THE CURFEW TOWER, WINDSOR CASTLE.
destruction of the dynasty—prevailed. Moreover, Napoleon saw plainly that as every European Power was afraid of France, and as no European Power had anything to dread from England, Europe in a war between England and France would not be on the side of the latter Power. But no sooner did France suggest that the Treaty arrangements of 1815 might be rectified, than Russia hinted that the same process might be applied with advantage to the Treaty of 1856. The old pretext for opening up the Eastern Question—namely, the oppressiveness of the Turkish Government—lay ready to Russia’s hands. The English Cabinet, in reply to Russia’s communications on the subject, insisted that the plots of foreign intriguers in Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Servia were really at the root of the miseries of the people. Russia, in raising this question, had assumed that France would help her. But Napoleon’s eyes were fixed not on the Danube but on the Rhine; so Russian hopes of aid from France were doomed to disappointment. The next move on the European chess-board justified the anticipations which the Queen held out after Lord John Russell’s speech of the 24th of March. Finding that England no longer leaned solely on France, Austria and Prussia suggested that they should come to an understanding with England, by which they bound each other to oppose every future disturbance of frontiers in Europe—a step, however, which her Majesty shrank from taking. At her suggestion, the Cabinet agreed to a compact that each of the Powers should give the others warning of any projected disturbances of territory as soon as they were heard of, and frankly discuss their bearings; and of these disturbances one was already imminent in Southern Italy.
“Naples,” Lord Malmesbury writes in his Diary on the 17th of March, “is in a dreadful state. The tyranny of the present king far exceeds that of his father, and the exasperation is so great that a revolution may take place at any moment. But events in the north of Italy have much to say to these feelings, and naturally encourage the Neapolitans to imitate them.” In fact, Francis II. had obstinately refused to make the slightest concession to the popular party in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Heedless of the revolution in North Italy he upheld in all its baneful integrity the arbitrary system of his father, King “Bomba.” Hence in April an insurrection broke out, as Lord Malmesbury predicted, in Palermo and Messina with the avowed object of joining Sicily to the new kingdom of Northern Italy. On the 5th of May General Garibaldi, who, after the cession of his native province of Nice to France, had renounced all connection with Cavour, sailed from Genoa with 2,000 men to succour the Sicilian insurgents. “‘Italy and Victor Emmanuel!’” he said in his proclamation, “that was our battle-cry when we crossed the Ticino; it will resound to the very depths of Etna.” Landing at Marsala, he proclaimed himself Dictator in the name of the King of Sardinia, and Cæsar’s Veni, vidi, vici, might well be the record of his triumphal march to the north. On the 27th he captured Palermo, and then the Island of Sicily soon passed under his control. Every road was swarming with patriotic volunteers eager to join Garibaldi’s army, and the Royal troops, disgusted with the cowardice and incapacity of their leaders, were wavering in their allegiance to the King. They made a final stand at Melazzo, after which they took refuge in the citadel of Messina, where they remained undisturbed at the end of the year. “If we succeed,” wrote Garibaldi to Victor Emmanuel, “I shall be proud to adorn your Majesty’s crown with a new and perhaps more brilliant jewel, but always on the condition that your Majesty will resist your advisers should they wish to cede this province to the stranger, as they have ceded my native city, Nice.” The bitter allusion to Cavour’s policy, which had converted Garibaldi into a Frenchman against his will, is a sufficient answer to those who have alleged that Cavour was acting at this time in concert with Garibaldi. The most that can be said is that he knew privately that a revolutionary attack on the Sicilian monarchy was contemplated, and finding it to his account to preoccupy Francis II., then threatening interference in the revolted Roman States, he did not consider it necessary to prevent Garibaldi’s departure from Genoa.[65] But all the European Governments believed that Cavour was secretly in league with Garibaldi, and they pretended to see in the revolution of the Sicilies an attempt at piratical self-aggrandisement by Sardinia. Sardinian ambition must be curbed, said the diplomatists; and so Cavour soon found himself surrounded by embarrassments. Russia hinted at armed intervention for the protection of the Neapolitan Bourbons. France, in a paroxysm of virtue, deprecated any extension of Sardinian territory. England implored Sardinia to take no hand in, and lend no countenance to, the revolution in the Sicilies, lest France should demand more compensations in Genoa and the Island of Sardinia itself. When Lord John Russell pressed this view on the Cabinet of Turin he was probably ignorant of the fact that Cavour, when he signed the compact ceding Savoy to France, said, bitterly, “Et maintenant vous voilà nos complices!” (“Now you are an accomplice”). France had, in fact, been paid in full for her neutrality; and though Cavour issued a platonic protest against the conquest of the Sicilies in May, it was obvious that Victor Emmanuel would never risk his Crown by actively impeding in any part of Italy the movement for national independence.
The Court of Naples at this crisis seemed paralysed with panic. In August Garibaldi advanced virtually unopposed, and captured the capital, the King, with 50,000 troops, retreating to Capua and Gaëta.[66]
Italy, said Mr. Disraeli, in one of the debates in Parliament, “was in a state far beyond the management of, and settlement of Courts and Cabinets,” and whilst diplomatists were debating how she could be kept in bondage, she had freed half of her territory by one daring but decisive stroke. Flushed with his easy victory, Garibaldi now declared he would hold South Italy till the whole peninsula was free—till Austria was expelled from the north-east, and the eagles of France were chased from the pinnacles of the capital. This declaration forced the hands of France and Sardinia. Cavour and Napoleon agreed that intervention in the Papal States and in Naples could not be postponed.[67] Victor Emmanuel, therefore, summoned the Pope to dismiss the foreign levies he had organised for the purpose of forcing his revolted subjects to return to their allegiance. His Holiness refused, and then Cialdini and Fanti overran Umbria and the Marches, crushed the Papal army, and forced Lamoriciere to surrender the fortress of Ancona. Carefully avoiding a collision with Austria and with the French army of occupation in Rome—a condition attached to the neutrality of Napoleon III.—the Piedmontese troops marched on to complete the conquest of the Sicilies, where the King still held out at Gaëta and Capua. When this had been effected the kingdoms, by a popular vote, decided on annexation to Sardinia, and Europe acquiesced in the interests of law, order, and monarchical institutions. Garibaldi, on handing over the Sicilies to Victor Emmanuel, retired to Caprera, refusing all reward or recompense for his splendid services to his country, and appealing to Italy to be ready to renew the struggle for freedom in Venetia next year. But the prevailing feeling was that a final settlement of the Italian Question had not yet been arrived at, and would never be arrived at whilst Austria held Venetia and the French occupied Rome. Knowing well that the hold of Austria on Venetia was weakened by disaffection in Hungary, the Emperor of Austria promulgated a general constitution for the Empire, with separate charters for the various provinces. The scheme, however, broke down, because it failed to satisfy the popular demand for the restoration of the rights of Hungary as they existed in 1848.
POPE PIUS IX.
Early in the summer a remarkable incident in European politics happened that profoundly agitated the Queen. The French press had suggested that, provided France was compensated by an extension of frontier on the Rhine, Prussia might, with her consent, play in Germany the rôle assumed by Sardinia in Italy. When Lord John Russell publicly abandoned the French alliance, the Queen suggested the substitution for it of an arrangement between England, Prussia, and Austria, to the effect “that each should make known to the other two any overture or proposition, direct, or indirect, which either of the three may receive from France tending to any change of the existing state of territorial possessions in Europe, and that no answer should be given to such overture or proposal until the Government to which it may have been made shall have had an answer from the other two to the communication so made.” [68]