but also other Italian states: “This mood of discontent and agitation, today a little calmer, was even more distinct in the lower classes of society than among the upper classes. People of every social class are talking about the fate imposed by the three absolutist powers on the small state of Cracow. They wonder if a similar end is reserved for the secondary states of Italy which dare to hope for Italian independence and dream of the freedom of their institutions … There are men here who want to see in this policy a persevering idea on the part of the Viennese cabinet to foment revolution in order to obtain the right to suppress it, thereby confiscating the freedoms of the people to its own advantage … Without acknowledging completely this Machiavellian scheme I understand that the fate imposed on Cracow was of a nature that compels the weak to ponder and fear being annihilated by those most powerful. The loss of confidence and security in international relations is a constant reality in the minds of this country.”64 The obvious outcome of the affair was the same as had already happened in 1832 and 1840: an increase in the feeling of international insecurity. There were, however, two important differences. First, this feeling seemed to be more intensive in 1846. Second, it was the Austrian Empire that for the first time had violated the public law of Europe and according to many this violation was more striking than all previous cases since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. It was a paradox that France and Great Britain, both clearly having contravened public law in Ancona and Naples, were now criticising Austria for committing a crime, a situation compounded by French Foreign Minister François Pierre Guillaume Guizot exhorting the great powers to respect the treaties and Palmerston talking about Europe being condemned to a state of diplomatic anarchy where the law of the strongest prevailed.65 The Sardinian envoy in Paris, Adriano Thaon di Revel, commented that “the Cracow affair has produced a strange situation where France is seen preaching about respect for the Treaties of Vienna to Austria and other northern courts which, so to speak, have considered themselves until now to be the guardians of this precious mandate. The incongruity of this situation throws all predictions into a state of confusion.”66 The long cultivated reputation of Metternich’s Austria as the guardian of the political-legal edifice established in 1815 was in ruins, in the words of the Parisian journal Ausonio published by Princess Belgiojoso, “the palladium of the house of

Mortier to Guizot, Turin, 29 November 1846, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 319. Mortier to Guizot, Turin, 10 January 1847, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 319. 65 Roger Bullen, Palmerston, Guizot and the Collapse of the Entente Cordiale, London 1974, p. 171. 66 Revel to Solaro, Paris, 5 December 1846, AST, LM, Francia 275. 63 64

The Annexation of Cracow

159

Austria, the Treaty of Vienna, was torn apart by Austria herself with the destruction of the Republic of Cracow.”67 With her action, Austria gave the Italian patriots and nationalists a great weapon to be used against her: if she could break international law then she could hardly complain if the others did so at her expense. As one employee of the Piedmontese legation in Vienna pointed out, “they did not respect a principle; will other cabinets be more scrupulous in their turn, and will they not be tempted to follow Austria in the same way, when circumstances or their interests demand it?”68 After November 1846 it was thus more difficult for Metternich to justify the territorial status quo in Italy with the necessity to respect the 1815 treaties. Exactly for this reason people were heard to say gleefully in Florence: “All the better, if Mr Metternich who claimed to be the ultimate watchful guardian of the treaties tramples them underfoot today!”69 And Italians in general remembered very well the warning Palmerston addressed to the three conservative powers that if they appropriated to themselves the right to change the territorial status quo on the Vistula, the river running through Cracow, others could do the same on the Rhine and on the Po.70 Where the annexation of Cracow was identical to the earlier occupation of Ancona and the Sulphur War was in the condemnation of not only the culprit but also of others who stood by and allowed a crime to be committed. The protests were thus addressed to not only Austria and the two conservative powers complicit in aiding her but also Great Britain and France for doing nothing to help the Poles. Italians observed the protests sent from London and Paris as well as the parliamentary debates in both capitals,71 but all that they offered was mere verbal criticism that was regarded as weakness according to the motto “Verba verba praetereaque nihil.”72 Consequently, all the Concert members were regarded as responsible for the violation of international law in Cracow and with this also for the atmosphere of uncertainty and fear in Europe.73 The “Polish experience” further contributed to the growing mistrust of the existing system of European politics that enabled such a flagrant violation of the Final Acts of the Congress of Vienna.74 This provoked a reaction similar to the responses to the earlier affairs of 1832 and 1840: the search for greater security. A considerable number of Italians across all political strata of society agreed that something had to

L’Ausonio: Rivista italiana mensile, Parigi 1847, p. 11. Antioche to Solaro, Vienna, 19 November 1846, AST, LM, Austria 141. 69 La Rochefoucauld to Guizot, Florence, 29 November 1846, AMAE, CP, Toscane 179. 70 Sir Adolphus William Ward, George Peabody Gooch, The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy 1783–1919, vol. 2, Cambridge 1923, p. 295. 71 Spaur to Ludwig I of Bavaria, Rome, 23 January 1847, BHStA, MA, Päpstlicher Stuhl 2501; Mortier to Guizot, Turin, 4 February 1847, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 319. 72 Il Felsineo, no. 2, 13 January 1847, p. 8. 73 Luigi Settembrini, Opuscoli politici editi e inediti (1847–1851), Roma 1969, pp. 98–99. 74 Bottrigari, Cronaga di Bologna, p. 127. 67 68

160

The Crucial Year (1846)

be done since the situation in Italian and European affairs could hardly survive for long. In reaction to the annexation that seemed to change “the bases of European politics”75 conservatives like Charles Albert and Solaro regarded more than ever before Austria’s presence in Italy as a security threat and her expulsion from Italy as a necessity;76 this was what the French envoy had in mind when he wrote that “the policy of establishing that the rights of the weak are equally just and powerful as the rights of the strong will always find a positive response in the cabinet in Turin.”77 Other Italians certainly shared this conviction that the “greedy foreign wolf”78 had to go and a considerable number of them attached to it the dream of unity or unification.79 Not surprisingly, the annexation of Cracow was immediately exploited by Italian patriots and nationalists, serving as a convenient weapon against the hated empire. Everyone feared Austria’s hostile designs and argued on behalf of national union as the best defence. It is not clear how much they were motivated in their criticism by their already existing animosity towards the empire and how much by its latest proceeding, but generally one need not doubt their very real alarm caused by the destruction of one small independent country in Central Europe.80 Members of the moderate camp expressed opinions on both the annexation and the subsequent diminishing trust in the strength of international law. Azeglio denounced not only the three conservative powers but also the two liberal ones which did nothing to save the small republic and predicted that Austria could proceed in Italy in the same way, for example if she decided to occupy some strategic regions and no great power opposed her with armed force, leaving Italy to her sorrowful fate.81 He wrote to Balbo that “in Europe everyone is afraid of war, and if Austria dared to occupy another part of Italy, perhaps there would be nothing but talking about it like in the case of Cracow.”82 On the other hand, he saw hope in the dismal state of European politics since “from the general fear something must be born.”83 “Something” was the long yearned for confederation of Italian states.84



Antioche to Solaro, Vienna, 19 November 1846, AST, LM, Austria 141. Mortier to Guizot, Turin, 3 January 1847, AN, François Guizot 84; Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, p. 326. 77 Mortier to Guizot, Turin, 12 December 1846, AN, François Guizot 84. 78 “Doc. 1847/IV: Fratelli,” Luseroni, La stampa clandestina in Toscana, p. 131. 79 La Rochefoucauld to Guizot, Florence, 29 November 1846, AMAE, CP, Toscane 179; Lützow to Metternich, Rome, 19 December 1846, HHStA, StK, Rom 75; Buol to Metternich, Turin, 29 January 1847, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 4, p. 37; “Doc. 1847/III: Toscani!,” 22 January 1847, Luseroni, La stampa clandestina in Toscana, pp. 127–28. 80 Berkeley, Berkeley, Italy in the Making, vol. 2, p. 187. 81 Massimo d’Azeglio to Luisa d’Azeglio Blondel, Genoa, 8 December 1846, Massimo d’Azeglio to Luigi Carlo Farini, Genoa, 21 December 1846, Massimo d’Azeglio to Marco Minghetti, Genoa, 21 December 1846, Virlogeux, Massimo d’Azeglio, vol. 3, pp. 218, 223, 225. 82 Massimo d’Azeglio to Cesare Balbo, Genoa, 8 January 1847, ibid., p. 242. 83 Massimo d’Azeglio to Cesare Balbo, Genoa 31 December 1846, ibid., p. 234. 84 Massimo d’Azeglio to Marco Minghetti, Genoa, 2 December 1846, ibid., p. 215. 75 76

The Annexation of Cracow

161

As he wrote to Marco Minghetti, “the situation is becoming troubling in Europe as you see, and union and harmony are all the more necessary to bring us closer to each other so that the impact does not find us trivial, and therefore weak, and good for nothing.”85 What Azeglio thought about the affair and deduced from it applies to other moderates including Raffaello Lambruschini, who summarised their opinion in a short exclamation: “Poor Cracow! And France and England watch and remain silent!”86 He agreed with the British and French protests but did not expect anything useful from them, and their policies confirmed the validity of his prediction,87 which moved him to make another one: “If all the southern powers [read: Italian states] do not unite and take courage, we will find ourselves experiencing a second invasion from the Barbarians of the North.”88 In December 1846 another moderate but of Lombardese origin, Luigi Torelli, completed his book Pensieri sull’Italia (Thoughts on Italy) in which he also joined the annexation of Cracow with criticism of the post-Napoleonic order as being incompatible with the rights of people and reached the conclusion that “the life of nations is independence”89 and a lasting defensive and offensive alliance of the three Italian kingdoms established in northern, central and southern Italy “will have power and respect as if she were one kingdom.”90 This strength was an absolute necessity for Torelli because “in order to overcome force, it will be necessary to turn to force,”91 and only with strength could “the security of states be ensured.”92 Consequently, unity was not only essential for attaining Italy’s independence but also for its preservation.93 According to the moderates, the achievement of this unity, something possible only at the expense of the treaties, became morally feasible since the annexation of Cracow buried the legacy of the Congress of Vienna.94 Cesare Balbo eagerly agreed with Palmerston that “the treaties of Vienna are torn up, torn up on the Vistula, torn up on the Rhine and torn up (listen well, Italians!) on the Po!”95

Ibid. Raffaello Lambruschini to Gian Pietro Vieusseux, 26 November 1846, Gabbrielli, Carteggio Lambruschini – Vieusseux, vol. 5, p. 90. See also Raffaello Lambruschini to Gian Pietro Vieusseux, 22 January 1847, ibid., p. 95. 87 Raffaello Lambruschini to Gian Pietro Vieusseux, 22 January 1847, ibid. 88 Raffaello Lambruschini to Gian Pietro Vieusseux, 16 December 1846, ibid., p. 91. 89 Luigi Torelli, Pensieri sull’Italia, Parigi 1846, p. 51. 90 Ibid., p. 61. 91 Ibid. 92 Ibid., p. 65. 93 Ibid., p. 68. 94 Massimo d’Azeglio to Luigi Carlo Farini, Genoa, 17 December 1846, Rava, Epistolario di Luigi Carlo Farini, p. 568. 95 Cesare Balbo, “Lettere politiche al signor D., 1846: Lettera terza: Della situazione politica dell’Europa in generale, e dell’Italia in particolare, cadente l’anno 1846, 16. dicembre 1846,” Cesare Balbo, Lettere di politica e letteratura, Firenze 1855, p. 347. 85 86

162

The Crucial Year (1846)

The democrats reacted to the affair in the very same way. For example, Lorenzo Valerio judged that the annexation “changed the conditions of Europe”96 and expressed his wish that Italy reach the point where she would be able to face similar threats alone; this point was one Italian republic.97 Italian nationalist Filippo De Boni agreed that the end of Cracow’s independence justified demanding it and warned his compatriots: “Italians, in Cracow, Italy was also stricken.”98 This made him pose these cheerless questions: “Where are we? What will be the fate of the weak [states]? What will be yours, my poor Italy?”99 And the answers were not optimistic regarding the fact, which he expressed succinctly, that in a world where armed force and not law ruled, small states could hardly feel safe, especially the Italian ones directly threatened by Austrian presence in Lombardy and Venetia.100 The loudest voice in the democratic camp was raised by Giuseppe Mazzini who included the annexation of Cracow in his political writing in which he sharply denounced Austria as well as the entire European states system from his exile in London. Under the influence of this affair he focused more than ever before on the legal framework. In a text briefly but concisely titled Cracovia (Cracow) he did not hesitate to exclaim sharply: “The bitterness of our words must not be attributed to grief. We brand [the destruction of Cracow] a crime.”101 And he continued: “The treaties of Vienna being torn up by the very people who drew them up and signed them adds to the morality of the cause we support; it proves that there is no law, not even the one that they had imposed upon themselves, the absolutists; it dispels the illusion which yet held timid minds in uncertainty; it reveals the ambiguities accumulated by diplomacy over the question which occupies us all; it leaves nationalities and their oppressors, right and brute force, face to face.”102 He closed his attack with the statement that “there is no longer, at the present time, any Public Law in Europe. The Treaties of Vienna formed the basis of international transactions between European governments: they are no more.”103 For this he also blamed Britain in another text since she “has not upheld the treaties which, bad in themselves, seemed at least to secure some kind of order; look at Cracow.”104 In the piece entitled La Questione europea (The European Question) Valerio to Gian Pietro Vieusseux, Turin, 9 March 1847, Adriano Viarengo (ed.), Lorenzo Valerio Carteggio (1825–1865), vol. 2, Torino 1994, p. 433. 97 Ibid., p. 434. 98 Filippo De Boni, Raccolta degli atti officiali e d’altri scritti risguardanti la distruzione della Repubblica di Cracovia, Losanna 1847, p. LII. 99 Ibid., p. XXXV. 100 Ibid., pp. XLV–XLIX. 101 “Cracovia,” Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 34, Imola 1922, p. 297. 102 Ibid., p. 298. 103 Ibid., p. 304. 104 “La Lega Internazionale dei Popoli (The Peoples International League),” Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 36, Imola 1922, p. 19.

96

The Annexation of Cracow

163

the experience with the destruction of the small Polish republic served him again as a weapon for his attack against the 1815 order that he summed up with these words: “You had treaties which might have bound us yet: you have torn them up. You have destroyed the charter of international law.”105 This shows how Mazzini readily used the violation of the public law of Europe in one affair against the whole system of European politics and for Italy’s benefit. He claimed that this situation entitled the Italians to defy it and expel the Austrians from the peninsula that was to be turned into one republic. At the same time he appealed to other European nations to take justice in international relations into their own hands. In this respect he did not limit himself to just verbal diatribes. In December 1846 he became an adherent of the new organisation People’s International League that was established in London. Its aim was to contribute to the territorial changes on the map of Europe and the reorganisation of international relations through the acceptance of the principle of nationhood as the crucial pillar of the new system of European politics. Although it is difficult to say that the annexation of Cracow was the event that caused the creation of the league, it certainly played an important role in its establishment. The popular gathering held on 16 December in London in which Mazzini participated and where the audience was informed about the establishment of this new public association was summoned first of all because of Cracow. It was also there where its principal founder, Dr John Bowring, talked about the destruction of the republic and how the great powers had abused the Final Acts with their tyranny, which made him and his friends found the league to promote the principles of the independence of nations and their harmonious relations.106 It was not long after the annexation that Mazzini’s namesake, Andrea Luigi Mazzini, published in Paris his De l’Italie dans ses rapports avec la liberté et la civilisation moderne (On Italy in her Relations with Freedom and Modern Civilisation) in which he agreed with Giuseppe that since Austria’s position greatly depended on the preservation of treaties, she had so to speak cut the branch on which she was sitting.107 Like both the moderates and democrats, he regarded the fate of 105 “La Questione europea (The European Question),” Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 34, p. 319. 106 Rehausen to Ihre, London, 22 December 1846, SE/RA/221/2210.01.1/E/E 2/E 2 D/l/432; Mazzini to Giuseppe Lamberti, London, 9 December 1846, Mazzini to his mother, London, 12 December 1846, Mazzini to Filippo De Boni, London, 18 December 1846, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 30, Imola 1919, pp. 302–304, 315; De Boni, Raccolta degli atti officiali, pp. 113–14; Emilia Morelli, Mazzini in Inghilterra, Firenze 1938, pp. 57–58; Recchia, Urbinati, A Cosmopolitanism of Nations, pp. 194–204; Smith, Mazzini, pp. 52–53; Georgios Varouxakis, “1848 and British Political Thought on ‘The Principle of Nationality’,” Douglas Moggach, Gareth Stedman Jones (eds), The 1848 Revolutions and European Political Thought, Cambridge 2018, pp. 147–48. 107 Andrea Luigi Mazzini, De l’Italie, vol. 2, p. 92.

164

The Crucial Year (1846)

Cracow as a symptom of a deeper crisis in European politics, actually the decline of the 1815 order: “The diplomatic disputes, the internal struggles which are agitating the various cabinets and the various states of Europe, make us feel that a European conflagration will sooner or later be an inevitable fact. The public law of Europe, as the treaties of Vienna imposed upon the people, has just been abrogated by the same powers which had stipulated its principal conditions, and for their benefit. Austria, Prussia and Russia, by letting the last semblance of Polish statehood disappear with the suppression of the Republic of Cracow, without the consent of France and of England and the other signatory states of the treaties of 1815, by trampling on the essential bases of diplomatic law and European public law, have inaugurated the barbarous law of brutal force instead of all possible laws.”108 He thus came to the conclusion about two interdependent damning outcomes of this affair. First, the destruction of the republic was “a flagrant violation of the fundamental bases of European public law on which the only legal guarantee of peace and the general order of the world is based.”109 Second, it was finally proved that might dominated the world: “Thus, either by the violence of the canons or by the violence of the protocols, when one has the power in politics, one has at the same time the law. The cold and banal protests of the cabinets, the noisy discussions in the parliaments and in the press do not change the circumstances in any way. Also, the powers that know that might is on their side, and that in politics the rights of the weaker ones have no value, let the world shout their objections and still go their own way all the same. In politics there is only one true power, force: Do you have laws? They must be enforced.”110 The outcome of these political-legal deliberations for Andrea Luigi Mazzini was simple: “It is no longer permissible to deceive oneself about the principles and true character of European politics.”111 This meant: “The current state of Europe is, in fact, not based on any solid and lasting basis.”112 And, after all: “It is rather difficult to foresee now what will be the first occasion of a great conflict in Europe, a conflict which must, however, break out sooner or later, either because of the affairs of Italy, or of Switzerland, or because of Greece, or of the question of the Near East.”113 A more detailed insight into the work of Andrea Luigi Mazzini is useful because it discloses the process of the shift from faith in the written law to the reliance on material power in response to the lawbreaking in international affairs. At the end of his analysis Andrea Luigi stated his conviction, present in many other sources, including the journal Miscellanea del giorno published in Paris: 108 Ibid., p. 86. 109 Ibid., p. 280. 110 Ibid., pp. 242–43. 111 Ibid., p. 243. 112 Ibid., p. 321. 113 Ibid.

The Annexation of Cracow

165

“Laws without the backing of weapons are nothing.”114 This was seen when the laws guaranteed by the great powers were disregarded in the annihilation of the small republic: “Where are we, if no one lives for the justice of the people, if nobody lives to defend their rights, if all the strong conspire against the weak?”115 Therefore, another question was posed in the same journal: “Why do you make treaties? To tear them up when you like. There no longer exists even a shadow of public law in Europe, and [legal] principles have demolished it; the pact of 1815, violated so many times, the pact of 1815 between peoples and princes, is dead; the people know it. The only law is that of the strongest. The destinies of all nations are bound together and an attack committed against one is committed against all; therefore, Italians in a thousand ways brothers of the Poles, except in heroic resistance, with exiles scattered all over the world, of all names, of all races must rise, protesting at least with their voices, shouting to the sky, if nothing remains above the earth, at least to note the infamous history of this day. The weak who are right, if they ask for justice, they are ranting. Whatever it is, here the interlude is over and we are coming to a head.”116 Then a warning was sent to Pius IX that was actually aimed at all the people living in the peninsula: “Who can take, will take! You believe you have the Legations by right: the law is buried in Cracow: you believe you do good, and perhaps tomorrow the [Austrian] eagle will claw your Legations.”117 As the journal continued, particularly owing to the annexation of Cracow, the Final Acts of the Congress of Vienna were to be overthrown to secure a just and stable peace. The great powers with their brutal force and cunning diplomacy could hardly do that – neither the three conservative powers after what they had done to the Poles nor the two liberal ones who had abandoned them and would surely abandon the Italians as well – the nations themselves had to do it and create a new better order.118 What is easy to learn from the immediate reaction of the conservative elites, the general public and the leading patriots and nationalists is that the annexation of a small Polish republic situated far beyond the Alps served as an enormously influential impulse for the growth of the feeling of geopolitical insecurity in Italian society. Filippo de Boni summarised this feeling when he wrote that in Cracow not only the Treaties of 1815 were buried but also “international faith is extinguished. Now there is no security either against political aggression or for commercial enterprises.”119 What strengthened this impact was the long-term influence of past international affairs, particularly since 1840, and the recent in 114 Miscellanea del giorno, no. 1, 1847, p. 55. 115 Ibid., pp. 67–68. 116 Ibid., p. 68. 117 Ibid., p. 140. 118 Ibid., pp. 298–99, 306, 312–15. 119 Filippo De Boni, Così la penso: Cronaca di Filippo de Boni, no. 10–12, Losanna 1847, p. 269.

166

The Crucial Year (1846)

fluence from early 1846 when the salt-wine affair and the so-called Galician massacres paved the way to the massive outbreak of indignation and fear at the end of the same year. The destruction of the republic was thus one of the international affairs fuelling the decrease in faith in – and the subsequent aversion to – the existing international order; and in this respect it was certainly neither the first nor the last of such affairs for the contemporaries. The same continuity is also evident in the development of the argument for Italian unity and unification as a measure against international insecurity, launched in the general public by the 1840 affairs and stimulated again in 1846. The impact of the salt-wine dispute and the annexation of Cracow is indisputable in this respect, and it was particularly the latter that played an immense role since it provoked yet greater fear, and this fear was what nourished above all the idea of unity. In brief, the more insecure the Italians felt vis-à-vis foreign nations, the more they read and discussed the texts about their independence and unity, which seems to be proved by the fact that it was not in early summer but at the end of the year that the demand for unity became widespread. Generally all of 1846, particularly after May, played an extraordinary role in this process, and the French consul in Genoa was thus able to report in December that the political writings in Italy “express one single idea: the national unity of Italy,”120 and a Belgian envoy in Turin agreed that this idea “has made great progress this year across the entire peninsula.”121 It is all the more surprising that historians writing about the rise of Italian nationalism have generally neglected the Cracow affair and have focused mainly on the significance of the accession of Pius IX that was seen by Italians as a promise of internal modernisation. Although his election surely was an event of immense importance since Gioberti’s idea now gained the desired papal leadership, it is debatable how important the widespread idea that Italy finally got a “liberal” pope, which he certainly was not, actually was. It is necessary to pose the question whether the new pope’s popularity was not in fact due to regard for the external challenges in particular, and this thesis would also explain why even before his first reformatory ideas and amnesty of political criminals the inhabitants of Turin were satisfied with his election simply because he was regarded as an Italian pope inaccessible to Austrian or French influence.122 Shortly before the arrival of the news about the annexation of Cracow, the geopolitical importance of the pope’s popularity was emphasised by the Dutch envoy in Rome: “ Because we must not deceive ourselves, it is neither in acts of amnesty, nor in those regarded as stepping stones for successive and important improvements where one must seek the true cause of the popularity of the current head of state, but rather in this feeling, which has become so general, that makes his election seem providential to open 120 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 11 December 1846, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 4. 121 Vilain to Dechamps, Turin, 24 December 1846, ADA, CP, Italie, Sardaigne 2. 122 Desmaisiéres to Dechamps, Turin, 2 July 1846, ADA, CP, Italie, Sardaigne 2.

The Annexation of Cracow

167

new destinies for Italy and to free this beautiful country from what its inhabitants call the foreign yoke.”123 It is not to underestimate the historical role of Pius IX in Risorgimento history but to point out that, in general, it was not the question of reforms but external security that primarily attracted the Italians to the idea of political unity. There was of course a connection between these two issues since many believed that to protect liberalisation inside the nation it was necessary to establish a barrier against incursions from outside. However, fear of foreign interference in internal reforms was not that strong as the process was still only starting and was as yet unhampered from abroad and therefore less significant. Also, some Italians not interested in modern constitutionalism were among the supporters of the political unity. The primacy of external security over internal liberty in the national discourse can be deduced from various written sources as well as events on the turn of 1846. Just to mention one such event, in early December 1846 the expulsion of the Austrians from Genoa in 1746 was celebrated with fires lit on the hills above many Italian cities across the whole peninsula.124 Luigi Carlo Farini remembered that at one gathering he personally heard people of all social classes shouting on behalf of Italy’s independence and the expulsion of the foreigners together with those shouting in honour of Cracow and Poland but not a single word was uttered about internal freedom.125 From longer lasting processes it is possible to point out the rise of the moderates’ popularity in Tuscany already mentioned above; even the Tuscan democrats were circumspect in expressing their views on internal reforms and drew nearer to the moderate patriots, talking more about national independence and federal unity, or at least a customs union that would later become a political and military one, and they were more than ever willing to support Charles Albert’s leadership against Austria.126 To go even deeper and offer one additional local example: it was exactly during this period that the idea of independence and nationhood became deeply rooted in the society of Livorno, the most important Tuscan seaport, and this idea was primarily related to hatred of Austria and her presence in northern Italy.127 123 Liedekerke to De La Sarraz, Rome, 16 November 1846, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1427. 124 “Der Aufstand in Genua (1746): Ohne Zensur den Aufstand ausrufen,” Flacke, Mythen der Nationen, pp. 214–16. 125 Luigi Carlo Farini to Angelo Bertini, Viareggio, 9 December 1846, Rava, Epistolario di Luigi Carlo Farini, p. 559. 126 Forβmann, Presse und Revolution in der Toskana, pp. 85, 86, 89; Romano Paolo Coppini, “Torino e il Piemonte visti dal Granducato di Toscana,” Umberto Levra (ed.), Il Piemonte alle soglie del 1848, Torino 1999, p. 760. 127 Giovanni Luseroni, “Livorno e la ‘primavera dei popoli’: Dall’agitazione riformista ad estremo baluardo della libertà,” Livorno ribelle: dalle riforme liberali all’estrema difesa della città (1847–1849), Livorno 2000, pp. 7–13.

168

The Crucial Year (1846)

THE LONG-TERM CONSEQUENCES OF THE ANNEXATION OF CRACOW By 1846 at the latest, the increasing need to ensure their own safety by means of pan-Italian solidarity became a dominant factor in the rise of the Italian national movement in which the annexation of Cracow played an immensely important role, as demonstrated not only by the Italians’ immediate reaction to the annexation but also by the fact that they never forgot it. The annexation became rooted in the consciousness of a considerable number of Italians as can be learnt from many sources from later periods, including newspapers, which regularly printed reminders of this affair. At the same time it was the free press introduced in the Papal States and Tuscany in the spring, in Piedmont in the autumn of 1847 and in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies at the beginning of 1848128 that helped to keep it alive in the minds of Italians as evidence of a policy based on respect for the strength not of law but of arms, against which the Italians were to unite and become strong because they realised that material strength was what ruled international affairs.129 Finally, the same free press makes it easier to reveal three long-lasting tendencies which did not actually originate at the end of 1846 but were significantly intensified at that time and further stimulated the desire for political unity in the following months, especially when due to their strong interdependence each nurtured the others. The first was the rapid growth of suspicion of Austria’s hostile designs against the Italian states. The imputations raised against the empire were widespread and people believed them on a massive scale.130 In February 1847 rumours spread in Piedmont that Austria was reinforcing her troops in Lombardy, South Tyrol and Voralberg, purchasing horses for the army and summoning soldiers in Istria and warships in Pula from where they could be transferred quickly over the Adriat-

128 Farinelli, Paccagnini, Santambrogio, Villa, Storia del giornalismo italiano, pp. 137–41; Peruta, Il Giornalismo italiano, pp. 19, 20–26; Clementina Rotondi, “Il giornale fiorentino «La Patria» (1847–1848),” Rassegna Storica Toscana 17, 1971, 1, p. 35. 129 For a short selection of the Italian newspapers mentioning the annexation of Cracow and not cited in other places in this chapter see La Patria, no. 147, 1 February 1848, p. 579; L’Italia, no. 12, 28 August 1847, p. 48; L’Italico, no. 4, 29 July 1847, p. 13, no. 8, 26 August 1847, p. 35, no. 8, 19 January 1848, p. 29; La Rigenerazione, no. 3, 14 February 1848, p. 9; La Concordia, no. 3, 4 January 1848, p. 10, no. 7, 8 January 1848, p. 25, no. 44, 19 February 1848, p. 170; L’Alba, no. 33, 27 August 1847, p. 129, no. 165, 8 March 1848, p. 658; Rivista Popolare, no. 5, 2 May 1848, p. 24; Il Felsineo, no. 7, 15 January 1848; L’Apostolato, no. 38, 30 April 1848, p. 157; Bullettino quotidiano della riforma, no. 40, 23 December 1847, s.p.; Il Risorgimento, no. 13, 14 January 1848, p. 47; La Lega Italiana, no. 26, 28 February 1848, p. 137. 130 Mortier to Guizot, Turin, 10 January 1847, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 319; Buol to Metternich, Turin, 4 and 5 January 1847, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 4, pp. 25–29, 62; Vidal, Charles-Albert, pp. 275–78.

The Long-Term Consequences of the Annexation of Cracow

169

ic Sea.131 In March it was taken for granted that she was increasing her troops to 100,000 men and her agents were attempting to incite insurrections in Italian states so that she could justify her military interventions.132 In April the same troops were said to be approaching the Piedmontese frontier.133 The inhabitants of Genoa claimed that the only thing that kept Austrian troops outside Piedmont was the fear of the Viennese cabinet that their invasion would lead to a repetition of the Ancona affair.134 During the spring of 1847 the rumour of Austrian reinforcements in Lombardy and her intention to intervene was also widely believed in Tuscany and the Papal States.135 In the grand duchy people feared that Austria wanted not only to occupy their country but also to annex it in the same way as she had already done with Cracow, and the explanation given for the fact that it had not yet happened was that the Viennese cabinet was waiting for a suitable pretext.136 In the Papal States people expected to see the Austrian army marching against Rome at any moment and then France occupying Ancona and Civitavecchia by sea, something easy for her to do since the French fleet was said to be ready for this enterprise.137 In June information about the cession of two islands on the Po in the proximity of Brescello by the Duke of Modena to Austria was published in several Italian journals: Austria was said to want to fortify and use them to cross the river and invade Modena and Parma.138 The same suspicion existed even in the southern half of the peninsula and the most distant from the Austrian “threat”. In February the Belgian representative reported from Naples that “here as in the rest of Europe, it is no longer a question of principle that the people are debating, it is irrevocably and purely a question of time! It is needless to add to this statement that the horror of foreign intervention, and especially that of the Austrians, is no less lacking in Naples than in the rest of Italy, without exception.”139 It is known today that all these rumours were totally false, and one might consider most of them rather absurd to have been credited by the contemporaries. However, this would be a strongly ahistorical or, better said, arrogant and unhelpful approach. With regard to what happened to Cracow in November of the previous year and from the long-term perspective of what had happened to other 131 Vilain to Dechamps, Turin, 23 February 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Sardaigne 2; Miscellanea del giorno, no. 1, 1847, pp. 381–82. 132 Mortier to Guizot, Turin, 8 and 25 March 1847, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 319. 133 Notizie italiane, no. 9, 18 April 1847, Luseroni, La stampa clandestina in Toscana, p. 220. 134 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 20 March 1847, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 4. 135 Orta, Le piazze d’Italia, p. 46. 136 Vilain to Dechamps, Turin, 17 March and 24 April 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Sardaigne 2; Forβmann, Presse und Revolution in der Toskana, p. 89. 137 Chimay to Dechamps, Florence, 9 May 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Toscane 1832–1860. 138 Vilain Dechamps, Turin, 14 June 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Sardaigne 2. 139 Chimay to Dechamps, Naples, 18 February 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Deux-Siciles 1.

170

The Crucial Year (1846)

states in Europe as well as overseas during the previous one or two decades one can easily understand why the Italians distrusted the world they lived in. Moreover, they suspected Austria of having hostile and even aggressive aims not only for what she did but also how she justified it. Italians well remembered her pretext that the annexation of Cracow was an act of necessity, almost of self-defence,140 and they continued to object to this argument because they feared it, and the newspaper Italia later explained why: “This reasoning can justify the incorporation of Tuscany today, tomorrow that of the Legations and so on.”141 When the Austrian garrison in the city of Ferrara was reinforced in July 1847 and seized control over the whole town the following month, Massimo d’Azeglio posed the question whether the decision had been made by the Viennese cabinet or independently by the commander in chief of the Austrian army in Lombardy and Venetia, Marshal Count Josef Wenzel Radetzky von Radetz, Metternich having claimed that it had been made by Radetzky, which was actually the truth. Azeglio then went back to the annexation of Cracow to depict the conclusion of the Ferrara affair unfavourably to Austria: this experience forced him to doubt the official explanation that Radetzky had made the decision and see the relationship between the empire and Italian states as that of wolf and lamb when the latter could hardly trust the former’s assurances of good faith.142 All this made it more understandable why, as the French consul reported from Genoa in March 1847, “frustration at Austria is always the dominant, visible and popular feeling in Italy. It manifests itself in the smallest of things,”143 and why the Italians gradually inclined more to the idea of unity that would make them stronger and demanded from their rulers intensive armaments for defence. In the winter of 1846–1847 one of the principal demands of the bourgeois society was the creation of civic guards; Giuseppe Montanelli, a professor in Pisa, when advocating for this in early 1847 as protection against Austria, used her “slaughter” of both the Poles in Galicia and the Republic of Cracow as support for his demands.144 For some Italians, and this is an important aspect that should be kept in mind for the whole period until 1848, this practical – militarised – response reflected an increased bellicosity. It can generally be summarised that in the atmosphere of fear the Italians became more willing to wage war than ever before since 1815, although it must also be admitted that this readiness did not yet become as widespread as in early 1848.145 Luigi Torelli, disturbed by the news about Cracow, was convinced that Austria would never surrender Lombardy and Venetia without 140 L’Italia, no. 53, 24 February 1848, p. 211. 141 Ibid. 142 Massimo d’Azeglio, Sulla protesta pel caso di Ferrara, Bastia 1847, pp. 7–8. 143 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 20 March 1847, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 4. 144 Villari, Il Risorgimento, vol. 4, p. 180. 145 La Rochefoucauld to Guizot, Florence, 19 and 29 February 1847, AMAE, CP, Toscane 180.

The Long-Term Consequences of the Annexation of Cracow

171

fighting and that the Italians therefore had to arm to be strong enough to defeat her. He based his conviction that victory was possible due to Austria’s weakness, something he learnt in the book Austria and her Future written by the Austrian nobleman, Victor Franz von Andrian-Werburg, and originally published in 1841.146 Torelli was not alone in his optimism since increasingly more Italians became aware of the internal problems of the Austrian Empire like the huge state debt, the nationalist agitation in Hungary and Bohemia and the popular dissatisfaction in Galicia.147 Andrian-Werburg’s book seemed to be an important source of information since it was published in a shorter Italian version in 1847 and its Italian editor did not conceal the fact that it was primarily done with the aim of explaining to its readers the reasons for Austria’s decline in power.148 Awareness of her weakness became an important stimulating factor for the Italians’ readiness for geopolitical changes in the late 1840s as much as it had been for Charles Albert and his entourage during the previous decade – for all of them the relationship to Austria was perceived from the perspective of power.149 The hope that the expulsion of Austria would make them more secure, and the belief that it was possible to achieve it, also made some Italians more prepared to accept war as a solution. That the case of Cracow was important in this process was confirmed by a perceptive remark of the French envoy in Florence, Count Hippolyte de La Rochefoucauld, in April 1847: “If to the various causes of weakening [of Austria] is also added the disrepute that has struck Europe, the despoliation of Cracow, one can well understand the sentiment ruling in Italy and the hopes which agitate her.”150 Although he was not personally hostile to Austria, he understood why “nationalism is the watchword and the expulsion of the Austrians has become the delenda Carthago of modern Italy.”151 What made Torelli hostile also had a lot to do with the two other long-term tendencies.152 One of them was the mistrust of Britain and France.153 It had already existed before November 1846 but afterwards it grew significantly. The experi-

146 Torelli, Pensieri sull’Italia, pp. 92–112. 147 La Rochefoucauld to Guizot, Florence, 8 April 1847, AMAE, CP, Toscane 180; Schnitzer to Metternich, Florence, 20 July 1847, HHStA, StA, Toskana 67. 148 Victor Franz von Andrian-Werburg, L’Austria e il suo avvenire, Bastia 1847, s. VII. 149 Clark, The Italian Risorgimento, p. 51. 150 La Rochefoucauld to Guizot, Florence, 8 April 1847, AMAE, CP, Toscane 180. 151 La Rochefoucauld to Guizot, Florence, 19 March 1847, Armando Saitta (ed.), Le relazioni diplomatiche fra la Francia, il Granducato di Toscana, e il Ducato di Lucca, II serie: 1830–1848, vol 2, Roma 1960, p. 144. Here La Rochefoucauld obviously referred to the poem of Giuseppe Giusti from 1846 Il Delenda Cartago in which every second verse ends with “and we do not want Germans.” Riccardo Diolaiuti, Giuseppe Giusti e la genesi del federalismo toscano: Analisi storico-politica sulla nascita dell’idea di nazione, Firenze 2004, p. 153. 152 Torelli, Pensieri sull’Italia, pp. 138–42. 153 Il Felsineo, no. 1, 7 January 1847, p. 4.

172

The Crucial Year (1846)

ence of hapless Cracow abandoned to its fate by these two powers was engraved deeply in the minds of a considerable number of intellectuals like Gioberti154 and Giuseppe Gabussi155 as well as common people. Although many still sympathised with these great powers for their liberal regimes, this did not mean that they had great faith in their foreign policies. This standpoint can be summarised by what Cavour wrote about Britain easily sacrificing the small remnant of Poland: “I am a great admirer of England and have a true affinity for the British, whom I consider the precursors of civilisation. Nevertheless, their politics do not inspire me with the least confidence. When I see them holding out one hand to Metternich and with the other stirring up the ultra-radicals in Portugal, Spain [and] Greece, then I must confess I do not feel inclined to believe in their political honesty.”156 Although Britain gradually became more popular among Italians during 1847 due to their conviction that she was the only power sympathetic with their cause, they often still distrusted her. In fact a considerable number did not abandon the opinion so widespread in 1840 and afterwards that “England is concerned only with trade and finance; the usurer of the seas acts on profit and not on [legal] principles.”157 When in the spring a rumour spread in Central Italy that the British would like to recompense their loss of influence in Spain by gaining it in Italy and replacing France as the leading liberal power in the eyes of Italians, this was not entirely welcome even for the liberals because, in the words of the French consul in Ancona, Italians “desire first and foremost to remain the sole masters at home and they do not wish to see there the English any more than the Austrians, or even the French, regardless of any sympathy they show us.”158 This was also the attitude of Daniele Zappi, who warned that despite Britain’s sympathies one could hardly expect any practical help from her and he found convincing evidence for this in her reaction to the annexation of Cracow.159 The Italians’ awareness of the British reorientation from Spain to Italy mentioned in the previous paragraph resulted from the British-French dispute in the so-called Spanish marriages, which was actually a clash over decisive influence over Spain. Britain was defeated by France which, however, paid a high price for the victory. First, France was said to have violated the peace Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 with the dynastic connection with the Spanish Bourbons. This meant that 154 Vincenzo Gioberti, Il Rinnovamento civile d’Italia, vol. 1, Parigi, Torino 1851, p. 58. 155 Giuseppe Gabussi, Quali eventualità potrebbero produrre una intervenzione austriaca nella media e bassa Italia: Ragionamento, Rimini 1847, p. 6. 156 Cavour to William de la Rive, Turin, 20 January 1847, Luigi Chiala (ed.), Camillo Cavour’s gedruckte und ungedruckte Briefe, Erster Band 1821–1851, Leipzig 1884, p. 343. See also Narciso Nada (ed.), Camillo Cavour: Epistolario, vol. 4, Firenze 1978, p. 14. 157 Miscellanea del giorno, no. 2, 1847, p. 222. 158 Armand Duauly to Guizot, Ancona, 6 April 1847, AMAE, CPC, Rome 1. 159 Daniele Zappi, Alcune osservazioni sulle riforme dell’Italia centrale e sui mezzi di assicurarle, Firenze 1847, p. 1.

The Long-Term Consequences of the Annexation of Cracow

173

this dispute was also of a legal nature and how it ended was also welcome for Mazzini, who made violations of the law there as much as in Cracow his own political stick for beating all the “governments [which] have never worked as hard for us as they have for a year now.”160 Second, France’s relations with Britain lay in ruins. This outcome was seen by Italians as even more important since it represented a serious threat to the stability of the European states system. Since the two great powers’ competition or eventual armed conflict would affect the situation in the Mediterranean, it was the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies situated at its very core where the cooling in the same powers’ relations was observed with particular anxiety. It provoked deliberations in Naples about Britain’s possession of Malta, her dominance in the world and last but not least her relationship to Sicily where the war and British support could be used by the separatists against the government.161 Furthermore, as during the Rhine Crisis it raised doubts about the position of Italian states which wanted to remain neutral in the event of war.162 This again was not seen as a matter of law but of power, as the Belgian envoy in Naples ironically remarked: “It is a very big question this question of the neutral countries, but it is even more serious because it is a question of the small ones.”163 For all that the two liberal powers did in Spain and did not do in Cracow the Italians felt even more that they were abandoned to their fate because there were just two sorts of great powers: those threatening them and those ignoring them. If they anticipated the worst from Austria, they expected nothing from France and Britain except the same idle protests as raised after the annexation of Cracow.164 That is how the British-French behaviour in this affair fuelled the Italians’ pursuit for unity seen as the necessary source of material power, the only power guaranteeing the nations’ independence and simultaneously forcing them to arm and be ready for war.165 This can be proved not only by means of personal correspondence and numerous pamphlets and articles but also with political poetry like the poem Per la distruzione della Repubblica di Cracovia (On the Destruction of the Republic of Cracow) in which Janer Nardini appealed to his fellow tribesmen: “What disputes between the French and the British? / What clamours of statesmen? / Take up your arms! That is your destiny/ Today strike down the heads of kings!”166 160 Mazzini to his mother, London, 27 November 1846, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 30, p. 289. 161 Chimay to Dechamps, Naples, 20 March 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Deux-Siciles 1. 162 Chimay to Dechamps, Naples, 6 March 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Deux-Siciles 1. 163 Ibid. 164 Petitti to Gioberti, Turin, 26 August 1847, Adolfo Colombo (ed.), Carteggi di Vincenzo Gioberti, Volume II: Lettere di I. Petitti di Roreto a Vincenzo Gioberti (1841–1850), Roma 1936, pp. 73–74; Miscellanea del giorno, 1847, no. 2, p. 161. 165 L’Alba, no. 53, 13 October 1847, p. 211. 166 Gabriele Rossetti, Cracovia, Losanna 1847, p. 41.

174

The Crucial Year (1846)

The third long-term tendency resulted from the previous two: the mistrust of the entire European states system, greater than ever before, connected with the conviction that the unlawful incorporation of Cracow into the Austrian Empire was a deathblow to European public law as had been established at the Congress of Vienna and that with the annexation the world had witnessed the rise of a new law, in Filippo Villani’s expression that of “brutal power”.167 Italians increasingly felt that they lived in an era of injustice and violence and that to ensure their security it was not enough to attack Austria – it was also necessary to revolt against the whole international system. Whether someone was liberal, democrat or conservative became irrelevant under these conditions simply because it was about the external security for all. As the French historian Jean-Baptiste Capefigue, whose texts were known to some Italians, claimed: “Europe must not disregard the fact that a new diplomatic era is beginning; it is no longer a matter of a revolutionary or anti-revolutionary struggle but of serious questions concerning predominance, good faith and the execution of treaties.”168 Although the Italians’ deliberations about the states system of Europe in late 1847 and 1848 will be analysed in detail in the last chapter, it is useful to quote some examples here to show how the memory of Cracow threaded through later geopolitical security debates. All of them were introduced by or connected with references to this affair that became topical again with the so-called Austrian occupation of Ferrara, following which Massimo d’Azeglio declared that the Italian states could not search for their security in an appeal for justice, morality and the law of nations after what the Austrians had done in November 1846169 simply because, to use here the words of Italian patriot and lawyer Agatone de Luca Tronchêt, who agreed and expressed in reaction to the same Ferrara affair, “the code of the public law of Europe”170 no longer existed. Since the 1815 treaties were invalidated by the proceedings of their own contractors, among others in Cracow, they were defunct.171 As soon as they believed that owing to the annexation of Cracow “the treaties are a dead letter when [armed] force prevails,”172 Italians also widely shared the 167 Filippo Villani, I popoli e i governi d’Italia nel principio del 1847: considerazioni di un solitario, Bastia 1847, p. 142 (see also pages 26, 35 and 104). 168 Jean-Baptiste Capefigue, Le congrês de Vienne: Dans ses rapports avec la circonscription actuelle de l’Europe. Pologne, Cracovie, Allemagne, Saxe, Belgique, Italie, Suisse, 1814–1846, Paris 1847, pp. 183–84. 169 Massimo d’Azeglio, Sulla protesta pel caso di Ferrara, pp. 7–8. 170 Agatone de Luca Tronchêt, Sulla occupazione di Ferrara per l’armata austriaca operata li 13 agosto 1847: riflessi, Loreto 1847, p. 13. 171 Leopoldo Galeotti to Cosimo Ridolfi, 4 October 1847, Marco Pignotti (ed.), Carteggio Ridolfi – Galeotti (1847–1864), Firenze 2001, pp. 50–51; Il Corriere livornese, no. 27, 24 September 1847, p. 1; La Concordia, no. 77, 29 March 1848, p. 1. 172 L’Alba, no. 27, 13 August 1847, p. 105. Reprinted in La Mosca, no. 51, 19 August 1847, p. 403.

The Long-Term Consequences of the Annexation of Cracow

175

belief that they were under no obligation to respect them. The affair thus played a crucial role in this shift from trust in the treaties to overt hostility to them and the international system they created. Tuscan lawyer Vincenzo Salvagnoli wrote in the Patria in early 1848 that owing to what happened to the small Polish republic “one could no longer speak of any European law; because the law, as it was, of the Treaties of 1815 was abrogated.”173 This fact made the change of status quo in Italy legitimate: “The bold sophistry, which only arises in the parliaments of Europe to argue that Italy cannot rise again to a new civil life, or to independence, without offending European law, is the same which stood up the last time to defend the ugliest, the most unjust violation of that law.”174 At the same time Neapolitan lawyer Cesare Malpica claimed that “meanwhile they all forget that the treaty of 1815 was violated everywhere in Europe ... So why do they invoke to the detriment of Italy a pact that is dead, long dead, absolutely dead for all! Are we perhaps living in times when what is right for the strong could be unfair to the weak? But this barbaric law is also dead. And Italy has already rejected it.”175 According to an article published in the Concordia what had to be done resulted from the necessity of the times based upon the memory of Cracow’s fate: “The independence of Italy is to be found in her strength, which is in the union of the various states of which she is composed. All the laws in the world will not suffice to make us safe from foreign invasions and threats if we lack the strength to resist the former and ignore the latter. Cracow is a striking example of what we mean. The first consequence is therefore to seek strength in our union.”176 Unity was thus desirable not only because Austria was regarded as a threat but also because the whole system of European politics could no longer be trusted, and the same held for the appeals for armament. Consequently, Italians felt it necessary to arm not merely because of the presence of the Austrian army in Italy but also due to the conviction that armed force dominated international affairs, and again it was the memory of Cracow that made them firm in their conviction.177 In March 1848 they could read in the Alba: “And for a long time we have been shouting weapons! Weapons! Now it is our duty to repeat this cry every day because times are becoming more serious and more threatening, and there can be no security except in arms ... What are the treaties to Austria? Ill-fated Cracow tells you. No longer can you rely on any treaties in the world: you must rely solely on your bayonets and guns.”178 Finally, the perception of the 1815 treaties as invalid

173 La Patria, no. 189, 16 March 1848, p. 760. See also La Patria, no. 199, 24 March 1848, p. 795. 174 La Patria, no. 147, 1 February 1848, p. 579. 175 Il Riscatto italiano, no. 3, 15 February 1848, p. 9. 176 La Concordia, no. 79, 31 March 1848, p. 1. 177 L’Alba, no. 57, 22 October 1847, p. 225, no. 94, 11 December 1847, p. 373, no. 128, 23 January 1848, p. 509. 178 L’Alba, no. 159, 1 March 1848, p. 621.

176

The Crucial Year (1846)

was regarded as sufficient justification for territorial changes in Italy as well as the outbreak of war in March 1848 that was to ensure the former. On the very day when Charles Albert decided to go to war, some Italians defended his decision with Palmerston’s words about the possibility of changing the treaties on the Po as much as on the Vistula.179 This is how the annexation of Cracow backfired onto the Viennese cabinet, something briefly summarised by the Venetian Fatti e parole in July 1848: “That victory and that quarry was a curse for Austria.”180 Within the framework of this general feeling of insecurity anti-Austrian resentment became almost universal in Italy during 1846, above all in her northern and central regions, both situated next to or in the vicinity of Austrian provinces. It included not only the liberals and democrats but also conservatives in the governmental circles, both in the cities and the rural areas. It embraced intellectuals as well as merchants and farmers who saw, among other things, the political-economic importance of a railway and the wine trade for Piedmont and how Austria threatened both, regardless of how much this accusation was well-founded. There is even no need to doubt that it spread over the educated middle class to at least some members of lower social groups among whom “even the poorest were acquainted with the idea and reality of Austrian power,”181 whose weakening state was discussed in 1846 as much as it had been in the Piedmontese government since the mid 1830s. On the other hand, a considerable number of Italians were hardly able to understand the meaning of a modern constitution, and therefore some of them were indifferent towards it while the democrats, liberals and of course conservatives would argue infinitely about it.182 All this helps to understand why the issue of external security seemed to win the upper hand during and after 1846 as a unifying instrument in the spread of the concept of Italian nationhood and why the spiral of general support for it continued to increase as new threats gradually multiplied, more dangerous than the salt-wine affair and closer than the annexation of Cracow.

Petitti to Gioberti, Turin, 23 March 1848, Colombo, Carteggi di Vincenzo Gioberti, p. 149; La Concordia, no. 89, 12 April 1848, p. 1, no. 101, 26 April 1848, p. 1. 180 Fatti e parole, no. 29, 12 July 1848, p. 111. 181 Beales, Biagini, The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, p. 87. 182 Ibid., p. 91. 179

Chapter 5

SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM (1847–1848) THE CLIMAX OF INSECURITY On 5 July 1847 Pius IX satisfied the popular demand to establish a civic guard in Rome. It was then simply a matter of time until civic guards were also formed in other papal towns including Ferrara, situated less than three miles south of the Po and guarding access to the bridge over the river to Lombardy. This signified a serious security threat for the Austrian garrison in the town, which had witnessed anti-Austrian provocations in the spring and the murder of a man sympathising with Austria and serving as her informant, Baron Flaminio Baratelli, on 14 June 1847. Marshal Radetzky ordered reinforcements to ensure its safety for such a time when the local inhabitants were armed, and on 16 July, 600 infantrymen, some cavalry and three cannons arrived in Ferrara, increasing the total number of Austrian soldiers to 1800. This step, however, intensified the anti-Austrian mood of the local population, and one night at the beginning of the following month one of the officers was stopped and verbally insulted by numerous groups of young men with swords and hunting rifles; he was able to get home only under the escort of other soldiers. This caused the commander of the Austrian garrison, Count Karl von Auersperg, to order night patrols in the town, a measure enforced from 6 August and agreed by Radetzky, who several days later ordered the occupation of the main watch towers and gates, which was carried out by Austrian soldiers on 13 August. Metternich learned of these measures after they had been put in force but always expressed his consent.1 In the government in Rome, Austrian measures in Ferrara caused concern, especially as the reinforcement of the garrison occurred on the same day that a conspiracy against the pope and his reforms was revealed in the Eternal City; this instigated a rumour that Austria’s measures were a forerunner of her military intervention in the Papal States and even that she was the secret instigator of the plot in Rome. Piux IX and Cardinal Secretary of State Gabriele Ferretti objected to the arrival of the new Austrian troops in Ferrara and raised formal protests



1

Friedrich Engel-Janosi, Österreich und der Vatikan, 1846–1918, Band I: Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX. und Leos XIII. (1846–1903), Graz 1958, p. 28; Alan Sked, “Poor Intelligence, Flawed Results: Metternich, Radetzky, and the Crisis Management of Austria’s ‘Occupation’ of Ferrara in 1847,” Peter Jackson, Jennifer L. Siegel (eds), Intelligence and Statecraft: The Use and Limits of Intelligence in International Society, Westport 2005, pp. 69–74.

178

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

against the patrols and the occupation of the strategic places in the town claiming that Article 103 of the Final Acts of the Congress of Vienna, allowing the presence of the Austrian soldiers in Ferrara, had been violated by this action since the Austrians were entitled to garrison the citadel but not the whole town. Ferretti addressed the complaint of the violation of the pope’s rights not only to the Austrian ambassador in Rome, Count Rudolf von Lützow, but also to other members of the diplomatic corps, and the negative reactions of the papal authorities in Ferrara and Rome were also published in the governmental journal Diario di Roma. Foreign diplomats as well as the general public were also informed that Pius IX formally requested the withdrawal of the additional troops and the revocation of the latest military measures adopted in the town.2 It has already been proved that the imputations against Austria were completely fabricated: the Viennese cabinet was neither involved in the conspiracy against the pope nor wanted to intervene in any Italian country.3 Furthermore, most recently the myth of her illegal conduct in Ferrara has also been refuted since the Austrians actually were entitled to have military control over the entire town.4 However, it was possible to explain none of this to the Italians who generally viewed the abuse of power perpetrated on Cracow as being transferred from Poland to Italy, and therefore the Ferrara affair became a matter of déjà vu for many of them who immediately recalled the destruction of the Polish republic. The rumours inspired by this November affair about Austrian intervention in Italy seemed to be confirmed in the old Italian town of which the so-called “occupation” was regarded as the first step.5 The papal protest against the presence of Austrian troops in the town of Ferrara published in the Diario di Roma contained strong legal argumentation with the accusation that “such a fact is completely illegal and contrary to the agreements made since the Treaty of Vienna.”6 With this appeal to his own subjects Pius IX won popular sympathy, and it was generally believed that he was in the right while

Berkeley, Berkeley, Italy in the Making, pp. 220–23; Coppa, The Origins of the Italian Wars, p. 27. Sked, “Poor intelligence,” pp. 53–86. 4 Miroslav Šedivý, “The Austrian ‘Occupation’ of Ferrara in 1847: Its Legal Aspect between Myth and Reality,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 23, 2018, 2, pp. 139–55. For additional opinions of contemporaries that right was on the Austrian side but not included in this article see Zuylen to De La Sarraz, Vienna, 9 September 1847, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1455; Meester de Ravestein to Hoffschmidt, Rome, 8 September 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, SaintSiège 3; William H. Stiles to James Buchanan, Vienna, 26 September 1847, Ronald E. Coons, “La vigilia del’48 nella monarchia asburgica vista da un diplomatico americano,” Rassegna storica del Risorgimento 63, 1976, 2, pp. 158–59. 5 For all sources see La Bilancia, no. 37, 10 September 1847, p. 147; Abel to Ludwig I of Bavaria, Turin, 28 August 1847, BHStA, MA, Sardinien 2885; Revel to Solaro, London, 27 August 1847, AST, LM, Gran Bretagna 118. 6 Diario di Roma, no. 64, 10 August 1847 (Supplemento), s.p.

2 3

The Climax of Insecurity

179

Austria was a treacherous power deserving of general condemnation formally “legalised” by the pope’s resistance. Furthermore, the publication of the protest in the governmental newspaper was such an extraordinary step that the public could easily be convinced that war was inevitable. It was thus all the easier for the masses to belief the rumour about an imminent Austrian invasion of Romagna, provoked already by the Austrian reinforcement in Ferrara in July and strengthened in August by another rumour about a second one with 25,000 Austrian soldiers arriving in the town and its surroundings. Austria was accused of merely waiting for a pretext to invade, and it was seen more than ever before as ominous that she controlled the important passages over the Po in Ferrara and Comacchio and with them also the keys to the Papal States. The firm belief that the invasion was just a matter of time continued until mid September and, as is clearly emphasised in contemporary sources, was held by men and women of all social classes from aristocrats and wealthy bourgeois to poor workers, students and soldiers as well as clerics, and all were said to express their anger and frustration in cafes, pubs, streets and other public places.7 In the Papal States the Ferrara affair was considered to be a threat to their own independence and territorial integrity. To win the support of other Italians against an attack from the north people in Rome as well as in the provinces claimed that an aggression against one Italian ruler was an attack against all of them and that other Italians, particularly Charles Albert with his strong army, were obliged to protect the pope.8 According to them the affair was about “the security of Italian governments;”9 it was the same strategy which Charles Albert and Solaro had favoured since the mid 1830s to explain an eventual Austro-Piedmontese war as

Spaur to Ludwig I of Bavaria, Rome, 21 July 1847, BHStA, MA, Päpstlicher Stuhl 2501; Usedom to Frederick William IV, Rome, 23 July, 16, 20 and 21 August 1847, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 11627; Rossi to Guizot, Rome, 23 July 1847, AMAE, CP, Rome 987; Meester de Ravestein to Dechamps, Rome, 28 July, 11 and 18 August 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Saint-Siège 3; Liedekerke to De La Sarraz, Rome, 18 August 1847, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1454; Liedekerke to De La Sarraz, Rome, 2 September 1847, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1455; Liedekerke to De La Sarraz, Rome, 11 September 1847, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1456; Lützow to Metternich, Rome, 21 and 22 August 1847, HHStA, StK, Rom 78; The Roman Advertiser, no. 42, 7 August 1847, p. 329, no. 47, 11 September 1847, p. 369; Il Felsineo, no. 32, 12 August 1847, p. 156; L’Alba, no. 30, 20 August 1847, p. 117; La Bilancia, no. 31, 20 August 1847, p. 123; Il Contemporaneo, no. 34, 21 August 1847, s.p.; La Mosca, no. 53, 9 September 1847, p. 425; L’Eco, no. 2, 11 September 1847, p. 5; Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 231, 19 August 1847, p. 1843, no. 253, 10 September 1847, p. 2020, no. 254, 11 September 1847, p. 2029. 8 Massimo d’Azeglio to Cesare Balbo, Rome, 21 August 1847, Virlogeux, Massimo d’Azeglio, vol. 3, p. 425; Luigi Carlo Farini to Francesco Zanzi, Rome, 23 August 1847, Rava, Epistolario di Luigi Carlo Farini, pp. 684–85; Del presente e dell’avvenire d’Italia, Roma 1847, p. 7; The Roman Advertiser, no. 45, 28 August 1847, p. 353, no. 46, 4 September 1847, p. 361; L’Eco, no. 2, 11 September 1847, p. 6. 9 Il Contemporaneo, no. 34, 21 August 1847, s.p. 7

180

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

pan-Italian one to win the backing of other peninsular states. In 1847 it was not difficult for the pope to persuade Italians that the Ferrara affair represented a common security threat to all of them, not only because unlike Cracow Ferrara was situated in the heart of the peninsula but also owing to the coincidental rumour of Metternich’s letter to Leopold II of Tuscany containing the threat of the Austrian occupation of the grand duchy in the event of the formation of a civic guard and of her identical proceeding against all Italian states for the same reason. The letter actually never existed, but the Italians believed it did, which contributed to the situation where the “occupation” of Ferrara was regarded as not merely a threat to the Papal States but an affair affecting the whole of Italy in which the independence of all the peninsular states was at stake. The fear and resulting anger were thus omnipresent across all the states and social classes, and the nature of the resulting geopolitical security debate became unilaterally anti-Austrian.10 In Tuscany it was regarded as an abuse of power, an act of determent and last but not least as evidence of Austria’s hostile designs in Italy.11 As the Patria wrote on 31 August: “It is not a question of Ferrara but of Italy: it is not between the king of the Lombard-Venetian Kingdom and the pope, but between Austria and the Italian Princes ... it is about the supremacy of Austria over Italian rulers.”12 In Tuscany as in the Papal States not only the governments but even the common people believed that the Viennese cabinet desired war endangering not one but all the Italian states: as an anonymous pamphlet warned, they had to expect that the Austrian troops would come not only into their states but also their houses, “into the midst of your families.”13 What nurtured the distrust in Austrian integrity and fear of the horrors of war was the memory of the massacres in Galicia and the annexation of Cracow.14 In Livorno the situation in Ferrara was even compared with the older local history, namely with the French occupation of this seaport in 1796 when Napoleon had used no better arguments to vindicate his proceeding than the Austrians did in August 1847.15 In Piedmont passions were no less exacerbated. Charles Albert regarded the “occupation” as further glaring proof of Austria’s desire to take advantage of the

Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, p. 215. L’Alba, no. 27, 13 August 1847, p. 105, no. 31, 23 August 1847, p. 121, no. 37, 6 September 1847, p. 141, no. 50, 6 October 1847, p. 197; L’Italia, no. 10, 18 August 1847, p. 40; Il Filocattolico, no. 2, 18 September 1847 (Supplemento), s.p. 12 Forβmann, Presse und Revolution in der Toskana, p. 272. 13 “Doc. XLVIII: Dalla Toscana,” 22 August 1847, Luseroni, La stampa clandestina in Toscana, p. 190. 14 Schnitzer to Metternich, Florence, 17 and 24 August 1847, HHStA, StA, Toskana 67; La Rochefoucauld to Guizot, Florence, 19, 25 and 28 August, 9 September 1847, AMAE, CP, Toscane 180. 15 Binard to Hoffschmidt, Livorno, 23 August 1847, ADA, CP, Consulats, Série 1, 3, Livourne; Il Corriere livornese, no. 16, 17 August 1847 (Supplemento), s.p. 10

11

The Climax of Insecurity

181

situation to assert her dominance over all Italian rulers. For this reason, he regarded the threat to the pope’s independence as a threat to his own as well as all of Italy’s, and he was ready to defend all of them against the empire with the force of arms. The affair rallied the king and his advisors in Turin even more to the Italian cause, regardless of whether they were liberals like Villamarina or conservatives like Solaro.16 The same holds for the moderates who shared the conviction that the Austrian government had acted illegally and was just waiting for a pretext to be able to invade central Italy.17 Another consequence was even greater relaxation of the censorship still existing in the kingdom and the readiness to allow the import of some Italian patriotic newspapers like the Felsineo and Contemporaneo and republish anti-Austrian articles in the governmental press.18 It was thus possible to read in the Gazzetta piemontese on 19 August this highly undiplomatic statement: “To see the city in the hands of the Austrians and to be able to do nothing to set it free is a torment that every Italian heart can understand.”19 Among the Piedmontese the affair caused a real sensation. As in other Italian regions it was primarily observed from the point of security and law and even there the Austrian proceeding was regarded as a crime and a threat to the safety of not only the Papal States but also other Italians, and as such as a pan-Italian problem. The public was further agitated by the rumours about the deployment of the Austrian army towards the kingdom’s frontier and the Austrian demand for the right to occupy the fortress of Alessandria.20 The public reaction to what had





Villamarina to [?], 19 August 1847, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie I, 6; Abercromby to Palmerston, Turin, 25 August 1847, TNA, FO 67/142; Liedekerke to De La Sarraz, Rome, 25 August 1847, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1582; Vilain to Hoffschmidt, Turin, 1 September 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Deux-Siciles 2; Charles Albert to Villamarina, 3 October 1847, Nicomede Bianchi (ed.), Scritti e lettere di Carlo Alberto, Torino 1879, p. 53; Buol to Metternich, Turin, 18 August 1847, Nada, Sardegna, vol. 4, p. 115; Notario, Nada, Il Piemonte sabaudo, p. 275. 17 Petitti to Gioberti, Turin, 10 and 26 August 1847, Colombo, Carteggi di Vincenzo Gioberti, pp. 72–73; Gioberti to Silvestro Centofanti, Paris, 25 August 1847, Gioberti to Giuseppe Montanelli, Paris, 25 August 1847, Gentile, Vincenzo Gioberti: Epistolario, vol. 6, Firenze 1931, pp. 351–52; Costanza d’Azeglio to Emanuele d’Azeglio, 29 August and 27 September 1847, Chiarito, Costanza d’Azeglio, pp. 776, 781; Cavour to Amélie Revilliod, mid August 1847, Nada, Camillo Cavour: Epistolario, p. 273; Narciso Nada, “I liberali moderati,” Umberto Levra (ed.), Il Piemonte alle soglie del 1848, Torino 1999, p. 358. 18 Briolly to Frederick William IV, Turin, 31 August and 7 September 1847, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5506; Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, pp. 333–34. 19 Holt, The Making of Italy, p. 126. 20 Vilain to Hoffschmidt, Turin, 19 and 24 August, 1 September 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, DeuxSiciles 2; Bourgoing to Guizot, Turin, 23 August and 1 September 1847, AMAE CP, Sardaigne 319; Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 20, 26 and 28 August, 9 and 11 September 1847, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 4; Gaetano De Castillia to Antonio Trotti, Milan, 1 September 1847, Aldobrandino Malvezzi (ed.), Il Risorgimento italiano in un carteggio di patrioti lombardi 1820–1860, Milano 1924, p. 192; L’Italico, no. 31, 23 December 1847, p. 121. 16

182

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

happened in Ferrara can be best explained by the statements of the French and Prussian envoys in Turin; according to the former “it is the subject of all conversations [and] people are concerned about Austria’s ulterior designs,”21 and “the hatred of Austria is, indeed, a feeling common to almost all Piedmontese, without exception of opinion or class.”22 The latter reported: “The unfortunate impression produced in this country by the events in Ferrara is widespread, and although it is not expressed as elsewhere by tumultuous demonstrations, it is none the less profound … Even the imagination of the Piedmontese, in the North rather than the South, and much calmer than those of the rest of Italy, has been carried away by the most absurd exaggerations, and the more incredible the rumours circulating about Italian affairs seem, the more they are welcomed. It cannot be denied that an almost feverish excitement has seized all classes; the army is not exempt from it, it has even gone so far as to demand the troops be called to arms, to think about the possibility of a general war, to see in it a possibility of an invasion in Lombardy.”23 In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies Ferdinand II feared a revolution at home more than an attack from abroad in the late summer and his reaction to the news from Ferrara was not hostile. A considerable number of his subjects were of a very different opinion, however. Learning of the affair from the Roman and Tuscan press, they were filled with a strong anti-Austrian resentment which they dared to express more openly than ever before.24 The reaction to the “occupation” was similar even in Venice, where there was less hostility towards the Austrian rule than in Milan.25 Where the public response to the “occupation” of Ferrara was identical to the earlier reaction to the annexation of Cracow was in its strong legal dimension. The question of law and justice again attracted general attention, which was a logical outcome of the fact that the pope introduced the affair as a legal dispute over Article 103 of the Final Acts allowing the Austrians’ presence in the place of Ferrrara that in his interpretation meant not the whole town but only the citadel.26 This became a frequent topic in popular discussions regardless of whether they took place in Rome, Florence, Turin or Naples where the French representative reported:

Bourgoing to Guizot, Turin, 23 August 1847, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 319. Bourgoing to Guizot, Turin, 20 August 1847, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 319. 23 Briolly to Frederick William IV, Turin, 31 August 1847, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5506. 24 Lutteroth to Guizot, Naples, 17 August 1847, AMAE, CP, Naples 172; Schulenburg to Frederick William IV, Naples, 7 September 1847, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5601; Schwarzenberg to Metternich, Naples, 2 September 1847, HHStA, StA, Neapel 101. 25 Police reports on Venice in July and September 1847, 19 and 27 October 1847, HHStA, KA, StR, MKA 221; Adolfo Bernardello, “Venezia 1847–1848: patria e rivoluzione. Gruppi dirigenti e classi popolari,” Il Risorgimento 54, 2002, 3, p. 381. 26 Il Contemporaneo, no. 30, 24 July 1847, s.p.; L’Italia, no. 10, 18 August 1847, p. 39; Il Felsineo, no. 34, 26 August 1847, p. 164; Ferdinando Ranalli, Le istorie italiane dal 1846 al 1853, vol. 1, Firenze 1855, p. 144. 21 22

The Climax of Insecurity

183

“The controversy over the words place and town provides an inexhaustible theme of discussion, to which everyone brings his convictions, desires and passions.”27 Although some people differed over the details, the overwhelming majority of them accepted the papal version of Austria’s law-breaking and believed that she had “trampled on sacred international laws.”28 To understand why the whole affair was so important from a legal point of view it is necessary to view it in the wider context of the criticism of the existing international order. The Austrian proceeding in Ferrara was seen as a fitting example of the violations of the public law significantly contributing to the feeling of insecurity in society where all the various affairs were regarded as not isolated events but further symptoms of the decline in the whole post-Napoleonic states system. And like with the annexation of Cracow on the turn of 1846 not only Austria but also other great powers who again did nothing caused the situation where “European public law is fundamentally overturned.”29 The Ferrara affair was not just about one incident and one European power but about a general disregard for the rights of weak countries;30 as Pietro Sterbini claimed, it was a matter of justice not to allow armed force to decide international disputes.31 This opinion was shared by the Piedmontese moderates who criticised the situation whereby it was easy to violate international law when no great power was ready to oppose it; as Carlo Ilarione Petitti di Roreto lamented: “Whoever wants the abuse of force, although very evident, always prevails.”32 This overall scepticism of the state of European politics must always be kept in mind when reading frequent attacks against Austria’s lack of respect for the sanctity of international treaties.33 Due to the increasing freedom of speech they were contained not only in brief anonymous pamphlets and press articles but also in booklets often published in Italy and bearing their authors’ names. Although Massimo d’Azeglio personally did not believe that Austria would continue to occupy other papal territories, he took advantage of “the Ferrara affair that is a point that has been controversial for stretching treaties”34 when he wrote a pamphlet Sulla



Lutteroth to Guizot, Naples, 17 August 1847, AMAE, CP, Naples 172. L’Italia, no. 9, 13 August 1847, p. 31. 29 L’Italia, no. 10, 18 August 1847, p. 40. 30 Luigi-Carlo Farini, Lo stato romano dal 1815 al 1850, vol. 1, Firenze 1853, p. 227; Giuseppe Gabussi, Memorie per servire alla storia della rivoluzione degli Stati romani dall’elevazione di Pio IX al Pontificato sino alla caduta della repubblica, vol. 1, Genova 1851, p. 95. 31 Il Contemporaneo, no. 34, 21 August 1847, s.p. 32 Petitti to Erede, Turin, 19 August 1847, Arturo Codignola (ed.), Dagli albori della libertà al proclama di Moncalieri (Lettere del conte Ilarione Petitti di Roreto a Michele Erede dal marzo 1846 all’aprile del 1850), Torino 1931, p. 325. 33 “Doc. 1847/XLV: Toscani,” August 1847, “Doc. XLVII: Al popolo ed al governo toscano,” 22 August 1847, Luseroni, La stampa clandestina in Toscana, pp. 185, 188. 34 Massimo d’Azeglio to Luisa d’Azeglio Blondel, Rome, 17 August 1847, Virlogeux, Massimo d’Azeglio, vol. 3, p. 417. 27 28

184

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

protesta pel caso di Ferrara (A Protest on the Events in Ferrara) on 11 August. It was completely based on legal and moral arguments aimed at demonstrating the intentional violation of the treaties by Austria.35 He presented the “occupation” as an attack against the public law of Europe and independence of all Italian rulers,36 the latter derived from the former: “The independence of the smaller states in the face of the more powerful is ordinarily defended by existing treaties, and more generally, (but which should not be less powerful) from a sense of justice, respect for common rights, morals and equity that is dominant in Christian civilisation. This being so and applying the relative position of Austria and the Italian states, these should therefore be kept safe from any abuse of force on Austria’s part by virtue of the treaties and of the principles of justice, morality and the law of nations, which should direct the acts of any government. But Cracow teaches us to what defence the treaties serve against Austria. Galicia teaches us to what defence justice, morality, the rights of nations and nature serve. The evidence is there, and the smaller states now know what trust they should place in the said defences. I therefore believe that their danger is demonstrated to the full.”37 This opinion led Azeglio to this conclusion: “The demonstrations, the operations of the Austrian army and diplomacy in Italy, which are equally seen and observed by everyone, are directed not so much to occupy a portion of territory, but to occupy the rights of sovereignty in the independent states.”38 There were other pamphlets published in response to the affair of Ferrara. Agatone de Luca Tronchêt refuted the claim that the Austrians were entitled to control the whole town39 and appealed to international law that “is certainly the bulwark of all civilised nations against the attacks of the strongest.”40 This law protected their security but at the moment when “the law is abandoned, it is restricted to the right of the strongest, a right that always reminds oppressed people of the tremendous fluctuations of society in a state of barbarism.”41 Then he used the affair to attack the whole post-Napoleonic states system that was imprisoning Italy in the unwanted status quo, which entitled her to change the “code of the European public law” in a similar way as had already happened in Cracow.42 In his pamphlet written in Florence on 1 September Eugenio Albèri also denounced the Austrian proceeding in Ferrara as illegal and blamed Austria for compromising the security of Italian rulers, to continue as Tronchêt had by attacking the Congress of Vien-



Brignoli, Massimo d’Azeglio, p. 133. Massimo d’Azeglio, Sulla protesta pel caso di Ferrara, pp. 3, 7. 37 Ibid., pp. 7–9. 38 Ibid., p. 9. 39 Tronchêt, Sulla occupazione di Ferrara, pp. 8–9. 40 Ibid., p. 9. 41 Ibid., p. 11. 42 Ibid., p. 13. 35 36

The Climax of Insecurity

185

na and its political-legal legacy dominated by “the law of the strong, of brutal arrogance.”43 The same views were expressed by Carlo Ghinozzi, arguing that the affair “obviously reveals the most feared intentions and designs for universal peace, and even more so for neighbouring and contiguous states,”44 and Leopoldo Galeotti45 who wrote to Marco Minghetti: “I believe, however, that the attitude of the Ferrarese if it lasts is the best way to get out of this awkward situtation and to call Europe the judge between us and the others. I have no trust in diplomatic ambiguities that cannot delude anyone; little in foreign governments, always driven by interest, never by generous feelings; little also in any of our governments; but I trust in God and trust in the conscience of the nations.”46 After the annexation of Cracow the Ferrara affair was another important event in which Austria, “a master of political hypocrisy and religious hypocrisy for so many years, had finally thrown off her mask.”47 This action contributed to the Italians’ conviction that all of Italy was exposed to Austria’s malicious designs as well as the despotism of all European powers, both provoking a new wave of pan-Italian solidarity.48 When the affair was finally solved in December after long and complicated discussions between the governments in Rome and Vienna and the Austrians no longer patrolled the town and had to withdraw from almost all watch towers and gates,49 it was undoubtedly a significant diplomatic victory for the pope, but it was actually not celebrated much by Italians, whose attention was attracted by other affairs contributing further to their feelings of insecurity. The first of several incidents regarded by Italians as direct security threats on the turn of 1847 was the question of two territories which were to be surrendered by Leopold II of Tuscany according to the treaty signed in Florence in 1844: the Lunigiana territory with the town of Pontremoli to the future Duke of Parma and another territory with the town of Fivizzano to the Duke of Modena, Francis V. The problem was that the inhabitants of Pontremoli and Fivizzano protested against the arrangement since they wished to remain under the rule of the grand



Eugenio Albèri, Della occupazione austriaca di Ferrara: considerazioni, Firenze 1847, pp. 12, 20. Carlo Ghinozzi, Occupazione di Ferrara e maggior necessità di una Guardia Nazionale in Toscana, Firenze 1847, p. 3. 45 Leopoldo Galeotti, Della sovranità e del governo temporale dei papi, Capolago, Losanna 1847, pp. 181–82. 46 Galeotti to Minghetti, Florence, 11 August 1847, Marco Minghetti, Miei Ricordi: Volume primo: Anni 1818–1848, Torino 1888, p. 275. 47 Pallavicino, Memorie, vol. 1, Torino 1882, p. 202. 48 For such an evaluation by the contemporaries see also Bottrigari, Cronaga di Bologna, p. 218; Farini, Lo stato romano, p. 228; Goffredo Mameli, La vita e gli scritti. Vol. I: La vita, Firenze, Venezia 1927, pp. 56–57; Guglielmo Pepe, Narrative of Scenes and Events in Italy: From 1847 to 1849, vol. 1, London 1850, p. 45; Giovanni Visconti Venosta, Memoirs of Youth, Things Seen and Known 1847–1860, Boston, New York 1914, p. 32. And for all historians see Jonathan Marwil, Visiting Modern War in Risorgimento Italy, New York 2010, p. 6. 49 Sked, “Poor intelligence,” p. 85. 43 44

186

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

duke, and the Tuscans supported their request. Leopold II gave in and kept all the territories which he was obliged to transfer to the dukes on the grounds that he could not surrender them against the will of his people. While the Duke of Parma finally agreed to temporarily withdraw his claim in return for financial compensation, Francis V wanted to obtain Fivizzano immediately, and when his repeated requests for its transfer by diplomatic means were ignored in Florence, his troops occupied it on 5 November. This seizure of the town was strongly condemned by the Tuscan government, describing “the occupation as unexpected as it was illegal,”50 but in fact both accusations were unfounded: the government had known what the duke intended to do since he had informed it in advance and right was entirely on his side because he was entitled to the promised territory.51 The anti-Modenese press campaign and the strong dislike of Francis V provoked war hysteria in Tuscany when demands were made for preparations for her defence and the distribution of weapons, and this anxiety and anger also spread to other Italian states. The principal reason was the fear of an Austrian invasion that, as was often claimed, became easier when the two strategic points in the Apuan Alps with passages into Tuscany were transferred to Parma and Modena generally regarded as the empire’s allies. This would make the crossing of the Austrian army into central Italy easier; as the French consul in Genoa noted, during the Napoleonic Wars a small detachment of French soldiers placed in the mountains between Pontremoli and Fivizzano had been able to block superior Austrian forces, something all the more important for the Italians in late 1847 as this position commanded the overland routes between Tuscany and Piedmont.52 Consequently, the whole issue was widely discussed among the general public and caused apprehension and anger across the political and social strata of (not merely) Tuscan society. People, including Giuseppe Mazzini in London, were heard to say that it was not a good idea to give up the natural barrier against the powerful enemy in the north.53 Since the dispute about Fivizzano was seen as a question of defence of not only Tuscany but all of central Italy, it was considered to be an Italian problem. It was thus regarded as a matter of Italy’s security and introduced again in a not

Serristori to Schnitzer, Florence, [?] November 1847, ASF, SME, Fivizzano 1470. Armando Sapori, “Il conflitto fra Toscana e Modena per le questione della Lunigiana (ottobre– dicembre 1847),” Rassegna storica del Risorgimento 14, 1927, 1, p. 9; Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, pp. 233–35. 52 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 19 February 1848, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 5. 53 Minto to Palmerston, Florence, 29 October 1847, TNA, FO 44/2; La Rochefoucauld to Guizot, Florence, 9 and 12 November 1847, AMAE, CP, Toscane 181; Mazzini to Nicola Fabrizi, 9 November 1847, Palamenghi-Crispi, Giuseppe Mazzini, p. 175; L’Alba, no. 55, 18 October 1847, p. 217; L’Italia, no. 20, 23 October 1847, p. 79; L’Italico, no. 17, 28 October 1847, p. 65, no. 21, 25 November 1847, p. 73; Jesse Myers, Baron Ward and the Dukes of Parma, London 1938, p. 32; Gabriella Cioni Saltarelli, “Ridolfi e la politica estera del suo Ministero (Settembre 1847 – Luglio 1848),” Miscellanea storica della Valdelsa 88, 1982, 1/2, pp. 7–19. 50 51

The Climax of Insecurity

187

only political but also legal framework: it was often argued that since the treaties no longer offered security to the Italians, there was no need to respect them in the affairs of Fivizzano and Pontremoli which were strategically too valuable to be handed over to the enemy who could exploit them against other Italians. In the name of their own security the law based on treaties was to be replaced with the law of nations.54 During these sceptical geopolitical and legal deliberations recent incidents were called to mind, among others the annexation of Cracow and the “occupation” of Ferrara, especially because Austria was said to stand behind Francis V’s refusal to yield. The fact that this accusation was unfounded – actually Metternich did his best to appease the Duke of Modena – played no role when the Italians’ mistrust had been fomented for more than a year. A considerable number of them readily agreed with Giuseppe Montanelli’s opinion that the question of Pontremoli and Fivizanno represented the continuation of the threatening policy pursued by Austria who “is now playing with Tuscany the game that it played with Rome for Ferrara,”55 and with Vincenzo Salvagnoli’s view that the aggressions in Ferrara and Fivizzano were “the signs of brutal war.”56 It was believed that if Pontremoli and Fivizzano were occupied by Austrian troops, then Tuscany would have her own Ferrara.57 The question of Fivizzano was solved peacefully in early December with the Duke of Modena retaining the territory. This settlement in no way allayed the fear of an Austrian invasion, in particular when the defensive treaties were signed between the empire and Parma and Modena on 24 December and 4 February. The two states therefore became integral components of Austria’s defensive system in Italy and the Austrian troops entered their territories on the invitation of the two dukes.58 As with the earlier reinforcement of the Austrian garrison in Ferrara, the presence of Austrian troops in the duchies angered the governments and people in Tuscany, Piedmont and the Papal States, where these developments were seen as direct threats and further proof of Austria’s aggressive designs against them since the territories of both dukes, especially Modena, gave the empire a distinct military advantage by pushing the Austrian frontier from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian Sea, thereby cutting Italy into northern – Piedmontese – and southern – Tuscan and Papal – halves. The control of the territories on the right bank of the Po, namely Ferrara, Comacchio, Parma, Piacenza and Modena, facilitated Austrian attacks against Florence and Genoa, and some Italians felt that such in-



L’Alba, no. 57, 22 October 1847, p. 225, no. 67, 9 November 1847, p. 265; La Patria, no. 62, 8 November 1847, p. 251, no. 64, 10 November 1847, pp. 259–60. 55 Montanelli to Vieusseux, Pisa, 5 December 1847, Paolo Bagnoli, “Lettere di Giuseppe Montanelli a Givan Pietro Vieusseux (1831–1860),” Nuova Antologia 129, 1994, 572, p. 288. 56 La Patria, no. 83, 29 November 1847, p. 335. 57 Gabussi, Quali eventualità, p. 57. 58 Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, pp. 235–36. 54

188

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

vasions were imminent and that the Austrian presence in the duchies, labelled by many as an invasion, was a forerunner of a greater invasion of Italy and therefore of a general war in the peninsula. It was even believed in early 1848 that Austria wanted to provoke difficulties between Tuscany and Modena in order to exploit the defensive treaty with Modena attacking Tuscany.59 The validity of this rumour seemed to be confirmed by Austrian reinforcements in Lombardy in early 1848 which were actually aimed at her own defence, but such an explanation could hardly allay the fears of anyone in Tuscany or other Italian states, particularly in Piedmont where rumours of the deployment of Austrian troops on the kingdom’s frontier surfaced again.60 Although the treaties concluded between Austria and the two duchies were purely defensive in nature and in compliance with the existing diplomatic and legal practice, Italians saw them as offensive and illegal: offensive because they could facilitate Austrian aggression, illegal since they were said to be incompatible with the security of other Italian states, reminding the Italians once again of Cracow. The campaign against these alliances and through them the whole classical diplomacy to which the Polish republic had fallen prey was nothing other than an expression of the Italians’ own feelings of insecurity and fear that Tuscany and the papal Legations would experience a similar fate.61 With the dangerous position the Austrians assumed

Redern to Frederick William IV, Turin, 26 January 1848, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5507; Schaffgotsch to Frederick William IV, Florence, 28 December 1847, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5668; La Rochefoucauld to Guizot, Florence, 25 and 29 December 1847, 29 February 1848, AMAE, CP, Toscane 181; Minto to Palmerston, Rome, 28 December 1847, TNA, FO 44/2; Bergman to Ihre, Florence, 10 January 1848, RA, Kabinettet, UD, Huvudarkivet E 2 D:784; Abercromby to Palmerston, Turin, 30 December 1847, TNA, FO 67/144; Abercromby to Palmerston, Turin, 22 January 1848, TNA, FO 67/150; Abercromby to Ponsonby, Turin, 13 February 1848, PP, GC, PO 551–574; Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 25 February 1848, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 5; Petitti to Gioberti, Turin, 21 January 1848, Colombo, Carteggi di Vincenzo Gioberti, p. 134; La Bilancia, no. 106, 25 February 1848, p. 423; L’Italia, no. 30, 31 December 1847, p. 119; La Patria, no. 118, 3 January 1848, p. 467; Il Risorgimento, no. 5, 5 January 1848, p. 17; La Lega Italiana, no. 1, 5 January 1848, p. 4, no. 26, 28 February 1848, p. 137; L’Alba, no. 115, 8 January 1848, p. 457; La Concordia, no. 7, 8 January 1848, p. 25; L’Italico, no. 4, 10 January 1848, p. 14; La Speranza, no. 5, 11 January 1848, s.p.; Il Carroccio, 24 February 1848, no. 7, p. 26; Il Contemporaneo, no. 27, 4 March 1848, p. 106; Giovanni Baldasseroni, Leopoldo II Granduca di Toscana e i suoi tempi: Memorie, Firenze 1871, p. 266; Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, p. 360; Laura Castelfranchi, “Il «Corriere Livornese» (1847–1849),” Bollettino Storico Livornese 2, 1938, pp. 49–50. 60 André to Guizot, Turin, 25 January and 12 February 1848, Bacourt to Guizot, Turin, 19, 22 and 25 February 1848, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 320; Liedekerke to Randwijck, Rome, 12 February 1848, Alberto M. Ghisalberti (ed.), Rapporti delle Cose di Roma (1848–1849), Roma 1949, p. 14; La Concordia, no. 9, 11 January 1848, p. 33, no. 28, 2 February 1848, p. 109. 61 Costanza d’Azeglio to Emanuele d’Azeglio, 10 January 1848, Chiarito, Costanza d’Azeglio, p. 813; La Lega Italiana, no. 20, 21 February 1848, p. 97; L’Alba, no. 153, 23 February 1848, p. 609; L’Italia, no. 53, 24 February 1848, p. 211. 59

The Climax of Insecurity

189

on the strategic crossroads between Tuscany and Liguria,62 the problem could be briefly summarised as the Concordia did on 10 February, as a matter of “political geography” (geografia politica).63 This led some Italians to protest more than ever that the Austrians were knocking “at our doors”64 and claim: “First it was Cracow; then it was Parma, Modena, and Ferrara; next it will be Florence and Rome.”65 The hostility to the Austrian presence in Parma and Modena was further strengthened by two important events in Italy in January 1848. The first one was the clash between the Austrian army and the inhabitants of Milan leading to the death of six men and scores of wounded, with the number of victims highly exaggerated in the Italian press. The bloodshed in the capital of Lombardy immediately provoked outcries against Austrian “cruelty” and “barbarity” and was compared with the Galician massacres.66 The Viennese cabinet represented now a threat not only to other states but also to Austria’s own inhabitants, and this conviction seemed to be genuine as the French consul in Genoa reported after meeting several local noblemen who had just returned from Milan, one of whom told him with a trembling voice: “Austria wants to repeat the scenes of Galicia; she is spreading money around to make the people hate us; and we will eventually all be slaughtered.”67 The second event was the revolution in Sicily that broke out on 12 January 1848 and was followed by an insurrection in Naples before the end of the month. These two popular uprisings started a process that led to the proclamation of constitutional monarchies not only in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies but also Tuscany, Piedmont and the Papal States by mid March. At the same time the political change in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies provoked fear of an Austrian military intervention in the kingdom if its monarch requested it in accordance with the existing alliance treaty between the two states.68 New rumours immediately spread across the entire peninsula that the Viennese cabinet had officially requested the pope and the grand duke to permit the free passage of the imperial army through the Papal States and Tuscany to the south. In January another rumour that Rade La Lega Italiana, no. 26, 28 February 1848, p. 137. La Concordia, no. 36, 10 February 1848, p. 143. 64 La Concordia, no. 7, 8 January 1848, p. 25. 65 Berkeley, Berkeley, Italy in the Making, vol. 2, p. 181. 66 Spaur to Ludwig I of Bavaria, Rome, 15 January 1848, BHStA, MA, Päpstlicher Stuhl 2502; Minto to Palmerston, Rome, 18 January 1848, TNA, FO 44/4; Cavour to Mathilde De La Rive, 13 February 1848, Carlo Pischedda (ed.), Camillo Cavour: Epistolario, Volume Quinto (1848), Firenze 1980, pp. 64–65; Massimo d’Azeglio, “I lutti di Lombardia,” Vittorio Gorresio (ed.), Massimo d’Azeglio: Opuscoli politici, Torino 1943, pp. 115–16; Beales, Biagini, The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, p. 88. 67 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 11 January 1848, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 5. 68 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 2, 10 and 11 February 1848, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 5; Castan-Tavernier to Guizot, Civitavechia, 13 February 1848, AMAE, CPC, Rome 1; Schulenburg to Frederick William IV, Naples, 3 March 1848, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5602; L’Italico, no. 7, 17 January 1848, p. 25; L’Italia, no. 38, 20 January 1848, p. 151; La Concordia, no. 27, 1 February 1848, p. 106.

62 63

190

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

tzky sought to occupy Alessandria for the greater security of Lombardy and that Metternich had officially requested Charles Albert to hand over this important fortress to Austria also became popular in Piedmont.69 Although both accusations were completely without foundation since no requests had been directed either to Rome, Florence or Turin, they became widely believed not only among the general public but even in governmental circles,70 especially owing to the character of Radetzky who was suspected of wanting to take action with armed force.71 They were seen as further evidence that Austrian invasions in other states were inevitable.72 That the fear they provoked was genuine is proved by various contemporary sources including the report of the French agent in Naples about the reaction of the population to the news of the March revolutions in the Austrian Empire: “The effect here has been electric! The assurance that from now on there would be no more fear of Austrian aggression against Italy has given the people such renewed confidence that government stock has risen by six ducats, at yesterday’s stock market, and was listed at 85.”73 The period between the late summer of 1847 and March 1848 witnessed a new wave of insecurity caused by the affairs mentioned above. This process, however, must be seen within the broader framework of European politics since the apprehension felt in Italian society was caused not only by the Austrian proceeding in the Apennines but also by the policies of other great powers which were regarded as potentially dangerous. In reality, it was not as much about Russia and Prussia, well-known for their diplomatic support of the Austria Empire, because they were too far away to be able to interfere effectively in Italian affairs; it was France and Britain, which were both close enough to be able to meddle in it. Of the two liberal powers it was the former that became unpopular or even feared among a considerable number of Italians during the winter owing to the political rapprochement between Guizot and Metternich that could, as some suspected, end in a French-Austrian alliance.74 The important question posed at that time was about the French



Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 30 and 31 January 1848, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 5; L’Alba, no. 125, 20 January 1848, p. 497; La Patria, no. 153, 7 February 1848, p. 603; Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, p. 377; Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, p. 223. 70 André to Guizot, Turin, 25 January 1848, AMAE CP, Piemont 320. 71 Costanza d’Azeglio to Emanuele d’Azeglio, 24 January 1848, Chiarito, Costanza d’Azeglio, p. 818. It must be admitted that this suspicion of Radetzky was well-founded. When the special agent sent by Metternich to Italy, Count Ludwig von Ficquelmont, met with the old marshal in late October, Radetzky was preparing an intervention against Tuscany that he regarded as inevitable. When the marshal learnt that the Viennese cabinet was ready to allow only the interventions in Parma and Modena, he was greatly displeased. Ficquelmont to Metternich, Milan, 29 October 1847, HHStA, StK, Acta Secreta 6. 72 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 14 and 22 January 1848, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 5; Spaur to Ludwig I of Bavaria, Rome, 9 February 1848, BHStA, MA, Päpstlicher Stuhl 2502. 73 Monttessuy to Lamartine, Naples, 24 March 1848, AMAE, CP, Naples 175. 74 L’Alba, no. 121, 15 January 1848, p. 481. 69

The Climax of Insecurity

191

reaction to an eventual Austrian intervention in other Italian states. It was generally believed that France would repeat her naval expedition in the style of Ancona but this time would support rather than oppose the empire. The Roman newspaper Italico even expected her invasion of Savoy if the government in Turin did anything to displease the Viennese cabinet, a suspicion shared by Cesare Balbo.75 The concern about the French intervention was intensified by the frequent cruising of a French naval squadron along the Italian coast. If these visits had been resented in Naples in previous years, also for the reason that when large numbers of these great French warships were seen anchored alongside the much smaller Neapolitan fleet, they caused a sense of inferiority,76 after mid 1847 they also became unpopular in other Italian seaports. It was the French war steamships in the Mediterranean capable of reaching the Italian coast from southern France in a short space of time which particularly provoked anxiety and numerous rumours of French landings. Even liberals and democrats disliked the French military presence in the proximity of the Italian shore and suspected the government in Paris of wanting to use these forces to intimidate Italy from the sea, either by invasion or naval blockade.77 Then they usually turned their attention to Britain and her own fleet cruising nearby at the same time in the Mediterranean Sea.78 Although some of them regarded this maritime power as their only friend, they usually mistrusted her aims and were also averse to the idea of her arbitrary interference, something expected since the late summer when rumours surfaced that the British troops had been sent from Corfu to occupy Ancona, or that France would occupy this town and then Britain would seize Sicily. During the winter it was widely feared that the British wanted to control this island, and it was no accident that in December another rumour spread in Genoa that the Sicilians had declared their independence from Naples and placed themselves under the British protectorate.79 All this helps to explain why the international situation was regarded as precarious not only in



Robert Wickliffe Jr. to James Buchanan, Turin, 27 September 1847, Howard R. Marraro (ed.), L’unificazione italiana vista dai diplomatici statunitensi, vol. 1, Roma 1963, p. 328; L’Italico, no. 19, 11 November 1847, p. 73; Il Risorgimento, no. 19, 21 January 1848, p. 74. 76 Brockhausen to Frederick William IV, Naples, 4 and 18 September 1846, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5601; Schwarzenberg to Metternich, Naples, 7 August 1846, HHStA, StA, Neapel 100. 77 Vilain to Dechamps, Turin, 1 August 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Deux-Siciles 2; Lutteroth to Guizot, Naples, 28 August 1847, AMAE, CP, Naples 172; Bourgoing to Guizot, Turin, 4 September 1847, AMAE CP, Piemont 320; Minto to Palmerston, Rome, 20 November 1847, TNA, FO 44/2; Giuseppe Montanelli, L’Austria e l’Italia in Faccia dell’Europa, Torino 1847, p. 12; La Patria, no. 46, 22 October 1847, p. 191. 78 La Patria, no. 52, 28 October 1847, p. 211. 79 Mortier to Guizot, Turin, 26 July 1847, AMAE CP, Sardaigne 319; Abercromby to Palmerston, Turin, 21 October 1847, TNA, FO 67/143; La Rochefoucauld to Guizot, Florence, 29 October, 2 November and 3 December 1847, AMAE, CP, Toscane 181; Hamilton to Palmerston, Florence, 6 December 1847, TNA, FO 79/126; Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 7 December 1847, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 4; Bottrigari, Cronaga di Bologna, pp. 235, 278. 75

192

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

northern and central Italy situated close to Austria but also in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies;80 in Naples the question was raised not only about Austrian designs but also about the policies of other great powers, especially the two liberal ones causing great apprehension there.81 The Italians generally did not want either Austrian hegemony or a French or British protectorate, nor did they wish to see Italy become the playground of any great power desiring to intervene there with armed force.82 For that reason they observed the manoeuvres of the French and British warships, both reinforced during the winter, with a similar uneasiness and displeasure as the Austrian armament in Lombardy. The naval operations of the two liberal powers were regarded from the very north to the very south as another security threat, a feeling further intensified by the bad relations existing between the cabinets in London and Paris. Consequently, some people even feared an unwanted clash of the two fleets, starting thus a new war threatening Italy’s interests, or at least her economic ones. When Prince Joinville, the son of Louis Philippe, leading the French fleet anchored in Spezia at the end of October was asked what would happen if his warships were to meet the British ones sailing from Malta, his answer that “God is great and we have the cannons”83 was surely meant as a joke, but it was hardly accepted as such by those who heard it. In brief, facing the triangle of Austria, France and Britain surrounding Italy, Italians had grounds for “extreme apprehension about those three mighty powers. What will be the bone of contention, what will actually be the spark kindling the first burst of cannon shot? The present situation is impossible to maintain for long.”84 There were, however, other sources of genuine conviction that “the peace of Europe in general and of Italy in particular is hanging on a very fine thread.”85 It was not only the inhabitants of Trieste who apprehensively observed the tensions in Greek-Ottoman relations and the civil war in Switzerland in the autumn of 1847,86 and it was particularly the second affair that attracted the attention of Italians, and undoubtedly not just because it was situated in closer proximity. The battle of the liberal cantons against the conservative ones united in the so-called Sonderbund was seen not only as a struggle of progress against backwardness but

Il Tempo, no. 19, 16 May 1848, p. 73. La Rigenerazione, no. 3, 14 February 1848, p. 9, no. 23, 21 March 1848, p. 90. 82 Lutteroth to Guizot, Naples, 17 August 1847, AMAE, CP, Naples 172; Spaur to Ludwig I of Bavaria, Rome, 24 January 1848, BHStA, MA, Päpstlicher Stuhl 2502; L’Italia, no. 14, 11 September 1847, p. 56. 83 Costanza Arconati to Antonio Trotti, Florence, 30 October 1847, Malvezzi, Il Risorgimento italiano, p. 196. 84 L’Italiano, no. 1, 2 November 1847, s.p. 85 L’Alba, no. 64, 5 November 1847, p. 253. 86 Police report for Trieste in September 1847, 13 October 1847, HHStA, KA, StR, MKA 220; Police report for Trieste in December 1847, 12 January 1847, HHStA, KA, StR, MKA 223. 80 81

The Climax of Insecurity

193

also as resistance to the 1815 treaties. The Swiss civil war was then easily compared with the Italians’ own situation when the alliance between Austria, Parma and Modena was labelled as an Italian Sonderbund,87 and the French-Austrian understanding, albeit ineffective in its support of the conservative cantons, served as an ominous warning about what could happen to Italians if they went too far in their attempt to change the territorial status quo in Italy. Italian nationalists and patriots saw the defeat of the Sonderbund all the more as a positive sign in their own struggle against the legacy of the Congress of Vienna.88 How attentive the Italians were to this affair can be seen from their mass public gatherings celebrating the victory of federal forces and linking it with Italian independence: around 9,000 led by Giuseppe La Farina in Florence, 10,000 in Livorno and 5,000 in Rome, chanting “long live Italy, long live the brotherhood of peoples, long live the independence of peoples.”89 The French February Revolution that replaced the July Monarchy with the Second Republic was considered to be a much more important event for Italy’s future. The first news of this evoked memories of the Revolutionary Wars in Italy in the 1790s, and it was not only the conservatives who feared a repetition of these wars. Very soon, however, the belief that the new regime in France would not wage a war of conquest in Europe, at least not for the time being, dispelled these fears.90 What greatly helped in this respect was the deliberately ambiguous manifesto of the new French Foreign Minister, Alphonse de Lamartine, issued on 2 March, with this declaration: “The treaties of 1815 no longer exist as law in the eyes of the French Republic; nevertheless, the territorial delineations of these treaties are a fact which she does recognise as a basis and as a point of departure in her relations with other nations.”91 The longest part of the manifesto listed the possible reasons for war in Italy, such as a foreign invasion or attempts to obstruct reforms in the Italian states or block their efforts to achieve unity. It became well known across Italy where it was reprinted in many Italian newspapers92 and made the people believe in France’s more





La Lega Italiana, no. 20, 21 February 1848, p. 97; L’Alba, no. 153, 23 February 1848, p. 609. Francesco Baracchi, Lutti e Glorie di Milano dal settembre 1847 al marzo 1848, Milano 1848, p. 12. 89 Begré to Weyermann, Rome, 4 December 1847, CH-BAR#D0#1000/3#1196*, Az. D.1.3.2, 1816–1848; Drouin to Walser, Florence, 9 December 1847, CH-BAR#D0#1000/3#1198*, Az. D.1.3.2, 1814–1848; Binard to Hoffschmidt, Livorno, 9 December 1847, ADA, CP, Consulats, Série 1, 3, Livourne. 90 Vilain to Hoffschmidt, Turin, 3 and 6 March 1848, ADA, CP, Italie, Deux-Siciles 2; Alletz to Lamartine, Genoa, 6 March 1848, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 5; Il Risorgimento, no. 54, 29 February 1848, p. 212, no. 56, 2 March 1848, p. 221; Bottrigari, Cronaga di Bologna, pp. 284–85; Ginsborg, Daniele Manin, p. 87; Orta, Le piazze d’Italia, p. 235; Rosario Romeo, Dal Piemonte sabaudo all’Italia liberale, Torino 1963, p. 91. 91 Lawrence C. Jennings, France and Europe in 1848: A Study of French Foreign Affairs in Time of Crisis, Oxford 1973, p. 12. 92 For all see Il Mondo illustrato, no. 10, 11 March 1848, pp. 158–59. 87 88

194

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

sympathetic attitude. It was a welcome turnaround after the pro-Austrian stand of Guizot’s ministry, and even traditionally anti-French monarchist Gioberti regarded the new republic as an Italian ally. At least for a short time in the early spring of 1848 the latest revolution in France was seen as a positive impulse for Italy in her own struggle against the old order. It allowed the Italians a brief respite in their attitude towards this great power, very important in itself since it made a war with Austria more feasible as it removed the fear of an unexpected rear attack from France.93 The series of various events involving Italy both nationally and internationally, all in quick succession, had a significant cumulative effect in the rise of feelings of international insecurity that can be qualified in the first quarter of 1848 as omnipresent. Although the patriots and nationalists readily exploited them in their press campaigns, they did so unnecessarily since there was genuine fear among the masses. The widespread atmosphere of unease offered thus a fertile ground for the spread of the debate on how to counter the external threats most effectively. The general consensus of what was to be done – political unity based on the concept of Italian nationhood as seen later – resulted from another universal agreement that aid could hardly been expected from abroad. This conviction was based upon historical experience with the actions of all the great powers in the recent past; major events like the Sulphur War, the Rhine Crisis, the annexation of Cracow and even the affairs after the summer of 1847, at first sight quite insignificant and today usually little known to historians and political scholars, were all closely connected with the deliberations about the whole European states system: if the deplorable fate of Cracow sealed the loss of faith in the political integrity of European powers, then the following affairs served as validating stamps, as briefly sketched with the example of the Ferrara affair above. It is striking the extent to which the political texts on Italy’s future related to her relationship with not only Austria but also other powerful countries and how much all of them were mistrusted. Their authors usually expected as little practical support from Britain and France against foreign aggression as the Poles had enjoyed in Cracow, and the Ferrara affair confirmed the validity of their pessimism, with some Italians even believing that the Austrians’ occupation of this town took place with the tacit consent of the French and British.94 Recalling these two incidents, Petitti expressed the opinion shared by a considerable number of his contemporaries: “Guizot barks but does not bite, as does Palmerston.”95

Redern to Frederick William IV, Turin, 8 March 1848, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5507; L’Alba, no. 162, 4 March 1848, p. 645; Il Risorgimento, no. 65, 13 March 1848, p. 259; La Rigenerazione, no. 21, 18 March 1848, p. 81; Romano Paolo Coppini, Antonino De Francesco, Marco Meriggi, Guido Pescosolido, Storia d’Italia. 1: Le premesse dell’unità: Dalla fine del Settecento al 1861, Roma 1994, p. 311. 94 Peter Stadler, Cavour: Italiens liberaler Reichsgründer, München 2001, p. 67; L’Eco, no. 2, 11 September 1847, p. 5. 95 Petitti to Gioberti, Turin, 10 August 1847, Colombo, Carteggi di Vincenzo Gioberti, p. 72.

93

The Climax of Insecurity

195

Italians were usually convinced that the most they could expect from other great powers were vain promises of help as given to Mohammed Ali by France in 1840 and demonstrations of power like the French occupation of Ancona all of no practical value. Of course, since Guizot’s France was regarded as more pro-Austrian, it was also more mistrusted and criticised for tolerating injustice in European affairs.96 The Italians’ attitude can be fittingly summarised by the opinion published in the Alba on 23 January: “In Italy there may be differences of opinion between the greater or lesser degree of freedom that can and should be accorded to the people, on the greater or lesser unification of the nation, on the greater or lesser influence that should be granted to the Papacy, but in two things, thank Heavens, we are all in full agreement: in desiring at all costs to achieve full and complete independence from Austria and in wariness of France.”97 And even though the February Revolution brought short-term relief, it did not make Italians more inclined to believe in France’s effective support, and the overwhelming majority of them did not even want it due to their suspicions of her hidden ambitions. Milanese democrat Giuseppe Ferrari was a rare exception in wanting to see the French army marching into Lombardy to fight against the Austrians, which resulted from his desire for an independent republican Lombardy within the Italian federation and a deep conviction that without French support it was impossible to expel the Austrians.98 Although the Italians’ attitude towards Britain during the same winter is usually depicted as more cordial, in reality it was filled with a similar mistrust. The expectations aroused by Lord Minto’s famous mission to Italy in the autumn of 1847 soon revealed that Britain’s support was nothing more than lip service, and even those who expressed hope for her support did not usually conceal their scepticism about its practical value. The difference in their estimation of France and Britain can thus be described in Villamarina’s expectation of nothing from Guizot and very little from Palmerston, a statement uttered at the time of the Ferrara af-



Meester de Ravestein to Dechamps, Rome, 18 August and 8 October 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Saint-Siège 3; Redern to Frederick William IV, Genoa, 23 November 1847, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5506; Ilarione Petitti di Roreto to Luigi Tanari, Turin, 17 August 1848, Giulio Cavazza (ed.), “I moderati bolognesi e i loro rapporti con il liberalismo lombardo e piemontese nell’estate-autunno del 1847,” Bollettino del Museo del Risorgimento 22, Bologna 1975–1977, p. 28; Petitti to Gioberti, Turin, 26 August 1847, Colombo, Carteggi di Vincenzo Gioberti, p. 74; Gioberti, Il Rinnovamento civile d’Italia, p. 58; Il Risorgimento, no. 4, 4 January 1848, pp. 13–14, no. 11, 12 January 1848, p. 40, no. 13, 14 January 1848, p. 47, no. 65, 13 March 1848, p. 259; La Concordia, no. 4, 5 January 1848, p. 15; La Speranza, no. 3, 8 January 1848, s.p., no. 13, 25 January 1848, s.p.; L’Alba, no. 128, 23 January 1848, p. 509. 97 L’Alba, no. 128, 23 January 1848, p. 509. 98 Franco Valsecchi, “L’intervention française et la solidarité révolutionnaire internationale dans la pensée des démocrates lombards en 1848,” Robert Fawtier (ed.), Actes du Congrès historique du centenaire de la révolution de 1848, Paris 1948, pp. 165–76. 96

196

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

fair.99 Even worse, in 1847 as they had seven years ealier, Italians still mistrusted the British foreign policy for both its motivation and practical outcomes, and it was still criticised as egocentric when it was pursued for Britain’s own mercantile interests and hatred of France but certainly not for the welfare of other nations.100 The widespread conviction of the ruthlessness of Britain’s diplomacy was openly expressed in Italian society,101 and some even attributed to it “designs of extortion”,102 which was primarily associated with the alleged aspiration for control or even occupation of Sicily. This suspicion led not only to the rumours mentioned above but also to a wave of serious allegations. In early September 1847 an American representative in Turin reported that “as the British cabinet, however, seldom acts without strong motives of interest, the Italian thinks that it has an eye on Sicily.”103 When the January revolution gave rise to the Sicilian Question concerning the future relationship of the island with the continental part of the kingdom, Britain was very active in the negotiations between Palermo and Naples, which made Italians strongly believe that such aspiration actually existed and they criticised her interference in the affair that was regarded as purely Italian; they accused her of doing so not for any desire to support liberty in Sicily but for her own geopolitical and economic considerations in the Mediterranean Sea.104 In early March Count Augusto Avogadro di Collobiano wrote from Naples in reaction to the British proceeding in this question that “it is easy to understand the immense profit to England of such an arrangement, which would make her almost an arbitrator of the fate of Italy in particular regarding commerce. The English interference in these affairs is a real disaster: and it is really deplorable that while Italy, which has already recognised the useful and effective cooperation of that government in her true and most cherished interests, must now convince herself of England’s appalling, stubborn and prodigious egoism.”105

99 Marquis Villamarina, 19 August 1847, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie I, 6. 100 Niccolò Tommaseo to Gino Capponi, Venice, 4 July 1847, I. del Lungo, P. Prunas (eds), N. Tommaseo e G. Capponi: Carteggio inedito dal 1833 at 1874, volume secondo: Nantes, Bastia, Montpellier, Venezia (1837–1849), Bologna 1914, p. 453; Montanelli, L’Austria e l’Italia in Faccia dell’Europa, p. 12; Settembrini, Opuscoli politici, p. 99; L’Italico, no. 8, 19 January 1848, pp. 29–30; Il Risorgimento, no. 18, 20 January 1848, p. 69. 101 Kent Roberts Greenfield, Economics and Liberalism in the Risorgimento: A Study of Nationalism in Lombardy, 1814–1848, Westport 1978, p. 271. 102 The Roman Advertiser, no. 43, 14 August 1847, p. 345. 103 Robert Wickliffe Jr. to James Buchanan, Turin, 7 September 1847, Marraro, L’unificazione italiana, p. 232. 104 Gaetano Falzone, La Sicilia nella Politica mediterranea della grandi potenze: indipendenza o autonomia nei documenti inediti del Quai d’Orsay, Palermo 1974, p. 18. 105 Collobiano to San Marzano, Naples, 4 March 1848, Guido Quazza (ed.), La diplomazia del Regno di Sardegna durante la prima guerra d’indipendenza: III. Relazioni con il Regno delle Due Sicilie (gennaio 1848 – dicembre 1849), Torino 1952, p. 116.

The Climax of Insecurity

197

The suspicion of hostile British designs on Sicily and Italy must be viewed in the context of the Italians’ general evaluation of the great powers’ policies as oppressive and egoistic, which also resulted from their protectorates over smaller countries in southern Europe, like the joint British, French and Russian protectorate over Greece that was said to simply replace Ottoman supremacy with their own, France’s over Spain and Britain’s over Portugal.106 All these countries of secondary power were regarded as victims of the great powers’ rivalry when, in the words of Domenico Buffa, “the intrigues of foreign ambassadors cause the uprisings of ministries, maintain and sometimes create factions, even produce revolutions and civil wars.”107 It was particularly the recent history of British and French interference in the Iberian Peninsula that convinced Italians that they were surrounded by enemies – Austria, Britain, France – and that they had no foreign allies.108 At the end of July 1847 the Italico criticised the state of affairs where the great powers dominated Europe, which led to the situation where “the independence of some small states is only supported by the political convenience or the jealousies of the great powers.”109 France tolerated the smaller countries only when they obeyed her, Britain monopolised the world, and both acted at the expense of other nations, like France in Spain, or Britain in Spain, Portugal and Greece, which led the newspaper to this statement: “From this it may appear that the nations do have not much to hope for in the assitance of foreign powers because they only favour whoever by chance finds themselves compatible with their interests; and at most, when the law of nations continues to be violated, they are content with protocols and protests and then they take advantange of the opportunity. The Cracow incident is not so remote from us that it cannot serve as an example. Nations therefore should not trust in anyone other than themselves.”110 And the Italico attacked the great powers for “that high policy, which in truth has no tribunal to submit to and which recognises first and foremost its own interest; but as the relations between man and man create the law, so the relations between power and power create the law of nations. When and how this law is absolutely respected, we cannot tell; we will only say that we have hardly ever seen it broken when in their own interest for favourable interaction nations convened to validate it; and we can surely observe that in our case an Austrian intervention would not be possible without producing a decisive case of war. For a long time and to our misfortune this sacred and classic terrain has become a stage on which the powers come to carry out their bloody performances.”111

106 L’Italico, no. 10, 25 January 1848, p. 37, no. 32, 30 December 1847, p. 125; La Rigenerazione, no. 2, 12 February 1848, p. 5. 107 La Lega Italiana, no. 8, 28 January 1848, p. 36. 108 Il Felsineo, no. 41, 14 October 1847, p. 191; L’Opinione, no. 9, 11 February 1848, p. 33. 109 L’Italico, no. 4, 29 July 1847, p. 13. 110 Ibid. 111 L’Italico, no. 4, 29 July 1847, p. 13.

198

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

The Italians’ negative or at least sceptical attitude towards all foreign powers explain their dislike of cooperating with them, leading to the conclusion expressed in the Alba: “What we want now, however, is that in our resurgence we do not seek the help of foreigners. History has taught us enough the value of trust in foreigners: first of all, we want to trust in our own will and in our arms. This is the sacred duty of twenty four million Italians.”112 Here can be found the principal cause of their hunger for independence, the call for it seen everywhere in Italian society that can be summarised by the words issued in the same newspaper that “independence is the first of our needs, the holiest of our duties, the most cherished of our hopes,”113 being nothing else than “external freedom”,114 followed by this statement: “We do not want to be either Austrian, French, or English; we want to be Italian, an independent, strong and free nation.”115 THE PURSUIT OF POWER On the turn of 1847 Italians became united in the conviction that they could rely only on themselves, “we are confident in the justice of our cause and in our own forces and we are sure that for these alone Italy will exist,”116 agreeing with Charles Albert’s famous motto widely used in public “l’Italia farà da sé,”117 of which the English translation within the contemporary context can be “Italy will act for herself.” The extent to which this opinion was widespread is shown by Ferretti’s inspection of papal troops summoned in Civitavechia on 25 July when the cardinal ended his public address with this statement: “Let’s show Europe that we can take care of ourselves!”118 The audience immediately applauded these words and other Italians did the same when they learnt them from the printed version of the speech.119 The popularity of the king’s motto and the cardinal’s statement resulted from more than the lack of foreign support – it was associated with the generally shared mistrust of European powers and dislike of alliances

112 L’Alba, no. 108, 29 December 1847, p. 430. 113 L’Alba, no. 55, 18 October 1847, p. 218. 114 L’Alba, no. 8, 30 June 1847, p. 29. 115 L’Alba, no. 59, 27 October 1847, p. 233. Seeing independence as the means to protect their own sovereignty and, therefore, security, the Italians had another reason to mistrust France when they learnt of Guizot’s remark on the crisis in Switzerland that independence had its limits. La Speranza, no. 8, 22 September 1847, s.p. 116 La Speranza, no. 12, 24 January 1848, s.p. 117 L’Italico, no. 8, 19 January 1848, pp. 29–30. 118 Museo scientifico, letterario ed artistico ovvero Scelta raccolta di utili e svariate nozioni in fatto di scienze, lettere ed arti belle, no. 16, 1847, p. 382. 119 Mostriamo all’Europa che noi bastiamo a noi stessi, attached to Castan-Tavernier to Guizot, Civitavechia, 27 July 1847, AMAE, CPC, Rome 1.

The Pursuit of Power

199

with them, not to mention their protection that was seen as a kiss of death, something emphasised by the Alba claiming that Italy must rely on herself for the same reason: “We have no faith in any foreign assistance; nor would we to desire it: we have suffered too many iniquitous betrayals and too many cowardly abandonments to place any trust in foreigners.”120 Through their fear and mistrust of all the great powers Italians assessed the whole post-Napoleonic states system as being in apparent decline,121 and the affairs following the annexation of Cracow deepened an already widespread belief that “weak protests are a dead letter, as long as the law of the strongest prevails,”122 expressed in various similar ways like “treaties are a dead letter when force prevails.”123 Petitti thus connected the questions of Pontremoli and Fivizzano not only with the “occupation” of Ferrara but also with the disconsolate situation resulting from the 1815 treaties sanctioning the “strength of the law of conquest” which no great power was ready to oppose, including France and Britain.124 Carlo Ghinozzi criticised “the servile and foolish trust in foreign arms”125 and Leopoldo Galeotti did the same in the case of “good faith”126 in international politics. Lack of trust in the integrity in the great powers’ actions and the resulting lack of faith in the political-legal structure established in Europe in 1815 convinced the overwhelming majority of Italians that it would be naïve to count on the treaties and diplomatic notes.127 The unsettled state of international affairs moved them to proceed according to the saying that God only helps those who help themselves and assure their own security in practical defensive measures, of which the first was the increase of their military forces128 because, as Carlo Ghinozzi responded to the “occupation” of Ferrara, “force is naturally opposed to force.”129 This race for military strength, as it was labelled by some contemporaries,130 was connected with the belief in not only Austria’s aggressive designs but also the decreasing security in the world. Both led the Italians to place their trust in military force as the far better guarantee of Italy’s safety against “all the tyranny of foreign powers

120 L’Alba, no. 30, 20 August 1847, p. 117. 121 Ferdinando Ranalli, Lettera di Ferdinando Ranalli a Pietro Giordani intorno ai presenti fatti d’Italia, Firenze 1847, pp. 3–10. 122 L’Italico, no. 8, 26 August 1847, p. 35. 123 La Mosca, no. 51, 19 August 1847, p. 403. 124 Petitti to Gioberti, Turin, 19 November 1847, Colombo, Carteggi di Vincenzo Gioberti, p. 112. 125 Ghinozzi, Occupazione di Ferrara, p. 8. 126 Galeotti, Della sovranità e del governo temporale dei papi, p. 182. 127 Costanza d’Azeglio to Emanuele d’Azeglio, 24 January 1848, Chiarito, Costanza d’Azeglio, p. 818; La Patria, no. 29, 5 October 1847, p. 119, no. 45, 21 October 1847, p. 183. 128 La Bilancia, no. 116, 10 March 1848, pp. 463–64. 129 Ghinozzi, Occupazione di Ferrara, p. 6. 130 Goffredo Mameli, La vita e gli scritti. Vol. II: Gli scriti, Firenze, Venezia 1927, pp. 206–209.

200

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

than the treaties whose pages that no longer suit them they have the impudence to rip apart and agree to keep only those that apply to continuing to harm and oppress others.”131 The Alba spoke in the same way when it demanded armament in Tuscany: “And for a long time we have been shouting weapons! Weapons! Now it is our duty to repeat this cry every day because we are entering more serious and more threatening times and there can be no salvation except in arms.”132 The reasoning was based on the impossibility of trusting Austria or the strength of treaties: “What are the treaties for Austria? Ill-fated Cracow tells you that. You can no longer rely on any treaty in the world: you must rely solely on your bayonets and your guns.”133 The European context was often accentuated, as it happened on the very first day of January when the Felsineo pressed the case for armament with the excuse that “the old adage says that those who want peace prepare themselves for war; and if Europe has had 30 years of peace, it is indebted to the strong and powerful attitudes of the great powers which, by swelling armies and fleets, have frightened and calmed each other. Such means are cited not as a good and desirable thing but because if we cannot reform Europe, we must learn our lesson from the examples.”134 The article was concluded with Balbo’s outcry “Weapons! Weapons! For now, for then, for ever, for every case, if we want to have our place in the present and future Christian civilisation.”135 The Italians’ reaction to the decreasing security in the world leading to their reliance on the strength of arms was revealed in countless political texts, showing that the whole problem was certainly not just about the Austrian threat. It is worth quoting several more examples like Giuseppe Gabussi’s response to the great powers’ egoism, international complications and the “tottering European equilibrium” followed by opinion that “the need for union and strength was never so great among us Italians as today.”136 Roberto d’Azeglio saw little security for Piedmont at the end of January when Austria was arming and the recommendation of other great powers was “trust in the treaties, in the words of European diplomacy that everyone is protected if there is no excessive hostility to a power that is our ally.”137 Therefore, the kingdom had to arm for the “security of the state.”138 Gioberti agreed soon after when he wrote to Roberto that “I fear that our government has an overwhelming trust in the treaties, measuring the loyalty of others by

131 L’Italiano, no. 1, 2 November 1847, s.p. 132 L’Alba, no. 159, 1 March 1848, p. 621. 133 Ibid. 134 Il Felsineo, no. 1, 1 January 1848, s.p. 135 Ibid. 136 Gabussi, Quali eventualità, p. 48. 137 Roberto d’Azeglio to Gioberti, Turin, 31 January 1848, Luigi Madaro (ed.), Carteggi di Vincenzo Gioberti, Volume V: Lettere di illustri Italiani a Vincenzo Gioberti, Roma 1937, p. 12. 138 Ibid.

The Pursuit of Power

201

its own.”139 Vincenzo Salvagnoli summarised it all concisely in the Patria on 15 February: “Now the law is not enough: arms are necessary.”140 The general public mostly agreed with this perception of international relations and the question of law and military power and often remembered the year 1797 when “the Republic of Venice, remaining neutral and disarmed, believed itself to be saved and instead was destroyed and derided.”141 They recognised that fifty years later they were threatened with the same danger and that they had to adopt measures for their own defence since, as the Bolognese newspaper Povero stated, “material force must be subject to and serve moral force: the former is blind, the latter, if left alone, is weak: from the harmony of both comes the power and glory of nations.”142 In the expectation of Austrian intervention after the Ferrara affair Farini declared what many others thought calling for: “An end to all celebrations! Weapons, weapons, military exercises.”143 And the people agreed because, as papal Colonel Carlo Calabrini stated at the end of August, “we understand that a nation can only be respected and happy when it is armed.”144 In public the demand for Italy’s armament grew from the end of 1846, and its increasing intensity corresponded with incidents regarded as security threats.145 The crucial one was – of course – the “occupation” of Ferrara that moved people to demand a strong regular army and the pope to summon a military camp in the north.146 Massimo d’Azeglio personally joined the Roman troops and wrote an article on the defensive capability of the Papal States against an Austrian invasion; he used the wars of the Spaniards against Napoleon, the Caucasians against the Russians and the Algerians against the French as fitting parallels to show how the Italians should face foreign invasions.147 Italy’s defensive capability was connected not only with the regular army but also the civic guard. The latter had existed since before the outbreak of the Ferrara affair but in Tuscany it was established in response to it in mid September. As the Württembergian consul reported from Livorno: “The necessity of being 139 Gioberti to Roberto d’Azeglio, Paris, 12 February 1848, Gentile, Vincenzo Gioberti: Epistolario, vol. 7, Firenze 1934, p. 267. 140 Rotondi, “Il giornale fiorentino,” p. 42. 141 Il Felsineo, no. 1, 1 January 1848, s.p. 142 Il Povero, no. 26, 31 July 1847, p. 101. 143 Luigi Carlo Farini to Angelo Bertini, Florence, 15 September 1847, Rava, Epistolario di Luigi Carlo Farini, p. 703. 144 Castan-Tavernier to Guizot, Civitavecchia, 31 August 1847, AMAE, CPC, Rome 1. 145 Consular report to Beroldingen, Livorno, 20 September 1847, HStAS, HE 50/60 Bü 149. 146 Prus to Guizot, Ferrara, 2 February 1848, AMAE, CPC, Rome 1. 147 Massimo d’Azeglio to Luisa d’Azeglio Blondel, Pesaro, 7 September 1847, Virlogeux, Massimo d’Azeglio, vol. 3, p. 437; Massimo d’Azeglio, “Pensieri sulle condizioni presenti dello Stato pontifico e sulla opportunità e necessità d’una difesa,” Pesaro, 16 September 1847, Marcus de Rubris (ed.), Massimo d’Azeglio: Scritti e discorsi politici, Volume Primo 1846–48, Firenze 1931, pp. 299, 312.

202

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

armed, either for a nation’s own safety or for the defence of a country which one regards as being threatened, has become the general belief and the demand for a civic guard a unanimous cry.”148 The need to arm common men was all the more important there since the grand duchy possessed a very small army and the civic guard was to quickly increase the military strength of the country. Although there was another motive in the creation of civic guards in Italy, namely the desire of the bourgeois to defend themselves against the radicals at home, the question of external security was certainly its principal motivation, and this also played a significant role in the debates about their training and armament.149 By the end of the winter appeals for preparations for defence were widespread on a national scale and people criticised their governments for doing less than they regarded as urgent.150 The need to arm in the interest of defence was even reflected in poetry filled with feelings of peril and inferiority vis-à-vis the potential enemies.151 In this atmosphere it was natural that attention was mostly fixed on Piedmont as the strongest “Italian” country in the peninsula. Due to the military reforms carried out by Charles Albert since the early 1830s – he had actually invested almost half the state revenue in his army and navy – the kingdom was in the best state of defence: its military establishment had 150,000 men including the reservists.152 At the end of August 1847 Charles Albert had ordered the fortresses in Alessandria and Casale to prepare for defence so as not to be surprised by a sudden attack. Over the winter he launched a rapid armament and in January he even decided to bring his army into a state of war.153 The necessary military expenditures were in no way criticised in public in view of the fact that while the kingdom was protected from France by the Alps, there was no significant barrier against Austria except the small River of Ticino and the fortress of Alessandria.154 After the “bloodshed” in Milan and the entrance of Austrian troops into Parma and Modena the level of alarm in the kingdom had risen dramatically.155 The Con 148 Consular report to Beroldingen, Livorno, 20 September 1847, HStAS, HE 50/60 Bü 149. 149 Martini, Memorie inedite di Giuseppe Giusti, pp. 97–98; Giuseppe Montanelli, Memorie sull’Italia e specialmente sulla Toscana dal 1814 al 1850, vol. 2, Torino 1855, pp. 5–16; L’Italia, no. 15, 18 September 1847, p. 59, no. 34, 11 January 1848, p. 137; Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 358, 24 December 1847, p. 2858. 150 L’Alba, no. 143, 11 February 1848, p. 569; Forβmann, Presse und Revolution in der Toskana, p. 269; Hancock, Ricasoli, p. 108. 151 See for example Giovanni Pennacchi’s poem in La Speranza, no. 4, 10 January 1848, s.p. 152 Duggan, The Force of Destiny, p. 159; Howard McGaw Smyth, “Piedmont and Prussia: The Influence of the Campaigns of 1848–1849 on the Constitutional Development of Italy,” The American Historical Review 55, 1950, 3, pp. 482–83. 153 André to Guizot, Turin, 18 January 1848, AMAE, CP, Sardaigne 320; Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, pp. 333, 360, 378, 380–81. 154 L’Opinione, no. 12, 15 February 1848, pp. 45–46. 155 Vilain to Hoffschmidt, Turin, 10 and 24 January 1848, ADA, CP, Italie, Deux-Siciles 2; Meester de Ravestein to Hoffschmidt, Rome, 18 January and 28 February 1848, ADA, CP, Italie, Saint-Siège 4.

The Pursuit of Power

203

cordia stated on 11 January: “The intervention of Austrian troops into our states is possible: therefore, we must fear it. I know we fear it, we must prevent it in advance. – To prevent it it is necessary to resort to arms: it is necessary that the government take a decisive resolution.”156 Owing to the threat from Austria and the uncertain situation in European affairs, the issues of external security and military armament led in the political debates across Italian states, political groups and social classes and united them in support for Charles Albert.157 The traditional claim of the moderate patriots that “Piedmont is the sword of Italy, its bastion, the stronghold of her security”158 against Austria “armed to the teeth, threatening to swallow us all,”159 became generally shared.160 This opinion resulted primarily from the conviction that security depended on the level of material strength, and Silvestro Centofanti declared in his speech at the University of Pisa on 15 March that Piedmont was stronger and, therefore, safer because of it, and this logic was then applied for all of Italy.161 For the same reason Balbo’s preference for independence before freedom also won general support, and he regarded the former as a question “of life or death, a question of existing or not existing.”162 Cavour supported this view expressing his opinion at the end of January that Italian rulers had already set out on a course of liberty and, therefore, what was left was a debate about independence.163 Although the winter witnessed a dispute about the subordination of liberty to independence, in other words external security, it was nominal since those unambiguously preferring internal freedoms were in the extreme minority.164 Even a considerable number of democrats focused on security, for example the publisher of the Concordia Lorenzo Valerio, who in early March rejected the idea of republics in northern Italy since their confederation could not be strong enough against foreign pressure from the north and would be unable to offer effective protection to the Italian states in the south.165 At the same time in the declaration of the National Italian Association (L’Associazione Nazionale Italiana) established in Paris Mazzini explicitly stated that it was not the form of government but “one free, independent nation, – war against Austria” that were the principal aims of this society.166 156 La Concordia, no. 9, 11 January 1848, p. 33. 157 Redern to Frederick William IV, Turin, 10 February 1848, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5507. 158 La Concordia, no. 3, 4 January 1848, p. 10. 159 Giusti to Adriano Biscardi, [?] March 1848, Giovanni Frassi (ed.), Epistolario di Giuseppe Giusti, vol. 2, Firenze 1859, p. 322. 160 Messaggiere torinese, no. 4, 12 January 1848, p. 13. 161 Silvestro Centofanti, Sul Risorgimento Italiano, Pisa 1848, p. 11. 162 Il Risorgimento, no. 15, 17 January 1848, p. 55. 163 Il Risorgimento, no. 27, 29 January 1848, p. 105. 164 La Concordia, no. 3, 4 January 1848, p. 9. 165 La Concordia, no. 55, 3 March 1848, p. 2. 166 La Concordia, no. 74, 25 March 1848, p. 1.

204

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

What also became symptomatic for the months preceding the First Italian War of Independence was – much like during the Rhine Crisis – that the general alarm and resultant focus on the force of arms was connected with the great attention paid to military statistics and with the evaluation of Italy’s own strength vis-à-vis that of foreign powers, in the first place Austria’s.167 Although Italians continued to believe that the empire was in a state of decay, using Francesco Crispi’s words, “a giant with gangrenous viscera and maggots swarming over the spoils of all its immense body,”168 which gave them a chance of success in an eventual war, they generally understood that it still was stronger than any Italian state or even a conglomerate of several of them. Auguste De La Rive, a friend of Cavour, reflected this fact with the statement that “Austria is still very strong, whatever one may say,”169 and Balbo agreed that Piedmont could not wage war against Austria without allies, namely Italian ones, and that this was why armament in Piedmont had to be accompanied by armaments in all of Italy.170 As Balbo continued, to make Italian states stronger it was necessary to bring together their military resources, which also meant uniting their rulers and people politically. The opinion that besides strong armed forces political unity was necessary for the successful defence of them all was soon shared by a considerable number of people before the spring of 1848, much like the idea that Italian nationhood encompassing all the Italian countries was to make this union more solid. What undoubtedly made this concept popular was once again the urgent problem of external security that would be resolved by solidarity based on common nationhood, and this was also what made Italian nationhood more attractive for the masses.171 It is also why the topic of unity was generally seen from the perspective of power, the pursuit of which was the main driving force behind the rise of the national movement after 1840 by the latest: people demanded it not because of any constitutional or cultural aspirations but because it made Italy stronger in her resistance against Austria and other great powers. Contemporary articles, pamphlets, personal correspondence and public exclamations as well as later memoirs were abundant with relevant topics that almost always were crowned with the statement that Italy should not only be united but also materially strong enough to be able to expel Austria from the peninsula and to be capable of defending herself 167 Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 338, 4 December 1847, p. 208; La Concordia, no. 37, 11 February 1848, p. 145, no. 67, 17 March 1848, p. 1; Il Risorgimento, no. 67, 15 March 1848, p. 263, no. 73, 22 March 1848, p. 289. 168 L’Apostolato, no. 15, 29 February 1848, p. 57. 169 Auguste De La Rive to Cavour, Nice, 24 November 1847, Nada, Camillo Cavour: Epistolario, pp. 406–407. 170 Ricotti, Della vita e degli scritti del conte Cesare Balbo, pp. 237, 263. 171 Bergman to Ihre, Florence, 20 January 1848, RA, Kabinettet, UD, Huvudarkivet E 2 D:784; Albèri, Della occupazione austriaca di Ferrara, p. 19; Lo Spirito Folletto, no. 6, 11 May 1848, p. 21.

The Pursuit of Power

205

against all great powers.172 This was the primary role of Italian nationhood as, mentioning one example for all, R. Andreini claimed in late November in his article entitled Nazionalità (Nationhood), where he stated that its aim was attaining the military force necessary for the expulsion of foreigners and simultaneously for preventing them from interfering in Italian affairs.173 In other words, it was to increase the solidarity among Italy’s rulers and their subjects in their attitude towards other nations, and this kind of pan-Italian solidarity transecting territories, social classes and political groups, as the Italia claimed in early August, would produce the desired strong barrier against foreign interference: “Then with the promotion of the idea of nationhood it is not a question now of immediately reconstituting the political character of Italy, claiming the integrity of the homeland, rather we want such SOLIDARITY to exist between all the Italian States that the independence of one cannot be violated without the others feeling offended and making common cause with it. Foreigners will see well that from this solidarity a strength will grow that raises Italy to the rank of first-rate power.”174 How far the concept of nationhood resulted from concerns for their own safety in an increasingly dangerous world can also be shown from the report of the French consul in Ancona where perfect order reigned in early January but “it must be recognised, however, that the public’s anxiety, discomfort and agitation are extreme today: never, I believe, at any time in the life of these people, have I seen the impact of such diverse passions, deeper anxiety, greater disappointment, more diverse obsessions, more shifting hatreds, more inequitable mistrust, more sudden dispondency, more troubled joys, more confused distress; it is an unheard-of struggle, a strange phenomenon between all the political sentiments which have hitherto animated the population of these countries. It must be pointed out, however, that this general confusion, which is perhaps after all an amalgamation of all this, is taking place under the active influence of a national spirit which is becoming more and more pronounced: different opinions, indecisive as to the means, nevertheless all seem to tend to one common purpose, the formation of an Italian nation, and this patriotic goal, although remote and vague in form, this desire for a union of all the peoples and governments of Italy has become, so to speak, the soul of public opinion; it is a fixed idea which dominates all the political questions of the moment, which is present in the imagination of all and which penetrates deeper into all classes of Italian society every day.”175

172 S. Gabbrielli, Le cose del giorno narrate al popolo senese dal suo concittadino, Siena 1847, p. 16; Un vigile Romagnuolo (anonymous writer), Incitamento agli Italiani a rivolgere omai tutte le loro facolta’ morali e fisiche al solo nobile scopo dell’unita’ nazionale italiana, Italia [?] 1847, p. 44. 173 Il Povero, no. 43, 27 November 1847, p. 169. 174 L’Italia, no. 8, 7 August 1847, p. 31. 175 Armand Duauly to Guizot, Ancona, 9 January 1848, AMAE, CPC, Rome 1.

206

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

There was a general consensus that political unity could be achieved through the idea of Italian nationhood and also the predominant agreement that the form was to be a league that would, as Massimo d’Azeglio claimed, simultaneously establish a federal military system of the kind that actually already existed in the German Confederation.176 While the league was regarded as another security measure after armament, it was the defensive measures which were also its first duty: it was to put together the land and naval forces and work on their further extension into all member states.177 In the words of Roberto d’Azeglio, both were to serve the same purpose: “To protect.”178 And although words like “federation” and “confederation” were often used loosely and not exceptionally even simultaneously, a considerable number of Italians believed that in any case a national assembly had to be established to direct the defence of them all.179 How the Italians usually deliberated issues concerning the league can be shown with one example for all, namely with Pietro Sterbini’s article Come una Nazione Possa acquistare la sua Indipendenza (How a Nation Can Attain its Independence) published in the Roman Contemporaneo at the end of August: “Among the truths to be proclaimed the first is the independence of the country; among the means to obtain it the first to be advised is the league of Italian rulers. A family pact reunites them all around the Pastor of the Peoples, the one chosen by the Lord, and this pact is to support the unity and with every effort the independence of their states, not only against any foreign aggression, but against any diplomatic intriques others might want to put in the way of our business, first by dividing us and then by oppressing us. If they look within, they can see a shining example of a government that is weak, isolated, attacked at home by betrayals, threatened by numerous hostile foreign armies, advised to surrender by false friends, but also one that derives its strength from its law, has the courage that inspires the union emerging triumphant from its struggle, removing the dangers of war, bringing down its enemies, and making its name resound among all nations to be respected and venerated.”180 In his article Sterbini also posed these questions: “Who today could prevent the Italian people from uniting in a common defence pact against any foreign aggression? Did a general tremour not run throughout the peninsula at the news of the occupation of Ferrara?”181 This remark regarding the latest affair indicates the role it 176 Stübler, Deutschland-Italien, p. 232. 177 Maurizio Bufalini to Luigi Carlo Farini, Florence, 14 August 1847, Rava, Epistolario di Luigi Carlo Farini, p. 680; Massimo d’Azeglio to Cesare Balbo, Pesaro, 15 September 1847, Virlogeux, Massimo d’Azeglio, vol. 3, p. 442; Gazzetta di Firenze, no. 19, 25 January 1848, p. 1; La Lega Italiana, no. 25, 26 February 1848, pp. 133–34; Il Corriere livornese, no. 77, 18 March 1848, p. 1. 178 Roberto d’Azeglio to Gioberti, Turin, 31 January 1848, Madaro, Carteggi di Vincenzo Gioberti, p. 11. 179 Unità, no. 4, 29 May 1848, pp. 13–14. 180 Il Contemporaneo, no. 35, 28 August 1847, s.p. 181 Ibid.

The Pursuit of Power

207

served in the spread of the popularity of the concept of Italian nationhood,182 something obvious from contemporary Italian texts and public exclamations and confirmed by foreigners’ observations, like the Prussian envoy’s in Turin: “Never has the dangerous utopia of a united Italy, so often exploited by the liberal party, reunited all the people in an expression of national antipathy so unanimous as achieved by the events of Ferrara.”183 It was this affair that further stimulated the idea that the future Italian nation had to establish a federation that would offer it “such strength that it does not need foreign support ... As we have already said, but we will return to repeat it, the greatest of all misfortunes would be that Italy would become the scene of a conflict between the great powers, to receive then the law of the victor.”184 Although the increasing feeling of international insecurity was due to more than one source, it was surely Austria who was regarded in this respect as the primus inter pares. Such a perception of this great power had existed before 1846, and it was intensified by the affairs of that year and others from the late summer of 1847, causing the situation, in Cattaneo’s words, that “for the first time in Italy, all minds were united in a single voice.”185 In February 1848 the French ambassador in Rome saw behind the unsettled situation in Italian society primarily a fear of Austria, which had been gradually increasing since 1846 with the annexation of Cracow, her presence in Ferrara, Modena and Parma and the reinforcements of her army in Lombardy; in his opinion this was what actually united the Italians.186 This evaluation was entirely confirmed even by Prussian and Austrian diplomats, who added that this alarm united all social classes in their dislike of Austria and subsequently in the vision of Italian unity,187 and by Italians themselves who later remembered that it was exactly these security threats which at the end of 1847 “increased the Italians’ desire for a united Italy.”188 It was thus possible to see in popular gatherings, often responding to external threats, even workers, women and Catholic clergy with Italian cockades; the priests were particularly loud in March 1848 in preaching the expulsions of the Austrians.189 The league was accepted by 182 Bergman to Ihre, Florence, 7 September 1847, RA, Kabinettet, UD, Huvudarkivet E 2 D:783. 183 Briolly to Frederick William IV, Turin, 31 August 1847, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5506. 184 L’Italia, no. 10, 18 August 1847, p. 40. 185 Carlo Cattaneo, Dell’Insurrezione di Milano nel 1848 e della successiva guerra, Milano 1946, p. 24. 186 Rossi to Guizot, Rome, 17 February 1848, AMAE, CP, Rome 987. 187 Briolly to Frederick William IV, Turin, 31 August 1847, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5506; Richard Weiss von Starkenfels, “Pius Papa IX.,” 1849, HHStA, Politisches Archiv des Ministeriums des Äuβern, XI: Italienische Staaten 1848–1918, 192. 188 Bottrigari, Cronaga di Bologna, p. 254. 189 Desmaisiéres to Hoffschmidt, Turin, 14 December 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Deux-Siciles 2; Liedekerke to Randwijck, Rome, 18 March 1848, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1474; Schaffgotsch to Frederick William IV, Florence, 21 March 1848, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5668; Paul Ginsborg, “After the Revolution: Bandits on the plains of the Po 1848–54,” John A. Davis, Paul Ginsborg (eds), Society and Politics in the Age of the Risorgimento: Essays in honour of Denis Mack Smith, Cambridge 2002, p. 141.

208

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

“all” since it was seen as a measure profitable for the rulers as well as their subjects, as reflected in the words published in the Lega Italiana at the end of January: “Yet so disunited they are weak, and too easy for foreigners to attack, and they are always close to ruin taking with them the whole nation ... A league between the Italian rulers is the only means of salvation for them as well as for us.”190 The popularity of the league as a primarily defensive measure can be proved by the positive reception of the negotiations on the governmental level provoked – unsurprisingly – by the “occupation” of Ferrara. Pius IX proposed the creation of a customs league in the late summer and signed a preliminary treaty with the rulers of Tuscany and Piedmont on 3 November. At the end of the winter, he started negotiations with them and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies about a defensive league.191 The Tuscan and papal negotiators advocated the summoning of a “national” congress in Rome where this league was to be established because they were convinced that without it the Italian states could never be secure and therefore never really independent. Neither the congress nor the defensive league ever materialised owing to the rejection of it by Charles Albert who wanted to first annex north-Italian territories.192 An interesting detail lies in the fact that the man who proposed the congress was the representative of Naples, Count Giuseppe Costantino Ludolf, who had promoted the league among Italian rulers since the early 1830s including during the period of the Rhine Crisis; this reveals the continuity of this idea of a league as well as its long-term security purpose connected in the late 1840s with the concept of Italian nationhood.193 The same continuity can also be shown among the broad public: the recent incidents in Italy, Europe and the world194 only intensified the negative long-term experience with international affairs and led not only the intellectuals but also a considerable number of common people to agree with their rulers that the league would ensure greater external security according to the popular and widespread motto “unity makes strength.”195 It was a measure regarded as necessary in the pursuit for strength and power in Europe dominated by great players,196 and the customs league was generally seen as the forerunner of the political and military 190 La Lega Italiana, no. 8, 28 January 1848, p. 27. 191 Coppa, The Origins of the Italian Wars, pp. 29–38. 192 Carrega to Pareto, Florence, 24 March 1848, Carlo Pischedda (ed.), La diplomazia del Regno di Sardegna durante la prima guerra d’indipendenza: I. Relazioni con il Granducato di Toscana (marzo 1848 – aprile 1849), Torino 1949, p. 109; Pareto to San Marzano, Rome, 11, 18 and 20 March 1848, Pareto to Pareto, Rome, 1 April 1848, Carlo Baudi di Vesme (ed.), La diplomazia del Regno di Sardegna durante la prima guerra d’indipendenza: II. Relazioni con lo Stato Pontificio (marzo 1848 – luglio 1849), Torino 1951, pp. 80, 86, 88, 107, 109. 193 Pareto to San Marzano, Rome, 20 March 1848, Vesme, La diplomazia, p. 88. 194 La Patria, no. 83, 29 November 1847, p. 335. 195 L’Italico, no. 24, 28 February 1848, p. 94. 196 Il Felsineo, no. 44, 4 November 1847, p. 207.

The Pursuit of Power

209

one fulfilling this important task, and it was therefore perceived from not only an economic but also geostrategic point of view.197 That is why the power perspective was inherent in the geopolitical debate from the beginning when it was often argued in the way as the Roman Bilancia declared in September: “I do not know why we insist on remaining small, weak and totally powerless when we have an easy way to achieve strength, greatness, and power today.”198 That it was impossible to survive while weak and that Italians had to be armed and united to be strong was advocated – among hundreds of other examples – in the Bolognese Felsineo: “A league of weak people can only slightly reduce the probability of defeats. We must make ourselves strong with the possession and the use of weapons.”199 It was this positive evaluation of the league again where Italian nationhood served in support of solidarity in the question of defence: the safety of one Italian state was seen as a matter of concern to the others because the violation of the rights of one of them could not be tolerated since sooner or later the others would suffer in the same way, an opinion already articulated in the reaction to the British proceeding against the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the Sulphur War. The customs league was thus regarded as the pope’s request for such solidarity when he felt threatened by Austria in Ferrara and the answer was overwhelmingly positive across the social and political strata of Italian society for the reason mentioned above.200 The interdependence of security, material strength, armament and the sentiment for Italian nationhood fully explains the popularity of the vision of a federal Italy and, furthermore, Piedmont’s privileged position within it. The concept of Italian nationhood, which meant national unity, was popular not because of cultural or constitutional considerations but since it was generally regarded as a suitable security measure.201 From the mass of evidence one can quote the summarising report of the French consul in Genoa from February about the Piedmontese “putting the triumph of nationhood above the conquests of liberty. For them the new institutions are not a goal, but a weapon. They intend to be free to become independent. They want to make public opinion prevail at home by the rule of

197 Bergman to Ihre, Naples, 17 June 1847, RA, Kabinettet, UD, Huvudarkivet E 2 D:783; Gioberti to Pietro Derossi di Santarosa, Paris, 16 March 1848, Gentile, Vincenzo Gioberti: Epistolario, vol. 7, p. 331; Clark, The Italian Risorgimento, p. 50. 198 La Bilancia, no. 42, 28 September 1847, p. 168. 199 Il Felsineo, no. 40, 7 October 1847, p. 188. 200 Briolly to Frederick William IV, Turin, 7 September 1847, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5506; Projet de Confédération élaboré en 1848, avec la participation governement Pontifical, et accepté á Florence, prepared by Rosmini and Corboli, AMAE, Mémoires et documents, Italie 36; L’Alba, no. 27, 13 August 1847, p. 105, no. 28, 16 August 1847, p. 109; Il Risorgimento, no. 1, 15 December 1847, p. 1. 201 Vilain to Hoffschmidt, Turin, 19 October 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Deux-Siciles 2; L’Italico, no. 23, 4 December 1847, pp. 89–90; Il Contemporaneo, no. 15, 5 February 1848, p. 57; L’Italia, no. 50, 17 February 1848, p. 199; La Concordia, no. 82, 4 April 1848, p. 1.

210

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

law, so that it acts, if necessary, abroad with the force of arms.”202 The support for Italian nationhood spread quickly in the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty in Piedmont owing to the conviction of serious external threats.203 The federal unity was to serve the kingdom as “the only possibility to ensure dignity, power, security, mutual interests and prosperity”204 there as well as in the rest of Italy, and it was also the principal leitmotiv of the moderate leaders’ traditional propaganda.205 However, since external security was perceived primarily from the power perspective by other Italians as well, they also regarded Piedmont as their own protector for the simple fact that she was the most powerful, and they were therefore ready to see her as an “Italian Prussia”.206 The assignment of this protective role was connected with the willingness to accept Piedmont’s territorial expansion in the north, establishing thus “a strong barrier.”207 As A. Bianchi-Giovini wrote in the Opinione on 27 March: “From union comes strength ... The security of Italy demands that all of her northern parts, that is Venice, Lombardy, Liguria, and the subalpine regions, in total from the crest of the Alps to the mouth of the Po and of the Adige, is formed into a single state, united, compact and strong, and as such at the time of need it can offer a barrier against foreign invasion.”208 This was an idea vehemently advocated by Piedmontese liberals and conservatives, both using their genuine geopolitical concerns to attain another important goal: the suppression of republicanism in Lombardy and Venetia.209 The argument of Italy’s security was used to justify the annexation of the two territories of Lombardy and Venetia when it was claimed that local republican particularism represented for Italy an “obstacle to her unity and to her strength,”210 and whatever contributed to “dividing Italy, weakens her and endangers her independence.”211 Moreover, republican and independent Lombardy and Venetia were also regarded as potential allies of republican Switzerland and France and could open the door to a foreign protectorate.212

202 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 22 February 1848, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 5. 203 Desmaisiéres to Hoffschmidt, Turin, 9 December 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Deux-Siciles 2. 204 Il Risorgimento, no. 9, 10 January 1848, p. 34. 205 Il Risorgimento, no. 5, 5 January 1848, p. 18. 206 Briolly to Frederick William IV, Turin, 16 September 1847, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5506; Carlo Matteucci, Prolusione, Pisa 1847, p. 7. 207 La Concordia, no. 89, 12 April 1848, p. 1; L’Eridano, no. 7, 26 April 1848, p. 25. 208 L’Opinione, no. 46, 27 March 1848, p. 180. 209 Cavour to Nicomede Bianchi, 24 April 1848, Pischedda, Camillo Cavour: Epistolario, p. 173; La Concordia, no. 74, 25 March 1848, p. 1, no. 75, 26 March 1848, p. 1, no. 90, 14 April 1848, p. 2, no. 94, 18 April 1848, p. 1, no. 96, 20 April 1848, pp. 1–2. 210 La Concordia, no. 75, 26 March, p. 1. 211 Ibid. 212 Ibid.

The Pursuit of Power

211

This territorial aspiration was more or less willingly accepted by other Italians since it served their security as well. In Tuscany the creation of a large northern Italian kingdom (Regno dell’Alta Italia) with Charles Albert as its ruler was strongly supported in the press since such a bulwark was considered to be in the interest of the whole league. In Florence on 21 March Costanza Arconati addressed the people of Milan with her opinion that the Lombards were to unite with Piedmont “to make a great kingdom at the foot of the Alps, a military Prussia that would secure all of Italy.”213 Eight days later she continued: “I hope that there will be unanimity among the people for the union with Piedmont because this will offer great security.”214 In Livorno Carlo Cecconi shared this view when he learnt that Lombardy and Venetia had proclaimed themselves republics.215 This pragmatism often prevailed over the fear of Piedmont’s excessive power due to the conviction expressed by people in Siena: “The stronger Piedmont will be, the greater will be the safety of all.”216 The same regard for external security caused even some republicans, regardless of their place of residence, to support Piedmont in her anti-Austrian policy of expansion in the north, and consent to the federal unity of Italy.217 It was for this reason that the Genovese republican Giovanni Ruffini agreed to the idea of a Sardinian monarchy and Charles Albert as king of Lombardy,218 and after the Ferrara affair even Giuseppe Mazzini was ready to cooperate with Italian rulers. On 8 September Mazzini called upon Pius IX to “unify Italy, your homeland”219 and in February he accepted Charles Albert’s leadership: “What I want for Italy is unity: I am of a republican conviction, but I do not care about this for now; I would gladly surrender to a man who would unify Italy and take charge of it. But unity is something quite important. Without unity there is no Italy, no Italian

213 Costanza Arconati to Antonio Trotti in Milano, Florence, 21 March 1848, Malvezzi, Il Risorgimento italiano, p. 252. 214 Costanza Arconati to Antonio Trotti in Milano, Florence, 29 March 1848, Malvezzi, Il Risorgimento italiano, p. 258. 215 Edoardo Ripoli (ed.), Il Risorgimento italiano a Livorno nel Diario di Carlo Cecconi, Aprile 1847 – Febbraio 1849, Pisa 1998, p. 56. 216 Forβmann, Presse und Revolution in der Toskana, pp. 279–80. 217 Alletz to Lamartine, Genoa, 6 March 1848, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 5; Reymond to Schiess, Milan, 2 May 1848, CH-BAR#D0#1000/3#1197*, Az. D.1.3.2, 1835–1848; Marco Meriggi, “Zentralismus und Föderalismus in Italien: Erwartungen vor der Einheit,” Oliver Janz, Pierangelo Schiera, Hannes Siegrist (eds), Zentralismus und Föderalismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Deutschland und Italien im Vergleich, Berlin 2000, pp. 41–50. 218 Raffaella Antinucci, “‘An Italy Independent and One’: Giovanni (John) Ruffini, Britain and the Italian Risorgimento,” Nick Carter (ed.), Britain, Ireland and the Italian Risorgimento, Basingstoke 2015, p. 117. 219 Giuseppe Mazzini, “A Pio IX, Pontefice Massimo,” 8 September 1847, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti politici, p. 564.

212

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

power.”220 As he wrote to his mother in March, he was ready to surrender since above all he wanted to see the expulsion of the Austrians and the unity of Italy,221 a standpoint he officially promulgated in the programme of the Associazione nazionale italiana: he did not care about regional interests or the form of government but only about Italian nationhood and the war.222 He continued to be convinced that the unity should not be federal because the loosely connected Italian states would not be strong enough against the external pressure and would fall victim of the great powers’ policies: “One foreign diplomacy might become influential in the north, another in the center, a third in the south. If France were divided into six or seven states, it would be a third rank power.”223 He was not alone in this opinion when some other republicans, although certainly not all of them, preferred one republic to a confederation with the same argument that the former would be stronger against foreign pressure.224 But Mazzini was ready to bow under in the face of reality and genuinely supported Piedmontese expansion at the expense of Austria, and in his appeal to the Lombards after their successful revolution in March he publicly put the victory over the Austrians above the form of government and warned them against particularism.225 Under the weight of circumstances the Lombards and Venetians agreed overwhelmingly to the amalgamation with Piedmont to ensure their own external security.226 Among those who voted for this unification were some republicans who demonstrated considerable realism and pragmatism and accepted Piedmont as the national leader out of their respect for her military power; the most notable of them was Venetian Daniele Manin who, like Pallavicino, respected Piedmont because she was strong and able to expel the Austrians and ensure Italian unity, which made him willing to sacrifice his republicanism in favour of unification and support this kingdom in the following years.227 220 Mazzini to his mother, London, 12 February 1848, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 33, Imola 1921, p. 321. 221 Mazzini to his mother, Paris, 5 March 1848, Mazzini to Filippo de Boni, Paris, 8 March 1848, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 35, Imola 1922, pp. 27, 30. 222 “Programma dell’Associazione nazionale italiana,” 1848, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti politici, p. 569. 223 Mazzini to his mother, London, 12 February 1848, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 33, p. 322. 224 L’Operaio, no. 38, 1 July 1848, p. 155. 225 “Ai Lombardi and Dichiarazione riguardante la decisione della forma di governo da dare alla Lombardia a guerra finita,” Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 36, pp. 293–97, 301– 302; Smith, Mazzini, pp. 57–59; Giovanni Belardelli, Mazzini, Bologna 2010, p. 141. 226 Lodovico Frapolli to the Provisory Government of Lombardy, Paris, 24 May 1848, Tullo Massarani (ed.), Cesare Correnti nella vita e nelle opere, Roma 1890, pp. 576–77; Clark, The Italian Risorgimento, p. 54. 227 Angelo Ventura, “L’opera politica di Daniele Manin,” Pier Luigi Ballini (ed.), 1848–49: Costituenti e costituzioni: Daniele Manin e la Repubblica di Venezia, Venezia 2002, pp. 265–73; Ginsborg, Daniele Manin, pp. 143–44.

The Pursuit of Power

213

The desire for federal unity, the creation of a northern Italian kingdom together with strong armed forces had one common feature: they were not in response to the threat represented by Austria alone but also by other great powers. It was an Italian version of the German encirclement with Russia and Pan-Slavism seen as threats in the east, which will be explained in detail in the following chapter, and France together with Britain in almost all directions. The Italians’ perception of the world can be summarised, surely with some exaggeration, by the fear of French deputy Louis-Marie de Lahaye Cormenin published in Florence in 1848 that the great powers would intervene in Italy as they had in the past and he warned the Italians not to have illusions about the goodwill of other European states including republican France: “The Austrian eagle, its talons extended, flies without restraint from the citadel of Ferrara to the borders of Modena and Parma and has only retreated a little into the hollow of its nest to meditate on its vengeance. Russia, heretical and despotic, denies you her condolences. Prussia and Holland ignore you. Spain and Portugal, which are exhausted by their infighting, see you in a daze. England spreads her wings, and skims under sail along your shores where she seeks her prey, like a voracious seabird, and France disdains you, turns to the Rhine and waits for Vienna for to tell her what Paris will do.”228 In the deputy’s opinion, Italians had only one weapon against the ill-will, intrigues and open aggression: unity in a defensive league with a joint army and navy.229 The increasing popularity of the concept of Italian nationhood serving as an argument on behalf of the political unity of the Italian rulers and people must thus be seen as not merely a reaction to the Austrian threat but to international insecurity in general connected with the policies of all the great powers anywhere and the situation of all smaller countries everywhere. This was a standpoint typical for all political groups including the liberals and democrats. Massimo d’Azeglio in his Proposta d’un programma per l’opinione nazionale italiana (Proposal of a Programme for Italian National Opinion) written in July 1847 called for independence and unity in response to the threats represented not only by Austria but all European powers.230 And in his pamphlet written after the “occupation” of Ferrara he did not change his mind and demanded the creation of the league to ensure the security of the Italians against the dominance and arrogance of every great power.231 Later Giuseppe La Farina claimed that all good Italians “want to be freed from all foreign influence”232 and also advocated the league. For the same basic

228 Louis-Marie de Lahaye Cormenin, Pamphlet sur l’indépendance de l’Italie, Florence 1848, p. 44. 229 Ibid., pp. 10, 44, 70. 230 Massimo d’Azeglio, Proposta d’un programma per l’opinione nazionale italiana, Firenze 1847, pp. 5–17. 231 Massimo d’Azeglio, Sulla protesta pel caso di Ferrara, pp. 13–14. 232 La Farina to Mariano Stabile, Rome, 23 June 1848, Franchi, Epistolario di Giuseppe La Farina, p. 309.

214

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

need for security against all European powers the moderates supported Piedmont’s leadership, something emphasised by Tuscan Vincenzo Salvagnoli in saying that by making this kingdom stronger Austria “will be toppled from its supremacy; and France and England will no longer use Italy for their ulterior motives.”233 The Concordia published on 13 January by the more democratically-minded Lorenzo Valerio denounced the policies of all great powers towards smaller states; the former ignored and violated the rights of the others, and therefore the latter in general had to struggle for “power” (forza), and Italy in particular should unite in order not to fall prey to the former: “The small powers either by their own fault or by a bullying fate have almost always remained either absorbed into or dominated by the major ones. If we look at history, we will see this truth confirmed every time. But the history that recounts the weaknesses of some and the violence of others also tells us the heroism of some and depicts the way in which a few united and firm in their resolve were able to resist many and defeat them.”234 And although some republicans claimed in the spring of 1848 that an Italian republic could expect assistance from France and Switzerland while Britain, Russia and Prussia would never help the Italians, a considerable number of them including Cattaneo shared Mazzini’s hunger for unity to get rid of all foreign influence including France’s while expecting help from no one.235 The mistrust of all the great powers’ aims led Italians to reject alliances with any of them because the same alliances were regarded as wooden horses for the stronger powers to exert influence over the domestic affairs of weaker states.236 The Italia issued in Pisa claimed in August 1847 that while “an alliance brings nations together by considering them as equals and respecting the independence of their politics, the influence is the principle of conquest, brought from the battlefields into the dark workshops of diplomacy; it is the feudal idea with greater dimensions; it is a nation wanting to impose its political programme on another.”237 For this reason Italians disliked the influence of any great power, not only Austria, and they wanted to obtain military strength not just to expel this power but also to prevent all of them from interfering with Italian affairs, and historical parallels were again used in these debates, namely the invasions of the Spaniards and French since the

233 Salvagnoli to Ricasoli, Florence, 17 November 1847, Aurelio Gotti, Marco Tabarrini (eds), Lettere e documenti del Barone Bettino Ricasoli, Volume Primo (2 maggio 1829–28 maggio 1849), Firenze 1887, p. 231. 234 La Concordia, no. 11, 13 January 1848, p. 41. 235 L’Operaio, no. 4, 17 May 1848, p. 13; Dotti, I dissidenti del risorgimento, pp. 50–51; Clara M. Lovett, Carlo Cattaneo and the Politics of the Risorgimento, 1820–1860, The Hague 1972, p. 120; Antonio Monti, Un dramma fra gli esuli: Con documenti inediti e la bibliografia delle edizioni di capolago, Milano 1921, pp. 77–86. 236 The Roman Advertiser, no. 50, 2 October 1847, p. 392. 237 L’Italia, no. 8, 7 August 1847, p. 31.

The Pursuit of Power

215

end of the 15th century.238 Consequently, they usually agreed that they had to unite, according to the popular motto, “from the Alps to Lilibeo”239 against any foreign yoke or foreign influence.240 A fitting summary was offered by the French consul in Genoa relating what the broad public thought in this respect in early December: “We do not want the intervention of any foreign power in our affairs; we need union; every part of the peninsula must become more and more Italian.”241 Pan-Italian solidarity was to ensure security against all foreigners, which meant that it was a response to the whole European states system established in 1815, and through Italian nationhood the individual states were “to recover our political dignity, to be a force necessary to the equilibrium [of Europe] and respected in the system of the great powers of Europe and of the whole Christian world.”242 A federal Italy was thus perceived not solely from a purely Italian but also from a pan-European perspective as an important new player in international affairs; due to the fact that it was aimed against all foreign interventions and not merely Austrian attempts in Genoa it was called “a great international act.”243 If there was any ranking of unpopularity in the Italians’ attitude towards the great powers, then France followed Austria as the most feared one. She was seen as hostile to the rise of a new power in the Mediterranean with 24 million inhabitants due to her own desire to turn this sea into a French lake. When, for example, Pius IX started negotiations on the defensive alliance in early 1848, he insisted on strict secrecy since he feared that not only Austria and Russia but also France would oppose this attempt to establish a new power in Italy.244 Charles Albert’s private secretary, Cesare Trabucco di Castagnetto, shared this apprehension when he claimed in early April that Italy had to be united because otherwise she would fall victim to foreign powers, and not only to the Germans: “Then France will want to intervene, and farewell independence since true independence for Italy is to achieve it herself. With foreigners I make little distinction between the French and Germans; we will always serve them. Do you want proof? They say the French threaten the Savoy. Beautiful brotherhood for truth! [They would] kidnap the keys of the Alps from us: and all of Italy must take an interest in it to prevent it from happening.”245 This justified the creation of a powerful kingdom 238 Fede e patria, no. 1, 22 April 1848, pp. 1–4. 239 La Rigenerazione, no. 7, 22 February 1848, p. 193. 240 Meester de Ravestein to Hoffschmidt, Rome, 8 October 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Saint-Siège 3; La Costituzione, no. 22, 26 April 1848, p. 86. 241 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 7 December 1847, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 4. 242 L’Italia, no. 1, 19 June 1847, p. 1. 243 Vilain to Hoffschmidt, Genoa, 9 November 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Deux-Siciles 2. 244 Gabriele Paolini, La Toscana del 1848–49: Dimensione regionale e problemi nazionali, Firenze 2004, p. 33. 245 Castagnetto to Casati, Bozzolo, 6 April 1848, Vittorio Ferrari (ed.), Carteggio Casati-Castagnetto (19 Marzo – 14 Ottobre 1848), Milano 1909, p. 32.

216

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

from Nice to Venice under the rule of the Savoyan Dynasty regarded as a defensive measure not only against Austria but also France, before as well as after the February Revolution.246 Even after Lamartine’s manifesto, an atmosphere of insecurity prevailed in Italy since Europe seemed to be in turmoil and the unity of an Italian nation with one league and one army was seen as necessary owing to a generally perceived “threat of war [that] perhaps hangs over the whole of Europe, and more probably hangs over Italy, and we still do not know, and who knows when we will know whether we will possess the first weapon, the safest weapon to defend ourselves – the weapon of union, of accord.”247 THE SICILIAN QUESTION Fear of France played an important role in the Italians’ acceptance of a powerful bulwark in the north and the creation of the league to strengthen it, but they also supported the league because of their suspicion of French ambitions in the south; and worse, these ambitions seemed to be accompanied by those of Britain.248 In the first half of 1848 the Italian country most threatened by Britain was Sicily, where the January Revolution was welcomed by the people in the Papal States, Tuscany and Piedmont since it offered prospects for the extension of the customs league to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.249 The principal reason for this desire to join the league was the pursuit of power, and Cesare Agostini expressed the opinion of all when he asked the kingdom to join the league with its eight million people and army and a war fleet, which would make the defence of Italy easier.250 The Neapolitans generally consented to this appeal for the same reason: their kingdom was too small vis-à-vis others in Europe and therefore defenceless, which forced them to find their own security in the league with 23 or 24 million inhabitants (both numbers were stated at that time) and 300,000 soldiers.251 Therefore, the free Neapolitan press became immediately pan-Italian and argued Italian nationhood was the best weapon against foreign domination.252 As in other Italian 246 Minto to Palmerston, Rome, 10 April 1848, PP, GC, MI 488–502; Roland Sarti, Mazzini: A Life for the Relligion of Politics, London 1997, p. 132. 247 L’Epoca, no. 3, 18 March 1848, p. 9. 248 Castagnetto to Casati, Bozzolo, 9 April 1848, Ferrari, Carteggio Casati-Castagnetto, p. 42; Cosimo Ceccuti, “Idee e programmi di Ricasoli sullo sfondo della Toscana del 1848,” Nuova Antologia 115, 1980, 542, p. 88; Cosimo Ceccuti, “Ricasoli fra 1847 e 1849,” Giovanni Spadolini (ed.), Ricasoli e il suo tempo, Firenze 1981, p. 324; Forβmann, Presse und Revolution in der Toskana, pp. 279–80. 249 La Lega Italiana, no. 10, 2 February 1848, p. 49. 250 Il Contemporaneo, no. 17, 10 February 1848, p. 65. 251 Mondo vecchio e mondo nuovo, no. 12, 10 March 1848, pp. 45–46. 252 La Rigenerazione, no. 2, 12 February 1848, p. 5; Il Nazionale, no. 1, 1 March 1848, p. 1.

The Sicilian Question

217

regions even in Naples this was a response not only to the possibility of Austrian incursions but also to the situation over the whole Continent where a general war was regarded as probable or even inevitable in early 1848.253 In fact, the argument of external threats was the only one used in the Neapolitan press on behalf of the “common motherland” and “federal nation” which would have sufficient resources to defend against any attack.254 The only question mark hanging over the Sicilians’ attitude towards their further union with Naples and unity with other Italian states was something seen as a serious issue giving rise to what can be labelled the Sicilian Question. The Sicilians’ separatism was discussed in public from the very beginning of the January Revolution because it seriously endangered the integrity of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, but it finally won the upper hand when the Sicilian parliament in Palermo deposed Ferdinand II and promulgated the island’s independence on 13 April. Until the last moment the Neapolitans tried to convince the Sicilians to remain loyal to the kingdom by connecting its integrity to the unity of all of Italy, both simultaneously seen from the perspective of strength that was needed on behalf of their common external security against the danger represented by European powers.255 It was how the Neapolitan Tempo in reaction to Sicily’s secessionism claimed: “Unity creates strength, isolation weakens even the powerful.”256 The Riscatto italiano published in the same city argued that “purely Italian Messina would be the bastion of southern Italy, whereas exclusively Sicilian Messina will be forced to accept foreigners at any time, by law of the strongest or locally fomented desires; it could soon be a cannon aimed at the heart of Italy.”257 Ferdinand II himself used the argumentation of Italy’s strength necessary for preserving her independence against Sicilian secession on 7 April when he issued a proclamation that Italians had to be united to be strong and even feared; only through strength could they gain independence and respect abroad, which meant becoming a respected nation with their own weight on the world scales.258 In the early spring the Sicilian Question became important for geopolitical reasons not only in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies but also in other Italian states where people were disquieted by the prospect of Sicily’s independence, not as much owing to the schism with Naples but because of the suspicion that the Sicilians also wished to separate themselves from all of Italy and place themselves 253 La Rigenerazione, no. 1, 9 February 1848, p. 1, no. 23, 21 March 1848, p. 90. 254 Il Riscatto italiano, no. 3, 15 February 1848, p. 9; La Costituzione, no. 1, 12 February 1848, p. 1, no. 2, 16 February 1848, p. 7; Il Tempo, no. 1, 21 April 1848, pp. 1–2; no. 6, 1 May 1848, p. 22. 255 Rosario Romeo, Mezzogiorno e Sicilia nel Risorgimento, Napoli 1963, pp. 136–37. 256 Il Tempo, no. 2, 22 April 1848, p. 6. 257 Il Riscatto italiano, no. 13, 9 March 1848, p. 49. 258 Ferdinanda II’s public proclamation, Naples, 7 April 1848, attached to Napier to Palmerston, Naples, 15 April 1848, TNA, FO 70/222; Richard Weiss von Starkenfels, “Pius Papa IX.,” 1849, HHStA, Politisches Archiv des Ministeriums des Äuβern, XI: Italienische Staaten 1848–1918, 192.

218

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

under British protection, which if not entirely caused by Neapolitan diplomats and some Neapolitan newspapers like Lucifero and Tempo was certainly fuelled by them.259 The Italian press quickly reacted with articles aimed at obtaining the Sicilians’ consent to their membership in the league. The principal and de facto only argument was the same as the one used for attracting other princes and people to join it: the need for power to survive in the predatory world, which was to be augmented by Sicily so that Italy would be able to win the war against Austria and become strong against other great powers.260 Here it was important again that the external threats were seen not only in the north-east but all around Italy and, therefore, all Italian states including her largest island were said to need this fraternal union.261 Pan-Italian solidarity was seen as such a necessity for the survival of them all that the campaign to win the Sicilians over to the idea of the Italian league and armed forces reached extreme proportions and national appeals accompanied with warnings were addressed to the islanders from all Italian regions and political groups.262 From Lucca the warning arrived that if the Sicilians declared absolute independence, they would lose the material support of other Italians and then “you will never be free, you will never be independent, if Italy is not so ... Consider also you Sicilians that the sea surrounds you; consider that your strongest and most natural enemies are the people with great and formidable navies: consider that your land is fruitful and eagerly desired; consider that foreign protection has never, never helped any of us: consider after all that your welfare depends on our common welfare and your glory is only in the triumph of Italy.”263 For the same reason Vincenzo Salvagnoli maintained that no Italian state could survive politically outside the Italian league because it “can never be secure in the present or in the future” against foreign enemies.264 Pietro Sterbini impressed upon the Sicilians in the same way that their island could not survive for long without Italy because its independence would be “assaulted at once by material forces and the arts of diplomacy.”265 Even Giuseppe Mazzini felt forced to address a personal letter to them on 20 February, printed in many Italian newspapers, in which he tried to convince them to join the “mainland” in the name of Italian unity.266 Like his compatriots he also argued with the island’s weak position against the great 259 Luigi Natoli, Rivendicazioni attraverso le rivoluzioni siciliane del 1848–1860, Treviso 1927, pp. 24–26. 260 Benedetto Castiglia, Della questione di Sicilia in ordine all’Italia, Firenze 1849 [obviously 1848], pp. 27–29. 261 Michele Amari, Quelques observations sur le droit public de la Sicile, Paris 1848, p. 3. 262 L’Alba, no. 148, 17 February 1848, p. 589. 263 La Riforma, no. 140, 4 April 1848, p. 67. 264 La Patria, no. 203, 28 March 1848, p. 819. 265 Il Contemporaneo, no. 14, 3 February 1848, p. 53. 266 Il Risorgimento, no. 65, 13 March 1848, p. 261.

The Sicilian Question

219

powers: “Do not let foreigners rejoice: Perhaps they will be free; [but] united and powerful never.”267 And he continued in his security warning: “Why, from the rank you can occupy in Europe if united, would you descend, by voluntary suicide, to the fourth, to the last rank, condemning yourselves to perennial weakness and to the inevitable foreign influence?”268 And Raffaello Busacca in his pamphlet on the Sicilian Question written on 19 March advocated a confederation of sovereign states of which the first duty would be the protection of its members against foreign powers.269 Sicily had to be such a member state because it represented “a territory that we can only defend with united forces.”270 These united forces could not only be those of Sicily and Naples because they would not suffice either on land or at sea against potential enemies, namely France and Great Britain. A stronger protector was thus needed, and the only possible one was Italy, that is, a united Italy with an army and navy that would make her a great power.271 The other continental Italians supported this claim and advised the Sicilians to take advantage of the peninsula for their own safety while they would take advantage of the island’s resources and strategic position in the Mediterranean for the same purpose.272 What contributed to the intensity of this campaign was Britain’s interference in the Sicilian Question that increased the Italians’ suspicions of her egoistic ambitions on the island compromising Italy’s safety, namely by extending her direct control from Malta to the greater vicinity of the peninsula. This moved them to react with criticism of the British proceeding and claim that the dispute between Naples and Sicily was a family matter within the Italian nation and foreign interference was not welcomed.273 At the same time continental patriots like Cesare Campori feared that the anti-Neapolitan mood would move the Sicilians to put their fate into the British hands, which in turn would provoke the British-French struggle for predominance and finally lead to the foreign protectorate over Sicily of one of these powers.274 According to Sterbini a British protectorate over Sicily would cause “the ruin of Italy,”275 and he warned the Sicilians before accepting

267 “Ai Siciliani,” London, 20 February 1848, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 36, p. 265. 268 La Speranza, no. 37, 9 March 1848, s.p. 269 Raffaello Busacca, La Sicilia considerata politicamente in rapporto a Napoli e all’Italia, Firenze 1848, p. 3. 270 Ibid., p. 8. 271 Ibid., pp. 38–41, 85. 272 Il Risorgimento, no. 24, 26 January 1848, p. 93, no. 61, 8 March 1848, p. 241, no. 65, 13 March 1848, p. 261; La Concordia, no. 22, 26 January 1848, p. 85; L’Alba, no. 136, 2 February 1848, p. 541, no. 137, 4 February 1848, p. 545. 273 Meester de Ravestein to Hoffschmidt, Rome, 1 February 1848, ADA, CP, Italie, Deux-Siciles 1; La Patria, no. 179, 4 March 1848, p. 709. 274 L’Indipendenza italiana, no. 5, 10 April 1848, p. 18. 275 Il Contemporaneo, no. 23, 24 February 1848, p. 89.

220

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

Britain as a mediator between themselves and Naples: “When a nation as strong as England, and one which has a very serious interest in increasing its own power in the Mediterranean to balance the French possession of Algeria, stands as guardian and arbitrator between two Italian peoples, one of whom possesses a rich island that can add strength and security to such a maritime power, it is certainly not strange to suspect that the motivation driving the English cabinet in this affair is anything but a tender affection for Sicilian liberty, for the extension and maritime power of the Italian people.”276 The same opinion was expressed by G. Nagalli de’Grigioni, who called for Italy to be united from the Alps to Sicily in the name of “greatness and strength”277 and warned the Sicilians that they should not rely on the protection of the great powers and least of all on Great Britain because “the English colonies will tell the Sicilians the happiness and independence that awaits them in the future if they have the misfortune to put themselves under immediate English protection”278 and since “the protectorate of the strong over the weak, regardless of how great the generosity of the former and the gratitude of the latter might be, always ends in arrogance and servitude.”279 While the apprehension of the Sicilians’ desire to separate themselves from Naples was well-founded, the suspicion of their intention to live outside the “Italian family” was completely baseless. After the beginning of the January Revolution, they were unambiguously pro-Italian, and even supporters of the island’s independence from Naples regarded its membership in the league as essential for its preservation against both Naples and the great powers.280 Sicilians generally agreed with the arguments raised by their peninsular compatriots and mentioned above. It was obvious that a small island, having attracted foreign attention for centuries, could hardly withstand foreign pressure if left to its own resources for defence. Sicilians remembered well examples from the more or less recent past as well as the unfortunate fate of other small countries. They observed Britain’s self-serving policy in Ireland and the aggressive campaigns of Russia in the Caucasus and France in Algeria much like other Italians, and the annexation of Cra-

276 Ibid. 277 G. Nagalli de’Grigioni, Sulle attuali politiche condizioni dell’Italia, Milano 1848, p. 15. 278 Ibid., p. 14. 279 Ibid., p. 15. 280 Bresson to Guizot, Palermo, 7 February 1848, Bresson to Lamartine, Palermo, 15 March, 12 and 14 April 1848, Maricoure to Bastid, Messina, 31 May 1848, AMAE, CPC, Naples 1; John Goodwin to Napier, Palermo, 21 April 1848, TNA, FO 70/222; Gioacchino Ventura, Per lo riconoscimento della Sicilia come stato sovrano, ed indipendente, Palermo 1848, pp. 122–24; Rosario Romeo, Il Risorgimento in Sicilia, Bari 1950, pp. 307–309; Luigi Tomeucci, Messina nel Risorgimento: Contributo agli studi sull’unità d’Italia, Milano 1963, pp. 211–12; Georg Winkler, “Das Risorgimento in Sizilien: Nationalität und Alterität im italienischen Nationswerdungsprozess,” Wolfgang Gruber, Stephan Köhler (eds), Siziliens Geschichte: Insel zwischen den Welten, Wien 2013, pp. 205–20.

The Sicilian Question

221

cow was also never forgotten there.281 From these lessons from the past and other regions of the world they learnt that they could hardly expect anything good from the great powers and this made them averse to foreign interference and protectorates including Britain’s.282 For all of these reasons the Sicilians agreed with the necessity to participate in the Italian league representing a new power in Europe protecting them and all of Italy against all possible external threats.283 They assured their peninsular “compatriots” that “we want to be united with the whole of Italy, to raise this dejected woman onto the throne of power [and] remove her from foreign tyranny.”284 One deputy declared in the Sicilian Parliament on 5 May with general acclaim that the federation would unite Italy’s forces and would make Italy feared and invincible for foreigners: “The Federation is a vital condition for us and without it our independence will be precarious. With it we will enjoy all the advantages of Italian nationhood, the only guarantee of our political individuality.”285 One of many supporters of independence from Naples and membership in the league, Gioacchino Ventura, the representative of the Sicilian government in Rome, expressed the opinion of many when he stated that Sicily should be part of Italy, not a unitary state but a federal league with a federal army, diplomacy and assembly in Rome because then Italy would be “quite united and strong enough to defend her independence.”286 If left alone, he feared that the island would become “a miserable appendage of either France, or England or the United States [of America] and obliged to accept a protectorate perhaps harsher and more intolerable than any oppression.”287 And this for the reason that “Sicily is a small state; but because it is an island, because of its geographical position, seated like a queen of the sea in the center of the Mediterranean, it is a country of the greatest importance; and so it has aroused so much desire that the greatest states, the greatest nations have undertaken long and persistent wars to acquire or to secure their possession of it.”288

281 Ventura, Per lo riconoscimento della Sicilia, p. 116; Il Popolo, no. 2, 12 February 1848, s.p. 282 Il Cittadino, no. 108, 29 May 1848, p. 429, no. 22, 8 April 1848, p. 85; Salvatore Francesco Romano, Momenti del Risorgimento in Sicilia, Firenze 1952, p. 92. 283 Il Cittadino, no. 12, 2 February 1848, pp. 45–46, no. 36, 1 March 1848, p. 141, no. 9, 15 March 1848, p. 33; La Rigenerazione, no. 7, 22 February 1848, p. 193; L’Indipendenza e la lega, no. 9, 15 March 1848, p. 33, no. 22, 8 April 1848, p. 85. 284 L’Alba, no. 162, 4 March 1848, p. 645. 285 Gaspare Ambrosini, “La svolta della Sicilia nel 1848 verso gli ordinamenti democratici e l’unificazione nazionale,” Salvatore Massimo Ganci, Rosa Guccione Scaglione (eds), La Sicilia e l’unità d’Italia: Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Studi Storici sul Risorgimento italiano (Palermo 15–20 aprile 1961), Milano 1962, p. 335. 286 Ventura, Per lo riconoscimento della Sicilia, p. 129. 287 Gioacchino Ventura, La Questione Sicula nel 1848 sciolta nel vero interesse della Sicilia, di Napoli e dell’Italia, Palermo 1848, p. 49. 288 Ventura, Per lo riconoscimento della Sicilia, p. 134.

222

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

In exchange Sicily would have great geopolitical significance for Italy as “the advanced guard, the citadel of defence on the sea.”289 Even in Sicily Italian nationhood was accepted as the only means for ensuring their own political survival. As in other Italian states the question of an internal regime was subordinated to the need for external security.290 Some Sicilians claimed that the constitution could be discussed later and some others paid attention to it primarily with regard to other Italians and Europeans: it was argued and finally also generally agreed that Sicily had to be a monarchy to be compatible with other political regimes in Italy, therefore making coexistence in their league unproblematic. This reasoning manifested itself most strikingly in the election of the second son of Charles Albert, Alberto Amadeo the Duke of Genoa, as the Sicilian king. The choice of the Savoyan prince was purely pragmatic: the islanders selected him aware of the “smallness of the kingdom”291 that urgently needed allies and they could only be found in Italy: “Sicily certainly cannot be without allies, and since the only one in all of Italy that may be useful to us is Piedmont, see if they are willing to come to agreement for an alliance.”292 Sicilians thus hoped in the effective protection of materially strong Piedmont as the only guarantee of the preservation of the island’s independence, especially when the league was not yet formed.293 At the same time the election of Alberto Amadeo reflected the regard for other European countries for which a Sicilian kingdom was more acceptable than a republic, especially for Britain with her dominance in the Mediterranean and the nearby naval base in Malta. The awareness of the sensitivity of the Sicilian Question for European powers jealously watching each other’s activities in the Mediterranean also made the Sicilians justify the monarchic and pan-Italian settlement of the Sicilian Question as a solution “indispensable for the equilibrium and peace of Europe.”294 Membership in the league and the election of the Savoyan prince were obviously perceived by the Sicilians from the perspectives of strength and security. The same considerations simultaneously stimulated their debate about the creation of their own armed forces.295 They shared the opinion expressed by Paolo Morello in Florence and printed in the Apostolato about the necessity of conscriptions in Sicily because armament was “the supreme necessity of all Italy, and it is a supreme necessity because it is material force that always wants to triumph over 289 Ventura, La Questione Sicula nel 1848, p. 44. 290 Il Cittadino, no. 64, 4 April 1848, p. 253. 291 Giuseppe Gentile, Sicilia e Piemonte nel 1848–49, Milano 1964, p. 9. 292 Antonio De Francesco, “Torino e il Piemonte visti dal Regno delle Due Sicilie: Palermo,” Umberto Levra (ed.), Il Piemonte alle soglie del 1848, Torino 1999, p. 822. 293 Bresson to Bastid, Palermo, 8, 15 and 23 June, 3 July 1848, AMAE, CPC, Naples 1; John Goodwin to Lord Napier, Palermo, 27 May, 4 and 14 June, 11 July 1848, TNA, FO 651/2. 294 L’Apostolato, no. 42, 11 May 1848, p. 176. 295 Giacinto De’Sivo, Storia delle Due Sicilie dal 1847 al 1861, vol. 1, Roma 1863, p. 241.

The Sicilian Question

223

moral force.”296 The same desire for military strength converted Sicilian republicans into monarchists and turned sympathisers with the Tuscan pretender into supporters of the Savoyan Dynasty.297 If one man should serve as the personification of the attitudes mentioned above, then the best choice is Francesco Crispi, who became famous as the Italian prime minister at the end of the century. In late January 1848 he started to publish the newspaper Apostolato. Although personally a republican for years, he became a monarchist owing to the need for Sicily’s security: he was one of many who considered the creation of a Sicilian kingdom with a king chosen from another Italian capital except Naples to be a necessity for Sicily to face external threats.298 For the same reason he also favoured the federal solution to the Italian Question, and he became an even more outspoken adherent of this concept when Ferdinand II was dethroned by the Sicilian parliament. On 22 April he wrote that the Sicilians like the Venetians and the Milanese could aspire to autonomy, but they should not be completely independent: “They do not want a separate nationality, but rather their own distinct representation within the great Italian whole; a representation that will last until it pleases God to fuse Italy into a single people from the Alps to Marsala.”299 The basis for this reasoning was the “extreme vulnerability”300 of Sicily. As history had taught the Sicilians, their island alone was never strong enough to ensure its independence and was ruled by foreigners many times.301 While for Crispi Austria was the oppressor of northern Italy, France too was certainly no friend of the peninsula, whose freedom and unity could also hardly be seen favourably either by Britain, who jealously guarded her commercial dominance in the Mediterranean and would see a united Italy with numerous seaports as a commercial rival. In short, he was convinced that it was exactly owing to the ambitions of the great powers that Italy needed power and therefore had to be united in a federation with Sicily as a member state and be defended by a federal army and navy.302 Francesco Crispi was not alone as other national-minded Sicilians from monarchic and republican circles also in no way disputed their island’s membership in the Italian league, and their response to Mazzini’s call for their association with the rest of Italy and the rejection of foreign protectorate was unanimously 296 L’Apostolato, no. 16, 4 March 1848, p. 61. 297 Charles Baudin Jr. to Admiral Baudin, Palermo, 7 July 1848, Gaetano Falzone (ed.), Il problema della Sicilia nel 1848 attraverso nuove fonti inedite: Indipendenza e autonomia nel giuoco della politica internazionale, Palermo 1951, pp. 327–28. 298 Nicolò Inglese, Crispi, Milano 1961, p. 20. 299 Christopher Duggan, Francesco Crispi 1818–1901, Oxford 2002, p. 60. 300 Ibid. 301 Ibid, pp. 60–61. 302 L’Apostolato, no. 2, 29 January 1848, p. 5, no. 5, 5 February 1848, p. 18, no. 6, 8 February 1848, p. 22, no. 10, 17 February 1848, p. 37.

224

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

positive.303 Sicilians supported the war against Austria due to the same feeling of pan-Italian solidarity and some young men – in a surprisingly high number regarding the distance of the northern battlefield – enrolled as volunteers because the security of all Italy was regarded as a matter of security of each single country, something that was able to unite even the mutually hostile Naples and Palermo.304 An increase in anti-Austrian hostility occurred in both cities during the winter – and the Sicilian volunteers went to fight against the empire together with their Neapolitan brother-in-arms.305 THE PATH TO WAR Sicilian, Neapolitan and other volunteers played a marginal role in the war that Charles Albert decided to wage on 23 March 1848. The spontaneous participation of young men, however, was an important manifestation of the general enthusiasm provoked across all Italian states and social classes when the war broke out,306 which raises the question of how international affairs contributed to some people’s eagerness to fight. It is necessary to answer it since first, the significant driving force behind it was the feeling of insecurity caused by the situation in the international politics; second, the readiness to attack not merely one great power but simultaneously the whole post-Napoleonic states system was a kind of response to this insecurity; and third, armament and solidarity based on the concept of nationhood were practical measures prepared for this force reckoning. To be able to answer the question if not convincingly then at least come close to an explanation it is necessary in the first place to understand the significance of war for Charles Albert and the men surrounding him. The March Revolutions in the Austrian Empire in general and those in Milan and Venice in particular offered them the long yearned for opportunity predicted by Solaro in 1835 for the expulsion of the Austrians from northern Italy. Although historians have usually emphasised the king’s hesitation during the days preceding his invasion into Lombardy, he had actually foreseen the likelihood of war during the winter, and along with his effort to win the support of the Italian people and other Italian rulers he was preparing his army for such an eventuality.307 He also welcomed it because it enabled him to fulfil his dreams and designs nurtured since the 1830s.308 His 303 L’Apostolato, no. 26, 28 March 1848, pp. 109–10, no. 34/35, 16 April 1848, p. 147, no. 43, 13 May 1848, p. 178. 304 Negri, Opere scelte di Luigi Settembrini, p. 216. 305 Settembrini, Opuscoli politici, pp. 121, 137, 200–201. 306 Orta, Le piazze d’Italia, p. 60. 307 Boyer, La Seconde République, pp. 26–31; Gentile, Carlo Alberto, p. 192. 308 J. Gerbaix de Sonnaz, “Mes souvenirs sur le roi Charles-Albert,” Adolfo Omodeno (ed.), La legenda di Carlo Alberto nella recente storiografia, Torino 1940, pp. 136, 148.

The Path to War

225

decision to start a war was not a sudden whim but the outcome of long strategic planning in response to what was perceived as the decline of the post-Napoleonic states system. As an excuse vis-à-vis other European states Piedmont used Solaro’s argumentation from 1835 concerning the defence of the monarchic order in Italy against the spread of republicanism, and it should not be forgotten that the pan-Italian argumentation used to win general support was also formulated in Turin before 1840. The primary motivation was the desire to increase the security of Piedmont by the creation of an Italian power in the northern Apennines and thus improve her position against the other great powers, in particular France bordering them in the west and Austria in the east. The genuine perception of international politics as an arena dominated by the law of the jungle where only the strong survive seemed to motivate as well as sufficiently vindicate the king’s desire for war.309 The same process can easily be revealed in the general public with one important distinction: while for Charles Albert the important milestones were the July Revolution in 1830 and the occupation of Ancona two years later, for other Italians they came with the international affairs of 1840 and 1846. From the end of 1846 when Cracow was annexed, debates about peace and war increased dramatically and the willingness to accept the latter as a method of settlement had the same origins as earlier with Charles Albert: fear caused by the conviction of one’s own vulnerability. People gradually became convinced of the fragility of peace and the necessity to strengthen it, and when they had more faith in the strength of arms than in the rule of law, they believed that to strengthen the peace meant to become more secure, which automatically meant to become stronger, and this strength could only be achieved by practical security measures like better defendable frontiers. The last goal automatically made them anxious to expel the Austrians beyond the Alps. Because of their geographical location, the Piedmontese were the first in this regard, but as Austria appeared to be gradually more dangerous, the same desire spread southwards. When war was knocking on the door in March 1848, Italians were divided into two groups perceiving security measures like armament and unity in a somehow contradictory way. While a considerable number of people including the pope, the rulers of Tuscany and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies still saw the armed league as a defensive measure for forcing Austria to maintain peace,310 the second group including the Sardinian monarch intended to use it for an attack that, however, was still fundamentally seen as an act of self-protection. It is impossible and also unimportant to determine which group had the majority when the war broke out. What is certainly substantial is the fact that their ultimate goal was the same: even those who wished to expel Austria with the force of 309 Šedivý, “The Path to the Austro-Sardinian War,” pp. 367–85. 310 Thomas Kroll, Die Revolte des Patriziats: Der toskanische Adelsliberalismus im Risorgimento, Tübingen 1999, pp. 266–72.

226

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

arms saw beyond the victorious end to the war a more stable and enduring peace. Consequently, both groups argued on behalf of armament and unity with the same motto from the time of the Ferrara affair: Si vis pacem, para bellum. On 18 August the Florentine Alba issued an article with the Italian version of this saying Se vuoi la pace, preparati alla guerra.311 It demanded the creation of civic guards with the argument that “when fire is attacking your neighbor’s house, it would be of the utmost improvidence to sit with your hands in your pockets.”312 Therefore, Tuscany was to be “armed and strong,” not for an offensive war but for her defence. Since a war in Italy was probable, the grand duchy had to be prepared for the reason that “the geographical and strategic situation of Tuscany is such that, if a war breaks out, it is impossible that her neutrality will be respected, impossible that her territory will not be violated by one side or the other.”313 On 27 November the same newspaper stated: “We do not want war, but peace; and to achieve it with certainty the only means is to be ready for war. A united people, armed and trained in arms will be able to make their independence well respected and to laugh at the colossi with their clay feet.”314 It is not to claim that this motto was used in the Alba for the first time; the quotation of this influential newspaper just represents an example that was repeated across Italy in the following months when the saying became extremely popular and simultaneously fitting for the process within Italian society, and it was explicitly promoted by Massimo d’Azeglio and many others against “foreign conquest, foreign oppression!”315 Therefore, it deserves several more examples here. On 4 January the Bolognese Felsineo complained that while Italians talked a lot about law in connection with Ferrara, Parma and Modena, Austria was responding with action: the reinforcement of her army. Therefore, Italians had to arm as well, with the explanation that “Si vis pacem, para bellum. The security of this peace and reform rests in arms. Let us not remain as lambs to the wolf. Let us be strong and we will be respected.”316 And as always in the geopolitical security debates, this opinion resulted not only from the perception of Austria but also the whole situation in Europe. On 22 January M. A. Castelli expressed his opinion under the weight of international affairs that “never was there a time when the saying that whoever wants peace prepares for war was as truthful as in our era. So we concur with all our hearts 311 L’Alba, no. 29, 18 August 1847, p. 113. 312 Ibid. 313 Ibid., p. 113. 314 L’Alba, no. 46, 27 September 1847, p. 152. 315 Il Risorgimento, no. 17, 19 January 1848, p. 66. See also Massimo d’Azeglio, “Armamento dell’Italia centrale,” 10 January 1848, Rubris, Massimo d’Azeglio, p. 411; Massimo d’Azeglio to Leopoldo Galeotti, Pesaro, 3 September 1847, Virlogeux, Massimo d’Azeglio, vol. 3, p. 431; La Mosca, no. 52, 26 August 1847, p. 409, no. 53, 9 September 1847, p. 425; Raffaele Ciasca, L’origine del programma per “L’Opinione Nazionale Italiana” del 1847–1848, Milano 1965, p. 29. 316 Il Felsineo, no. 2, 4 January 1848, s.p.

The Path to War

227

with that noble sentiment that is stirring and inspiring the whole nation, and it is for us the most imposing fact, as the surest pledge of the Italian Risorgimento, a feeling to which the national governments are worthily responding in preparing those weapons which will be shields to our and others’ independence, and they alone are sufficient for ensuring Italy’s present security and future destiny.”317 Reference to the conduct of other great powers and the situation in other European regions like Germany, Scandinavia and the Balkans were often used as justification for their own defensive measures, accompanied with the usual assurance of not wanting to wage an offensive war but needing to be ready to face foreign aggression.318 The Italian league was to ensure not only independence but also, as Pietro Sterbini claimed in early September 1847, “a new era of peace.”319 In an article entitled Sull’Armamento nazionale (On National Armament) published in the Bilancia on 7 January its author expressed his desire for peace as well as a mixture of optimism and pessimism, the former based on the conviction that a war in Europe was no longer possible owing to the balance of power among the great powers and the outlet for their bellicosity overseas, the latter based on the fact that there was still a great number of men kept in arms. Since a general disarmament was not possible, the Italian states had only one possible choice on how to react: “The simplest common sense suffices to answer: to govern oneself following the example of other states.”320 Therefore, as the article continued, although Italy did not seek war, she had to be ready to defend herself: “In summary, all Europe is armed, Austria has built up her forces in Italy more than ever [and] all of Europe protects its peace with arms: what should Italian rulers do? Follow the example, arm themselves.”321 The conclusion was that with the necessity to be armed “Italy could be respected by other nations.”322 How sincere the assurance of peaceful designs behind the preparations for defence really was is impossible to assess convincingly. It is certain, however, that under the impact of the latest affairs contributing to the feeling of uneasiness the violent changes were increasingly accepted and the people more willing to speak out in favour of them.323 In this respect the Ferrara affair played a crucial role by provoking both fear and hostility, stimulating the desire for not only armament but also aggressive action.324 The best known example was Charles Albert, who later 317 Il Risorgimento, no. 20, 22 January 1848, p. 78. 318 Il Contemporaneo, no. 16, 8 February 1848, p. 61; La Concordia, no. 37, 11 February 1848, p. 145. 319 Il Contemporaneo, no. 36, 4 September 1847, s.p. 320 La Bilancia, no. 71, 7 January 1848, p. 283. 321 Ibid., p. 284. 322 Ibid. 323 Bottrigari, Cronaga di Bologna, p. 213. 324 Liedekerke to De La Sarraz, Rome, 25 January 1848, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1469; “Doc. L: A Pio IX – ai Ferraresi – ai Romagnoli i Toscani,” 1847, Luseroni, La stampa clandestina in Toscana, p. 192.

228

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

told Bettino Ricasoli that he had wanted to exploit this incident for an invasion into Lombardy but the pope was indecisive.325 However, other Italians discussed the necessity to expel Austria from Italy more than ever in salons, cafes, clubs and streets.326 This desire was no less important than the promulgation of new constitutions, and according to the French consul in Genoa, local inhabitants hungered above all for independence and war even before Charles Albert promised to promulgate a new one.327 The same consul also pointed out another important trait behind the popular desire for battle: it was the only sentiment unifying all social classes,328 which means that the readiness to wage war had a great unifying effect as had the demand for independence, not only because both resulted from the feeling of insecurity but also since a war with Austria was regarded as a necessity for creating the Italian league that was to ensure a greater level of independence.329 Therefore, although a republican like Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi also supported Charles Albert and Pius IX when he came to the conclusion that these two rulers could ensure the independence of Italy, and since the only means for achieving it was war, this war became for him a necessity.330 The same opinion was widespread in Italy, and the Dutch envoy in Rome commented on public opinion there in January saying that “this independence can only be and only ever will be nominal as long as Austria remains mistress of Lombardy, and to deprive her of it, nothing less than a general war and all its terrible consequences would be necessary.”331 The forthcoming “general war” in Europe was another popular topic connected with the negative perception of the international order. The expectation of some Italians that it was inevitable contributed to their readiness to wage a war, and in this respect it had a similar impact as the conviction that Austria would start one in Italy. Already in 1847 Hegelian Andrea Luigi Mazzini saw a large-scale war as an unavoidable product of a historical process332 that, however, had nothing to do with the constitutional agenda: “In my opinion the war will be neither a struggle of principles nor a conflict of interests. The war will take place, notwithstanding the interests and the principles of constitutional governments and absolutist governments; it will take place due to a fatal combination of circumstances which no cabinet, no power, will have the strength to control.”333 And he added: “Govern 325 Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, p. 333. 326 Redern to Frederick William IV, Turin, 7 December 1847, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5506. 327 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 2, 10 and 11 February 1848, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 5. 328 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 17 December 1847, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 4. 329 La Rigenerazione, no. 7, 22 February 1848, pp. 209–10. 330 Bagnoli, L’idea dell’Italia, pp. 316–18; Candeloro, Storia dell’Italia moderna, vol. 3, p. 50. 331 Liedekerke to De La Sarraz, Rome, 21 January 1848, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1469. 332 Andrea Luigi Mazzini, De l’Italie, vol. 2, p. 322. 333 Ibid., p. 371.

The Path to War

229

ments, as well as people, appear to be animated by only one need, and only one interest, that of fighting.”334 Other Italians based the same conviction on criticism of the post-Napoleonic order leading them to the conclusion that this order was unable to preserve peace as it had already failed in ensuring justice. Aware of the strong interdependence of the relations among European countries, they also strongly believed that, in the words of Giuseppe Gabussi reacting to the prospect of an pan-European war, once it had broken out, “Italy will not be able to stand aside.”335 On 20 December the Riforma published in Lucca saw the situation in the same way: “The Europe constituted by the Congress of Vienna only for the law of armed force could not last in that artificial and violent state if not with the use of armed force. This peace was nothing but a long armistice during which the elements of an inevitable and general war matured. Their freedoms violated, the crushed nations are stirred to rebuild themselves within the borders that God assigned them. But only those people who have been able to prepare in time to fight will emerge victorious from this final struggle: and the blessings of peace will only be able to be fully enjoyed by those nations which in time will have made every citizen a soldier and which in the work of today do not lose sight of the interests of the future.”336 In early 1848 the expectation of an armed conflict in both Italy and Europe increased even more,337 and the question posed and the answer offered corresponded with what Ottavio di Revel wrote to his brother Adriano on 3 January: “Will be there war? Yes, there will be one.”338 On 21 January Cesare Balbo informed his readers in such a way to convince even the more conservative-minded readers: “Since 1830 there have been many occasions for war, but none have broken out; and the merit (or blame?) for one not having broken out must certainly be attributed to the opinion, to the peaceful demands of society today, but certainly also to four leading men of Europe, all four being pacifist by age and fatigue or wisdom, [namely] Louis Philippe, Wellington, Metternich and Mohammed Ali. Now, even those who wish these four the longest and most industrious lives cannot fail to see that in five or six years in any case their activity will have decreased and that in five or six years likewise the changing conditions of European society will be such that at that point it will have more need of war than of peace, of breaking more than of maintaining the status quo that has already lasted so long, of accomplishing rather than avoiding a reorganisation, a reconstitution of Europe. And so in summary there is a strong probability of war, or at least of a serious danger 334 Ibid., p. 372. 335 Gabussi, Quali eventualità, p. 49. 336 Forβmann, Presse und Revolution in der Toskana, p. 271. 337 L’Eco, no. 45, 8 February 1848, p. 211. 338 Genova di Revel, Dal 1847 al 1855: La spedizione di Crimea. Ricordi di un commissario militare del re, Milano 1891, p. 7.

230

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

of a European war in five or six years.”339 Balbo finished with the conclusion that however events developed, Italy had to prepare for defence “against a possible invasion.”340 What he did not say publicly was his readiness to contribute to the outbreak of war in the interest of Italy or, rather, Piedmont, and there were other Italians who were also willing to solve the whole situation with the force of arms which they preferred to the continuation of the insecure state of affairs or, even worse, waiting for the enemy to attack first. This was also the attitude of Luigi Carlo Farini, who wrote to Louis Napoleon, the future French emperor, in January that it was impossible to believe in the maintenance of European peace and he was willing to violate it because it was “better to die by cannon than by paper!!!”341 He was convinced that Austria wanted to intervene in Naples with armed force or attack Piedmont, which gave other Italian states justification to attack her first.342 In late February he claimed that he and his compatriots were preparing and arming for war and that “perhaps the Italian war will become a European war. We all believe this, and we all want war.”343 It is not certain whether Farini already knew about the February Revolution when he was writing this last letter, but certainly the political upheaval in France further contributed to the expectation of war, as the Italia claimed on 2 March: “In any case one thing seems certain to us now, and it is that Europe is striding towards a great political transformation. Its present state, its public law, which was declared and sanctioned by the Congress of Vienna, is nothing other than the dead skin shed by a snake. We are on the eve of one of those violent crises, in which powerless people are sometimes given the opportunity to rise again and for those who rise up to secure the accomplishments they have made, without suffering, without sacrifice: and he who rises further, makes himself worthy. War is inevitable; the French revolution has made it imminent.”344 Just a day later Salvagnoli reacted to the same revolution with jubilant words about war clouds and the role the Italians had to assume owing to the forthcoming storm: “Until today the League of Free Italian Governments was enough against an enemy: now the League of Peoples and Governments of all Italy is needed against a thousand enemies because the unknown has no number. Our conditions are extraordinary: therefore, the measures must be extraordinary. Now it is no longer a question of the internal order or of an internal war; it is a question of a European order and 339 Il Risorgimento, no. 19, 21 January 1848, pp. 73–74. 340 Ibid., p. 74. 341 Luigi Carlo Farini to Louis Napoleon, Osimo, 8 January 1848, HHStA, StK, Interiora/Intercepte 38. 342 Luigi Carlo Farini to Louis Napoleon, Osimo, 30 January 1848, HHStA, StK, Interiora/Intercepte 38. 343 Luigi Carlo Farini to Louis Napoleon, Osimo, 26 February 1848, HHStA, StK, Interiora/Intercepte 38. 344 L’Italia, no. 56, 2 March 1848, p. 224.

The Path to War

231

a war of universal principles. Now it is no longer a question of looking away and preparing for defence; it is a question of expecting good and evil from everywhere; it is a matter of preparing oneself for defence and offence, to defend and attack, at everyone, for everyone, against everyone. Independence may want it all and we must give everything we have to Independence.”345 Salvagnoli’s view was shared by a considerable number of Italians even after the first shock caused by the revolution in France had subsided. With the knowledge of this European context, it is easier to fully appreciate the level of the hostile reaction to Austria and her aims in Italy, and one cannot help thinking that in certain circles and at certain moments it occasionally reached a level of hysteria, and it is also easier to understand why after February some Italians saw in the league not simply a defensive but also an offensive measure and more openly demanded the declaration of war. Such an undertaking was considered to be an act of self-defence, caused by the necessity to ensure their own safety by making the Alps the natural and solid frontier of Italy,346 which gave birth to the often proclaimed opinion that although the war could not be regarded as good per se, waging it was a matter of life while the preservation of peace meant death.347 On 14 March the Genovese Lega Italiana expressed itself in the same way: “The league and war should be the utmost, and I almost dare to say the only thought of our rulers. An offensive and defensive league between them … War is inevitable and any delay is harmful.”348 Three days later it was explained why: “As long as foreign troops are encamped like an army of marauders in our house, we will never have freedom, independence or security. [Therefore] out with the foreigners.”349 A war with an uncertain outcome was gradually regarded by some Italians as a better option than the preservation of the uncertain and oppressive peace created by “the unjust Vienna pact.”350 It was said that to wage war was the only option when Austrian presence precluded a lasting peace that was to be the principal aim of the same war. This perspective led Enrico Gentilini to the statement that the war with Austria was a sad necessity – necessity because it was regarded as the only means for avoiding an even greater evil,351 which was an opinion shared by 345 La Patria, no. 178, 3 March 1848, p. 701. 346 L’Alba, no. 160, 2 March 1848, p. 637, no. 161, 3 March 1848, p. 641; La Lega Italiana, no. 42, 17 March 1848, p. 213, no. 45, 21 March 1848, p. 229. 347 La Concordia, no. 44, 19 February 1848, p. 170, no. 76, 28 March 1848, p. 1; Il Risorgimento, no. 70, 18 March 1848, pp. 277–78. 348 La Lega Italiana, no. 39, 14 March 1848, p. 201. 349 La Lega Italiana, no. 45, 21 March 1848, p. 229. 350 Franco Della Peruta (ed.), Scrittori politici dell’Ottocento: Tomo 1: Mazzini e i democratici italiani, Milano, Napoli 1969, p. 1009. 351 Enrico Gentilini, Guida alla guerra d’insurrezione, ossia guerra degli stracorridori, [?] 1848, p. 3.

232

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

a considerable number of his compatriots including some clerics.352 It had to be waged against the empire threatening “the security of all Italy,”353 and it therefore became not only acceptable but also justified.354 For example, Filippo de Boni regarded war in the name of nationhood as acceptable because it would bring greater welfare.355 For the same reason some Italians claimed that “the greatest danger for Italy is not war”356 but the preservation of peace being nothing other than “merely a shameful and weary prolongation of servitude.”357 Even more pacifist men like Gioberti inclined to see the maintenance of peace in Italy as such: despite his mistrust of Austria’s designs regarding the Ferrara affair he did not want Charles Albert to attack her but simply to defend Pius IX against her aggression,358 and in late February he still personally wanted to avoid a general war in Europe and hoped that “the alliance of free nations will be able to seek the revision of the acts of Vienna by the summoning of a common congress; and in the balance there will be such influence that it will be able to achieve the emancipation of Lombardy and the reintegration of Poland,”359 but what he feared even more was that Italy would only have a “truce” instead “firm peace” and “security.”360 What further increased the readiness to wage war was the conviction that justice, or what was regarded as such, could not be achieved through diplomatic means.361 This was another way that the pan-European context influenced popular feelings in Italy. Vincenzo Salvagnoli wrote in mid March justifying the war: “Of necessity Europe has raced towards a new recomposition. It has been impossible to do so peacefully because the absolutist states did not want to yield either to nationhood or to freedom.”362 On 24 March, before the news of Charles Albert’s decision to start a war could reach Naples, Cesare Malpica wrote that Italy’s future had to be “resolved on the battlefield because it is impossible to tolerate certain monstrosities any longer; Europe will never have a stable and true peace as long 352 Parole dette dal Canonino Finazzi nel solenne rendimento di grazie celebrato nella cattedrale di Bergamo: Il dì 15 Aprile 1848, Bergamo 1848, pp. 5–6; La Concordia, no. 61, 10 March 1848, p. 1; L’Eco, no. 59, 18 March 1848, p. 271. 353 Gazzetta di Milano, no. 24, 15 April 1848, s.p. 354 Frank J. Coppa, “Realpolitik and Conviction in the Conflict between Piedmont and the Papacy during the Risorgimento,” The Catholic Historical Review 54, 1969, 4, p. 586. 355 Peruta, Scrittori politici dell’Ottocento, p. 1011. 356 Il Risorgimento, no. 68, 16 March 1848, p. 267. 357 Settembrini, Opuscoli politici, p. 99. 358 Gioberti to Silvestro Centofanti, Paris, 25 August 1847, Gioberti to Giuseppe Montanelli, Paris, 25 August 1847, Gentile, Vincenzo Gioberti: Epistolario, vol. 6, Firenze 1931, pp. 351–52. 359 Gioberti to Lorenzo Valerio, Paris, 26 February 1848, Gentile, Vincenzo Gioberti: Epistolario, vol. 7, p. 289. 360 Gioberti to the director of the Contemporaneo, Paris, 19 October 1847, Gentile, Vincenzo Gioberti: Epistolario, vol. 7, p. 62. 361 La Concordia, no. 6, 7 January 1848, p. 18. 362 Patria, no. 179, 16 March 1848, p. 760. See also Patria, no. 199, 24 March 1848, p. 795.

The Path to War

233

as these monstrosities exist. The principle of dependence, which is now the basis of the European political code, must be got rid of in order to give way to the only true and holy principle ... that of the independence of nations.”363 The insufficient protection offered by the existing code of international law served as the justification of the use of armed force. This option was already put forward by Massimo d’Azeglio in his reaction to the Ferrara affair when he wrote that every nation “has the right to use its moral and physical force in the most opportune way for its own preservation and its own well-being, within the limits which determine this right, and remove the occupying rights of others.”364 The Alba expressed the same view after the Duke of Modena seized Fivizzano: “We have the law for us but what is the law for a Duke of Modena? ... We have the strength: let’s use it. The Modenese government knows and understands nothing but the language of force; let us speak to it in its own language and we will be understood.”365 Pietro Sterbini wrote in the Contemporaneo at the end of March: “The war that all of Italy is intimating to foreigners today is a sacred war: it is the law that is rising up to confront material force.”366 This standpoint also helped to overcome a moral dilemma – if there was any; the Alba wrote on 23 January 1848 that such a dilemma was pointless since Europe was accustomed to acknowledging the “right” of fait accompli, and after explicitly mentioning Cracow it continued: “The public law of Europe is a fiction, a lie: we are under the empire of force; the reason is at the tip of the sword, justice [is in] in victory. There, where the insurrection was victorious, as in Greece, France, Belgium, Spain and Portugal, Europe bowed before the right of the strongest; there where it was defeated, as in Poland, Europe glorified the victorious powers and made a God of the cannon. The treaties of 1815 will be the iron yoke of Italy until Italy has the strength to break them: once they are broken, Europe will accept the fait accompli and recognise right in the triumph.”367 When for more than just one reason a war was regarded as more acceptable than peace, the Italians pressed more and more for a war of “national independence.” This led to the situation that while the outbreak of the March revolutions in Milan and Venice offered Charles Albert the long yearned for opportunity for territorial conquest, in Italian society they gave rise to a genuine war fever.368 The war was then celebrated by the masses across the whole peninsula,369 for example in Rome in front of the Colosseum by an assembly of 40,000 people.370 363 Il Riscatto italiano, no. 20, 24 March 1848, p. 78. 364 Massimo d’Azeglio, Proposta d’un programma, p. 8. 365 L’Alba, no. 71, 13 November 1847, p. 281. 366 Il Contemporaneo, no. 38, 30 March 1848, p. 149. 367 L’Alba, no. 128, 23 January 1848, p. 509. 368 Il Risorgimento, no. 72, 21 March 1848, p. 285. 369 Il Riscatto italiano, no. 21, 27 March 1848, p. 81, no. 26, 7 April 1848, p. 101; La Costituzione, no. 13, 24 March 1848, p. 49; Il Tempo, no. 44, 15 June 1848, p. 173. 370 Enrico Francia, 1848: La rivoluzione del Risorgimento, Bologna 2012, p. 144.

234

Si vis pacem, para bellum (1847–1848)

The Concordia welcomed it with these words: “The war, the war, this is what we have always demanded for the welfare of Italy ... We pay no heed to the treaties because the legal Italy was Austrian Italy, natural Italy is a geographical one.”371 The public arena was full of exclamations like the war was “an inevitable necessity, a supreme need for honour, a supreme necessity of existence,”372 or “in war is our salvation, and let war be our great interest, our supreme necessity.”373 The attention paid to it surely surpassed the interest in internal affairs like parliamentary elections, and the report of the French consul in Genoa can serve as a fitting summary: “The passion for Italian nationhood absorbs the feeling of political liberty, the hatred against Austria is an all-consuming fire while the appeal of being a citizen of a free state casts only a weak spark.”374 Even usually moderate men saw the armed conflict as a good opportunity to solve Italy’s geopolitical problems, including Carlo Cattaneo, who genuinely disliked war and destruction but who accepted it as such and easily rejected Radetzky’s offer of a cease-fire.375 The First Italian War of Independence must be seen as resistance not only to Austria but also to the whole post-Napoleonic states system, and it was also perceived as such by contemporaries who welcomed it within the context of the political-legal changes in Italy and Europe.376 With their attempt to overthrow the status quo Italians revolted against the 1815 treaties, and the causes as well as the aims of their effort enable us to understand what Giacomo Durando wanted to say with his claim that “war is an element of our nationhood.”377 Nevertheless, although the Italian national movement was not a peace movement like those existing at the same time in Europe and the United States of America, it would be absurd to see the Italians as a nation of blood-thirsty war-mongers. What they actually wanted above all was peace, but a lasting peace that they were unable to find under the given political-legal conditions of the world. The expulsion of the Austrians and the unity of Italians were to serve independence and peace, in other words to banish wars from Italy.378 Afterwards warfare was to be rejected as a means for solving international disputes, and the suppression of the lust for conquest was to become an important value of nationhood.379 Sometimes there even occurred an effort to define the term “war” accompanied with the claim that “the interests of nations like those of individuals must be regulated by justice and

371 La Concordia, no. 73, 24 March 1848, p. 1. 372 Il Risorgimento, no. 75, 24 March 1848, p. 297. 373 L’Avvenire d’Italia, no. 40, 1 August 1848, p. 159. 374 Alletz to Lamartine, Genoa, 11 April 1848, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 5. 375 Sabetti, Civilization and Self-Government, p. 132. 376 Il Contemporaneo, no. 36, 25 March 1848, p. 141. 377 L’Opinione, no. 33, 11 March 1848, p. 129. 378 Il Lario, no. 4, 12 April 1848, p. 18; La Concordia, no. 89, 12 April 1848, p. 1. 379 Cosmorama pittorico, no. 21, 20 May 1848, p. 167.

The Path to War

235

not defended by violence.”380 This noble aim was to be assured by the creation of a new international system as the next security measure for not only Italians but all Europeans, bringing all of them lasting peace. This aspiration, contained in the geopolitical deliberations of the Italian national movement for years, was another zealously discussed topic in 1848. If the war against Austria represented the rejection of the old order, visions of the future were connected with the new one. The celebration of war by the Italians in 1848 was thus an expression of relief and hope rather than pure bellicosity.

380 Cosmorama pittorico, no. 30, 22 July 1848, p. 239.

Chapter 6

THE TRIUMPH OF REALISM (1848) THE REJECTION OF THE POST-NAPOLEONIC STATES SYSTEM The war started by Piedmont in March 1848, unofficially backed by some other Italian countries and enthusiastically supported by a considerable number of Italians represented an offence to not only one European empire but also the precepts of the whole international code of law because, as the American envoy in Paris fittingly remarked, “it tears the treaty of Vienna into pieces.”1 Metternich assessed Charles Albert’s invasion into Lombardy as an “attack on the respect and the sanctity of treaties because by this very fact he is attacking the foundations of the preservation of general peace and the pillars on which rest the maintenance of international relations.”2 The Bavarian envoy in Rome expressed the same criticism in relation to the whole Italian nation when he reported that “in the extraordinary social movement that is captivating both people and governments it is futile to rely on laws, legal customs, treaties: all of these lose their power in the face of events which replace them with the will of a nation, the urgency of the moment and the most ardent passions of the human heart … The Italian people respect neither treaties nor international law.”3 The reaction of the Bavarian envoy resulted from the Italians’ readiness to flagrantly violate not only the treaties but also diplomatic conventions when passionate crowds destroyed the imperial coat of arms in various Italian cities like Florence, Rome, Naples and Palermo. These incidents can be seen today as issues of minor importance, especially in comparison with the suffering and ruin caused by the war, but the majority of European representatives in Italy at the time regarded them as serious infractions of the “law of nations”4 and saw with disgust “soldiers, gendarmes, women, priests, students, men of all classes taking part in this little heroic triumph over the imperial eagle.”5 What was even more shocking was the fact that, first, local authorities did nothing to protect the Austrian legations even when they knew about the attacks in advance and, second, when foreign diplomats in Rome wanted to raise official protests against actions



Wickliffe to Buchanan, Paris, 29 March 1848, Marraro, L’unificazione italiana, p. 337. Metternich, “La question de la médiation dans les affaires italiennes,” January 1849, NA, AC 8/2. 3 Spaur to Ludwig I of Bavaria, Rome, 27 March 1848, BHStA, MA, Päpstlicher Stuhl 2502. 4 Spaur to Ludwig I of Bavaria, Rome, 24 March 1848, BHStA, MA, Päpstlicher Stuhl 2502. 5 Spaur to Ludwig I of Bavaria, Rome, 23 March 1848, BHStA, MA, Päpstlicher Stuhl 2502. 1 2

238

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

of which “examples are found nowhere except in Turkey”6 situated outside the legal perimeter of European civilisation, their Italian colleagues refused to join them, making it obvious that not only the common people but also members of the usually more conservative elite agreed with this symbolic but still significant deviation from the accepted principles of diplomatic practice.7 If the European revolutions of 1848 are traditionally remembered as attempts at violent changes in constitutional and socio-economic spheres, the incidents of destruction of the Austrian coat of arms can be seen as tangible evidence of how people also revolted against the pillars on which the whole international order had been established. Italians, at least the members of educated classes, knew well that their attempt to expel Austria from the peninsula and establish political unity was a severe breach of the 1815 order and that therefore their aspirations in this respect were nothing other than obvious rebellion. It was exactly for this reason that lawyer Giuseppe Montanelli fittingly remarked in 1853 that even moderates like Gioberti, Balbo and Massimo d’Azeglio were revolutionaries because they had rebelled against the public law of Europe.8 On 6 May 1848 the Cosmorama pittorico aptly portrayed the cultural aspect of this position with the depiction of a woman representing revolution driving a two-horsed chariot over paving stones with various inscriptions, among others “Congresses”, “Holy Alliance” and “Treaty of 1815”, with an inscription placed under the whole scene: “Can the revolution be stopped?”9 The revolt against the whole European states system was an important feature of the Italian national movement, and it was this ambition above all that made the Italian Question a European one and why Italians focused not only on their relationship with the Austrian Empire but also on the whole political-legal structure of European politics. The latter’s importance in the geopolitical security debates can easily be demonstrated with the flood of political writings containing analyses and criticism of the state of international politics and with the placement of corresponding articles in the first issues of newspapers, as in the case of the Modenese Nazionale of which the very first page attacked the European law established at the Congress of Vienna.10 The first issue of the Neapolitan Arlecchino dedicated

Liedekerke to Randwijck, Rome, 24 March 1848, NL-HaNA, BuZa 1813–1870, 2.05.01, 1475. Ibid.; Meester de Ravestein to Hoffschmidt, Rome, 23 March 1848, ADA, CP, Italie, SaintSiège 4; Pandolfini to Corsini, Rome, 23 March 1848, ASF, SME, Roma 2446; Schulenburg to Frederick William IV, Naples, 27 March 1848, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5602; Napier to Palmerston, Naples, 28 March 1848, TNA, FO 70/222; Bresson to Lamartine, Palermo, 1 April 1848, AMAE, CPC, Naples 1; Šedivý, The Decline of the Congress System, p. 242. 8 Giuseppe Montanelli, Memorie sull’Italia e specialmente sulla Toscana dal 1814 al 1850, vol. 1, Firenze 1853, p. 224. 9 Cosmorama pittorico, no. 19, 6 May 1848, pp. 148–49. For this picture see also Santilli, L’Italia s’è desta, p. 26. 10 Il Nazionale, no. 1, 19 June 1848, p. 1. 6 7

The Rejection of the post-Napoleonic States System

239

its attention to the “Poor treaties of 1815!” which were rejected as dead,11 while the ninth issue of the same newspaper printed the picture used at the dust-jacket of this book showing the death of not only and not primarily the Austrian eagle but also and in particular the 1815 treaties protected by the force of arms including a cannon bearing the inscription “My law.”12 The same held for the first issue of the Turinese Fischietto, which published an article criticising the Congress of Vienna and its legacy accompanied with a satirical picture of the Concert of Europe.13 In brief, many newspapers dealt with the European political-legal context of the Italian Question as soon as they came into existence, and if not in their first issue then in their second one like in the Bilancia14 or the third one like in the Risorgimento.15 The contention with the existing international law was omnipresent in the Italian public sphere during 1848. It resulted primarily from the general awareness that despite their dislike of the political as well as legal legacy of the Congress of Vienna, Italy’s security greatly depended on the attitudes of other European countries and nations, which precluded her unilateral and complete divorce from the legal precepts of their mutual relations. The practical, in other words political, kind of response to this strong interdependence was already seen in the previous chapter when the Sicilians rejected a republican regime in order not to offend a majority of European countries. In the legal sphere they felt it necessary to justify their actions contradictory to the order established in 1815 and therefore potentially offensive to the other international players summoned under the same political-legal roof. The effort to vindicate themselves in the eyes of Europe was primarily motivated by fear of the hostile reaction of the great powers, particularly of Great Britain and France, whose resentment the Italians feared. To succeed, they had to convince other Europeans that their fight against Austria and their striving for unity was not illegal despite the fact that it was contradictory to the 1815 treaties, which led them to their attempts to claim Austria’s proceeding in Italy was illegal and denigrate the whole post-Napoleonic states system.16 It was symptomatic of this endeavour that in his famous article published in the Risorgimento on 23 March 1848 and containing an appeal for war Cavour also analysed the attitudes of other great powers towards this conflict and tried to convince the British that it was just and compatible with the needs of the Italians as well as Europe.17 He cannot have been the only one who saw the war as justi-



L’Arlecchino, no. 1, 18 March 1848, p. 4. L’Arlecchino, no. 9, 1 April 1848, p. 36. 13 Il Fischietto, no. 1, 2 November 1848, pp. 2–3. 14 La Bilancia, no. 2, 11 May 1847, p. 8. 15 Il Risorgimento, no. 3, 3 January 1848, pp. 9–10. 16 La Concordia, no. 77, 29 March 1848, p. 1; Castiglia, Della questione di Sicilia, pp. 12–15. 17 “Guerra immediata, senza indugi!,” Il Risorgimento, no. 74, 23 March 1848, Pischedda, Talamo, Tutti gli scritti di Camillo Cavour, pp. 1133–35. 11

12

240

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

fied owing to Austria’s previous conduct in Lombardy and vis-à-vis other Italian countries, particularly the Papal States in Ferrara as well as Parma and Modena; the occupation of these two duchies, although formally requested by their rulers, was said to deprive them of their independence and was therefore incompatible with their treaties with Austria;18 the Alba even tried to prove that these so-called occupations were de facto identical violations of international law as the earlier annexation of Cracow.19 In their dubious legal deliberations the Italians even went so far as to claim that the Austrian alliances with Parma and Modena endangered the security and thereby the independence of other Italian countries. Petitti summarised this position during his talk with Richard Cobden whom he asked to communicate it to the British Parliament: “This arrangement, the obvious aim of which is to facilitate the invasion of the Papal States and of Tuscany, to secure the passages of the Apennines and to isolate the King of Sardinia by preventing him from coming to the aid of his allies, is contrary to the public law of Europe since it destroys the independence of the Italian sovereigns recognised and guaranteed at the Congress of Vienna by all great powers which took part in it. It is therefore a flagrant new violation of this treaty, which from now on is only inviolable for the weak, while the great powers would be free not to observe it, as they see fit.”20 It was also to win foreign sympathy that Italians loudly claimed that as Austria had violated the treaties, then they were entitled to do so as well in the defence of their security.21 A popular argument was that the Austrian presence in Ferrara, Modena and Parma represented “invasions [which] are at the same moment factual declarations of war.”22 Even the government in Turin exploited this logic in its formal excuse for the invasion in Lombardy: it accused Austria of upsetting the balance of power in Italy with the so-called occupation of Parma and Modena and endangering thus the security of Piedmont23 and, with reference to the views of some Piedmontese jurists, stated that “the serious fear of grave danger could constitute just cause to declare war on the power that had caused the danger. In this case, the behaviour of Austria gave rise to that danger.”24 At the same time but outside diplomatic corridors another counterargument was found against the accu



La Patria, no. 156, 10 February 1848, p. 615, no. 170, 24 February 1848, p. 673; La Speranza, no. 27, 19 February 1848, s.p.; La Concordia, no. 69, 20 March 1848, p. 1, no. 101, 26 April 1848, p. 1. 19 L’Alba, no. 165, 8 March 1848, p. 658. 20 Petitti to Cobden, Turin, 24 January 1848, Vittorio Schiavo, “Echi del ’48 nelle lettere di Carlo Ilarione Petitti e di altri italiani a Richard Cobden,” Umberto Levra, Nicola Tranfaglia (eds), Dal Piemonte all’Italia: Studi in onore di Narciso Nada nel suo settantesimo compleanno, Torino 1995, p. 201. 21 L’Alba, no. 160, 2 March 1848, p. 637; La Patria, no. 179, 16 March 1848, pp. 761–62. 22 La Patria, no. 199, 24 March 1848, p. 795. 23 Arnim to Frederick William IV, Vienna, 3 April 1848, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 6037/4. 24 Brignoli, Carlo Alberto, p. 391. 18

The Rejection of the post-Napoleonic States System

241

sation of foreigners that Charles Albert had violated international law by attacking an independent country: it was claimed the king was not guilty of any violation since he had not invaded a province belonging to Austria but had entered the territory of independent Lombardy where the revolutionaries had already deposed imperial rule.25 To overcome the legal barrier hampering the implementation of Piedmont’s territorial expansion and the Italian federation Italians attacked the justice of not only Austria but also the whole post-Napoleonic states system.26 However, the widespread criticism of the latter also resulted from the genuine mistrust of its ability to ensure justice in international relations and a stable peace. As seen in previous chapters, this attitude did not arise in 1848 but had gradually been formed over a period of years by the observance of various international affairs; actually the rise of the Italian national movement in the 1840s was a direct outcome of the generally increasing feeling of insecurity closely connected with the mistrust of the whole states system. The extent to which these affairs served as important stimuli in this respect is obvious from the fact that they were often mentioned and used by Italians in their criticism of the Congress of Vienna where the great powers had established this system by signing the “leonine and vulpine pacts”27 for their own benefit but at the expense of the others, which made the system incompatible with Italian security in the same way as the Austrian presence in the northern Apennines. That is why Italians did not hesitate to come out against both in 1848, and both issues were usually regarded as two sides of the same coin; Italians often claimed they were fighting in Lombardy not only against Austria but also in the name of international justice against “the law of armed force.”28 It was exactly this conviction that the existing international system was based on respect for military force that made Italians hostile to it. Conservatives, liberals and democrats shared the negative assessment of the system, and their continuing criticism both publically and privately leaves no doubt about the sincerity of their indignation that erupted to an unprecedented degree on the turn of 1847. Consequently, men and women regardless of their political opinions claimed that the international order was unjust29 because it was dominated by the “law of the most powerful”30 when “true law in diplomatic language was always the reason for power.”31 Just to mention several examples from many, Domenico Buffa sum-

Il Contemporaneo, no. 47, 20 April 1848, p. 185. La Patria, no. 147, 1 February 1848, p. 579. 27 Il Cittadino, no. 67, 7 April 1848, p. 267. 28 La Lega Italiana, no. 46, 22 March 1848, p. 237. See also Massimo d’Azeglio, “I lutti di Lombardia,” Gorresio, Massimo d’Azeglio, p. 121. 29 La Concordia, no. 56, 4 March 1848, p. 1, no. 77, 29 March 1848, p. 1. 30 La Lega Italiana, no. 59, 8 April 1848, p. 297. 31 La Speranza, no. 7, 15 January 1848, s.p.

25 26

242

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

marised this negative point of view with the claim that “the code of law is in strength, justice in victory”32 and Silvestro Centofanti agreed with the view of “the superiority of the powerful” and that “the true fundamental principle of European public law is, however, in the state of permanent war between states and slavery of peoples.”33 Giuseppe Mazzini shared the same conviction that the present European “politics does not profess a cult of justice or truth: it recognises facts; power.”34 The situation where might meant right was regarded as the principal reason why the Congress of Vienna had failed to ensure a stable and just peace in Europe.35 This accusation was contained in the majority of the generally detailed and always negative analyses of this system introduced by Italians, including the one written by Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso in early April: “Since that time [1815] Europe has lived in a state of continuous and painful anxiety. The different inclinations of nations have produced a constant distrust and uneasiness between states, between those who rule and those who are ruled, a recurring theme in every way; then like two enemies ready to come to grips, they have faced each other with weapons in their arms, with their hands on the hilts of their swords, and the peace of the world seems to be hanging on a thread. Europe has therefore lived for thirty four years under a system that has been neither peace nor war, which has produced the inconveniences of the one without bringing us the advantages of the other.”36 When she pointed out that “this bastard system was called an armed peace, a system that has cost Europe a good thirty-five billion,” she actually used the famous term “armed peace” employed by Guizot at the end of the Rhine Crisis and strongly resented across Europe at that time.37 Logically, those who suffered most under this system were the weaker countries which considered themselves victims of the most powerful ones. For this inequity the Final Acts of the Congress of Vienna were often condemned as barbaric laws “imposed on the weak by the tyranny of the strong”38 and bringing in 1815 “times when what was right for the strong might be unjust for weak.”39 This “truth” seemed to have been proved by various international affairs since 1815.40 For example, the article entitled Grandi nazioni e diritto pubblico (Great Nations and the Public Law) and published in the Concordia on 20 January demanded that

La Lega Italiana, no. 1, 5 January 1848, p. 3. Il Corriere livornese, no. 36, 26 October 1847, p. 1. 34 “Italia del popolo,” Milan, 16 June 1848, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 38, Imola 1923, p. 78. 35 Massimo d’Azeglio, Proposta d’un programma, pp. 23–25; Ventura, Per lo riconoscimento della Sicilia, p. 115. 36 Il Crociato, no. 6, 4 April 1848, p. 22. 37 Ibid., p. 23. 38 La Concordia, no. 77, 29 March 1848, p. 1. 39 Il Riscatto italiano, no. 3, 15 February 1848, p. 9. 40 L’Alba, no. 57, 22 October 1847, p. 225, no. 128, 23 January 1848, p. 509. 32 33

The Rejection of the post-Napoleonic States System

243

international law should be “uniform, equal for all, in all places, in all ages,”41 for Piedmont much like for Britain, France and Austria. However, as the article continued, in reality it served as a cloak for the five European powers’ unscrupulous conduct which was ruthless with regard to the rights of smaller states which were seen as mere satellites in the orbits of big planets.42 Once again the article came to the conclusion that “ideal as it is, it becomes material; a question of law becomes a question of fact,”43 and this power argument was also used as a justification for Italian armament and unity.44 The same logic stemmed from the same dislike of the existing public law by other Italians like Massimo d’Azeglio, who raised doubts about the value of treaties owing to the domination of strong countries over weak ones: “Although in the present conditions of Europe the existence of small states is guaranteed by treaties like those of the large ones, recent examples show us that in the end it is bad to be small and weak. Sometimes there are political combinations in which, provided that two or more great powers agree, the law of the strongest resumes its unbridled power and the rights of all are derided.”45 Italians criticised not only the alleged legal injustice inherent in the 1815 treaties but also the diplomatic practice based on them, in other words the so-called classical diplomacy.46 A small group of men was again accused of having established “the perverse and shameless policy of treaties and protocols”47 at the Congress of Vienna. The affairs of the following decades served as proof of the need for warnings that the existing practice was to be feared in the same way as foreign armies: “Oh! May God keep Italy free of foreign armies; but also free us from another equally fatal plague – from protocols!”48 It was generally believed that recent diplomatic history was simply about the great powers deluding and deceiving each other, violating treaties and concluding apparent alliances only to break them when it suited them, which caused the situation where “diplomacy therefore confused the language, the meaning, the morality of things.”49 Giuseppe Mazzini was again one of those most sharply denouncing the existing system of international relations serving exclusively the interests of the great powers: “Their treaties were but the concessions of necessity: their peace no more than cessation of hostilities; their balance of power, an attempt at equalising

La Concordia, no. 17, 20 January 1848, p. 65. Ibid., p. 66. 43 Ibid. 44 La Speranza, no. 7, 15 January 1848, s.p. 45 Massimo d’Azeglio, “La riunione di Lucca alla Toscana,” [?], Rubris, Massimo d’Azeglio, p. 336. For the same criticism see also Massimo d’Azeglio, “I lutti di Lombardia,” Gorresio, Massimo d’Azeglio, pp. 106–109. 46 Fatti e parole, no. 9, 22 June 1848, pp. 35–36. 47 Alfredo Zazo, Il giornalismo a Napoli nella prima metà del secolo XIX, Napoli 1985, p. 133. 48 La Speranza, no. 7, 18 September 1847 (Supplemento), s.p. 49 La Rigenerazione, no. 4, [before 16 February 1848], p. 119. 41 42

244

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

their strength, always with a view to a time of war, always under the inspiration of a mistrusting and hostile idea.”50 Since post-Napoleonic diplomatic practice was perceived from the position of small Italian states, its oppressive character towards weaker countries was again associated with the great powers’ immorality, as can be summarised by a brief denunciation of it by Pietro Sterbini: “The diplomatic touch can be the touch of the Harpy: it either robs or it destroys. Greece, Spain, and Portugal experimented with it.”51 It logically provoked an aversion to the ways international disputes were resolved: “Modern diplomacy invented a more fatal intervention than perhaps war, the intervention of congresses. With it all diplomatic cunning is put into practice and traps are set in order to oppress the weak and favour the mighty.”52 These words were published at the time of the Ferrara Affair when some Italians feared that if it had been solved at a congress or conference dominated by the great powers, the outcome would have been detrimental to the pope. On the first day of September the Alba published the information that Austria had proposed to submit the solution to an international arbitrage, which was actually completely false since it had been the papal government that had proposed this form of settlement and Austria who had rejected it, and the same newspaper expressed the hope that Pius IX “will not want to set foot in the maze of diplomacy, where there are traps which only foxes can avoid.”53 Unsurprisingly, in 1848 a considerable number of Italians refused to solve the question of their future at a congress dominated by the great powers; the only congress acceptable for them was an Italian one where they alone could decide their fate. The failures of the public law of Europe and of the order based on it, regardless of whether real or invented, helped the Italians to vehemently reject it. Massimo d’Azeglio acknowledged that the treaties of 1815 had constituted “the public law of Europe,” but since they were “partial to the strong and detrimental to the weak,”54 he refused to accept their validity any longer, and he regarded them as “virtually undone”55 and 24 million Italians as being in the right.56 This opinion was expressed many times, also by M. A. Castelli attacking the Final Acts as a synonym of “arrogance, aggression” and therefore justifying the Italians’refusal to recognise them when “Italy was a victim of them for more than thirty years and always threatened in the great conditions of her existence in their name.”57

“Nazionalità e cosmopolitismo (Nationality and Cosmopolitism),” 1847, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 36, pp. 41–42. 51 Il Contemporaneo, no. 8, 20 January 1848, p. 29. 52 Il Contemporaneo, no. 35, 28 August 1847, s.p. 53 L’Alba, no. 35, 1 September 1847, p. 133. 54 Massimo d’Azeglio, “I lutti di Lombardia,” Gorresio, Massimo d’Azeglio, p. 121. 55 Ibid., pp. 120–21. 56 Ibid., p. 124. 57 Il Risorgimento, no. 34, 6 February 1848, p. 134. 50

The Rejection of the post-Napoleonic States System

245

In short, a considerable number of contemporaries considered the international treaties to have lost their obligatory force since the system was oppressive58 or even completely dead: “The Treaty of Vienna no longer exists in law or in fact.”59 This “death” resulted from the previous violations of the same treaties – or what was regarded as such – by the great powers, which invalidated them. Of course Austria was said to have contributed to this situation first and foremost, not only in Cracow, which was often mentioned in this respect, but also in Ferrara that served as another powerful impetus to the Italians’ mistrust and aversion to the whole international system.60 On 25 August 1847 the Alba linked its legal evaluation of the word place as a citadel or fortress with this general criticism of this system: “Every day the same signatory powers have torn a passage from the Treaty of Vienna. The status quo that constituted the sacred formula of that treaty was violated in Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Italy ... Everywhere! There is no article, there is no letter that has not been erased in blood. So what is the Treaty of Vienna? Will that spider web stop flies and not hornets? The occupation of Ferrara is the last grain of sand that has tipped the balance. There are no longer any obligations towards it nor any advantages to it: if this treaty has not bound any of the rulers who signed it, why should it bind us?”61 Other affairs like the Austrian alliance with Modena later served the same purpose: “Who does not see that the most sacred relations of the law of nations have been trampled and torn by this act between Austria and Modena? The law of nations is an aegis under which lie the security of states, the dignity of nations, the freedom of state-to-state communication and confidence in principles and treaties.”62 Then other great powers were also condemned for committing similar “crimes” or doing nothing to stop them, and regardless of the way they violated the public law of Europe, Italians appropriated the right to refuse to listen to the same powers’ insistence on their loyalty to this law. As Giuseppe Mazzini rebuked Guizot in mid January: “You oppose our existence with the treaties of 1815, which you do not even trust.”63 Crispi justified Italian unity in the same way when he wrote in May that “the existing, (we must almost say) past system of European treaties was broken, mainly by two influences – by the violations committed by Austria, Prussia and Russia [and] by the fact that events have overturned the provisions of those treaties. They have lost their virtue and their usefulness.”64



Ventura, Per lo riconoscimento della Sicilia, p. 115. Il Felsineo, no. 44, 25 March 1848, s.p. 60 Il Corriere livornese, no. 27, 24 September 1847, s.p.; La Patria, no. 179, 16 March 1848, p. 760. 61 L’Alba, no. 32, 25 August 1847, p. 125. 62 L’Impavido, no. 2, 5 January 1848, p. 6. 63 L’Apostolato, no. 12, 22 February 1848, p. 45. 64 L’Apostolato, no. 44, 13 May 1848, p. 181. 58 59

246

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

While during the previous years the behaviour of the great powers that was not only egoistic but also sometimes contradictory to legal norms had gradually weakened the Italians’ sense of security, now Italians used those powers’ conduct against them in a legal way to justify their own proceeding incompatible with the same norms. They claimed that these treaties never ensured real independence to the Italian states placed under the tutelage of Austria with the agreement of other great powers, which consequently entitled Charles Albert to wage war to achieve true independence and political survival.65 Furthermore, with the same argument it was possible to regard as moral and legal not only the king’s invasion into Lombardy but also the revolutions there and in Venetia: the possession of these provinces by Austria was said to be illegal simply for the fact that it was enforced by “laws having no foundation in public law and morals” because they resulted from the treaties of 1815 which “offended the independence of states.”66 The rejection of the post-Napoleonic order as unfair or even non-existent helped the Italians to present their war against Austria as just. Although they generally agreed that war was an evil way of solving international disputes and respect for the law should precede the use of military force, they also claimed that when the law did not correspond with the “facts” it was possible to violate it.67 When the Alba denounced the whole order in reaction to the “occupation” of Ferrara on 25 August as quoted above, it continued: “And on the other hand, are the treaties eternal? Above the law written by men is there not the supreme law of necessity and needs? The Treaty of Vienna was, according to the signatory rulers, the palladium of European peace; and if the same treaty becomes no more than a pretext for war, is it not faithfully abiding by its spirit to revoke it in that part which opposes peace? Now as long as Austria occupies the piazzas of Ferrara and Comacchio, as long as she is the master of the most important river in Italy, as long as she holds the keys to the Papal States in her hand, peace in Italy is threatened, and with it peace in Europe.”68 As March 1848 was approaching and with it the general feeling of insecurity was on the rise, the legal argument in favour of war became louder. In late January the Speranza issued an article entitled Il diritto dopo il fatto (Right after the Fact) where foreigners were labelled oppressors causing suffering through their legal principles, which justified Italians rising against the same principles incompatible with their own interests and preparing “the way for facts to respond to facts.”69 When the war against Austria finally broke out, even Cardinal Ferretti justified it stating “the present position of Europe Il Risorgimento, no. 73, 22 March 1848, p. 289; La Concordia, no. 101, 26 April 1848, p. 1. Leopoldo Galeotti, Osservazioni sullo stato della Toscana nel settembre 1847, Firenze 1847, p. 11. 67 La Costituzione, no. 17, 8 April 1848, p. 65. 68 L’Alba, no. 32, 25 August 1847, p. 125. 69 La Speranza, no. 14, 27 January 1848, s.p.

65 66

Hopes for a New International Order

247

[that] was altogether exceptional and subversive of the usual laws of international relations, and that in ordinary times would be unjustifiable might be excused by the new combinations which had arisen.”70 HOPES FOR A NEW INTERNATIONAL ORDER The Italians’ rejection of the existing international order was caused by their lack of confidence in its ability to offer effective security and justice, making it in their eyes no longer trustworthy and, consequently, no longer legitimate. This deep conviction together with the perception of an Austrian threat was another important motivation for their actions in early 1848 according to the popular motto Si vis pacem, para bellum. For the same reason, however, they also understood that their security could scarcely be achieved simply by a military victory over Austria. Since they never abandoned the belief that the security of their homeland – regardless of whether they saw this primarily as their native state or all of Italy – also depended on the quality of the whole European states system, it was necessary for them to connect the expulsion of the Austrians with the establishment of a fairer system of international relations,71 in other words to replace the treaties of 1815 with a new and better system of “European international law.”72 As the Opinione stated on 3 April, all this was of great importance for Italy due to “a question of nationhood and relations between nations, on whose solution our future destinies depend.”73 The desire to create such a new system was shared by both the moderates and republicans, who agreed that it was essential for Italian security, and if they differed in anything, then it was the extent of the desired change. Giuseppe Mazzini and other democrats were more radical with their plans for the complete transformation of the system according to democratic principles: the “new European law” was to bring not only the moral but also the political unity of Europe.74 Here Cattaneo agreed with Mazzini that “we will have real peace when we have the United States of Europe.”75 The moderates usually wanted to change the status quo in Italy and bring her to the level of a great power, for which it was not necessary to

Napier to Palmerston, Naples, 27 April 1848, TNA, FO 70/222. La Rigenerazione, no. 4 [before 16 February 1848], p. 119. 72 L’Alba, no. 165, 8 March 1848, p. 658. 73 L’Opinione, no. 52, 3 April 1848, p. 205. 74 “Programma dell’Associazione nazionale italiana,” 1848, Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti politici, p. 570; “Nazionalitá: Questione esterna,” Giuseppe Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti, vol. 7, Imola 1910, p. 16; Giuseppe Mazzini, The Duties of Man and other Essays, London, Toronto 1915, p. 58; Pierre Renouvin, “L’Idée d’États-Unis d’Europe pendant la crise de 1848,” Robert Fawtier (ed.), Actes du Congrès historique du centenaire de la révolution de 1848, Paris 1948, p. 35. 75 Albertini, “Idea nazionale e ideali di unità supernazionali,” p. 699. 70 71

248

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

completely tear down the pillars on which Europe had been established in 1815.76 Nevertheless, even they wished to strengthen Italy’s position and ensure a more stable peace within the “European community”77 by overturning the “ancient European public law.”78 And although the visions of both groups were often so vague that it is difficult to make a distinction between them, they were unambiguously united in their emphasis on the so-called right of nations, including such a realist statesman as Cavour who became “a resolute champion of the principle of nationality [nationhood].”79 This principle was to be used as a new foundation in the reorganisation of the relations among European countries or, better said, nations: a nation was to become a basic element of the new system.80 From the perspective of the post-Napoleonic order such an aspiration surely was a revolutionary idea, but it was promoted even by such moderate monarchists like Balbo, Cavour and Massimo d’Azeglio. Especially in their case it is possible to explain its popularity was due to its practical value when it was used in the same way as the criticism of the same order: it served as justification of their war against Austria, particularly as this war was waged in the name of the Italian nation. With this changed perception of international law, seen now truly as the law of nations, it was easier to reject Austrian dynastic legitimism.81 Charles Albert’s invasion of Lombardy was then said be against the “old diplomacy” that would be reorganised “on the worthy foundations of nationhood.”82 As the Prussian representative in Florence reported, according to a considerable number of Italians this sufficed for the justification of war when they had “only one reason to put forward: it is the right superior to any other, that of nationhood, for which nations, by destroying the work of the congresses, tend to realign themselves within the limits which have been drawn for them by nature. No treaty, they add, could prevent Charles Albert from rushing to the Lombards’ appeal for help and from fulfilling the duty of a Prince nominated by his people to accomplish a national cause.”83 This argumentation was primarily used against the voices in the British Parliament objecting to Charles Albert’s decision to invade Lombardy and condemning it as contradictory to the public law of Europe.84 The Italian press rejected this

Chabod, L’idea di nazione, p. 76. Il Risorgimento, no. 34, 6 February 1848, p. 134. 78 Massimo d’Azeglio, “Quale sarà il diritto pubblico europeo?,” Villa Almansi, 26 August 1848, Rubris, Massimo d’Azeglio, pp. 19–20. 79 Sereni, The Italian Conception of International Law, p. 159. 80 Chabod, L’idea di nazione, p. 77. 81 Valsecchi, “‘Nation, Nationalität, Nationalismus im italienischen Denken’,” p. 19. 82 L’Italia, no. 76, 18 April 1848, p. 303. 83 Schaffgotsch to Frederick William IV, Florence, 24 April 1848, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5668. See also L’Opinione, no. 45, 25 March 1848, p. 177. 84 Michael Broers, “Torino e il Piemonte visti dalla Gran Bretagna,” Umberto Levra (ed.), Il Piemonte alle soglie del 1848, Torino 1999, p. 557. 76 77

Hopes for a New International Order

249

accusation and maintained the king’s intervention was legitimate because of its compatibility with the principle of nationhood: “But we love to place our motives higher. One, inviolable, superior to any treaty is the right of nationhood. What does it matter if rulers and ministers discounted it in the past, dividing nations like flocks of sheep and the provinces like their own farms? The principle has never ceased to exist or to influence nations slowly but invincibly. All nations have already fought and are ready to fight for it; and now there is no longer any nation in Europe that is not trying to destroy the artificial work of diplomacy, re-establishing itself in the limits that nature has clearly determined for it. It is thus that the greatest truths pass from the realm of the absolute into the codes of positive law and become applicable with time.”85 It would be a mistake, however, to see in the application of the principle of nationhood simply a means to an end. It primarily resulted from the long conviction that the post-Napoleonic order was unjust, which made some contemporaries believe that it could not then be provisory, and already in 1847 some of them thought and hoped that it was coming to an end.86 It was in that year that Andrea Luigi Mazzini smelt change in the air when he wrote that “the whole of Europe is currently in a situation similar to that which it was in 1815. Europe is today in an intermediate and transitory state – in a state of rest, confusion and peaceful development, between an exhausted political, specific and local revolution and the future outbreak of a general European revolution, which will mark the last period, the last phase of the logical and historical series of events that we are going through.”87 To ensure the desired goal, “the principle of nationhood, based on the identity of peoples, would already be enough to revolutionise and completely change public law and the political configuration of Europe.”88 Giuseppe Mazzini was no less optimistic when he wrote that “Europe is now clearly marching towards a new era of union of more intimate association. Under the influence of a common thought, the peoples will all look on one another as members of one great family, bound together by duty and cooperating to support the development and progress of others.”89 The idea of replacing the old public law of Europe based on the 1815 treaties with the “law of nationhood”90 became popular in Italian society particularly after the “occupation” of Ferrara.91 Consequently, the creation of the People’s Interna La Concordia, no. 89, 12 April 1848, p. 1. L’Italico, no. 8, 19 January 1848, p. 29. 87 Andrea Luigi Mazzini, De l’Italie, vol. 1, p. 314. 88 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 85. 89 Richard Bonfiglio, “Liberal Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of the Heart(h): Mazzini, Gladstone, and Barrett Browning’s Domestication of the Italian Risorgimento,” Modern Philology 111, 2013, 2, p. 287. 90 L’Italia, no. 19, 16 October 1847, pp. 75–77. 91 La Bilancia, no. 32, 24 August 1847, p. 130, no. 33, 27 August 1847, p. 135.

85 86

250

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

tional League condemning the use of armed force found a positive response in Italian society that was well informed about it from the press since it promised to create a new international order based on the interests of nations instead of states and accomplish the revision of the 1815 treaties to lay the pillars of a more stable peace.92 The Alba reported in this respect in July 1847: “The present state of Europe justifies the formation of this League; a new era is already beginning, that of 1815 is closed. We want peace, but a peace founded on the solid basis of laws and justice; a peace that favours trade and international relations.”93 For the very same reason Lamartine’s statement of 2 March 1848 about the end of the 1815 treaties became immediately popular throughout Italy because, much like the promulgation of the French Republic itself, such a breach in the post-Napoleonic order was generally seen as the end of it as well as an opportunity to justify changes in Italy.94 The year of 1848 brought not only the climax of the hunger for unity, armament and the expulsion of the Austrians but also criticism of the European states system and with it the desire to replace “the law of violence and usurpation” with “national law.”95 Italians looked forward to a time when international affairs were governed not by a piece of paper imposed on them by great powers but by the will of the nations, in other words “a new international law.”96 They hoped that their own national revival would bring about their unity and independence as well as “a new era of universal civilisation, an era of freedom and fraternity of nations consecrated by religion, an era of a new public law established on the foundations of distinct nationalities and of common justice.”97 If successful, the change would be immensely positive: “Today strength supports injustice, tomorrow [it will support] reason; today the generous are victims of brutal tyranny, tomorrow triumphant nations will greet them as their redeemers.”98 It is obvious from these optimistic expressions that the new principle went hand in hand with the hope that nations could establish better mutual relations than monarchs and their ministers and diplomats: “In Europe there may still be rivalry between governments, but rivalry between nations tends to disappear every day. Where it still exists, it is an abnormal fact that depends on transitory reasons,

L’Alba, no. 94, 11 December 1847, p. 373; Elena Bacchin, Italofilia: Opinione pubblica britannica e Risorgimento italiano 1847–1864, Torino 2014, pp. 46, 49; Smith, Mazzini, p. 53. 93 L’Alba, no. 16, 19 July 1847, p. 62. 94 La Lega Italiana, no. 40, 15 March 1848, p. 205; L’Apostolato, no. 24, 23 March 1848, p. 104; La Concordia, no. 77, 29 March 1848, p. 1. 95 L’Apostolato, no. 20, 15 March 1848, p. 83. 96 La Patria, no. 118, 3 January 1848, p. 467. See also L’Alba, no. 114, 6 January 1848, p. 449; La Concordia, no. 10, 12 January 1848, p. 37; La Patria, no. 179, 4 March 1848, p. 709; L’Alba, no. 178, 23 March 1848, p. 709. 97 L’Italia, no. 66, 25 March 1848, p. 263. 98 L’Italia, no. 52, 22 February 1848, p. 205. 92

Hopes for a New International Order

251

a fact that will therefore pass.”99 It was generally believed that people lacked the desire for conquest and preferred a peaceful coexistence, a benefit welcomed by Italians for two principal reasons. First, it would help to overcome the dictatorship of the great powers and ensure real independence to all European countries regardless of their power, a desire rooted in Italian society for years.100 The idea that all states had to possess equal rights was widespread and mentioned many times, for example in the Alba on 23 July 1847: “We want the Tuscan government to have full independence as guaranteed by public treaties; complete independence like the Russian or the Austrian, or the British governments because in law the greatness or smallness of a state should not affect its independence at all, nor can or should laws ever be measured by miles of territory or calculated by thousands of inhabitants.”101 When the war broke out, Cesare Malpica repeated that “everyone has this right [to independence], small states like kingdoms as well as great empires, because it was not the number of inhabitants or the extent of their territory that constituted them. The tiny republic of San Marino has the same right as the great French Republic, Austria and so on.”102 The second expected benefit from the application of the concept of nationhood in international affairs was the achievement of common security,103 which meant “the reign of peace in Europe.”104 In 1847 Filippo de Boni, the man who reacted so incisively to the annexation of Cracow and favoured the war in the name of the nationhood against Austria, summarised the vision shared by a considerable number of patriots and nationalists of Europe, a vision composed of free nations living in their nation states, where “conquests, like wars, will become impossible; and the interests, the disparities, the disputes arising between the various peoples will have friendly resolutions according to a common law, an international law, not based on the reason of whoever is the strongest, not created to rob and betray, ... not plotted to kill a nation like the one that betrayed Poland – not lying devoutly in words and sacrilegious in intentions like the one with which the Holy Alliance blessed Europe. It will be a law, founded on the laws of humanity, therefore sanctioned by the common will of the people; since in nationally constituted peoples, every law can only be an expression of them, they will thus form a common court of law, to which the treasure of common freedom, of universal peace will be entrusted.”105 99 La Bilancia, no. 44, 5 October 1847, p. 177. 100 La Concordia, no. 17, 20 January 1848, p. 66; Messaggiere torinese, no. 12, 9 February 1848, p. 45. 101 L’Alba, no. 18, 23 July 1847, p. 69. 102 Il Riscatto italiano, no. 20, 24 March 1848, p. 78. 103 La Patria, no. 182, 7 March 1848, p. 721. 104 L’Italia, no. 70, 4 April 1848, p. 279. See also L’Alba, no. 114, 6 January 1848, p. 449; La Speranza, no. 17, 1 February 1848, s.p., no. 35, 4 March 1848, s.p.; Il Felsineo, no. 47, 29 March 1848, s.p. 105 Filippo De Boni, Così la penso: Cronaca di Filippo de Boni, no. 8/9, Losanna 1847, p. 437.

252

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

The hope in the positive power of the principle of nationhood grew considerably when the war with Austria broke out, which was no paradox but a logical consequence of the generally shared prospect for a better system to which this armed conflict was said to open the door. According to Giuseppe Bertinatti the March revolutions and war did not bring “times of troubles” but “times of justice and reparation, which are precisely the most favourable to the minor powers or secondary states as diplomats call them to claim their violated rights, to break the coalitions and to redeem themselves from the uncomfortable protection of the great powers.”106 Giuseppe Usiglio, a Tuscan doctor of the civic guard, agreed that what was happening in Italy would also decide the fate of all of Europe – the process of rejecting the legacy of the Congress of Vienna and creating a new equilibrium in compliance with the law of nations and “with moderation and brotherhood, with mutual respect between [nations] and the achievement of excellent laws commanding the deepest respect.”107 And since after the outbreak of war no foreign support of Austria was expected, many saw this war as being short and decisive and once over, “the nations will triumph, justice and not the sword will define the treaties. In the new Europe, humanity will have a vote higher than that of strength and tyranny.”108 Consequently, in the spring of 1848 – today called the spring of nations – for a considerable number of Italians their war against Austria was to contribute to the “European cataclysm” with a positive impact on not only the internal freedom of nations but also the quality of their mutual relations.109 The outbreak of the war was celebrated as such in the Neapolitan Costituzione on 26 April: “The brutal principle of power has dominated European law; secondary countries have had to seek refuge under the tyrannical wings of the great powers ... Now that the rule of these treaties is over, the European cataclysm of 1848 has consequently needed to recognise the inalienable rights of individuals and of nations to govern themselves.”110 What the outcome would be was fittingly summarised by the same newspaper: “The Holy Alliance of kings is already like the mythology of Geryon or the Minotaurs; a holy alliance of people is about to be formed to ensure that true peace will reign in the world – peace of justice and love.”111 This optimism affected people from various regions, social classes and political groups foreseeing the rise of a new era of universal freedom and humanity in Europe governed by nations, an era in which war was no longer possible, and the most optimistic

106 La Concordia, no. 101, 26 April 1848, p. 1. 107 Giuseppe Usiglio, Prospetto storico-politico dei grandi avvenimenti attuali d’Europa ed in particolare di quelli d’Italia, Firenze 1848, p. 11. 108 La Concordia, no. 74, 25 March 1848, p. 1. 109 La Costituzione, no. 9, 11 March 1848, p. 33, no. 14, 29 March 1848, p. 53. 110 La Costituzione, no. 22, 26 April 1848, p. 85. 111 La Costituzione, no. 16, 5 April 1848, p. 61.

Hopes for a New International Order

253

Italians even claimed that regular armies were to be replaced by national guards as the sufficient and most appropriate means for protecting peace.112 The new legal code of European nations was to create not only unshakable foundations to their relations but also new diplomatic practices through which their “universal brotherhood” was to be ensured by the “diplomacy of peoples.”113 With their reliance on the principle of nationhood Italians rejected what they called the old form of diplomacy connected with Metternich and the Congress of Vienna. Already at the time of the Ferrara affair Cardinal Ferretti was said to refer not to the strength of protocols but to truth and justice. When one foreign diplomat told him “this is not a diplomatic style,” Ferretti answered: “If it is not a diplomatic style, it is my style.”114 In 1848 Massimo d’Azeglio was far from being the only one who confronted on one side “the old diplomacy of the Congress [of Vienna], of the Holy Alliance, of the status quo,” the so to speak “diplomacy of cunning, mystery, arcane forms and official language,” and on the other promoted the new one of “disclosure, frankness, clear forms, language and common sense.”115 Other contemporaries did the same, including Terenzio Mamiani, who made a distinction between the old and new diplomatic styles: “The diplomacy of nations, in great moments of resurrection and political zeal, proceeds very differently from the routine of ministers and ambassadors: one is full of suspicions and concerns, the other of frankness and generosity, one is shrewd, the other is strong, one is very involved and convoluted, the other is plain and simple.”116 In June 1848 Stefano Pietro Zecchini even went so far as to propose the creation of a European parliament as the best means of ensuring the brotherhood of European nations,117 and although he fully supported the war against Austria, in this respect his idea greatly ressembled that of the supporters of the peace movement; the same held for his desire to see not simply Italian unity but also “the universal and long-lasting peace of the world”118 at the end of the Italian war and the collapse of the old international order. An important factor contributing to the optimism concerning the benignity of the new law of nations based on nationhood was the premise that while the old diplomacy based on the 1815 treaties was artificial and therefore temporary, the new law was natural and therefore eternal.119 The conviction of the law of nations being 112 La Concordia, no. 74, 25 March 1848, p. 1; Il 22 Marzo, no. 9, 3 April 1848, p. 34; L’Opinione, no. 52, 3 April 1848, p. 205; Il Crociato, no. 6, 4 May 1848, p. 23; Il Crociato, no. 18, 1 June 1848, p. 69. 113 Il Crociato, no. 28, 27 June 1848, pp. 110–11. 114 Massimo d’Azeglio, “I lutti di Lombardia,” Gorresio, Massimo d’Azeglio, p. 109. 115 Ibid., p. 114. 116 Mamiani, Scritti politici, p. 217. 117 Stefano Pietro Zecchini, L’unione fraterna dei popoli, Torino 1848, p. 37. 118 Ibid., p. 24. 119 Il Nazionale, no. 1, 1 March 1848, p. 1.

254

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

based on the law of nature was linked with the popularity of Vattel’s Le droit des gens among Italian emigrants who, as mentioned above, during the 1820s demanded equality of rights for all countries regardless of their material strength;120 for this reason it is also useful to see the popularity of Vattel in a global context: in the 1830s and 1840s some Algerians and Chinese referred to his work in their defence against the ruthless conduct of European powers, in the first case against France’s occupation, in the second against Britian’s imperialism of free trade.121 Where the Italians differed in their legal opposition to the dominance of great powers was in the creation of theories on natural law and its connection with the Christian God as its source, which led Cesare Agostini to this statement: “Who can destroy the law of Italian nationhood determined by God in our heaven, in our land, in our soul?”122 On the other hand, as he continued, while “treaties made by men can be and are broken, God’s decrees cannot be undone.”123 The frequent reference to God was particularly related to appeals for the introduction of Christian morality into international relations,124 which was why the norms of 1815 were confronted with the “new Christian-Italian era.”125 Unsurprisingly, the Catholic journal Filocattolico claimed that “now it is the time for truth and justice to form the relations of nations according to their spirit and for politics to become therefore reasonable and Christian” while Pius IX was to become a moral arbiter among the nations with authority in diplomatic disputes.126 In August 1848 even Massimo d’Azeglio confronted “the law of treaties” with “Christian law”, in other words with the “law of nature and humanity.”127 The new system based on nationhood was justified by the natural laws given by God and personified in nations as well as the natural frontiers established between them. This geographical argument was introduced in the analysis of the laws among the states and nations by men like Lodovico Sauli and Carlo Rusconi. They made the distinction between artificial laws based on the 1815 treaties, being temporary, and the natural ones, being eternal.128 The year 1815 created the former and in 1848 it was necessary to replace it with the latter: “Now, with regard to the boundaries between states, being determined by the law of nature either by mountain chains or by the course of rivers, there is no doubt that the temporary or permanent possessions of any power, beyond the borders as indicated above, resemble usurpations instead of laws and can be considered to be grim sources of 120 Rech, “International Law as a Political Language,” p. 70. 121 Pitts, Boundaries of the International Law, pp. 135–38. 122 Il Contemporaneo, no. 36, 25 March 1848, p. 141. 123 Ibid. 124 Galeotti to Minghetti, Florence, 11 August 1847, Minghetti, Miei Ricordi, p. 275. 125 L’Impavido, no. 2, 5 January 1848, p. 5. 126 Il Filocattolico, no. 1, 3 January 1848, p. 3. 127 Gigante, “La nazione necessaria,” p. 13. 128 Il Risorgimento, no. 3, 3 January 1848, p. 9; La Dieta Italiana: Giornale politico-letterario, no. 1, 17 May 1848, s.p.

Hopes for a New International Order

255

future disputes. And we should therefore never lose the opportunity to eliminate such iniquities when it appears propitious to do so, without detriment or harm to neighbouring countries. Unfortunately, too timid and uncertain advice does not suffice to achieve a generous end.”129 Opinions about the new law of nations being in conformity with the principles of nature like Christian religion and national geography were known to and accepted by a considerable number of Italians by 1848130 and correlated with the later work of jurist Pasquale Stanislao Mancini, who emigrated from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to Turin in 1849 to live there under Balbo’s protection.131 On 22 January 1851 he gave his famous lecture Della Nazionalità come fondamento del dritto delle genti (Nationhood as the Foundation of the Law of Nations) motivated by his desire for Italy’s independence, which he connected with the unity of an Italian nation. In his opinion, a nation’s duty was the struggle for self-preservation, and to achieve this aim it had to control the territory belonging to it: “Physical constitution is the possession of all the national territory circumscribed by its natural borders: each nation must command in its homeland, and it does not command it when foreigners control all or part of the territory.”132 Italians had to struggle to conquer “their” land and establish there their nation state; only such a nation could become the principal subject of international law, being truly the law of nations (diritto delle genti).133 At the same time Mancini hoped that a Europe composed of free nations would create a stable and just international political system that would ensure harmony, lasting peace and freedom for all; influenced by this optimistic prospect he claimed that the application of nationhood in international relations was not only moral but also practical134 since it would clearly delineate the frontiers and rights of all nations (with their disputes solved not by wars but arbitration): “What is the rational limit of the law of each nation? Other nations. What is the right and practically effective guarantee of the law of the nations? Respect and independence of each nation.”135 It is not without interest that in 1852 Mancini published his annotated editions of Macchiavelli’s political writings in which he called this thinker the “father of modern politics;”136 this contributed to the evaluation of Mancini’s work of 1851 129 Il Risorgimento, no. 3, 3 January 1848, pp. 9–10. 130 La Costituzione, no. 19, 15 April 1848, p. 73. 131 Olindo De Napoli, “Race and Empire: The Legitimation of Italian Colonialism in Juridical Thought,” The Journal of Modern History 85, 2013, 4, p. 805. 132 Pasquale Stanislao Mancini, Della Nazionalità come fondamento del dritto delle genti, Torino 1851, p. 46. 133 Ibid., pp. 11–12, 46–50. 134 Ibid., pp. 57–59, 62–65. 135 Ibid., p. 63. For Mancini’s legal theory see also Greppi, “The Risorgimento,” pp. 79–81, 87–91; Sereni, The Italian Conception of International Law, pp. 161–64. 136 Caruso, Nationalstaat als Telos, p. 393.

256

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

and 1852 by Amerigo Caruso as the Italian version of the “turn to realism”137 (realpolitische Wende) that occurred in Germany with Rochau’s famous book on Realpolitik in 1853. Although it is possible to agree with this opinion in principle, it must be added that this “turn” actually represented a more continuous process in Italy as well as in Germany originating in the 1840s, which also holds for both Mancini’s famous Torinese lecture attacking the post-Napoleonic order and his respect for Macchiavelli. SECURITY BY ANY MEANS AND TO ALL ENDS Mancini’s position that only nation states represented legitimate subjects of international law might be new in legal science, but it is impossible to see it as an original idea in Italian society where it had already been introduced in the late 1840s.138 Another important link to 1848 was the naivety with which Mancini expected mutual respect between nations even though his optimism that an international system based on the principle of nationhood would necessarily be peaceful and fair did not seem to survive the year on a broad scale and certainly not in its original intensity. In fact, even greater insecurity was felt in the relations among some European nations in the mid 19th century following the warning expressed by Adalbert Stifter in the spring of 1848 and quoted in the first chapter, its Italian variant occurring at the same time when the Concordia pointed out the urgency of the creation of a better system because, “otherwise, in the next turmoil, everything will fall apart.”139 So why did the Roman Contemporaneo’s prediction in late August 1847 not take place, namely that with Italian unity “any fear of war will disappear instantly, faith in the treaties will be respected [and] the law of nations will become inviolable. Italy will become a nation friendly to all peoples because she does not need to conquer [and] she will be faithful to the sanctity of the pacts because she was the first to invoke them”?140 It would be too easy to conclude that the dream of a peaceful alliance of European nations failed owing to the Austria’s defeat of Italy (also because the dream did not even materialise when Italy was unified in 1861), the overall situation on the international scene and the questionable feasibility of the nationalist vision of a better international order resembling a real utopia. It would also be misleading to sweep this problem away with a hasty moral condemnation of the Italians’ duplicitious search for security based simultaneously 137 Ibid. 138 For such an opinion see Valsecchi, “‘Nation, Nationalität, Nationalismus im italienischen Denken’,” p. 20. 139 La Concordia, no. 92, 15 April 1848, p. 1. 140 Il Contemporaneo, no. 35, 28 August 1847, s.p.

Security by Any Means and to All Ends

257

on their hope for a new peaceful order and their readiness to advance it by force of arms; a symbol of this was offered by the Epoca proclaiming a desire for “the holy alliance of European nations”141 on 22 March, which was followed several days later by the report of the murder of Austrian naval officer Giovanni Marinovich committed by insurgent Italian sailors in Venice with the consonant and rather ominous remark: “The blood of one Marinovich already speaks to those who dare to clash with the great fate of Italy.”142 The answer surely lies in this dichotomy, but it is necessary to approach it without excessive moralising to be able to understand it; it must be dealt with it as a continuous security dilemma containing the crucial question: Security by what means and to what end? The Italians’ hunger for justice and peace in their relationship with other European nations was without doubt genuine, but the same also held for their wish to ensure their own safety through practical means. Furthermore, both tendencies occurred simultaneously not only in society but also among the individuals advocating them: the same people called for armament and political unity and at the same time expressed their desire for a replacement of the despotic and artificial system of international law with a fair and solid one based on the principle of nationhood. A fact of great importance was that even if they claimed that nations were unable to wage bloody wars, the acquisition of material strength almost always won the upper hand in their search for their own external security, which mostly resulted from their negative experience with international affairs before 1848. It was the same experience that significantly fuelled the spread of Italian national sentiment and made it power oriented: it led Italians to believe that they had to be not only united but also strong because weak countries were easily threatened by the great powers and were excluded from decision-making in important European affairs. Being strong meant not only being secure but also truly “counting for one in the European family,”143 which meant that Italy’s rights and independence would be respected and her voice in international affairs heard.144 The lack of confidence in the capability of weak states to enforce their own rights was clearly stated by the Felsineo in mid March 1848: “As we have said, the right to independence is the same for all: the independence of the great nations is not greater, nor more valid, nor more legitimate than that of the small ones; but this sacred right, invariable, combined with strength, is more secure, more respected. Hence, as the great and strong nations ally themselves, so can and must the small states ally themselves with all the more right, for the need for them to unite and 141 L’Epoca, no. 6, 22 March 1848, p. 21. 142 L’Epoca, no. 11, 29 March 1848, p. 41. 143 Forβmann, Presse und Revolution in der Toskana, p. 408. 144 Il Mondo illustrato, no. 11, 18 March 1848, p. 167, no. 12, 25 March 1848, p. 184, no 13, 1 April 1848, p. 199, no. 17, 29 April 1848, p. 260, no. 19, 15 May 1848, p. 295, no. 21, 27 May 1848, p. 330; Fortunato Tartaglia, Del progresso italico ragionamento, Torino 1848, pp. 8–9.

258

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

strengthen each other is greater.”145 And Gerolamo Boccardo was even more sceptical in April: “The nation that is not strong has no rights because even when it has them, it cannot enforce them.”146 Regarding the great number of similar opinions, it is possible to see in Italians a deep-rooted inferiority complex, the outcome of which was a hunger for power along with a strong power rhetoric. Unsurprisingly, strength was strongly emphasised from late 1847 when the demands for unity and an army grew rapidly under the influence of feelings of insecurity. And they called for not just the political unity of the nation but also its resulting power for survival in a world dominated by the law of the strongest.147 This position also further fuelled the call for armament as can be seen in the Mondo illustrato on 20 November 1847 where the demand to increase the military forces to ensure a more efficient defence was accompanied with this argument: “The thought of all governments must be to arm themselves: we never tire of repeating it. When we are strong, also materially, as well as being respected, we will be feared and weighed in the balance of the civilised world.”148 The wish to be feared may sound strange, but it must be seen as an expression of the desire, in Francesco Crispi’s words, to acquire “a valid place in the balance of Europe,”149 resulting from the same inferiority complex and logically connected with the pursuit for power. On the last day of 1847 Leopoldo Crociatelli claimed that above all Italians “must beware of the deceptions of diplomacy, whose almost intricate labyrinth leads to a sure loss for those who recklessly rely on it, of that diplomacy always fatal to nations who cannot protect themselves from it. But a powerful nation laughs at the divinity to which the rulers of Europe burn incense, it laughs at threats from cabinets, the apparatus of war. Now for Italy to become a powerful nation, all its states must be united.”150 And, as Crociatelli continued, after Italy had achieved all this, “foreigners who had believed us to be a nation that had fallen and had no power will begin to fear us, but Italy will have arisen from her lowly state and been admitted to the banquet of nations. Soon, she too will have no small part in the European equilibrium, and perhaps the destiny of humanity will be at her mercy.”151 The argument on behalf of being respected or even feared was not rare and continued even after the outbreak of war,152 in other words even when, as Gioacchino Ventura wrote, “Italy is beginning to live a new life, to count among 145 Il Felsineo, no. 38, 17 March 1848, s.p. 146 Il pensiero italiano, no. 68, 19 April 1848, p. 333. 147 Il Contemporaneo, no. 36, 4 September 1847, s.p.; La Patria, no. 65, 11 November 1847, p. 263, no. 79, 25 November 1847, p. 319. 148 Eugenio Passamonti, Il giornalismo Giobertiano in Torino nel 1847–48, Milano 1914, p. 111. 149 L’Apostolato, no. 10, 17 February 1848, p. 37. 150 Giornale militare e delle guardie civiche italiane, no. 45, 31 December 1847, p. 457. 151 Ibid. 152 Il pensiero italiano, no. 81, 4 May 1848, p. 393; Il Tempo, no. 44, 15 June 1848, p. 173.

Security by Any Means and to All Ends

259

the nations, to become powerful, to inspire fear, to command the respect due to a great nation.”153 A considerable number of Italians shared this logic that to be more secure against external threats Italy, until that time “torn, divided, insulted,” had to become “one, strong, fearsome.”154 Only if formidable, respected and even feared, as they continued to believe after March 1848, would Italy be able to rid herself of foreign oppression, have no dangerous enemies and find an equal place among other European nations.155 In summary, the desire for power became such an obsession that Italians even referred to the greatness of the Ancient Roman Empire that was to be revived through Italy as a new power,156 and it also manifested itself in a cultural way, for example in national songs in which the lion slayed the Austrian eagle. The lion was not chosen merely because it was the heraldic animal of the Republic of Venice but also because it was regarded as a strong, noble as well as ferocious beast, dominating the animal kingdom in human imagination.157 From a desire for greatness, it was but a short and logical step to the desire for Italy’s promotion to the rank of a great power. It was mentioned often by a considerable number of Italians including moderate leaders like Massimo d’Azeglio.158 How far such an aspiration was actually connected with the desire for security and peace can be shown with the example of Luigi Calamai, who declared in June in Florence that federal unity would bring Italy power status and with this also respect on the international scene,159 and he continued: “It is true that in order to support herself in this imposing state, it will be necessary for Italy to arm herself in an extraordinary way both at sea and on land to acquire the necessary power in the Mediterranean, in the Adriatic, and on the neighboring seas, and to support in every place and in every circumstance the rights of her hard-won nationhood: in a word, to support her national interests based on industry and commerce. And for this armament, consisting of good fleets and well-organised armies, we will have to spend considerable sums of money and to employ a large number of soldiers. But from this armament, which will be our glory, we will reap great rewards: we will reap them in keeping

153 Ventura, La Questione Sicula nel 1848, p. 41. 154 La Concordia, no. 73, 24 March 1848, p. 1. 155 Il Risorgimento, no. 11, 12 January 1848, p. 40; La Lega Italiana, no. 5, 21 January 1848, p. 18; Il Felsineo, no. 32, 8 March 1848, s.p.; Gazzetta di Milano, no. 8, 30 March 1848, s.p.; L’Indipendenza italiana, no. 2, 30 March 1848, p. 6; Il Cittadino, no. 65, 5 April 1848, p. 260; La Concordia, no. 140, 12 June 1848, p. 1. 156 La Rigenerazione, no. 7, 22 February 1848, p. 193. 157 Irene Chrattenecker, “Il potere delle immagini: Gli inni patriottici, i canti popolari e le stampe della rivoluzione del 1848,” Gino Benzoni, Gaetano Cozzi (eds), Venezia e l’Austria, Venezia 1999, pp. 459–60. 158 La Rigenerazione, no. 2, 12 February 1848, p. 5; Il Riscatto italiano, no. 13, 9 March 1848, p. 49. 159 Parole al popolo sulle speranze d’Italia fondate sulla sua nazionalità dette da Luigi Calamai davanti al corpo accademico della classe d’arti e manifatture di Firenze nella tornata del 25 giugno 1848, Firenze 1848, pp. 5–13.

260

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

away the dangers of new wars and in facilitating the profits useful to the nation in the way of trade; we will reap them in new factories, to which our armament itself will give life and which will also contribute to increasing industry and that general growth, which will form the soul of the nation to bring it forth to new life.”160 In the following month advocate Antonio Magnaghi published his pamphlet on the means for creating a powerful state the final stage of which was the elevation of Italy “in a few years to the rank of a first power in Europe.”161 All this explains the widespread use of words like “power”, “force” and “strength”, along with other frequent expressions like “respect” and “security” often placed next to words like “peace” and “justice”, in numerous political texts throughout Italy strikingly uniform in the opinion that she had to be strong, both economically and militarily, even when Italians criticised the old diplomacy with its preference for armed force before justice,162 and even when a new European states system was seen on the horizon in the spring of 1848. Why the pursuit of power continued is explained by the Pensiero italiano of 4 May: “Let sympathy, interests and negotiations be put in place, but first of all let us be interested in our strong and united composition, with the grandeur of a nation that does not seek friendship to find protection from its weakness but one that seeks it for greatness of spirit, for mutual interest, for so to speak humanitarian views. Nations like individuals have a need to be esteemed for having friends. – A strong and swift union, I will repeat again, and the nations and peoples will be with us, and with them all the elements of future greatness.”163 Despite references to fraternity among the nations, the overwhelming majority claimed that even after the expulsion of the Austrians beyond the Alps Italy had to maintain her united forces in order to be able to maintain her independence.164 The optimism in a better European order securing justice and peace in no way meant that she should disarm because even if such an order were established, hardly anyone thought that their nation’s security could depend simply on the strength of written law. Particularly moderates who desired a less radical transformation of this system strongly believed in the strength of material power as a necessary prerequisite for successful defence, particularly when others were arming as well, as is obvious from Balbo’s winter article on Italian independence: “You are one of those who believe that the European structure of 1815 is already collapsing? But the collapse will be tremendous and whoever prepares himself will have his

160 Ibid., p. 13. 161 Antonio Magnaghi, Pubblica economia sviluppo de’principj fondamentali per rendere lo stato dovizioso e potente, Milano 1848, p. 39. 162 L’Arlecchino, no. 1, 18 March 1848, p. 4; L’Italia centrale, no. 4, 14 April 1848, p. 21; Rivista Popolare, no. 7, 10 May 1848, p. 35; Ciasca, L’origine del programma, pp. 19–22. 163 Il pensiero italiano, no. 81, 4 May 1848, p. 393. 164 Usiglio, Prospetto storico-politico, pp. 12–14.

Security by Any Means and to All Ends

261

share of the rubble, of the remains; and whoever does not will have nothing, there will be only emptiness and ruins. Therefore, get ready and arm yourselves.”165 And even in the spring when victory over Austria was regarded as just a matter of time, the general consensus was that it was impossible to disarm because the armed forces had to serve as the necessary security means for an even more distant future, as Raffaelo Busacca eloquently concluded in his article on Italian armament on 31 March: “Because the independence of a nation will always be more secure, the stronger the nation is.”166 At the end of the following month Bernardo Pallastrelli claimed the same thing in his article Armi adesso, armi poi, armi sempre (Arm Now, Arm Then, Arm Always): “There is no one today who does not see the need to be strong in arms since the enemy is always at the gate; but once defeated, distant threats will again persuade us of that need; not so much because of the current enemy but owing to those in the future so many of whom surround this privileged land. Who can doubt that Italy, already Lady of the World, cannot provide for her own security?”167 And the identical opinion was also expressed by Crispi who rejected any utopian visions and acknowledged that even in the dawn of a new Europe it was still necessary for Italy to have her own military force against the foreign powers dominating and threatening the world.168 The Italian national movement was already so power oriented when the war broke out that the practical way of ensuring Italy’s security could not be abandoned, which became even more important after the Austrian victories that summer leading Massimo d’Azeglio to the statement that “in politics there is nothing more serious than power!”169 Nevertheless, it is obvious from the context of his text that it had been recognised earlier that “Italy needs material force above all else. The foreign yoke that still oppresses her is made of iron, and iron does not break without force.”170 Azeglio was moved to this warning by the continuous dominance of the great powers in European affairs, forcing Italy to become strong to be able to change the state of things: “Let us remember that at this moment our destinies are being decided in the councils of the powerful and the strong, of those who most of all have respect for strength. So if Italy shows that she is strong, she will be respected.”171 And he continued: “Scales hang in the balance between the new and old public law. Throw your sword into them and make them tip in favour of law and reason; but remember that such balances do not tip with anything other than the sword.”172 165 Bullettino quotidiano della riforma, no. 56/57/58, 10 January 1848, s.p. 166 La Patria, no. 206, 31 March 1848, p. 804. 167 L’Eridano, no. 8, 29 April 1848, p. 29. 168 L’Apostolato, no. 33, 12 April 1848, p. 137, no. 36, 22 April 1848, p. 149. 169 Massimo d’Azeglio, Timori e speranze, Torino 1848, p. 29. 170 Ibid., p. 55. 171 Massimo d’Azeglio, “Quale sarà il diritto pubblico europeo?,” Villa Almansi, 26 August 1848, Rubris, Massimo d’Azeglio, p. 25. 172 Ibid.

262

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

The fact that despite their sincere desire for a new law of nations and a peaceful world Italians continued to rely more on material force was simply due to their continuing mistrust of the outside world, even at the time of national optimism, as is shown in the warning presented in the Concordia on 31 March: “The independence of Italy rests in her strength, and this in the union of the various states from which she is composed. All the rights of the world would not save us from foreign invasions and threats if we lack the power to resist the former and make the latter ineffectual.”173 Consequently, all hopes and optimism for better international relations could not overcome the inferiority complex too ingrained in Italian society, and surely such progress was practically impossible when no better international order was created while the war with Austria continued into 1849. Moreover, there were other security threats at the same time which contributed to the situation where the quest for material power won the upper hand. The traditional mistrust of France and Britain continued and even grew after the outbreak of war. Italians blamed both maritime powers for their attitude in the Italian Question which they regarded as oscillating between low concern and disapproval. It was said that if the British and French governments did not oppose then they were surely wary of the rise of a new Italian power in the Mediterranean bringing competion with their own geopolitical and economic interests.174 Consequently, France was suspected of wanting to exploit Piedmont’s engagement in the war against Austria for the conquest of Savoy and Nice175 and both powers of planning interventions anywhere in Italy. This time it was Britain that was trusted considerably less and criticised more for her self-serving insistence on the preservation of the 1815 treaties; she was said to oppose the unification of northern Italy, allegedly to prevent the connection of two important sea ports, Venice and Genoa, in one kingdom due to its potential naval competition,176 while at the same time she seemed to be willing to disrespect the same treaties, in this case to separate Sicily from Italy, which led to the widespread accusation of hypocrisy.177 It was not merely mistrust but a real fear of Britain and to a lesser extent of France that spread throughout Italy and all social classes. In the north Cavour stated that “many, as we have said, are not only convinced that England wants to incite a universal war but are willing to attribute to her secret machinations most of the events that have shocked almost all the states of Europe.”178 In the south the Neapolitan Costituzione confirmed the existence of this anxiety: “The wide-

173 La Concordia, no. 79, 31 March 1848, p. 1. 174 Il Mondo illustrato, no. 29, 22 July 1848, p. 458. 175 L’Alba, no. 154, 24 February 1848, p. 613; La Concordia, no. 85, 7 April 1848, p. 1. 176 La Concordia, no. 98, 22 April 1848, p. 1. 177 L’Arlecchino, no. 11, 4 April 1848, p. 44, no. 12, 5 April 1848, p. 45; Il 22 Marzo, no. 76, 10 June 1848, p. 328; Teatro universale, no. 735, 12 August 1848, p. 263. 178 Il Riscatto italiano, no. 30, 17 April 1848, p. 117.

Security by Any Means and to All Ends

263

spread uncertainty of English opposition has frightened many people; they said that England could not look favorably on a new power on land now and also at sea later.”179 The social extent of this apprehension can be shown with the example of two men expressing it during the military campaign in Lombardy. Charles Albert said in private that “England always likes to meddle in the affairs in all countries to show her influence and even her supremacy; and moreover I am convinced that if on the one hand she would perhaps be pleased to see that our expansion would put us in a position to be even stronger against France, on the other hand she would look unfavourably on us being able to expand to such an extent that we could unite the ports of Genoa and Venice in one state. I am sure that in her own view she will oppose it with all her power.”180 Lorenzo Capei, a young man of 20 years, fighting against the Austrians as a volunteer expressed the same opinion: “Italy will act for herself – hopefully, but in the meantime the great powers are not standing idle against our movement. France is standing with a mighty army ready to cross borders with the usual claims of defending the peninsula. England is seeking to prevent the forces of Italy from uniting because if they become strong, she cannot act effectively and therefore she looks unfavourably on a united, strong and independent nation.”181 Between the king and the volunteer on the social ladder stood Massimo d’Azeglio who doubted the integrity of Britain,182 and a considerable number of other Italians agreed with his January exclamation “beware of England.”183 The expectation of nothing good from the French and British and hostility from the conservative powers made Italians yet more determined to solve their future on their own.184 During the spring and summer no less dangerous threats were seen in the north-east: first, the Germans’ desire to keep the regions inhabited by the Italians and second, the expected pan-Slavic dominance in the Balkans, both fuelling the Italians’ fear about their security in the Adriatic. The relationship with the Germans was definitely more important in this respect, not only because of the war with the Austrians who were generally labelled Germans but also because of the anti-Italian diatribes in the German press outside the empire and in the Parliament in Frankfurt am Main. As seen in the first chapter, a considerable number of Germans wanted to hold onto their direct control over Trieste, Venice and even the Venetian mainland to maintain their security on land and sea, which clashed 179 La Costituzione, no. 32, 7 June 1848, p. 125. 180 Giovanni Gentile, Lettere di Carlo Alberto a Ottavio Thaon di Revel, Milano 1931, pp. 39–40. 181 Lorenzo Capei to Francesco Capei, Le Grazie, 24 June 1848, Marcello Catania, Il “cuore” di Firenze a Curtatone e Montanara, Firenze 1975, p. 39. 182 Massimo d’Azeglio, “I lutti di Lombardia,” Gorresio, Massimo d’Azeglio, p. 107. 183 Massimo d’Azeglio to Vito Beltrani, Rome, 31 January 1848, Georges Virlogeux (ed.), Massimo d’Azeglio: Epistolario (1819–1866), vol. 4, Torino 1998, p. 30. 184 La Rigenerazione, no. 33, 3 April 1848, p. 129; La Concordia, no. 90, 13 April 1848, p. 1; Il Nazionale, no. 7, 10 July 1848, p. 25.

264

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

directly with Italian needs and therefore prompted a strong and negative response in Italian society.185 The Italians’ growing fear of the Germans was intensified by their aggressive conduct in the Schleswig-Holstein Question, which Italians closely observed, and with the growth of their resistance to surrender some Austrian territories in Italy, Italians saw the German conduct against Denmark as unjust186 and the awaking of Scandinavian unity as a fortunate response.187 In their own war of words which had already existed before the outbreak of real war but became more fervent afterwards,188 Italians blamed the Germans for hypocrisy when the latter claimed Schleswig and Holstein on the principal of nationhood but refused to accept the same principal in the case of Italians doing the same for South Tyrol, Trieste, Venice and even Lombardy under the pretext that this would not only damage but even destroy the German nation.189 So while the French were suspected of conquering Nice and Savoy, the Germans were said to threaten Italy in other regions they regarded as their “fiefdom”190 and were expected to behave in the same aggressive way as they did in the Schleswig-Holstein Question.191 It was geopolitics that weakened the relationship of both nations, and if in early April some Italians like Pietro Sterbini desired the foundation of a strong and united Germany whose “strength will be the surest guarantee of European peace,”192 an example that Italians had to follow, then shortly afterwards this optimism turned into scepticism summarised by Cavour’s parliamentary speech on 26 October 1848: “Germanism has only just been born and already it is threatening to upset the European balance of power and is manifesting thoughts of dominance and usurpation.”193 Fear of the Austrians and Germans had actually played an important role in Italian territorial aspirations long before 1848. If Italian nationhood served as an excuse, then the principal motivation was identical with that of the Germans: land and maritime security. The desired area covered not only South Tyrol and Venice but also Trieste and even the territory situated eastwards although the last ambition was revealed ambiguously and less often in the mid 1840s, like in the article L’Italia in which Italy covered “most of the government of Trieste in the Illyrian kingdom,”194 which the Bolognese Povero published in its section Geografia 185 Morelli to Guerrieri, Frankfurt am Main, 16 June 1848, Federico Curato (ed.), 1848: Il carteggio diplomatico del governo provvisorio della Lombardia, Milano 1955, p. 423. 186 Il pensiero italiano, no. 81, 4 May 1848, p. 393. 187 Il pensiero italiano, no. 119, 13 June 1848, p. 555. 188 Il Risorgimento, no. 31, 3 February 1848, pp. 122–23. 189 Il 22 Marzo, no. 35, 30 April 1848, p. 147; Unità, no. 40, 29 August 1848, p. 229. 190 L’Operaio, no. 24, 13 June 1848, p. 6. 191 Ibid., pp. 6–7. 192 Il Contemporaneo, no. 40, 4 April 1848, p. 157. 193 Chabod, L’idea di nazione, p. 79. 194 Il Povero, no. 3, 21 February 1846, p. 10.

Security by Any Means and to All Ends

265

(Geography) in February 1846. More explicitly it was claimed by Gioberti in his Primato that although Illyria and Dalmatia were geographically separated from the Apennines, they had much in common with the peninsula and in the past had been controlled from Venice; although he claimed that he did not want to replace old crimes with new ones, because of Italy’s future he had to hope that the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea would be Italian and decidedly not French, British, German (Austrian) or Russian.195 Regard for Italy’s own security also seemed to motivate Durando in his desire for the Italian conquest of Istria stated in 1846.196 With the outbreak of the March revolutions and the war when the old states system and even the Austrian Empire seemed to be on the verge of collapse, the Italian hunger for conquest became more outspoken. The loudest voice in territitorial aspirations in 1848 was raised by Count Terenzio Mamiani della Rovere, who in 1841 had reacted to the international affairs with the vision of Italy’s unity and later in the decade criticised the diplomatic practice of the European powers. In 1860 he would follow Mancini with his own book on the new international law that would also be based on the principle of nationhood.197 In his texts reprinted all over Italy in 1848 he demanded that Italy take advantage of the fall of the post-Napoleonic states system when “now, the treaties are broken, diplomacy is scattered and muted”198 and the opportunity for territorial conquests had arisen: “Let us also hasten to spread our arms and insignia along all our borders and be forever safe.”199 Besides South Tyrol he unambiguously demanded the seizure of Trieste and all Istria200 because in their possession lay “a major point in the liberation of Italy and a great pledge of future security.”201 He used the national argument for the claim that the territory from Venetia to Pula was Italian “and no banners may fly there except Italian.”202 How far his aspiration was motivated by fear of the Germans is obvious from his hostility to their plans to make Trieste a naval base for their navigation in the Mediterranean Sea,203 and he warned that “the Germans now want more than ever to make a good appearance on the seas almost in spite of nature ... It appears to the Germans to be a great advantage, therefore, to possess via Trieste, Istria and Dalmatia good ports in the Adriatic and through them prompt and direct communication with the Levant and with India, 195 Gioberti, Del primato morale, vol. 2, pp. 349–40. 196 Durando, Della nazionalità italiana, p. 57. 197 Terenzio Mamiani, D’un nuovo diritto europeo, Torino 1860. See also Rech, “International Law as a Political Language,” p. 74. 198 “Di nuovo, sulla guerra italiana,” L’Epoca, 17 April 1848, Mamiani, Scritti politici, p. 269. 199 Ibid. 200 Terenzio Mamiani to Carlo Zucchi, Rome, 20 April 1848, “Sulla guerra italiana,” 14 April 1848, both published in the Epoca, Mamiani, Scritti politici, pp. 267, 269–82; Hancock, Ricasoli, p. 115. 201 “Ai signori direttori dell’Epoca,” L’Epoca, 11 April 1848, Mamiani, Scritti politici, p. 264. 202 Ibid., p. 265. 203 Ibid., p. 264.

266

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

and it is thus impossible that this will not soon arouse great concern throughout the whole nation.”204 Consequently, he wanted to close “every pass between the Tagliamento and the Sava, and from the Mount of Vena to the shores of the sea” to the Germans and reach friendly relations with other neighbouring nations, such as an alliance with the strong Magyars or even “a perfect commercial and customs league between Italy, Dalmatia, Hungary and Croatia to be able to continue in the profitable connection of the Black Sea with the Adriatic, the Levant with the West, the Indies with the Baltic [and] the Po with the Danube.”205 Because of his fear of the Austrians Mamiani also took note of the Adriatic Slavs: “Out of respect, then, to Illyria and Dalmatia, it is enough for now to note that there lives a nation in those provinces that is entitled to declare itself either for the Italian cause or for that of the Slavic people because they are Slavic by birth, although by custom, culture and government they feel Italian. For us it only matters that they are not and do not want to be Austrian and that Austria cannot prepare continuous offenses and harassment against us from the ports of Dalmatia.”206 That the Italians’ territorial aspirations were primarily motivated by fear of other European nations, above all the Germans, can be deduced from the fact that sometimes it was more important for them not to allow others to seize the disputed territories than to win them for themselves,207 as also becomes obvious from Mamiani’s last quotation above. For their own security their aim was to expel the Austrians not only from Italy but also from the Adriatic where the Austrian or German warships were seen as a direct threat to the security of the Italian coast and navigation.208 In April Democrat Francesco Dall’Ongaro claimed that Istria and Dalmatia were Italian and despite his claims that for maritime trade Italy did not need Trieste because she already possessed Genoa and Venice,209 he objected to this city becoming an “Adriatic Hamburg”, an opinion expressed in the Parliament in Frankfurt and truly unpopular in Italy. Therefore, in his appeal to the inhabitants of Trieste for a common fight for independence he proposed that “Italian weapons will help you accomplish it and will be happy to add another gem to the maternal crown and to repel the common oppressor out of dominions which are not theirs.”210 The Milanese Avvenire d’Italia also desired above all that Trieste 204 L’Epoca, no. 31, 21 April 1848, p. 121. 205 Ibid. 206 “Ai signori direttori dell’Epoca,” 11 April 1848, published in the Epoca, Mamiani, Scritti politici, p. 265. 207 L’Avvenire d’Italia, no. 6, 28 June 1848, p. 22; Fatti e parole, no. 84, 6 September 1848, p. 334, no. 93, 15 September 1848, p. 370. 208 Il Felsineo, no. 50, 1 April 1848, s.p.; L’Avvenire d’Italia, no. 25, 17 July 1848, p. 97. 209 Francesco Dall’Ongaro to the provisional government of Lombardy, Udine, 13 April 1848, Massarani, Cesare Correnti, p. 536. 210 Francesco Dall’Ongaro to the people of Trieste, Udine, 10 April 1848, Massarani, Cesare Correnti, p. 539.

Security by Any Means and to All Ends

267

and the eastern coast of the Adriatic should not be in German hands because this outcome sufficed for the sea to become Italian again.211 The security argumentation on behalf of territorial expansion in the Adriatic and the Alps was widespread throughout Italian society although, unsurprisingly, primarily in northern and central Italy, and contemporary sources also reveal the extent to which this quest for security was power oriented and the national argument served this purpose. The Corriere livornese published an article on the future of Trieste in which an important question was posed whether it was not better to surrender this important city to Austria to ensure a stable peace with this great power in view of its significance to the Austrians as their only link with the Levant and Asia.212 After long deliberation this option was finally rejected out of fear of how Austria would use Trieste when she regained her feet again, and an appeal to Italian nationhood concluding with the exclamation “eternal shame to those who will sign a treaty that sanctifies the servitude of a single one of the children of Italy!”213 was used to prevent such an eventuality. For the same reason the Concordia stated that not to conquer certain territories would be “a foolish anomaly against the eternal laws of nationhood” and, above all, without them “Italy would be considerably less strong.”214 The Opinione saw in the conquest of Venice and Trieste a necessity not only to unite all Italian seaports to be able to create “a flourishing fleet” but also to attain Italy’s natural frontiers in the Alps.215 The Cittadino reissued an article from the Opinione thereby confirming that more Italians regarded their nationhood as a necessary means for ensuring Italy had sufficient power for the future; for this reason Italy “who was now camped on the Po will not finish before reaching the Bay of Kotor and sweeping away every trace of foreign domination.”216 The Venetian La voce del popolo did not doubt in early July that Istria then and Dalmatia soon thereafter would join with Italy and ensure her “absolute domination of the Adriatic, an indispensable condition for Italy to regain civil and moral primacy in the world.”217 The Genovese Pensiero italiano expressed the same opinion that Italy had to become “master of the Adriatic” to be secure against Austria, and using the popular motto “unity makes strength” it argued that this was possible only if Istria and Dalmatia were annexed.218 If there were any differing opinions, then it was about the limits of the territorial conquest beyond Trieste: Istria and Fiume were often mentioned,219 sometimes even 211 L’Avvenire d’Italia, no. 6, 28 June 1848, p. 22. 212 Il Corriere livornese, no. 13, 15 June 1848, pp. 1–2. 213 Ibid., p. 2. 214 La Concordia, no. 88, 11 April 1848, p. 2. 215 L’Opinione, no. 49, 30 March 1848, p. 193. 216 Il Cittadino, no. 80, 22 April 1848, p. 319. 217 La voce del popolo, no. 7, 3 July 1848, p. 27. 218 Il pensiero italiano, no. 77, 29 April 1848, p. 372. 219 La Patria, no. 214, 8 April 1848, p. 863; L’Operaio, no. 10, 25 May 1848, p. 80.

268

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

the land stretching to Ljubljana,220 and this city was also involved in these aspirations.221 The desire to seize Illyria and Dalmatia also existed, but these territories were sometimes defined in a very ambiguous way,222 occasionally even through recollections of Italy’s past as with Neapolitan Cesare Malpica’s question whether the Venetian Republic “will recapture its ancient borders,”223 or the Mondo illustrato deliberating the extension of Italy from the Apennines “towards the Adriatic, [for] it seems to us that it must have the borders that the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy once had.”224 In any case, even if obscure such visions were dangerous for local nations, especially when the Italians wanted to decide the question of their frontiers themselves at their own congress.225 The principal problem was where the frontiers actually were to be established, a question that could hardly be resolved by the eternal laws of nature mentioned above but more easily by considerations for their own security, as seen in an anonymous letter written by an inhabitant of Trieste claiming for Italy not only his hometown but also Istria, Dalmatia and Dubrovnik with the explanation that they ensured Italy’s future maritime power, served her as a gateway to the Levant and last but not least closed this gate to the Austrians.226 The future of Trieste and all the eastern Adriatic was evaluated from the perspective of a distribution of power between not only the Italians and the Germans but also the Italians and the Slavs. The national revival of Slavic nations in Central and Southern Europe was closely observed in Italy and surely often regarded as a positive tendency contributing to the brotherhood of European nations.227 However, as the Italian attitude towards the German nation was influenced by their fear of the Austrian eagle, the aspirations of the Balkan Slavs were often observed through their traditional fear of the Russian bear. It has already been explained how the desire to constrain Russia became one of the goals of Italian patriots who wanted to re-orientate Austria to the Danube not only to point her away from Italy but also to form a barrier against Russia’s alleged territorial insatiability; Germany or an independent Poland in Central Europe was also to take the same role of a bulwark against Russia.228 Fear of Russia had intensified the attention paid by Italians to pan-Slavism since the mid 1840s because it was regarded as Russia’s wooden horse in Europe. In May 1846 Sardinian diplomat Albert de Ricci stated that the “invasive march of 220 Il 22 Marzo, no. 2, 27 March 1848, p. 5. 221 L’Operaio, no. 9, 24 May 1848, p. 76, no. 21, 8 June 1848, p. 160. 222 Teatro universale, no. 719, 22 April 1848, p. 130. 223 Il Riscatto italiano, no. 23, 31 March 1848, p. 91. 224 Il Mondo illustrato, no. 16, 22 April 1848, p. 251. 225 Il Riscatto italiano, no. 13, 9 March 1848, p. 78. 226 La Dieta Italiana: Giornale politico-letterario, no. 22, 10 June 1848. For the same letter see also La Concordia, no. 136, 7 June 1848, p. 1. 227 L’Avvenire d’Italia, no. 6, 28 June 1848, p. 22. 228 Il Contemporaneo, no. 40, 4 April 1848, p. 157; L’Apostolato, no. 44, 13 May 1848, p. 182.

Security by Any Means and to All Ends

269

Slavism”229 was a threat not only to the Austrian Empire but also to Italians,230 and in the same year Giacomo Durando claimed that the reorientation of Austria was useful against the spread of Russian-Slavic influence.231 In 1848 this influence often continued to be seen by Italians as a Russian weapon, something important when an outbreak of a general war was expected and the Italians planned to fight in it against the tsar.232 In such a case the Russian influence over the southern Slavs could become a direct threat, especially if they united in a large Balkan nation state, a prospect seriously contemplated and feared in Italy.233 Consequently, some Italians distrusted the Slavic nations in the Adriatic and preferred to gain its eastern coast under their own control.234 In July the Avvenire d’Italia claimed that besides the Germans the Slavs represented another danger and therefore Trieste under Italian protection would at the same time be “a valid defence beyond the sea against the erupting Slavism that only today can contend [with Italy] for the domination of the Adriatic.”235 Just several days later the same newspaper published an article on the threat represented by pan-Slavism for western civilisation; the author saw behind it Russian geopolitical designs and feared its rise on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, on the so to speak Italian threshold.236 In August Giulio Solitro claimed that the Croats could never govern Dalmatia, which had to be Italian and never Slavic and which because of her geographic location made her relations with Italy’s eastern coast very intimate.237 In September the security argumentation became more obvious in the Fatti e parole stating that the Venetian and, subsequently, Italian fleet had to be large and powerful because it was a “vital condition for our trade, of life and death for our freedom: since both the Germans and the Slavs feel the need to make themselves strong at sea, we must remain stronger than they are.”238 In the late spring of 1848 Italians saw threats all around them: Austria and with her Germany in the north, Russia with the Slavs in the east and Britain and France in almost all directions. They found themselves in the situation already known to the Germans: encirclement by rivals if not enemies. Under the given conditions

229 Albert de Ricci to Solaro, Vienna, 30 May 1846, AST, Raccolte Private: Carte Bianchi, Serie I, 9. 230 Ibid. 231 Durando, Della nazionalità italiana, p. 295. 232 La Concordia, no. 92, 15 April 1848, p. 1; Ripoli, Il Risorgimento italiano, p. 56. 233 Miscellanea del giorno, 2, 1847, pp. 71–73; Il Crociato, no. 39, 22 July 1848, pp. 451–52. 234 Not everybody saw pan-Slavism as a threat. Giovenale Vegezzi Ruscalla admitted that owing to the heterogeneity of the Slavic people and the aversion of some of them to Russia, pan-Slavism was not dangerous for Italy. Antologia italiana, March 1848, pp. 265–90. However, even Ruscalla refused to surrender Istria inhabited by Slavs. Antologia italiana, January 1848, pp. 96–97. 235 L’Avvenire d’Italia, no. 25, 17 July 1848, p. 98. 236 L’Avvenire d’Italia, no. 28, 20 July 1848, p. 110. 237 Giulio Solitro, “Sulle domande della naziona croata,” Gazzetta di Venezia, no. 202, 10 August 1848, pp. 1035–36. 238 Fatti e parole, no. 99, 21 September 1848, p. 395.

270

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

it was unimportant how real these threats actually were; it sufficed that they were perceived as such and the course of affairs seemed to amplify them, and when a better international order was not within sight, the only thing left to Italians to ensure their own security was to continue in the pursuit for material power, and with the use of armed force if necessary.239 If earlier their goal had been to unite Italy including Lombardy, Venetia, Sicily and South Tyrol, now it became obvious that it would be necessary to extend this so to speak security perimeter: in the north with territorial expansion from Trieste down the eastern Adriatic coast, in the west with Corsica that had been ceded by the Republic of Genoa to France in 1768 and whose restoration had already been demanded by Mazzini and Gioberti in the early 1840s240 and by other Italians during 1848, and in the south with Malta that Mazzini wanted to take from Britain. The possessions of the two islands were to serve the same purpose as the control of the west Balkan coast: the greater security of Italy situated in the middle of the Mediterranean. The concept of Italian nationhood served as justification for unifying the Italian countries. With additional territorial demands, however, it was becoming less convincing, especially when the Italians refused to give up Savoy and Nice inhabited predominantly by French-speaking inhabitants. To secure their French border they were doing the same as the Germans in Italy and Schleswig-Holstein and which they themselves did not hesitate to criticise. Why this duplicitous attitude became widespread among Italians is not necessary to explain in detail: it was obviously a response to their continuously increasing feeling of their own insecurity that made them more self-serving and consequently hypocritical. To offer just one individual example: on 8 June 1848 the Piedmontese lawyer Domenico Buffa wrote that the time of nationhood had arrived and with it also the progress of humanity that was opposite to the law of conquest dominating from 1815 until early 1848;241 just five days later, under the influence of the Schleswig-Holstein Question, the Germans’ dissenting attitude in the questions of Trieste and Tyrol and the French territorial aspirations in Savoy, he stated that the principle of nationhood could also be egoistic.242 This egoism in the pursuance of their own interests was, however, dangerous if no legal limits were created. In mid July the Gazzetta del Popolo published an article on the situation in Europe in which it was stated that the old order of the Congress of Vienna no longer existed and that a new one was to be established among the nations on “principles of eternal justice;” then, however, it continued: “In a word, every nation is now the absolute master of establishing its own nation-

239 Il pensiero italiano, no. 79, 2 May 1848, p. 379, no. 81, 4 May 1848, p. 393. 240 Gioberti, Del primato morale, vol. 2, pp. 440–42; Mazzini, The Duties of Man, p. 53. 241 Il pensiero italiano, no. 114, 8 June 1848, p. 537. 242 Il pensiero italiano, no. 119, 13 June 1848, p. 555.

Security by Any Means and to All Ends

271

hood as best it can.”243 With this statement the absolute independence of nation states to conduct themselves as they wished was set out in the Hegelian sense, something dangerous in a world where material power was respected above all, as seen from the same article offering a comparison of European powers according to their material forces. Regarding the considerable power of Germany, her unity was said to be a bad omen for Italians owing to the future of Trieste. The article ends with the statement that Italians were to arm 250,000 to 300,000 men, which is not a very optimistic ending – particularly in comparison with its introductory part forseeing a new and better era in the relations of European nations.244 When no legal limits were laid in Europe and since it was unclear what actually represented a sufficient level of security, only one possible answer was left to Italians to the question “Security by what means and to what end?”: “Security by material power and to all ends.” With regard to multiplying external threats and the other great powers’ superiority in power, there were some Italians who believed that even the league covering all of the peninsula and Sardinia and Sicily was still not enough to ensure their security and that even the seizure of Corsica, Malta and the eastern Adriatic would not suffice. Therefore, they went further in their geopolitical deliberations and exceeded the limit where even a doubtful justificatory application of Italian nationhood was possible: they proposed to enlarge their security perimeter with alliances with other nations. The spring of 1848 thus brought the idea of a league with Hungary threatened by the same enemies – the Germans and the Slavs,245 or even an alliance with the Magyars, Dalmatians and Croats to form a barrier against an invasion of the “Barbarians” from the lower Danube, which in this case were not the Austrians but Russians.246 The alliance that was most debated in public and even negotiated on a governmental level was the one with Switzerland; it was seen as another logical security measure after the expulsion of the Austrians beyond the Alps and the foundation of an Italian league. The idea of a Swiss alliance was not entirely original since Piedmont had proposed it to the Swiss government during the Rhine Crisis. The victory of the liberal cantons in the civil war at the end of 1847 made it opportune in the eyes of some Italians from the point of view of both geography and material strength. In mid December Roberto Berlinghieri published his pamphlet in Livorno in which he promoted such an alliance as profitable for both sides since they would establish an entity with a great number of inhabitants, which naturally brought a greater army, and for Italy Switzerland represented a natural barrier in the Alps.247 At the 243 Gazzetta del Popolo: L’Italiano, no. 26, 15 July 1848, s.p. 244 Gazzetta del Popolo: L’Italiano, no. 27, 17 July 1848, s.p. 245 Gazzetta di Genova, no. 80, 16 May 1848, s.p. 246 La Speranza, no. 35, 4 March 1848, s.p.; Il pensiero italiano, no. 81, 4 May 1848, p. 393. For Terenzio Mamiani mentioned above see the Epoca, no. 31, 21 April 1848, p. 121. 247 Roberto Berlinghieri, Alla Svizzera: Parole d’un Italiano, Livorno 1847, pp. 3–7.

272

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

end of the same month the Alba advocated the alliance with the same argument: “Italy is strong enough not to fear a war and to support one with dignity and probability of victory; but Italy connected with Switzerland makes any war impossible and ensures her independence without drawing a sword. The geographical conditions of the two nations are such that united by a political league they complement and defend each other.”248 To persuade the Swiss to agree, the newspaper cast doubt upon the value of the legal guarantee of their neutrality, and in view of the Italians’ deep mistrust of the value of treaties this argumentation can be regarded as sincere: “Could Swiss neutrality guaranteed by the great powers with the Treaty of Vienna perhaps be opposed? But has this pact not been broken and trampled on by the powers interfering in Switzerland’s internal affairs? ... Will Switzerland be neutral when she does not have to defend and guarantee her independence, and will she not be neutral when she sees her independence denied and threatened? If this is indeed the meaning of the Treaty of Vienna, we should not speak of neutrality but of feudal subjugation.”249 In the first months of 1848 the desire for an alliance between Piedmont or Italy on one side and Switzerland on the other one was expressed across the whole peninsula including Rome and Naples. The Roman Unione claimed in January that an alliance between Piedmont and Switzerland would offer 120,000 soldiers altogether, which would strengthen the defence of Italy.250 For this reason the Swiss were also regarded as Italy’s natural allies in Naples.251 People were generally of the opinion that Switzerland was threatened by France and Austria as was Italy and that therefore the Italian-Swiss alliance was desirable for both for political and geographical reasons: it would make them stronger.252 The Italians did not believe that neutrality was a real guarantee of Switzerland’s independence. She could hardly expect such respect from the neighbouring powers, particularly in the event of a general war in Europe. Isolation could lead to Switzerland’s destruction and therefore she needed an ally, and the best one was Italy because both had identical interests and the need of mutual assistance against the same powers. Therefore, to be really independent Switzerland had to ally with Italy and through their league win the respect of the others.253 The connection between Italian nationhood, unity and the alliance with Switzerland was explained in the Carroccio in late January: “The only conquest our country has set for itself is its nationhood and the strength

248 L’Alba, no. 107, 28 December 1847, p. 425. 249 Ibid. 250 L’Unione no. 30, 10 January 1848, pp. 117–18. 251 L’Arlecchino, no. 1, 18 March 1848, p. 4. 252 L’Opinione, no. 4, 4 February 1848, p. 13, no. 9, 11 February 1848, p. 33; L’Italico, no. 8, 19 January 1848, p. 30. 253 La Speranza, no. 4, 10 January 1848; L’Alba, no. 121, 15 January 1848, p. 481; La Concordia, no. 11, 13 January 1848, p. 42, no. 19, 22 January 1848, p. 74, no. 30, 4 February 1848, p. 118.

Security by Any Means and to All Ends

273

to defend it against anyone. The spirit of external conquests deposed it from the day that saw Latin freedom fall under the yoke of others. We only want a league, for now, with the weak states, in particular with Switzerland, because it borders onto us, because it is brave, because it is a lookout against European despotism from the peak of the Alps, because it is threatened by the same dangers as we are. We want peace, not an alliance, with the great powers because the weak that are connected to the strong certainly run the risk of changing only their master.”254 On 6 April Piedmontese Chargé d’Affaires in Bern, General Paolo Racchia, presented to the Swiss government the project of a Swiss-Piedmontese defensive and offensive alliance with the argument that with it their independence would be “perpetual.”255 He pointed out the geographical position of Switzerland and the danger of it meeting the same fate as Venice in 1797.256 This step was long regarded as a presentation of Charles Albert’s formal proposal, but recently it was revealed that Racchia had in fact acted unofficially since the Sardinian foreign minister would not have dared to go so far due to fear of the great powers’ reaction.257 In any case the proposal was taken seriously by the Swiss Federal Diet where it was discussed on 14 and 18 April and they reached the conclusion that Switzerland had to remain strictly neutral to avoid the hostility of other great powers, in particular Austria and France.258 The response delivered officially to Racchia on 25 April was thus negative.259 Among the general public, however, some Swiss disagreed with this passivity that could have negative consequences for their country in the future. In the intensive debate about their own neutrality the opinion was raised that the Swiss had the right to decide this question alone and did not have to obey the great powers’ dictates imposed on Switzerland in 1815. Some even claimed that if the Italians were defeated, then Switzerland would also lose her independence if not allied with them.260 Most interesting is the article printed in the Berner Verfassungs-Freund on 17 April that reflects the arguments used by the Italians. A Swiss author wrote that his native country did not need a 254 Il Carroccio, no. 2, 27 January 1848, p. 6. 255 Racchia to the President and the Council of the Canton of Bern, Bern, 6 April 1848, Ferrari, Carteggio Casati-Castagnetto, p. LXXXIX. 256 Ibid., p. LXXXVIII. 257 Rodolfo Mosca, “Il negoziato per l’alleanza sardo-elvetica dell’aprile 1848,” Il Risorgimento: Rivista di storia del Risorgimento e di storia contemporanea 50, 1998, 2/3, pp. 79–102. 258 Berner-Zeitung, no. 103, 29 April 1848, pp. 421–22; L’Helvétie, 27 April 1848, pp. 2–3; Neue Zürcher-Zeitung, no. 117, 26 April 1848, pp. 525–26. 259 The answer to Racchia, Bern, 25 April 1848, Ferrari, Carteggio Casati-Castagnetto, p. XCVI; Peter Stadler, “Die Schweiz 1848: Eine erfolgreiche Revolution?” Historische Zeitschrift: Beihefte 29, 2000, p. 51; Emilio Raffaele Papa, “1848: Torino, Berna, Lugano: la missione del generale Paolo Racchia in Svizzera per una proposta di ‘alleanza offensiva e difensiva’,” Quaderni grigionitaliani 68, 1999, 2, p. 116. 260 Berner-Zeitung, no. 93, 18 April 1848, pp. 381–82, no. 103, 29 April 1848, pp. 421–22; Berner Verfassungs-Freund, no. 104, 14 April 1848, pp. 409–10, no. 106, 16 April 1848, p. 417.

274

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

great power as a protector but rather an alliance with a neighbouring country of secondary power which shared with Switzerland the desire to ensure its own nationhood, independence and peace, and that united they would become together a respected power against external attacks of those more powerful. As for the Swiss perpetual neutrality established at the Congress of Vienna, there was no need to respect it since no one else respected it either and the same could be said for international treaties often violated by the others. They had to do what “was deemed appropriate to their interests now and in the future, until a new European public law soon replaced the shattered one.”261 Seeing in this example the transnational similarity and interconnection of the geopolitical security debates, it is no surprise that some Italians did not lose hope in the alliance with Switzerland, and the Concordia continued to advocate the idea of “an offensive and defensive alliance” to ensure the external security of both Switzerland and Italy; offensive meant that the Swiss government would send 20,000 soldiers to Italy to fight with them against the Austrians.262 The more sceptical Pensiero italiano used the Swiss rejection of the alliance as another argument for the need for Italy to arm in order to be stronger against the hostile great powers and nations in Europe.263 AMBITIONS FOR MARITIME STRENGTH AND OVERSEAS EXPANSION The final perimeter for Italy’s security was colonial expansion. It was a logical outcome of the pursuit for power or, as Italians claimed, for greatness enabling them to “take their place alongside the great nations.”264 Such an ambition did not come suddenly in 1848 but as everything in the geopolitical security debates had been cultivated during the 1840s. It was certainly not as apparent as among the Germans but existed because some Italians felt forced by their geographical 261 Berner Verfassungs-Freund, no. 107, 17 April 1848, p. 421. 262 La Concordia, no. 106, 2 May 1848, pp. 1–2. 263 Il pensiero italiano, no. 79, 2 May 1848, p. 379. See also Il pensiero italiano, no. 81, 4 May, p. 393. It is not without interest that in May 1853 the Prussian envoy in Florence reported that the broad public was interested in the affairs in Switzerland, especially in the southern cantons inhabited by Italian-speaking people regarded by Italians as compatriots to the same extent as those living in South Tyrol; he named the regions of Bellinzona, Lugano, Locarno and Val Maggio, belonging in the past to the Milanese duke. When one sees to what end this national affinity for the Italian-speaking people in the Adriatic was used by Italians, one cannot avoid the impression that the attention they paid to southern Switzerland contained the seed of a similar threat. Alfred von Reumont to Frederick William IV, Florence, 29 May 1853, GStA PK, HA III, MdA I, 5669. That such a seed really existed can be deduced from the idea introduced by Giuseppe Mazzini in 1857 to use the concept of Italian nationhood to anex the Canton of Ticino by Italy as mentioned below in this book. 264 Bergman to Ihre, Naples, 17 June 1847, RA, Kabinettet, DU, Huvudarkivet E 2 D:783.

Ambitions for Maritime Strength and Overseas Expansion

275

position to seriously consider their own naval and colonial ambitions, even though their location usually limited these ambitions to the Mediterranean. Their desire for Sicily’s participation in the Italian league and the control of Corsica, Malta and the Adriatic Sea was closely connected with their desire to be not only secure but also respected throughout the Mediterranean. The conquest of North Africa and the Near East had been proposed by Marochetti in the late 1820s, but his ambition then was motivated by the spread of western civilisation into so-called Barbarous lands.265 In the 1840s, however, such an argument, if used at all, became a mere pretext for what the Italians did not even try to conceal, namely that the question of Italy’s position in the Mediterranean was primarily part of the “geo-economic contest.”266 The expansion of other European powers served as an example that was to be followed in the race for political and economic survival in the world. One surely cannot fail to note the criticism of the French conquest of Algeria and the British Opium War as immoral, as seen in the third chapter, and this negative reaction was genuine,267 but it was unimportant in itself because at least some Italians gradually became convinced that they had to participate in this race between these two great powers placing them in serious jeopardy. Christoph Friedrich Karl von Kölle, who lived in Italy in the early 1830s, later remembered that “the Italians are increasingly afraid of the age-old view of the French, who have always regarded the Mediterranean as a kind of French Lake Constance, and more than ever since the possession of Algeria.”268 The French and British ambitions between the European and African shores, accentuated by the attention all the great powers were paying to the decaying Ottoman Empire, convinced Italians that no foreign power’s dominance could prevent or limit Italy’s commercial activity in the Mediterranean.269 Such a desire logically heightened the problem of the imbalance of naval power, which provoked debates about their own ability to compete with the great powers in the overseas regions where Italian merchants had been active and successful for centuries as well as Piedmont’s naval policy of trying to reduce the French superiority on the high seas. The urgency of this issue was further intensified by important technological inventions like railway and steam navigation giving distinct advantages to the active and more developed powers. Italian intellectuals were convinced that Italy had to adapt to the new era and join the competition in the Mediterranean Sea; a way to ensure her participation was found in the 1840s in the

265 Maurizio Isabella, “Mediterranean Liberals? Italian Revolutionaries and the Making of a Colonial Sea, 1800–30 ca,” Maurizio Isabella, Konstantina Zanou (eds), Mediterranean Diasporas: Politics and Ideas in the Long 19th Century, London 2015, pp. 87–88. 266 Paolo Frascani, Il Mare, Bologna 2008, p. 22. 267 Isabella, “Liberalism and Empires in the Mediterranean,” pp. 243–44. 268 Kölle, Italiens Zukunft, pp. 236–37. 269 Barbieri, Visconti, Il problema del Mediterraneo, pp. 91, 108.

276

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

construction of Italian railways which were to connect Italy with central Europe and, together with her central position in the Mediterranean, transform her into an important centre of European trade with north Africa and the Levant.270 And due to the forced opening of China to European trade during the same decade, which Italians including Massimo d’Azeglio also observed,271 the railway gave hope to Italy to become an important commercial route between Europe and the Far East.272 Consequently, the fervent discussion in Italian society about the railway was closely connected with the debate about Italy’s role in the Mediterranean, and both were regarded as not simply economic but also geopolitical issues.273 That is why the railway question had such a significant impact on the formation of national consciousness and why the publicists paid such great attention to it and reacted fiercely against Austria’s alleged effort to prevent the connection between Piedmont and the Rhineland.274 The Europeans’ growing interest in the Mediterranean in the 1840s therefore became another security challenge to which the Italians had to respond, and it was no accident that the moderate patriots dealt with it in their geopolitical and national deliberations. A fitting example of how regard for international affairs led to Italy’s own ambition for colonial conquest was offered by Giacomo Durando in his Della nazionalità where he discussed the great powers’ overseas policies, namely the French ambitions in Algeria and Morocco, Britain’s everywhere and Russia’s in the Caucasus serving as evidence for the tsar’s intention to invade British India. Such an attack, much like the fall of the Ottoman Empire, could bring these two great powers and with them all of Europe into a new war. In Durando’s view, what the Italians had to do in such a dangerous world was achieve their unity followed by the restoration of their bygone power in the Mediterranean Sea, first by the seizure of Istria, Malta and Corsica, then of other regions surrounding this sea or situated in the Near East.275 Gioberti and Balbo dealt in even more detail with European and Italian imperialism and colonialism. In their reactions to international insecurity they advocated not only Italian unity but also overseas expansion, and it is not difficult to understand why they became the most prominent advocates of Italian imperialism: the creation of a strong war navy and a colonial empire served the same power purpose as the formation of the league. The reason was also identical: the untrustworthy policies of European powers, in this case particularly the maritime

270 Ibid., p. 92. 271 Massimo d’Azeglio, Degli ultimi casi di Romagna, p. 50. 272 Clark, The Italian Risorgimento, p. 36; Curcio, Ideali mediterranei, pp. 34–37. 273 Frascani, Il Mare, p. 24; Villani, I popoli e i governi d’Italia, p. 21. 274 Greenfield, Economics and Liberalism in the Risorgimento, pp. 37–38. 275 Durando, Della nazionalità italiana, pp. 295–309; Curcio, Ideali mediterranei, p. 52.

Ambitions for Maritime Strength and Overseas Expansion

277

ones.276 Although Gioberti primarily attacked France in his Primato, in this case he had greater concerns about “Britain [that] loves a free and divided Italy for trading her goods, but not a united Italy, which over time can be her rival on the seas.”277 And therefore, according to Gioberti, Italy had to be “mistress of her sea,”278 which was the Mediterranean. At the same time, Gioberti experienced the same ambivalence as Friedrich List: although he feared Britain for her strength, this strength also won his admiration and served him as “the model of efficient, strong and rich modernity.”279 In his Primato Gioberti did not hesitate to express respect for British power, wealth and glory; they made all Europe tremble with fear but they also gave Italy an example worthy of following.280 As he sadly remarked, while Britain dominated the seas, had colonies all over the world and was strong enough to defeat China, Italy had neither a fleet nor colonies; he connected this lack of material strength and resources with the question of her power, independence, security and role in world affairs exactly in the same way as he and other patriots and nationalists did with the quest for an Italian league and armed forces.281 He tried to motivate his compatriots by recalling the Golden Age when Genoa and Venice had dominated the Eastern Mediterranean, something that was to be repeated in his own time when the Mediterranean was gaining yet greater importance for its potential to link the western and eastern oceans through the Isthmus of Suez. Italy with her great central location transecting the Mediterranean Sea in its centre from the Alps almost to the African coast282 offered her inhabitants great potential for colonial expansion and moved Gioberti to pose this question: “Who does not see that Italy, due to her geographic location, is the most appropriate power to hold the keys to Egypt and Asia and to oversee the Orient and the Occident at the same time?”283 To achieve Italy’s status as a world power it was necessary, first, to establish a great fleet: “Combining the power and wealth of the various states would offer them a way to create and set up together a common navy to defend the sea ports and protect the freedom of the Mediterranean against foreign tyranny; none of them alone is adequate to this task.”284 In other words, Gioberti proposed the same as the Germans had done to obtain colonies as well as the security of their fatherland: “As for maritime forces, it is painful to see that the queen of the Mediterranean has none and that, if the land gates are manned by the Alps, by natural 276 Passamonti, L’idea coloniale, p. 6. 277 Curcio, Ideali mediterranei, p. 68. 278 Ibid. 279 Bollati, L’Italiano, p. 106. 280 Ibid., pp. 106–107. 281 Gioberti, Del primato morale, vol. 1, p. 387. 282 Ibid., p. 21. 283 Ibid., p. 23. 284 Ibid., p. 91.

278

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

embankments and barriers which can at least slow down those who attack us from that side, the gates to the sea are wide open to every barbarian invader. But if the disunity of the Italian states makes it impossible for them to be masters of the waters that surround them, they could overcome this impediment by bringing their forces together and setting up a national and Italian fleet that would again sail the sea that was once accustomed to carrying the confederate classes of the Pelasgians, the Tyrrhenians, the Romans, the Venetians and the Ligurians but where only foreign ships have been cutting the waves now for many centuries.”285 Gioberti looked forward to the time when “an Italian fleet will once again plough through the waves of the Mediterranean and the legitimate domination of the seas, usurped for many centuries, will return to the command of that powerful and generous race.”286 Moreover, the same fleet would help to achieve the second objective: the creation of Italy’s own colonial empire. In support of his desire for Italy’s future glory he used the fact that not only Britain, Russia, France, Spain but also Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Belgium possessed colonies overseas,287 and Italy could not be left behind if she wanted to survive. That in this pursuit of power there were no limits simply because these same countries had no limits in their colonial ambitions led Gioberti to propose that Italy seek colonies not only in the Mediterranean but also in other parts of the world, and he emphasised again the importance of a strong Italian navy since “it would provide the appropriate means to legitimately recover colonial shipments and purchases in various parts of the globe.”288 The Italian fleet was needed for Italy to reach the same power status as the other great powers.289 How far this deliberation was and remained power oriented is obvious from Gioberti’s desire stated on 3 October 1848 that “Italy will regain her ancient name and ancient power and will have an honoured seat and an authoritative voice among the leading nations of Europe.”290 As seen in the third chapter, Balbo’s geopolitical motivation for Italian unity was identical to Gioberti’s, and the same holds for the sphere of maritime and colonial expansion, which is also useful since it makes it unnecessary to introduce the similar quotations from his texts. Balbo also became convinced of the necessity to establish a strong navy and colonies due to his awareness of the changing world owing to the technological progress and the great powers’ self-serving policies, the latter being significantly more important.291 In his opinion the situation was all the more serious because during the 25 years since the Congress of Vienna Italy had done nothing

285 Ibid., p. 104. 286 Cunsolo, Italian nationalism, p. 174. 287 Gioberti, Del primato morale, vol. 1, pp. 91–92. 288 Ibid., p. 91. 289 Haddock, “Political Union without Social Revolution,” p. 719. 290 Curcio, Ideali mediterranei, p. 67. 291 Passamonti, L’idea coloniale, p. 11.

Ambitions for Maritime Strength and Overseas Expansion

279

to increase her power while other European countries had made great progress in this respect. To ensure her security she could not limit her power to the peninsula and nearby islands and hesitate to participate in the competition among European nations that would decide the Italians’ fate for centuries. And since there were natural expansions of Austria on the Danube, Russia towards Constantinople, France in Algeria and Britain in the Levant, Italy had to take advantage of her geographical location and expand in the Mediterranean southwards to Africa.292 The particular focus on the Mediterranean also resulted from his deep conviction that it was the most important region in Europe and who dominated it also achieved political primacy.293 Although the idea of this sea as “Mare nostrum” is said to originate in Italian society during the second half of the 19th century,294 it can be detected in Balbo’s deliberations when he labelled it as “our Mediterranean,”295 by which he meant Italy’s. For Balbo overseas expansion was a source of economic power, which was a prerequisite for survival. Therefore, Italy needed to have a colonial policy,296 which was also essential for her independence in the same way as the expulsion of the Austrians from Lombardy and Venetia.297 Balbo shared Gioberti’s idea that having once achieved her unity, Italy had to conquer overseas regions, namely Tunis, Tripolis or territories in the East.298 In the early 1840s Balbo had already proposed territorial compensation for Italy in not only the northern Apennines but also the Mediterranean for Austrian gains in the Balkans. Where he showed greater realism than in his expectation that Austria would be willing to bargain her Italian provinces was that despite his claim that Italy’s geographical position predestined her to achieve supremacy in the Mediterranean, he recognised that she could not restore her primacy from the Middle Ages owing to France’s and Britain’s superiority in power. However, she had to try to expand to become at least “a great Mediterranean and world power.”299 For him it was completely unimportant which of the league’s Italian states would profit from this overseas expansion since the most important was that it took place at all.300 Balbo’s vision of a united Italy pursuing a colonial policy can generally be seen as the reaction to not only her then but also future international insecurity, 292 Balbo, Delle speranze d’Italia, p. 453; Curcio, Ideali mediterranei, pp. 55–56, 60–61; Greenfield, Economics and Liberalism in the Risorgimento, p. 41. 293 Traniello, “Incunaboli d’imperialismo europeo,” pp. 266–69. 294 Olga Tamburini, “«La via romana sepolta dal mare»: Mito del Mare nostrum e ricerca di un’identità nazionale,” Stefano Trinchese (ed.), Mare nostrum: Percezione ottomana e mito mediterraneo in Italia all’alba del ‘900, Milano 2005, p. 46. 295 Joseph Rossi, “The Piedmontese Moderates and America,” Italica 43, 1966, 1, p. 7. 296 Passamonti, L’idea coloniale, p. 8. 297 Barbieri, Visconti, Il problema del Mediterraneo, pp. 102, 104. 298 Balbo, Delle speranze d’Italia, pp. 199–200. 299 Barbieri, Visconti, Il problema del Mediterraneo, p. 105. 300 Balbo, Delle speranze d’Italia, p. 200.

280

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

which resulted from an awareness of the great powers’ increasing activities in the Mediterranean Sea, including the proposal to dig the Suez Canal, and the dangerous potential of the Eastern Question, both making him afraid of a general war in Europe in the near future; his pessimism was further intensified by the expectation of a more intensive European expansion overseas, for example in Egypt and China.301 He went so far in his analysis of world affairs that in 1846 he was greatly concerned about the war between the United States of America and Mexico for Texas. Seeing the Americans’ hunger for conquest, he became convinced that the United States would continue to grow in territory and inhabitants; while they had 17 million citizens in 1840, owing to their geographical extension Balbo expected this number to increase to 272 million in 1940. From this analysis he believed that the United States would become a new world power gradually increasing its influence over American as well as European affairs, something enabled by the lack of serious rivals on both American continents. Europe had thus to expect a serious challenge from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean and prepare for her defence of the world balance of power302 because “it is easy to foresee what rivalry, what jealousy or competition will arise between these two great divisions of civilisation, between Europe and America.”303 Balbo recommended that Europe keep up with the United States’ increasing power by achieving her own overseas expansion in Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean304 since “we had better realise that from the West as well as from the East [Russia] will come an immense, growing, irresistible pressure which will make us grow too, or crush us.”305 With his concerns about the United States of America Balbo greatly resembled Friedrich List whose texts were known in Italy.306 Both men, however, represented just the tip of the popular attention paid to the rise in power of the North American republic. Other Italians as well as Germans and Europeans did not fail to realise that sooner or later, but most likely sooner, it would play an important role in world affairs.307 And like Balbo their foresight was influenced by the war for Texas making the United States in their eyes a new geopolitical threat, as the American agent in Turin, Robert Wickliffe, reported to James Buchanan in February 1846: “You are aware that a certain jealousy and dislike of the United States has always existed in certain circles of Europe. When I first came to Europe this jealousy and 301 Traniello, “Incunaboli d’imperialismo europeo,” pp. 270–73, 275. 302 Balbo, “Lettere politiche al signor D., 1846,” Balbo, Lettere di politica e letteratura, p. 346; Traniello, “Incunaboli d’imperialismo europeo,” pp. 276–77. 303 Traniello, “Incunaboli d’imperialismo europeo,” p. 278. 304 Balbo, “Lettere politiche al signor D., 1846,” Balbo, Lettere di politica e letteratura, p. 347. 305 Rossi, “The Piedmontese Moderates and America,” p. 7. 306 For an example of a text where Friedrich List was writing about the United States see “Dei vantaggi e delle condizioni di un’alleanza fra l’Inghilterra e la Germania, Ultimo scritto di List,” Antologia italiana: Giornale di scienze, lettere ed arti, no. 3, July 1847, pp. 21–47. 307 Rossi, “The Piedmontese Moderates and America,” p. 1.

Ambitions for Maritime Strength and Overseas Expansion

281

dislike was rather abstract in its character. Since the annexation of Texas it has become eminently practical and cannot otherwise be described than as a general alarm … It is amusing how much the affairs of the United States have attracted attention, interest and discussion in Europe, during the two past years. Everybody now watches with eagle eyes the progress of the Oregon question [between the United States and Great Britain].”308 In his opinion a considerable number of Europeans feared “the rapid progress and increasing greatness of the United States”309 and one European diplomat even told him that if the United States expanded its territory even more, then one had to fear American invasions in Europe.310 Sources prove that people in Italy also attentively observed the American expansion at the expense of Mexico and usually not with admiration.311 On 27 January 1847 the Felsineo dedicated space to the war between the two countries. An author signed with the initials M.M. remarked that while some time previously Italians had praised everything in the United States, the rapacious policy of this great young power aimed at territorial expansion had changed this positive evaluation. Paying some attention to the questions of morality and law, the same author asked how Britain would protect her own influence in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans against the Americans.312 On 10 February this author wrote again about the expansion of the United States in Texas and California as well as their trade with the Levant and posed the question about the consequences of this for Italy. The answer greatly resembled that given by Balbo in 1846: the Italians, the governments as well as people had to cooperate and not miss any opportunity to “expand their strength” because history taught that all nations that “remained idle and faint-hearted in the midst of a great political and commercial upheaval not only diminished themselves compared to others but also absolutely decayed.”313 In this way United States expansion contributed to the Italian feeling of insecurity and pursuit for power,314 and it is why Gioacchino Ventura advocated Sicily’s membership in an Italian league fearing that otherwise the island would become “a miserable appendage of either France, or England or the United States [of America],”315 as quoted already in the previous chapter.316 At the same time, 308 Wickliffe to Buchanan, Turin, 12 February 1846, Marraro, L’unificazione italiana, p. 246. 309 Ibid. 310 Ibid., p. 247. 311 La Mosca, no. 28, 11 March 1847, p. 218; La Bilancia, no. 8, 1 June 1847, p. 34. 312 Il Felsineo, no. 4, 27 January 1847, p. 18. 313 Il Felsineo, no. 6, 10 February 1847, p. 26. 314 On American conquest of Texas and California see also Il Felsineo, no. 20, 20 May 1847, p. 96. 315 Ventura, La Questione Sicula nel 1848, p. 49. 316 Although the U.S. government did not intend to interfere with Sicilian affairs in 1848, it is not without interest that some Americans were interested in the Sicilian Question particularly for the valuable sulphur trade and feared British occupation of the island. Howard R. Marraro, American Opinion on the Unification of Italy 1846–1861, New York 1932, pp. 32–34.

282

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

however, the transformation of the United States into a great power served some Italians as the justification of their own struggle for the same power as the best guarantee of security as is obvious from Cavour’s evaluation of the strength of the United States in connection with Britain’s egocentric foreign policy in the spring of 1848: “Thank heaven she can no longer exercise with impunity her naval tyranny, she is no longer able to impose on all weaker neutral powers, iniquitous rules, contrary to international law and to every notion of equity … A new naval power has grown so strong as to inspire sufficient respect and fear to restrain her from abusing of her strength.”317 And he continued: “It is a fact that England, so haughty in her dealings with European countries, has been most accommodating with the American republic. In the difficult negotiations relative to the settlement of the Northern boundaries, the annexation of Texas, the partition of the Oregon territory, and the Mexican war, the London cabinet has shown a conciliatory spirit that bordered at times on weakness. Such a policy, so different from the line usually taken by the English government, shows how eager they are to keep intact the peaceful relations existing between the two great branches of the vigorous Anglo-Saxon race.”318 The emergence of Italian colonialism in the late 19th century is often explained by the public interest in “exotic” regions influenced by explorers and geographical societies, but something similar had already existed in Italy before 1848 although surely on a lesser scale. The Torinese Mondo illustrato often published articles on distant lands accompanied with graphics, which could easily stimulate readers’ enthusiasm. At the same time there were also men who deliberately tried to do this: in August 1847 a French consul in Genoa reported the efforts of Count Avogadro di Collobiano and Marquis Francesco Pallavicini to spread interest in Oceania for religious and economic reasons in Piedmont.319 The idea of colonialism, however, was becoming popular in Italian society primarily for the same reason that Balbo, Gioberti and Durando had become its proponents: the feeling of insecurity in a world dominated by great powers pursuing egoistic policies not only on the Old Continent but anywhere in the world. This concern was so great that it even included the United States of America as seen above. Italy’s colonial policy was to serve the same purpose as had been argued in Germany: gaining new resources giving greater strength to the homeland. However, the colonial debate was not as pronounced as it was in Germany because first, in Germany it had already begun after the Rhine Crisis and, second, the Italians’ struggle for a colonial empire was regarded as the final stage in the pursuit for security in which Italy’s political unity had to come first; in other words it was deemed crucial to stabilise their own power at home before expanding it abroad. 317 Rossi, “The Piedmontese Moderates and America,” p. 16. 318 Ibid., p. 17. 319 Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 28 August 1847, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 4.

Ambitions for Maritime Strength and Overseas Expansion

283

This was also the opinion of Balbo, who repeated in 1850 that before achieving this unity Italy had to avoid colonial adventures in Africa and Asia but afterwards she had to participate eagerly in colonial conquests.320 This progression was also necessary owing to the need to first create a common navy that had to result from this unity to then help the overseas expansion as was fittingly summarised in the Museo scientifico published in Turin in 1847: “There is a popular English proverb, and proverbs, as everyone knows, encompass all the wisdom of a nation; it says: ‘Nations who have industry will have trade, with trade a merchant navy, and with this navy a war navy and colonies.’”321 Consequently, the widespread debate about an Italian fleet around 1848 must be seen as important component of the Italians’ inclination to future colonial expansion, as a bridge between the quest for material power in Italian unity, the seizure of the neighbouring islands and the predominantly non-Italian lands in the eastern Adriatic on one hand and the most extreme expression of this tendency in conquering territories in other continents on the other. Criticism of the European powers’ imperialism around 1840 further increased together with aversion to their arrogance in European affairs which Italians regarded as two sides of the same coin with possible negative consequences for them alone. A Belgian representative in Naples reported on 20 March 1847 that all around him he heard debates about Britain and Malta in relation to Sicily and the fact that Britain was dominating half of the world as well as discussions about a French conquest of Algeria and the future of Egypt.322 Great Britain was said to be the most observed and hated great power for her “despotism on the seas”323 and particularly her control of the Mediterranean;324 Italians linked proceedings of the British government in Ireland with her strategic possessions in Europe like Helgoland, Malta, Gibraltar, the Ionian Islands, as well as others in the world which ensured Britain’s maritime supremacy.325 Because of this she was “feared in both hemispheres,”326 and also because she was regarded as insatiable in her territorial aspirations, as the Operaio claimed on 24 May 1848: “England circles around us with her fleets, looking for every means to make another conquest.”327 In February the Bolognese Eco had attacked her global policy more sharply and in a very similar way as some Italians had done at the beginning of the decade: “The merchant of nations only holds on to her throne by means of spinning machines, 320 Passamonti, L’idea coloniale, p. 5. 321 Museo scientifico, letterario ed artistico ovvero Scelta raccolta di utili e svariate nozioni in fatto di scienze, lettere ed arti belle, no. 20, 1847, p. 480. 322 Chimay to Dechamps, Naples, 20 March 1847, ADA, CP, Italie, Deux-Siciles 1. 323 Gabussi, Quali eventualità, p. 13. 324 Andrea Luigi Mazzini, De l’Italie, vol. 2, p. 369. 325 Il Crociato, no. 18, 1 June 1848, p. 70. 326 Il Felsineo, no. 1, 7 January 1847, p. 4. 327 L’Operaio, no. 9, 24 May 1848, p. 76.

284

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

mines and manufacturing opportunities of all sorts. Her right, her glory is determined in cash, extracted from the purses of other nations. She is therefore poisoning millions and millions of people in China because money flows from their corpses. She is freeing the wretched of India from slavery because by selling their chains she can make money. England will sometimes be forced to shout peace today where yesterday she was shouting for war, to call tomorrow legal what today she calls a crime. England has the cunning of a serpent, not the simplicity of a dove.”328 Britain’s kind of commercial dominance was for Italy “commercial death.”329 Therefore, Italy had two enemies – Austria and Britain, the latter “under the guise of friend,” and she had to arm against both of them.330 The antipathy towards Britain grew logically during 1848 as the Italians saw her opposed to their unity, which she was accused of not wanting due to the possible clash of interests between herself and Venice and Genoa in Africa and Arabia.331 Britain was seen as a serious threat to Italy’s security, particularly due to her strong position in the Mediterranean in general and her possession of Malta in particular, and the Italians accused her of being a “despot in our waters of the Mediterranean.”332 What made them even more fearful was their negative view of Britain’s proceeding in this area against other European nations like Greece and Spain. Her excessive interference in these kingdoms could not escape the Italians’ attention and led them to the belief that both countries were too dependent on foreign influence, something which they alone were trying to shake off. All this did not just deepen the fear of what Britain and other great powers could do to Italy but also made them sympathetic to the situation of the Greeks and Spaniards and the idea of mutual cooperation to strengthen the independence of all “oppressed” nations in the Mediterranean. This idea was not stated very often, but it must be mentioned here since it served the same purpose as the intended alliances with the Swiss, Magyars and some Slavic nations, namely the expansion of Italy’s security perimeter: “Free and independent Greece with her bold and active navy and with an adventurous and proud people could one day be of great help to Italy in a war for nationhood. We are certain that the hand that brought together and strengthened Switzerland as if to give us support on the mainland will arouse Greece to offer a helping hand to her sister on the sea.”333 And when Spain managed to be truly independent from France and Britain, she could also become Italy’s “faithful ally.”334

328 L’Eco, no. 47, 12 February 1848, p. 219. 329 Ibid., p. 220. 330 Ibid. 331 L’Operaio, no. 21, 8 June 1848, p. 159. 332 Ibid., p. 157. 333 La Speranza, no. 8, 17 January 1848, s.p. 334 La Speranza, no. 20, 7 February 1848, s.p.

Ambitions for Maritime Strength and Overseas Expansion

285

In view of the negative attitude towards British imperialist ambitions it is easier to understand why the idea of the Suez Canal influenced Italians’ apprehensions and why it further fuelled them. The channelling of a water way through the Isthmus of Suez caught their attention in 1847 by the latest and they immediately acknowledged its significance for their own trade.335 At that moment, however, they also began to see as direct security threats everything that could damage their free passage through this important waterway. It explains why the Bullettino quotidiano della riforma reprinted on 18 December 1847 a short message originally published in the French Commerce: “The admiralty has ordered the shipment of artillery and large-caliber howitzers, which are intended for the fortifications that the British are currently building in Aden and Mocha. This very serious act makes it clear that the British want to permanently establish themselves in Arabia. Aden located at the far end of the Red Sea, of which the entrance is dominated from the side of the Indian Ocean, is one of the keys that open the passage of communication between Asia and Europe. The fortified and occupied city of Aden is the Isthmus of Suez, which means that one of the great commercial routes is placed at the discretion of a single power. The occupation of Mocha situated close to Aden on the Red Sea shows England’s obvious plan to become the sole master of one end of the Red Sea, of a dominant point in the passage of communication between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, between Europe and Asia.”336 It concerned to what detrimental effect the British possession of Aden, criticised by some Italians as early as 1840, could lead, and the short and consonant comment of the Bullettino quotidiano della riforma was more than eloquent: “Here is where the European trade with Asia will have to pass under the cannon of England!”337 Later in February 1848 Giovanni Bruno stated Italy’s interests in the Suez Canal in a more outspoken way in the Apostolato. For the member states of the Italian customs league it was necessary to cooperate in a union as well as with France and Germany to increase the potential of their voice in the question of Suez from which Britain was said to make her own way to India. Italy could not allow herself to be excluded from this important issue that had the potential to revive her “ancient splendor and ancient political and commercial existence.”338 Bruno even claimed that if other nations left her out, they would be violating international rights although he did not make clear how such a proceeding could be illegal.339 The whole debate about the Suez Canal was all the more important because together with the United States it obviously became a global factor futher stimulating not only the feeling of geopolitical insecurity but also colonial ambitions in 335 La Bilancia, no. 2, 11 May 1847, p. 8. 336 Bullettino quotidiano della riforma, no. 34/35, 18 December 1847, s.p. 337 Ibid. 338 L’Apostolato, no. 14, 26 February 1848, p. 53. 339 Ibid.

286

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

Italy: while the prospect of the United States’ superiority in the world led to the demand for colonies, then the question of their own navigation through the future Suez Canal made some Italians well-disposed to the idea of increasing their influence in the eastern Mediterranean through the Italian-speaking “colonies”, in fact communities, living there.340 Italians felt surrounded by security threats not only in Europe but also in the Mediterranean and the rest of the world, which makes it easy to understand why on the eve of their Quarantotto they enthusiastically discussed their own maritime navigation in the Mediterranean and across the oceans, world trade requiring strong merchant and war fleets and why their desire for unity closely corresponded with the pursuit for naval and colonial power. These aspirations – unity, navy and colonies – must be seen as three successive and interconnected phases. The creation of an Italian league became the first step in ensuring not only continental but also maritime security. It would bring together all the important seaports, and by adding the adjacent islands it would gain greater geostrategic advantage in the competition for influence in the Mediterranean. The value of Sicilian membership in the league primarily resulted from her significance for Italy’s maritime security due to her strategic position in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea,341 in particular against the British threat, having potential to “contribute to their common power by becoming the sole queen of the Mediterranean and making it an Italian lake by virtue of her natural position and in memory of our maritime glories, worthy and capable of reviving.”342 For the same reasons Malta, sometimes even called an “Italian rock”,343 and Corsica were to be claimed as Italian domains.344 Together with Sardinia they were expected to “make the Italians masters of the Mediterranean.”345 That the Italians seriously intended to appropriate some of these islands was confirmed in the summer of 1848 by “an English sea captain stationed at Leghorn [who] noticed with amusement that patriotic map-makers, with premature zeal, had given Corsica and Malta to the new, mighty Italy.”346 According to a Belgian representative in Turin some of them were ready to go even further: as he reported in May, a rumour spread in Piedmont that Britain sought to prevent the creation of a strong northern Italian kingdom for fear that this state with other members of an Italian league could in cooperation with France destroy British dominance in the Mediterranean, which influenced some Italians to such an extent

340 Messaggiere torinese, no. 12, 9 February 1848, p. 46; Fatti e parole, no. 99, 21 September 1848, p. 395. 341 La Lega Italiana, no. 14, 11 February 1848, p. 73. 342 La Costituzione, no. 13, 24 March 1848, p. 49. 343 La Patria, no. 112, 28 December 1847, p. 446. 344 Il Povero, no. 3, 21 February 1846, p. 10. 345 Il Povero, no. 23, 8 July 1848, p. 89. See also L’Operaio, no. 37, 30 June 1848, p. 125. 346 Hancock, Ricasoli, p. 115.

Ambitions for Maritime Strength and Overseas Expansion

287

that they wanted to claim not only Malta but also the Ionian Islands held by the British.347 Here it is possible to understand this ambition rather as the desire to rid themselves of the encirclement that resulted not only from the cruising of British and French warships around the Italian coast but also the great powers’ possession of the islands in its proximity, which in 1848 provoked similar uneasiness as the French presence in Corsica, the Peloponesse and Algeria had among Italian governments eighteen years earlier. To unite Italy was the starting point for making her the powerful pivot in the Mediterranean, becoming strong enough to fulfil her allegedly noble mission predestined by her geographical position situated between the Occident and Orient and between the northern and southern shores of the same sea; its principal aim was not to allow other great powers to take exclusive control of this sea and to make Italians “one of the leading nations in the world.”348 Once their unity was achieved, it was possible to undertake the second step to fulfil their maritime and colonial ambitions: the creation of a great commercial and war fleet sailing under one Italian flag.349 With a federal merchant navy Italians “will sail majestically on the high seas and recall the times when the Italian republics were masters of world trade.”350 To protect their own maritime trade, intended even in most distant regions like India, China, Oceania and the Pacific Ocean,351 the same Italians demanded a powerful war fleet because “the flag of a nation flying on its masts in the middle of the ocean is exposed to a thousand dangers if that state is not prepared to make it respected by nations, governments and pirates.”352 The governments representing a possible threat were primarily seated in Vienna, Paris and London.353 Therefore, some Italians wanted a fleet capable not only of surmounting the Austrian navy but also of “becoming even of equal power to that of the French in the Mediterranean.”354 Some even demanded that a “robust naval effort” be made so that Italy was capable of “counterbalancing England’s unjust and treacherous designs.”355 These deliberations about their own and foreign maritime strengths naturally involved the same interest in statistics in 1847–1848 as in 1840 in relation to land forces. It led the Concordia on 5 February 1848 to estimate the need for 30 347 Vilain to Hoffschmidt, Turin, 2 May 1848, ADA, CP, Italie, Deux-Siciles 2. 348 Il Risorgimento, no. 83, 3 April 1848, p. 329. Reprinted in Il Riscatto italiano, no. 28, 12 April 1848, p. 110. See also Alletz to Guizot, Genoa, 7 December 1847, AMAE, CPC, Sardaigne 4; Il pensiero italiano, no. 94, 19 May 1848, p. 345. 349 Il Tempo, no. 1, 21 April 1848, p. 2. 350 Il 22 Marzo, no. 3, 28 March 1848, p. 9. 351 Fatti e parole, no. 9, 22 June 1848, p. 36. 352 La Rigenerazione, no. 7, 22 February 1848, p. 212. 353 Montanelli, L’Austria e l’Italia in Faccia dell’Europa, pp. 12–13; Il Risorgimento, no. 78, 28 March 1848, p. 309. 354 Passamonti, Il giornalismo Giobertiano, p. 43. 355 L’Operaio, no. 21, 8 June 1848, p. 160.

288

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

warships with 1348 cannons as the required armed force just for the beginning,356 and, as the Avvenire d’Italia added in July, the naval armament had to include the construction of war steamships, which had already proven their extraordinary capability: the capture of Acre in November 1840 during the Near Eastern and Rhine Crises being the most fitting example.357 The Italian navy was to be primarily composed of fleets from the most important Italian seaports like Genoa and Venice that were to establish “an imposing material force.”358 Through these two seaports Italy was also to dominate the Adriatic and western Mediterranean and contribute to the security and greatness of the Italian nation,359 which served as the argument on behalf of Piedmont’s military leadership not only on land but also at sea. To be able to withstand even the greatest enemies the other Italian states had to add their navies, which was another reason why Naples and Sicily were so eagerly invited to join the league in early 1848.360 The idea of a national fleet was thus used as an important argument against traditional Italian particularism, also since it was claimed that it was necessary to be economically and politically strong when the time of small states was over and other “large and powerful nations are wanted at sea and on land to stand up to the competition of the great nations dominating trade. United we too will be great, but if we returned to petty, small and local ideas, which we believe to be impossible, we would become mere droplets in the ocean without existence, null and void in every way, and disunited we would have only dissolution and the death of all existence, of every lofty idea, of every hope for the future.”361 Some Italian intellectuals were highly active in the debates about maritime power. Among the most prominent was Raffaello Busacca, a Sicilian emigrant living in Florence, who advocated its creation in the Patria during December and January. He ensured his readers that he desired neither war nor antagonism among European nations in the Mediterranean, and he did not even claim that Italy should acquire colonies for the time being, but since he expected an outburst of political and economic rivalry in this part of the world at any time, he insisted that the Italian states had to unite in a league to become militarily strong on land as well as at sea and not fall victim to the great powers’ political and economic aspirations as had recently happened to Poland, Portugal, Spain, Egypt, the Ottoman Empire and China.362 In this contest the Italians had to be active, take advantage of the growth

356 La Concordia, no. 31, 5 February 1848, p. 119. 357 L’Avvenire d’Italia, no. 12, 4 July 1848, pp. 45–46. 358 La Concordia, no. 75, 26 March 1848, p. 1. 359 La Concordia, no. 100, 25 April 1848, p. 1; Il pensiero italiano, no. 112, 6 June 1848, p. 527. 360 La Lega Italiana, no. 14, 11 February 1848, p. 73. 361 Il pensiero italiano, no. 112, 6 June 1848, p. 527. 362 La Patria, no. 119, 4 January 1848, pp. 471–72, no. 121/122, 6/7 January 1848, p. 479; Romano Paolo Coppini, Il Granducato di Toscana: Dagli «anni francesi» all’Unità, Torino 1993, p. 374.

Ambitions for Maritime Strength and Overseas Expansion

289

of the economic potential of some north African regions like Egypt and Algeria as well as the construction of European railways and the Suez Canal to turn Italy into the centre of the Mediterranean trade and thus obtain the necessary strength: “There is a question of material political force, there is a question of defending the assets we want to procure. In the future, Italy must either be a first-rate maritime power, or she will never become a power.”363 Therefore, a strong fleet was necessary: “For us Italians, fleets are a matter of life, of freedom, of nationhood: but these fleets will not come about if maritime trade does not begin.”364 All this was necessary for Italy’s security: “In fact, maritime trade first requires respect and security; but what are respect and security if left without defence? Now we willingly leave it to the military to decide whether the defence of the coasts by fortifications alone can be ensured; it is certain, however, that the great interests of trading nations (and Italy will be one) are decided on the seas; it is certain that a nation cannot develop its maritime trade if its flag is not respected, nor will it be respected if there is no considerable fleet to defend it.”365 The Italians’ search for maritime security was characterised with the same logic and the same goals as on the Continent: united to be strong, strong to be respected, respected to be secure. Unsurprisingly, the same rhetoric can be revealed in maritime plans, including the ambition that the Italian “flag flew from mast to mast, revered and feared.”366 Giulio Pisani wanted to see Italy “with mighty armies, with formidable fleets, to see her again carrying her flag feared and revered on the high seas.”367 And yet even here it is possible to detect something akin to an inferiority complex when some Italians claimed that at sea Italy had to become a first-rate power so that she could be respected and be therefore valuable enough for Britain, whose naval might she simultaneously feared and admired,368 to win her friendship.369 Here Friedrich List must be mentioned again because what Italians were debating at this time was the same strategy he had proposed earlier to attain a German-British alliance. It was just a short step from discussions about maritime aspirations to territorial ones, as has already been shown by the example of Italian designs in the Adriatic. Busacca, who actually never excluded the possibility of Italian colonies in the future, provoked a reaction with his visions of an Italian navy in the Mondo illustrato where on 15 January 1848 Zecchini expressed his desire to go further and extend not only

363 La Patria, no. 97, 13 December 1847, p. 391. 364 Ibid. 365 La Patria, no. 119, 4 January 1848, p. 471. 366 Il Riscatto italiano, no. 28, 12 April 1848, p. 110. 367 Giulio Pisani, Sulla guerra dell’indipendenza e del come provvedere alla patria pericolante, Firenze 1848, p. 39. 368 Fatti e parole, no. 41, 24 July 1848, pp. 158–60. 369 La Concordia, no. 77, 29 March 1848, p. 1, no. 100, 25 April 1848, p. 1.

290

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

Italy’s maritime power but also her sea coast; where, he did not say.370 On 22 July in the same newspaper Diego Soria was compelled by the great powers’ aversion to Italian unity to connect Italian dominance in the Adriatic with her supremacy in the Mediterranean; as he wrote, the Italians had to create one nation and “make the Adriatic an Italian harbour for Sicily, in the center of the Mediterranean, to master this sea and the African beaches [and] for all her other regions to maintain considerable fleets and to dominate the trade from the Levant and the western Oceans.”371 Since Italy’s security was primarily related to her position in the Mediterranean Sea, Italians like Soria above directed their territorial aspirations to its African shore. In 1847 Gabrielle Rossi, who supported Italian colonialism in North Africa from Egypt to Morocco,372 and Carlo Roncaglia, who analysed the issue in a more elaborated way in his response to the French presence in Algeria with proposals for Italian emigration, had both already done so. Roncaglia claimed that Italians could settle in the French territory or, even better, anywhere else in north Africa situated in the proximity of Italy thereby offering great opportunities to her people.373 With this aspiration he wished to avoid the loss of Italians, which would happen if they emigrated to foreign countries, an argument used by supporters of Italian colonialism in the late nineteenth century and by Germans already in the 1840s.374 Furthermore, as some Germans did, Roncaglia connected this matter to the wealth of the homeland, which meant its material strength, in the competition with other countries, which served him as another argument why the Italian states had to imitate the example of the great powers and establish their own colonies.375 The ideal situation would occur when Italian governments cooperated in this task or even established for this purpose “a national league [that] would perhaps open the way to many and different interests that today cannot be calculated in total but which can surely be presupposed.”376 In any case, as he openly stated, Italian colonisation was not just an economic but also political necessity,377 a matter of “national interests,”378 which also meant Italy’s “common security.”379 370 Il Mondo illustrato, no. 2, 15 January 1848, p. 26. 371 Il Mondo illustrato, no. 29, 22 July 1848, p. 458. 372 Gabrielle Rossi, Sulla condizione economica e sociale dello Stato Pontificio confrontata specialmente con quella della Francia e della Inghilterra: considerazioni, Bologna 1848, p. 488. Rossi published his book in 1848 but had already finished its writing at the end of 1847. 373 Carlo Roncaglia, Sullo stabilimento delle colonie europee nell’Algeria e sulla preferenza da accordarsi alle colonie agricole, Modena 1847, pp. 43, 66–68. 374 Ibid., p. 66. 375 Roncaglia even referred to the fact that the Duchy of Modena had undertaken the first steps and sent 42 individuals as colonisers to Africa in 1845 and 82 for the same purpose in 1846. Ibid., p. 69. 376 Ibid., p. 70. 377 Ibid., pp. 71–72. 378 Ibid., p. 71. 379 Ibid., p. 72.

Ambitions for Maritime Strength and Overseas Expansion

291

The security perspective also helps to understand why the 1848 revolutions and war brought the Italians’ attention to the need for national unity, an armed clash with Austria, and other continental issues while maritime and colonial aspirations were of secondary importance and therefore left as a matter for the future. For the same reason they were careful not to express them more openly since they did not want to upset the maritime powers until their struggle for greater security in Europe was accomplished. This concern was primarily connected with Britain. The Turinese Gazzetta del Popolo in evaluating the British, French and Russian material strength on 15 July 1848 came to the conclusion that Britain was supremely powerful but she was not regarded as so terrifying for “those nations which do not yet aspire to dominate the sea. And we are in this category for now.”380 The italics in the original made obvious the importance the author attributed to Italy’s dominance on the seas and the fact that it was not sought at the time, and regarding the spirit in which the whole article was written, it can be taken for granted that this ambition existed for the future. The same attitude can be derived from Cavour’s article published in the Risorgimento on 28 March 1848 in which he tried to dispel British mistrust of the aims of a united Italy in the Mediterranean, namely that she wanted to become a dominant power there. Then he directly touched on the topic of Italian colonialism: “For a long time at least Italians will not think about distant conquests or founding colonies, so they can in no way harm the policies or interests of the English.”381 The importance of this brief remark lies, first, in the fact that, as can be learned from his article, Cavour felt compelled to comment on this issue that was obviously being debated at that time and could weaken British-Italian relations, and, second, that he did not exclude the possibility of a colonial policy in the more distant future. The same held for other Italians who almost never unambiguously rejected the possibility of their own colonialism.382 The actual needs and apprehensions of Italians caused the situation where pro-colonial sympathies were expressed in a limited and sometimes even vague way. Even the word “colony” was usually omitted, and if it was perchance used, then in connection with exploiting the sympathies of Italian-speaking communities living in the Archipelago, Asia Minor and Africa for commercial activities, an idea already introduced in connection with Italy’s engagement in the project of the Suez Canal as seen above.383 Nevertheless, important hints that the colonial ambi 380 Gazzetta del Popolo: L’Italiano, no. 26, 15 July 1848, s.p. 381 Il Risorgimento, no. 78, 28 March 1848, p. 309. 382 The same strategic regard for the attitudes of Britain and France, and to a lesser extent for neighbouring nations, was also obvious in the debate about the conquest of the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. When the Mondo illustrato argued on behalf of the extension of Italian territory from the Apennines towards the Adriatic as quoted above, it immediately added: “But this is a delicate topic that we do not want to touch upon for the time being.” Il Mondo illustrato, no. 16, 22 April 1848, p. 251. 383 Fatti e parole, no. 99, 21 September 1848, p. 395.

292

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

tion continued to exist and resonated in society in 1848 still can be revealed; for example, territorial aspirations were indicated in references to Italy’s natural geographical position useful for expanding her territory from the Alps to the African shore384 or mention was made of the bygone glory of the Genovese and Venetian Republics in the Mediterranean.385 When referring to the past, some even recalled Ancient Rome; Giuseppe Giusti, who hungered for Italian greatness ensured by the expulsion of the Austrians beyond the Alps and the formation of a single army and navy,386 mentioned in early April 1848 the moods of “the young wags of Italy ... [who], as soon as the Austrians have been sent back will reclaim Corsica from France, Malta from England and so on until a great flight of Latin eagles for the old world and for the new world, and woe to our country if there remained a mile for our grandchildren [to reclaim].”387 Besides Diego Soria’s statement quoted above, the desire to claim lands outside Europe was most explicitly stated in an anonymous pamphlet published in Milan in 1848 under the title Una ferita insanabile a Ferdinando d’Austria ossia le forze dei popoli d’Italia (An Incurable Wound to Ferdinand of Austria, namely the Forces of the People of Italy) and introduced in the title page with a quotation from Macchiavelli’s Proemio dell’Arte della guerra “Good orders, without military assistance... get messy,”388 which well documents the desire for material strength. The author obviously did not care about the form of regime if it would make Italy independent and powerful: “The independence of our homeland rests solely in the union of all Italy, either in a single kingdom, or in a single republic, or in a federation of various and different states, strong, compact, indissoluble. All municipalism must disappear before the great cause of national independence, of Italian freedom.”389 After comparing the great powers’ armed forces, the pamphlet focused on the steps that Italy had to undertake, including her own armament and the annexation of Malta and Corsica for their strategic location390 for them to “become members of a strong, imposing nation, master of the seas, superior to all others in Europe because it is necessary for all of them. Think of multiplying these forces and providing them with good disciplinary laws, of strengthening the internal power of Italy in the national guard, of fortifying the circle of the Alps with a well-governed observation army and of defending the coasts and the many very important islands with a number of well-organised fleets. They will be fatal blows 384 Alla memoria dei militi toscani morti sotto Mantova il 29. Maggio 1848: Parole dette in Chiesa di lari dal proposto Luigi Pacchiani di Santa Croce nei solenni funerali del 6. Giugno, Santa Croce 1848, pp. 8–9. 385 Il Felsineo, no. 44, 4 November 1847, p. 207. 386 Giusti to Giuseppe Arcangeli, March [?] 1848, Frassi, Epistolario di Giuseppe Giusti, pp. 324–25. 387 Giusti to Francesco Farinola, Pescia, 5 April 1848, Frassi, Epistolario di Giuseppe Giusti, p. 327. 388 Una ferita insanabile a Ferdinando d’Austria ossia le forze dei popoli d’Italia, Milano 1848. 389 Ibid., p. 4. 390 Ibid., pp. 5–6, 10.

The Aftermath

293

to all Italy’s enemies. They will make the remotest seas accessible to us, where, if Italian genius was able to find lands and wealth for foreign powers, it will be possible for us to find and acquire them too. These, with the easy acquistion of Gibraltar, with the immediate relationship with India and with all the lands with the most favoured nature will lead us to that apogee of political importance from which neither envy, greed nor the arrogance of any power, of any nation conspiring against us will then be able to knock us down.”391 THE AFTERMATH When Italy was neither united nor unified in 1848, the idea of colonialism remained marginal in geopolitical security debates, which, however, does not automatically mean that it did not continue to exist. Compared to the present research on German colonial aspirations in the second half of the 19th century historiography has offered no analysis on their possible continuity in the Italian milieu during the 1850s and 1860s, but there are still some indications of the lasting support of Italian liberals and democrats for Italy’s colonial expansion. In 1860 Massimo d’Azeglio claimed that after her unification Italy had to initiate European civilisation overseas and open new markets in Asia, which can easily be translated as a demand for a colonial policy and clearly as a desire for imperialism.392 At the same time Pasquale Stanislao Mancini, a man who earlier advocated a new law of nations on behalf of their mutual peace, became a strong supporter of Italy’s colonial expansion in the Mediterranean and even beyond,393 particularly from 1881 to 1885 when he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs.394 The same can be said about Giuseppe Mazzini, who advocated Italian colonialism in the same region395 and called for the conquest of Tunisia, which he regarded as the key to Italian domination in its central part.396 The continuing desire for Italian colonialism can also be shown indirectly from, first, the identical process in German society from the 1840s introduced in the first chapter and, second, the motivation that had actually not changed since the same decade: the ever-present feeling of insecurity caused by other great powers’ presence and competition in the world in general and in the Mediterranean in particular. Although politically united only in 1861, Italians had the same

391 Ibid., p. 12. 392 Massimo d’Azeglio, La politique et le droit chrétien au point de vue de la question italienne, Paris 1860, p. 103. 393 Isabella, “Liberalism and Empires in the Mediterranean,” p. 248. 394 Greppi, “The Risorgimento,” p. 85. 395 Passamonti, L’idea coloniale, pp. 14–15. 396 Isabella, “Liberalism and Empires in the Mediterranean,” p. 248.

294

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

mistrust of European and world affairs; they continued to see the same external threats and with similar anxiety. They justified their desire for colonial expansion with the impossibility of being passive when other states expanded, even with the destruction of those which would not participate in this race for power and with it also for sufficient security in a merciless world.397 And even if the active supporters of Italian imperialism were few in number, more significant was the general consent of “politicians, journalists, bankers, industrialists, agrarians, young and old, [who] were all agreed that Italy was and must be a great power”398 because of, as Antonio Di San Giuliano claimed in 1898, “the great struggle of nations for wealth and for power, which today more than ever ought literally to be called the struggle for life.”399 Consequently, the Italian Kingdom inherited the older Mediterranean and even Near Eastern ambitions resulting in the first place from the continuation of the same international insecurity that had been felt before the mid 19th century. When Mazzini wanted to conquer Tunisia in the late 1860s, his principal motivation was fear of Napoleonic III’s France. His attitude well explains the fearful reaction of the Italian public to the conquest of Tunisia by the French Republic in 1881 since this issue was regarded as a matter of Italy’s security in the same way as for example the conclusion of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary in the following year.400 Further indirect but still important evidence for Italy’s desire for colonial conquest is the unceasing hunger for naval armament regarded as essential for not only protecting their own coast and navigation but also their commercial and naval interests or even for dominance in the Mediterranean Sea.401 And if these were not always explicitly connected with colonial conquest, it was just a small step to it as seen in the 1840s. All in all, later geopolitical deliberations were obviously linked with the earlier Risorgimento discourse, an opinion already expressed by Federico Chabod when he stated that with “certain Risorgimento aspirations and vague Giobertian or Mazzinian yearnings, the Mediterranean question had been inherited and assumed, in fact, in the imagination of a united Italy and her foreign policy.”402 The extent to which fear of the policies of other great powers in the Mediterranean as well as her own weakness on the seas remained unchanged after Italy’s unification can be shown with several examples from the early 1870s. In 1871 Pacifico Valussi published L’Adriatico in relazione agli interessi nazionali dell’Italia (The Adriatic in Relation to Italy’s National Interests) in which his 397 Bosworth, Italy, pp. 56–57, 60–61. 398 Ibid., p. 67. 399 Ibid., p. 87. 400 Sergio Romano, Storia d’Italia dal Risorgimento ai nostri giorni, Milano 1978, pp. 82–83. 401 Curcio, Ideali mediterranei, p. 38. 402 Chabod, Storia politica del Mediterraneo, p. 12.

The Aftermath

295

strong aversion to Austro-Hungarian control of the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, the principal theme of his pamphlet, was motivated primarily by the negative experience with Italy’s defeat in the naval Battle of Lissa in 1866. At the same time, however, it is more than certain that this man born in 1813 had already been influenced by the atmosphere of the late 1840s, and when reading his pamphlet, one can hardly avoid the impression that most of it could also have been written in 1848.403 He was afraid of the Austria-Hungarian superiority in power in the Adriatic and the empire’s capability of attacking Italy from Trieste, Pola, Cattaro and Lissa.404 At the same time he feared France’s ambitious policy and claimed that she could easily attack Italy from Corsica and Algeria, and he also feared British domination reaching from Gibraltar over Malta to the Red Sea.405 Valussi saw another serious danger in the Slavs, especially with Russia lurking in the Black Sea and capable of extending her influence to the Adriatic through pan-Slavism.406 Germany represented the last but not necessarily the least threat as she was powerful enough to seize Austrian sea ports with disastrous consequences for Italy.407 Valussi concluded that all the European powers were trying to increase their influence in the Mediterranean and therefore the Adriatic was extremely important for the Italian Kingdom: “Yes, it is a real struggle for existence, like the one that occurs between different plants in nature.”408 Italy’s unification was for him a hardly sufficient security guarantee in this international rivalry, and by taking up the earlier power discourse of “strength, external force” and “power”, he recommended that Italy should increase hers in the Adriatic Sea in order to be able to oppose foreign – not only Austro-Hungarian – maritime invasions.409 In the following year in his Del primato italiano sul Mediterraneo (On Italian Primacy in the Mediterranean), the title being an obvious reference to the Giobertian legacy, Luigi Campo Fregoso warned against the naval powers of Britain, France and Austria-Hungary in the Mediterranean against which Italy with her long coastline could not feel secure. Fregoso referred to French ambitions in this sea, British ones from Gibraltar to Malta and Aden with a desire to gain control of Suez, Austro-Hungarian ones in the Adriatic that could easily be extended to the Mediterranean, and finally to Russian aspirations directed in the Black Sea against Constantinople.410 The Mediterranean region could thus soon

403 Frascani, Il Mare, p. 32. 404 Pacifico Valussi, L’Adriatico in relazione agli interessi nazionali dell’Italia, Udine 1871, pp. 11–17, 26. 405 Ibid., pp. 35–36, 63. 406 Ibid., pp. 28, 45, 64. 407 Ibid., pp. 33, 65. 408 Ibid., p. 70. 409 Ibid., p. 73. 410 Luigi Campo Fregoso, Del primato italiano sul Mediterraneo, Torino 1872, p. 8.

296

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

replace the Danube, Rhine and Po as the principal battlefield in the European struggle for dominance, and Italy had to create a big war fleet to be prepared for her defence.411 That the growth of insecurity in Italian society was similar and interconnected with the same tendency in Germany and other European countries can be briefly proved by the most striking example of “panic” literature. Inspired by the British novel The Battle of Dorking of 1871, in the following year an anonymous pamphlet Il racconto di un guardiano di spiaggia: Traduzione libera della battaglia di Dorking (The Story of a Guardian of a Sandy Shore: The Free Translation of the Battle of Dorking) was published in Rome to point out that “Italy was not a great maritime power.”412 It offered a detailed narration by an Italian naval officer about an imaginary war between Italy and France in which the former was brutally defeated owing to the destruction of her weaker fleet by the enemy at sea, enabling the occupation of Italy when her army was expecting a land attack over the Alps; the Italians experienced exactly the same fate as the British with the Germans in the original novel from the previous year.413 Another response to the insecure situation in international affairs that linked Italy to the same process in other European countries was the foundation of an Italian Navy League in 1897 (La Lega Navale Italiana); here Italy was imitating the examples of Germany, France and Britain although the Italian league did not aim at maritime domination, which was unachievable owing to the disadvantageous distribution of naval power among European powers, but rather at the defence capability of Italy’s long coastline and her commercial interests. It was to guarantee “security in peace and war”414 because “without adequate naval power, a large and almost island country like Italy will never be able to hope for a vigorous economic resurgence because she will not have the means to assert her rights in the struggle for interests that the great powers are now fighting for on all the seas of the world; without this naval power any hope for achieving improvement in the Mediterranean itself is in vain and we will always be – as we are – almost foreigners in this sea where our forefathers found so much wealth and exercised such power that they could call it Mare Nostrum.”415 Two years later two men active in the Italian Navy League published their pamphlets which reveal how much feelings of endangerment in the world seen as predatory influenced a sort of Italian militarism. Giacomo Fazio argued on behalf of Italy’s armament on land and sea with her inevitable annihilation if it 411 Ibid., p. 7. 412 Il racconto di un guardiano di spiaggia: traduzione libera della battaglia di Dorking, Roma 1872, p. 29. 413 Frascani, Il Mare, p. 33. 414 Giacomo Fazio, L’Italia marittima e continentale, Spezia 1899, p. 69. 415 Ibid., p. 70.

The Aftermath

297

did not happen. It was a matter not of aggression but of defence owing to her geographical position in the Mediterranean and the rise of British and French power through their possessions of Gibraltar, Malta, Algeria, Tunis and Egypt, giving rise to the question about the future of north African Tripoli.416 All this led Fazio to the conclusion that “the field of action of a great power is the whole world. If Italy wants to confine herself within her political borders, she would be soon suffocated, mummified and annihilated. The expanding force of great nations is such that, in order not to be crushed by them, we must react with all the strength of our fleet; then only balance can be achieved, that is life.”417 The second man was Domenico Bonamico, who warned that a country unable to defend itself against external aggression was not independent, and therefore Italy had to improve her navy to be able to repulse invasions from the sea or naval blockades.418 In this respect he emphasised that for her “the fleet must first and foremost be a defensive factor,”419 the need for one caused by the unstable or, better said, menacing situation in the world: “A long period of peace and a miraculous national resurgence have made us unaccustomed to considering war as an inevitable global phenomenon, and many delude themselves with international sophistry, arbitrations, humanism and willingly crouch under the great wings of providence or balance of Europe to find a compromise between their consciences and their purse strings, but for these illusions of peace to become hopes they must gather around the banner on which has been written for centuries Si vis pacem, para bellum.”420 The motto about preparing for war to preserve peace offers an obvious link to not only the late 1840s but also the important contradiction between the desire for a peaceful Europe through the brotherhood of nations and reliance on material power caused by international scepticism. This dichotomy was present even in the texts of Fazio and Bonamico, who repeatedly ensured their readers that they in no way desired war but only Italy’s security. Bonamico even expressed his desire for “international solidarity”421 and a peaceful solution to international disputes with the use of legal and not military means, and he adopted this law from Mancini with “the principle of nationhood being the fundamental, if not exclusive, principle of international law.”422 This approach combining respect for the public law of Europe and material strength represented another important legacy of the 1840s that survived 1848 as a result of the desire for peace and the conviction that their own security could not be ensured by anything other than by practical means of

416 Ibid., pp. 5, 13–20, 32–33, 45–56, 65. 417 Ibid., p. 65. 418 Domenico Bonamico, Il problema marittimo dell’Italia, Spezia 1899, pp. 22, 40, 44. 419 Ibid., p. 47. 420 Ibid., pp. 64–65. 421 Ibid., p. 67. 422 Ibid., p. 61.

298

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

defence. Antonio Di San Giuliano supported Italy’s struggle for power in 1898 as mentioned above, and he did so because he wanted her to be ready for a general war that he personally did not desire but saw as imminent, and this opinion, far from being isolated, was widespread with great potential to provoke similar fears in Italian society like those exactly forty years earlier and across all of European society throughout the century as seen in the first chapter.423 The continuity of this dilemma can be shown with several examples not so distant in time from 1848. Despite his unceasing desire to witness the rise of a new Europe of friendly and free nations in 1857, Giseuppe Mazzini was ready to exploit the concept of Italian nationhood to add Corsica, Italian Tyrol and the Canton of Ticino to Italy and, at the same time, to enlarge Switzerland to improve Italy’s protection in the north.424 Towards the end of his life he claimed that Italy was to become a leading power in Europe: “If Italy wants to be able to influence future international developments, her first priority in foreign policy should be to make herself the soul and centre of a League of Europe’s smaller States, closely united in a collective defence pact against the possible usurpations of one or the other great Power.”425 It was the same highly problematic paradox of providing Italy with her own security with aspirations for territorial enlargement and unity with other Europeans426 that had existed in his case and that of other Italians in the late 1840s. After defeat in the war and of the revolution in 1848–1849, Carlo Cattaneo stated in September 1852 in his poem that “While Italy is not strong / neither strong nor safe are you,”427 but at the same time he continued to believe more than ever before in the need for not only an Italian federation but also her membership in a united states of Europe.428 His belief in the realistic reliance on material power was something that surely existed already before 1848 in Cesare Balbo’s realistic pragmatism expressed in the demand for independence at the expense of freedom and further intensified after 1848; however, Balbo believed that Europe had always constituted a homogeneous entity and deserved peace and brotherhood among her nations.429 Giuseppe Garibaldi, the military hero of Italian unification, held the same opinion, expressing in his memorandum of 22 October 423 Bosworth, Italy, p. 419. 424 Guido M. R. Franzinetti, “La questioni irlandesi viste da esponenti del movimento nazionale dell’Ottocento: Cavour, Cattaneo e Mazzini,” Manuela Ceretta, Mario Tesini (eds), Gustave de Beaumont: La schiavitù, l’Irlanda, la questione sociale nel XIX secolo, Milano 2011, p. 270. 425 Recchia, Urbinati, A Cosmopolitanism of Nations, p. 19. 426 Ibid., p. 21. 427 Antonio Monti (ed.), Un dramma fra gli esuli: Con documenti inediti e la bibliografia delle edizioni di capolago, Milano 1921, p. 71. 428 Angelica Gernert, Liberalismus als Handlungskonzept: Studien zur Rolle der politischen Presse im italienischen Risorgimento vor 1848, Stuttgart 1990, pp. 237–38. 429 Rodolfo de Mattei, “L’idea di unione europea durante il Risorgimento,” Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali 35, 1968, 2, pp. 186–201; Traniello, Sofri, Der lange Weg zur Nation, p. 103.

The Aftermath

299

1860 his desire that “Europe formed one state” and simultaneously referred to “the idea of a European Confederation.”430 A more elaborate example can be offered through Massimo d’Azeglio, who in 1860 manifested obvious imperial tendencies but still continued to believe in a peaceful Europe regulated by fair diplomacy based on respect for treaties. Although he was satisfied with Italy’s military victory over the Austrians in the previous year, he still saw her as well as Europe’s future as insecure. For Italy he desired “the right to exist”431 and for the Europe “peace and well-being,”432 and both were to be ensured by a new international order that would be fairer than the one created in 1815: “The European structure is cracked; it is time to take care of its foundations. As the old foundations collapse, it is necessary to replace them with new foundations that will not fall or shake.”433 As he had done in the 1840s he again did not hesitate to recall violations of the public law from the distant past like the British bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807, which shows how much old international incidents were still influential in his geopolitical deliberations.434 It was “in the name of the material interests of Europe, of her security”435 and out of respect for nationhood and Christian values that he wanted to introduce “equality before the law of nations, before public law,”436 as he wrote: “On what principle should Europe’s policy regarding Italy now be based? The whole question is there: is it the pagan principle, is it the Christian principle which will triumph? In the first case, after the war Italy will be pretty much what she was before: a mine still loaded and waiting only for a firebrand. – In the second case, the main occasion for a conflict will have disappeared, peace will be assured and Europe, peaceful on this side, will be able to turn her attention to other questions which are growing and emerging little by little on the horizon.”437 Eight years after the unification of Italy Cristina di Belgiojoso expressed the same opinion and hopes in Sulla moderna politica internazionale: Osservazioni (On Modern International Politics: Comments) in which she claimed that Italy was to win respect and an appropriate position among the European powers by overcoming the old – deceitful, self-serving and immoral – international politics, which could be found all around and resulted from the interests of governments oriented primarily at the extension of their borders and worried about losing them, and replace it with the politics of peace and justice.438 430 Mattei, “L’idea di unione europea durante il Risorgimento,” p. 201. 431 Massimo d’Azeglio, La politique et le droit chrétien, p. 110. 432 Ibid., p. viii. 433 Ibid., p. 128. 434 Ibid., pp. 20, 38–39. 435 Ibid., p. 64. 436 Ibid., p. 18. 437 Ibid., pp. 102–103. 438 Karoline Rörig, “Gli scritti di Cristina di Belgiojoso tra storiografia e politica,” Mariachiara Fugazza, Karoline Rörig (eds), “La prima donna d’Italia”: Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso tra politica e giornalismo, Milano 2010, pp. 57–58.

300

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

The generation of 1848 usually never lost hope for a peaceful Europe of united nations; what they actually lost was faith in the feasibility of this idea. With the growth of tensions, suspicions, wars and colonial competition, the inclination to pan-European solidarity in international relations gradually weakened and what remained from the practical point of view was the need to continue in Italy’s pursuit of material power. It was an outcome of the process fittingly summarised by Italian historian Rodolfo de Mattei that for the Risorgimento leaders “before thinking about the cohesion and security of the European family, it was urgent to arrive at the cohesion and security of the Italian family.”439 The preference for achieving Italy’s greatness, however, together with identical tendencies among other nations, most markedly the Germans, finally made accomplishing the former impossible and the latter very difficult. It also explains perfectly why the most accepted and widespread expression defining coexistence within the European family did not become “union” but “equilibrium” or “balance” derived from “balance of powers” to be later translated into “balance of nations” and “balance of peoples”,440 in other words international relations continued to be evaluated in a traditional way through the distribution of power. If one person should be chosen to represent the Italian search for security in both halves of the 19th century and with all its negative consequences, then Francesco Crispi certainly serves as the best example. Some might claim that Crispi is an extreme choice owing to his extraordinary tendency to suspiciousness, leading to moodiness, implacability and, last but not least, belligerence,441 but this extreme can be useful for clarifying Crispi’s attitude of mind by making his fears and desires more apparent. Moreover, one cannot avoid the impression that regardless of how far his characteristics were innate, they were intensified by his own geopolitical experience rooted in the first half of the century: born in 1818, he was almost 30 years old when the war broke out in March 1848 and when his worldview had already been formed. As was shown by his statements earlier in this book, he was a Sicilian as well as Italian patriot, desiring the independence of the former and the unity of the latter; he inclined towards republicanism but was ready to accept the monarchy for the sake of Sicilian and simultaneously Italian security; he trusted in the force of arms but still believed in the European family and desired a new and fair international order; last but not least he was a man who closely observed international affairs and already in the late 1840s saw dangers in all directions, and this attitude that can be labelled as both pessimistic and realistic was further intensified by later international events and stayed with him until his death in 1901. In all this he did not differ from a considerable number of his

439 Mattei, “L’idea di unione europea durante il Risorgimento,” p. 201. 440 Ibid., p. 189. 441 Raymond Cohen, Threat Perception in International Crisis, Madison 1979, p. 28.

The Aftermath

301

contemporaries. Even his inclination to imperialism and colonialism was strong but certainly not uncommon in his generation, and in principle it was compatible with how other Italian patriots and nationalists usually wanted to increase Italy’s security, some of them already mentioned above and some important politicians of the late 19th century named here: Marco Minghetti (born as Crispi in 1818), Giovanni Lanza (born 1810) and slightly younger Emilio Visconti-Venosta (born 1829). All these men shared Crispi’s view that Italy could not stand aside while the world was being partitioned, and therefore they followed on the earlier Risorgimento’s Mediterranean and Near Eastern ambitions.442 They also agreed with him that Italy’s unification that they had helped to achieve was “useless if it does not bring us strength and greatness.”443 The fear of the great powers’ intentions did not change after the 1840s but merely grew in intensity. Memories of past events, new international crises and wars and a sense of Italy’s alleged weakness served Crispi as motives for his perception of external threats verging on paranoia. He believed that France had systematically opposed Italian independence from 1848, and the French conquest of Tunis in 1881 convinced him of her desire to dominate the Mediterranean and attack Italy.444 This fear, influenced by Italy’s vulnerability from the sea, made him obsessed with the expectation of a French naval attack and his attitude towards the outer world mistrustful and bellicose.445 One of the outcomes of his obsession was his personal war scare in the summer of 1889 when he connected fears of a Russian invasion of Romania with the possible outbreak of a general war in Europe and a French attack against Italy.446 Since he was prime minister at that time, he ordered the mobilisation of the army and navy for her defence.447 Events finally proved that he was completely mistaken in his assessment of the situation, but even then he continued to perceive the other great powers as untrustworthy, threatening and aggressive, which also led, much like before the mid 19th century, to his negative evaluation of the whole system of European politics. It was this mistrust in the stability and peacefulness of this system that also further convinced him of the forthcoming French attack in 1889: “Europe, at the present time, is a volcano, which may burst into eruption without a moment’s warning and we must be prepared. The threat of war is ever with us. The great powers are arming in feverish haste and ours is precisely the country most exposed to attack. The neighbouring Republic has made all preparations for attacking us both by sea and land … No statesman can possibly wish for war, and I myself even less than 442 Chabod, Italian Foreign Policy, pp. 65–66, 447, 450. 443 Francesco Palamenghi-Crispi (ed.), Francesco Crispi di fronte alla storia, Firenze 1954, p. ix. 444 Cohen, Threat Perception, p. 37. 445 Ibid., p. 39. 446 Ibid., p. 40. 447 Ibid., pp. 41–42.

302

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

any other because I am aware that we are not sufficiently strong, and even were we so, I should not dare to face the consequences of a conflict whose results no one can foresee.”448 This statement from 1889, as many others, reveal that Crispi was one of many Italians and Europeans who disliked war but saw the outbreak of one as inevitable sooner or later owing to the atmosphere of mutual mistrust, suspicion and animosities. At the end of the century, he considered Europe to be “a camp full of brigands scowling at one another,”449 no better than in the past, and he therefore feared that Italy could meet the same fate as the Venetian Republic in 1797. In such a dangerous world Crispi regarded military force as essential for preventing the destruction of his motherland which made him a supporter of armament and colonial expansion.450 He saw in colonies the source of additional power necessary in the competition of nations.451 His aim was not to make Italy a first power in the world because he knew well that it was completely impossible and desired only “to make Italy equal among equals;”452 he did not even want to achieve an Italian monopoly on the seas but to balance French ambitions in the Mediterranean and weaken British naval dominance.453 If his political opponents disagreed with his imperialist actions, he gave them his counterargument that the international situation made his policy inevitable for Italy’s security that could be achieved only by her greatness,454 and he accused them of wanting a defenceless Italy, “weak and impotent, therefore prey to conquerors, as she has always been since the fall of the Roman Empire.”455 He claimed that if “Italy gives up her role as a great power, she is destined to succumb.”456 Consequently, he advocated increased expenditure on the army and navy with his conviction that “in a world where aggression was a fact of life military strength was the best way to keep the peace. How else could predators be deterred?”457 He not only used its logic but also explicitly expressed the motto Si vis pacem, para bellum458 when he claimed that “military expenditure is an insurance premium that people pay for maintaining the peace”459 and that he desired peace: “We must be and want to be a people of peace, but to want peace and to have it, we must be strong; I will say even more, one must be aware 448 Ibid., p. 41. 449 Duggan, Francesco Crispi, p. 409. 450 Palamenghi-Crispi, Francesco Crispi, p. 151. 451 Ibid., pp. 210–13. 452 Cunsolo, Italian nationalism, p. 91. 453 Palamenghi-Crispi, Francesco Crispi, p. 216. 454 Ibid., p. 208. 455 Gentile, La Grande Italia, p. 47. 456 Ibid., p. 48. 457 Duggan, Francesco Crispi, p. 409. 458 Palamenghi-Crispi, Francesco Crispi, p. 152. 459 Ibid., p. 158.

The Aftermath

303

of one’s own strength and not be afraid of war.”460 That his way of thinking was shared by a considerable number of Italians becomes obvious from the simple fact that he won considerable support in parliamentary elections as well as in the parliament itself where the deputies approved his budgets for armament.461 The most striking finding, however, is that Crispi in his desire for peace truly believed that since the European nations lived together, they could not be egoists but had to respect each other,462 and if they sincerely wanted to ensure their mutual security and peaceful relations, they had to agree on a kind of European political unity: “With the establishment of the United States (of Europe) any national dissent would cease. Every nation would take its place in the great European union. The dominance of one nation over the other, of one race over the other, would end. We would have no struggle between Christians and Muslims in the Balkans. The Scandinavians, the Poles would regain their autonomy. Peace between Germany and France would be made immediately. Italy would not need to claim her islands, and the issue of borders would become an act of administrative interest. What more? All states being equal, there would be no tyranny of rulers or governments.”463 An interesting detail is his claim that gaining “her islands” was perceived primarily from the perspective of Italy’s security. Generally, there is no need to doubt the sincerity of his belief in the beneficial effect of a united Europe since he expressed his opinion several times and in private. What was no less genuine was his conviction that such a union was unfeasible owing to animosities and mistrust among European states and nations; therefore, he also had no confidence in the possible success of the Hague Peace Conference in 1899 and refused to overcome the security dilemma by abandoning his “chauvinist” political course and continued to insist on the force of arms as the only viable means for ensuring the security of the Italian Kingdom.464 In summary, Crispi’s views from the end of the 19th century if not identical then were very similar to those of the 1840s. The only aspect that changed was the intensity of the geopolitical anxiety that gradually increased, which made him as well as a considerable number of his contemporaries unwilling to seek international security by putting their trust in pan-European cooperation. In 1899 when the Hague Peace Conference was summoned and Crispi expressed his scepticism, another ardent imperialist, Pasquale Turiello, wrote: “History universally teaches that it is the glory and destiny of all virile nations to expand beyond their boundaries once they have acquired independence … The day we restrict ourselves to between the Alps and the sea, we would soon find ourselves increasing 460 Ibid., p. 152. 461 Duggan, Francesco Crispi, pp. 466–67, 497, 556. 462 Palamenghi-Crispi, Francesco Crispi, p. 147. 463 Ibid., p. 177. 464 Duggan, Francesco Crispi, pp. 615, 721.

304

The Triumph of Realism (1848)

ly pressed within these limits by foreign pressures, based on power, population, commerce.”465 It was the same argument used by Italians around 1848 as well as in 1914–1915 when some of them justified their entry into the Great War – the same war that Crispi expected and feared – with the necessity to conquer new territories, become stronger and survive in the world dominated by the strongest powers.466 And it was the same negative evaluation of international politics which led King Vittorio Emanuelle III, making the final decision to enter the war, to declare in 1908 that “I am more than ever convinced of the utter worthlessness of treaties or any agreements written on paper. They are worth the value of paper. The only strength lies in bayonets and cannon.”467 The wretched outcome of this attitude was that it brought the Italians into a vicious circle from which they were able to find no escape other than ultimately entering into the first Armageddon of the 20th century. It is not to say that this war or Italy’s participation in it were inevitable, but one can hardly deny that the process already launched before 1848 reached its disastrous conclusion in 1915.

465 Cunsolo, Italian nationalism, p. 207. 466 Ibid., pp. 225–26. 467 Alan Kramer, Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War, Oxford 2007, p. 119.

CONCLUSION In 1815 not all Italians were satisfied with the post-Napoleonic order, but it was only after 1830 that Italy witnessed a gradual and continuous decline in trust in the justice of international politics. The first who began to lose their faith in the system established at the Congress of Vienna were the members of the ruling class, mostly conservatives but of whom some were sympathetic towards liberalism. After the 1840s the same process is recognisable in the broad public. In both groups it resulted from their experience with the arrogant, self-serving and even illegal conduct of the great powers in Europe as well as in the world beyond her borders, often ending in serious crises and wars. Italians were considerably affected by these events and started to deliberate their own position in the world that seemed to be becoming ever more insecure. They saw it dominated by the great powers pursuing unscrupulous policies at the expense of weaker countries, and, as inhabitants of smaller Italian states, they therefore felt particularly threatened by the most powerful international players, whom they accused of respecting only the law of the strongest. If there had ever been prospects for a more just and peaceful world around 1815, after 1830 and even more so after 1840 this hope faded. Distrust in justice in international relations began to spread in Italian society on a broad scale during the 1840s. It gave birth to the Italians’ concern for their own security, which was accompanied by the search for ways to improve it. The gradually dominant response became the desire to increase their own material power according to the motto unity creates strength in order to cope better with the most powerful countries. This desire for unity was not difficult to achieve since it was easy for Italians to agree on the nature of the security threats which they saw everywhere and threatened the safety of all of them. Austria surely represented the most imminent danger but was still only one of many; Italians saw all the great powers as arrogant and tyrannical. The appeal to solidarity among Italian states was thus a logical reaction to their aggression, and the same held for the use of the concept of Italian nationhood that was to cement the union among not only these states but also their rulers and subjects. The idea of nationhood as a kind of security measure was certainly not new since some Germans had already used this concept during the Napoleonic Wars for the same reason: to unite princes and people in the fight against a common enemy. Another characteristic common to both the German and Italian milieus was the fact that before 1815 the concept had primarily served the Prussians against France while in Italy its use was advocated by some in the so-called Italian Prussia that felt most threatened by the neighbouring great powers.

306

Conclusion

This pre-eminent role of Piedmont further underlines the obvious confluence of the growth of feeling of international insecurity and the formation of the moderate branch of Italian nationalism after 1840. Since this moderate movement was primarily motivated by the need to face external challenges, it lacked the radicalism in internal politics characteristic of the democratic nationalism that had been dominant in the 1830s. The moderates’ restraint at home and their desire to solve the vulnerability of Italian states against threats from abroad helped to win considerable popularity across the social classes and regions of Italian society. This fact was particularly important for the attitudes of the monarchs in general and the Sardinia’s in particular: they were willing to support or at least tacitly tolerate the activities of the moderate patriots because they shared their geopolitical concerns and did not feel as threatened by their aspirations as by those of the democrats. For this reason, some of these rulers were also willing to accept the idea of Italian nationhood since it could increase their external security while it did not represent a radical threat to their sovereignty. Some monarchs had even been ready in the 1830s to exploit Italian kinship in order to confront external threats, and one of the proposed security measures was their league, which became a popular topic among the masses in the middle of the following decade. The general desire for unity was very strong simply because of the omnipresent feeling of danger, and this frequently underestimated ambition during the period around 1848 was therefore certainly no less important than the desire for some kind of political liberalisation. Even for Sicilians, who almost unambiguously strived for independence from Naples, federal unity was of equal importance because the alliance with continental Italy was regarded as an essential condition of the island’s political survival. All in all, the general acceptance of the vision of a federal Italy primarily resulted from it being able to ensure the necessary material strength against foreigners while it simultaneously respected the people’s continuous loyalties to their own native states. And although in the same decade some Germans considered their Confederation to be losing its effectiveness in the protection of its member states, in Italy a league according to the German pattern was still seen as sufficient in this respect and the inclination to political centralisation was considerably less outspoken; even the proposed Italian diet was primarily intended as a means for promoting Italy’s security through its control of federal land and naval forces. The question of war with Austria was closely connected with the endeavour for unity. In the beginning, the league was conceived to serve primarily as a shield against Austrian invasions, but as fears of this great power reached a level of hysteria, the expulsion of the Austrians from the Apennines was seen as a necessity: the league had to establish natural frontiers on the Alps to attain defensible borders in the north. This is how Italian society transitioned from seeking a predominantly defensive position to becoming more bellicose and how a victorious and short war against the Austrian Empire was expected to bring a greater level of

Conclusion

307

security and with it a better prospect for life in harmonious peace with other countries and nations. From this pan-European perspective the war was regarded as a crucial step in the process leading to the reconstruction of the international order to achieve greater fairness and justice for all countries regardless of their material strength. It was not accidental that reforming it was one of the pivotal aims of the Italian national movement since it was seen as another way of improving their security, which also explains why the criticism of the old international system and the resulting yearning for a new one was so strong. Unfortunately for the Italians and other Europeans, with the year of 1848 the twin desires for security based on increased power and improved international law brought the whole effort into deadlock. This situation primarily resulted from the growing conviction that there were many dangerous potential aggressors on the periphery of Italy – not only in the northeast dominated by Austria but de facto all around – and the best way for Italians to protect themselves against them was to conquer this periphery. The crucial problem was that their territorial aspirations for expansion concerned areas with many non-Italian speaking inhabitants, and their mutually contradictory interests began to bring the nations into conflict even before 1848, giving rise to the security dilemma, which finally frustrated any prospect for a better international order and forced the Italians to further advance their territorial aspirations on which they planned to establish a more secure existence. The fundamental problem of their undertaking lay in the lack of consensus where to halt them, especially when their own territorial claims naturally encountered negative reactions from some great powers and nations and gave Italians another reason to feel yet more insecure and therefore want to become even stronger. This is how the Italian quest for power became more extensive and did not limit itself to the Old Continent: it was joined with colonial aspirations which represented an almost inevitable outcome of the pursuit for security guaranteed by material strength. Colonial expansion thus became the final phase of this process, and although it was not yet advocated loudly in 1848, it was already present as a potential ambition in society and was just waiting for the unification of Italy to be revived later in the 19th century. In any case, already at the end of the 1840s it became highly probable that the successful fulfilment of nationalist goals on the Continent would be but a prelude to imperial enterprise. If there is anything that deserves special attention in the Italian response to international insecurity from 1830 to 1848, then surely it must be its seven most striking features. First of all is the fact often neglected by Risorgimento historiography that Italians believed the threat was represented not only by Austria but by all European powers, later some other nations and to a lesser extent even by the distant United States of America. More or less all the great powers provoked mistrust or even fear with their proceedings generally regarded as arrogant, aggressive and within the boundaries of Europe illegal. Italians objected not only to those committing violations but also to others tolerating them if not by tacit approval

308

Conclusion

then at least by their indifference. The unwillingness to respect the public law of Europe or unwritten precepts of Christian morality was thus seen as potentially dangerous; it served as the principal reason for the growing dislike of the whole post-Napoleonic states system, which was gradually evaluated as ineffective for protecting Italian security, and this was exactly how the order established in 1815 subverted its own stability. To emphasise the crucial point again: not one but all the great powers were responsible for the process leading to the violent rejection of the system in Italy. For the identical reason Italian geopolitical deliberations were genuinely European in their scope, which counted even for the most ardent exponents of Italy’s greatness, and the desire to improve their own security by not only the expulsion of the Austrians but also by improving the whole states system was exactly what made the Italian Question truly European. The second interesting aspect of the geopolitical security debates was the large number of various international affairs which were debated and criticised and of which some are scarcely known today. The public attention paid to the world beyond Europe was so intensive that even affairs in very distant regions and representing no direct threat found considerable response. Italians received news of these events with apprehension believing they could easily be repeated at their expense sooner or later. Consequently, the great powers’ arrogant proceedings in Europe were linked with their conduct on other continents and became an important component of the public discourse. Moreover, the rapid succession of a considerable number of international affairs gave them a cumulative effect that increased their overall negative impact on Italian society. What further strengthened their significance was their usual connection with the economic competition of European countries in the “globalising” economy in which Italians were traditionally involved owing to the geographic position of their states and significant share in commercial navigation. Economics was thus another strongly emphasised topic in the geopolitical debates since it was closely connected with Italians’ own security. Third, one can only speculate how many Italians were involved in the debates about their position in Europe and the world, at least in the 1840s, but contemporary testimonies offer convincing evidence that the public attention to international affairs was immense and covered not only the ruling and intellectual elites but also the middle and middle-lower classes; the mass gatherings of many thousands across Italy celebrating the defeat of the Sonderbund seems to unequivocally confirm this thesis. The widespread popular interest then explains why the public response was so intensive, and this massive response clarifies why the national leaders of the 1840s paid such close attention to international events in general and the future of the European states system in particular: fears of a state’s own future held extraordinary power for attracting the attention of even those people not belonging to the upper classes. When one adds the manifest similarity of their reactions to external challenges regardless of their origin, place of residence, social class, political opinions and gender, then it is easy to understand why the question

Conclusion

309

of external security became the platform on which it was possible to mobilise the masses and why the rise of the national movement occurred simultaneously with the growth of the feeling of insecurity in Italian society, something that can hardly be explained by constitutional issues or the narrowly-defined Risorgimento culture as is popular today. It was thus no accident that it happened in the 1840s, especially when the Piedmontese king and moderate patriots made the concept of Italian nationhood a useful means for increasing their own – Piedmontese – security on the international scene. How far these challenges were important for the formation and success of the national movement also becomes obvious from the fact that much like the Germans Italian patriots and nationalists succeeded in agreeing on common security threats while the Scandinavian movement failed for the lack of such a consensus. Fourth, the geopolitical security debates in Italy did not represent an isolated process but part of a European phenomenon. What occurred among Italians had parallels in other European countries and nations, especially among the Germans. Why and how they reacted to the exploitation of power and violations of international law were basically identical, and even these reactions were strongly interconnected because Italians responded not only to international affairs but also to the same geopolitical debates in other countries, and vice versa. Consequently, it was possible for them to be alarmed by not only what other countries did but also what their inhabitants said, which became fully apparent in 1848. The subsequent disputes or even wars of words contributed to the birth of the spiral of insecurity to a similar extent as international crises and wars themselves. Fifth, contrary to the frequent excessive focus on historical milestones like 1848 and 1861, the response to international insecurity was generally continuous. These two years were of secondary importance since the process had already started in Italian society before 1848 and as seen from geopolitical opinions expressed after 1861 the link to the past remained strong and unbroken. With an appreciation of the whole process in Italy and Europe one can successfully claim that the path leading to the rise of tensions among European countries and their imperialistic policies was actually much longer and more complex than hitherto presumed. Fuelled by mistrust, fear and an inclination to settle grievances with material force, it did not begin later in the 19th century but already in its first half and was caused by the decreasing trust in the strength of written law. It resulted in a reliance on material power anchored in a large and well defendable territory, abundant material and human resources and strong armed forces on land as well as at sea. These mutually interconnected conditions for survival in a predatory world also led to the desire for colonial expansion. Although this ambition was not so apparent in the Italy of the 1840s, it already existed and was a logical outcome of the conviction that to be secure meant to be strong; it was actually the last phase of this shift to material strength and was merely waiting for unification to be later fully revealed.

310

Conclusion

Sixth, as the feeling of insecurity among Italians was caused not only by the fear of one European power but also by a general mistrust of the protection provided by the political-legal system established in 1815, its important consequence was the loss of faith in the same system and a greater reliance on armed force for protection. This shift finally led to a greater readiness to use it when a foreign threat seemed to be imminent and to justify the “preventive attack” as an act of self-defence. Here it is necessary to emphasise the extreme similarity in the reactions of some governmental elites in the 1830s and of other Italians during the following decade, and the Sardinian king’s power-oriented response to insecurity can therefore serve as a fitting model for what other Italians later did on a broad scale: their criticism of the great powers’ use of armed force finally moved them to seek protection in the same kind of power. The important connection between the feeling of insecurity, the search for power and the readiness to use it to improve their own safety was typical of the process within all of Italian society, which enabled the widespread popularity of the war that the king finally decided to start against Austria. Seventh, with their reaction to international insecurity Italians helped to launch an unintended and unwanted process that continued beyond 1848 and had disastrous consequences for the rest of the 19th century, namely the steadily growing fear and mistrust among European nations which gradually got lost in the spiral of armament and imperialist policies. That the masses did not want this process can be proved by their desire for a peaceful and fair Europe of free nations, which they often expressed during the 1840s. Unfortunately for Italians and other Europeans, they were unable to halt it; whether it got out of their control before, in or after 1848 is impossible to say, but what can be argued for certainty is that already in that year it was extremely difficult to leave the path strewn with thorns on which European society had already set out. Thus while the process of domestic political modernisation was merely slowed down, the desire for greater external security and a better international order suffered a defeat that in retrospect proved to be crushing. That is not to claim that there was any milestone in international developments from the general peace in 1815 to the Great War a hundred years later, and the lack of one is also one of the principal theses introduced by this book. However, if one were to seek such a turning point causing the irreparable damage to the relations among European countries and nations, then it was certainly not any of the traditionally mentioned events like the unification of Germany in 1871 but the process analysed here with the example of Italy: the period of 1840–1848 and the decade before it that witnessed the shift in the perception of the functioning of the European states system when Italians and other Europeans gradually became convinced that it was foolish to seek security in legal norms and relied instead on material power as its most efficient guarantee. As this belief was to be passed down and even strengthened in the attitudes of later generations, this is where the

Conclusion

311

origins of the arms and colonial races of the late 19th century can be found. Consequently, anyone trying to explain these processes can hardly do so without going substantially further back in time to well before 1848 and focusing more on the mutual interdependence of international politics and the development of European society than has usually been done in historical scholarship to the present day.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ARCHIVES Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin

Archives diplomatiques et africaines, Brussels

Hauptabteilung III, Ministerium des Auswärtigen I Firenze: 5668, 5669 Neapel: 5588, 5596, 5601, 5602 Rom: 11621, 11627 Turin: 5491, 5493, 5494, 5506, 5507, 5538 Österreich: 6037/4

Correspondances politiques: Légations Confédération germanique: 3 Italie 1832–1872 Italie, Deux-Siciles: 1, 2 Italie, Saint-Siège: 2–4 Italie, Sardaigne: 2 Italie, Toscane: 1832–1860

Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv, Bern

Correspondances politiques: Consulats: Série 1 3: Livourne

Korrespondenz des Konsulats in Livorno an den Vorort: CH-BAR#D0#1000/3#1198*, Az. D.1.3.2, 1814–1848 Korrespondenz des Generalkonsulats in Mailand an den Vorort: CH-BAR#D0#1000/3#1197*, Az. D.1.3.2, 1835–1848 Korrespondenz der Konsulate in Neapel und Palermo an den Vorort 196: CH-BAR#D0#1000/3#1195*, Az. D.1.3.2, 1833–1848 Korrespondenz des Konsulats in Rom an den Vorort: CH-BAR#D0#1000/3#1196*, Az. D.1.3.2, 1816–1848

Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Florence Segretaria e ministero degli esteri Fivizzano: 1470 Roma: 2446

National Archief, The Hague Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken 1813–1870: 897, 1188, 1189, 1412, 1427, 1454–1456, 1469, 1474, 1475, 1519, 1582

314

Bibliography

The National Archives, London Foreign Office 43 (Italy): 32 44 (Lord Minto): 2, 4 65 (Russia): 260 67 (Sardinia): 81, 83, 86, 89, 137, 142–144, 150 70 (Naples): 222 79 (Tuscany): 58, 63, 97, 126 651 (Sicily): 2

Mémoires et documents Italie: 36 Sardaigne: 23

Archives nationales, Paris François Guizot: 84, 198

Národní archiv, Prague Biblioteca Sormani, Milan Andrea Zambelli, Sul libro del Principe: Considerazioni, Firenze 1841. (Var. L. Var. 1661)

Rodinný archiv Metternichů, Acta Clementina: 1/4, 8/2

Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Rome Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Munich Ministerium des Äußern Päpstlicher Stuhl: 2498, 2501, 2502 Sardinien: 2882–2885

Archivio di Stato di Napoli, Naples Archivio Borbone Cassaro: 807 Ministero Affari Esteri Questione per gli zolfi 1840: 4130

Archives du Ministère des affaires étrangères, Paris Correspondance politique Naples: 156, 165, 171, 172, 175 Rome: 986, 987 Sardaigne: 313, 318–320 Toscane: 175, 179–181 Correspondance politique des consuls Naples: 1 Rome: 1 Sardaigne: 4, 5

Archivio della nunziatura apostolica in Vienna: 256B, 258A, 258B, 275 Archivio della nunziatura apostolica in Torino: 96, 97

Hartley Library, University of Southampton Palmerston Papers, General Correspondence Foster: 45–49 Minto: 488–502 Ponsonby: 551–574

Riksarkivet (Swedish National Archives), Stockholm Kabinettet, UD, Huvudarkivet Köpenhamn: 311 London: 432 Rom: 783, 784

Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart E 50/60, Livorno: 149 E 50/60, Rom: 122

Newspapers

315

Archivio di Stato di Torino, Turin

Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna

Lettere ministri Austria: 132, 132.2, 133, 137, 141, 156 Due Sicilie: 48, 55 Francia: 257, 275 Gran Bretagna: 110, 117, 118 Legazioni: 21 Prussia: 28, 31 Roma: 342, 343 Russia: 23 Toscana: 12, 19

Kabinettsarchiv, Staatsrat Minister-Kolowrat Akten (1826–1848): 152– 157, 208, 212, 213, 216, 220, 221, 223

Raccolte Private Carte Bianchi, Serie I: 6, 8, 9 Carte Bianchi, Serie II: 18

Politisches Archiv des Ministeriums des Äuβern XI, Italienische Staaten 1848–1918: 192 Staatenabteilungen Frankreich: 277 Neapel: 75, 79, 81, 92, 100, 101 Sardinien: 77 Toskana: 52, 53, 61, 62, 64, 66, 67 Staatskanzlei Acta Secreta: 6 Interiora/Intercepte: 38 Rom: 49, 63, 75, 78

NEWSPAPERS Bologna

Annuario geografico italiano La Dieta Italiana: Giornale politico-letterario La Mosca Il Felsineo Il Povero L’Eco: Giornale popolare dell’Emilia L’Italiano Unità: Giornale politico scientifico e letterario

Casale

Florence

La Patria: Giornale quotidiano, politico e letterario Giornale militare e delle guardie civiche italiane Gazzetta di Firenze Il Filocattolico L’Alba

Genoa

Fede e patria: Periodico religioso, sociale e letterario Il Carroccio: Giornale delle provincie

La Lega Italiana: Giornale politico, economico, scientifico e letterario/Il pensiero italiano: Giornale quotidiano Gazzetta di Genova

Como

Livorno

Il Lario

Il Corriere livornese: Giornale politico, letterario e commerciale

316

Bibliography

Lucca

Pisa

Milan

Polesine

Bullettino quotidiano della riforma/La Riforma L’Impavido

Annali universali di viaggi, geografia, storia, economia pubblica e statistica La Fama: Rassegna di scienze, lettere ed arti L’Avvenire d’Italia L’Operaio: Giornale democratico Lo Spirito Folletto Il Crociato: Giornale politico Il Politecnico Cosmorama pittorico Gazzetta di Milano Rivista europea Il 22 Marzo

Modena

L’Indipendenza italiana: Giornale politico letterario L’Italia centrale Il Nazionale

Naples

La Rigenerazione: Giornale politico, economico, scientifico e letterario Il Riscatto italiano: Giornale politico, legislativo, scientifico e letterario L’Arlecchino: Giornale comico politico di tutti i colori Il Tempo: Giornale quotidiano, politico e letterario La Costituzione: Giornale politico e letterario Il Nazionale: Giornale quotidiano politico-letterario Mondo vecchio e mondo nuovo

Palermo

L’Apostolato L’Indipendenza e la lega: Giornale di Palermo Il Cittadino: Giornale politico della Sicilia Il Popolo: Giornale politico della Sicilia La Rigenerazione: Giornale periodico politico della Sicilia

Piacenza

L’Eridano: Gazzetta Piacentina

L’Italia

Rivista Popolare

Rome

La Speranza: Giornale degli interessi sociali indirizzato alla Guardia Civica The Roman Advertiser: Journal of Science, Literature and the Fine Arts La Bilancia: Giornale politico, letterario, scientifico, artistico L’Epoca: Giornale quotidiano Il Contemporaneo Diario di Roma L’Unione L’Italico

Turin

Antologia italiana: Giornale di scienze, lettere ed arti Teatro universale: Raccolta enciclopedica e scenografica Il Risorgimento: Giornale quotidiano politico, economico, scientifico e letterario Gazzetta del Popolo: L’Italiano Gazzetta piemontese Messaggiere torinese: Giornale di politica e di letteratura L’Opinione: Giornale quotidiano, politico, economico, scientifico e letterario Il Fischietto: Bizzarrie d’Attualità: Rivista illustrata con disegni originali La Concordia: Giornale politico, morale, economico e letterario Il Mondo illustrato: Giornale universale Museo scientifico, letterario ed artistico ovvero Scelta raccolta di utili e svariate nozioni in fatto di scienze, lettere ed arti belle

Venice

Gazzetta di Venezia La voce del popolo Fatti e parole

Contemporary political writings

Others

Allgemeine Zeitung (Augsburg) Apostolato popolare (London) Berner Verfassungs-Freund (Bern) Berner-Zeitung (Bern) Deutsche Volkshalle (Konstanz) Deutsche Zeitung (Heidelberg) Grenzboten (Leipzig) L’Ausonio: Rivista italiana mensile (Paris)

317

L’Helvétie: Journal politique, industriel et littéraire (Porrentruy) Miscellanea del giorno (Paris) Neue Zürcher-Zeitung (Zürich) Revue des Deux Mondes (Paris) The Herald of Peace for the Years 1840 and 1841 (London) The Times (London)

CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL WRITINGS Albèri, Eugenio, Della occupazione austriaca di Ferrara: considerazioni, Firenze 1847. Alla memoria dei militi toscani morti sotto Mantova il 29. Maggio 1848: Parole dette in Chiesa di lari dal proposto Luigi Pacchiani di Santa Croce nei solenni funerali del 6. Giugno, Santa Croce 1848. Andrian-Werburg, Victor Franz von, L’Austria e il suo avvenire, Bastia 1847. Amari, Michele, Memorie sugli zolfi, Palermo 1990. Amari, Michele, Quelques observations sur le droit public de la Sicile, Paris 1848. Azeglio, Massimo d’, Degli ultimi casi di Romagna, Venezia 1848. Azeglio, Massimo d’, La politique et le droit chrétien au point de vue de la question italienne, Paris 1860. Azeglio, Massimo d’, Proposta d’un programma per l’opinione nazionale italiana, Firenze 1847. Azeglio, Massimo d’, Sulla protesta pel caso di Ferrara, Bastia 1847. Azeglio, Massimo d’, Timori e speranze, Torino 1848. Balbi, Adriano, Delle forze militari delle cinque grandi potenze, Milano 1841. Balbo, Cesare, Delle speranze d’Italia, the 2nd edition, Capolago 1844. Balbo, Cesare, “Lettere politiche al signor D., 1846: Lettera terza: Della situazione politica dell’Europa in generale, e dell’Italia in particolare, cadente l’anno 1846, 16. dicembre 1846,” Cesare Balbo, Lettere di politica e letteratura, Firenze 1855. Balbo, Cesaro, Pensieri ed esempi: Opera postuma di Cesare Balbo, Firenze 1856. Balbo, Cesare, Sommario della storia d’Italia, Firenze 1856. Bara, Louis, La science de la paix: Programme, Paris, Bruxelles 1872 (originally written in 1849). Baracchi, Francesco, Lutti e Glorie di Milano dal settembre 1847 al marzo 1848, Milano 1848. Beckerath, Erwin von (ed.), Friedrich List: Schriften, Reden, Briefe, Band V: Aufsätze und Abhandlungen aus den Jahren 1831–1844, Berlin 1928. Berlinghieri, Roberto, Alla Svizzera: Parole d’un Italiano, Livorno 1847. Bonamico, Domenico, Il problema marittimo dell’Italia, Spezia 1899. Bülow-Cummerow, Ernst von, Preuβen, seine Verfassung, seine Verwaltung, sein Verhältnis zu Deutschland, Berlin 1842. Busacca, Raffaello, La Sicilia considerata politicamente in rapporto a Napoli e all’Italia, Firenze 1848. Capefigue, Jean-Baptiste, Le congrês de Vienne: Dans ses rapports avec la circonscription actuelle de l’Europe. Pologne, Cracovie, Allemagne, Saxe, Belgique, Italie, Suisse, 1814–1846, Paris 1847.

318

Bibliography

Castiglia, Benedetto, Della questione di Sicilia in ordine all’Italia, Firenze 1849 [obviously 1848]. Cattaneo, Carlo, Dell’Insurrezione di Milano nel 1848 e della successiva guerra, Milano 1946. Centofanti, Silvestro, Sul Risorgimento Italiano, Pisa 1848. Cormenin, Louis-Marie de Lahaye, Pamphlet sur l’indépendance de l’Italie, Florence 1848. De Boni, Filippo, Così la penso: Cronaca di Filippo de Boni, no. 8–9, 10–12, Losanna 1847. De Boni, Filippo, Raccolta degli atti officiali e d’altri scritti risguardanti la distruzione della Repubblica di Cracovia, Losanna 1847. De’Sivo, Giacinto, Storia delle Due Sicilie dal 1847 al 1861, vol. 1, Roma 1863. Del presente e dell’avvenire d’Italia, Roma 1847. Durando, Giacomo, Della nazionalità italiana: Saggio politico-militare, Losanna 1846. Fazio, Giacomo, L’Italia marittima e continentale, Spezia 1899. Fregoso, Luigi Campo, Del primato italiano sul Mediterraneo, Torino 1872. Gabbrielli, S., Le cose del giorno narrate al popolo senese dal suo concittadino, Siena 1847. Gabussi, Giuseppe, Quali eventualità potrebbero produrre una intervenzione austriaca nella media e bassa Italia: Ragionamento, Rimini 1847. Galeotti, Leopoldo, Della sovranità e del governo temporale dei papi, Capolago, Losanna 1847. Galeotti, Leopoldo, Osservazioni sullo stato della Toscana nel settembre 1847, Firenze 1847. Gentilini, Enrico, Guida alla guerra d’insurrezione, ossia guerra degli stracorridori, [?] 1848. Ghinozzi, Carlo, Occupazione di Ferrara e maggior necessità di una Guardia Nazionale in Toscana, Firenze 1847. Gioberti, Vincenzo, Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani, vols 1, 2, Brusselle 1843. Gioberti, Vincenzo, Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani: Avvertenza per la seconda edizione, Losanna 1846. Gioberti, Vincenzo, Il Rinnovamento civile d’Italia, vol. 1, Parigi, Torino 1851. Gorresio, Vittorio (ed.), Massimo d’Azeglio: Opuscoli politici, Torino 1943. Grigioni, G. Nagalli de, Sulle attuali politiche condizioni dell’Italia, Milano 1848. Il racconto di un guardiano di spiaggia: traduzione libera della battaglia di Dorking, Roma 1872. Kölle, Christoph Friedrich Karl von, Italiens Zukunft: Beiträge zu Berechnung der Erfolge der gegenwärtigen Bewegung, Stuttgart, Tübingen 1848. Lombroso, Giacomo, Complicazioni promosse dall’Austria dal Congresso di Vienna sino all’esaltazione di Pio IX per conservare la Lombardia, Milano 1848. Magnaghi, Antonio, Pubblica economia sviluppo de’principj fondamentali per rendere lo stato dovizioso e potente, Milano 1848. Maioli, Giovanni (ed.), Pio IX. Da Vescovo a Pontefice: Lettere al Card. Luigi Amat (Agosto 1839 – Luglio 1848), Modena 1949. Mamiani, Terenzio, D’un nuovo diritto europeo, Torino 1860. Mamiani, Terenzio, Scritti politici, Firenze 1853. Mancini, Pasquale Stanislao, Della Nazionalità come fondamento del dritto delle genti, Torino 1851. Marchetti, Leopoldo (ed.), Felice Orsini: Memorie politiche, Milano 1962. Marochetti, Giovanni Battista, Indépendance de l’Italie: Moyen de l’établir dans l’intérêt général de l’Europe, considéré spécialement sous le point de vue de l’équilibre politique, Paris 1829. Matteucci, Carlo, Prolusione, Pisa 1847.

Contemporary political writings

319

Mazzini, Andrea Luigi, De l’Italie dans ses rapports avec la liberté et la civilisation moderne, vols 1, 2, Paris 1847. Mazzini, Giuseppe, Italien, Österreich und der Papst: Ein Brief an Sir James Graham, Bern 1847. Mazzini, Giuseppe, Scritti editi ed inediti, vols 7, 25, 34, 36, 38, Imola 1910, 1916, 1922, 1923. Mazzini, Giuseppe, Scritti politici, Torino 1972. Mazzini, Giuseppe, The Duties of Man and other Essays, London, Toronto 1915. Menzel, Wolfgang, Europa im Jahr 1840, Stuttgart 1839. Montanelli, Giuseppe, L’Austria e l’Italia in Faccia dell’Europa, Torino 1847. Negri, Cristoforo, Del vario grado d’importanza degli Stati odierni, Milano 1841. Negri, Cristoforo, Della potenza proporzionale degli Stati europei sui mari e sulle colonie, Milano 1840. Negri, Luigi (ed.), Opere scelte di Luigi Settembrini, Torino 1955. O., H. von, Die Nothwendigkeit großer deutscher Colonien und Kriegsflotten, Leipzig 1845. Palamenghi-Crispi, Francesco (ed.), Francesco Crispi di fronte alla storia, Firenze 1954. Parole al popolo sulle speranze d’Italia fondate sulla sua nazionalità dette da Luigi Calamai davanti al corpo accademico della classe d’arti e manifatture di Firenze nella tornata del 25 giugno 1848, Firenze 1848. Parole dette dal Canonino Finazzi nel solenne rendimento di grazie celebrato nella cattedrale di Bergamo: Il dì 15 Aprile 1848, Bergamo 1848. Pepe, Guglielmo, L’Italia militare, Parigi 1836. Peruta, Franco Della (ed.), Scrittori politici dell’Ottocento: Tomo 1: Mazzini e i democratici italiani, Milano, Napoli 1969. Pisani, Giulio, Sulla guerra dell’indipendenza e del come provvedere alla patria pericolante, Firenze 1848. Pischedda, Carlo, Talamo, Giuseppe (eds), Tutti gli scritti di Camillo Cavour, vols 2, 3, Torino 1976. Ranalli, Ferdinando, Lettera di Ferdinando Ranalli a Pietro Giordani intorno ai presenti fatti d’Italia, Firenze 1847. Ricotti, Ercole, Della vita e degli scritti del conte Cesare Balbo, Firenze 1856. Roncaglia, Carlo, Sullo stabilimento delle colonie europee nell’Algeria e sulla preferenza da accordarsi alle colonie agricole, Modena 1847. Rossetti, Gabriele, Cracovia, Losanna 1847. Rossi, Gabrielle, Sulla condizione economica e sociale dello Stato Pontificio confrontata specialmente con quella della Francia e della Inghilterra: considerazioni, Bologna 1848. Rubris, Marcus de (ed.), Massimo d’Azeglio: Scritti e discorsi politici, Volume Primo 1846–48, Firenze 1931. Settembrini, Luigi, Opuscoli politici editi e inediti (1847–1851), Roma 1969. Tartaglia, Fortunato, Del progresso italico ragionamento, Torino 1848. The Proceedings of the First General Peace Convention Held in London, June 22, 1843, and the Two Following Days, London 1843. Tommaseo, Niccolò, Dell’Italia, vol. 1, Paris 1835. Torelli, Luigi, Pensieri sull’Italia, Parigi 1846. Tronchêt, Agatone de Luca, Sulla occupazione di Ferrara per l’armata austriaca operata li 13 agosto 1847: riflessi, Loreto 1847.

320

Bibliography

Un vigile Romagnuolo (anonymous writer), Incitamento agli Italiani a rivolgere omai tutte le loro facolta’ morali e fisiche al solo nobile scopo dell’unita’ nazionale italiana, Italia [?] 1847. Una ferita insanabile a Ferdinando d’Austria ossia le forze dei popoli d’Italia, Milano 1848. Usiglio, Giuseppe, Prospetto storico-politico dei grandi avvenimenti attuali d’Europa ed in particolare di quelli d’Italia, Firenze 1848. Valussi, Pacifico, L’Adriatico in relazione agli interessi nazionali dell’Italia, Udine 1871. Ventura, Gioacchino, La Questione Sicula nel 1848 sciolta nel vero interesse della Sicilia, di Napoli e dell’Italia, Palermo 1848. Ventura, Gioacchino, Per lo riconoscimento della Sicilia come stato sovrano, ed indipendente, Palermo 1848. Villani, Filippo, I popoli e i governi d’Italia nel principio del 1847: considerazioni di un solitario, Bastia 1847. Zambelli, Andrea, Sul libro del Principe: Considerazioni, Firenze 1841. Zappi, Daniele, Alcune osservazioni sulle riforme dell’Italia centrale e sui mezzi di assicurarle, Firenze 1847. Zecchini, Stefano Pietro, L’unione fraterna dei popoli, Torino 1848.

DIARIES, MEMOIRS, TRAVEL BOOKS Adlgasser, Franz (ed.), Viktor Franz Freiherr von Andrian-Werburg: „Österreich wird meine Stimme erkennen lernen wie die Stimme Gottes in der Wüste.“ Tagebücher 1839–1858, Band 1: 1839–1847, Wien, Köln, Weimar 2011. Azeglio, Massimo d’, Recollections, vol. 2, London 1868. Baldasseroni, Giovanni, Leopoldo II Granduca di Toscana e i suoi tempi: Memorie, Firenze 1871. Bottrigari, Enrico, Cronaga di Bologna, Volume Primo (1845–1848), Bologna 1960. Farini, Luigi-Carlo, Lo stato romano dal 1815 al 1850, vol. 1, Firenze 1853. Gabussi, Giuseppe, Memorie per servire alla storia della rivoluzione degli Stati romani dall’elevazione di Pio IX al Pontificato sino alla caduta della repubblica, vol. 1, Genova 1851. Lester, Charles Edwards, My Consulship, New York 1858. Mameli, Goffredo, La vita e gli scritti. Vol. I: La vita, Firenze, Venezia 1927. Mameli, Goffredo, La vita e gli scritti. Vol. II: Gli scriti, Firenze, Venezia 1927. Margarita, Clemente Solaro della, Memorandum storico politico, Torino 1851. Martini, Ferdinando (ed.), Memorie inedite di Giuseppe Giusti (1845–49), Milano 1890. Minghetti, Marco, Miei Ricordi: Volume primo: Anni 1818–1848, Torino 1888. Montanelli, Giuseppe, Memorie sull’Italia e specialmente sulla Toscana dal 1814 al 1850, vols 1, 2, Firenze 1853, Torino 1855. Pallavicino, Giorgio, Memorie, vols 1, 2, Torino 1882, 1886. Pepe, Guglielmo, Narrative of Scenes and Events in Italy: From 1847 to 1849, vol. 1, London 1850. Ranalli, Ferdinando, Le istorie italiane dal 1846 al 1853, vol. 1, Firenze 1855.

Published correspondence

321

Raumer, Friedrich von, Italien: Beiträge zur Kenntnis dieses Landes. Zweiter Theil, Leipzig 1840. Revel, Genova di, Dal 1847 al 1855: La spedizione di Crimea. Ricordi di un commissario militare del re, Milano 1891. Ripoli, Edoardo (ed.), Il Risorgimento italiano a Livorno nel Diario di Carlo Cecconi, Aprile 1847 – Febbraio 1849, Pisa 1998. Scalini, Gaetano, Memoria letta il 20 marzo 1888 al circolo monarchico ordine e libertà, Como 1889. Sonnaz, J. Gerbaix de, “Mes souvenirs sur le roi Charles-Albert,” Adolfo Omodeno (ed.), La legenda di Carlo Alberto nella recente storiografia, Torino 1940, pp. 127–68. Venosta, Giovanni Visconti, Memoirs of Youth, Things Seen and Known 1847–1860, Boston, New York 1914.

PUBLISHED CORRESPONDENCE Agliati, Carlo (ed.), Carteggi di Carlo Cattaneo, Serie II, Lettere di corrispondenza, Volume I, 1820–1840, Firenze, Bellinzona 2001. Alberti, Mario degli (ed.), La politica estera del Piemonte sotto Carlo Alberto Secondo il carteggio diplomatico del Conte Vittorio Amedeo Balbo Bertone di Sambuy ministro di Sardegna a Vienna (1835–1846), vols 1, 2, Torino 1913, 1915. Bagnoli, Paolo, “Lettere di Giuseppe Montanelli a Givan Pietro Vieusseux (1831–1860),” Nuova Antologia 129, 1994, 572, pp. 266–95. Barante, Claude de (ed.), Souvenirs du Baron de Barante de l’Académie française 1782–1866, vol. 6, Paris 1897. Bartoccini, Fiorella, Verdini, Silvana (eds), Sui congressi degli scienziati, Roma 1952. Bianchi, Nicomede (ed.), Scritti e lettere di Carlo Alberto, Torino 1879. Bianchi, Nicomede (ed.), Storia documentata della diplomazia europea in Italia dall’anno 1814 all’anno 1861, vols 3, 4, Torino 1867. Carlo, Eugenio di (ed.), Lettere inedite di Cesare Balbo e Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio, Palermo 1921. Catania, Marcello, Il “cuore” di Firenze a Curtatone e Montanara, Firenze 1975. Cavazza, Giulio (ed.), “I moderati bolognesi e i loro rapporti con il liberalismo lombardo e piemontese nell’estate-autunno del 1847,” Bollettino del Museo del Risorgimento 22, Bologna 1975–1977, pp. 3–40. Cecchini, Bianca Maria (ed.), Per il Re, per l’Imperatore: Gli Stati italiani nei rapporti della diplomazia segreta francese e asburgica (1815–1847), Roma 1998. Chiala, Luigi (ed.), Camillo Cavour’s gedruckte und ungedruckte Briefe, Erster Band 1821–1851, Leipzig 1884. Chiarito, Daniela Maldini (ed.), Costanza d’Azeglio: Lettere al figlio (1829–1862), vol. I (26 juin 1829 – 27 mai 1849), Roma 1996. Codignola, Arturo (ed.), Dagli albori della libertà al proclama di Moncalieri (Lettere del conte Ilarione Petitti di Roreto a Michele Erede dal marzo 1846 all’aprile del 1850), Torino 1931. Colombo, Adolfo (ed.), Carteggi di Vincenzo Gioberti, Volume II: Lettere di I. Petitti di Roreto a Vincenzo Gioberti (1841–1850), Roma 1936. Coons, Ronald E., “La vigilia del’48 nella monarchia asburgica vista da un diplomatico americano,” Rassegna storica del Risorgimento 63, 1976, 2, pp. 152–80.

322

Bibliography

Curato, Federico (ed.), 1848: Il carteggio diplomatico del governo provvisorio della Lombardia, Milano 1955. Falzone, Gaetano (ed.), Il problema della Sicilia nel 1848 attraverso nuove fonti inedite: Indipendenza e autonomia nel giuoco della politica internazionale, Palermo 1951. Ferrari, Vittorio (ed.), Carteggio Casati-Castagnetto (19 Marzo – 14 Ottobre 1848), Milano 1909. Franchi, Ausonio (ed.), Epistolario di Giuseppe La Farina, vol. 1, Milano 1869. Frassi, Giovanni (ed.), Epistolario di Giuseppe Giusti, vol. 2, Firenze 1859. Gabbrielli, Veronica (ed.), Carteggio Lambruschini – Vieusseux, vols 3, 5, Firenze 1999, 2000. Gentile, Giovanni (ed.), Lettere di Carlo Alberto a Ottavio Thaon di Revel, Milano 1931. Gentile, Giovanni (ed.), Vincenzo Gioberti: Epistolario, vols 3, 6, 7, Firenze 1928, 1931, 1934. Ghisalberti, Alberto M. (ed.), Rapporti delle Cose di Roma (1848–1849), Roma 1949. Gotti, Aurelio, Tabarrini, Marco (eds), Lettere e documenti del Barone Bettino Ricasoli, Volume Primo (2 maggio 1829–28 maggio 1849), Firenze 1887. Lemmi, Francesco, “Carlo Alberto e Francesco IV.: lettere inedite,” Il Risorgimento italiano 20, 1927, 4, pp. 305–73. Lovera, Carlo, Rinieri, Ilario P. (eds), Clemente Solaro della Margarita, vol. 3, Torino 1931. Lungo, I. del, Prunas, P. (eds), N. Tommaseo e G. Capponi: Carteggio inedito dal 1833 at 1874, volume secondo: Nantes, Bastia, Montpellier, Venezia (1837–1849), Bologna 1914. Madaro, Luigi (ed.), Carteggi di Vincenzo Gioberti, Volume V: Lettere di illustri Italiani a Vincenzo Gioberti, Roma 1937. Malvezzi, Aldobrandino (ed.), Il Risorgimento italiano in un carteggio di patrioti lombardi 1820– 1860, Milano 1924. Marraro, Howard R. (ed.), L’unificazione italiana vista dai diplomatici statunitensi, vol. 1, Roma 1963. Massarani, Tullo (ed.), Cesare Correnti nella vita e nelle opere, Roma 1890. Mazzini, Giuseppe, Scritti editi ed inediti, vols 19, 30, 33, 35, Imola 1914, 1919, 1921, 1922. Monti, Antonio (ed.), Un dramma fra gli esuli: Con documenti inediti e la bibliografia delle edizioni di capolago, Milano 1921. Nada, Narciso (ed.), Camillo Cavour: Epistolario, vol. 4, Firenze 1978. Nada, Narciso (ed.), Le relazioni diplomatiche fra l’Austria e il Regno di Sardegna, II serie: 1830– 1848, vols 1, 2, 3, 4, Roma 1972, 1973, 1993, 1997. Palamenghi-Crispi, Tommaso (ed.), Giuseppe Mazzini: Epistolario inedito 1836–1864, Milano 1911. Piglione, E., “Contributo alla storia delle relazioni tra Piemonte e S. Sede (1835–1846),” Il Risorgimento italiano 25, 1932, 3/4, pp. 305–411. Pignotti, Marco (ed.), Carteggio Ridolfi – Galeotti (1847–1864), Firenze 2001. Pignotti, Marco (ed.), Cosimo Ridolfi – Gian Pietro Vieusseux: Carteggio II (1839–1845), Firenze 1995. Pischedda, Carlo (ed.), Camillo Cavour: Epistolario, Volume Quinto (1848), Firenze 1980. Pischedda, Carlo (ed.), La diplomazia del Regno di Sardegna durante la prima guerra d’indipendenza: I. Relazioni con il Granducato di Toscana (marzo 1848 – aprile 1849), Torino 1949. Procacci, Giuliano (ed.), Le relazioni diplomatiche fra lo Stato pontifico e la Francia, II serie: 1830–1848, vols 2, 3, Roma 1963, 1969.

Literature

323

Quazza, Guido (ed.), La diplomazia del Regno di Sardegna durante la prima guerra d’indipendenza: III. Relazioni con il Regno delle Due Sicilie (gennaio 1848 – dicembre 1849), Torino 1952. Rava, Luigi (ed.), Epistolario di Luigi Carlo Farini, Volume Primo (1827–1847), Bologna 1911. Saitta, Armando (ed.), Le relazioni diplomatiche fra la Francia e il Regno di Sardegna, 1830–1848, vols 1, 2, Roma 1974, 1976. Saitta, Armando (ed.), Le relazioni diplomatiche fra la Francia, il Granducato di Toscana, e il Ducato di Lucca, II serie: 1830–1848, vol. 2, Roma 1960. Salata, Francesco (ed.), Carlo Alberto inedito, Milano 1931. Schiavo, Vittorio, “Echi del ’48 nelle lettere di Carlo Ilarione Petitti e di altri italiani a Richard Cobden,” Umberto Levra, Nicola Tranfaglia (eds), Dal Piemonte all’Italia: Studi in onore di Narciso Nada nel suo settantesimo compleanno, Torino 1995, pp. 191–217. Vesme, Carlo Baudi di (ed.), La diplomazia del Regno di Sardegna durante la prima guerra d’indipendenza: II. Relazioni con lo Stato Pontificio (marzo 1848 – luglio 1849), Torino 1951. Villari, Lucio (ed.), Il Risorgimento: Storia, documenti, testimonianze, vols 3, 4, Roma 2007. Viarengo, Adriano (ed.), Lorenzo Valerio Carteggio (1825–1865), vols 1, 2, Torino 1991, 1994. Virlogeux, Georges (ed.), Massimo d’Azeglio: Epistolario (1819–1866), vols 3, 4, Torino 1992, 1998.

LITERATURE Abernethy, David P., The Dynamics of Global Dominance: European Overseas Empires, 1425– 1980, New Haven, London 2000. Acton, Harold, The Last Bourbons of Naples (1825–1861), London 1961. Adolf, Antony, Peace: A World History, Cambridge 2010. Afflerbach, Holger, “Das Deutsche Reich, Bismarcks Allianzpolitik und die europäische Friedenssicherung vor 1914,” Ulrich Lappenküper (ed.), Otto von Bismarck und das „lange 19. Jahrhundert“: Lebendige Vergangenheit im Spiegel der „Friedrichsruher Beiträge“ 1996–2016, Paderborn 2017, pp. 32–54. Albertini, Mario, “Idea nazionale e ideali di unità supernazionali in Italia dal 1815 al 1918,” Nuove Questioni di storia del Risorgimento e dell’unità d’Italia 2, 1961, pp. 671–728. Allason, Barbara, “Carlo Alberto nel 1833: Attraverso il carteggio Metternich–De Bombelles,” Nuova Antologia 39, 1914, 1015, pp. 399–408. Altgeld, Wolfgang, “Deutsche Nation und Habsburger Monarchie: Die Entstehung des Mitteleuropagedankens vor 1848,” Luigi Cotteri (ed.), Die Einheit Europas: Das Problem der Nationalitäten, Meran 1990, pp. 279–299. Altgeld, Wolfgang, “Zur Rezeption der Risorgimento-Literatur in Deutschland vor 1848,” Risorgimento 1981, 1, pp. 13–32. Ambrosini, Gaspare, “La svolta della Sicilia nel 1848 verso gli ordinamenti democratici e l’unificazione nazionale,” Salvatore Massimo Ganci, Rosa Guccione Scaglione (eds), La Sicilia e l’unità d’Italia: Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Studi Storici sul Risorgimento italiano (Palermo 15–20 aprile 1961), Milano 1962, pp. 327–37. Ambrosini, Luigi, Cronache del Risorgimento, Bologna 1972. Anderson, Matthew S., The Ascendancy of Europe 1815–1914, New York 2013. Angelow, Jürgen, Von Wien nach Königgrätz: Die Sicherheitspolitik des Deutschen Bundes im europäischen Gleichgewicht (1815–1866), München 1996.

324

Bibliography

Antinucci, Raffaella, “‘An Italy Independent and One’: Giovanni (John) Ruffini, Britain and the Italian Risorgimento,” Nick Carter (ed.), Britain, Ireland and the Italian Risorgimento, Basingstoke 2015, pp. 104–26. Antonacci, Nicola, “Centralismo e federalismo nell’Italia del XIX secolo: Una riflessione,” Scienza & Politica 15, 1996, pp. 21–39. Ardeleanu, Constantin, International Trade and Diplomacy at the Lower Danube: The Sulina Question and the Economic Premises of the Crimean War (1829–1853), Braĭla 2014. Aschmann, Birgit, “Das Zeitalter des Gefühls? Zur Relevanz von Emotionen im 19. Jahrhundert,” Birgit Aschmann (ed.), Durchbruch der Moderne? Neue Perspektiven auf das 19. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt am Main, New York 2019, pp. 83–118. Aschmann, Birgit, Preußens Ruhm und Deutschlands Ehre: Zum nationalen Ehrdiskurs im Vorfeld der preußisch-französischen Kriege des 19. Jahrhunderts, München 2013. Austensen, Roy A., “Metternich and Charles Albert: Salt, tariffs, and the Sardinian challenge, 1844– 1848,” The Consortium of Revolutionary Europe, 1750–1850, Athens (OH) 1986, pp. 384–94. Bacchin, Elena, Italofilia: Opinione pubblica britannica e Risorgimento italiano 1847–1864, Torino 2014. Bade, Klaus J., “Die „Zweite Reichsgründung“ in Übersee: Imperiale Visionen, Kolonialbewegung und Kolonialpolitik in der Bismarckzeit,” Adolf M. Birke, Günther Heydemann (eds), Die Herausforderung des europäischen Staatensystems: Nationale Ideologie und staatliches Interesse zwischen Restauration und Imperialismus, Göttingen, Zürich 1989, pp. 183–215. Bagnoli, Paolo, L’idea dell’Italia 1815–1861, Parma 2007. Bain, William (ed.), The Empire of Security and the Safety of the People, London, New York 2006. Bajtay, Péter, “Nordische Nationalbewegungen und der politische Skandinavismus in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Heiner Timmermann (ed.), Entwicklung der Nationalbewegungen in Europa 1850–1914, Berlin 1998, pp. 384–97. Baldwin, David A., “The concept of security,” Review of International Studies 23, 1997, 3, pp. 5–26. Banti, Alberto Mario, La nazione del Risorgimento: Parentela, santità e onore alle origini dell’Italia unita, Torino 2000. Banti, Alberto Mario, Ginsborg, Paul, Il Risorgimento, Torino 2007. Barbieri, Federico, Visconti, Dante, Il problema del Mediterraneo nel Risorgimento, Milano 1948. Bartlett, C. J., Defence and Diplomacy: Britain and the Great Powers 1815–1914, Manchester, New York 1993. Baumgart, Winfried, Europäisches Konzert und nationale Bewegung: Internationale Beziehungen 1830–1878, München, Wien, Zürich 1999. Bayly, Christopher A., The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons, Malden 2004. Becker-Christensen, Henrik, “The idea of Scandinavianism,” E. I. Kouri, Jens E. Olesen (eds), The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, Volume 2: 1520–1870, Cambridge 2016, pp. 928–33. Beales, A. C. F., The History of Peace: A Short Account of the Organised Movements for International Peace, London 1931. Beales, Derek, Biagini, Eugenio F., The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy, Harlow 2002. Becker-Christensen, Henrik, Skandinaviske Drømme og politiske Realiteter 1830–1850, Århus 1981. Belardelli, Giovanni, Mazzini, Bologna 2010. Bell, Duncan, The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860–1900, Princeton 2007. Berkeley, George Fitz-Harding, Italy in the Making, 1815–1846, Cambridge 1968. Berkeley, George Fitz-Harding, Berkeley, Joan, Italy in the Making: June 1846 to I January 1848, Cambridge 1968.

Literature

325

Berlin, Knud, Zur Problematik des Nordischen Gedankens, Riga 1943. Bernardello, Adolfo, “Venezia 1847–1848: patria e rivoluzione. Gruppi dirigenti e classi popolari,” Il Risorgimento 54, 2002, 3, pp. 373–416. Berti, Giampietro, “I moderati e il neoguelfismo,” Il movimento nazionale e il 1848, Milano 1986, pp. 227–58. Berti, Giuseppe, Russia e stati italiani nel Risorgimento, Torino 1957. Betts, Raymond, The False Dawn: European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century, Minneapolis, Oxford 1976. Bew, John, Realpolitik: A History, Oxford 2016, pp. 43–64. Bjørn, Claus, “Fra Helstat til nationalstat 1814–1914,” Carsten Due-Nielsen, Ole Feldbæk, Nikolaj Petersen (eds), Dansk Udenrigspolitiks Historie, vol. 3, København 2003. Bleiber, Helmut, “Deutsche Polenfreundschaft 1848,” Lars Lambrecht (ed.), Osteuropa in den Revolutionen von 1848, Frankfurt am Main 2006, pp. 89–103. Bollati, Giulio, L’Italiano: Il carattere nazionale come storia e come invenzione, Torino 1983. Bonfiglio, Richard, “Liberal Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of the Heart(h): Mazzini, Gladstone, and Barrett Browning’s Domestication of the Italian Risorgimento,” Modern Philology 111, 2013, 2, pp. 281–307. Bormann, Patrick, Freiberger, Thomas, Michel, Judith, Angst in den Internationalen Beziehungen, Bonn 2010. Bortolotti, Sandro, “La stampa germanica nei riguardi del movimento nazionale italiano negli anni 1841–1847,” Rassegna Storica del Risorgimento 25, 1938, pp. 519–30. Bortolotti, Sandro, Metternich e l’Italia nel 1846: Saggio di storia diplomatica, Torino 1944. Bosworth, R. J. B., Italy, the Least of the Great Powers: Italian Foreign Policy before the First World War, London, New York 2005. Bosworth, R. J. B., Nationalism, Abingdon, New York 2013. Botti, Ferruccio, “Il concetto di geostrategia e una sua applicazione alla nazionalità italiana nelle teorie del generale Giacomo Durando,” Informazioni della difesa, 1994, 3, pp. 51–62. Botzenhart, Manfred, “Die österreichische Frage in der deutschen Nationalversammlung 1848/49,” Michael Gehler (ed.), Ungleiche Partner? Österreich und Deutschland in ihrer gegenseitigen Wahrnehmung: Historische Analysen und Vergleiche aus dem 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart 1996, pp. 115–34. Boyer, Ferdinand, La Seconde République: Charles-Albert et l’Italie du Nord en 1848, Paris 1967. Brendel, Thomas, Zukunft Europa? Das Europabild und die Idee der internationalen Solidarität bei den deutschen Liberalen im Vormärz (1815–1848), Bochum 2005. Bridge, Francis Roy, Bullen, Roger, The Great Powers and the European States System 1814–1914, Harlow 2005. Brignoli, Marziano, Carlo Alberto ultimo re di Sardegna 1798–1849, Milano 2007. Brignoli, Marziano, Massimo d’Azeglio: Una biografia politica, Milano 1988. Brock, Peter, Pacifism in Europe to 1914, Princeton 1972. Broers, Michael, “Torino e il Piemonte visti dalla Gran Bretagna,” Umberto Levra (ed.), Il Piemonte alle soglie del 1848, Torino 1999, pp. 551–63. Brophy, James M., “The Rhine Crisis of 1840 and German Nationalism: Chauvinism, Skepticism, and Regional Reception,” The Journal of Modern History 85, 2013, 1, pp. 1–35. Buchheim, Karl, Die Stellung der Kölnischen Zeitung im vormärzlichen rheinischen Liberalismus, Leipzig 1914. Bullen, Roger, “Anglo-French Rivalry and Spanish Politics, 1846–1848,” The English Historical Review 89, 1974, 350, pp. 25–47. Bullen, Roger, Palmerston, Guizot and the Collapse of the Entente Cordiale, London 1974. Buschmann, Nikolaus, Einkreisung und Waffenbruderschaft: Die öffentliche Deutung von Krieg und Nation in Deutschland 1850–1871, Göttingen 2003.

326

Bibliography

Buβmann, Walter, “Zur Geschichte des deutschen Liberalismus im 19. Jahrhundert,” Historische Zeitschrift 186, 1958, 3, pp. 527–57. Buzan, Barry, People, States, and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations, Brighton 1983. Buzan, Barry, “Peace, Power, and Security: Contending concepts in the Study of International Relations,” Journal of Peace Research 21, 1984, 2, pp. 109–25. Candeloro, Giorgio, Storia dell’Italia moderna. Volume 3: La Rivoluzione nazionale, Milano 1960. Candeloro, Giorgio, Storia dell’Italia moderna. Volume secondo: Dalla Restaurazione alla rivoluzione nazionale, Milano 1994. Caquet, P. E., “The Napoleonic Legend and the War Scare of 1840,” The International History Review 35, 2013, 4, pp. 702–22. Cardoza, Anthony L., Symcox, Geoffrey W., A History of Turin, Torino 2006. Carr, William, Schleswig-Holstein 1815–1848: A Study in National Conflict, Manchester 1963. Carroll, Malcolm E., French Public Opinion and Foreign Affairs, 1870–1914, London, New York 1931. Caruso, Amerigo, Nationalstaat als Telos? Konflikte und Transformationen im konservativen Diskurs in Preußen und Sardinien-Piemont 1840–1870, dissertation, Universität des Saarlandes 2015. Cassels, Alan, Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World, London, New York 1996. Castelfranchi, Laura, “Il «Corriere Livornese» (1847–1849),” Bollettino Storico Livornese 2, 1938, pp. 46–68. Ceadel, Martin, The Origins of War Prevention: The British Peace Movement and International Relations, 1730–1854, Oxford 1996. Ceccuti, Cosimo, “Idee e programmi di Ricasoli sullo sfondo della Toscana del 1848,” Nuova Antologia 115, 1980, 542, pp. 79–100. Ceccuti, Cosimo, “Ricasoli fra 1847 e 1849,” Giovanni Spadolini (ed.), Ricasoli e il suo tempo, Firenze 1981, pp. 311–32. Chabod, Federico, Idea di Europa e politica dell’equilibrio, Napoli 1995. Chabod, Federico, Italian Foreign Policy: The Statecraft of the Founders, Princeton 1996. Chabod, Federico, L’idea di nazione, Bari 1962. Chabod, Federico, Storia politica del Mediterraneo, Brescia 2014. Chrattenecker, Irene, “Il potere delle immagini: Gli inni patriottici, i canti popolari e le stampe della rivoluzione del 1848,” Gino Benzoni, Gaetano Cozzi (eds), Venezia e l’Austria, Venezia 1999, pp. 451–74. Church, Clive H., Europe in 1830: Revolution and Political Change, London, Boston, Sydney 1983. Chvojka, Michal, “Situačné správy: Archívny zdroj medzi kritickou a idealizujúcou reflexiou skutočnosti,” Nové historické rozhľady 1, 2011, 2, pp. 77–99. Ciasca, Raffaele, L’origine del programma per “L’Opinione Nazionale Italiana” del 1847–1848, Milano 1965. Clark, Martin, The Italian Risorgimento, Harlow 2009. Clemens, Gabriele B., “Torino e il Piemonte visti dalla Prussia,” Umberto Levra (ed.), Il Piemonte alle soglie del 1848, Torino 1999, pp. 623–41. Cohen, Raymond, Threat Perception in International Crisis, Madison 1979. Collett, John Peter, “The Christiania University’s 50 Years Celebration in 1861: National Pride and Scandinavian Solidarity,” Pieter Dhondt (ed.), National, Nordic or European? Nineteenth-Century University Jubilees and Nordic Cooperation, Leiden, Boston 2011, pp. 73–98. Collier, Martin, Italian Unification 1820–71, Edinburgh 2003.

Literature

327

Colombo, Adolfo, “Carlo Alberto e la vertenza austro-sarda nel 1846,” Il Risorgimento italiano 68/69, 1932, pp. 1–75. Conter, Claude D., “Europa,” Norbert Otto Eke (ed.), Vormärz-Handbuch, Bielefeld 2020, pp. 219– 28. Conter, Claude D., “Europakonstruktivisten und Modeeuropäer: Antriebskräfte des Europadiskurses zwischen 1815 und 1848,” Ulrich Lappenküper, Guido Thiemeyer (eds), Europäische Einigung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Akteure und Antriebskräfte, Paderborn 2013, pp. 23–43. Conze, Eckart, Geschichte der Sicherheit: Entwicklung, Themen, Perspektiven, Göttingen 2018. Conze, Eckart, “Konzertierte Sicherheit: Wahrnehmung und Wirkung des Wiener Kongresses im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert,” Journal of Modern European History 13, 2015, pp. 439–46. Conze, Eckart, “Wer von Europa spricht hat Unrecht: Aufstieg und Verfall des vertragsrechtlichen Multilateralismus im europäischen Staatensystem des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Historisches Jahrbuch 121, 2001, pp. 214–41. Cooper, Sandi E., Patriotic Pacifism: Waging War on War in Europe, 1815–1914, New York, Oxford 2014. Coppa, Frank J., “Realpolitik and Conviction in the Conflict between Piedmont and the Papacy during the Risorgimento,” The Catholic Historical Review 54, 1969, 4, pp. 579–612. Coppa, Frank J., The Origins of the Italian Wars of Independence, London 1992. Coppini, Romano Paolo, Il Granducato di Toscana: Dagli «anni francesi» all’Unità, Torino 1993. Coppini, Romano Paolo, “Torino e il Piemonte visti dal Granducato di Toscana,” Umberto Levra (ed.), Il Piemonte alle soglie del 1848, Torino 1999, pp. 749–69. Coppini, Romano Paolo, Francesco, Antonino De, Meriggi, Marco, Pescosolido, Guido, Storia d’Italia. 1: Le premesse dell’unità: Dalla fine del Settecento al 1861, Roma 1994. Cortright, David, Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas, Cambridge 2010. Croce, Benedetto, Geschichte Europas im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, Wien, Zürich 1947. Cunsolo, Ronald S., Italian nationalism: From Its origins to World War II, Malabar (Florida) 1990. Curato, Federico, Scritti di storia diplomatica, Milano 1984. Curcio, Carlo, Ideali mediterranei nel Risorgimento, Roma 1941. Curcio, Carlo, Machiavelli nel Risorgimento, Milano 1953. Davis, John A., Italy in the Nineteenth Century, 1796–1900, Oxford 2000. Davis, John A., “Palmerston and the Sicilian Sulphur Crisis of 1840: An Episode in the Imperialism of Free Trade,” Risorgimento 1/2, 1982, pp. 5–22. Degn, Christian, Orla Lehmann und der nationale Gedanke: Eiderstaat und nordische Einheit, Neumünster 1936. Derry, T. K., A History of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, London 1979. Deschamps, Henri-Thierry, La Belgique devant la France de Juillet: L’opinion et l’attitude françaises de 1839 à 1848, Paris 1956. Deutsch, Wilhelm, Das Werden des italienischen Staates: Der Sieg der italienischen Einigungsbewegung im XIX. Jahrhundert, Wien 1936. Di Scala, Spencer M., Italy: From Revolution to Republic: 1700 to the Present, Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford 1995. Diolaiuti, Riccardo, Giuseppe Giusti e la genesi del federalismo toscano: Analisi storico-politica sulla nascita dell’idea di nazione, Firenze 2004. Dipper, Christof, “Revolution und Risorgimento: Italien 1848/49 aus deutscher Perspektive,” Historische Zeitschrift: Beihefte 29, 2000, pp. 73–89. Doering-Manteuffel, Anselm, Vom Wiener Kongreß zur Pariser Konferenz: England, die deutsche Frage und das Mächtesystem 1815–1856, Göttingen, Zürich 1991.

328

Bibliography

Doll, Natascha, Recht, Politik und »Realpolitik« bei August Ludwig von Rochau (1810–1873): Ein wissenschaftsgeschichtlicher Beitrag zum Verhältnis von Politik und Recht im 19. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt 2005. Dotti, Ugo, I dissidenti del risorgimento: Cattaneo, Ferrari, Pisacane, Roma 1981. Droysen, Gustav, Johann Gustav Droysen, Erster Teil: Bis zum Beginn der Frankfurter Tätigkeit, Leipzig, Berlin 1910. Droz, Jacques, L’Europe centrale: Évolution historique de l’idée de «Mitteleuropa», Paris 1960. Dufner, Wolfram, Geschichte Schwedens: Ein Überblick, Neumünster 1967. Duggan, Christopher, Francesco Crispi 1818–1901, Oxford 2002, p. 60. Duggan, Christopher, The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796, London 2007. Duppler, Jörg, Der Juniorpartner: England und die Entwicklung der Deutschen Marine 1848– 1890, Herford 1985. Earle, Edward Mead, “Adam Smith, Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich List: The Economic Foundations of Military Power,” Edward Mead Earle (ed.), Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler, Princeton 1943, pp. 117–54. Echard, William E., Napoleon III and the Concert of Europe, Baton Rouge, London 1983. Engel-Janosi, Friedrich, Österreich und der Vatikan, 1846–1918, Band I: Die Pontifikate Pius’ IX. und Leos XIII. (1846–1903), Graz 1958. Engelberg, Ernst, Bismarck: Urpreuβe und Reichsgründer, Berlin 1991. Externbrink, Sven, “Kulturtransfer, Internationale Beziehungen und die ‘Generation Metternich’ zwischen Französischer Revolution, Restauration und Revolution von 1848,” Wolfram Pyta (ed.), Das europäische Mächtekonzert: Friedens- und Sicherheitspolitik vom Wiener Kongreß 1815 bis zum Krimkrieg 1853, Köln 2009, pp. 59–78. Eyck, Frank, The Frankfurt Parliament 1848–1849, London, Melbourne, Toronto, New York 1968. Faber, Karl-Georg, “Realpolitik als Ideologie: Die Bedeutung des Jahres 1866 für das politische Denken in Deutschland,” Historische Zeitschrift 203, 1966, 1, pp. 1–45. Falaschi, Francesca, “L’occupazione francese di Ancona del 1932,” Rassegna storica del Risorgimento 15, 1928, pp. 118–42. Falzone, Gaetano, La Sicilia nella Politica mediterranea della grandi potenze: indipendenza o autonomia nei documenti inediti del Quai d‘Orsay, Palermo 1974. Farinelli, Giuseppe, Paccagnini, Ermanno, Santambrogio, Giovanni, Villa, Angela Ida, Storia del giornalismo italiano: Dalle origini ai giorni nostri, Torino 1997. Fenske, Hans, “Imperialistische Ansätze in Österreich im 19. Jh.,” Hans Fenske, Wolfgang Reinhard, Ernst Schulin (eds), Historia integra: Festschrift für Erich Hassinger zum 70. Geburtstag, Berlin 1977, pp. 245–63. Fenske, Hans, “Ungeduldige Zuschauer: Die Deutschen und die europäische Expansion 1815– 1880,” in Wolfgang Reinhard (ed.) Imperialistische Kontinuität und nationale Ungeduld im 19. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt 1991, pp. 87–123. Ferretti, Federico, “Inventing Italy: Geography, Risorgimento and national imagination: the international circulation of geographical knowledge in the nineteenth century,” The Geographical Journal 180, 2014, 4, pp. 402–13. Finocchiaro, Laura Fournier, Giuseppe Mazzini: Un intellettuale europeo, Napoli 2013. Fiorentino, Carlo Maria, “Torino e il Piemonte visti dallo Stato della Chiesa,” Umberto Levra (ed.), Il Piemonte alle soglie del 1848, Torino 1999, pp. 771–93. Fisch, Jörg, Europa zwischen Wachstum und Gleichheit 1850–1914, Stuttgart 2002. Fischer, Kurt Gerhard, Die Pädagogik des Menschenmöglichen: Adalbert Stifter, Linz 1962.

Literature

329

Fitzpatrick, Matthew P., Liberal Imperialism in Germany: Expansionism and Nationalism 1848– 1884, New York, Oxford 2008. Flacke, Monika (ed.), Mythen der Nationen: Ein europäisches Panorama, Berlin, München 2001. Fleck, Robert, “L’‘Europe’ et la Révolution de 1848 en Europe centrale,” Helmut Reinalter (ed.), Europaideen im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert in Frankreich und Zentraleuropa, Frankfurt am Main 1994, pp. 95–106. Forβmann, Jan-Pieter, Presse und Revolution in der Toskana 1847–49: Entstehung, Inhalte und Wandel einer politischen Öffentlichkeit, Köln, Weimar, Wien 2017. Francesco, Antonio De, “Torino e il Piemonte visti dal Regno delle Due Sicilie: Palermo,” Umberto Levra (ed.), Il Piemonte alle soglie del 1848, Torino 1999, pp. 815–24. Francia, Enrico, 1848: La rivoluzione del Risorgimento, Bologna 2012. Francia, Enrico, “Il pane e la politica: Moti annonari e opinione pubblica in Toscana alla vigilia del 1848,” Passato e presente 17, 1999, 46, pp. 129–55. Frandsen, Steen Bo, “1848 in Dänemark: Die Durchsetzung der Demokratie und das Zerbrechen des Gesamtstaates,” Dieter Dowe, Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, Dieter Langewiesche (eds), Europa 1848: Revolution und Reform, Bonn 1998, pp. 389–419. Frandsen, Steen Bo, Dänemark: Der kleine Nachbar im Norden. Aspekte der deutsch-dänischen Beziehungen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Darmstadt 1994. Franzinetti, Guido M. R., “La questioni irlandesi viste da esponenti del movimento nazionale dell’Ottocento: Cavour, Cattaneo e Mazzini,” Manuela Ceretta, Mario Tesini (eds), Gustave de Beaumont: La schiavitù, l’Irlanda, la questione sociale nel XIX secolo, Milano 2011, pp. 264–71. Frascani, Paolo, Il Mare, Bologna 2008. Frevert, Ute, Emotions in History: Lost and Found, Budapest, New York 2011. Fröhlich, Michael, Imperialismus: Deutsche Kolonial- und Weltpolitik 1880–1914, München 1997. Galasso, Giuseppe, “Der italienische Süden im Risorgimento,” Die deutsch-italienischen Beziehungen im Zeitalter des Risorgimento: Referate und Diskussion der 8. deutsch-italienischen Historikertagung, Braunschweig 24.–28. Mai 1968, Braunschweig 1970, pp. 44–57. Galasso, Giuseppe, Il Regno di Napoli: Il Mezzogiorno borbonico e risorgimentale (1815–1860), Torino 2007. Gall, Lothar (ed.), 1848: Aufbruch zur Freiheit, Frankfurt am Main 1998. Gallavresi, G., Quattro anni di attività giornalistica della Principessa Cristina Trivulzio di Belgioioso (1845–1848), Milano 1926. Gallo, Fernando, “The Shaping of European Modernities: Neapolitan Hegelianism and the Renaissance (1848–1862),” History 103, 2018, 356, pp. 451–68. Garrone, Alessandro Galante, Peruta, Franco Della, La stampa italiana del Risorgimento, Roma 1978. Gehler, Michael, “Otto von Bismarck und die Europa-Ideen im Zeichen des nationalstaatlichen Prinzips,” Ulrich Lappenküper, Karina Urbach (eds), Realpolitik für Europa: Bismarcks Weg, Paderborn 2016, pp. 87–117. Geiss, Imanuel, Die deutsche Frage 1806–1990, Mannheim 1992. Geisthövel, Alexa, Eigentümlichkeit und Macht: Deutscher Nationalismus 1830–1851. Der Fall Schleswig-Holstein, Stuttgart 2003. Geisthövel, Alexa, Restauration und Vormärz 1815–1847, München, Wien, Zürich 2008. Gentile, Emilio, La Grande Italia: The Myth of the Nation in the Twentieth Century, London, Madison 2009. Gentile, Giuseppe, Sicilia e Piemonte nel 1848–49, Milano 1964. Gentile, Pierangelo, Carlo Alberto in un diario segreto: Le memorie di Cesare Trabucco di Castagnetto 1832–1849, Torino 2015.

330

Bibliography

Gerhardt, Martin, Hubatsch, Walther, Deutschland und Skandinavien im Wandel der Jahrhunderte, Bonn 1950. Gernert, Angelica, Liberalismus als Handlungskonzept: Studien zur Rolle der politischen Presse im italienischen Risorgimento vor 1848, Stuttgart 1990, pp. 237–38. Ghenghea, Mircea-Cristian, “About Pan-Scandinavianism: Reference points in the 19th century (1815–1864),” The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies 6, 2014, 2, pp. 127–45. Ghisalberti, Carlo, “Einheitsstaat und Föderalismus in Italien,” Oliver Janz, Pierangelo Schiera, Hannes Siegrist (eds), Zentralismus und Föderalismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Deutschland und Italien im Vergleich, Berlin 2000, pp. 69–78. Gigante, Claudio, “La nazione necessaria: Massimo d’Azeglio e il diritto di unirsi ovvero di dividersi,” Between 2, 2012, 3, pp. 1–19. Ginsborg, Paul, Daniele Manin and the Venetian Revolution of 1848–49, Cambridge, London, New York, Melbourne 1979. Ginsborg, Paul, “After the Revolution: Bandits on the plains of the Po 1848–54,” John A. Davis, Paul Ginsborg (eds), Society and Politics in the Age of the Risorgimento: Essays in honour of Denis Mack Smith, Cambridge 2002, pp. 128–51. Girardet, Raoul, L’Idée coloniale en France 1871–1962, Paris 1972. Girod de l’Ain, Gabriel, Jean Baptiste Bernadotte: Bürger, französischer Revolutionsgeneral, schwedisch-norwegischer König, Konstanz 1989. Giura, Vincenzo, La Questione degli zolfi siciliani 1838–1841, Geneva 1973. Gjerset, Knut, History of the Norwegian People, vol. 2, New York 1915. Gleason, John H., The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain: A Study of the Interaction of Policy and Opinion, Cambridge 1950. Godet, Marcel, Dernières nouvelles d’il y a cent ans: La Suisse et l’Europe en 1840, Neuchâtel 1940. Görtemaker, Manfred, Geschichte Europas 1850–1918, Stuttgart 2002. Gollwitzer, Heinz, Europabild und Europagedanke: Beiträge zur deutschen Geistesgeschichte des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, München 1951. Gollwitzer, Heinz, Geschichte des weltpolitischen Denkens, Bd. 1: Vom Zeitalter der Entdeckungen bis zum Beginn des Imperialismus, Göttingen 1972. Graaf, Beatrice de, Haan, Ido de, Vick, Brian (eds), Securing Europe after Napoleon: 1815 and the New European Security Culture, Cambridge 2019. Grabner-Haider, Anton, Davidowicz, Klaus S., Prenner, Karl, Kulturgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts, Göttingen 2015. Gramley, Halda, Propheten des deutschen Nationalismus: Theologen, Historiker und Nationalökonomen 1848–1880, Frankfurt, New York 2001. Gramsci, Antonio, Die süditalienische Frage: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Einigung Italiens, Amsterdam 1971. Gramsci, Antonio, Il risorgimento, Torino 1954. Graziano, Manlio, The Failure of Italian Nationhood: The Geopolitics of a Troubled Identity, New York 2010. Greppi, Edoardo, “The Risorgimento and the ‘Birth’ of International Law in Italy,” Giulio Bartolini (ed.), A History of International Law in Italy, Oxford 2020, pp. 79–108. Grew, Raymond, A Sterner Plan for Italian Unity: The Italian National Society in the Risorgimento, Princeton 1963. Greenfield, Kent Roberts, Economics and Liberalism in the Risorgimento: A Study of Nationalism in Lombardy, 1814–1848, Westport 1978. Groh, Dieter, Ruβland und das Selbstverständnis Europas, Neuwied 1961. Gründer, Horst, Geschichte der deutschen Kolonien, Paderborn 2012.

Literature

331

Gruner, Wolf D., Der Wiener Kongress 1814/1815, Stuttgart 2014. Gruner, Wolf D., “Italien zwischen Revolution und Nationalstaatsgründung 1789–1861,” Wolf D. Gruner, Günter Trautmann (eds), Italien in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Hamburg 1991, pp. 105–55. Guichen, Eugéne de, La crise d’Orient de 1839 à 1841 et l’Europe, Paris 1921. Hachtmann, Rüdiger, Berlin 1848: Eine Politik- und Gesellschaftsgeschichte der Revolution, Bonn 1997. Haddock, Bruce, “Italy: Independence and Unification without Power,” Bruce Waller (ed.), Themes in Modern European History 1830–90, London 1990, pp. 67–98. Haddock, Bruce, “Political Union without Social Revolution: Vincenzo Gioberti’s Primato,” The Historical Journal 41, 1998, 3, pp. 705–23. Haffer, Dominik, Europa in den Augen Bismarcks: Bismarcks Vorstellungen von der Politik der europäischen Mächte und vom europäischen Staatensystem, Paderborn 2010. Hahn, Hans-Werner, Berding, Helmut, Reformen, Restauration und Revolution 1806–1848/49, Stuttgart 2010. Hancock, William K., Ricasoli and the Risorgimento in Tuscany, London 1926. Hartmann, Ludo M., 100 Jahre italienischer Geschichte 1815–1915, München 1916. Hasenclever, Adolf, Die Orientalische Frage in den Jahren 1838–1841: Ursprung des Meerengenvertrages vom 13. Juli 1841, Leipzig 1914. Haslam, Jonathan, No Virtue like Necessity: Realist Thought in International Relations since Machiavelli, New Haven, London 2002. Hawkins, Mike, Social Darwinism in European and American thought, 1860–1945: Nature as model and nature as threat, Cambridge 1998. Hearder, Harry, Cavour, London, New York 1994. Hearder, Harry, Italy in the Age of the Risorgimento 1790–1870, London, New York 1986. Hein, Dieter, Die Revolution von 1848/49, München 1998. Heller, Hermann, Hegel und der nationale Machtstaatsgedanke in Deutschland, Aalen 1963. Henningsen, Bernd, Dänemark, München 2009. Herde, Peter, Guelfen und Neoguelfen: Zur Geschichte einer nationalen Ideologie vom Mittelalter zum Risorgimento, Stuttgart 1986. Hildebrandt, Gunther, Politik und Taktik der Gagern-Liberalen in der Frankfurter Nationalversammlung 1848/1849, Berlin 1989. Hilson, Mary, “Denmark, Norway and Sweden: Pan-Scandinavianism and Nationalism,” Timothy Baycroft, Mark Hewitson (eds), What is a Nation? Europe 1789–1914, Oxford 2006, pp. 192– 209. Hirschhausen, Ulrike von, “Nationale Machtpolitik oder europäische Integration? Frühliberale und ihr Verhältnis zur Macht in der „Deutschen Zeitung“ 1847–1850,” Jahrbuch der Hambach Gesellschaft 6, 1996/97, pp. 75–97. Hock, Wolfgang, Liberales Denken im Zeitalter der Paulskirche: Droysen und die Frankfurter Mitte, Münster 1957. Holborn, Hajo, “Bismarck’s Realpolitik,” Journal of the History of Ideas 21, 1960, 1, pp. 84–98. Holmberg, Åke, “On the Practicability of Scandinavianism: Mid-nineteenth-century Debate and Aspirations,” Scandinavian Journal of History 9, 1984, 2 pp. 171–82. Holt, Edgar, The Making of Italy 1815–1870, New York 1971. Honsell, Johanes, Bayern und die Rheinkrise von 1840, unpublished diploma thesis, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München 2002. Howarth, David, The Greek Adventure: Lord Byron and Other Eccentrics in the War of Independence, London 1976.

332

Bibliography

Imhof, Arthur Erwin, Grundzüge der nordischen Geschichte, Darmstadt 1970. Ingle, Harold N., Nesselrode and the Russian Rapprochement with Britain, 1836–1844, Berkeley, London 1976. Inglese, Nicolò, Crispi, Milano 1961. Isabella, Maurizio, “Emotions, rationality and political intentionality in patriotic discourse,” Nations and Nationalism 15, 2009, 3, pp. 427–33. Isabella, Maurizio, “Il movimento risorgimentale in un contesto globale,” Adriano Roccucci (ed.), La costruzione dello Stato-nazione in Italia, Roma 2012, pp. 87–107. Isabella, Maurizio, “Liberalism and Empires in the Mediterranean: The View-Point of the Risorgimento,” Silvana Patriarca, Lucy Riall (eds), The Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy, Basingstoke 2012, pp. 232–54. Isabella, Maurizio, “Mazzini’s Internationalism in Context: From the Cosmopolitan Patriotism of the Italian Carbonari to Mazzini’s Europe of Nations,” C. A. Bayly, Eugenio F. Biagini (eds), Giuseppe Mazzini and the Globalisation of Democratic Nationalism 1830–1920, Oxford 2008. Isabella, Maurizio, “Mediterranean Liberals? Italian Revolutionaries and the Making of a Colonial Sea, 1800–30 ca.,” Maurizio Isabella, Konstantina Zanou (eds), Mediterranean Diasporas: Politics and Ideas in the Long 19th Century, London 2015, pp. 75–94. Isabella, Maurizio, “Nationality before liberty? Risorgimento political thought in transnational context,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 17, 2012, 5, pp. 507–15. Isabella, Maurizio, Risorgimento in Exile: Italian Émigrés and the Liberal International in the Post-Napoleonic Era, Oxford 2009. Jackson-Preece, Jennifer, Security in International Relations, London 2011. Jarrett, Mark, The Congress of Vienna and its Legacy: War and Great Power Diplomacy after Napoleon, London 2013. Jaworski, Rudolf, “Völkerfrühling 1848,” Dieter Langewiesche (ed.), Demokratiebewegung und Revolution 1847 bis 1849: Internationale Aspekte und europäische Verbindungen, Karlsruhe 1998, pp. 36–51. Jennings, Lawrence C., France and Europe in 1848: A Study of French Foreign Affairs in Time of Crisis, Oxford 1973. Jervis, Robert, Perception and Misperception in International Politics, Princeton 2017. Jespersen, Knud J. V., “Die Nationalbewegung und Dänemark 1750–1850,” Heiner Timmermann (ed.), Die Entstehung der Nationalbewegung in Europa 1750–1849, Berlin 1993, pp. 177–84. Johnson, Robert, British Imperialism, Basingstoke, New York 2003. Jolicoeur, Nicolas, “La politique étrangère de la France au début de la monarchie de juillet: De la non-intervention à la contre-intervention (1830–1832),” Revue d’histoire diplomatique 121, 2008, pp. 11–29. Jolicoeur, Nicolas, La politique française envers les états pontificaux sous la monarchie de juillet et la seconde république (1830–1851), Bruxelles 2008. Joll, James, The Origins of the First World War, London, New York 1990. Jorgenson, Theodore, Norway’s Relation to Scandinavian Unionism 1815–1871, Norhfield, Minnesota 1935. Keiger, John F. V., France and the Origins of the First World War, London, Basingstoke 1983. Kennedy, Paul M., The Realities behind Diplomacy: Background Influences on British External Policy, 1865–1980, London 1981. Kittel, Manfred, “Abschied vom Völkerfrühling? National- und außenpolitische Vorstellungen im konstitutionellen Liberalismus 1848/49,” Historische Zeitschrift 275, 2002, 2, pp. 333–83.

Literature

333

Kleinschmidt, Harald, Geschichte des Völkerrechts in Krieg und Frieden, Tübingen 2013. Koch, Hanns Joachim, Der Sozialdarwinismus: Seine Genese und sein Einfluβ auf das imperialische Denken, München 1973. Koch, Hanns Joachim, “Social Darwinism as a Factor in the ‘New Imperialism’,” Hanns Joachim Koch (ed.), The Origins of the First World War, London 1984, pp. 319–42. Körner, Axel, “Transnational History: Identities, Structures, States,” Barbara Haider-Wilson, William D. Godsey, Wolfgang Mueller (eds), Internationale Geschichte in Theorie und Praxis/ International History in Theory and Practice, Wien 2017, pp. 265–90. Koht, Halvdan, Die Stellung Norwegens und Schwedens im deutsch-dänischen Konflikt, zumal während der Jahre 1863 und 1864, Oslo 1908. Kolodziej, Edward A., Security and International Relations, Cambridge 2005. Kramer, Alan, Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War, Oxford 2007. Krauβ, Erich, Ernst von Bülow-Cummerow, ein konservativer Landwirt und Politiker des 19. Jahrhunderts, Berlin 1937. Kroll, Thomas, Die Revolte des Patriziats: Der toskanische Adelsliberalismus im Risorgimento, Tübingen 1999. Krüger, Peter (ed.), Das europäische Staatensystem im Wandel: Strukturelle Bedingungen und bewegende Kräfte seit der Frühen Neuzeit, München 1996. Laak, Dirk van, Über alles in der Welt: Deutscher Imperialismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, München 2005. Lademacher, Horst, Die belgische Neutralität als Problem der europäischen Politik 1830–1914, Bonn 1971. Lago, Enrico Dal, “Society, Economy, and Politics in Restoration Italy: Towards a Regional Synthesis,” The Historical Journal 45, 2002, 1, pp. 179–93. Lamb, Margaret, “Writing up the Eastern Question in 1835–1836,” The International History Review 15, 1993, 2, pp. 239–68. Landucci, Sergio, “L’hegelismo in Italia nell’età del Risorgimento,” Studi Storici 6, 1965, pp. 598–628. Langer, William L., Diplomacy of Imperialism 1890–1902, New York 1951. Langhorne, Richard, The Collapse of the Concert of Europe, New York 1981. Larguèche, Aladin, “Resistance as the Creation of a ‘Natural Frontier’: The Language of 19th-Century Scandinavism (1839–1867),” Luďa Klusáková, Martin Moll (eds), Crossing Frontiers: Resisting Identities, Pisa 2010, pp. 181–94. Laven, David, “Italy,” Timothy Baycroft, Mark Hewitson (eds), What is a Nation? Europe 1789– 1914, Oxford 2006, pp. 255–71. Laven, David, “The Lombard League in Nineteenth-Century Historiography, c.1800–c.1850,” Stefan Berger, Chris Lorenz (eds), Nationalizing the Past: Historians as Nation Builders in Europe, Basingstoke 2010, pp. 358–83. Le rivoluzioni del 1848: l’Europa delle immagini. Caricatura e illustrazione tra storia e arte, Torino 1998. Lebow, Richard N., “Fear, Interest and Honour: Outlines of a Theory of International Relations,” International Affairs 82, 2006, 3, pp. 431–48. Lemmi, Francesco, La politica estera di Carlo Alberto nei suoi primi anni di regno, Firenze 1928. Leti, Giuseppe, “La Monarchia del luglio e la spedizione francese del 1832 in Ancona,” Rassegna storica del Risorgimento 16, 1929, pp. 55–78. Leucht, Brigitte, “Beyond Morgenthau: The Transnational Turn and the Potential of Interdisciplinary Approaches of International History,” Barbara Haider-Wilson, William D. Godsey, Wolfgang Mueller (eds), Internationale Geschichte in Theorie und Praxis/International History in Theory and Practice, Wien 2017, pp. 291–311.

334

Bibliography

Levi, Alessandro, La filosofia politica di Giuseppe Mazzini, Bologna 1917. Liddington, Jill, The Long Road to Greenham: Feminism and Anti-Militarism in Britain since 1820, London 1989. Lindgren, Raymond E., Norway-Sweden: Union, Disunion and Scandinavian Integration, New Jersey 1959. Loggia, Ernesto Galli della, L’identità italiana, Bologna 1998. Losano, Mario G., “Alle origini della geopolitica italiana: Il generale Giacomo Durando (1807– 1894) dal ‘2.º Regimento da Rainha’ al risorgimento italiano,” Estudos Italianos em Portugal 6, 2011, pp. 47–64. Lovett, Clara M., Carlo Cattaneo and the Politics of the Risorgimento, 1820–1860, The Hague 1972. Lovett, Clara M., The Democratic Movement in Italy 1830–1876, Cambridge 1982. Luraghi, Raimondo, Ascesa e tramonto del colonialismo, Torino 1964. Luseroni, Giovanni, La stampa clandestina in Toscana (1846–1847): I “bullettini”, Firenze 1988. Luseroni, Giovanni, “Livorno e la ‘primavera dei popoli’: Dall’agitazione riformista ad estremo baluardo della libertà,” Livorno ribelle: dalle riforme liberali all’estrema difesa della città (1847–1849), Livorno 2000, pp. 7–13. Maier, Charles S., “Dis/Relocating America: Approaches to Global History in the United States,” Barbara Haider-Wilson, William D. Godsey, Wolfgang Mueller (eds), Internationale Geschichte in Theorie und Praxis/International History in Theory and Practice, Wien 2017, pp. 315–31. Malvezzi, Aldobrandino, La Principessa Cristina di Belgiojoso, II: La seduttrice 1833–1842, Milano 1937. Mansel, Philip, Paris between Empires 1814–1852, London 2001. Manzini, Luigi M., Il cardinale Luigi Lambruschini, Vaticano 1960. Marcowitz, Reiner, Großmacht auf Bewährung: Die Interdependenz französischer Innen- und Außenpolitik und ihre Auswirkungen auf Frankreichs Stellung im europäischen Konzert 1814/15– 1851/52, Stuttgart 2001. Marraro, Howard R., American Opinion on the Unification of Italy 1846–1861, New York 1932. Marshall, Ronald, Massimo d’Azeglio: An Artist in Politics 1798–1866, London, New York, Toronto 1966. Marwil, Jonathan, Visiting Modern War in Risorgimento Italy, New York 2010. Mattei, Rodolfo de, “L’idea di unione europea durante il Risorgimento,” Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali 35, 1968, 2, pp. 187–98. Matter, Paul, Cavour et l’unité italienne, 1: avant 1848, Paris 1922. Mazzonis, Filippo, La Monarchia e il Risorgimento, Bologna 2003. Mechtler, Paul, “Die österreichische Eisenbahnpolitik in Italien (1835–1866),” Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchivs 14, 1961, pp. 171–89. Meier, Eberhard, Die Auβenpolitischen Ideen der Achtundvierziger, Berlin 1938. Meriggi, Marco, “Zentralismus und Föderalismus in Italien: Erwartungen vor der Einheit,” Oliver Janz, Pierangelo Schiera, Hannes Siegrist (eds), Zentralismus und Föderalismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Deutschland und Italien im Vergleich, Berlin 2000, pp. 41–50. Mertens, Thomas, “Hegel’s Homage to Kant’s Perpetual Peace: An Analysis of Hegel’s “Philosophy of Right”,” The Review of Politics 57, 1995, 4, pp. 665–91. Meyer, Henry Cord, Drang nach Osten: Fortunes of a Slogan-concept in German-Slavic Relations, 1849–1990, Bern 1996. Migliorini, Luigi Mascilli, “Problema nazionale e coscienza europea da Aquisgrana all’unità (1748– 1861),” Giuseppe Galasso, Luigi Mascilli Migliorini (eds), L’Italia moderna e l’unità nazionale, Torino 1998.

Literature

335

Moe, Nelson, The View from Vesuvius: Italian Culture and the Southern Question, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 2003. Moggach, Douglas, Jones, Gareth Stedman (eds), The 1848 Revolutions and European Political Thought, Cambridge 2018. Möller, Frank, “Vom revolutionären Idealismus zur Realpolitik: Generationswechsel nach 1848?” Historische Zeitschrift: Beihefte 36, 2003, pp. 71–91. Moltmann, Günter, “Die deutsche Flotte von 1848/49 im historisch-politischen Kontext,” Deutsches Marine Institut/Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (ed.), Die Deutsche Flotte im Spannungsfeld der Politik 1848–1985, Herford 1985, pp. 21–41. Montale, Bianca, Emanuele Pes di Villamarina (1777–1852), Roma 1973. Montanelli, Indro, L’Italia del Risorgimento (1831–1861), Milano 1972. Monti, Antonio, Un dramma fra gli esuli: Con documenti inediti e la bibliografia delle edizioni di capolago, Milano 1921. Moon, Parker Thomas, Imperialism and World Politics, New York 1926. Morandi, Carlo, L’idea dell’unità politica d’Europa nel XIX e XX Secolo, Roma 2018. Morelli, Emilia, Mazzini in Inghilterra, Firenze 1938. Mosca, Rodolfo, “Il negoziato per l’alleanza sardo-elvetica dell’aprile 1848,” Il Risorgimento: Rivista di storia del Risorgimento e di storia contemporanea 50, 1998, 2/3, pp. 79–102. Moscati, Ruggero, Ferdinando II di Borbone nei documenti diplomatici austriaci, Naples 1947. Mucha, Elisabeth, Der Kampf um Macht und Einfluß im Kirchenstaat: Rudolf Graf von Lützow, Vorgeschichte und Verlauf der Konferenz von 1831 in Rom, unpublished dissertation, Universität Wien 1969. Müller, Frank Lorenz, “Der Traum von der Weltmacht: Imperialistische Ziele in der deutschen Nationalbewegung von der Rheinkrise bis zum Ende der Paulskirche,” Jahrbuch der Hambach Gesellschaft 6, 1996/97, pp. 99–183. Müller, Frank Lorenz, Die Revolution von 1848/49, Darmstadt 2009. Müller, Frank Lorenz, “Imperialist Ambitions in Vormärz and Revolutionary Germany,” German History 17, 1999, pp. 346–68. Müller, Harald, “Die Annexion der Republik Krakau und die deutsche Öffentlichkeit (1846/47),” Jahrbuch für Geschichte der sozialistischen Länder Europas 26, 1983, 2, pp. 147–58. Müller, Thomas, Imaginierter Westen: Das Konzept des „deutschen Westraums“ im völkischen Diskurs zwischen Politischer Romantik und Nationalsozialismus, Bielefeld 2009. Myers, Jesse, Baron Ward and the Dukes of Parma, London 1938. Nada, Narciso, Dallo Stato assoluto allo Stato costituzionale: Storia del Regno di Carlo Alberto dal 1831 al 1848, Torino 1980. Nada, Narciso, “I liberali moderati,” Umberto Levra (ed.), Il Piemonte alle soglie del 1848, Torino 1999, pp. 341–60. Nada, Narciso, Roberto d’Azeglio I: 1790–1846, Roma 1965. Napoli, Olindo De, “Race and Empire: The Legitimation of Italian Colonialism in Juridical Thought,” The Journal of Modern History 85, 2013, 4, pp. 801–32. Natoli, Luigi, Rivendicazioni attraverso le rivoluzioni siciliane del 1848–1860, Treviso 1927. Notario, Paola, Nada, Narciso, Il Piemonte sabaudo: Dal periodo napoleonico al Risorgimento, Torino 1993. Omodeo, Adolfo, Difesa del risorgimento, Torino 1951. Omodeo, Adolfo, Die Erneuerung Italiens und die Geschichte Europas, 1700–1920, Zürich 1951. Orta, Daniela, Le piazze d’Italia 1846–1849, Torino 2008.

336

Bibliography

Paolini, Gabriele, La Toscana del 1848–49: Dimensione regionale e problemi nazionali, Firenze 2004. Papa, Emilio Raffaele, “1848: Torino, Berna, Lugano: la missione del generale Paolo Racchia in Svizzera per una proposta di ‘alleanza offensiva e difensiva’,” Quaderni grigionitaliani 68, 1999, 2, pp. 109–25. Passamonti, Eugenio, Il giornalismo Giobertiano in Torino nel 1847–48, Milano 1914. Passamonti, Eugenio, L’idea coloniale nel Risorgimento Italiano, Torino 1934. Pásztor, Lajos, “I cardinali Albani e Bernetti e l’intervento austriaco nel 1831,” Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia 8, 1954, pp. 95–128. Patriarca, Silvana, “A Patriotic Emotion: Shame and the Risorgimento,” Silvana Patriarca, Lucy Riall (eds), The Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy, Basingstoke 2012, pp. 134–51. Pauls, Vollquart, Schleswig-Holstein zwischen Nord und Süd, Neumünster 1950. Pécout, Gilles, Il lungo Risorgimento: La nascita dell’Italia contemporanea (1770–1922), Milano 1999. Peruta, Franco Della, Conservatori, liberali e democratici nel Risorgimento, Milano 1989. Peruta, Franco Della, Il Giornalismo italiano del Risorgimento: Dal 1847 all’Unità, Milano 2011. Peruta, Franco Della, L’Italia del Risorgimento: Problemi, momenti e figure, Milano 1997. Peruta, France Della, “Mazzini dalla letteratura militante all’impegno politico,” Studi Storici 14, 1973, 3, pp. 499–556. Petersen, Jens, “Politik und Kultur Italiens im Spiegel der deutschen Presse,” Arnold Esch, Jens Petersen (eds), Deutsches Ottocento: Die deutsche Wahrnehmung Italiens im Risorgimento, Tübingen 2000, pp. 1–17. Pflanze, Otto, Bismarck: Der Reichsgründer, München 1997. Phelps, Christina, The Anglo-American Peace Movement in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, New York, London 1930. Pitts, Jennifer, Boundaries of the International Law and Empire, Cambridge (MA), London 2018. Porter, Bernard, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism 1850–1970, London, New York 1975. Procacci, Giuliano, Machiavelli nella cultura europea dell’età moderna, Roma, Bari 1995. Rath, R. John, “The Carbonari: Their Origins, Initiation Rites, and Aims,” The American Historical Review 69, 1964, 2, pp. 366–70. Raulich, Italo, Storia del Risorgimento politico d’Italia: Volume secondo (1844–1848), Bologna 1923. Recchia, Stefano, Urbinati, Nadia, A Cosmopolitanism of Nations: Giuseppe Mazzini’s Writings on Democracy, Nation Building, and International Relations, Princeton, Oxford 2009. Walter Rech, “International Law as a Political Language, 1600–1859,” Giulio Bartolini (ed.), A History of International Law in Italy, Oxford 2020, pp. 48–78. Reill, Dominique Kirchner, Nationalists who Feared the Nation: Adriatic Multi-Nationalism in Habsburg Dalmatia, Trieste and Venice, Stanford 2012. Renouvin, Pierre, “L’Idée d’États-Unis d’Europe pendant la crise de 1848,” Robert Fawtier (ed.), Actes du Congrès historique du centenaire de la révolution de 1848, Paris 1948, pp. 31–45. Riall, Lucy, The Italian Risorgimento: State, Society and National Unification, London, New York 1994. Ribhegge, Wilhelm, Das Parlament als Nation: Die Frankfurter Nationalsammlung 1848/49, Düsseldorf 1998.

Literature

337

Richardson, James L., Crisis Diplomacy: The Great Powers since the Mid-Nineteenth Century, Cambridge 1994. Rodkey, Frederick S., “Suggestions during the Crisis of 1840 for a ‘League’ to preserve peace,” The American Historical Review 35, 1930, 2, pp. 308–16. Rodolico, Niccolò, Carlo Alberto negli anni di regno 1831–1843, Firenze 1936. Rodolico, Niccolò, Carlo Alberto negli anni di regno 1843–1849, Firenze 1943. Rodolico, Niccolò, Il Risorgimento vive, Palermo 1961. Rodolico, Niccolò, “Un disegno di Lega italiana del 1833,” Archivio storico italiano 93, 1935, pp. 232–43. Rörig, Karoline, “Gli scritti di Cristina di Belgiojoso tra storiografia e politica,” Mariachiara Fugazza, Karoline Rörig (eds), “La prima donna d’Italia”: Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso tra politica e giornalismo, Milano 2010, pp. 27–59. Romano, Salvatore Francesco, Momenti del Risorgimento in Sicilia, Firenze 1952. Romano, Sergio, Storia d’Italia dal Risorgimento ai nostri giorni, Milano 1978. Romeo, Rosario, Cavour e il suo tempo: Vol. 1: 1810–1842, Roma 2012. Romeo, Rosario, Dal Piemonte sabaudo all’Italia liberale, Torino 1963. Romeo, Rosario, Il Risorgimento in Sicilia, Bari 1950. Romeo, Rosario, “Mazzinis Programm und sein revolutionärer Einfluβ in Europa,” Adolf M. Birke, Günther Heydemann (eds), Die Herausforderung des europäischen Staatensystems: Nationale Ideologie und staatliches Interesse zwischen Restauration und Imperialismus, Göttingen, Zürich 1989, pp. 15–30. Romeo, Rosario, Mezzogiorno e Sicilia nel Risorgimento, Napoli 1963. Rosselli, Nello, Inghilterra e regno di Sardegna dal 1815 al 1847, Torino 1954. Rossi, Joseph, “The Piedmontese Moderates and America,” Italica 43, 1966, 1, pp. 1–31. Rothschild, Emma, “What Is Security?” Daedalus 124, 1995, 3, pp. 53–98. Rotondi, Clementina, “Il giornale fiorentino «La Patria» (1847–1848),” Rassegna Storica Toscana 17, 1971, 1, pp. 35–50. Ruttmann, Ulrike, Wunschbild, Schreckbild, Trugbild: Rezeption und Instrumentalisierung Frankreichs in der deutschen Revolution von 1848/49, Stuttgart 2001. Sabetti, Filippo Civilization and Self-Government: The Political Thought of Carlo Cattaneo, Lanham 2010. Salomone, A. William, “Statecraft and Ideology in the Risorgimento: Reflections on the Italian National Revolution,” Italica 38, 1961, 3, pp. 163–94. Saltarelli, Cioni Gabriella, “Ridolfi e la politica estera del suo Ministero (Settembre 1847 – Luglio 1848),” Miscellanea storica della Valdelsa 88, 1982, 1/2, pp. 7–19. Salvatorelli, Luigi, Il pensiero politico italiano dal 1700 al 1870, Torino 1935. Salvatorelli, Luigi, Pensiero e azione del Risorgimento, Torino 1962. Santilli, Fabio, L’Italia s’è desta: Stampa satirica e documenti d’archivio per una lettura storico iconografica dell’Unità d’Italia, Montelupone 2011. Sapori, Armando, “Il conflitto fra Toscana e Modena per le questione della Lunigiana (ottobre–dicembre 1847),” Rassegna storica del Risorgimento 14, 1927, 1, pp. 1–28. Sarti, Roland, Mazzini: A Life for the Relligion of Politics, London 1997. Sauer, Manfred, “Österreich und die Sulina-Frage 1829–1854, Erster Teil,” Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 40, 1987, pp. 184–236. Sauer, Manfred, “Österreich und die Sulina-Frage 1829–1854, Zweiter Teil,” Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 41, 1990, pp. 72–137.

338

Bibliography

Schiera, Pierangelo, “Zentralismus und Föderalismus in der nationalstaatlichen Einigung Italiens und Deutschlands: Anregungen zu einem politologischen Vergleich,” Oliver Janz, Pierangelo Schiera, Hannes Siegrist (eds), Zentralismus und Föderalismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Deutschland und Italien im Vergleich, Berlin 2000, pp. 19–37. Schmid, Eva, Wenzel Philipp Leopold Baron von Mareschal, ein österreichischer Offizier und Diplomat, 1785–1851, unpublished dissertation, Universität Wien 1975. Schneiker, Andrea, Sicherheit in den Internationalen Beziehungen: Theoretische Perspektiven und aktuelle Entwicklungen, Wiesbaden 2017. Schnell, Rüdiger, Haben Gefühle eine Geschichte? Göttingen 2015. Schroeder, Paul W., “The 19th-Century International System: Changes in the Structure,” World Politics 39, 1986, 1, pp. 1–26. Schroeder, Paul W., The Transformation of European Politics 1763–1848, Oxford 1994. Schütz, Armin, Groes, Nils, Der nationale Gegensatz 1800–1864, Flensburg 1984. Schulz, Matthias, Normen und Praxis: Das Europäische Konzert der Großmächte als Sicherheitsrat, 1815–1860, München, Oldenbourg 2009. Schulz, Oliver, Ein Sieg der zivilisierten Welt? Die Intervention der europäischen Großmächte im griechischen Unabhängigkeitskrieg (1826–1832), Münster 2011. Schultz, Hans-Dietrich, “Deutschlands „natürliche“ Grenzen: „Mittellage“ und „Mitteleuropa“ in der Diskussion der Geographen seit dem Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 15, 1989, pp. 248–81. Schwarz, Steffen L., Despoten, Barbaren, Wirtschaftspartner: Die Allgemeine Zeitung und der Diskurs über das Osmanische Reich 1821–1840, Wien 2016. Schweizer, Paul, Geschichte der Schweizerischen Neutralität, Frauenfeld 1895. Scirocco, Alfonso, Il Risorgimento italiano, Milano 2004. Scirocco, Alfonso, In difesa del Risorgimento, Bologna 1998. Šedivý, Miroslav, Crisis among the Great Powers: The Concert of Europe and the Eastern Question, London, New York 2017. Šedivý, Miroslav, “Honour as a political-legal argument: The French July Monarchy, National Dignity and Europe 1830–1840,” The Czech Historical Review 116, 2018, 1, pp. 86–111. Šedivý, Miroslav, “Italy during the Rhine Crisis of 1840,” European Review of History 22, 2015, 3, pp. 486–504. Šedivý, Miroslav, “The Austrian ‘Occupation’ of Ferrara in 1847: Its Legal Aspect between Myth and Reality,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 23, 2018, 2, pp. 139–55. Šedivý, Miroslav, “The Principle of Non-Intervention Reconsidered: The French July Monarchy, the Public Law of Europe and the Limited Sovereignty of Secondary Countries,” Nuova Rivista Storica 103, 2019, 1, pp. 75–108. Šedivý, Miroslav, “Metternich and the Anglo-Neapolitan Sulphur Crisis of 1840,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 16, 2011, 1, pp. 1–18. Šedivý, Miroslav, “Metternich and the Italian League Myth in 1833,” Prague Papers on the History of International Relations 2015, 2, pp. 7–15. Šedivý, Miroslav, Metternich, the Great Powers and the Eastern Question, Pilsen 2013. Šedivý, Miroslav, The Decline of the Congress System: Metternich, Italy and European Diplomacy, London, New York 2018. Šedivý, Miroslav, “The Austrian Empire, German Nationalism and the Rhine Crisis of 1840,” Austrian History Yearbook 2016, 47, pp. 15–36. Šedivý, Miroslav, “The Path to the Austro-Sardinian War: The post-Napoleonic states system and the end of peace in Europe in 1848,” European History Quarterly 49, 2019, 3, pp. 367–85. Sereni, Angelo Piero, The Italian Conception of International Law, New York 1943. Siemann, Wolfram, Die deutsche Revolution von 1848/49, Darmstadt 1985.

Literature

339

Siemann, Wolfram, Gesellschaft im Aufbruch: Deutschland 1849–1871, Frankfurt am Main 1990. Siemann, Wolfram, Metternich: Stratege und Visionär. Eine Biographie. München 2016. Silva, Pietro, La Monarchia di Luglio e l’Italia: Studio di storia diplomatica, Torino 1917. Simioni, Attilio, Carlo Alberto: Principe di Carignano e re di Sardegna I (1798–1846), Padova 1944. Simms, Brendan, Britain’s Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation, London 2017. Simms, Brendan, “Nationalismus und Geopolitik in Deutschland vor 1847,” Vincenc Rajšp, Ernst Bruckmüller (eds), Recht, Geschichte, Nation, Ljubljana 1999, pp. 397–403. Simms, Brendan, “The European great power System after 1870,” Ulrich Lappenküper, Karina Urbach (eds), Realpolitik für Europa: Bismarcks Weg, Paderborn 2016, pp. 67–86. Sked, Alan, “Poor Intelligence, Flawed Results: Metternich, Radetzky, and the Crisis Management of Austria’s ‘Occupation’ of Ferrara in 1847,” Peter Jackson, Jennifer L. Siegel (eds), Intelligence and Statecraft: The Use and Limits of Intelligence in International Society, Westport 2005, pp. 53–86. Skovmand, Roar, Geschichte Dänemarks: 1830–1939: Die Auseinandersetzungen um nationale Einheit, demokratische Freiheit und soziale Gleichheit, Neumünster 1973. Smith, Denis Mack, Mazzini, New Haven, London 1994. Smith, Denis Mack, “The Revolutions of 1848–1849 in Italy,” R. J. W. Evans, Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann (eds), The Revolutions in Europe 1848–1849: From Reform to Reaction, Oxford 2000, pp. 55–81. Smith, Simon C., British Imperialism, 1750–1970, Cambridge 1998. Smyth, Howard McGaw, “Piedmont and Prussia: The Influence of the Campaigns of 1848–1849 on the Constitutional Development of Italy,” The American Historical Review 55, 1950, 3, pp. 479–502. Sontag, Raymond James, Germany and England: Background of Conflict, 1848–1894, New York 1964. Soresina, Marco, Italy Before Italy: Institutions, Conflicts and Political Hopes in the Italian States, 1815–1860, London, New York 2018. Sperber, Jonathan, Rhineland Radicals: The Democratic Movement and the Revolution of 1848– 1849, Princeton 1991. St Clair, William, That Greece Might Still Be Free: The Philhellenes in the War of Independence, Cambridge 2008. Stadler, Peter, Cavour: Italiens liberaler Reichsgründer, München 2001. Stadler, Peter, “Die Schweiz 1848: Eine erfolgreiche Revolution?” Historische Zeitschrift: Beihefte 29, 2000, pp. 47–56. Stauber, Reinhard, Der Wiener Kongress, Wien 2014. Stråth, Bo, Europe’s Utopias of Peace: 1815, 1919, 1951, London, New York 2016. Stübler, Dietmar, Deutschland-Italien 1789–1849: Zeitgenössische Texte, Leipzig 2002. Tamburini, Olga, “«La via romana sepolta dal mare»: Mito del Mare nostrum e ricerca di un’identità nazionale,” Stefano Trinchese (ed.), Mare nostrum: Percezione ottomana e mito mediterraneo in Italia all’alba del ‘900, Milano 2005, pp. 41–95. Tang, Shiping, “Fear in International Politics: Two Positions,” International Studies Review 10, 2008, 3, pp. 451–71. Taylor, A. J. P., The Italian Problem in European Diplomacy 1847–1849, Manchester 1970. Thörner, Klaus, „Der ganze Südosten ist unser Hinterland“: Deutsche Südosteuropapläne von 1840 bis 1945, Freiburg 2008. Thomson, Dennis W., The Sulphur War (1840): A Confrontation between Great Britain and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the Mediterranean, Ann Arbor 1989. Tomeucci, Luigi, Messina nel Risorgimento: Contributo agli studi sull’unità d’Italia, Milano 1963.

340

Bibliography

Traniello, Francesco, “Incunaboli d’imperialismo europeo: Cesare Balbo, l’Occidente e il Mediterraneo,” Contemporanea 1, 1998, 2, pp. 263–79. Traniello, Francesco, Sofri, Gianni, Der lange Weg zur Nation: Das italienische Risorgimento, Stuttgart 2012. Trocini, Federico, L’invenzione della «Realpolitik» e la scoperta della «legge del potere»: August Ludwig von Rochau tra radicalismo e nazional-liberalismo, Bologna 2009. Ufford, Letitia W., The Pasha: How Mehemet Ali Defied the West, 1839–1841, Jefferson 2007. Valentin, Veit, Geschichte des Völkerbundgedankes in Deutschland, Berlin 1920. Valsecchi, Franco, “L’intervention française et la solidarité révolutionnaire internationale dans la pensée des démocrates lombards en 1848,” Robert Fawtier (ed.), Actes du Congrès historique du centenaire de la révolution de 1848, Paris 1948, pp. 165–76. Valsecchi, Franco, L’Italia del Risorgimento e l’Europa delle nazionalità: L’unificazione italiana nella politica europea, Milano 1978. Valsecchi, Franco, “Nation, Nationalität, Nationalismus im italienischen Denken,” Historische Zeitschrift 210, 1970, 1, pp. 14–33. Vanchena, Lorie A., “The Rhine Crisis of 1840: Rheinlieder, German Nationalism, and the Masses,” Nicholas Vazsonyi (ed.), Searching for Common Ground: Diskurse zur deutschen Identität 1750–1871, Köln 2000, pp. 239–51. Varouxakis, Georgios, “1848 and British Political Thought on ‘The Principle of Nationality’,” Douglas Moggach, Gareth Stedman Jones (eds), The 1848 Revolutions and European Political Thought, Cambridge 2018, pp. 140–61. Veit-Brause, Irmline, Die deutsch-französische Krise von 1840: Studien zur deutschen Einheitsbewebung, Köln 1967. Ventura, Angelo, “L’opera politica di Daniele Manin,” Pier Luigi Ballini (ed.), 1848–49: Costituenti e costituzioni: Daniele Manin e la Repubblica di Venezia, Venezia 2002, pp. 255–97. Viarengo, Adriano, Cavour, Roma 2010. Viarengo, Adriano, “Il mezzogiorno nella diplomazia piemontese da Carlo Alberto a Cavour,” Giuseppe Galasso (ed.), Mezzogiorno, Risorgimento e Unità d’Italia: Atti del convegno Roma, 18, 19 e 20 maggio 2011, Roma 2014, pp. 191–208. Vick, Brian, The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon, Cambridge (MA) 2014. Vidal, Cesar, Charles-Albert et le Risorgimento italien (1831–1848), Paris 1927. Vidal, Cesar, Louis-Philippe, Metternich et la crise italienne de 1831–1832, Paris 1931. Vivarelli, Roberto, “1870 in European History and Historiography,” The Journal of Modern History 53, 1981, 2, pp. 167–88. Voß, Reinhard, Der deutsche Vormärz in der französischen „öffentlichen Meinung“: Die Verfassungskämpfe in Norddeutschland und das französische Deutschlandbild (1837–1847), Frankfurt am Main, Bern, Las Vegas 1977. Vushko, Iryna, The Politics of Cultural Retreat: Imperial Bureaucracy in Austrian Galicia, 1772– 1867, New Haven 2015. Ward, Sir Adolphus William, Gooch, George Peabody, The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy 1783–1919, vol. 2, Cambridge 1923. Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, Bismarck und der Imperialismus, Köln, Berlin 1969. Weikart, Richard, “The Origins of Social Darwinism in Germany, 1859–1895,” Journal of the History of Ideas 54, 1993, 3, pp. 469–88. Wendt, Frantz, The Nordic Council and Co-operation in Scandinavia, Copenhagen 1959. Wenger, Klaus Rudolf, Preußen in der öffentlichen Meinung Frankreichs 1815–1870, Zürich 1979.

Literature

341

Winkler, Georg, “Das Risorgimento in Sizilien: Nationalität und Alterität im italienischen Nationswerdungsprozess,” Wolfgang Gruber, Stephan Köhler (eds), Siziliens Geschichte: Insel zwischen den Welten, Wien 2013, pp. 205–20. Wolfram, Franz, Besetzung und Räumung Ankonas durch Frankreich 1832–1838, unpublished dissertation, Universität Wien 1930. Wollstein, Günther, “Die Paulskirche und Oberitalien 1848/49,” Risorgimento: Europäische Zeitschrift für die neuere Geschichte Italiens 1, 1980, 3, pp. 275–94. Woolf, Stuart, A History of Italy 1700–1860: The Social Constraints of Political Change, London 1979. Woolf, Stuart, The Italian Risorgimento, London, Harlow 1969. Zanou, Konstantina, Transnational Patriotism in the Mediterranean, 1800–1850: Stammering the Nation, Oxford 2018. Zazo, Alfredo, Il giornalismo a Napoli nella prima metà del secolo XIX, Napoli 1985. Żurawski vel Grajewski, Radosław Paweł,  Ognisko permanentnej insurekcji: Powstanie 1846 r. i likwidacja Rzeczypospolitej Krakowskiej w „dyplomacji” Hotelu Lambert wobec mocarstw europejskich (1846–1847), Kraków, Łodż 2018.

INDEX Agostini, Cesare 216, 254 Albèri, Eugenio 184 Alberto Amadeo, Duke of Genoa 222 Amari, Michele 113 Andreini, R. 205 Andrian-Werburg, Victor Franz von 171 Arconati, Costanza 211 Auersperg, Karl von 177 Azeglio, Costanza d’ 131, 138 Azeglio, Massimo d’ 25, 33, 47, 124, 131, 132, 136, 139, 140, 145–47, 150, 151, 160, 161, 170, 174, 183, 184, 201, 206, 213, 226, 233, 238, 243, 244, 248, 253, 254, 259, 261, 263, 276, 293, 299 Azeglio, Roberto d’ 114, 131, 200, 206 Balbi, Adriano 119 Balbo, Cesare 25, 33, 47, 124, 129–31, 133, 136, 137–39, 145, 147, 151, 160, 161, 191, 200, 203, 204, 229, 230, 238, 248, 255, 260, 276, 278–83, 298 Baratelli, Flaminio 177 Belgiojoso, Cristina Trivulzio di 40, 123, 158, 242, 299 Berlinghieri, Roberto 271 Bertinatti, Giuseppe 252 Bianchi-Giovini, A. 210 Bismarck, Otto von 28, 74, 76, 124 Boccardo, Gerolamo 258 Bonamico, Domenico 297 Boni, Filippo De 162, 165, 232, 251 Bowring, John 163 Briey, Camille de 60, 62, 65 Brignoli, Marziano 155 Broglio, Emilio 119, 120 Brophy, James M. 33 Bruno, Giovanni 285 Buchanan, James 280 Buffa, Domenico 197, 241, 270 Busacca, Raffaello 219, 261, 288, 289 Butera, Giorgio Wilding 85

Calabrini, Carlo 201 Calamai, Luigi 259 Camaldoli, Giuseppe Ricciardi di 142 Campori, Cesare 219 Capefigue, Jean-Baptiste 174 Capei, Lorenzo 263 Carné, Louis de 118 Caruso, Amerigo 256 Cassaro, Antonio Statella di 82 Castagnetto, Cesare Trabucco di 215 Castelli, M. A. 226, 244 Cattaneo, Carlo 140, 207, 214, 234, 247, 298 Cavour, Camillo Benso di 28, 33, 124, 132, 136, 172, 203, 204, 239, 248, 262, 264, 282, 291 Cecconi, Carlo 211 Centofanti, Silvestro 203, 242 Chabod, Federico 27, 31, 294 Chevalier, Michel 112 Charles X, King of France 82 Charles XIV John, King of Sweden and Norway 68, 69 Charles Albert, King of Sardinia 25, 46, 47, 81, 84, 87, 91–102, 118, 131, 132, 136, 140, 143–52, 154, 155, 160, 167, 171, 176, 179– 81, 190, 198, 202, 203, 208, 211, 215, 222, 225, 227, 228, 232, 233, 237, 240, 241, 246, 248, 249, 263, 273 Cobden, Richard 240 Collobiano, Augusto Avogadro di 148, 196 Cormenin, Louis-Marie de Lahaye 213 Crispi, Francesco 204, 223, 245, 258, 261, 300, 301–304 Croce, Benedetto 28 Crociatelli, Leopoldo 258 Curcio, Carlo 31 Durando, Giacomo 124, 132–36, 234, 265, 269, 276, 282 Enghien, Duke of 55 El Djezaïri, Abdelkader 110

344

Index

Farina, Giuseppe La 112, 140, 193, 213 Farini, Luigi Carlo 129, 167, 201, 230 Fazio, Giacomo 296, 297 Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies 53, 90, 91, 96, 108, 109, 113, 114, 143, 154, 182, 217, 223, 225 Ferrari, Giuseppe 195 Ferretti, Gabriele 177, 178, 198, 246, 253 Ferretti, Giovanni Maria Mastai (see Piux IX) Ferry, Jules 76 Ficquelmont, Ludwig von 190 Francis I, Emperor of Austria 94 Francis IV, Duke of Modena 85, 90 Francis V, Duke of Modena 169, 185, 186, 187, 233 Frederick I Barbarossa 45, 136 Frederick II, King of Prussia 120 Fregoso, Luigi Campo 295 Gabussi, Giuseppe 172, 200, 229 Galeotti, Leopoldo 185, 199 Garibaldi, Giuseppe 228, 298 Gentilini, Enrico 231 Ghinozzi, Carlo 185, 199 Gioberti, Vincenzo 25, 31, 33, 47, 122, 124, 126–31, 135, 136, 138, 143, 145, 147, 151, 166, 172, 194, 200, 232, 238, 265, 270, 276–79, 282 Giuliano, Antonio Di San 294, 298 Giusti, Giuseppe 171, 292 Gleason, John G. 21 Gramsci, Antonio 30 Grigioni, G. Nagalli de’ 220 Groppoli, Antoni Brignole Sale di 148, 154 Guizot, François Pierre Guillaume 158, 190, 194, 195, 242, 245 Hamilton, Alexander 137, 138 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 41 Honsell, Johannes 33 Isabella, Maurizio 24, 28, 29, 31, 32 Joinville, Prince 192 Kant, Immanuel 41 Kölle, Christoph Friedrich Karl von 275 La Rochefoucauld, Hippolyte de 171

La Tour, Victor-Amédée Sallier de 81, 82, 84, 92, 93, 95, 97, 155 Lamartine, Alphonse de 193, 216, 250 Lambruschini, Raffaello 113, 115, 161 Lanza, Giovanni 301 Laven, David 11 Lehmann, Orla 69, 70 Leopardi, Pier Silvestro 125 Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany 151, 180, 185, 186, 189, 208, 225 Libri, G. 118 List, Friedrich 45, 64, 67, 277, 280, 289 Lombroso, Giacomo 113 Louis Napoleon (see Napoleon III) Louis Philippe, King of France 79, 93, 192, 229 Lützow, Rudolf von 178 Luraghi, Raimondo 32 Ludolf, Giuseppe Costantino 208 Macchiavelli, Niccolò 120–22, 255, 256, 292 Malpica, Cesare 175, 232, 251, 268 Mamiani della Rovere, Terenzio 123, 126, 253, 265, 266 Mancini, Pasquale Stanislao 28, 29, 41, 255, 256, 265, 293, 297 Manin, Daniele 212 Margarita, Clemente Solaro della 87, 89, 90, 95–102, 144, 149, 155, 160, 179, 181, 224, 225 Magnaghi, Antonio 260 Marinovich, Giovanni 257 Marochetti, Giovanni Battista 137, 275 Massari, Giuseppe 126, 127 Mattei, Rodolfo de 300 Mazzini, Guiseppe 25, 33, 105–107, 113, 116, 117, 119, 125, 127, 136, 140–42, 146, 162, 163, 173, 186, 203, 211, 212, 214, 218, 219, 223, 224, 228, 242, 243, 245, 247, 249, 270, 274, 293, 294, 298 Mazzini, Luigi Andrea 41, 106, 122, 163, 164, 228, 249 Menzel, Wolfgang 62, 66 Metternich, Klemens von 41, 60, 62, 85, 93, 94, 97, 101, 107, 143, 148, 149, 153, 158, 159, 170, 177, 180, 187, 190, 229, 237, 253 Minghetti, Marco 120, 121, 161, 185, 301 Minto, Lord 195 Mohammed Ali 195, 229

Index Mohl, Jules 123 Montanelli, Giuseppe 170, 187, 238 Morello, Paolo 222 Mortier, Édouard 83 Napoleon I, Emperor of France 55, 82, 86, 108, 137, 180, 201 Napoleon III, Emperor of France 76, 106, 230, 294 Nardini, Janer 173 Negri, Cristoforo 111, 112, 119, 120 Ongaro, Francesco Dall’ 266 Orsini, Felice 106 Oscar I, King of Sweden 70 Pallastrelli, Bernardo 261 Pallavicini, Francesco 282 Pallavicino, Giorgio 138, 212 Palmerston, Henry John Temple 3rd Viscount 54, 55, 159, 161, 176, 194, 195 Passamonti, Eugenio 31 Pavia, Giovanni 121 Pepe, Guglielmo 142 Périer, Casimir 80, 82, 117 Petitti di Roreto, Carlo Ilarione 183, 194, 199, 240 Pisani, Giulio 289 Pius IX, Pope 25, 47, 115, 116, 139, 147, 151, 154, 165–67, 177–80, 182, 185, 189, 208, 209, 211, 215, 225, 228, 232, 244, 254 Pollone, Guiseppe Nomis di 86 Pralormo, Carlo Beraudo di 84 Racchia, Paolo 273 Radetzky von Radetz, Josef Wenzel 170, 177, 189, 190, 234 Ranuzzi, Annibale 134 Reill, Dominique Kirchner 27 Revel, Adriano Thaon di 158, 229 Revel, Ottavio di 229 Ricasoli, Bettino 228 Ricci, Albert de 268 Ridolfi, Cosimo 113 Rive, Auguste De La 204 Rochau, August Ludwig von 73, 74, 256 Roncaglia, Carlo 290 Rossi, Carlo 101 Rossi, Gabrielle 290

345

Rotteck, Karl von 138 Ruffini, Giovanni 211 Ruscalla, Giovenale Vegezzi 269 Rusconi, Carlo 254 Sales, Paolo Francesco di 97 Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, the 3rd Marquis of 76 Salvagnoli, Vincenzo 123, 175, 187, 201, 214, 218, 230, 231, 232 Sambuy, Vittorio Balbo Bertone di 86, 87, 89 Sauli, Lodovico 254 Scalini, Gaetano 115 Sega, Giacomo 109–12 Sereni, Angelo Piero 29 Settembrini, Luigi 113 Schroeder, Paul W. 22, 23 Schulz, Matthias 22 Shamil, Imam 118 Jan III Sobieski, King of Poland 154 Solitro, Giulio 269 Soria, Diego 290, 292 Sperber, Jonathan 59 Sterbini, Pietro 183, 206, 218, 219, 227, 233, 244, 264 Stifter, Adalbert 45, 73, 256 Talleyrand-Périgord, Charles Maurice de 107 Thiers, Adolphe 123 Thomson, Dennis W. 25 Tommaseo, Niccolò 107 Torelli, Luigi 161, 170, 171 Tronchêt, Agatone de Luca 174, 184 Turiello, Pasquale 303 Usiglio, Giuseppe 252 Valerio, Lorenzo 117, 162, 203, 214 Valussi, Pacifico 294 Vattel, Emmerich de 104, 254 Ventura, Gioacchino 221, 258, 281 Villamarina, Emanuele Pes di 100, 101, 144, 181, 195 Villamarina, Salvatore Pes di 117 Villani, Filippo 174 Visconti-Venosta, Emilio 301 Vittorio Emanuelle III, King of Italy 304 Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of 229

346 Wickliffe, Robert 280, 281 Wirth, Johann August Georg 138 Zambelli, Andrea 120 Zanou, Konstantina 27 Zappi, Daniele 172 Zecchini, Stefano Pietro 253, 289

Index