Chapter Three
The death of Pope Gregory XVI in early June 1846, during the sixteenth year of his pontificate, compounded the threat of revolutionary upheaval. Fearing disorder, Metternich’s ambassador assured the Papal government that it could rely upon Austrian assistance, should it be required; meanwhile measures were taken to reinforce the army in Lombardy. When the conclave to elect a successor to Gregory opened on the evening of 14 June 1846, Cardinal Luigi Lambruschini, the former Secretary of State, and the first choice of the conservatives as well as the Austrians, emerged as the leading contender. During the course of the next three ballots, however, Lambruschini’s vote declined, while that of the Archbishop of Imola, Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, increased. On 16 June 1846 Mastai-Ferretti was elected Pope, assuming the name Pius IX (or Pio Nono in Italian), in memory of Pius VII.
Metternich and his government, recognizing the need for reform in the Papal States, did not attempt to veto this selection, as some later charged. Nonetheless, some questioned the choice of a figure untrained in statesmanship amid the present political complications. Thus, while the press in London, Paris, Madrid, Brussels, Florence and even Constantinople exalted the merits of the new Pope, Vienna had reservations. Whereas the Pope’s affability, warmth and spontaneity fanned his own subjects’ ardour, north of the Alps it caused a chill.1 Metternich criticized the first actions of Pius IX, which confirmed the new Pope’s liberal reputation. Above all, Metternich feared the consequences of his general amnesty of 16 July 1846, which provoked a collective delirium in Rome, paving the way for Pio Nono’s portrayal as an apostle of liberty and an angel sent to regenerate the country of Caesar. Comparing the amnesty to an invitation to thieves to enter one’s home, Metternich considered the Pope’s political leniency a mistake, noting that God pardoned, but did not grant amnesties. Vienna’s qualms intensified as the demonstrations and jubilation greeting reforms in Rome assumed a decidedly patriotic and anti-Austrian tone. Increasingly, the cry ‘Long live Pius’ was coupled with the call for ‘Death to the Germans’, and ‘A free Italy’. Giuseppe Garibaldi, from Montevideo, proclaimed Pius the political Messiah of the peninsula, and the Pope was deemed the figure heralded by Gioberti to liberate Italy. Indeed, the latter declared that with the reign of Pio Nono a new age had begun for the peninsula and the world.2 The Austrians, wedded to the status quo, looked with suspicion upon developments in the Eternal City.
Pio Nono loved Italy and prayed it would be regenerated gradually. Considering himself a priest with a religious mission, rather than a Washington or Bolivar, he was surprised at the enthusiasm which his election and early reformism unleashed. Oblivious to the consequences of his cordiality towards the liberals and nationalists persecuted by his predecessor, he in fact had no intention of launching the crusade for the liberation and unification of the peninsula so desired by the patriots. He assured the French Ambassador, Pellegrino Rossi, that he could not plunge into such utopian schemes. Still, his selection of Cardinal Pasquale Tommaso Gizzi as Secretary of State, lionized as a liberal by Massimo D’Azeglio in his Degli ultimi casi di Romagna, heartened the liberals and nationalists alike. Carlo Alberto praised the appointment, mistakenly assuming that the Pope would begin a war against Austria.3 The awakening of Italian national aspirations distressed the Austrians.
In Vienna Metternich resented the unbounded enthusiasm generated by the election of Pius IX and the agitation it aroused in Piedmont. The Austrian Chancellor recollected that Piedmontese writers such as Vincenzo Gioberti and Cesare Balbo had long sought to inspire Italians by contrasting the splendour of their past with the alleged degradation of the present. At the moment Massimo D’Azeglio had assumed first place among those Piedmontese writers holding Austria responsible for the peninsula’s plight, and championing its regeneration. He saw little difference between figures such as Balbo, Gioberti and D’Azeglio, who attacked the peace with the poison of their words, and Mazzini and his followers who had recourse to the dagger. The protection which Carlo Alberto afforded these writers convinced Metternich more than anything else, that the king might abandon the conservative course that had characterized the first fifteen years of his reign.4
Increasingly, the anti-Austrian, pro-Italian sentiments of the Piedmontese king unfolded. During the course of a private interview granted D’Azeglio a year earlier, he posed no objections when his visitor insisted that without force nothing could be achieved in Italy, and Piedmont represented the only force in the peninsula. Indeed, the king surprised D’Azeglio by promising that at an appropriate moment he would devote his life, his children’s lives, his sword, his treasury and his army to champion the cause of Italy.5 By the end of 1846, the tension between Turin and Vienna became public, as the two states disagreed about the Austro-Piedmontese Trade Treaty of 1751 and the salt trade with Switzerland. Despite Austrian protests, and their steep increase in the custom duties on Piedmontese wines sent to Lombardy, Carlo Alberto would not be cowed, and his resistance aroused the expectations of patriots. Thus a series of misunderstandings had emerged between Vienna and Turin, as well as Vienna and Rome.
Metternich charged that Italian revolutionists sought consolidation and confederation as a means of pushing out the Austrians and achieving unification. He accused Pellegrino Rossi, who was then the French Ambassador to Rome, of conspiring with the nationalists, and perhaps placing the support of his government behind the radical schemes. Vienna looked askance at Pio Nono’s overtures to the other princes, and Piedmont in particular, to forge a tariff league to preserve the tranquillity of the peninsula. Although Pio Nono’s aims were pacific, he did see the league as a means of sustaining the rights of the princes.6 While the Pope may have had the domestic situation in mind, Metternich feared that the Piedmontese would exploit the proposed league to extend their influence in Italy at Austria’s expense. His assessment proved accurate.
Vienna perceived Piedmontese ambitions in its ‘pandering’ to national sentiments. The Turin government allowed the members of the Italian congress, meeting in Genoa in September 1846, to make a series of patriotic pronouncements, virtually proclaiming Carlo Alberto co-director with Pio Nono of the national movement. In order to further arouse the Austrians, the Genoese were permitted to publicly commemorate the centenary of their expulsion of the Austrians. The Lombards did not escape the anti-Austrian contagion, expressing their national sentiments in Milan in December 1846, during the funeral of Count Federico Confalonieri, who had been imprisoned in the Spielberg prison. Italian patriots debated as to how far they could go without provoking a premature Austrian intervention.
From London, ‘the Master’, Giuseppe Mazzini, pressed for a radical solution, urging his friends to unite the masses in patriotic rallies to make them aware of their potential power. They need not meekly accept what had been accorded, he argued, but should demand more fundamental change. Eventually Mazzini hoped this would inspire a people’s war against Austria, which was the precondition for the Italian republic he envisioned. The moderate Massimo D’Azeglio, who had begun his political career in the 1840s under the guidance of his cousin, Count Cesare Balbo, disagreed. He cautioned the population of the Romagna not to push the Pope too far, lest reform lead to revolution, and then reaction. He advised avoiding any pretext for Austrian intervention and the occupation of additional Italian territory. Italians had to behave like thieves in the countryside, he wrote, going as far as they could without waking the watchdog.7 Unfortunately for the peninsula’s patriots, the Austrians were wide awake, monitoring the Italian situation, and determined to preserve their dominance in the region.
Thus, with the encouraging developments in Rome and Turin, the year 1847 opened with the promise of further progress. Even Mazzini, sceptical of the promises of princes, wrote to Pio Nono, urging him to champion Italian rights. Not all, however, were inebriated by the popularity of Pio Nono, the increasing daring displayed by Carlo Alberto, the frantic demonstrations and the prospect of impending change. The national current was opposed by the dukes of Parma and Modena, closely associated with the Habsburg Empire, and Ferdinando II of Naples, who resisted the call for constitutional government and national reorganization.
Austria, profoundly distrustful of Italian intentions, stood poised for action. Cardinal Gizzi, whose undeserved liberal reputation did not reflect his true centrist and quasi-conservative leanings, shared the Austrian Chancellor’s concern. Distressed by the disorders in Rome, and the government’s loss of authority, he confided to the Sardinian representative, Domenico Pareto, that if things spiralled out of control any further, he would feel constrained to call for Habsburg intervention. Shortly thereafter Gizzi informed the Austrians that since the Pope had consented to the creation of a national guard, which he deemed of dubious loyalty, and therefore dangerous, the Papal government might find itself in the unfortunate position of having to invoke Austrian assistance. Later the Secretary of State absolved Pius of any responsibility for the unpopular step by claiming he took this action on his own initiative, without consulting the Pope.8
The British did not share the apprehensions of the continental conservatives. Richard Cobden, travelling in Italy, urged reforms and the promotion of a tariff union. His views were, in part, shared by the British Foreign Office, which deemed Austrian hostility to Italian reformism understandable, but unfortunate. The British believed reformism the best means of averting revolution. To encourage the Piedmontese to resist Austrian opposition, and encourage constitutionalism in Florence and Rome, Lord Minto, the British Lord Privy Seal and member of the Cabinet, was sent on a special mission to Italy in 1847. His task was to remind the Sardinian king that he could rely upon Her Majesty as a ‘true and disinterested friend’. At the same time, however, Minto was to caution prudence to avoid exciting the apprehension of the great powers, and above all, Austria.9
In the summer of 1847, the Austrian Commander in Italy, General Johann Josef Radetzky decided to reinforce his troops. By the terms of Article 103 of the Treaty of Vienna, Austria had the right to maintain forces in the ‘place’ of Ferrara, and since 1815 had garrisoned some thousand soldiers in its fortresses. On 17th July a corps of over 800 Croats crossed the Po in full war regalia, giving the Cardinal Legate only a day’s notice. The surprised residents, convinced that Metternich wished to intimidate the Pope, discourage further reforms and encourage the conservatives, revealed their displeasure. The Austrian military responded by occupying the areas surrounding the barracks, outside the citadel. This promoted a protest from the Cardinal Legate, Cardinal Luigi Ciacchi, which the new Secretary of State, Cardinal Gabriele Ferretti, had published in Rome. Massimo D’Azeglio hastily drafted a pamphlet denouncing the Austrian action, which apparently had the approval of the Pope. Although he perceived himself a prince of peace, Pius recognized his responsibility to preserve the independence and integrity of the States of the Church. In Turin, Carlo Alberto let it be known that if providence provoked a war for the independence of Italy, he was prepared.
Metternich realized that the recent events and public excitement threatened the status quo in Italy, and called upon England, France, Russia and Prussia to join with Austria in maintaining the territorial division of the Italian peninsula resolved at Vienna. Charging that the party in control in Rome sought to establish a unitary state in Italy, Metternich indicated that the Austrian Emperor, determined to preserve his Italian territories, would not permit Italian unification. Palmerston, disturbed by Austria’s attitude and actions, submitted a stern note to the Austrian Ambassador in London. He revealed that England regarded the independence and integrity of the Roman states as essential for the independence of the Italian peninsula, and opposed any invasion or infringement of its sovereignty which would compromise its position. Asserting that he had no information concerning a scheme for uniting the various states of Italy into a Federal Republic, Palmerston attributed the recent discontent not to utopian ambitions, but the real abuses plaguing the Italian states.10 London’s assessment that limited reformism would eliminate the agitation in Italy did not reassure Vienna. Metternich assumed that the Italians wanted more, and were plotting a war against Austria.
During the course of 1847, the Powers differed on the Italian question. Division existed not only among the conservative, eastern powers, but also between the more liberal, Western states of England and France. Metternich complained that under the guise of administrative reforms the sects sought to subvert the existing order and create an Italian state. The British government disagreed, Palmerston claiming that the reforms granted or contemplated in Rome and in Tuscany, tended to counteract any dangerous delusions.11 Both the Austrians and the British sought to influence the position of the French in this matter, with Metternich proving more successful than Palmerston.
Although Guizot pledged his support for reformism in Rome before the French Chamber, Metternich’s request to uphold the status quo in Italy was seconded by the French. In the Franco-Austrian agreement concluded in the spring of 1847, the two powers promised to maintain the territorial status quo, to oppose revolutionary agitation, and to approve administrative, but not far-reaching political innovations. France no less than Austria deemed the Italian states and people too immature for constitutional government. This Vienna-Paris axis, which discouraged political change, understandably led to frustration in the peninsula. The Piedmontese, appraised of the French position, resented the rumours that Pio Nono’s reformism was stimulated by the French, when the opposite was the case.
Rossi, the French Ambassador in Rome, was instructed to prevent Pius from taking steps which might displease Austria. Guizot alerted his ambassador that their government required good relations with Austria, predicting that conflict would lead to a general upheaval in Europe. The Piedmontese, in turn, were warned to abandon any expansionist design in Italy, lest they provoke a watchful Austria, whom they would have to confront without French help. Regarding the Ferrara incident, France tacitly recognized Habsburg rights and stood shoulder to shoulder with them against the transformation of the Papal States into a constitutional regime.12
French support of the anti-reformist Austrian policy disturbed the liberal English Cabinet. Palmerston suspected that Austria secretly encouraged disturbances of the public peace in the peninsula to produce a pretext for intervention against the progressive changes initiated in Rome and Turin. Her Majesty’s Government remained convinced that the Italian states should pursue a series of timely reforms to eliminate the evils that bred discontent. Thus Lord Minto in his mission to Turin, Florence and Rome, was instructed to counterbalance the aggressive Austrian interference in the internal affairs of the states of the peninsula. In Turin Minto informed Carlo Alberto that the British government felt ‘surprise and regret’ at Austrian interference, and approved of Sardinia’s friendly attitude towards the reformism of Pio Nono. Minto promised his government would block any Austrian action that compromised the independence of the States of the Church. Carlo Alberto, in turn, vowed that he and his sons would defend the cause of the Holy Father with their blood, should circumstances warrant such action.13
The prospect of Austrian intervention against reformism in Italy promoted closer collaboration between Piedmont and the Papal States. In July 1847 the two consolidated their commercial relations by means of a reciprocal trade agreement. Rome also appreciated Piedmontese support during the Austrian occupation of Ferrara. Pius confessed to Pareto, the Piedmontese Ambassador in Rome, that he considered the Habsburg action arrogant and illegal. The Pope divulged that he would despatch troops to the area to observe the Austrians, but not to wage war, while awaiting the outcome of his diplomatic initiative. Massimo D’Azeglio was among the patriots who marched north with the Papal Volunteers to assume their watchful waiting. Should the Austrians prove obstinate and refuse to end their illegal occupation, Pius threatened to launch all the spiritual weapons at his disposal against them.14 Nationalists applauded the Pope’s resolution and recourse to spiritual arms; nevertheless, they invoked material means to counter Austrian pretensions.
Pius, who lacked a dependable military force of his own, looked for closer cooperation among the various Italian states. A memorial of the Secretariat of State stressed that the individual Italian states had succumbed to foreign influence due to their divisions. While they were sovereign and completely independent under international law, in reality they fell under the sway of the great powers. This led to the situation, alluded to by Metternich, whereby Italy had deteriorated into a geographic expression. Only Italian cooperation could remedy the situation. A tariff league was proposed by the Pope, and seconded by the Marquis Pareto, the Sardinian Minister in Rome. Pius apparently perceived the tariff league as the first step towards a more farreaching political agreement, and looked forward to having the strongest state in the peninsula sustain the rights of the weakest.15
Pius commissioned the pro-Italian Monsignor Giovanni Corboli Bussi to undertake a special mission to the courts of Florence and Turin, to secure their adherence to the projected league. Corboli Bussi found the Grand Duke Leopoldo of Tuscany receptive to the papal initiative, claiming that the proposed league would help separate the moderates from Mazzini’s Young Italy, giving satisfaction to the reasonable request for some form of unity, without falling prey to the utopian schemes of the radicals. Perhaps to counter the conclusion of the league, Vienna offered to place 5,000 soldiers at the Grand Duke’s disposal. It was an offer that was not accepted. Instead Leopoldo agreed to enter the tariff league and, following his decision, showed himself more frankly Italian at court. Corboli Bussi, wishing to reconcile religion and liberty, wrote to the Pope informing him of the anti-Austrian feeling in the peninsula and stressing that the tariff league, by its concessions to national sentiments, would perhaps help to mitigate the discontent. The papal emissary then moved to Turin to secure Carlo Alberto’s adherence to the league.
Following his first conference with the Piedmontese king, Monsignor Corboli Bussi concluded that Carlo Alberto had an agenda of his own, and would be more difficult to bring on board than the Grand Duke of Tuscany. In response to Carlo Alberto’s queries about the Pope’s policies, Corboli Bussi indicated that Pius aimed to make revolution unlikely. Noting that the revolutionaries wished to push all of Italy into a unitary republic, he disavowed the plan, but observed that there was something noble in the nationalist aspiration. A prudent prince, he continued, knew how to satisfy reasonable requests, leaving the radicals with what was manifestly impossible. Early on, the moderate decision to champion Italian interests reflected not only national aspirations, but the need to frustrate radical designs.
The Piedmontese king, distressed by the pressure for concessions placed on him by the Roman example, blurted out that the Pope had done enough for his subjects. However, he was willing to consider entry into the Pope’s tariff league, referring to his pledge to place his forces at the disposal of the Holy Father, should Austria prove difficult. Monsignor Corboli Bussi, assessing the king’s attitude and behaviour, surmised that Carlo Alberto wished to avoid making concessions to his subjects and preferred to preserve his liberal reputation by championing the Pope’s independence vis-à-vis Austria. The Monsignor also sensed that the Piedmontese king sought to expand his state at the expense of the small Austrian-dominated duchies of north central Italy.16
It was an accurate assessment of Carlo Alberto’s thoughts and intentions. The enigmatic king voiced his opposition to anything contrary to the maxims of his Catholicism, but confessed that his heart quickened its beat at the thought of Italian independence from the foreigner.17 His present actions did not, however, match his words. His vacillations, hesitation in liberalizing the administration, and painfully cautious approach towards Austria provoked criticism. Vincenzo Gioberti noted early in October 1847, that there was an increasing dissatisfaction with the pace of Carlo Alberto’s reformism and his continuing irresolution. Gioberti decried the fact that while Austria insulted Rome and threatened the independence of all the Italian princes, the Piedmontese did nothing. When the Piedmontese king violently suppressed a popular demonstration in Turin which aimed to praise the king and Pius IX, one of the demonstrators wrote a poem denouncing ‘The Vacillating Monarch’.
Monsignor Corboli Bussi, who still pressed for the conclusion of the tariff league, witnessed first-hand the tortuous course of the king. During his second formal interview with Carlo Alberto, the Piedmontese ruler boasted that he and His Holiness were the only two princes in the peninsula that were really Italian, but unfortunately their states were not contiguous, being separated by a series of Austrian bases. The king recounted that his forces were at the disposal of the Pope, pledging that his people would rise en masse on behalf of his noble and just cause. On the issue of the tariff league, the king reported that his minister, De Revel, was studying its financial considerations prior to examining the political implications. Carlo Alberto promised that everything possible would be done to secure its approval and implementation.
In his campaign to draw the Piedmontese into the League, Monsignor Corboli Bussi reported that Italian unity and independence was now so much in the minds and hearts of the Italians that it was impossible to extinguish the flame. The Monsignor argued that the real question was who would assume direction of this inevitable movement; the princes or the agitators? Would it be effected in such a manner as to assure peace and stability for the Italian thrones, or would it be undertaken as a destructive force? The Monsignor argued that the Pope’s projected league had brought the immense benefit of taming Italian nationalism, placing it under the direction of the princes, rather than the demagogues. The Papal envoy warned that time was of the moment, and the channelling of this nationalism by means of the league, presently possible, might not be viable in six months. If the Italian princes listened to the voice of their common father, they could avert the disaster which might topple their thrones.18
Despite the exhortations of the Monsignor, Carlo Alberto remained irresolute. The Marquis Emanuele Pes Di Villamarina confided to Corboli Bussi that the king purposely kept his ministry divided into diverse political factions, retaining the option of moving in one direction or the other. The Monsignor wrote to Pius that not only was the Piedmontese ministry divided, but the country as well. One part was conservative and Catholic, the other liberal, with Solaro della Margarita reflecting the Catholic and conservative sentiments, and Villamarina the liberal ones. Paradoxically the liberal elements supported the Pope’s league, while the Catholic conservative bloc had reservations.
The king, meanwhile, remained indecisive. In the light of French reluctance to support an Italian war of independence against the Habsburgs, and his realization that the Piedmontese army alone would not suffice, Carlo Alberto appreciated the need for a measure of popular enthusiasm. A crusade on behalf of Pio Nono and the Church could arouse the dormant masses without endangering the peninsula’s social order. Hence he insisted that Piedmont and Italy required more than a tariff league, pressing for the conclusion of a political union with a decidedly anti-Austrian bias. The Papal Envoy, discussing the king’s proposal with the Tuscan representatives, wondered if Carlo Alberto’s complaint that the league did not go far enough, was an expedient to reject the Papal overture while retaining his position in the liberal camp. The Piedmontese continued to push the Romans and the Tuscans to go further than they had originally intended, emphasizing the need for a political league in the light of the circumstances afflicting the peninsula.
Monsignor Corboli Bussi, questioned about his instructions on the conclusion of a political league, responded that common political principles, a unity of action in reform and a system of reciprocal security, were benefits the Pope believed would flow from the tariff agreement. The Papal Envoy noted that a fusion of financial interests would have far-reaching implications, admitting he had not received instructions on rendering explicit what he believed was implicit in the projected tariff league. He personally felt that upon the approval of this agreement, there might be a codicil specifying that the signatory princes respectively assured the quiet and integrity of their states from internal and external disturbances. Clearly the Pope’s representative recognized the political implications of the Pope’s projected agreement, claiming that the King of Piedmont was being offered a position in Italy which Prussia would love to have in Germany. Not only the fate of the league was at issue, but who should be supreme in Italy – Austria or Piedmont. The Pope as arbiter was offering the mantle of leadership to Piedmont, warning the king that if he chose not to assume it, then the opportunity might vanish.19
Carlo Alberto moved cautiously, waiting for the chance to wage his war against Austria, rather than for an invitation to enter a nebulous economic agreement. Furthermore, he had reservations about joining with some of the other princes whom he considered Austrian in sentiment, especially his brother-in-law, Leopoldo of Tuscany. While he appreciated the advantage of having the Italian princes coordinate their concessions to their subjects, he perceived this as only a first step. In exchange for his adherence to the Pope’s tariff league, the king insisted on the formation of a political union to assure the preservation of Italian reformism against all possible opposition. Meanwhile, a clear signal that the Piedmontese king was prepared to pursue a more liberal and national policy was given on 9 October 1847, when Carlo Alberto dismissed the cautious, conservative and peaceful Count Solaro della Margarita, who had directed Piedmontese foreign policy for the past twelve years.
Monsignor Corboli Bussi, much more sympathetic to the national cause than his sovereign, recognized that the Piedmontese offer of a political agreement for the independence of Italy, placed the Papal States in a difficult position. Should Italians learn of the Piedmontese offer, and suspect a Papal rejection, this would undermine their moral position in the peninsula. Furthermore, his instructions from the Secretariat of State to negotiate among the Italian Princes, in order to satisfy the honest desires of their populations as well as to compromise the disorderly movements, led the Monsignor to conclude that he could simultaneously negotiate a political as well as a tariff league. This broad interpretation of his instructions, which met the conditions of the Piedmontese, was corrected by a despatch from the Secretariat of State (9 October 1847) that he negotiate only the economic accord.20 Although disappointed, Corboli Bussi adhered scrupulously to the Pope’s instructions.
Carlo Alberto was also disappointed, but did not end negotiations for the league, having finally committed himself to the liberal and national cause. The Earl of Minto wrote to Palmerston on 8 October 1847 that Carlo Alberto had personally assured him of his determination to proceed on the path of reform, enumerating the measures already matured or in progress.21 On 30 October 1847, the king issued the decree containing a number of long-awaited reforms, including the election of communal and provincial councillors, increased equality in the penal and judicial system, and greater freedom of the press. The last provision inspired political journalism in Piedmont, as had a similar concession earlier in Rome. Vienna’s remaining illusion that Carlo Alberto could be kept on a conservative course was shattered. Anticipating the opening of a national war of liberation against Austria, the Piedmontese sought to prepare the political and military ground for the impending conflict.
The negotiations for the tariff league continued, and in mid-October Carlo Alberto agreed to its conclusion. Although the Piedmontese king finally accepted the narrower trade agreement, he expressed the expectation that it would also advance matters in the political realm. The Papal representative responded that implementing what was presently practical and useful for Italian unity, would prove highly political. This reassurance was insufficient for the Piedmontese king, who indicated his intention of informing the Austrian Minister that he would brook no interference in the states of Italy.22 While Pius IX perceived the league primarily as a means of averting revolutionary agitation, Carlo Alberto thought in terms of his military confrontation with Austria.
On 3 November, 1847, the Customs League Treaty was signed by representatives of the States of the Church, Piedmont-Sardinia and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany by Monsignor Corboli Bussi, domestic prelate of His Holiness, Count Emolao Asinari di San Marzano, the Foreign Minister of Piedmont, and the Cavalier Giulio Martini, Chamberlain of the Grand Duke of Tuscany and Duke of Lucca. They favoured the well-being of Italy by the fusion of the material interests of their respective populations. Article 3 of the agreement made provision for the appointment of representatives from the three contracting powers to discuss the implementation of the agreement, following the adherence of the King of Sicily and the Duke of Modena. These last two rulers, who were invited to join, replied evasively. Perhaps their reticence stemmed from their realization that the Customs League Treaty was perceived as a first step towards federation.
From the moment the Piedmontese and the Romans joined in the customs union, they thought of forming a political league that would serve as a nucleus for Italian nationality, while providing Italy with the means for its defence. With that aim in mind, a draft proposal was produced for the consideration of the contracting parties. The first article of the projected political alliance called for a perpetual confederation among the States of the Church, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and the Kingdom of Sardinia, guaranteeing the territories of the participating powers while assuring their perpetual and peaceful development. The second article provided that the Holy Father, mediator and initiator of the league and the confederation, and his successors, would serve as presidents of the confederation. Article 3 noted that a month after ratification, representatives of the three confederated states would meet in Rome to establish a federal constitution.
Article 4 of the proposed political agreement stipulated that the federal constitution would create the organization of a central power in the form of a permanent diet in Rome. Among the principal duties of the diet were the power to declare war and peace, and to supervise the forces of the member states required either for internal security or for external independence. These measures were included to satisfy Carlo Alberto who anticipated a war against Austria. Additionally, the diet was charged with regulating the tariff of the confederation, while providing an equitable distribution of the expenses and entries among the states. It was also entrusted with directing the negotiation and conclusion of treaties of commerce and navigation with outside powers, while creating a mechanism for the mediation and resolution of conflicts among the member states. Finally, the diet was to assure the uniformity of monetary systems, weights and measures, and military discipline, while safeguarding the conformity of political, penal, civil and procedural legislation.23
The projected Italian political league was supported by Il Risorgimento, the newspaper founded in December 1847 in Turin by Camillo Di Cavour, Cesare Balbo, Pietro Di Santarosa and other liberal moderates. Their programme called for independence and a league of Italian princes. In January 1848, Cavour, the editor of the journal, arguing that the salvation of the fatherland could only be achieved by her legitimate monarchs, urged Carlo Alberto to grant a Statuto or constitution. Giacomo Durando, who returned from his exile to Piedmont and founded the journal L’Opinione, supported Cavour’s request. Disturbances in Sicily, public discontent in Lombardy, a growing anti-Jesuit agitation following the publication of Gioberti’s Gesuita Moderna and the pervasive hatred of Austria troubled conservatives and led them to question whether reform prevented or encouraged revolution.
The year 1848 opened with turmoil in Milan, where the boycott of tobacco and the state lottery provoked disturbances and led to a cavalry charge upon the unarmed citizenry. The Lombard Congregation, having little power beyond the right to petition the Crown, called for an investigation. At the other end of the peninsula in Palermo, tremors erupted from the volcanic soil of Sicily. Initially calling for a civic guard, in January 1848 protesters in Palermo escalated their demands. An ultimatum was transmitted to Ferdinando to restore the constitution of 1812 by 12th January, his birthday – or face the consequences. When the women of the city approached the viceroy’s palace on the morning of 12th January, it was to learn that their demands had been rejected. An uprising ensued which soon engulfed other parts of the island. Resorting first to repression, the government soon changed its tune, and on 29 January 1848, Ferdinando published the bases of a common Constitution for Naples and Sicily. The City of the Vespers lit a torch threatening to ignite all of Italy, and to the Austrians the Italian situation looked serious indeed.
In Turin Carlo Alberto responded to the petitions of the municipal council and the pleadings of Cavour in the Risorgimento by his proclamation granting a Statuto. Metternich was hardly reassured by the assertion in the Risorgimento of 9 February 1848 that the king, in granting his people a constitution, had increased his influence in Italian and European affairs more than had he doubled the size of his army. On 11th February, the Grand Duke of Tuscany found he could no longer deny his people a constitution, and the next day the Pope created a new government dominated largely by laymen. Even in Rome there was talk of constitutionalism. Metternich was shocked that the Pope permitted celebrations in his capital for the triumph of constitutionalism in Naples, concluding that the Papal government endured such festivities, because it lacked the power to prohibit them.24
Metternich predicted that the age of liberalism in Italy, and the reforms passed under its veil, would soon end, and the radicals and revolutionaries would emerge undisguised. He did not second Guizot’s suggestion that Austria intervene in Italy, fearing that this would lead her into an ambush. Imperial forces would respond if the Pope appealed for assistance and if there were a general consensus among the powers that Austria should move to preserve order. Nonetheless, Austria remained alert to the danger in Italy, reinforcing her troops there, while the energetic Field Marshal Radetzky, despite his eightytwo years, prepared to confront all who challenged Habsburg authority. On 22nd February, he declared a state of siege in Venice, and leaders of the national party, such as Daniele Manin and Nicolò Tommaseo, were thrust into prison.
Metternich discarded the possibility of a peaceful Italian liberalism, forecasting anarchy, revolution and war.25 As Austrian hostility to Italian developments became increasingly apparent, there was the call for the princes of the peninsula to prepare for military measures to defend their position. Massimo D’Azeglio argued in the columns of the Risorgimento that even the Pope, as a temporal sovereign, had the obligation to defend his territory and people against Austrian pretensions. As Pope he was minister of charity, justice and peace, but as a prince he assumed the responsibility of defending the public order against its enemies. Cavour concurred, noting that in the past Pius had protested against Austrian aggression, and in the process defended the principle of Italian independence.26
Within his own state, Pius found a mounting fear of Austrian intervention, prompting the call for military readiness. When the independence of a state was menaced by a potent enemy, the Circolo Romano (a radical club) petitioned the Consulta, to allow the people had the sacred right to assure their own defence.27 The Consulta agreed, and asked the government to organize a military force, calling upon Carlo Alberto to supply an expert to assist the pontifical regime. Pius, however, advised calm and cautioned restraint, denouncing the attempt to agitate the people of Italy into a foreign war. He reassured his subjects that if he were threatened, Catholics worldwide would spring to his defence, providing a safeguard for Italians as well. Within this framework he blessed Italy, and her most precious gift -the Catholic faith. However, this benediction was taken out of context, and given a nationalist and anti-Austrian tone which the Pope had not intended.
As the clamour for war against Austria mounted, Pius looked for increased cooperation with the other constitutional monarchs in the tariff league. The ministers of Austria, Prussia and Russia, he informed his friend, Cardinal Amat, had expressed their displeasure to those monarchs who had granted constitutions. Now, more than ever, the Holy Father appreciated the need to act in concert with the states of the Italian League.28 He wrote to Leopoldo of Tuscany that from the first he believed that the customs union would evolve eventually into a political league whose objectives were defensive rather than offensive. These were the instructions he provided his diplomatic representatives in Turin, Florence and Naples, charged with completing the accord. Realizing that he, too, could not avoid constitutionalism, Pius indicated that the political league would be formed by the main Italian powers: the Papal States, Naples, Tuscany and Piedmont, which little by little were being transformed into constitutional regimes.
The Grand Duke of Tuscany shared the Pope’s vision, and wrote to Carlo Alberto imploring him to conclude the political union which the Piedmontese king had earlier proposed. Like Pius, Leopoldo believed that the constitutional regimes could best defend themselves by means of a defensive league, and urged its immediate approval. However, Carlo Alberto, having more aggressive aims, gave a tardy and evasive response. Psychologically committed to a national war of liberation against Austria, and coveting part of the territories of the duchies, the Piedmontese king could not afford to be burdened by a defensive alliance under the Pope’s leadership.
The vacillations of the Italian monarchs were, however, overtaken by events. On 24 February 1848 there was a revolution in Paris which resulted in the flight of King Louis Philippe to London. The provisional government which followed declared its peaceful intentions, but indicated that should a number of oppressed nationalities seek to remove the chains which bound them, France reserved the right to guard their legitimate aspirations. Italians had no sooner learned of developments in France, when word spread of the students’ revolution in Vienna and the flight of Metternich, the high priest of the status quo and the arch-enemy of Italian independence. Soon after, the people of Milan rose in rebellion against their occupation, triggering the First Italian War of Independence.
Notes
1. Mémoires, documents et écrits divers laissés par le Prince de Metternich, ed. Prince Richard Metternich with the papers arranged and classified by M.A. de Klinkowstroem (Paris: Plon, 1880–84), VII, 246–8; Angelo Filipuzzi, Pio IX e la politica austriaca in Italia del 1815 al 1848 (nella relazione di Ricardo Weiss di Starkenfels) (Florence: Felice Le Monnier, 1958), p. 131.
2. Dispatch of Apostolic Nuncio in Vienna to the Papal Secretary of State transmitting Metternich’s report on Central Italy, Archivio Segreto del Vaticano, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Ogetti Vari, no. 412; Mémoires … Metternich, VII, p. 255; Giovanni Maioli (ed), Pio IX da vescovo a Pontefice, Lettere al Card. Luigi Amat. Agosto 1839-Luglio 1848 (Modena: Società Modenese, 1943), p. 59.
3. George F. Berkeley and Joan Berkeley, Italy in the Making, 1815–1848 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932–40), II, p. 44.
4. Mémoires … Metternich, VII, pp. 298–300, 407–8.
5. Massimo D’Azeglio, I miei ricordi (Milan: Rizzoli, 1956), p. 475.
6. Political Report on Central Italy sent by Metternich to Cardinal Gizzi (1846), ASV, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Ogetti Vari, no. 412; Pius IX to Carlo Alberto, 6 October 1846, ASV, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Sovrani, Sardegna; Mémoires … Metternich, VII, pp. 331, 339.
7. Luigi Rava (ed.), Epistolario di Luigi Carlo Farini (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1911), p. 570.
8. Romolo Quazza, Pio IX e Massimo D’Azeglio nelle vicende romane del 1847 (Modena: Società Editrice Modenese, 1954), I, p. 168; II, p. 5.
9. Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series, vol. 95, 1059, 14 December 1847; Posthumous Papers ofJessie White Mario: the Birth of Modern Italy, ed. Duke Litta-Visconti-Arese (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909), p. 114.
10. Giacomo Martina, Pio IX (1846–1850) (Rome: Università Gregoriana Editrice, 1974), 146–150; Quazza, II, 148–9; Great Britain, British and Foreign States Papers (BFSP), 1847–48), XXXVI, 1228–33.
11. Palmerston to Viscount Ponsonby, 13 August 1847, BFSP, (1847–48), XXXVI, 1234.
12. Quazza, I, pp. 20, 120; Martina, p. 150; Filipuzzi, p. 176.
13. Lillian Parker Wallace, ‘Pius IX and Lord Palmerston, 1846–1849’, in L.P. Wallace and William C. Askew, Power, Public Opinion and Diplomacy (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 1959), pp. 20, 30; Quazza, II, p. 156; Carlo Alberto to Pius IX, 26 September 1847, ASV, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Sovrani, Sardegna, no. 63.
14. ‘Convenzione conchiusa tra la Santità di Nostro Signore e Sua Maesta Carlo Alberto re di Sardegna sul commerio reciproco di ambi gli Stati,’ Atti del Sommo Pontefice Pio Nono. Felicement Regnante. Parte Seconda che comprende i motu-propri, chirografi, editi, notificazioni, ec per lo Stato Pontificio (Rome: Tipografia delle Belle Arti, 1857), I, pp. 109–20; Quazza, II, pp. 81–2; 91–2.
15. Memorial Containing Considerations for the Project of a Confederation Among the Italian States, 1847, ASV, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Ogetti Vari, no. 368; Quazza, II, pp. 148–9.
16. Monsignor Corboli Bussi to Pius IX, 30 August 1847, and 10 September 1847, ASV, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Sovrani, Stato Pontificio; Palmerston to Ponsonby, 20 April 1847, BFSP (1847–48), XXXVI, 1204–5.
17. Pietro Orsi, Cavour and the Making of Modern Italy 1810–1861 (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1914), p. 85.
18. Monsignor Corboli Bussi to Pius IX, 16 September 1847 and 21 September 1847, ASV, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Sovrani, Stato Pontificio.
19. Monsignor Corboli Bussi to Pius IX, 29 September 1847, ASV, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Sovrani, Stato Pontificio.
20. Monsignor Corboli Bussi to Pius IX, 8 October 1847 and 14 October 1847, ASV, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Sovrani, Stato Pontificio.
21. Earl of Minto to Palmerston, 8 October 1847, BFSP (1847–47), XXXVI, 1293.
22. Monsignor Corboli Bussi to Pius IX, 16 October 1847 and 19 October 1847, ASV, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Sovrani, Stato Pontificio.
23. Considerations on the project of a Confederation Among the Italian states, ASV, Archivio Particolare Pio IX, Ogetti Vari, no. 368.
24. ‘Programma’, Il Risorgimento, 15 December 1847: Il Risorgimento, 8 February 1848; BFSP (1848–49), XXXVII, 856–857; Mémoires … Metternich, VII, pp. 592–3.
25. Mémoires … Metternich, VII, pp. 558–64.
26. Il Risorgimento, 14 January 1848 and 19 January 1848.
27. Luigi Carlo Farini, Lo Stato Romano dall’anno 1815 al 1850 (3rd edn, Florence: Felice Le Monnier, 1853), I, p. 322.
28. BFSP (1848–49), XXXVII, 866–7; Maioli, p. 116.