Italian Unification Essay

In a letter to an Italian friend, Napoleon wrote, “I do not wish to see Italy united. I want only independence. Unity would bring danger to me…” (Doc 11). Despite all of the bitter resentment, Cavour was pleasantly surprised when the northern and central states of Italy called for a fusion, and he returned to power in 1860 (McKay et al

Benito Mussolini which was born in 1883 and died in 1945. He came to power with his new ideas in 1919, called Fascio di Combat, which is also known as Fascism.

There was much concern about the growing cities in the north while the south remained to depend on its agriculture for support. These concern have not yet been resolved to this day. To gain more territories, Italy joined Germany and Austria in the Triple Alliance in 1882 to conquer Ethiopia and Turkey (Defusco). At the outbreak of World War I, Italy remained neutral until 1915, when the Allies promised Italy more territories (Defusco). At the end of the war Italy only received two of the territories it was promised, which created a strong nationalistic view and disappointment amongst its people.

Therefore, they strategically persuaded European powers to fight against Austria…Italy provoked Austria into war Cavour then used Garibaldi’s popular appeal to his benefit. “When Garibaldi and Emmanuel rode through Naples to cheering crowds, they symbolically sealed the union of north and south, of monarch and people.” (McKay, 837) Italy was now unified.

Both of these political leaders took over and used the ideas of fascism as their type of government, the people gravitated towards them especially during times of need. To start, Benito Mussolini who was a newspaper editor and politician who pledged to rescue Italy during their time of desperate need. Fascism was on the rise in Italy, it was fueled by their disappointment and failure to win large territorial gains. People gravitated towards the new and vastly improving idea of Fascism. Italians wanted a leader who would take action and they found their answer in Benito Mussolini. Mussolini had vowed to provide strong leadership to the Italian people during this time. Mussolini had founded the Fascist Party in the year of 1919. When Italy’s economic problems continued to worsen, Mussolini’s power would considerably grow. Mussolini’s number one weapon during his rise to power was fear, he used the fear of people to take control over them. Soon thereafter, Mussolini and 30,000 of his Fascist supporters marched to Rome demanding the King step down and hand over his total power to Mussolini. The King gave in to their demands and gave Benito Mussolini full control over the Italian government. Mussolini became the Il Duce, or leader, and he made fascism the ruling political party in

Whoever ignores this love of the individual regions of Italy will always build on sand.” (DOC 2) People believed the diverse social classes and power would not make for a unified country. Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, a politician from Piedmont-Sardinia, said, “Active power resides almost exclusively in the middle class and part of the upper class, both of which have ultraconservative interests to defend.” (DOC 4) Daniele Manin, a politician from Venice, wrote, “Peoples who have different origins and customs should not be forced together, because otherwise civil war will follow the war of independence.” (DOC 6) People against unification felt that bringing the diverse states together would cause more problems and do more harm than good. There were obvious pros and cons to the unification if Italy, but some civilians were on the fence.

Along with the Fascist Party, came the idea of a "perfect" race of man, and persecution. Hitler’s idea of a non-Jewish race appealed to Mussolini. Before the war began, Benito Mussolini and his army started their persecution of the Jews in Italy. This did not last long, however, because Mussolini’s popularity began to fall. As his popularity among his people began to decline, so did his relations with many European nations. Much of Italy’s foreign relations depended solely on treaties and pacts. (5) As Germany and Italy moved together towards a uniform society, the strength and honor of the treaties were in jeopardy.

Through scholarly research of Florentine politics and daily life during the rule of the Medici, it is affirmed that Giralamo Savonarola used religion and fear to inhibit the progression of the Renaissance in Florence.

The Roman Republic began in 509 B.C.E. with the overthrow of the Etruscan monarchy. In 27 B.C.E the Roman Empire began with Octavian Caesar becoming the emperor, this ended almost 500 years of republican self-government. There is much debate over why Rome became so powerful so quickly. Many think it had to do with Rome's military strength. Others think that it was because Rome knew of and controlled most of the trade routes. Still others believed it had to do with the technology that was advanced during the Roman Republic. All of these factors played significant roles, but which one played the most important role?

The failure of the Italian revolutions cannot be attributed to one reason as there are a plethora of reasons which could be cited as a main cause. The main reasons which could be argued as the most important reasons for the failure of the Italian revolts are the lack of organisation within revolutionary groups, the Austrian army’s strength, the political and military inexperience of those in power, the Pope’s abandonment of the revolution, the hesitation of Charles Albert to front the campaign of unity and Bonaparte’s intervention. In 1815 Italy was not recognised as a country, Metternich, an Austrian statesman, said "The word 'Italy' is a geographical expression, a description which is useful shorthand, but has none of the political

We see other clear cut examples of nationalism in Italy as well. The journey that Italy took to statehood in the 1800s involved various figureheads performing different roles. The nationalism of Italy began with Mazzini who laid the ideological base for a united Italy. He wrote many pamphlets, papers, and dissertations on the manifest destiny, if you will, of the Italian people to unify. This rhetoric was stirring to the young middle class individuals of Italy who accepted this ideology and supported ideological efforts for a unified Italy. Cavour, of the province of Piedmont is where the basis of a real Italian resurgence would begin. Cavour wanted Piedmont to be the basis of the Risorgimento, or the Italian resurgence. Piedmont was developing well from an industrial perspective and by siphoning trade agreements away from Austria was able to develop into an industrial base for further operations. The actual, boots on the ground venture was led by Garibaldi who recruited many young men to serve in “The Expedition of The Thousand.” The rising nationalism of the time period, as well as the efforts of Mazzini stirred these young middle and

However organisation of the party was no mean feat as it contained many different viewpoints from many members that had been sourced from some of the most extreme and militant movements in Italy. This is the first reason

The Italian Unification is a time period during which Italy becomes unified as one country. While trying to unify the country there were obstacles faced and conquered by Mazzini, Cavour, and Garibaldi as they continued to unify Italy. They pushed Nationalism on the people. The problems that were faced during the time of the unification were the Austrian occupation of Lombardy and Venice. Also, the land still belonged to the Pope and not the government which meant that it did not really belong to everyone and didn’t symbolize unification. The last problem is there is an existence of many independent states which means there were states ruling themselves.

As a result of how Italy was created but not fully unified, the new Italian state suffered from a variety of weaknesses which the new liberal state was unable to tackle these. This made Italy susceptible to the appeal of fascism, and therefore aided Mussolini’s rise to power.

Obviously, the newly united Italian state was greeted with much celebration. Unfortunately, it was also only a start. In truth, fundamental problems still plagued the country and had to be addressed if complete hegemony was to be achieved: firstly, the new Kingdom of Italy suffered from extreme backwardness and secondly, it was still deeply divided. The new Italy was split between north and south, between cities and countryside, between regions, between cities and localities,