“Camillo Cavour was the Architect ofItalian Unification” Discuss.
First of all before we can answer this question we must learn more about Camillo Benso, the Count of Cavour (1810-1861) and the unification of Italy. The Italian unification, also known as il Risorgimento or “The Resurgence”, started at about the same time of the Vienna Congress in 1815 and ended in 1871, although Cavour didn’t have anything to do with politics until 1848.
Cavour got to the political battlefield in 1848 when the second wave of revolutions was starting. Not until 1852 did he become the prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia during this year he had made great improvements to the economy of Piedmont and the wealth had greatly increased, and so Piedmont had become the strongest of the Italian states. Piedmont was also asked to help France, and Great-Britain in the Crimean War against Russia. He accepted to join the war in hope that the new western allies would support ambitions of Piedmont-Sardinia in uniting the states of Italy, although Cavour never had it on his mind that he would unite every single one of the states to one big, but some of them. As they joined the war Piedmont got a seat at the Paris peace convention.
Cavour also started to negotiate with the Emperor of France Napoleon III and so they agreed that Piedmont would provoke Austria to war and France would come and assist Piedmont in the conflict. Although international pressure from Russia, Prussia and Britain trying to get Piedmont disarmed the conflict started as Austria demanded Piedmont to disarm itself and so France saw Austria as the aggregator and went to assist its ally. Napoleon got convinced to sign the Treaty of Villafranca behind the back of Piedmont and so Cavour was furious of this although they got Lombardy and the central Italian states; these were acquired soon after the treaty as they got the upheavals under control. So he resigned for a moment as a protest but got back to the job in no time as he was impatient with the government slowing down the process. Finally Nice and Savoy were officially given to France as Piedmont had got full control of Tuscany and Emilia. The first stage of the unification was complete and now it was up to Giuseppe Garibaldi to get southern Italy under Piedmont rule.
For a short while Garibaldi ruled the southern Italy and Sicily with a dictatorship for a short while and was about to invade the Papal States but Cavour couldn’t risk the fact that France would declare war so he quickly invaded Papal regions Umbria and Marches and Garibaldi met Victor Emanuel II and handed over his powers over southern Italy and Sicily to the king, thus uniting Italy.
Throughout the Italian unification Camillo Cavour was with no doubtone of the main people who influenced all the way. When he died in 1861 only Venetia and the Papal States where not part of Italy. I think that it was his motivation and skills which made possible for the states of Italy unite.
For example if he hadn’t become the prime minister again the government wouldn’t have been able to unite Italy as they were too busy procrastinating with the process. So in my opinion Camillo Cavour is the true architect of the Italian unification, although he started on the politics as late as 1848, when the upheavals started again and was only part of the second Italian war of independence.
It can be argued off course that because he wasn’t taking part at the first steps of the unification, when it started in 1815, he really can’t be the true architect, but I think that this shouldn’t be a valid argument, because he was the one who put the pedal to the metal with the whole process and didn’t procrastinate at all, but made swift and tactical moves. As well he’s primary goal at first wasn’t even to unite the whole of Italy but to make the Sardinian-Piedmont kingdom economically, politically and territorially stronger. So to finally conclude and using these points I think that Camillo Cavour was the architect in a sense of what he achieved but not in a sense as he just basically continued the process where it had been left off.
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