Builders of United Italy

by Rupert Sargent Holland

Cavour accepted the three days allowed him in order to push his preparations, then he replied to the Austrian note, saying that Piedmont had agreed to the English proposals with the assent of Prussia, Russia, and France, and that he had nothing further to add. He took leave of the Austrian envoys courteously, and then, radiantly happy, joined his colleagues, saying, “The die is cast.” Fortune had stood by him and had placed Piedmont in the most enviable position he could have wished. He had staked everything on his acquiescing, with scarcely one chance of success, but that chance had come and he had won.

The war opened with the victory of the allies at Magenta, Milan was free, and at Solferino the Italians and French gained Lombardy. The Sardinian army won its spurs gloriously. Cavour, who had sent La Marmora to lead the troops, and had himself become Minister of War, showed the greatest skill in attending to his army’s commissariat. At the same time he was watching the rest of Italy, Parma and Modena returned to the old alliance of 1848, and Cavour sent special commissioners to control them. He was anxious that all the states should unite. He was constantly afraid that one of the Powers would step in and seize Tuscany. He kept his eye on Florence and supported the efficient dictatorship of Ricasoli.

Mazzini had prophesied to Cavour some months earlier: “You will be in the camp in some corner of Lombardy when the peace which betrays Venice will be signed without your knowledge.” That was exactly what happened. On July 6 Napoleon opened negotiations at Villafranca with Austria for peace. Perhaps he had learned that the French people were no longer enthusiastic over the war and wished to devote himself to his own defense, perhaps he saw that victories were building up a stronger Italy than he cared to have, perhaps he feared a possible intervention by Prussia. His whole conduct towards Italy was one of most perplexing changes, certain it is that he now deliberately threw away all the advantages of victory and made every loyal Italian his enemy. Had he been more of a statesman he would have foreseen the consequences of his acts. The terms of the peace were that Venice should be left to Austria, Modena, Tuscany, and Romagna given back to their petty Princes, the Pope made president of a league in which Austria was to be a party. It was the basest betrayal of Italian hopes. Cavour was absolutely prostrated, he saw all his wonderful plans shattered beyond redemption, he saw himself totally dishonored in the sight of the people he had led into war. He rushed to the camp of Victor Emmanuel and advised him either to abdicate or fight on alone. In that moment the King rose superior to his great Minister, he decided to sign the treaty and to wait. Victor Emmanuel, more bitterly disappointed than on the battlefield of Novara, showed that he was as great a statesman as he was a leader of his people.

Cavour thought of plunging into battle in the hope of being killed, he thought of joining Mazzini in extreme revolutionary measures, but meanwhile until a new ministry could be formed he was compelled to continue his government at Turin. It became his duty to notify the commissioners he had appointed for Florence, Parma, and Modena to abandon those charges, and he did so, but wrote them privately to stay where they were. Farini wrote him from Modena that he should treat the returning Duke as an enemy of Italy, and Cavour replied, “The Minister is dead; the friend applauds your decision.” He had thrown off his old mask of diplomacy and become for the moment one with the revolutionaries.

Succeeded by Rattazzi as Prime Minister, Cavour went to stay for a short period of rest with his relatives in Switzerland. He expected to see Napoleon seize Savoy and Nice, although he had not performed his part in the Pact of Plombières. Again Napoleon surprised him, he returned to Paris without pressing any claim to new territory. Meanwhile the people of central Italy were asking for union with Piedmont, and all the Powers were much concerned with their disposition, particularly England, which under the ministry of Lord Palmerston, an old and warm friend of Cavour, was now commencing openly to champion Italian independence. Palmerston did not trust Napoleon and regretted that the only Italian statesman whom he considered able to cope with the French was out of office. The British Premier wrote at this time, “They talk a great deal in Paris of Cavour’s intrigues. This seems to me unjust. If they mean that he has worked for the aggrandisement and for the emancipation of Italy from foreign yoke and Austrian domination, this is true, and he will be called a patriot in history. The means he has employed may be good or bad. I do not know what they have been, but the object in view is, I am sure, the good of Italy. The people of the Duchies have as much right to change their sovereigns as the English people, or the French, or the Belgian, or the Swedish.”

Napoleon still had five divisions of his army in Lombardy and his attitude toward the annexation of the central states was most important. No one knew exactly what that attitude was. He told the Piedmontese that he could not allow the union of Tuscany, but at the same time he told Austrian and Papal sympathizers that he was too deeply attached to the principle of Italian independence to allow him to make war on the nationalists. Rattazzi did not know which course to adopt, although the King was quite willing to risk everything in succoring Tuscany. Then Napoleon suddenly proposed another of his Paris Congresses to settle the difficulty, and Piedmont turned to Cavour to speak its claims.

The Congress never met, but Cavour’s appointment as envoy and the zealous support of the English government caused the downfall of the ministry, and in January, 1860, Cavour again took command of the state. His policy now was plain, “Let the people of central Italy declare themselves what they want,” he said, “and we will stand by their decisions, come what may.” The people of central Italy wanted union and Cavour turned again to see what Napoleon would do. What he would do was gradually becoming plainer. He would only sell his assent to the annexation of the states in return for Savoy and Nice. They were the old stakes of the Pact of Plombières, and Cavour had to decide whether they should go.

His decision to sacrifice Savoy and Nice for the peaceful annexation of central Italy has been the most bitterly criticised act in Cavour’s life. It can never be determined whether the sacrifice was absolutely essential, or whether in time Italy might not have been united without that step. In that day the judgment of the best-informed was that Napoleon would have sent his army into Tuscany unless his desire was met. Cavour had only agreed to consider the sacrifice at Plombières because he was willing to go to any length to secure Italy from foreign domination. He was willing to pay the same price now although he realized what the cost would be to his name. The King had given his daughter as the price of the French alliance. He sadly agreed to the further sacrifice. Both Victor Emmanuel and Cavour were looking towards their ultimate goal.

It was a tremendous responsibility. Napoleon insisted that the treaty should be secret and should not be submitted to the Piedmont Parliament. He knew that England would be indignant when the news became known. So Cavour was forced to keep the decision secret and to prepare to shoulder by himself all the wrath of his people. On March 24, 1860, after hours of consideration, Cavour signed. Then he prepared to summon a Parliament which might as he foresaw indict him on a charge of high treason for his unconstitutional act.

The Parliament which for the first time represented Piedmont, Lombardy, Parma, Modena, and Romagna, met on April 2. Guerrazzi made a most bitter attack on the ministry, in which he likened Cavour to the Earl of Clarendon under Charles the Second, “hard towards the King, truculent to Parliament, who thought in his pride that he could do anything.” Cavour replied with a stinging description of the men with whom he had had to contend, and avowed his complete responsibility for the treaty. A large majority of the Parliament voted with him, but it was a severe test of his power and popularity. Garibaldi, born in Nice, never forgave him, many of his countrymen considered his act absolutely unwarrantable, a monstrous piece of base ingratitude; he himself knew the price he had paid only too well, but he believed that it was a price he was forced to pay if Italy were ever to be free.