Italy-- rise of the nation

[AlliJer288]

Giuseppe Mazzini, b. June 22, 1805, d. Mar. 10, 1872, was a political
theorist and republican revolutionary who fought for Italian unification and
independence. Although he lived mostly in exile, he inspired Italy's
RISORGIMENTO or national rebirth. The Italian Risorgimento (resurgence) was
the liberal, nationalist movement for unification (1796-1870). Its origins lay
in a nationalistic reaction against the invasion and occupation of Italy by
Napoleon, and it culminated with the annexation of Rome in 1870. The
Risorgimento was not an irresistible forward movement of liberal nationalism
but a process occurring in fits and starts, and one interrupted by many
internal conflicts. With the majority of Italians remaining on the sidelines
through most of the struggle, Italy was unified in large measure by an
opportunistic intellectual elite and with considerable foreign assistance,
especially from the France of NAPOLEON III.
In 1815 the Congress of Vienna restored the old European order, bringing
back most of the rulers who had been ousted during the Napoleonic era. Prince
METTERNICH of Austria regained Lombardy, annexed Venetia, and indirectly
dominated most of the rest of the Italian peninsula. The pope recovered the
Papal States embracing Rome and the central region. The Kingdom of Naples and
Sicily reverted to the Bourbons. Only the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont was
free of foreign control, but its ruling SAVOY dynasty, despite a reputation as
a military power, did not become interested in unification until 1848.
The first Risorgimento movement was sparked by the CARBONARI, a secret
organization that fomented unsuccessful popular uprisings in the 1820s. The
Carbonari, a name meaning "charcoal burners" in Italian, were a secret society
founded in southern Italy early in the 19th century. Bound together by rituals
possibly derived from Freemasonry, they were liberal patriots dedicated to the
overthrow in Italy of the Bonapartist rulers and then of the reactionary
regimes established after Napoleon I's overthrow in 1814. They took part in a
number of uprisings, notably against FERDINAND I in Naples in 1820. The
Carbonari were superseded by MAZZINI's Young Italy movement, founded in 1831.
The movement had offshoots in France and Spain. It called for liberation
through grass-roots revolts. Mazzini wanted to replace the existing states with
a single, unitary republic with Rome as its capital. His influence peaked
during the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848.
Influenced by romantic and liberal ideas and by hatred of oppression,
Mazzini became committed to Italian liberty and unity while a student in Genoa.
In 1827 he joined the CARBONARI. When his membership was betrayed, he was
jailed at Savona (1830-31) and then exiled to France. In Marseille he founded
(1831) Giovine Italia ("Young Italy"), a patriotic republican movement that
aspired to unify Italy through popular initiatives. A prophet of nationalism,
Mazzini worked untiringly to spread his revolutionary ideas among other
oppressed nationalities such as the Poles and the Irish and dreamed of an
eventual free association of European states. In 1834 he came under a death
sentence for plotting a military expedition into territory of the House of
Savoy. He finally made his way to England in 1837, where he engaged in teaching
and writing, trying to enlist English sympathy for Italian nationalism.
The Age of Revolution, Mazzini-inspired "Young" groups generally--
Hobsbawm, 155-64--nationalism, revolution, republicanism. Mazzini's
republicanism frightened the more moderate Italian leaders into offering
competing programs. Vincenzo Gioberti's Catholic neo-Guelph group hoped to
enlist the papacy in the national cause, but PIUS IX repudiated the
Risorgimento in 1848. Mazzini returned to Italy during the REVOLUTIONS OF
1848, going first to Milan, then to Tuscany, and finally to Rome. He reached
the high point of his career when Pope PIUS IX was driven out of Rome and
Mazzini became one of the governing triumvirate of the short-lived Roman
Republic (February-July 1849). Thereafter, he escaped to London again; he spent
most of his remaining years in exile, writing and conspiring.
Mazzini taught that Christianity developed the human individual, but that
the era of Christianity, of freedom, of human rights, was over-- the
protagonists of history are not individuals any more, but peoples, understood
as racial nationalities-- that there are no inalienable human rights. There is
only Duty, the duty of thought and action to serve the destiny of the racial
collectivities. Every national grouping that can be identified must be given
independence and self-determination in a centralized dictatorship. In the
coming century, Mussolini and the Italian Fascists will repeat many of
Mazzini's ideas verbatim. Mazzini thinks that each modern nation has a
``mission'': The British would take care of Industry and Colonies; the Poles,
leadership of the Slavic world; the Russians, the civilizing of Asia. The
French get Action, the Germans get Thought, and so forth.
Mazzini preached an Italian revolution for the Third Rome: After the Rome
of the Caesars and the Rome of the Popes comes the Rome of the People. For
this, the pope must be driven out. In November 1848, armed Young Italy gangs
forced Pope Pius IX to flee from Rome to Naples. From March to June of 1849,
Mazzini ruled the Papal States as one of three dictators, all Grand Orient
Freemasons. During that time, death squads operated in Rome, Ancona, and other
cities. Some churches were sacked, and many confessionals were burned. For
Easter 1849, Mazzini staged a mock Eucharist in the Vatican he called the Novum
Pascha, featuring himself, God, and the People. During this time he was
planning to set up his own Italian national church on the Anglican model.
GARIBALDI: Under a death sentence, Garibaldi managed to escape to South
America, where he lived from 1836 to 1848. There he took part in struggles in
Brazil and helped Uruguay in its war against Argentina, commanding its small
navy and, later, an Italian legion at Montevideo. The handsome warrior
achieved international fame through the publicity of the elder Alexandre Dumas.
Wearing his colorful gaucho costume, Garibaldi returned to Italy in April 1848
to fight in its war of independence. His exploits against the Austrians in
Milan and against the French forces supporting Rome and the Papal States made
him a national hero. Overpowered at last in Rome, Garibaldi and his men had to
retreat through central Italy in 1849. Anita, his wife and companion-in-arms,
died during this retreat. Disbanding his men, Garibaldi again escaped abroad,
where he lived successively in North Africa, the United States, and Peru. The
"hero of two worlds" could not return to Italy until 1854. In 1859 he helped
Piedmont in a new war against Austria, leading a volunteer Alpine force that
captured Varese and Como.
Conte di CAVOUR, prime minister of Sardinia-Piedmont (1852-59, 1860-61),
took steps to unite Italy as a liberal parliamentary monarchy under the house
of Savoy. Realizing that he needed foreign help, Cavour skillfully enlisted
the support of Napoleon III in a joint war against Austria in 1859, thereby
acquiring Lombardy. The next year Romagna, Parma, Modena, and Tuscany voted
for union with Sardinia-Piedmont. In exchange for recognizing this
arrangement, France received Savoy and Nice.
In May 1860, Garibaldi set out on the greatest venture of his life, the
conquest of Sicily and Naples. This time he had no governmental support, but
Premier CAVOUR and King VICTOR EMMANUEL II dared not stop the popular hero.
They stood ready to help, but only if he proved successful. Sailing from near
Genoa on May 6 with 1,000 Redshirts, Garibaldi reached Marsala, Sicily, on May
11 and proclaimed himself dictator in the name of Victor Emmanuel. At the
Battle of Calatafimi (May 30) his guerrilla force defeated the regular army of
the king of Naples. A popular uprising helped him capture Palermo-- a
brilliant success that convinced Cavour that Garibaldi's volunteer army should
now be secretly supported by Piedmont. Garibaldi crossed the Strait of Messina
on August 18-19 and in a whirlwind campaign reached Naples on September 7. On
October 3-5 he fought another battle on the Volturno River, the biggest of his
career. After plebiscites, he handed Sicily and Naples over to Victor Emmanuel
when the two met near the Volturno on October 26. Angered at not being named
viceroy in Naples, however, Garibaldi retired to his home on Caprera, off
Sardinia. Nevertheless, he continued to plot to capture the Papal States. A
gifted leader and man of the people, he knew far better than Cavour or Mazzini
how to stir the masses, and he repeatedly hastened the pace of events.
Disillusioned in later life with politics, he declared himself a socialist.
In 1860, Giuseppe GARIBALDI conquered Sicily and Naples with his Red
Shirts. The Kingdom of Italy, headed by Sardinian king VICTOR EMMANUEL II, was
proclaimed in March 1861 after Sardinia absorbed Umbria and the Marches and the
Two Sicilies chose union with Sardinia.
Mazzini returned to Italy during the wars of 1859 and 1860 but took no joy
in seeing the establishment in 1861 of a unified Italian kingdom rather than a
republic. He refused to take a seat in Parliament because of his uncancelled
death sentence. He was still hatching schemes for gaining Venice and Rome when
he was arrested and imprisoned at Gaeta (August-October 1870) at the time
VICTOR EMMANUEL II was taking Rome. In failing health, Mazzini retired to Pisa,
where he died. The Italian government agreed to give him a public funeral.
Mazzini's conception of nationalism and his austere, moral philosophy of the
"duties of man" influenced political thought long after his death. He played an
indispensable role in Italian unification, because his ceaseless agitation for
a unitary republic forced more conservative monarchist groups to compete with
him by working for national unity too.
By 1900-- various Young national groups-- For Mazzini, a nationality
means a race, a fixed array of behavior like a breed of dog or a species of
animal. He is not thinking of a national community united by a literate
language and a classical culture to which any person can become assimilated
through a political choice. For Mazzini, race is unchangeable, and race is
destiny. It is a matter of blood and soil. Each of Mazzini's organizations
demands immediate national liberation for its own ethnic group on the basis of
aggressive chauvinism and expansionism-- the Territorial Imperative: Each is
obsessed with borders and territory. Each one is eager to submerge and repress
other national groupings in pursuit of its own mystical destiny. Some say this
is Mazzini's racist gospel of universal ethnic cleansing.
ITALY UNIFIED: 1870 AND AFTER-- Venetia was acquired as a result of
Italy's alliance with Prussia in the SEVEN WEEKS' WAR (1866). Rome, which was
seized when a French garrison was withdrawn during the Franco-Prussian War
(1870), soon became the capital of Italy. The new nation faced many serious
problems. A large debt, few natural resources, and almost no industry or
transportation facilities combined with extreme poverty, a high illiteracy
rate, and an uneven tax structure-- Regionalism was still strong, and only a
fraction of the citizens had the right to vote. To make matters worse, the
pope, angered over the loss of Rome and the papal lands, refused to recognize
the Italian state. In the countryside, banditry and peasant anarchism resulted
in government repression, which was often brutal. Meanwhile during the 1880s a
socialist movement began to develop among workers in the cities. The profound
differences between the impoverished south and the wealthier north widened.
Parliament did little to resolve these problems: throughout this so-called
Liberal Period (1870-1915), the nation was governed by a series of coalitions
of liberals to the left and right of center who were unable to form a clear-cut
majority. (The most notable leaders of the period were Francesco CRISPI and
Giovanni GIOLITTI.) Despite the fact that some economic and social progress
took place before World War I, Italy during that time was a dissatisfied and
crisis-ridden nation.
In an attempt to increase its international influence and prestige, Italy
joined Germany and Austria in the TRIPLE ALLIANCE in 1882; in the 1890s Italy
unsuccessfully tried to conquer Ethiopia; and in 1911 it declared war on Turkey
to obtain the North African territory of Libya. After the outbreak of WORLD
WAR I in 1914, Italy remained neutral for almost a year while the government
negotiated with both sides. In 1915, Italy finally joined the Allies, after
having been promised territories that it regarded as Italia irredenta
(unliberated Italy). The country was unprepared for a major war, however;
aside from a few victories in 1918, Italy suffered serious losses of men,
materiel, and morale (esp. in the Battle of CAPORETTO). Moreover, despite the
efforts of Vittorio Emmanuele Orlando at the Paris Peace Conference, the
treaties that followed the war gave Italy only Trentino and Trieste--a small
part of the territories it had expected. These disappointments produced a
powerful wave of nationalist sentiment against the Allies and the Italian
government.