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

This book, "Il Primato Morale e Civile degli Italiani," professes to show why, and how, the Italians should take the lead in the affairs of Europe. The writer begins with a glorification of Italy, though, at the same time, he complains that she has too often neglected her mission; and he maintains, in this connection, the necessity of combining philosophy with political discussion. Very early in the argument he goes back to Romulus; but, not content with the comparative antiquity of that allusion, he thinks it necessary to deduce the origin of civilization from Noah. He then considers the relation between the Papacy and the Empire after the time of Charles the Great, and the attitude of various Italian writers and patriots towards the Papacy. He incidentally notices the fascination of Abelard for Arnold of Brescia as one of the causes of that reformer's hostility to the Papacy, and as a warning to Italians not to yield to the influence of French ideas. It is to the Guelphs that Gioberti looks for the embodiment of the political wisdom of the Italians of the Middle Ages. Without the Papacy, there could be no real political unity for Italy, since through its influence alone could there be produced a union of morality, religion, and civilization. He deprecates all revolution, all encouragement of invasion, all imitations of foreign ideas. Unity, in the complete sense in which it was known in England and France, was, says Gioberti, an impossibility, because of differences in Government and dialect between the different States of Italy. He expresses a belief that Alfieri would have repented of his attacks on Popes and Kings if he had lived to see the dignified resistance of Pius VII. to Napoleon. The Pope would be obliged to act by peaceful means; and while forming an Italian Navy, and developing Italian colonies, he should carry on his work through a Federal Union, of which he would be the President. But, as the Pope must act by pacific means, there would be need of a military leader also for Italy; and he must be found in Piedmont. Literature had been slower in growth in Piedmont than in other parts of Italy; but in proportion to its backwardness in this respect was its superiority in military matters. Further, the House of Savoy had been softened by religion, and had never produced a tyrant. But moderate reforms were necessary in order to make the leadership palatable; especially a modification of the censorship of the Press, and greater encouragement to science and literature. In urging that Italy must take the lead of Europe, not merely in matters of civilization, but in thought, he dwells emphatically on the connection between philosophy and politics. But, above all, Italy should hold this position because she has never fallen into the errors of Protestantism. Passing from the independent States of Italy, he dwells on the necessity of a union between Lombardy and Piedmont; and then, after discussing what qualities the different parts of Italy will contribute to the general character of the whole, and dwelling on the possible union among the literary men of Italy, he concludes by insisting that religion can be the only uniting force; and therefore that the Head of the Christian World must be the Head of the Italian League.

This curious book attracted considerable attention; but although many expressed admiration for the author, few committed themselves definitely to its doctrines. The idea of a Pope as a liberator and uniter of Italy clashed with all the experiences which Italy had had of the Government of Gregory XVI., and Gioberti was forced to modify his words, and to deny that he looked to the Pope then on the throne to carry out his programme. This explanation led him into a controversy with the Jesuits, which must considerably have increased his popularity.

A third writer, who attracted some attention, though far less than Balbo and Gioberti, was Giacomo Durando, already mentioned as one of the conspirators of 1831. He demanded a league between Peoples and Princes, but utterly denied that any initiative of Italian independence could come from the Pope. His idea was a Kingdom of Italy divided into three parts—Northern, and presumably Central, Italy to be under the House of Savoy; the city of Rome and some islands to be left to the Pope; and Southern Italy to the King of Naples. He did not, however, desire that the League should make war upon Austria, but that it should wait, and be ready to resist attacks from that Power.

But while these writers were trying to formulate, in a literary manner, the programme of the Constitutional Liberals, the more fiery members of that party were anxious to show that they too could do something in the way of a political movement of a more determined kind; and it was in the Papal States, again, as the centre of the worst government of Italy, that this new programme of insurrection was put forward. A man named Pietro Renzi undertook to formulate the demands of this section of the party. The petition drawn up by Renzi went back to the time of Pius VII., to show that hopes of reform had once been held out, even in the Papal States. It dwelt on the fact that, from the time of the insurrections of 1821 to the death of Pius VIII. in 1831, there had been a steady growth of tyranny; that in 1831 the Papal Government would have fallen but for the intervention of Austria; that, when Gregory XVI. had been restored to his power, demands had been made for reform in the Papal Government which had been steadily opposed; that the Pope and Cardinal Albani were now encouraging robbers and murderers on the ground of the support which such men gave to the faith. "For eight or ten years past," Renzi declared, "it had not been the Pope or Rome or the Cardinals who had been governing the people of the Legations; but a sanguinary faction of the brutalized populace has been wearing the dress, and performing the functions of government." Many young men had been driven from the universities, or shut out from liberal professions, by the influence of the Jesuits; and the clergy had usurped the control of all education. The leaders of the new party, therefore, demanded twelve concessions.—1. A general amnesty for all political offences from 1821 to that time. 2. Publicity of Debate; trial by jury, and abolition of confiscations and capital punishment for political offences. 3. That laymen should not be subjected either to the Inquisition nor any other ecclesiastical tribunal. 4. That political offences should be tried by the ordinary tribunals. 5. That municipal councils should be freely elected subject to the approval of the Sovereign; that these municipal councils should elect the provincial councils, and the provincial councils the Supreme Council of State. 6. That the Supreme Council should reside in Rome, superintending the public funds, and should have a deliberative power in some matters, a consultative in others. 7. That all offices, civil, military, and judicial, should be held by laymen. 8. That public instruction, other than religious, should be taken away from the clergy. 9. That the censorship of the Press should be only employed in the case of offences against God, the Catholic Religion, and the Sovereign, and the private life of citizens. 10. That foreign troops should be dismissed. 11. That the Civic Guard should be instituted, and entrusted with the maintenance of the laws and of public order. 12. That the Government should enter on all those social reforms which are required by the spirit of the age, and of which all the civil governments of Europe have given an example.

Renzi resolved to enforce this programme by a sudden attack on Rimini, in which he was completely successful; but an ally of his, who had raised a revolt simultaneously in the lower Romagna, was compelled to retire before the Swiss troops of the Pope; and Renzi, apparently panic struck, retreated into Tuscany. Unfortunately, a reaction was then taking place there. Fossombroni had died in 1844, Corsini, the Minister who was most in sympathy with Fossombroni's policy, resigned in 1845; and the chief of the Jesuit party took his place. The Grand Duke Leopold himself was at first disposed to be friendly to Renzi; but, as the best protection to him, he advised his escape to France. Renzi soon returned, and Metternich, alarmed at the intensity of Italian feeling, denounced the Duke for protecting rebels, and, under the influence of Austrians, Jesuits, and of the Pope, Leopold consented to surrender Renzi to Gregory XVI.

The attention of the country was still further directed to this attempt by a pamphlet which came out immediately after, and which was written by a young Piedmontese nobleman, Count Massimo Tapparelli D'Azeglio. In this pamphlet D'Azeglio complained that the Rimini movement had been much misrepresented; but that the action of the insurgents had no doubt been a blunder, because the movement had been purely local, and they had not considered how to use the forces of the whole of Italy. He then proceeded to denounce the corruptions of the Papal Government, and the cruelties which had followed the suppression of this rising; particularly the gross injustice of imprisoning a lawyer because he had defended some of the prisoners. After a denunciation in detail of the evils of the Papal Government, he goes on to repudiate the use of secret societies, as having failed in their purpose; calls on the Italians to unite in peaceable protest against abuses, rather than in insurrection; and points to the Tugendbund of Germany as a model for Italian combinations. The pamphlet had little that was new in it, but attention was fixed upon the author, by the fact that he was immediately banished from Tuscany by the Grand Duke, and was, shortly after, welcomed in Piedmont.

Metternich's protest against this welcome might have been more decided had he not been hampered by the events which were occurring in Galicia. Ever since the insurrection of 1830, there had been a steady feeling of sympathy towards the Poles, not merely as an oppressed nation, but as the nation whose restoration was the chief duty and necessity of the champions of liberty. Kossuth declared, at a somewhat later time, that there was a close connection between the liberties of Hungary and those of Poland. Mazzini had been eager to co-operate, where it was possible, with the exiled Poles. Robert Blum had shown a special enthusiasm for their cause, and was ready to help in a rising in Posen. Every Slavonic race looked on the wrongs of the Poles as the typical instance of the oppression of the Slavs by the Great Powers of Europe; while, at the same time, they honoured them as the most famous fighters in the cause of Slavonic freedom. But it was in France that the greatest enthusiasm was felt for the Poles, and the most complete organization of the exiles existed. There a special military school was founded for them in 1843; and in 1846, after a preparation of three years, the democratic section among the Poles resolved to strike a decisive blow against Austria.

The city of Cracow, on the borders of Galicia, was the one part of Poland which still maintained a nominal freedom. The political independence of Cracow had been secured by the Treaty of Vienna. The Austrian Government even then wished to absorb it into their own dominions; but, under pressure from Russia, Francis consented that Cracow should be a free town, governed by its own elected Chamber of Representatives, and surrounded by a district which was not to be occupied by Austrian troops; and it was also to exercise complete control over its army and police. The usual Austrian interpretation of liberty, however, was soon to be applied to the Republic of Cracow. Although free trade between Cracow and Warsaw had been secured by a regular treaty, the protecting Powers, as they were called (Austria, Russia, and Prussia), began soon to insist on prohibitive duties being introduced on the frontiers of Cracow. Its University, dating from the fourteenth century, had been secured in its properties and liberties by the Treaty of Vienna; but, unfortunately, a large portion of the lands from which the University drew its income lay within the dominions of the three protecting Powers, each of whom refused, under various pretexts, to give up its share of the land. As to the liberties of the University, the Austrian Government, in 1817, had declared that it would inflict a fine of 100 ducats on any parent who sent his sons to the University of Cracow; in 1822, the Russian Government followed this example by a decree forbidding Polish youths to study in any foreign country, under which title they specially included Cracow. In the meantime, the organizing Commission, which had been appointed by the Powers, was gradually destroying the Constitution which had been established by the Treaty of Vienna. The right to modify laws sent from the Senate was first taken from the Chamber of Representatives; while, as to the control of the finances, which had been specially mentioned in the Treaty, the House of Representatives was informed that the accounts were only to be shown to the Chamber in order to convince them that the Senate had spent the money, and that the Treasury was empty; though the Commission graciously allowed the Chamber to examine and make observations on the accounts, and assured them that these observations should be sent to the Senate. The self-government of the University was, in a similar manner, gradually taken from it; and, under the excuse of a riot in 1820, the great Powers, six years later, sent a Russian colonel to act as supreme ruler of the University. The insurrection of 1830 in Warsaw had, of course, given excuse for further interference with the liberties of Cracow; and, in 1831, Russian soldiers, for a time, occupied the city. It is hardly necessary to add that the liberty of the Press, which had been specially guaranteed by the Treaty of Vienna, had been gradually crushed out; and a new Commission, appointed by the three Powers in 1833, revised the Constitution of Cracow, thereby setting aside the claims of England and France to have their opinions considered in any revision of the Treaty. Torture was revived for the purpose of extorting revelations of crimes which had never been committed. The judges had, indeed, retained, for a time, the independence secured them by the Treaty; but in March, 1837, the Conference, as it was called, of the three Powers abolished the offices of Mayors of the Commune and Judges of First Instance, and transferred their duties to officers of police. In December of the same year, the protecting Powers decided that the question of the amount to be expended on the police and militia should not be submitted to the Chamber. Then the Chamber, at last, attempted an appeal to the two Powers whose opinions had been wholly ignored by the other signatories to the Treaty of Vienna; but the appeal was, apparently, in vain, and there seemed no remedy left but insurrection.

The centralizing principles of the Austrian Government, on this as on later occasions, paralyzing their power of action in emergencies, Cracow was seized and occupied by the democratic leader Tyssowski. The Government Boards in Galicia were little able to make head against the movement; and, if Tyssowski had known how to appeal to the popular sympathies, he might have been completely successful. Unfortunately, however, the leaders of the insurrection had not yet been able to establish that sympathy with the peasantry of Galicia which alone would have enabled them to carry out a really popular insurrection; and, instead of trying to enlist the sympathies and interest of the peasants on behalf of the movement, Tyssowski's only idea was to terrorize them into obedience. He issued a proclamation, announcing that the whole Empire, during the time of revolution, is one and common property in the hands of the revolutionary Government. Every priest who opposed the rising was to be deprived of his office; anyone who refused to subscribe to the national cause was to be seized and brought before a Governor chosen by the insurgents; every inhabitant, on pain of death, was to go to the place appointed him, as soon as he knew of the outbreak of the insurrection. The peasantry, alarmed at hearing that many of them had been condemned to death for their unreadiness to assist the revolution, appealed to the officials to defend them; nor could they be conciliated by hearing that the insurgents were about to abolish all feudal dues and titles of rank, and to secure a certain amount of land to every peasant. These offers from unknown people could not induce the peasants to make friends with those who were threatening them with death. From more than seventy districts representatives came from the peasants to the official authorities at Tarnow to ask for military help against the revolutionary leaders; and they were advised to defend themselves and to arrest the agitators. On February 18th, 1846, the insurrection broke out, and one of the first actions of the conspirators was to fire on the peasants who had refused to join them. Then the peasants, stirred to desperation, rose; and a general massacre of the nobles began. The dark and underground methods of the Austrian Government, and the centralizing principle which had drained out the strength of the different local governments, had brought a double Nemesis on its founders. For while on the one hand the powerlessness of the local boards caused the early successes of the insurgents, on the other hand the world at large thought that the massacre of the nobles of Galicia must have been organized from Vienna, as a part of the regular Austrian policy.[7] This belief was likely to be further strengthened by the events which followed. While Mieroslawski and some of the leaders of the insurrection surrendered to the Prussian troops, which had been despatched to prevent a rising in Silesia and Posen, Metternich struck the final blow at the independence of Cracow. The account given above shows that there was little independence left to be destroyed in that unfortunate city; but somehow the actual destruction of liberties never excites so general a horror, especially in the diplomatic world, as the final removal of the forms of liberty. And Lord Palmerston, who does not seem to have responded to the previous appeal from the Assembly of Cracow, now addressed indignant remonstrances to Metternich, and uttered the remarkable words, "If the treaties of 1815 are null on the Vistula, they may be null on the Rhine and the Po."

Thus the occupation of Cracow seemed to many to be an abandonment by Metternich of the semi-legal position which till then he had, in the eyes of diplomatists, maintained; while his supposed complicity in the massacre in Galicia roused against him the feelings of those humanitarians who do not understand the wickedness of choking out the moral and intellectual life of a nation, but who shrink with horror from any physical cruelty. It is, therefore, no unnatural inference that the delay which Metternich showed in making any stern protest against Charles Albert's new position in Italy may have been due to the paralysis caused by the storm of indignation roused against Austria by the Galician massacres and the annexation of Cracow. Charles Albert profited by this weakness. He had been shifting as usual in his policy, encouraged on the one side in moderate reforms by the Liberal minister, Villamarina, and dragged, on the other side, into extreme clericalism by Solaro della Margherita. But, just about the time when D'Azeglio arrived in Piedmont, events were occurring which riveted on Charles Albert the hopes of many who had not hitherto believed in the sincerity of his desire for reform; and the same circumstances gave him that position of champion of Italian independence which, in the eyes of perhaps a majority of Italians, he continued to maintain till the fall of Milan in 1848. The chief cause of this change of feeling is to be found in the following circumstance.