The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany / With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three Years

by C. Edmund Maurice

In the latter country the betrayal of the Constitutional cause had been, perhaps, baser than in any other part of Europe.

With the exception of Frederick William of Prussia, no sovereign had owed more to the zeal of his people in the struggle against Napoleon than Ferdinand of Spain. In 1812, before he had been restored to his throne, he had been forced to grant a Constitution to his people, which, on recovering full power, he had abolished; and anyone who ventured to speak of liberty had been exiled or imprisoned. Among those who had been forced to fly from the country was Rafael del Riego, who had been one of the earliest to rise on behalf of Ferdinand against Napoleon. He had succeeded, by the help of the Carbonari, in establishing relations with many of the discontented soldiers in the Spanish army; and in January, 1820, he suddenly appeared at Cadiz and proclaimed the Constitution of 1812.

His success was rapid, and Ferdinand was compelled once more to swear to maintain the Constitution.

This, the first Constitution proclaimed since the downfall of Napoleon, was remarkable for its democratic character. Parliament was to have the power of making laws in conjunction with the king, and if they passed a law three times, the king was to lose the right of vetoing it. Ministers were to be responsible to Parliament. Freedom of the press was to be secured, and a Council of State was to advise the king on questions of peace or war and the making of treaties. At the same time, the nation was to prohibit the practice of any but the Roman Catholic religion.

The news rapidly spread to Naples; for not only was there continual communication between the Carbonari of Spain and those of Naples, but even official duty would make speedy communication necessary, since Ferdinand of Naples was the next heir to the Spanish throne, and it was therefore held that this Constitution would be binding on him. The Carbonari were ready for the emergency; and while some of them, in the city of Naples, were demanding concessions, the more revolutionary districts of Calabria and Salerno had already risen in open insurrection. Ferdinand was able to arrest some of the leaders in the city; but he soon found that the insurrectionary spirit had spread even among the generals of his army. Officer after officer declared for the Constitution; and even those who were not ready to take that step were suspected by, and suspicious of, their fellows. Guglielmo Pepe, known as a supporter of the previous movement of Murat, and at one time sentenced to death for his opposition to the Bourbon rule, was marked out by the Carbonari as their leader. He at first hesitated to join them, and was even chosen by Nugent to lead the king's forces against the insurgents; but Ferdinand distrusted him, and opposed his appointment, and Pepe was finally driven to accept the leadership of the revolution. On July 5th he gathered round him a great body of the officers and soldiers, and led them to Naples; and Ferdinand, finding that he had no one to rely upon, yielded to the insurgents and consented to the appointment of a provisional Junta (composed to a great extent of the previous supporters of Murat), and swore to accept the Spanish Constitution.

Metternich was greatly startled at the completeness of this popular victory. He had been convinced that, with a people like the Neapolitans, blood would flow in streams; and he was alarmed to find that the leading Carbonari were men of high character. He at once assumed that Alexander of Russia was at the bottom of the conspiracy; and he set himself to convert him once more to the side of order. But that fickle Prince seems never to have seriously resumed the championship of liberalism in Europe, after the death of Kotzebue; and though he may have wished occasionally to play with the Carbonari, and may have been flattered by their appealing to him, he was much more anxious to put in force those principles which M^me de Krüdener had taught him, which forbade kings to keep faith with those subjects to whom they had granted liberties. He therefore readily consented to come to Troppau, to consider the best means of checking the Neapolitan insurrection.

In the meantime, suspicions had arisen between the Carbonari and the old followers of Murat, and the want of organization in their forces seemed to doom the insurrection to failure.

But a still more fatal cause of division was the attitude of Sicily. The news of the proclamation of the Spanish Constitution had, at first, been welcomed there; but the nobles of Palermo cherished the recollection of that short time of independence when Ferdinand, driven out of Naples, had ruled Sicily as a separate kingdom; the Sicilian Constitution of 1812, which was welcome to the nobles of Palermo, as more aristocratic in its character than the Spanish Constitution, was acceptable to all the Palermitans as the symbol of Sicilian independence. The cry, therefore, of "the Constitution of 1812" was raised in Palermo, in opposition to the cry of "the Spanish Constitution."

A Neapolitan intriguer, named Naselli, did his best to fan the flame of this division; riots arose; and the news spread to Naples that the Sicilians were enemies of Naples, and were opposing the Spanish Constitution. The Palermitans, on their part, appealed to the King by the memory of the old fidelity which the Sicilians had shown him when he was in exile. The King, and some others, might have responded to this appeal; and General Florestano Pepe, who was sent to suppress the rising, ended by conceding to the Sicilians the right of deciding by popular vote between the two Constitutions. But the Neapolitan pride was excited; a cry arose that the King was surrendering an important part of the kingdom, and thereby violating the Constitution.