Essay about What Was the Main Reason for Italian Unification

In order to restore France after the Napoleonic Era, the Quadruple Alliance, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Great Britain, held a meeting called the Congress of Vienna in order to establish peace between countries. The four countries decided that creating borders within Europe and receiving compensation in the form of territory would be an effective reminder of the pain France had caused during its revolution. After decades of dealing with borders placed by the Quadruple Alliance, the inhabitants of Italy wanted a more unified peninsula. Although many leaders of Europe proposed ideas for fixing this problem, many of them such as Cavour and Napoleon III had ulterior motives. The unification of Italy took such a long time because its politicians were not being honest about what they actually wanted.

The war created many social and political problems throughout the country and by the election of 1919 things changed dramatically. The socialists and popular Catholic parties took over the Parliament, which lead to the ideas of a revolution among the people (Defusco). One leader of this revolution was Benito Mussolini, who founded a movement called Fascism. After four years of revolution, Mussolini took over as the dictator of Italy and eliminated civil liberties, political parties, and encouraged a totalitarian regime (Defusco). Mussolini soon joined forces with Hitler and World War II came into affect. The Fascists later turned on Mussolini and Italy joined the Allies to fight Germany. This reaction lead to a strong anti-Fascist movement called the Committee of National Liberation (Defusco). By the year 1946 the idea for a republic was anonymous. Various parties were

Being one of the leading figures in the European government, Prince Klemens von Metternich was a political master in the Austrian empire where he became an architect of a coalition system among the European powers. The alliance system he instituted strived to undo the damages that the traditional dynastic politics had suffered after Napoleon had been defeated in the French revolution. According to “Austria Confronts the French Revolution (1792-1815)” (Chapter 9, pg. 130), Metternich was an admirer of the enlightenment. He wanted to restore Europe to its previous status quo while undoing the disorders that had been caused by Napoleon. He was highly instrumental in cleaning up this mess and was a conservative man. He was able to see how the French revolution had damaged France.

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.

3. In the mid-nineteenth century, Italy wasn’t unified. Italy was made up of independent states that nationalist wanted unified, but failed. Mazzini was “the most important nationalist leader in Europe and brought new fervor to the cause” (690). Mazzini desperately wanted Italy to be united and it finally was and became the Italian Republic. In 1860, the country shaped boot became a nation-state. After the war with Austria, “the forces of romantic republican nationalism compelled Cavour to pursue the complete unification of northern and southern Italy” (691).

“The representatives in the Congress of Vienna wanted to prevent France’s aggression by surrounding France with stronger nations, restore balance of power, so no country would be a threat to others and restore Europe’s royal families to the thrones they head held before Napoleon’s coquets” (Beck, 239). In order to make the weak nations around France stronger, the former Austrian Netherlands and Dutch Republic were united to form the Kingdom of the Netherlands. “Group of 39 German states were loosely joined as the newly create German confederation, dominate by Austria. Leaders of Europe wanted to weaken France, but also didn’t want to leave it powerless. If they did, the French might rebel to take revenge but if France became weaker and was broken up, another country might become so strong that it would threaten them all. France remained a major but diminished European powers” (Beck, 239). Nevertheless, not all-important decisions were made by the great powers.

"Just how the revolution would have evolved if war had not intervened in the spring of 1792 is one of history's elusive `might have beens' . France had now gone into a state of riot, a counter-revolution had broken out in the vendee and war had broken out with Austria. The convention

Giuseppe Mazzini was instrumental in unifying the Italian nation as his ideals spread throughout Italy’s intellectual community. Although many of his attempts at rallying the common people to a revolution failed, he circulated and popularized the idea of a fully unified Italy for the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire. In his work “The Duties of Man,” Mazzini establishes that he is largely a romantic nationalist, since he draws heavily on history; however, he utilizes the power of certain liberal nationalist sentiments such as individuals’ rights in his own work.

When Napoleon was sentenced to exile in Elba, The Congress of Vienna was held. The Congress of Vienna was supposed to sort out all of Europe’s problems in a nonviolent way. Countries from all over Europe sent their delegates to represent them. The big countries were Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Their delegates decided on a new Europe, a Europe that left both Italy and Germany divided into states. In 1861 Italy was unified, as well as Germany in 1871 due to strong nationalist movements. France lost the Alsace-Lorraine to Germany which had a lot of natural resources in the Franco-Prussian war and were now eager to take it back. In Sebria and Austria-Hungary lived large areas of differing nationalist groups, all enthusiastic to become free from the states in which they lived.

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

Furthermore, the divisions between the revolutionaries were accentuated when the Roman Republic was declared in favour of the Pope being the leader of the Papal States. The previous Pope, Pius IX had fled to Naples after not being able to declare war on a fellow Catholic state and continued to work with a constitutional government until his flight from Rome. The republic was led by Mazzini who took care of all political issues and provided inspiration whilst Garibaldi was in charge of

The Italian Unification brought a rise to Nationalism. Nationalism is when a nation is joined together in ways of government, leaders, or religion. Nationalism is Italy gives freedom of press and power to the government or one ruler. This is exactly what had been done in the Italian Unification. They united under one rule and became a singular country. They also received freedom of the press and a new Parliament during the time of Camillo di Cavour. Mazzini, Cavour, and Garibaldi all used their ideas to help with the unification witch

”My goal, which was, I believe, shared by most italians at that time, was to unite the country and rid it of foreign powers. Those who gave Italy her freedom would earn her people’s gratitude” (Garibaldi, page 6). During the age of Italian unification, there were three men who fought for her (Italy’s) freedom. Those men were Cavour the brains, Mazzini the soul, and Garibaldi the sword (Chastain).

The main political alignments of the newly unified Italy were the liberalists, socialist and the Catholic Church supporters and they all had different views and opposed each other. When Giolitti was in power he tried to win over all the key groups in order for them to accept and support the liberal state, however he was unable to do so because in trying to please one section he would end up alienating the other.

1870 is a year to remember in Italian history: indeed, on 20 September 1870, the Italian army marched into Rome and captured the city, completing the unification process begun by Garibaldi and his Thousand in Sicily ten years earlier, in 1860.