In order to understand the insurrection at Genoa in April 1849, in the quelling of which H.M.S. Vengeance and its captain, the Earl of Hardwicke, took so notable a part, it is necessary to take a short retrospect of the history of Italy.
At the end of the Napoleonic Wars the opinion of Prince Metternich that Italy is only a geographical expression was true enough. This cynical minister of the Austrian Empire was the embodiment of the reaction which set in after the fall of Napoleon.
Europe, worn out by the struggles first of the Revolution and then of its conquering offspring, had one idea only—the reorganisation of the different States and the suppression of all revolutionary movements. The Powers therefore stood aloof from all interference in Italy and Austria had a free hand.
By the Treaty of Paris in 1814, Savoy, Genoa and Nice were assigned to Piedmont. This was not popular in Genoa which, hitherto a Republic, was now handed over to Victor Emmanuel I, a reactionary of the most extreme type. The old privileges of the Church and nobility were restored to them. The Jesuits were allowed to overrun the country and were given the control of education, and in the army all those who had served under Napoleon were degraded. In fact the ancien régime was restored with interest to all those who had lost their privileges since 1793. The hatred of France on the part of the reigning sovereigns of Italy was a great strength to Austria. It was to the latter country that they looked for their ideal of government. Such was the position when, in 1821, a rising took place in Piedmont for reform and a constitution, and for the expulsion of the Austrians. It was not aimed at the King, on the contrary the insurrectionaries professed the greatest loyalty. Victor Emmanuel I, though a lover of his people, was not a lover of their liberties, and the hopes of the Reformers lay in the Prince of Carignano, a nephew of Victor Emmanuel, who afterwards ascended the throne as King Charles Albert. This prince, though in sympathy with reform, refused to go against the wishes of the King, who abdicated, appointing the Prince of Carignano Regent. The constitution of Spain was granted 'pending the orders of the new King.' This monarch, Carlo Felice, Duke of Genoa and brother of Victor Emmanuel I, lost no time in repudiating the constitution, which was also opposed by the Russian and Austrian Governments.
Santarossa, who had been appointed Minister of War by the Regent, and who was at the head of the insurrection, issued a proclamation in which he expressed the views of the promoters of the movement. 'A Piedmontese King in the midst of the Austrians, our inevitable enemies, is a King in prison. Nothing of what he may say can or ought to be accepted as coming from him. We will prove to him that we are his children.' Liberty and freedom from Austrian influence was the cry, not disloyalty to the ruling House of Piedmont. The rising of 1821 was not supported in Lombardy, and was finally put down by the Austrian power.
Carlo Felice, the new King, suppressed all movement for reform and maintained all the old prerogatives of class and caste. He, however, proclaimed the Prince of Carignano his heir and successor, and the latter succeeded to the throne as Charles Albert in 1831.
In every part of Italy there was revolt against mediæval government and Austrian supremacy. In Naples after 1815 the Bourbon King had been restored. Here the same demand for a constitution was put forward as in Piedmont and accepted insincerely by the King. An Austrian force of 43,000 men soon relieved his conscience of any concession, and the constitution was withdrawn.
Sicily, which under English influences during the Napoleonic War had acquired a certain amount of constitutional freedom, was on the restoration of the Bourbons thrown back, so far as government was concerned, into the Middle Ages; with the same result as in the other Kingdoms of Italy, insurrection, finally suppressed by Austrian power. The same movement occurred in all the different States of Italy and in all the basis of revolt was the same—a desire for unity, demand for a constitution, and hatred of the Austrian power made more odious by the severity of Metternich.
The forces of insurrection were stirred not only by the revolutionary instigations of Mazzini, but also by the contributions of literary men, the most notable of whom were Gioberti, Cesare Balbo, and D'Azeglio. Gioberti aimed at unity, independence and liberty; the first two to be obtained by a confederation of the various States under the Presidency of the Pope, the last by internal reforms in each State. The ambitions of Balbo were for a Kingdom of Italy. A confederation of States was to him, as to Gioberti, the only practical solution. D'Azeglio, who preached peaceful methods instead of violence, interviewed the King in 1845, and received the following reply: 'Let these gentlemen know that they must keep quiet at present, there is nothing to be done, but tell them that when the time comes, my life, the life of my children, my army, my treasury, my all, will be spent in the Italian cause.' From this time the King of Piedmont was regarded as the leader of the Italian movement.
King Charles Albert, now a convert to liberalism, said: 'I intend to make a form of government in which my people shall have all the liberty that is compatible with the preservation of the basis of the Monarchy.'