[Footnote 2: See Selections from Treitschke, pp. 17-20, 58-61.]
[Footnote 3: The Expansion of England, p. 349. See also p. 1, "Some countries, such as Holland and Sweden, might pardonably regard their history as in a manner wound up.">[
[Footnote 4: See J.M. Robertson, Introduction to English Politics, pp. 251-390; Mr. H.A.L. Fisher's pamphlet on The Value of Small States, in which, however, the distinction between states and nations is not made clear; and the article on "Nationalism and Liberalism" in The Round Table, December 1914.]
§5. The National Idea in Italy: The Ideal Type.—Let us now turn to Italy, a country which has in the past been as much of a European Tom Tiddler's ground as Belgium, though for rather different reasons. Italy is inhabited by a race speaking a common language and observing a common religion, she has historical memories as glorious as those of any other country in the world, and her natural boundaries are almost as well-defined as those of Great Britain; yet it was not until the latter half of the nineteenth century that she managed to become a nation. The chief reason why she remained a "geographical expression" long after England, France, and Spain had acquired national unity was the fact that she was until comparatively recent times an example of the less containing the greater. Throughout the Middle Ages she was a suburb, not a country. Rome was the capital of the world, Italy only its environs. Moreover, since all roads lead to Rome, and the lord of Rome was the master of Europe, the roads Romeward were worn by the tramp of the armies of all nations. Thus Italy was constantly subject to invasion, and the state-systems with which the Congress of Vienna resaddled her in 1814 were little more than relics of past military occupations of her soil by foreign armies. The main problem, therefore, in the making of modern Italy was how to get rid of the heavy burden of the past, how to deal with Rome and all that Rome stood for.
The problem would have been insoluble had not the prestige of Rome declined considerably since the Middle Ages, a prestige which sprang from the fact that she was the capital of two Empires—the spiritual Empire of the Papacy, and the secular Empire founded by Charles the Great. The former had suffered from the Reformation and the rise of the great Protestant nations, the latter had been growing feebler and feebler for centuries, until it was abolished as an institution by Napoleon. Yet Italy in 1814 still lay helpless and divided at the feet of Rome. The Pope held under his immediate sway a large zigzag-shaped territory running across the centre from sea to sea, and, as spiritual leader of half Europe, he could at any moment summon to his assistance the Catholic chivalry of the world. "The Roman emperor" no longer existed, but "the Austrian emperor" was another title for the same man, holding much the same territory; and the fact that he had renounced his vague suzerainty over the rest of Europe did not prevent him exercising a very real suzerainty in Italy, not merely over the eastern half of the Lombard Plain which definitely belonged to Austria, but also over the other States of the peninsula which were, in theory at least, independent. The kingdom of the two Sicilies in the South, the grand duchy of Tuscany on the West, and the smaller duchies of Parma, Modena, and Lucca were only stable in so far as Austria bolstered up their corrupt and unpopular governments. Even the Papal States themselves, equally undermined with corruption and unpopularity, ultimately rested upon the same support. Thus Austria represented for Italy all that evil past of which she wanted to be rid: the foreign yoke against which her newly conscious spirit of nationality revolted, the dynastic frontiers which were abhorrent to her desire for unity, the absolute régime under which her soul, after feeding on the principles of the French Revolution, lay gagged and bound. The first step to be taken towards the creation of Italy was the expulsion of the Austrians.
This fact in itself purified the struggle for Italian freedom and raised Italian nationalism to heights of nobility and heroism almost unparalleled in history. The nation had not merely to be unified, but delivered, and delivered from the oppression of that power which was the mainstay of reaction in Europe. Nor was it simply a question of national freedom; Austria had declared war upon individual and constitutional liberty also, and used all her power to suppress them wherever they dared to raise their head. From beginning to end of her fight for national existence, Italy never forgot that she was also fighting for individual liberty, or ceased to be conscious that the downfall of Austria in Italy would mean the downfall of reaction in Europe. The banner which Mazzini raised in 1831 had the words "Unity and Independence" on the one side and "Liberty, Equality, and Humanity" on the other. Italy was indeed greatly blessed, inasmuch as in seeking her own deliverance she could not help bursting the bands of brass which bound the whole world in captivity.
It is not possible here to tell the glorious story of the resurrection of Italy, or even to say anything of the three heroes at whose hands she received her freedom—Cavour who gave her the service of his brain, Mazzini who devoted to her the love and passion of his great heart, and Garibaldi who fought for her with the strength of his own right arm. It must suffice to indicate very briefly the various stages in the development of her national idea, and the manner in which she finally realised it. Liberal principles took root in Italy at the time of the French Revolution, and the first glimmerings of nationalism were due to Napoleon, who bundled the princes out of the peninsula and even for a time exiled the Pope himself. But it was constitutional rather than national freedom which seemed most urgent to the generation which succeeded Napoleon. The Carbonari, as the early Italian revolutionaries were called, confined themselves almost entirely to the demand for a constitution in the various existing States, and though they eagerly desired the expulsion of Austria, they did so not because she prevented Italian unity, but because she forbade political reform. Their risings, therefore, local and disunited in character, were bound to fail; the first fifteen years after the Congress of Vienna were occupied by a series of attempts to substitute a constitutional for an absolute régime in different parts of Italy, attempts which Austria crushed with a heavy hand.
The period which followed, 1830-1848, belongs to Mazzini and his "Young Italy" party. His task was to fire Italy for the first time with the ideal of national unity and independence. The conception of unity was a difficult one for Italians to grasp; all history seemed to fight against it. There were, for example, not only the traditions connected with Rome to be reckoned with, but there was also the difference between north and south, and, perhaps most important of all, the local spirit of independence associated with the great cities like Venice, Milan, Florence, Naples, etc. Thus, over against Mazzini's ideal of a single unified State there arose the counter-ideal of a federal system. In this, however, later events proved Mazzini to be right. Where he failed in foresight was in regard to the constitutional character of the State he dreamed of. He wished not only to abolish all existing frontiers in Italy, but to do away with all existing state-systems. The only Italy he could conceive was a republic, and Italy was not ripe for a republic, which was, for the rest, a form of government too much bound up with the disruptive traditions of the City-States to be acceptable.[1] But if Italy was not to be a republic, she must be a monarchy, and where could she find a prince to put at the head of her united State? Clearly, she would accept no one who was not the declared enemy of Austria and the declared friend of constitutional reform. For a month or so in 1846 it seemed that the Pope himself might be prevailed upon to undertake the rôle; and the elevation of Pius IX. to the Chair of St. Peter was greeted with wild enthusiasm in Italy because he was believed to be a Liberal. These hopes proved illusory, however, and so the eyes of all patriots turned more and more in the direction of Piedmont.
[Footnote 1: It is noticeable that Greece also played with the idea of a
republic at first and eventually selected a monarchical form of government.
As a matter of fact, not a single nation-State, formed in Europe since the
Congress of Vienna, has adopted the republican principle.]
This principality, which was part of the kingdom of Sardinia, ruled over by the semi-French house of Savoy, shared the northern plain of Italy with Austria, and at first showed neither anti-Austrian nor Liberal proclivities. Victor Emmanuel came back smiling in 1814, saying that he had been asleep for fifteen years; the old régime was restored as though the Revolution had never been; and a rising of the Carbonari in 1821 was suppressed with the aid of Austrian troops. But in 1831 a king, Charles Albert, came to the throne, who realised that it was the mission of his house to drive the Austrians from Italy, and who was enlightened enough to begin to institute reforms, as unostentatiously as possible, so as not to attract the unwelcome attention of Vienna. Then came the great outburst of 1848, which was the culmination of Mazzini's propaganda for the past sixteen years. At first all went well. The Austrian army was almost expelled from the peninsula; constitutions were granted in Rome, Naples, Tuscany, and Piedmont; Venice and Rome declared themselves republics. But no real scheme for all Italy emerged; the Mazzinians were heroic but unpractical; and next year Austria returned once more, dealt as before piecemeal with the revolted provinces, and finally crushed the hopes of Italy again at the battle of Novara. Yet all was not lost. The republican dreams of Mazzini were, it is true, at an end. But Piedmont had stepped into Mazzini's shoes; she had championed the cause of freedom against Austria; and, when the latter reasserted her sway, she alone of the various States refused to abrogate the newly-acquired constitution.