Builders of United Italy

by Rupert Sargent Holland

The high contracting parties to the treaty had thought that they could dispose of the small Italian states as they pleased, and return them to the dominion of their Grand Dukes and Princes by a stroke of the pen. It proved, however, quite otherwise. Modena, Parma, the provinces of Bologna, Ferrara, Umbria, Perugia, and the Marches, had been too near freedom to suffer the peaceful return of their old overlords. State after state had sent deputations to the Sardinian King during the war asking for annexation to Piedmont, and some of them had provisional governments with Piedmontese deputies at their head. The ministry at Turin gave orders in pursuance of the terms of peace withdrawing the royal commissioners, but the men in charge felt that they could not abandon their posts and leave the people in a state bordering on anarchy, and the people stated decisively that they would not allow their fugitive Princes to return. So the Treaty of Villafranca was not as effective as its makers had intended it to be.

The central Italian states proceeded to take affairs into their own hands, and sent envoys to the different courts of Europe to represent the true conditions in their respective cities and their ardent desire for annexation to Piedmont. In Florence Ricasoli, in Modena Farini took positive stands, and led in the calling of an Assembly of all the smaller states, which resolved that they would become subjects of the Sardinian King. Deputation after deputation came to the King at Turin, composed of the best known men of the states, and besought him to accept their allegiance. It was a difficult position for the King. He could not refuse requests so ardently made, and which represented the dearest wish of people he had so often declared he would protect, yet he could not easily accept in view of the position of Austria and France. He welcomed the envoys warmly, entertained them at his capital, and spoke to them freely, assuring them of the warmth of his desires and asking them to be patient only a little time longer. In November, 1859, the Powers saw that a conference must meet to consider this problem of Italy. Piedmont looked about for the man to speak her voice, and only one man was thought of. The King had felt Cavour’s anger deeply, and could hardly find it in him to call him out of his retirement. He saw, however, that any Congress would be useless without the great statesman, and so he finally consented, and nominated him as first Sardinian plenipotentiary.

Although the King could bring himself to appoint Cavour, the Rattazzi ministry were unwilling to have him act, and it seemed as though no compromise could be effected. Cavour was asked to put his conditions of acceptance in writing, and by chance happened to dictate them to Sir James Hudson, the British Minister at Turin, with whom he was staying. When the conditions were received by the cabinet the ministers did not favor them, and La Marmora, discovering them to be in Sir James Hudson’s handwriting, was offended at what he chose to consider foreign interference, and resigned. The cabinet, never very strong, could not stand, and the King at once pocketed his last dislike, and summoned Cavour to form a new ministry. This the Count consented to do.

The Pope was much alarmed at the condition of the Papal States and began publicly to denounce Victor Emmanuel for encouraging both those and the other states in their desire for annexation. The correspondence between Pope and King was most remarkable, always dignified, and on the King’s part breathing the desire for reconciliation, but on the Pope’s indignant and alarming. The proposed European Congress did not meet, and as month after month passed events showed that the central states would have their way. At length these states took a formal vote in popular assemblies, and declared unanimously for annexation with Piedmont. The King could withstand them no longer, and the annexation was agreed to. Immediately Pius IX. issued a bull of excommunication against Victor Emmanuel, his ministers, soldiers, and subjects, and proclaimed him no better than a sacrilegious robber. This act, formerly so terrifying, had no effect, the people had made up their minds, and in the spring of 1860 the King received Farini, Dictator of Emilia, and Ricasoli, Dictator of Tuscany, and accepted from them the allegiance of central Italy.

That France might take no untoward step at sight of a kingdom growing so rapidly on her southern border Victor Emmanuel had to make the second concession to Napoleon, and cede Savoy and Nice. It was a bitter step for the head of the House of Savoy to take, but he felt that the need of Italy required it of him, and, as with every other sacrifice that need required of him, he met it resolutely. Not so Garibaldi, who saw his birthplace given to a foreign Power; he never forgave Cavour that act, and it widened the gulf already separating them.

The new Parliament met on April 2, 1860, numbering among its members the greatest names of Piedmont, Lombardy, Tuscany, and Emilia. Ricasoli, Farini, Capponi, Manzoni, Mamiani, Poerio, all had seats. The King, in his speech from the throne, dwelt upon the accession of central Italy, and briefly but with infinite pathos stated that he had made a treaty for the reunion of Savoy and Nice to France. Then he called his hearers’ minds to the work that lay before them. “In turning our attention,” he concluded, “to the new ordering of affairs, not seeking in old parties other than the memory of the services rendered to the common cause, we invite all sincere opinions to a noble emulation that we may attain the grand end of the greatness of the country. It is no longer the Italy of the Romans, nor that of the Middle Ages; it must no longer be the battle-field of ambitious foreigners, but it must be rather the Italy of the Italians.”

How many patriots had voiced that cry “the Italy of the Italians” through the long centuries when Goth and Vandal, Guelph and Ghibelline, Pope and Emperor, France and Austria, had striven to gain the upper hand in the Peninsula!

Soon after Parliament opened the King made a tour of his new possessions, and was hailed in each city as deliverer. The joy of the people in the thought that at last they had an Italian prince in place of the fickle, foreign-bred Bourbons, was wonderful to behold: “At last we are eleven million Italians!” was their proud cry. Florence received the King with decorations of every fashion, arches of triumph, houses draped with the tricolor and rich brocades, streets carpeted with laurels, a rain of roses as he rode from the railway station to the Palazzo Vecchio. The greatest men of Tuscany, poets, artists, musicians, scholars, came to greet him, and with one accord proclaimed him the hero who had brought to fruition the dreams of their lives. His visit to Florence was a memorable one.

We must now glance for a moment at the remarkable events which General Garibaldi was bringing to pass in Sicily and Calabria. The expedition of the Thousand had started from Genoa, openly disavowed by that astute diplomat Cavour, secretly encouraged by him. The hero of the magic Red Shirt had swept over Sicily and crossed thence to the mainland. Men of all classes were speeding from every part of Italy to fight under such a glorious leader, the triumphal march from Reggio to Naples had begun, and the troops of Francis II. of Naples were proving how very little they had the interest of their sovereign’s cause at heart. But with Garibaldi in possession of Naples serious questions arose. The victorious general wished to march immediately on Rome, and to hold the dictatorship of southern Italy until he could unite it in one gift to Victor Emmanuel. It was an heroic desire, worthy of its great inventor, but Victor Emmanuel and Cavour both realized that a march on Rome at that time meant the active intervention of French troops, and that a prolonged dictatorship might give the republican element an opportunity to change Garibaldi’s plans and destroy the hope of national unity. There were numbers of Mazzinians in Naples and Cavour feared their influence over the great crusader. He appealed to Parliament, and it voted for the immediate annexation of Naples and Sicily. Then the royal army was sent at the double quick to meet Garibaldi before he should start for Rome. When the army was well on its march Cavour gave this note to the foreign ambassadors in explanation: “If we do not arrive on the Volturno before Garibaldi arrives at Cattolica, the monarchy is lost—Italy remains a prey to revolution.”

The King led the royal army south and the progress through the Papal States was one continual triumph; General Cialdini met the Papal army at Castelfidardo and defeated them, soon after he took Ancona, and Victor Emmanuel was in possession of Umbria, the Marches, and Perugia, all taken as Cavour diplomatically explained, to save Italy from revolution.