The Political History of England - Vol XI / From Addington's Administration to the close of William IV.'s Reign (1801-1837)

by George C. Brodrick; John Knight Fotheringham

CHAPTER X.

PROBLEMS IN SOUTHERN EUROPE.

The events of the year 1820 subjected the European concert to a severe strain. An insurrection broke out in Spain on January 1, and on March 9 the king was forced to swear fidelity to the obsolete constitution of 1812. The result was to plunge the country into disorder, as both the clerical party and the extreme revolutionists refused to accept the constitution. Meanwhile the assassination by a working man of the Duke of Berry, who died on February 14, 1820, had occasioned a new royalist reaction in France, and had increased the general fear of the revolutionary party. The Bourbon succession had seemed to depend on his life, for his son, the Count of Chambord, was posthumous. On receiving the news of the Spanish revolution the tsar, already tiring of his liberal enthusiasm, fell back on his scheme for exercising paternal discipline over Europe. He proposed in April that the ambassadors at Paris should issue a joint remonstrance requiring the Spanish cortes to disavow the revolution, and to enact severe laws against sedition. Failing this, he proposed joint intervention, and offered for his own part to send an army of 15,000 men through North Italy and southern France to co-operate in the suppression of the revolution. To this Castlereagh replied that England would never consent to a joint intervention in Spain. Metternich was too much displeased with the Russian encouragement of secret societies in Italy to wish to see Russian troops in that country, and both Castlereagh and Metternich wished to keep Spain free from French influence. In the face of this opposition Russia could not, and France would not, do anything, and all thought of intervention was postponed. It was the last time that Castlereagh was able to assert the principle of non-intervention without breaking up the European concert.

REVOLUTIONS IN SOUTHERN EUROPE.

July and August saw three new revolutions. A rebellion at Nola on July 2 ended in King Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies taking the oath on the 13th to the Spanish constitution, then regarded as a model by the liberals of Southern Europe. But the grant of a constitution to Naples suggested a demand for independence at Palermo. On July 17-18 that city rose in revolt and was only subdued by the Neapolitans in the beginning of October. Portugal, too, was in a disturbed state. The royal family had been absent for nearly thirteen years, and the country had for five years been governed by Lord, afterwards Viscount, Beresford as marshal and commander of the Portuguese army. In April, 1820, he sailed for Brazil, intending to induce the king, John VI., to return. During his absence a revolution took place at Oporto on August 24, a provisional government was established, and all British officers were dismissed. This was followed by a similar revolution at Lisbon on September 15. Beresford on his return was forbidden to land, and retired to England. On November 11, the Spanish constitution was proclaimed in Portugal, but six days later another proclamation left the question of determining the constitution to the cortes which were to be elected on a popular suffrage.

The Neapolitan revolution raised at once the question of intervention. In this case Castlereagh held that Austria had a right to interfere, because her position as an Italian power was endangered by the revolution, and because the revolution was a breach of the secret treaty of 1815 which had received the sanction of the British government. He still objected to any joint interference and was opposed to the reference of the question to a congress. Austria could not have interfered alone without offending the tsar, who clung to the principle of joint action. The question of intervention was therefore postponed for the present. France, however, being jealous of Austrian influence in Italy, demanded the meeting of a congress, and such a meeting was accordingly held at Troppau on October 20. To this congress Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia sent plenipotentiaries. Great Britain carried her opposition to joint interference so far as to refuse to join in the deliberations, though Sir Charles, now Lord, Stewart was sent to Troppau to watch the proceedings. Metternich, on finding that he could not avoid the meeting of a congress, determined to lead its proceedings, and, before it met, drew up a memorandum defining his own views about intervention. These views were accepted at the congress by Prussia and Russia as well as by Austria; and a protocol was issued by the three powers declaring that a state in which a revolution should occur was dangerous to other states, and ceased to be a member of the European alliance, until it could give guarantees for its future stability. If such a revolution placed other states in immediate danger, the allied powers were bound to intervene by peaceful means, if possible, or if need were, by arms. Before parting, the congress invited Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies to attend an adjourned meeting, to assemble early in the following year at Laibach.[75] Against these decisions Castlereagh protested in vigorous terms, and more especially against any possible application of the principle of intervention to England; France under the Duke of Richelieu joined in neither the protocol nor the protest. The liberal tendencies of the tsar had been quenched by recent events, so that, instead of a concert of Europe, there was left only a concert of absolute monarchs.

AUSTRIAN INTERVENTION.

In January, 1821, the sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, and Russia met the King of the Two Sicilies at Laibach. France had vainly attempted to mediate between the King of the Two Sicilies and his people. But the Neapolitans were not satisfied with any vague promise of a constitution, and before allowing their king to depart for Laibach, held him pledged to the observance of an impossible condition, the maintenance of the Spanish constitution of 1812. The king's oath to preserve this particularly objectionable constitution was regarded by Austria as sufficient to preclude negotiation, and it was resolved that she should restore him by force as an absolute monarch, and should occupy the Neapolitan territory. The duration of this occupation was reserved as a question to be discussed at the next European congress, which it was intended to hold at Florence in the autumn of the next year. After a show of resistance at Rieti the Neapolitans submitted, and the Austrian army entered Naples on March 24. The restoration of absolute government was accompanied by severities towards the constitutionalists, but Austria would not allow any repetition of the bloodshed of 1799.

While the Austrian army was marching southwards, a new revolution broke out in Piedmont. The Spanish constitution was proclaimed at Alessandria on March 10, and at Turin on the 12th. On the 13th, Victor Emmanuel I., King of Sardinia, abdicated, appointing as regent his distant cousin Prince Charles Albert of Carignano, who had been in communication with the revolutionary party. The regent immediately accepted the Spanish constitution on condition of the maintenance of the line of succession and of the Roman catholic religion. The new king, Charles Felix, was at Modena when the revolt occurred. He refused to acknowledge the new constitution, and ordered Charles Albert to betake himself to Novara, where the royalist troops were collecting. On the night of the 21st, Charles Albert fled from Turin to Novara, but the constitutional party did not submit without a struggle. On April 8 the Austrians crossed the frontier and, uniting with the royalists, defeated the constitutionalists at Novara. Two days later the royalist army entered Turin. The two Italian revolutions had thus ended in an Austrian occupation of the two largest Italian states which were not ruled by members of the imperial house. The Papal States were now the only Italian principality of any size which was not dominated by Austria.

So far Austria had been sufficiently powerful in the congresses of the powers to be able to prevent interference with other states where it was not to her interest, and to incline the balance in favour of it where intervention would strengthen her. The reopening of the Eastern question made her ascendency more difficult to maintain. The congress of Laibach had been closed, but the sovereigns had not yet departed, when the news arrived that a revolt, engineered by Greeks with the pretence of Russian support, had broken out against the Turks in Moldavia and Wallachia. Russia at once agreed with Austria that the principle laid down at Troppau applied to this revolt; the insurrectionary leaders were disowned by Russia, and by the end of June Turkish authority was restored in the Danubian principalities. So far the action of Russia had met with the approval not only of Austria but of Great Britain, and Castlereagh had written to Alexander urging him not to join the Greek cause, which appeared to him to be part of an universal revolutionary movement.