H06 - 01 WESTERN EUROPE 1800s – 1945 “Unification of Italy” 10/10/2018

Name: ______Due: THU. 19 DEC2013

Homework: Western Europe (1800s – 1945) “Unification of Italy” Global History II

Tonight’s assignment involves two (2) items:
- your textbook - handout text

ITALY

- Risorgimento ... fight to unify Italy
- Mazzini .. Father of Italian nationalism

- Count Camilo Cavout ... Italian politician who organizes the government

- Garibaldi ... revolutionary leader who with his "red shirts" lead the fight for
Italian unification

+ 1870 Italy is unified
- Rome is the capital ... traces heritage to Ancient Rome

- yet Italy is also divided

- north ... industrialized

- south ... agricultural

INSTRUCTIONS: pages 631 - 632 .. Ch. 19 - Section 3 "Italian Unification”

1. Which nation dominated the Italian peninsula in the early 1800s (19th century)?

2. Who started the move towards Italian unity … and how did he do it?

3. Who led the Italian unification movement in southern Italy … what his group called, and why?

4. When was Italy united … and under whom?

5. What was the last piece of the Italian peninsula to be reunited … and how this occur?

The Unification of ITALY
(The Breakdown of the Balance of Power)

During the 18th century, intellectual changes began to dismantle traditional values and institutions. Liberal ideas from France and Britain spread rapidly, and from 1789 the French Revolution became the genesis of "liberal Italians". A series of political and military events resulted in a unified kingdom of Italy in 1861.

The settlements reached in 1815 at the Vienna Congress had restored Austrian domination over the Italian peninsula but had left Italy completely fragmented . The Congress had divided the territory among a number of European nations and the victors of the Napoleonic Wars. The Kingdom of Sardinia recovered Piedmont, Nice, and Savoy and acquired Genoa.
There were three major obstacles to unity at the time the congress took place, i.e. (a) the Austrian occupation of Lombardy and Venice in the north, (b) the principality under the sovereignty of the pope, i.e. the Papal States that controlled the center of the Italian peninsula; and (c) the existence of various states that had maintained independence, such as the Kingdom of Sardinia, also called Piedmont-Sardinia, which located at the French border had slowly expanded since the Middle Ages and was considered the most advanced state in Italy. The Kingdom of Sardinia consisted of the island of Sardinia and the region called Piedmont in northwestern Italy. The Kingdom of Sicily that occupied the island of Sicily and the entire southern half of the Italian peninsula . Other small states were the duchies of Toscana (Tuscany), Parma, and Modena. In each of these states, the monarchs (all relatives of the Habsburgs, the ruling family of Austria) exercised absolute powers of government.

The Risorgimento refers to the process by which the modern country of Italy was unified... forged from a collection of individual Italian States linked only by geography. It began with the ending of Napoleon’s reign and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and ended with the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71. Throughout that period the question of Italy dominated European politics: with personalities such as Cavour, Mazzini and, of course, Garibaldi becoming household names.

For the wargamer, the Risorgimento offers a fascinating and colourful mixture of armies, personalities, skirmishes, rebellions, grand battles and wars. Understanding what was actually happening, however, is somewhat complicated. So don your red shirt and grey poncho, read on, and cry: Qui si fa l’Italia o si muore (“Here we make Italy - or die!” Guiseppe Garibaldi, at the battle of Calatafimi, in Sicily, 15th May 1860)

When France and Napoleon were expelled from Italy at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the various Italian states were largely returned to either their Austrian (Hapsburg) or local royal family rulers (including the Pope in the Papal States). Both the Austrians and the traditional monarchs were generally eager to return the States to an almost feudal political system and isolation from the rest of Europe. The States had, however, tasted reform and the modern world under the French, and calls grew either for a change from traditional monarchy to constitutional monarchy or for the disparate states of Italy to unite as one nation.
Risorgimento - resurgement in English, or rise. The expression describes a movement aiming at establishing an Italian nation-state, a state regarded modern, just and strong enough to defend itself, while the Italian states of the post-Vienna Congress period were regarded as backward, weak, injust, foreign-dominated.
The intellectual father of Italian nationalism is GUISEPPE MAZZINI, the founder of YOUNG ITALY. He was a gifted orator and inspired many, such as GARIBALDI.
GiuseppeMazzini, an Italian patriot spearheaded a national revolutionary movement. Mazzini's ideology of an independent integrated republic spread quickly among large segments of the Italian people. Revolutionary cells formed throughout the Italian peninsula.

Massive reforms that took place during the 1840s in the Papal States, Lucca, Tuscany, and the Kingdom of Sardinia were intended to slow the revolutionary movements, instead these reforms (1846 and 1847) only intensified the resolve of the revolutionary cells culminating in the Revolutions of 1848, that spread to Germany, the Austrian Empire, France, and parts of northern Italy.

The first revolution on the Italian peninsula took place in the Kingdom of Sicily, which resulted in a constitution for the whole kingdom. An insurrection in 1848 caused pope Pius IX to flee Rome and a republic was proclaimed. King Charles Albert of Sardinia mobilized his army and marched to the assistance of Lombardy and joined in the war to drive the Austrians from Italian soil.

While it initially looked as if the independence and unity of Italy was a realistic possibility, the Austrians defeated the Piedmontese and Charles Albert had to abdicate. His son, Victor Emmanuel II, succeeded him in 1849. A new revolutionary leader, Giuseppe Garibaldi, could not avoid Rome's destruction by the French in 1849. Only Sardinia held firm to their constitutional government.

Count Camillo di Cavourbecame prime minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia In 1852 . It was his leadership and accommodating policies that led to the unification of Italy in little more than a decade.

Cavour was able to persuade Napoleon to a secretly planned war against Austria. By early 1859, Cavour had caused a crisis that provoked the Austrians to send an ultimatum demanding Piedmontese disarmament. As part of the "plan", Cavour rejected the ultimatum which led to the subsequent war with the Austrians. The French came to the aid of the Piedmontese and the Austrians were defeated in the two major battles of Magenta and Solferino. The Austrians were forced to surrender Lombardy, with its great city of Milan (my home town), to Napoleon III. Finally, in 1859, Napoleon transferred Lombardy to the sovereignty of Victor Emmanuel II.
Following elections during 1859 and 1860, all northern states (of the Italian peninsula), except Venetia, which was still part of Austria, joined the Kingdom of Sardinia. Napoleon's growing concern with respect to the sudden (large) size of his neighbor was resolved in part by the cessation of the Sardinian provinces of Savoy, near the Alps, and Nice, on the Mediterranean coast to France in 1860 . After 1860, the only French presence on the Italian peninsula was in the city of Rome, where French troops remained at the request of the pope.

Giuseppe Garibaldi Italian nationalist revolutionary hero and leader in the struggle for Italian unification and independence. Born in 1807 in Nice, France, he joined Mazzini's movement in 1833. In 1834 Garibaldi was ordered to seize a warship, but the plot was discovered by police and he was condemned to death. He escaped to South America, where he lived for 12 years. There he displayed unusual qualities of military leadership while participating in the revolt of the state of Rio Grande do Sul against Brazil, as well as later in a civil war in Uruguay.

In 1848, Garibaldi traveled to the United States settled in Staten Island, New York, and later became a US citizen. During the same year he returned to Italy and participated (again) in the movement for Italian freedom and unification, which became widely known as the Risorgimento (Italian for "revival"). He organized a corps of volunteers, which served under the Piedmontese ruler Charles Albert, king of Sardinia. He unsuccessfully waged war against the Austrians in Lombardy and led his volunteers to Rome to support the Roman Republic established by Mazzini and others in 1849. Garibaldi defended Rome, initially successfully, against French forces, but in the end was forced to "settle" with the French. He was allowed to depart from Rome with about 5000 of his followers. However, the line of retreat reached directly through Austrians controlled territory. Garibaldi's force was killed, captured, or dispersed during his attempt to retreat, and Garibaldi had to flee Italy to save his life.
He returned to Italy in 1854 where he settled down on the island of Caprera northeast of Sardinia. By this time, Garibaldi had separated politically from Mazzini, and had formed an alliance with Victor Emmanuel II, the king of Sardinia, and his premier, Conte Camillo Benso di Cavour. Given Garibaldi's popularity and large following, thousands of Italians gave their allegiance to the Sardinian monarch.

Garibaldi's dream of a united Italy motivated his successful expedition against the Austrian forces in the Alps in 1859. In 1860 he conquered Sicily and set up a provisional insular government. Garibaldi then conquered Naples, which he then delivered to Victor Emmanuel in 1861 and returned to his home on Caprera. With the annexation of Umbria and Marches from the papal government, a united Italy was finally established in 1861 with Victor Emmanuel as it's king. The Italian kingdom was missing Rome, which was still a papal possession, and Venice, which was controlled by the Austrians.

Italy's unification in 1859/1860, despite the preparation by MAZZINI and the conquest of both Sicilies by GARIBALDI, was the work of Savoy's prime minister CAVOUR. The newly unified Italian kingdom therefore was modelled much after it's historical nucleus, SAVOY.
The capital was TURIN (for Rome, until 1870, was protected by French troops and not yet part of the kingdom).
The following measures were introduced to define the young Kingdom of Italy as a LIBERAL STATE :
(1) a CIVIL CODE, based on the French Code Napoleon, was adopted in 1865.
(2) separation of church and state was instituted, although not as thorough as in some other European countries. Higher education became a state responsibility, marriages stayed a church affair.
(3) to establish a unified state, the historical provinces were replaced by departments, following the French model.
(4) believing in FREE TRADE, the state abolished existing tariffs (trade barriers).
(5) the Kingdom of Italy adopted the Savoyan constitution of 1848.
(6) communal property was confiscated and sold off.
In the process of unification, some had advocated a federal constitution, others stronger authority given to parliament (the democrats, with Garibaldi). Italy, economically, was very heterogenous. While the northern regions of Savoy, Lombardy, around Bologna and Venice could adapt with a world economy based on free trade, the economy of the former Kingdom of both Sicilies could not. Factories, accustomed to protective tariffs, suddenly had to shut down; unemployment and poverty became even more severe. Riots were frequent; in the 1860es the young Italian Army was occupied with pacifying the south, campaigning against 'bandits'. These problems only worsened with rising taxation.
The Catholic church opposed the liberal state, going so far to urge Catholics not to participate in elections, not to take public office and not to work for the state. Although the church later would moderate it's stand, it basically rejected the liberal state and would, decades later, rather cooperate with Mussolini.
Southern Italy remained under the control of the landowners; no serious attempt was made to break up the LATIFUNDIA; the rural masses, landless, had little prospects of improving their economic conditions; many emigrated, either to the north, or to the USA, Argentina or elsewhere.
As in other contemporary European countries, the working class was by and far excluded from the political process, as the electoral law contained property and literacy requirements; political organizations representing the workers therefore opposed the liberal state.

Venice was added to Italy in 1866 after Prussia defeated Austria in the Seven Weeks' War, in which Italy sided with Prussia; Venice was its reward. Then, in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon III withdrew his troops from Rome. With the city of Rome and the remaining Papal States left unprotected, Italian troops moved into Rome without opposition. Rome voted for union with Italy in October 1870 and, in July 1871, Rome became the capital of a united Italy.
Though a unified, independent nation by 1870, and tracing its roots back to the glory of Ancient Rome, the new Italian nation was still pretty much divided, much like the United States at the time. Northern Italy - Lombardy, the Emilia-Romagna, Venetia - were urbanized regions long integrated into central Europe's economy; they adapted well to the new political and economic conditions, the FREE TRADE policy now pursued. The south, the former Kingdom of both Sicilies, suffered as many of it's businesses relied on protection from imports and, once this had been taken away, had to shut down. Another problem in the south were the LATIFUNDIA - land was owned by a few magnates, while the masses were landless and depended on employment (which was scarce). Hence what in the official terminology was "a bandit problem". For many southerners, EMIGRATION was the only way out of poverty.
Late in the 19th century, the INDUSTRIALIZATION reached Italy. As a country almost devoid of coal and iron ores, Italy hardly had seen the first industrial revolution; the second industrial revolution, which was based on hydroelectric rather than on combined coal amnd steam power, mountainous Italy could make use of it's abundant resources. It was mainly the northern region where industrialization took place.
Italy did not introduce universal adulthood male suffrage until after World War I; Italian democracy was restricted to propertied and educated classes. In the 1860es and 1870es, noblemen and ennobled persons figured prominently in Italian politics; political parties played a dominant role from the 1880es onward. Italian prime ministers usually sought the support of the southern landowners; thus a land reform never materialized.

QUESTIONS:

1. State things which influenced Italian unification.

2. State 2 problems to Italian unification.

3. What is "Risorgimento" ?

4. State the roles played by each of the following:

- Mazzini

- Count Camillo de Cavour

- Garibaldi

5. What section of the Italy was the last to become part of the modern Italian nation?

6. Explain how by the 1875 "Italy was united, yet still divided."

7. Strong feelings of nationalism usually begin with the existence of

1. abundant natural resources

2. democratic traditions

3. a common history, language, and culture

4. imperialistic ambitions

8. “A country is not merely a geographic territory. A country is also the idea given birth by the geographic territory. A country is a sense of love that unites, as one, all the sons and daughters of that geographic territory…” --World History: A Story of Progress

This quotation supports the idea of

  1. totalitarian rule
  2. absolute monarchy
  3. mercantilism
  4. nationalism

9. One reason Italy and Germany were not major colonial powers in the 16th and 17th centuries was that they

(1) had self-sufficient economies (3) rejected the practice of imperialism

(2) lacked political unity (4) belonged to opposing alliances

10. Count Cavour, Guiseppe Mazzini and Guiseppe Garibaldi were best known for helping

1. bring imperialism to the African continent.

2. unite their respective nations.

3. to bring an end to absolute monarchies in their nations.

4. to stop the advances of Napoleon's armies.

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