The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) - J. Holland Rose

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period. In fact, most of the political occurrences on the Continent in the years 1815 to 1870--the revolts, revolutions, and wars, that give a special character to the history of the century--resulted directly from the bad or imperfect arrangements of the Congress of Vienna and of the so-called Holy Alliance of the monarchs who sought to perpetuate them. The effect of this widespread discontent was not felt at once. The peoples were too exhausted by the terrific strain of the Napoleonic wars to do much for a generation or more, save in times of popular excitement. Except in the south-east of Europe, where Greece, with the aid of Russia, Britain, and France, wrested her political independence from the grasp of the Sultan (1827), the forty years that succeeded Waterloo were broken by no important war; but they were marked by oft-recurring unrest and sedition. Thus, when the French Revolution of 1830 overthrew the reactionary dynasty of the elder Bourbons, the universal excitement caused by this event endowed the Belgians with strength sufficient to shake off the heavy yoke of the Dutch; while in Italy, Germany, and Poland the democrats and nationalists (now working generally in accord) made valiant but unsuccessful efforts to achieve their ideals.

      The same was the case in 1848. The excitement, which this time originated in Italy, spread to France, overthrew the throne of Louis Philippe (of the younger branch of the French Bourbons), and bade fair to roll half of the crowns of Europe into the gutter. But these spasmodic efforts of the democrats speedily failed. Inexperience, disunion, and jealousy paralysed their actions and yielded the victory to the old Governments. Frenchmen, in dismay at the seeming approach of communism and anarchy, fell back upon the odd expedient of a Napoleonic Republic, which in 1852 was easily changed by Louis Napoleon into an Empire modelled on that of his far greater uncle. The democrats of Germany achieved some startling successes over their repressive Governments in the spring of the year 1848, only to find that they could not devise a working constitution for the Fatherland; and the deputies who met at the federal capital, Frankfurt, to unify Germany "by speechifying and majorities," saw power slip back little by little into the hands of the monarchs and princes. In the Austrian Empire nationalist claims and strivings led to a very Babel of discordant talk and action, amidst which the young Hapsburg ruler, Francis Joseph, thanks to Russian military aid, was able to triumph over the valour of the Hungarians and the devotion of their champion, Kossuth.

      In Italy the same sad tale was told. In the spring of that year of revolutions, 1848, the rulers in quick succession granted constitutions to their subjects. The reforming Pope, Pius IX., and the patriotic King of Sardinia, Charles Albert, also made common cause with their peoples in the effort to drive out the Austrians from Lombardy-Venetia; but the Pope and all the potentates except Charles Albert speedily deserted the popular cause; friction between the King and the republican leaders, Mazzini and Garibaldi, further weakened the nationalists, and the Austrians had little difficulty in crushing Charles Albert's forces, whereupon he abdicated in favour of his son, Victor Emmanuel II. (1849). The Republics set up at Rome and Venice struggled valiantly for a time against great odds--Mazzini, Garibaldi, and their volunteers being finally overborne at the Eternal City by the French troops whom Louis Napoleon sent to restore the Pope (June 1849); while, two months later, Venice surrendered to the Austrians whom she had long held at bay. The Queen of the Adriatic under the inspiring dictatorship of Manin had given a remarkable example of orderly constitutional government in time of siege.

      It seemed to be the lot of the nationalists and democrats to produce leaders who could thrill the imagination of men by lofty teachings and sublime heroism; who could, in a word, achieve everything but success. A poetess, who looked forth from Casa Guidi windows upon the tragi-comedy of Florentine failure in those years, wrote that what was needed was a firmer union, a more practical and intelligent activity, on the part both of the people and of the future leader:

      A land's brotherhood

       Is most puissant: men, upon the whole,

       Are what they can be,--nations, what they would.

       Will therefore to be strong, thou Italy!

       Will to be noble! Austrian Metternich

       Can fix no yoke unless the neck agree.

       Whatever hand shall grasp this oriflamme,

       Whatever man (last peasant or first Pope

       Seeking to free his country) shall appear,

       Teach, lead, strike fire into the masses, fill

       These empty bladders with fine air, insphere

       These wills into a unity of will,

       And make of Italy a nation--dear

       And blessed be that man!

      When Elizabeth Barrett Browning penned those lines she cannot have surmised that two men were working their way up the rungs of the political ladder in Piedmont and Prussia, whose keen intellects and masterful wills were to weld their Fatherlands into indissoluble union within the space of one momentous decade. These men were Cavour and Bismarck.

      It would far exceed the limits of space of this brief Introduction to tell, except in the briefest outline, the story of the plodding preparation and far-seeing diplomacy by which these statesmen raised their respective countries from depths of humiliation to undreamt of heights of triumph. The first thing was to restore the prestige of their States. No people can be strong in action that has lost belief in its own powers and has allowed its neighbours openly to flout it. The history of the world has shown again and again that politicians who allow their country to be regarded as une quantité négligeable bequeath to some abler successor a heritage of struggle and war--struggle for the nation to recover its self-respect, and war to regain consideration and fair treatment from others. However much frothy talkers in their clubs may decry the claims of national prestige, no great statesman has ever underrated their importance. Certainly the first aim both of Cavour and Bismarck was to restore self-respect and confidence to their States after the humiliations and the dreary isolation of those dark years, 1848–51. We will glance, first, at the resurrection (Risorgimento) of the little Kingdom of Sardinia, which was destined to unify Italy.

      Charles Albert's abdication immediately after his defeat by the Austrians left no alternative to his son and successor, Victor Emmanuel II., but that of signing a disastrous peace with Austria. In a short time the stout-hearted young King called to his councils Count Cavour, the second son of a noble Piedmontese family, but of firmly Liberal principles, who resolved to make the little kingdom the centre of enlightenment and hope for despairing Italy. He strengthened the constitution (the only one out of many granted in 1848 that survived the time of reaction); he reformed the tariff in the direction of Free Trade; and during the course of the Crimean War he persuaded his sovereign to make an active alliance with France and England, so as to bind them by all the claims of honour to help Sardinia in the future against Austria. The occasion was most opportune; for Austria was then suspected and disliked both by Russia and the Western Powers owing to her policy of armed neutrality. Nevertheless the reward of Cavour's diplomacy came slowly and incompletely. By skilfully vague promises (never reduced to writing) Cavour induced Napoleon III. to take up arms against Austria; but, after the great victory of Solferino (June 24, 1859), the French Emperor enraged the Italians by breaking off the struggle before the allies recovered the great province of Venetia, which he had pledged himself to do. Worse still, he required the cession of Savoy and Nice to France, if the Central Duchies and the northern part of the Papal States joined the Kingdom of Sardinia, as they now did. Thus, the net result of Napoleon's intervention in Italy was his acquisition of Savoy and Nice (at the price of Italian hatred), and the gain of Lombardy and the central districts for the national cause (1859–60).

      The agony of mind caused by this comparative failure undermined Cavour's health; but in the last months of his life he helped to impel and guide the revolutionary elements in Italy to an enterprise that ended in a startling and momentous triumph. This was nothing less than the overthrow of Bourbon rule in Sicily and Southern Italy by Garibaldi. Thanks to Cavour's connivance, this dashing republican organised an expedition of about 1000 volunteers near Genoa, set sail for Sicily, and by a few blows shivered the chains of tyranny in that island. It is noteworthy that British war-ships lent him covert but most important help at Palermo and again in his crossing to the mainland; this timely aid and the presence of a band

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