Unification of Italy
Till
the last quarter of 19th century Italy was a divided country by and
large. It was divided into many kingdoms such as Sicily, Tuscany, Venetia, Parma, Lombardy and Piedmont and Sardinia.
These kingdoms ruled by different rulers.
The people living in all these kingdoms were Italians. They spoke Italian language
and shared same culture, history,
heritage. There food habits were also the same.
Austria, a powerful
country from continental Europe was mainly
responsible for the
division and disintegration of Italy. Metternich, the then chancellor of Austria used to say that in Italy, provinces are against province, towns against towns,
families against families
and men
against men.
In 19th century, slowly and steadily, the Italians started
developing the sense of unity
and nationalism. They realised
people living in different kingdoms of Italy share common history,
language, culture, etc. Hence these provinces should
be united and a united Italy must be created. The Italians who wanted and at- tempted for
unification of Italy were grouped into three = 1. The Republicans, 2. The Federalists, 3. The Royal
Sardinian Party.
The Republicans
Giuseppe
Mazzini was considered as the main person responsible for promoting the Republican group for achieving the goal of Unification of Italy. He was born in Genoa in
1805. He was legal expert and a great thinker. He inspired and encouraged the Italian youth in
order to unite Italy. He affirmed an organization called as the 'young Italy'
in order to spread the sense of
nationalism and unity and ultimately fulfil the dream of unification of Italy. The young Italy became popular
among the students and many other people. The
banner of this organization had words like ‘unity’ &
‘independence on one side and liberty, equality and humanity on other side.
Mazzini, through young Italy, tried to promote the sense of unity and
liberty.
The Federalists
The
group believed that a federation of Italy should be established and leader of
Italian federation should be Pope.
The Pope was the religious leader of Roman Catholic Christians. A priest
from Piedmont named Vincent Gioberti
mainly promoted this idea in his
book titled ‘The moral and civil Privacy of Italians’ published in 1843. This
idea was seemed to be impossible when liberal Pope namely Pious IX exceeded
in 1846.
The Royal Sardinian
Party
The
kingdom of Piedmont & Sardinia took the leadership of actually unifying the
Italy. Charles Albert, the king of Piedmont
practically became the leader of war of unification of Italy. The Pope and the Duke of Tuscany
were ready to join the struggle for unification of Italy under the leadership of Piedmont. Piedmont and Charles
Albert had understood that in or- der to achieve the goal of unification. It was needed
to defeat Austria.
In 1849, his son Victor
Emmanuel II became
the ruler of Piedmont.
Count Camillo
di Cavour, the prime minister
of Victor Emmanuel
II played a crucial role in the Unification of Italy. He had served
in Sardinian army.
He was influenced by the liberal, political, ideas of Britain/England.
Hence, he wanted to establish constitutional
government in unified Italy. In 1848, King Charles Albert established
constitutional parliament in Piedmont
and Count became a member of Parliament - minister of agriculture and commerce and later on became prime minister in
1852 under Victor Emmanuel II.
Cavour
as prime minister of Piedmont under Victor Emmanuel II, introduced various reforms
and strengthened the democracy of Piedmont. He also introduced military reforms and strengthened the fortress and also
the constructed new ones. He also improved the
agriculture and overall economy of Italy. He improved the infrastructure in Italy, especially roads and
railway network.
During
the Crimean war, Cavour supported Britain and France against Russia. He did so because
he wanted to ensure the support of great powers
like Britain and France in the eventuality of war against Austria in unification of Italy.
War with Austria
Cavour ensured the support
of Napoleon III against Austria and created such circumstances which made Austria to
declare war on Piedmont of 19th April 1859. On 8th July 1859 by the treaty of Villa franca, Lombardy
became the part of kingdoms
of Piedmont. In August 1859, the northern kingdoms of
Modena, Tuscany and Romagna decided to accept leadership of Piedmont and merge their kingdoms in Piedmont. In this way, most of parts
of northern Italy were united under the leadership of Piedmont and Sardinia in
1859. As far as southern Italy,
consisting the Sicily and Naples, were concerned, Giuseppe Garibaldi played
a crucial role.
He was born in 1807. When he was young, he had joined the Young Italy. He had revolted
at Genoa in 1833 out of his
nationalistic feelings. Hence, he had to run away in order to save his life and he went to South America in
1834 In, South America also, he participated in Guerrilla war’s. He came back
to Italy in 1848 &
participated in a revolutionary activities.
Aimed at unification of southern & northern Italy He was forced to run away from Italy again and he went to New York He was involved
in small time business in New York and earned
wealth & with that money
the brought an Island of Capera near Italy. He organized military
force called as Red shirts. And he entered Sicily in 1860 and conquered
Naples and with permission of people
at Maples it was declared as part of Piedmont & Victor Emmanuel II came to Maples. After annexing Naples to
Piedmont, Garibaldi went back to Island of Capera.
Now, the task of uniting Venetia and Rome had remained,
which was achieved after the Astro Russian 1866 and Franco-Prussian war of 1870 respectively. In these wars Prussia defeated Austria
and France. In the month of July 1871 to victor Emmanuel
Ⅱ Eternal made his entry in city of New York Rome. Thus, the journey
of Unification of Italy was completed
fully by 1872 when Rome became the of capital
of Unified Italy in 1872.