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ITALIAN UNITY
AND THE
NATIONAL MOVEMENT IN EUROPE.
*
�*** These Lectures were lately delivered at Brighton. The intention of the Lecturer was to explain the nature of the national idea, now
feimenting in the minds of so many European populations ; an his
torical sketch of the movement in Italy, from its rise to the present
time, being given as affording the best practical illustration of the
principle at work. The subject derives, perhaps, more interest from
the recent visit of Garibaldi, and from the remarkable discussion which
took place in our House of Commons, concerning the character and
doctrines of Mazzini, as the friend of a member of the Government.
A few additions have been made in preparing the Lectures for
publication.
London, June, 1864.
�/
LECTURE I.
Prevalent Mistakes concerning the Movement—True Character of the National
Idea—This Idea best illustrated in the Italian Movement—Rise of the National
Feeling in Italy—Mazzini, the Apostle of Unity—His Teaching—The Giovine
Italia—The National Party—The Moderate Party—Revolution, at Milan andVenice—Charles Albert—His Vacillation and Defeat—Flight of Pius IX._
The Roman Republic—Mazzini, Saffi Armellini, Triumvirs—The French Inva
sion-Garibaldi—Fall of Rome—This Epoch misunderstood in England—
Prejudice against Mazzini,
In addressing you upon the Italian question and the National move
ment in Europe, my only claim to your attention consists in my
acquaintance with a subject which has become one of deep and general
interest. The views I am about to express are founded upon observa
tion during many years passed in Italy, and upon much study of the
general question of nationality.
Italian unity,—that is to say, the formation of Italy into one state,—
which for so many years we were accustomed to regard as a mere
Utopia, a dream of the enthusiast, is now generally accepted as a pro
bable reality of future European history ; and even beyond Italy, in
other populations, we recognise the same aspiration to national ex
istence growing up and gaining strength continually. Hence the
Italian movement has a double claim upon our interest and upon our
study. It has a claim for Italy’s own sake : Italy, that has twice given
law to Europe, and rises now to new life amid the ruins of two epochs
of the .world’s history—the Rome of the Cassars, the Rome of medieval
Christianity: Italy, upon whose brow may still be traced the radiance
of imperishable genius. But it has yet a stronger claim ; if we study
the rise and development of the national sentiment among the Italians,
as an illustration of the nature and working of a great power which is
already acting in a wider sphere ; and which heralds the approach of a
new era for Europe as well as Italy.
One glance over Europe at the present moment shows us the national
idea, the form of its expression varying from local circumstances,
manifesting itself in the aspirations or the struggles of more than half
the people of the Continent. In softe countries, as in Germany and
Italy, it is tending to the amalgamation of many states into one ; in the
Austrian and Turkish Empires it acts, on the contrary, as dissolvent,
and is likely to separate those great empires into several tates. In
Poland it takes, the simple and direct form of a struggle against a
foieign domination; and, turning at the cry of agony which reaches us
from that country, we behold a spectacle of sublime energy and indomi
table courage. Hungary has gone through one contest already, and is
preparing for another, to win for herself a perfect and independent
B2
�4
Prevalent Mistakes concerning the Movement,
national existence. In Italy there are signs indicating that a fresh
advance will soon be made for the completion of unity by the acquisition
of Venice and of Rome. In the Ionian Islands our government has '
lately recognised and acceded to the desire of the people to form one
nation with those of their own race and language. Even the war in
Schleswig-Holstein was first entered upon in the name of German
nationality ; while, in reference to Denmark, we have heard prophecies
of a future Scandinavian nation comprising that country, Sweden, and
Norway.
But what is the real nature of this great motive power at work in
Europe, and tending to such gigantic changes?
I think English impressions generally concerning it may be thus
described. Until the year 1859 or 1860 we never thoroughly believed
in it; since that time we have believed in it, but still very imperfectly
understanding it.
It is better to begin by clearing the ground of obstructions which
impede the view of the question in its true and grand proportions, and
I will strike at once at what I conceive to have been oui’ chief source
of disbelief or error. I mean the practice of applying to other countries
opinions derived only from the traditions, oi’ founded on the wants of
our own.
England and France are almost the only countries not likely to be
affected by this great movement; hence we have not felt its force oi’ its
necessity. In all the revolutionary agitation and tendency to change
pervading Europe, we saw only political questions, restiveness under
oppression, a question, in short, of good or bad government. If Poland
rose in insurrection, we thought of no way of accounting for it but by
the tyranny of the Czar, as if the Poles, but for this tyranny, would
neither have a claim to national existence, noi’ desire it. If Hungary
was in revolt, it was in our eyes simply the result of the bad govern
ment of Austria. If the Christian populations of the Turkish Empire
were discontended or rebellious, we imputed it only to the insupportable
oppression of their Turkish masters. It 'was the same in regard to
Italy; for nearly half-a-century that country had presented to us a
picture of continued revolutionary agitation. In the intervals between
the more marked and important insurrections, repeated conspiracies still
showed the volcanic fire smouldering under compression ; and periodi
cally our sympathy and indignation used to be raised at once by be
holding the flower of Italian manhood, intelligence, and worth, perishing
on the scaffold, cast into dungeons, or driven into exile. But while we
contemplated the outward form of the struggle, the hearts of the
Italians were a sealed book to us, we knew nothing of the thoughts,
hopes, and aspirations that were written there. While they were
*
yearning for national existence, and for redemption from the yoke of
the foreigner and the priest, they used to hear from England only the
reiterated recommendation to imitate the English form of government.
And Englishmen, generally impressed with the practicability of so
simple an antidote to tyranny on one side and revolution on the other,
used to marvel at the blindness both of the people and their rulers.
By our indiscriminate recommendation of constitutional government
we used to appear in the eyes of European people like a charlatan,
�True Character of the National Idea.
o
who has the same remedy for every disease. The question never
seemed to occur to us; if all this discontent and this tendency to change
in Europe are caused only by bad government, how is the bad govern
ment itself to be accounted, for ? Have so many European sovereigns,
without any motive whatever, adopted and resolutely persevered in
a system of oppression that endangers their own thrones? Such a
theory could not be accepted. Self-interest is clear-sighted; and,
though some princes may play the tyrant for love of the part, still, as a
general rule, each adopts the system dictated by his interests or his
safety. Those sovereigns were trembling in the presence of a danger
we did not believe in, or could not see. All that revolutionary ferment
was to them prophetic of a reconstruction of the map of Europe; and
their tyranny, like most tyranny, was the offspring of fear. In Italy,
for instance, the national idea obviously excluded the possibility of
retaining more than one, if any, of the seven Italian monarchies; and
circumstances had long ago pointed to the sovereign of Piedmont as
the one who, if he chose, might profit by this door of escape. What
chance of safety then had the other six but in resistance ? in either
crushing put this great hope from the hearts of their subjects, or holding
them chained and prostrate, powerless to work out in action the aspira
tion of their souls ?
The year 1860 may, I think, be taken as the epoch when we awakened
to the conviction of the reality of the national tendency. The events
of that year in Sicily and Naples could not be misinterpreted ; and our
diplomatists, enlightened in their views of other countries by this tardy
discovery of the truth in Italy, began then to recognise this national
aspiration as a great European question and difficulty. .
But truth still contends with error; some of the old mistakes or
prejudices.linger. Either our statesmen do not grasp the full meaning
of the national idea, or they shrink from following it out to its logical
consequences, and from entering, even in discussion, upon a region so
vast and unexplored. Whenever the state of those countries which are
agitated by this great hope, is under discussion in our Parliament, the
debates still turn upon the merits or demerits of the governments; as if
the root of the question, and the solution of the problem, were to be
found in the mode of governing.
Now, a desire to be better governed is one thing; the aspiration to
national existence is another. No doubt, good government, material
prosperity, the gradual perfecting of society, are all comprised in the
anticipated results of the realisation of national existence; but they do
not constitute the direct aim that is worked for; they do not form the
banner that is fought under. This aim is something loftier and more
ideal ; something from which a peo'ple would not be turned aside by
beneficence in its government, as we have seen in the case of the popu
lation of the Ionian Islands; something that has even been pursued, in
certain instances, deliberately at a sacrifice for a time of material pros
perity, or with the consciousness that governments were thus being
driven.into oppression that might otherwise be endurable. The national
aspiration is a tendency in European populations to form themselves into
groupssuch as are dictated by an awakening consciousness that each
people, in its collective or national life, has a distinct phase of humanity
�6
The Idea best Illustrated in the Italian Movement.
to represent, and, beyond the question of its rights or interests, has a
duty to fulfil to humanity, and a special mission in the work of Euro
pean civilization. The phenomena of the movement are not consistent,
as I apprehend I shall be able to show you, with the theory of a less ideal
or elevated aim.
In giving our sympathy or compassion to the Poles, Italians, Hun
garians, or other European peoples suffering under oppression, and in
expressing our indignation against their oppressors, we have done well.
May Englishmen ever feel thus for the oppressed on one side, towards
the oppressor on the other. But let not this compassion or this'indigna
tion divert our attention from the higher meaning of the European move
ment ; neithei’ the suffering nor the tyranny constitute the true question
of nationality; they have been only incidents—and incidents inevitably
occurring—in the course of the great work of change, as the Europe of
the future began to clash with the Europe of the past.
In inquiries of this kind, much depends upon the extension of the
view over a wide expanse of time and space. If the view is contracted,
events are taken in isolation, and each is imputed to some local or
transitory source. A pervading principle is manifest in the whole, not in
the fragments. There is a story told of Rembrandt, that he reproved
some one who examined closely the details of his picture piece by piece,
saying, “ Pictures are not painted to be smelt, but to be looked at.”
And he was right. The details which, examined closely and separately,
have no meaning, seen from the point of view at which the eye takes
in the whole, blend harmoniously together to form one great design;
and each has its signification and importance in conveying the idea of
the artist’s mind.
I shall now present to you an historical sketch of the movement in
Italy from its rise to the present time. Italy affords the most complete
and advanced manifestation of the principle. And, slight as my sketch
must necessarily be, it will enable you to embrace in one view the
whole movement in that country: and you will clearly see the great
thought or purpose th>t pervades it all.
More than six centuries ago Dante, had a presentiment of a future
Italian nation—of the unity of Italy ; and from time to time this
national thought revived in the minds of the profoundest thinkers
among the Italians. But it remained an abstract idea, a theory of the
philosopher, a poet’s dream, till Mazzini transported it from the sphere
of imagination to the ground of reality; and, wedding action to thought,
made its practical achievment the subject of teaching and of contest
*
This great idea was like some sacred fire kept unextinguished for six
centuries, passing from hand to hand, guarded in succession by the elect
among the priesthood. The symbol of a future faith, and preserved in
the holiest recesses of the temple, it remained a secret or a mystery
for the multitude; waiting in the fulness of time, the coming of its
apostle, and the maturity of the people to receive it.
And in the interval between the prophecy of Dante, and the apostle
ship of Mazzini, a change was gradually working in the populations of
Italy, preparing them for their future destiny.
Wherever the love of liberty prevailed in Europe during the middle
ages, it seems to have been associated with a municipal spirit; there
�Rise of the National Feeling in Italy.
7
was, besides, among the Italians an excess of vitality and an individual
energy all tending to impede their union by the formation of many
distinct centres of activity. In some other parts of Europe, as the
feudal system declined, vast military despotisms were gradually forming
by conquest or absorption, out of more passive or servile materials ; and
in the sixteenth century the three great European powers, Austria,
France, and Spain, eager for conquest, burst at once upon Italy—a fresh
irruption of barbarians attracted by a wealth and civilisation superior to
their own. In the same century, Clement the Seventh commenced the
alliance of the Papacy with European despotism ; and this may be said,
speaking generally, to be the epoch of the loss of independence for the
Italians. Italy writhed and struggled for a time under the iron heel of
her tormentors, then sank into the apathy of exhaustion or despair.
For nearly three centuries her populations seemed resigned to be alter
nately torn as a prey and distributed as prizes by foreign powers, with
scarcely vitality enough remaining for a sense of their degradation. But
it was the stillness of a trance, not death; under this seeming apathy
the germs of a new life were forming. As foreign domination fell upon
them, it crumbled by its weight their old animosities into dust, and the
work of amalgamation into one people instinctively and rapidly pro
ceeded. After the last arbitrary partition of spoil and distribution of
populations by the great powers at the Congress of Vienna, Italy
awakened from her trance, palpitating with an undefined sense of a new
life.
.No sooner were the arrangements decreed by the treaties of 1815
carried into effect in Italy, than it became apparent that there prevailed
throughout the country a general restlessness. In the course of a few
years three distinct insurrections were each for a time completely suc
cessful: in Naples in 1820; in Piedmont during the following year,
and in Central Italy in 1831. In each instance the reins of govern
ment passed for the moment into the hands of the iusurgents ; but
when insurrection had triumphed and revolution should have begun, all
enthusiasm, vigour, or even union disappeared, and the impotence of
the movement revealed itself. The leaders raised the banner of consti
tutionalism ; but the people looked upon it with indifference; it did not
image to them their own unshaped thought, nor interpret the vaguo
longing in their hearts. All these insnrrections were prepared by the
sect of the Carbonari. The programme of this sect was—Independence,
Liberty ; but it put forth no definition for either one or the other. It
fitly personified the general state of feeling in Italy at the time—hostility
to the governments and to the whole system as it was, without any
distinct consciousness of what it wished for in its place. Yet it seems
strange that the very existence of such an association, spread as it was
over the whole of Italy, and thus showing the community of interests,
affections, tendencies throughout, did not reveal to its members the
secret of the future.
But the genius destined to initiate the new epoch was waited for,
While yet a student at the University of G-enoa, Mazzini entered
earnestly, both as a writer and an actor, into the political agitation of
the time ; and in 1831, at the age I believe of twenty-dwo, he was a
political prisoner in the fortress of Savona. But he had already seen
�8
Mazzini, the Apostle of the Unity.
enough of the movement as it then existed, to discover the impotence of
all that spirit of hostility to Austria, that hatred to despotism, that aver
sion to priestly rule, without a regenerating and reconstructing force.
He saw that the true source of strength would be found less in the
hatred that disturbs or destroys, and which had produced only isolated
and fruitless insurrections, than in the love that associates, combines,
and creates ; he saw that it was necessary to work for a revolution more
profound, for a larger and sublimer aim, than reforms and constitutions;
to concentrate every ray of Italian patriotism upon one focus—a great
hope representing a new creation—a simple and grand idea that would
be intelligible to the multitude, would attract and elevate them, appealing
to a national or patriotic instinct, and would excite the enthusiasm of
the more enlightened youth. When Mazzini’s imprisonment was ex
changed for exile, he had resolved to make the realisation of the pro
phecy oi' dream of Dante the labour of his life.
When forming this design he took a very different view of human
nature from those who believe that men are to be moved only by interests,
by the hope of redressing some grievance, by impatience of suffering, or
by some prospect of advantage to themselves. “ It needs,” wrote
Mazzini, “ the religious thought which gives the sense of duty and power
of self-sacrifice, to produce those great changes which mark the pro
gressive steps of humanity.”
That you'may understand how Mazzini could believe that in working
to create an Italian nation, he was fulfilling in a certain sensea religious
mission, and how he could inspire with the same faith, and with a
sublime spirit of devotion and self-sacrifice, as he did, thousands of his
countrymen, I must endeavour to give you in few words a general
idea of his teaching. The Italian question cannot be thoroughly under
stood without it; for the self-devotion and enthusiasm which were based
upon his appeal to what I can only call the religious element in man’s
nature, have been the true source of the vitality of the Italian struggle.
The fortress of Savona in which he was imprisoned is situated on the
shore of the Mediterranean, near Genoa. His cell was in the highest
tower of the castle; the window towards the sea—I am giving his own
description of his prison. The earth beneath was invisible to him ; he
was reminded of it only by the voices of the fishermen on the beach,
which occasionally, when the wind was favourable, rose so high; but he
could see the distant Alps—the grandest things of earth, and the sea
and the sky, both symbols of the infinite. With these before him, in
unreleaved solitude, almost unbroken silence, for many months, he
meditated on God’s law of progress for humanity as manifested through
put its history, and on the mission of Italy in connection with this law.
His whole political religious creed rests on the theory of human
progress. To explain more clearly, its foundation is this:—That God
has decreed that his design or idea, which is incarnated in humanity,
shall be continuously and progressively developed by humanity’s own
efforts. Hence, to aid in this development, to work for human progress,
is to identify oneself with His design, to do His will on earth, and the
aspiration towards the infinite which sustains the spirit here in suffering
and self-sacrifice, is in effect, according to this doctrine, a sense in the
individual being, that its own progress, its own movement towards God,
�His Teaching.
9
which will take place elsewhere than here, is to be advanced its first
step by aiding, while here, in the improvement and progress of the
collective being—humanity, the scene of whose development must always
be on earth.
This theory of progress once admitted, it follows necessarily that the
dominant thought which gives the form or character to the progressive
movement must change—perhaps I should rather say, must be enlarged
from time to time. In Mazzini’s own words, “ Our view will extend
with our discoveries, our mission increase with our strength, advancing
from age to age towards destinies yet unknown, for ever purifying and
completing the formula of devotion, as star after star shall be unveiled
for man in the heaven of intelligence.”
In order, then, to direct the religious aspirations in the individual to
its practical labour for humanity in fulfilment of God’s design on earth,
the form which the progressive movement is assuming must be under
stood : it ought, indeed, to find some embodiment in the faith of the
period. This form is to be ascertained by interrogating the wants of the
age. Mazzini did so ; and came to the conclusion that the form which
European civilisation and improvement would take in the epoch th en
approaching was the development of the principle of nationality. He
supported this opinion by reasoning somewhat as follows.
We need not follow him through the tradition of humanity further
back than to the Christian era. Then the principles of liberty and
equality—which is but liberty for all—of which antiquity had in some
instances a presentiment, received the sanction of religion ; and our
Saviour completed and crowned these principles by teaching us our
divine origin and the sublime doctrine of fraternity. It was the
emancipation of the individual man by giving him a sense of power and
dignity, and of a great destiny hereafter. As Christianity has triumphed
and spread, Liberty and Fraternity have necessarily come to be
recognised as abstract principles representing a sort of ideal to be
approached; although their practical realisation is contested, except to
a very limited extent, on the ground of inexpediency or impracti
cability.
Now liberty means freedom to act; and man emancipated, with a
sense of power and responsibility, and having freedom to act, must have
an object to act for. Liberty never can be realised so long as men are
inclined to use it for their own advantage only ; and religion sanctions it
evidently with the intention that it should be used for some high and
unselfish purpose. But man, isolated, cannot act for good in a wide
circle; he may practice charity to his neighbour, but before he can work
in a grander sphere and extend the action to humanity, there needs
a power derived from a combination of individual forces—a combi
nation of the forces of men each having freedom to develope and use all
his faculties. The principle of Fraternity implies the creation of this
power, for it gives the means of association among those who are free.
And this association or organisationj intermediate between the indi
*
vidual and humanity, formed spontaneously by those who, are conscious
that they represent a special group of the human family, conscious that
they have common tendencies and a common mission confided to them
by God for the good of mankind, at which they are to woi’k together—'
�10
Mazzini, the Apostle of Unity.
this is the nation in the high and true sense of the word ; the nation
such as, according to Mazzini, God intends that it should be.
And thus the chain of human progress is continued link by link ;
Liberty and Fraternity, which have been established as abstract prin
ciples in a former epoch, advancing towards their practical realisation
through the development of the principle of nationality. Liberty being
possible without anarchy, association without despotism, only when they
are sought for as a means, not as an end; sought for more in a sense of
duty than with a thought of self-interest. And the very construction of
the nation upon this principle implying an aim beyond itself, so it
becomes but another link in the chain ; it is in effect a division of labour
for human civilisation and improvement, each group taking the work that
it is fitted for, as each country has its products, and all harmonising
together in a common aim.
I need hardly point out how different this is from what the nation has
hitherto usually been ; how different from what monarchs and diplo
matists have understood it, or treaties between governments have made
it; how different from a mere aggregation of human beings held together
by the sword, without community of language, faith, traditions, or
tendencies; how different from any state where the will of an absolute
sovereign supersedes the collective thought and life of the people. But
the truly progressive element in this principle of nationality resides in
the idea which floats over all—that the nation is no association formed
only for the sake of interests or to gain strength for aggression, but that
the right to national existence is inseparable from a duty to humanity.
Now you see the train of reasoning which led Mazzini, more than
thirty years ago, to proclaim that the national movement would be the
form taken by European progress in its advance; and you see how
working for the unity of Italy assumed in his eyes the character of a
religious mission. “ When in my solitude and imprisonment,” he
wrote, “ the thought came to me that Italy might perhaps be destined
to initiate this new epoch, this faith of progress, this new life and fra
ternity for the nations of Europe, the immense hope shone like a star to
my soul.”
In attempting thus briefly to give you an idea of his political faith,
which he unfolds in many volumes with force of argument and eloquence,
and supports by evidence drawn from history, I know I am doing him
injustice, and giving you a very imperfect conception of his teaching.
But it is an essential part of my subject, no description of the Italian
movement can be complete without it, and I have done the best I could
in so few words.
Some years ago it might all have been condemned by an English
audience as visionary. Now the test of the future can to a certain
extent be applied, and his prediction of the tendency of the epoch—the
rising up of nationalities, and his assertion that in the Italian people
there was an instinct of national unity which needed but to be
awakened, are no longer ridiculed as wild and silly theories.
His teaching infused an enthusiasm into many of the youth of Italy
which enabled them to meet with a smile of faith persecution and
reiterated defeat; they taught, conspired, fought, and died on the
scaffold and the battle-field, acting not only without a thought of self
�His Teaching.
11
interest, but influenced, even beyond the sentiment of patriotism, by the
conviction that they were working for the triumph of a principle that
involved the good of mankind.
If the movement had been based only on a sense of interests, every
failure would have had a damaging effect, and it would have been
abandoned altogether, whenever the danger or suffering of perseverance
outweighed the advantage anticipated from success. But the Italian
cause has won its way, especially during its earlier period, as Christi
anity was propagated, by martyrdom. Whenever some patriot suffered
persecution or death for teaching the national programme, whenever
any little band of heroes perished as a forlorn hope in some attempt at
insurrection, for every one that fell on the field or on the scaffold, there
rose up a hundred converts ready to follow his example. And you will
see, throughout the narration of events, how this appeal to what I call
the religious element in man’s nature, has been the Promethean spark,
drawn from Heaven, that has given life to Italy.
It is startling to compare the immensity and splendour of the aim
Mazzini formed for himself—and still more so if we think how far it is
already accomplished—with his position at the time, his imprisonment,
his youth, the slenderness of his means. It is curious too, as a coinci
dence, that at the very time, the year 1831, when he was forming this
great design which was eventually to concentrate every ray of Italian
patriotism to one focus, and give to the revolutionary spirit that already
- prevailed an irresistible force by directing it to its true aim, a severe
political prosecution was going on in Central Italy. An insurrection
had just been subdued there, the executioner was standing sentinel by
the side of every throne, and the governments seemed resolved to crush
out the very germs of the revolutionary agitation. They thought they
had their enemy in their grasp; they saw him bleeding on their scaf
folds, they imagined him groaning in their dungeons, or driven to the
distant shores of England or America there to linger in the privations
of exile, and in all this they read theii’ own security and repose. Their
fears never carried them to that cell in the highest tower of the fortress
of Savona; they thought not of that youth there, gazing through the
grating of his prison window upon the Alps, the sea, the sky; they saw
not in the solemn meditation of his soul, the birth of the great power
that in its irresistible growth would change the face of Italy.
When Mazzini’s imprisonment was exchanged for exile, he began his
labour by addressing a letter to Charles Albert, who had just mounted
the throne of Piedmont, inviting him to identify himself with the Italian
aspiration to freedom from Austria and unity as a nation. “ You can
lead us to it,” said Mazzini, “ if you choose, and we will follow, grate
fully ; if you renounce this leadership, we will press onwards without
you ; if you oppose us, we may die, but our children will snatch the
sword falling from our grasp, and sooner or later our aim will be
achieved, for it is a God-given aim.” The whole sense of the letter
I was a reiteration of the motto at its head, “ Se no, no,” If no, no. If
you are not with us, we are against you.
*
* This motto is derived item the form of the declaration which was used by the
nobles of Arragon at the coronation of their kings. <» Nos, que cada uno somos
�12
The Giovine Italia—the National Party.
In addressing this letter to Charles Albert, Mazzini certainly could
not have expected that he would take up what every Italian statesman
looked upon as the wildest possible Utopia of a young enthusiast; but at
all events such a letter afforded at the time the best practical means of
setting before the Italian people the idea of unity. It was circulated
openly or clandestinely throughout Italy. The answer vouchsafed by the
King to Mazzini, was simply exclusion from the political amnesty which
he had just granted on coming to the throne.
Mazzini then, with a few friends, founded the association of the
Giovine Italia. It soon counted in its ranks hundreds of young men,
chiefly of the middling class, of all parts of Italy ; and absorbed the
best elements of the old sect of the Carbonari. Its aim was distinctly
defined and promulgated in the three words, Unity, Independence, Liberty.
Upon the two first it admitted no compromise. In regard to the last,
although the members of the association were all republicans, and pro
fessed to be so, it was considered that they had no right to decree before
hand under what form of government the future nation should exist,
substituting their own banner for that of the entire people; and that if
Italy willed monarchy, it would be for them to respect the decision of
the majority ; retaining always the right of expression of opinion. So
while they drew the sword for unity and independence, they would use
only the weapon of persuasion for the republic. Thus at the present
time, in submitting to Victor Emmanuel, these workers for Italian unity
do not violate their original programme; and Mazzini, Garibaldi, and
many others, we know still profess themselves republican in principle
and at heart. Indeed, the doctrines of Mazzini, as I have explained
them to you, are clearly democratic; but the monarchy may be sub
mitted to, though not sanctioned as an enduring principle.
The first efforts of the Association were directed to awakening the
national sentiment in the Italians. Writings, printed generally at
Marseilles or in Switzerland, were spread by the members of the Asso
ciation throughout the Peninsula. The governments soon became aware
that they had now a more formidable danger to encounter than before.
An energetic and relentless persecution commenced, and it was even
punishable with death to be found in possession of a writing of the
Association.
The Giovine Italia was not intended, however, to be educational
alone. Thought can be completed only by action; besides there is a
language in action which speaks to all. In the year 1833 insurrection
was attempted in Savoy ; and a simultaneous movement was to have
taken place at Genoat The first failed through treachery or mismanage
ment ; the second was discovered and prevented. Among those con
demned to death for this attempt was Garibaldi; condemned though,
like Mazzini, in his absence, for he escaped. He was one of the earliest
members of the Giovine Italia, and here we see these two young men,
nearly of the same age—Garibaldi is, I believe, a few months the
eldest—first acting together, who were destined at each great crisis of
tanto como vos; y todos juntos mas que vos; os hacemas Rey: si rispectais
nuestras leyes y privilegios, os obediceremos; si no, no.” “ We, each of us being
equal to you; and all together greater than you; take yod for King: if you
respect our laws and privileges, we will obey you ; if no, no.”
�The Moderate Party.
13
the movement, at intervals of years, to work again in concert, as they
are working now. The one, the hero of Italian unity on the field of
battle; the other, the great teacher and the warrior in the mental
contest.
This failure did not check the progress of the cause. Propagandism
went on, and other attempts were made at action. The brothers
Bandiera, who, with seven companions, were executed in 1844 for
attempting insurrection in Southern Italy, answered those who remon
strated with them on the rashness of their enterprise, “ That Italy may
live, we must show the Italians how to die.” And in saying this, they
expressed the very spirit in which many of these attempts were made.
In the course of a few years many perished on the scaffold with the cry,
Viva VItalia I on their lips as the cord tightened round the throat
or the bullet pierced the heart, and thousands were exiled or imprisoned.
But as the rage of persecution increased, the fervour of apostleship grew
also.
Thus the word Unity was cast upon Italian soil, thus it was watered
by blood and tears, and kept taking root deeper, deeper, and spreading
over the country from the Alps to the furthest shores of Sicily.
When Pio Nono ascended the Papal throne in 1846, Italy seemed on
the eve of a general outbreak. The national party, into which the
Giovine Italia had by that time expanded, was growing continually
stronger under persecution, and Pio Nono determined to try a new
policy with his subjects—a policy of conciliation. Supporting him in
this policy, and encouraging other Italian princes to follow his example,
there rose up at this time the moderate party. It represented essentially
conservative and aristocratic interests ; but was supported by all the
timid and the indolent, who were appalled at the gigantic changes con
templated by Mazzini. Now, within the last few years, the moderate
party has accepted the programme of unity ; but at the time I speak of,
it was the avowed opponent of that doctrine, and raised in opposition
the banner of constitutionalism. While the national party necessarily
looked to the overthrow of the governments that held Italy in division,
the moderates condemned revolution altogether, and intended to ame
liorate and support these governments. They strove to allure the people
by the prospect of reforms and other present advantages, from devotion
to the great hope of existing as a nation ; and used to accuse Mazzini of
forcing the sovereigns to be tyrannical by alarming them, and turning
the people aside from seeking real advantages for the sake of a dream.
Such was the state of parties when in March, 1848, revolution sud
denly triumphed in the Austrian States of Northern Italy. In the
course of some fifteen or twenty days Austria lost the whole of the
Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, except Mantua and Verona ; and this
solely through popular insurrection, without encountering one battalion
of professional soldiers.
Six thousand Austrians capitulated at
Venice ; four thousand fell at Milan during a struggle which raged
for five days in the streets of the city ; some were cut off in almost
every town, and Hungarian and Italian soldiers in the Austrian service
deserted, whole companies at a time. The loss of Austria in those few
days is estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000 men. The insurrection
burst forth at Milan immediately after some constitutional concessions
�14
Revolution at Milan and Venice,
had been granted ; it was promoted and led by a nucleus of young men,
most of whom had been members of the Giovine Italia ; and the people
rose to the cry which symbolised Italian unity—“ Viva l’Italia! ” And
“ Viva l’Italia ! ” resounded throughout Italy from Milan and Venice
to Messina and Palermo. While in almost every Italian city little bands
of young men began to arm themselves, and to start off to help their
brethren against Austria.
*
The teaching of the Giovine Italia was bearing fruit.
The Italian princes trembled at this evidence of national feeling ; they
dared not openly oppose the general enthusiasm, and to save their own
thrones they mostly professed for the moment to yield to the desire for
war against Austria. The moderates also gave in to the irresistible
attraction of the national idea, so far as to propose a sort of league
among Italian princes, and a crusade in common against Austria.
Among the chief promoters of this project were Gioberti and D’Azeglio.
But the princes saw the goal to which such a path must tend : they
knew their power had no root in Italian soil, nor was there one among
them whose throne had not, once at least, since the Congress of Vienna,
required the presence of Austrian bayonets to prop it up. They pre
tended to yield only to pervert, delay, or in some way paralyse every
effort. Charles Albert alone made real war, and even he was only
half sincere. When the insurrection broke out in Lombardy his
position was full of danger; the excitement of his subjects, and their
sympathy with the insurgents, were intense ; besides, the cry, Viva la
Republica! had been coupled with that of Viva I'Italia, on the barricades
at Milan. When the news reached Turin that the Austrians had been
driven from Milan by the citizens, he saw thathis only safety from revolu
tion at home was to be found in immediately declaring war and crossing
the frontier. He acted from a double motive ; from hope and from fear.
On the one hand he saw a prospect of aggrandisement for Piedmont;
and possibly a crown of Northern Italy glittered to his imagination in
the distance. But he also entered upon the war, in order to put down
or supersede revolutionary or popular action, and to check that sense of
their own power in the people, with all its democratic tendencies, which
their recent triumph would excite. The diplomatic correspondence of
the time shows that this was the motive he put forward to all European
governments, and pleaded as his justification for declaring war. He
was acting, his ambassadors declared, for the safety of all monarchial
states.
The entrance of the King into Lombardy changed the aspect of the
movement: it lost the character of a war of the Italian people against
Austria for their own independance and existence as a nation, and be
came simply a war by a king of Piedmont, to be fought by a royal
Piedmontese army, Lombardy being the prize contended for. The men
of the national party who had led the insurrection gave place to a pro
visional government composed of Milanese noblemen of the moderate
* An interesting account of this insurrection, and the war which followed, was
written by Carlo Cattaneo, himself the president of the committee of the barricades
during the insurrection. He was a professor at the University of Milan, and a
man of European celebrity for literary and scientific attainmenta.
�Charles Albert'—His Vacillation and Defeat.
15
party, who had had no share in the insurrection. The formation of
volunteer hands was discouraged, everything was done to cheok enthu
siasm, and lull the people into inertness ; the national idea began to fade
into the background, while the Royal army during three months did little
else than occupy Lombardy; neither opening communications with
Venice, nor attempting to intercept the reinforcements which Radetski
was receiving through the Tyrol.
At length Radetski, having reorganised and reinforced his army, issued
forth from Mantua and Verona, gave battle to the Piedmontese army,
and defeated it at Custoza.
When the news reached Milan the population rose up like an enraged
lion; what they had won by their own heroism and their blood was now
lost by the King and the moderate party. The provisional government
in dismay begged Mazzini, who had arrived at Milan from England, the
country of his exile, to counsel and assist them. Under his direction the
population was armed, volunteers were enrolled, and in three days the
city was in an excellent state of defence. The heroes of the Five days
re-appeared ; the people felt it was their own battle coming over again,
and saluted it with joy.
Such was the aspect of affairs when Charles Albert reached Milan in
his retreat. He beheld the popular or revolutionary element, which he
had taken such pains to check and subdue, once more in action. By
allying himself with it he might yet retrieve his defeat. But he hated
or feared it more than he feared or hated Austria ; he wavered for a few
days and ended by rejecting it. Before he entered Milan an armistice
with Radetsky and a capitulation for the city had been already signed ;
yet, in the city, whether drawn for a moment into sympathy with the
enthusiasm he saw around him, or whether trembling at the sight of it;
either sincerely or not, .he publicly declared that he would perish beneath
the ruins of Milan before it should be delivered up to Austria. The
people trusted him. Mazzini then saw that his own presence there was
useless ; that all would depend on the firmness or sincerity of the King ;
and he hastened to Begamo to join Garibaldi, who was advancing with
about 4,000 volunteers. A few days afterwards Charles Albert left
Milan almost secretly, and his troops immediately delivered up the gates
and outworks of the city to the Austrians, in accordance with the capi
tulation.
Garibaldi had, a few weeks before this occurred, returned from South
America; where, an exile since 1833, he had taken part in the wars in
those countries, fighting always on the side of liberty; and had obtained
renown as a daring and successful leader. The movement in Italy drew
him back to his own country, where he arrived with about a hundred
companions, Italians, and mostly exiles like himself. Charles Albert
hesitated to employ him, and he immediately collected volunteers to act
for the cause as he best could. When the King made the armistice with
Radetsky, Garibaldi at once repudiated it; and prepared to advance to
the support of Milan, hoping it would be defended. Mazzini having
joined him carried the banner of the little force. Arriving at Monza
they heard that Milan was already in possession of the Austrians ; they
were attacked and almost surrounded by superior numbers of the enemy,
�16
Flight of Pius IX.— The Roman Republic.
but defended themselves in their retreat as far as Como, where they found
shelter in the mountains.
*
All this time Venice held out under Manin, but the scene of the next
great struggle made by the national party was at Rome.
But I must pause here for a moment to point out some conclusions
which may be drawn from these events, to apply to the present time.
First, we see in this insurrection an answer to those, whether in Italy
or England, who think, or pretend to think, that popular insurrection
* A short account of this affair of Monza was written by Jocopo Medici, one of
Garibaldi’s companions, and now a general in the Italian army. The following
e extract may interest the reader:—
“ After the engagement of Custoza, at the end of which Charles Albert fell baok
upon Milan, General Garibaldi, then at Bergamo, with a small body of republican
Lombard volunteers, about 4,000 altogether, believing that the King of Piedmont,
who was still at the head of an army of 40,000 men, would have defended to the
utmost, as he had promised, the capital of Lombardy, conceived the bold project of
pushing forward and marching towards Milan. His object was to harass the left
flank of the Austrian army in its pursuit of the Piedmontese army, and thus to come
in aid of the future operations whioh the king’s resistance in Milan might bring
about.
“ It was on the morning of the 3rd of August, 1848, and Garibaldi was just about
to quit Bergamo, when we saw appear among us, carabine on shoulder, Mazzini,
asking to join our ranks as a simple soldier of the legion I commanded, whioh was
to form the vanguard of the division of Garibaldi. A general acclamation saluted
the great Italian, and the legion unanimously confided its banner, which bore the
device 1 God and the people,’ to his charge.
ct As soon as Mazzini’s arrival was known at Bergamo, the population ran to see
him. They pressed around him; they begged him to speak. All those who heard
him must remember his discourse. He recommended raising barricades to defend
the town in case of attack, whilst we should march upon Milan; and he conjured
them, whatever might arrive, to love Italy always, and never to despair of her
redemption. His words were received with enthusiasm, and the column left amid
marks of the deepest sympathy.
“ The march was very fatiguing; rain fell in torrents; we were drenched to ihe
skin. Although accustomed to a life of study, and little adapted to the violent
exercise of forced marches, his constancy and serenity never forsook him for an
instant; and notwithstanding our counsels, for we feared for his physical strength,
he would never stop, nor leave the column. It happened even that seeing one of
our youngest volunteers clothed merely in linen, and who consequently had no
protection against the rain and the sudden cold, he forced him to accept and wear
his cloak.
“ Arrived at Monza, we learned the fatal news of the capitulation of Milan, and
heard that a numerous body of Austrian cavalry had been sent against us, and was
already at the other side, at the gates of Monza.
“ Garibaldi, very inferior in forces, not wishing to expose his small body to a
complete and useless destruction, gave orders to fall back upon Como, and placed
me with my column as rearguard, in order to cover the retreat.
“ For youthful volunteers whose greatest wish was to fight, the order to retreat
was a signal of discouragement, and in the first moments was accompanied with
some disorder. Happily, this did not occur in my rearguard. From Monza to
Como, my column, always pursued by the enemy, menaced with destruction at
every moment by a very superior force, never wavered, remained compact and
united, showing itself always ready to repulse all attack, and kept the enemy in
check to the last.
“ In this march full of danger and difficulty, the strength of soul, intrepidity,
and decision of Mazzini, were the admiration of the bravest among us. His pre
sence, his words, the example of his courage, animated our young soldiers, who
were besides proud of partaking such dangers with him; and all decided to perish
to the last man for the defence of a faith of which he had been the apostle, and for
which he was ready to become the martyr.”
�Mazzini, Saffi, Armellini, Triumvirs.
17
and the volunteer element can do nothing against Austria. Secondly,
we see the paralising effect which naturally follows when a revolutionary
movement, after its first successes, passes under the guidance of those
who did not prepare it, and not thoroughly identified with its object
either by their past acts or by their wishes for the future.
When Pius IX. fled from his dominions to Gaeta in November,
1849, the Republic quickly sprang up from the ruins of the Papal Govern
ment ; and it seemed as if the future Italy had found a cradle where all
the vigorous elements of true national Italian life might draw together;
With Rome, the national party had won the key of the position in the
struggle for nationality ; the centre, through which there might be union
between north and south. In the deliberations in the assembly for the
election of a triumvirate, while Armellini was chosen to represent
Rome, and Saffi, the Legations, Mazzini was chosen professedly as the
representative of Italy—the incarnation of the idea of Italy, one and
free. And by this election Italian unity may be said to have been
inscribed on the banner of the infant state, as it actually was upon its
coin. Energetic preparations were set on foot to carry this banner into
the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom ; it was calculated that by the end of
May 45,000 men would be armed and organised; these would have
entered the Austrian States, not to act alone as the Piedmontese army
had done, but to act in alliance with Venice, and in concert with the
popular insurrection. Such were the hopes of the national party when,
in the month of April, these preparations being still incomplete, the
French Government decided upon sending an expedition against Rome.
We must glance for a moment however at events occurring in other
parts of Italy, and bearing upon the position of Rome. In the month
of February, the Grand Duke of Tuscany had followed the example of
Pio Nono, fled from his dominions, and joined the Pope at Gaeta. The
national party immediately agitated for the amalgamation of Tuscany
with the Roman States, thus to commence the unification of Italy; and
there seemed a good prospect of success. The Piedmontese Government,
Gioberti being minister, then formed the injudicious design of restoring
by an armed intervention, both the Pope and the Grand Duke to their
dominions ; a design which, if carried into effect, would inevitably have
lighted up the flame of civil war. But those princes rejected such
assistance; they regarded the Piedmont Government with no friendly
feeling, and considered that, by making real war against Austria, it had
separated itself from the common cause and interests of Italian sovereigns.
While, at the same time, the national party was indignant that such a
design should have been cherished for a moment; and its distrust of
Piedmont was increased. This project falling to the ground, Charles
Albert, on the 12th of March, suddenly put an end to the armistice with
Austria, and renewed the war. No doubt lie was induced to take this
step by the preparations for war which the Roman Republic was making ;
and he acted wisely as far as his own interest and safety were con
cerned. It would have been dangerous, perhaps fatal, to the Piedmontese
monarchy for a new crusade against Austria to be initiated and led
under the Republican banner. It would have been impossible for Charles
Albert to hold back, and humiliating to the monarchy to follow in the
c
�18
French Invasion—Garibaldi—Fall of Rome.
wake of the Republic. He resolved either at once to gain a victory over
Austria, and render his throne secure by surrounding it with the prestige
and the glory thus acquired; or else to find, through defeat, an excuse
for retiring from any further contest. When the unexpected renewal of
the war was known at Rome, a generous spirit towards the monarchy
pervaded all the councils of the Republic. Mazzini said in the chamber,
“ Let us think no more about forms of government; there is now but
*
one real distinction among Italians: it is between those who join in the
war of independence against Austria, and those who do not.” A pro
clamation was issued, which thus concluded : “ The legions of the Re
public will combat side by side with those of the Subalpine Monarchy;
there shall be no contention between them save in valour and in sacrifice;
may he be cursed who would promote discord between brother and
brother.” But before the Roman troops could reach the North of Italy,
the campaign was ended. It lasted but a few days; and, after the
defeat of Novara., Charles Albert abdicated in favour of his son Victor
Emanuel.
On the 18th February, a note had been addressed to the diplomatic
body at Gaeta by the Pope, publicly requesting the armed assistance of
France, Austria, Spain, and Naples, for his restoration. It was soon
known, or rumoured, that France was about to enter the field as a new
enemy for the Roman Republic; and the timid began everywhere to
hold back. The moderate party in Tuscany, headed by the chief nobility
of Florence—Ricasoli among the number—took advantage of this state
of the public mind, and also of the discouragement which the Austrian
victory at Novara had just produced, to bring about a reaction. They
promised in the name of the Grand Duke, though, as it afterwards
appeared, without his authority, that, if recalled, he would govern con
stitutionally, and that no foreign soldier should enter Tuscany. A pro
posal made in the Chamber at Florence for union with Rome, was
negatived ; and the Grand Duke recalled by the acclamations of the
populace of Florence. One of his first measures, however, was to invite
an Austrian army to enter Tuscany; and it met with no resistance \
except at Leghorn.
The battle of Novara had also the effect perhaps of hastening the
French expedition against Rome. The French Government had
already promised to restore the Papal sovereignty, but it wished for
some veil which might soften the harsh and unjust features of the
measure in presenting it for the approval of the Chamber at Paris.
The Chamber was given to understand that the object of the expedition
was merely to support the interests and influence of France in the
Peninsula in opposition to those of Austria ; as if a French army on
the Tiber were calculated to counteract the influence of Austria, whose
forces were on the Mincio and Adige ; for it was not until the French
were besieging Rome that the Austrians either entered Tuscany or
invaded the Legations. And when they besieged Bologna, although the
forces of the Republic had been drawn away for the defence of the
capital, still it was defended heroically for a time by the citizens alone.
It would take too long to enter upon the details of the drama that was
acted before the walls of Rome. Perhaps most of you remember how
the first expeditionary force of 10,000 men was defeated under the walls
�This Epoch misunderstood in England.
19
of the city by Garibaldi, who issued forth with his volunteers and gave
it battle ; how Oudinot, in his retreat towards Civita Vecchia, proposed
an armistice; how Lesseps was sent to Rome to open sham negotia
tions, and, while they were going on, the French army was gradually
increased to nearly 40,000 men; how the attack was then renewed, and,
after an heroic resistance that lasted for a month, during which nearly
3,000 of the truest, noblest, bravest, hearts of Italy gave their life's
blood, the city was surrendered.
To appreciate the grandeur of this defence, we must bear in mind
that those who fought or died at Rome, did so without any hope of an
immediate favourable result, without any expectation of victory against
the French. They fought for a victory in the future ; that future which
is coming now. They fought or died to afford a great moral teaching
to the people, and to call forth reverence for the sanctuary of Italian
nationality, the future capital of Italy. They gave their blood that in
it the Italian people might be baptised at the font of unity ; and,
although the Papal government was restored, the true lasting victory
was with the Italian national party. It was the climax to all that series
of acts of self-devotion by which for eighteen years it had been working
out its mission. The moral teaching for the Italians was complete, and
their education to the idea of unity, was advanced beyond the possibility
of future reaction or decline. Although the weight of France was then
added to that of Austria to keep Italy prostrate, it became a certainty
that sooner or later the innate vitality of the tendency to unity must wear
out all artificial external pressure.
It is remarkable how little this epoch was understood either by our
statesmen or our press ; they appeared to see only a meaningless struggle
without system or object, where in reality a great purpose was being
resolutely and irresistibly worked out. In the Roman Republic they
saw only the form of political liberty—the republic; they were either
ignorant or incredulous of its higher meaning in the national sense, and
judging Italy of to-day by her history in the middle ages, they used
often to condemn or lament the incapacity of the Italians for union
among themselves.
*
* Mr. Gladstone did much to retard the enlightenment of English public opinion
as to the true character of the Italian movement, by giving the authority of his
name to the translation of Farini’s Roman History. That history is of some value,
on account of the numerous diplomatic and other documents it produces 5 but the
English reader is led astray, who studies it without being aware that it expresses
exclusively the views of the Italian moderate party of that day. None can read it,
I apprehend, without receiving the impression that something is kept back, without
feeling that they are introduced into a labyrinth to which no clue is presented.
They read of a prolonged revolutionary or popular movement without any explained
or apparent object, and of tyranny without a cause. The fact is, Farini syste
matically keeps in the background the tendency to unity, and diminishes the
importance, or distorts the meaning, of all those events in which this tendency was
manifest,. The translation of his work into English was the more unfortunate,
because the error pervading it is precisely the one to which we were already
predisposed.
At the time Farini wrote, the leaders of the moderate party had discovered the
impracticability of their own programme—that of converting the reigning princes
into constitutional sovereigns, but they had not acquired faith in the possible
c 2
�20
This Epoch misunderstood in England.
In this slight sketch I have necessarily omitted the mention of many,
important events occurring during this period, and which bore more or
less visibly the impress of the national tendency. My subject has re
quired that I should follow the course of those in which the prominent
actors were professedly working for this great aim of unity. Sicily was
in revolt during 1848 and 1849, and in Naples there were revolutionary
movements, but the national feeling was partially concealed in these
states by a thin veil of demands for constitutional government. Venice
held out against Austria for seventeen months under. the direction of
Manin; but the Venetians followed his views, and, at that time, his idea
of the future Italy was that of a federation of republican states.
Thus I have shown you throughout the sequence of events from 1831
to 1849, how a nucleus of young patriots, which expanded gradually into
a great political party, embracing the flower of Italian manhood and
intelligence, and working always under the influence of one master
spirit, succeeded by resolute propagandism, by a series of daring enter
prises, by failures and martyrdoms, and by glorious though momentary
victories, in converting the programme of the G-iovine Italia—Italy one
and free—into a distinct hope irrevocably awakened in the Italians.
In the second period of the Italian struggle, which will be the subject
of my second lecture, Garibaldi and some other actors are more promi
nent on the scene than Mazzini; though his influence is still omnipresent,
and his labour unceasing though silent : but during the whole period
embraced in my present lecture, he has been the necessary hero of the
scene throughout. Now it is not that I assume you to be particularly
interested in a fair appreciation of him for his own sake, but up to this
achievement of unity. Materialists themselves, without enthusiasm, love, or
genius, they were slow to believe in the devotion of the multitude to a grand and
unselfish idea. They saw only that the programme of the national party had so
far triumphed over their own in the hearts of the people, as to constitute a danger
sufficiently formidable in the eyes of the Italian rulers, to deter these from relin
quishing any part of that despotic power which supplied the most efficacious means
of defence against it. The leaders of the moderate party could not forgive the
authors of their defeat, and their bitterness is illustrated in the tone of alternate
sarcasm and anger which Farini adopts, in writing of Mazzini or others who had
joined in teaching the unity of Italy. He speaks of unity as a crochet of Mazzini,
and declares it to be an aim which is neither good, nor grand,.
Four years ago Farini proclaimed his own acceptance of unity as the tie goal
u
*
of the Italian movement, and his doing so was a severe comment on his Roman
history.
It would appear, also, from Mr. Gladstone’s pamphlet upon the State prosecutions
in Naples, published in 1851, that he was not himself aware of the real character of
the movement in Italy. He evidently fancied the Neapolitan government actuated
in these prosecutions only by an unreasonable suspicion or hatred of constitutional
ideas. He claims our sympathy for Poerio, and other prisoners, on the ground that
they were constitutionalists, aud that their only object had been to establish in
Naples a government resembling our own. Now Poerio himself had been a member
of the Giovine Italia, and the charges against him at his trial were these : that he
had, while minister, corresponded with Mazzini, and joined in the formation of a
secret society at Naples, having the unity of Italy for its object. Whether the
charges were true or false, it is surprising that they did not enlighten Mr. Glad
stone as to the direction taken by the fears of the government, and give him an
insight into the real danger which the widely spread system of political persecution
Was intended to guard against.
�Prejudice against Mazzini,
21
time he so completely personified the national aspiration, that to mis
understand his teaching and action is to misunderstand the movement
itself. And because I have been obliged to say so much concerning
him, I must yet in concluding add another word.
Mazzini has encountered, as all teachers of new truths or introducers
of great changes have encountered for a time, prejudice, misrepresenta
tion, calumny; all which has found an echo in England. Completely
merging all thought of self in the great aim of his existence, seldom has
he replied to, or protested against, this disloyal mode of warfare.
Among other charges, his enemies used to cast upon his head the blood
of all the patriots who from time to time perished on the field or on the
scaffold, because his teaching had urged them on. And although he
had deliberately relinquished fortune, and all the joys of life, for exile,
danger, and incessant toil; although the risks he has incurred of arrest
and death have been so numerous, and his escapes so marvellous, that
his friends have believed that a special providence watched over him;
although, in a word, he has suffered a life of martyrdom, his enemies
have charged it against him as a sort of crime that he happens to have
escaped a martyr’s death.
In some moment, when writhing perhaps under this cruel injustice, or
when possibly repeated failures made him doubt for an instant his own
power of perseverance, or even his own faith, he wrote these touching
lines I am about to read to you, in the preface to his memoirs of the
brothers Bandiera. I have already spoken of the brothers Bandiera,
who were executed in 1844. In writing their memoirs he appropriately
dedicates them to Jacopo Ruffini, who had been one of the first victims
of the persecution against the Giovine Italia. When Jacopo Ruffini
was imprisoned at Genoa, the police authorities, in order to make him
confess who were the members of the Association, showed him a forged
document purporting to be a confession by others, who, they told him,
were in prison, and had bought their lives by this confession. Then
they urged him to do the same. He begged for a day to consider ; and,
in the agony of this great trial, tore a nail from his prison door, opened
a vein with it and killed himself, writing with his blood upon the wall:—
“ This is my answer.” In the dedication of the memoirs to Ruffini,
Mazzini thus addresses the spirit of his friend :—
“ Help me; oh, help me that I do not despair! From the sphere
where you now live a life more powerful in intellect and love than the
earthly can be, and into which new martyrs to the Italian faith have
just risen up to meet you, pray with them to God that He will hasten the
fulfilment of the destinies that He has ordained for Italy. But if,
indeed, this uncertain light, which I have saluted as the dawn, should
be only the light of some falling star, and long years of darkness and
suffering must yet pass over Italy before the ways of the Lord shall be
revealed to her ; then, for the love I bear you, help me, your poor friend,
that I may think and act, live and die, uncontaminated; that I may
never relinquish, either through insupportableness of suffering or bitter
ness of disappointment, the worship of the eternal idea, God and
Humanity; God the Father and Educator—Humanity the progressive
interpreter of His law. So that when we meet in the future life assigned
�22
Prejudice against Mazzini.
to us, you may not have occasion to veil yourself, blushing, with your
wings, and repent of the affection you bore to me on earth.”
What bitter moments of trial in the life of the Apostle, what strug
gling against despair or doubt do these lines reveal. They were written
in 1845.
I have now shown you how the national idea took root in Italian soil;
in my second lecture we shall see how it has flowered and borne fruit in
the events of the last few years,
�LECTURE II
Terms of the Alliance between France ancl Piedmont, 1858—Peace of Villafranca
—National Party re-organised as the Party of Action—Policy of the Moderates
—Sicilian Insurrection—Garibaldi lands—His Victories—Cavour sends an
army to the South—His motive—The Movement arrested—Cavour’s Policy
—The Party of Action in the Italian Chamber—An Attempt on the Venetia
stopped by the Italian Government—Garibaldi prepares to move on Rome—
Aspramonte—Future Prospects of the Italian Movement—Louis Napoleon’s
position in Italy—The Papal Church at Rome—Concluding Remarks on the
National Idea—Our own Attitude and Policy towards the National Movement
in Europe.
In my first lecture I traced the progress of the Italian national move
ment to the fall of Rome in 1849, which concluded, what may be called,
the educational period £of the mission of the Giovine Italia. The con
sciousness of nationality had then become so thoroughly awakened in the
Italians, that it was certain to be the true lever of every future move
ment. Rome and Venice fallen, the leaders of the national party went
into exile, but undaunted. If the edifice they had begun to raise was
shattered, they felt that they had laid the foundation for a new one in
the hearts of the people ; and in spite of France and Austria, they could
say of the national cause, as Galileo said of the earth when before the
Inquisitors, “ Eppur si muove.”
For ten years, however, the cold hand of Louis Napoleon on the heart
of Italy seemed to paralyse her action. The most daring and most enthu
siastic sacrificed their lives, or lost their liberty, in several vain attempts
at insurrection; the many held back, appalled at the prospect of encoun
tering Austria and France at once. The most important of these
attempts were an insurrection in Milanin 1853; and an expedition which,
starting from Genoa, where it was organised, landed in the South, and
attempted to promote insurrection there. Both failed, and both were
condemned; yet the former was but an attempt to repeat what had
succeeded in 1848, and the latter to anticipate the movement which was
successful in 1860. At the head of this expedition were Pisacane and
Nicotera: Rosolio Pilo was to have taken part; he was in another
vessel with men and arms, but by some accident the vessels did not
meet; so he was reserved for a more successful enterprise, and was the
leader of the Sicilian insurrection three years later. He fell at Palermo.
These three young men were among the most devoted and the bravest
of the Italians; all belonged to noble and influential families in the
south ; the two former Neapolitans; the latter, Sicilian. Pisacane was
killed during the expedition, in an encounter with the Neapolitan troops
—Nicotera alone remains ; he was taken and condemned to perpetual
imprisonment. Released by Garibaldi, in 1860, he was afterwards
�24
Alliance between France and Piedmont.
elected a deputy to the Italian Parliament by the very city—Salerno—
which had been the scene of his trial. For the latter attempt, Mazzini
was among those condemned to death by the Piedmontese government.
He was at Genoa when the expedition started, and with difficulty
escaped. He had been condemned to death also in 1833, for the insur
rection in Savoy; and as from that time to the present, he has been
excluded from every political amnesty, two sentences of death hang over (
his head. Hence his life is one of exile ; he frequently visits Italy, but
while there is obliged to be concealed.
At length, in 1859, the weight of France was partially removed. It
was not removed, however, that Italy might rise. Italy did rise; but
this was not the intention of the Emperor of the French.
It has often been assumed that the advance which the Italians subse
quently made towards unity, was made in consequence of an impulse in
that direction given by Louis Napoleon and the Piedmontese govern
ment. This was not the case. When the alliance was formed between
France and Piedmont against Austria, neither Louis Napoleon nor
Cavour contemplated any such advance; all that has been won in that
direction, has been won, I may almost say, in spite of the Emperoi’
of the French. As for the Piedmontese government, it has simply
floated on the summit of the wave, moving with it, but the wave has
advanced by a power within itself. If I should appear to take pains
to establish this, and to direct your attention to it, it is because the con
clusions I would draw concerning the nature of the movement, the great
issues, the vast and lasting changes which I believe it is leading to in
Europe, evidently depend on the fact that it is not stimulated, or
brought about, by any government; but springs from the instincts, or
the ideas, which are in the hearts of the people.
The terms of the alliance between France and Piedmont, as arranged
by Louis Napoleon and Cavour at Plombieres in October, 1858, were
simply an aggrandisement of territory for each: Piedmont to be
aggrandised at the expense of Austria, France to have Savoy and Nice.
Besides this, Prince Napoleon was to marry a Sardinian Princess, as
he did, and in case the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who was an Austrian
Prince, should be dethroned during the war, then Prince Napoleon was
to have the crown of Tuscany. It is true, independence and nationality
for Italy, served as a war-cry against Austria; but the nationality
intended was a sham; it meant merely a federation of States, a sort of
diplomatic league among Italian sovereigns under the Presidency of the
Pope, who would himself necessarily be still under the protection of
the Emperor of the French. And by independence was meant only
independence of Austria, to be purchased by a more humiliating, a
moral as well as material, dependence upon France.
When the war broke out, the national party became for a time, to
a certain extent, disorganised. Cavour, dreading any independent
revolutionary action by this party in Italy during the war; dreading
lest the cry of unity should be raised, which, in the councils of the
Piedmontese Government and in the ministerial organs of the press,
was condemned at the time as a cry subversive of European order,
invited Garibaldi to act under the King; permitting him to summon
volunteers, and promising that he should have the command of 30,000,
�Peace of Villafranca,
25
if so many obeyed his call. More than that number flocked to Piedmont
from different parts of northern and central Italy, generally in the
hope of serving under him. Of these, however, he was allowed to have
about 3,000 only, without cavalry or artillery. The rest were sent
to the depots of the regular’army in Piedmont, and took no part in the
war. But thus a portion of the enthusiastic youth—the revolutionary
element in fact—-was removed from the cities of northern and central
Italy.
The Italian people generally, and indeed many of the national party,
at the outset, applauded this war, and this alliance; influenced at the
moment, I think, less by any thought whether the alliance or protection
of a foreign despot was likely to lead either to independance or liberty,
than by an intense hatred of Austria. Mazzini protested against the
alliance, but at the same time, he prepared to ward off the danger it
might bring, and to turn the opportunity for acting, which it afforded, to
good account. A secret committee of the national party already existed at
Florence, composed of Dolfi, a baker, whose name was often mentioned
in our papers at that time; a man of immense influence -with the
Florentine people; Piero Cironi, a well-known literary man, and two or
three .others. This committee wrote to Mazzini in England, immediately
the war broke out, telling him that Tuscany was ripe for revolution and
asking for his counsel—I am telling you now something of the inner life
of the movement—Mazzini, in reply, advised them to promote revolution
by all means, only to be careful that nothing was done, no cry raised,
which could possibly serve as a pretext to Louis Napoleon for saying
that the people of Tuscany were willing to accept his cousin as their
Prince. Thus this danger was guarded against from the commence
ment ; and, when the Grand Duke fled from Tuscany, the scheme of
placing Prince Napoleon on the vacant throne, was defeated by the
resolute attitude of the population.
It may be doubted if Louis Napoleon ever intended to drive the
Austrians out of Italy, but, probably, the conclusion of peace was
hastened by his finding that his cousin had but little prospect of an
Italian throne ; and that revolution was extending into the Roman States.
Indeed, he frankly declared afterwards at Paris to the ambassadors and
great bodies of the state, when they met to thank him for the restoration
of peace, that he concluded it in order to avoid the dangerous co-opera
tion of the revolution.
The position of Austria in Italy was not really weakened by this war;
she lost only a part of Lombardy, with the city of Milan—an open
country with a large city containing a hostile population, which, in a
military sense, were only an embarrassment. Thus the direct conse
quence of the war and the alliance with the Emperor of the French,
amounted to but a small gain for Piedmont; especially as the cession of
Savoy and Nice was afterwards sternly exacted according to the original
compact. But there was an indirect consequence of immense value ;
a consequence which was never intended by Louis Napoleon, and for
which, therefore, no debt of gratitude was due. Revolution had been
suffered to raise its head in Tuscany and the legations; free popular
action had commenced, and here was a field for the national party
to work unon. After the peace of Villafranca this party began to
�26
Party of Action.
reorganise itself, and Garibaldi and Mazzini once more to act together.
In answer to a letter from Mazzini about this time, Garibaldi wrote:—.
“ Hence forward let us work together as brother and brother.” And
they have done so.
Throughout all the subsequent events there has been going on a con
stant struggle, more or less beneath the surface, between the policy of
Louis Napoleon on one hand—a policy absolutely adverse to the realisa
tion of unity—and, on the other, the irresistible aspirations of the
Italian people in that direction; guided and inspired still by the same
party, for the most part even by the same men, that had been working
for unity from the commencement.
I think it will help you to understand the events that followed the
peace of Villafranca, if I describe more clearly than I have done, the
two great Italian parties. Each of them has always acted under the
influence of one dominant idea, and a knowledge of this, affords the key
to all their policy. The national party, or, as it began to be called at
this time, the party of action,—but I must pause for a moment to ex
plain this change of name. When the Piedmontese government and the
moderate party gave the name of nationality to their project of a league
among Italian princes or a federation of states, and especially when
some of this party, going further, accepted, as a theory, but -without
acting for it, the doctrine that Italy might become one nation, the true
national party began to distinguish itself by this new name. Thus it was
first the Giovine Italia, then the national party, and, during the last few
years, the party of action; by which name I shall in future call it. For
thirty years then, this party has worked unceasingly to make Italy one
and independent; and although the members of the party are thoroughly
democratic in principle and feeling, all question of the form of govern
ment—republican or monarchical—is kept secondary or subservient to
the accomplishment of this great aim of unity.
The dominant idea which has always influenced the policy of the
moderate party, may be defined to be—Hostility to revolution; that
is to say, hostility to free popular action, to any movement not initiated
or controlled by some established government. The shifting policy of
this party in regard to the question of nationality, is to be accounted
for by its consistent adherence to this dominant idea. Thus in 1848
and 1849, when unity meant revolution throughout Italy, it condemned
and opposed this doctrine, and counselled the governments to grant
reforms and constitutions as the surest way of warding off revolution.
In 1860, the moderate party, as we shall see, definitively proclaimed
its adherence to the programme of unity; but still a spirit of hostility
to all free popular movements had much to do -with this decision; for
Garibaldi had just revolutionised Southern Italy in the name of unity,
and it was only by taking possession as it were of Garibaldi’s banner,
that the control of the movement could be transferred from him to the
Piedmontese Government, and so completed, if completed at all, by
the government and not by popular and revolutionary action. This
party represents generally aristocratic and conservative interests, and
its hostility to revolution is chiefly based on a dread of the democratic
tendency of popular movements. But its numbers and its strength
are augmented by all the timid and the indolent throughout the country,
�Policy of the Moderates.
27
and it finds adherents too wherever there exists a remnant of that old
stain upon the Italian character—the preference for working by crooked
ways, by statesmanship and cunning rather than by courage, through
others rather than by oneself.
Between these two parties, inclining sometimes to one, sometimes to
the other, there is the multitude, with the instinct of national unity in
their hearts, and with tendencies generous and good, as the multitude
always has, but wavering and uncertain; capable of being roused into
enthusiasm and heroism by the party of action, or lulled into apathy by
the soporific influence of the moderates.
To return now to the state of Italy after the peace of Villafranca.
The policy then adopted by the party of action was this :—to persuade or
to compel Victor Emanuel to co-operate with them for unity. Mazzini
published a letter to him immediately after the peace. He exhorted him
to continue the war against Austria, and, in place of the alliance of
Louis Napoleon which he had lost, to accept the alliance of twenty-six
millions of Italians. He said, “You have but to utter one word—unity;
and you have them with you sublime in enthusiasm, faith, and action.”
He assured Victor Emanuel that five hundred thousand volunteers would
flock to his standard, and he said, “If you have a soul capable of loving
or understanding the Italian people, you know that you may trust to
their gratitude for your reward.”
Soon afterwards—to encourage the king to enter on this path—the
populations of Tuscany and the Legations voted their annexation to
Piedmont.
1
The first project of the party of action after the peace of Villafranca,
was to spread revolution throughout the Roman and Neapolitan states,
by the passage of Garibaldi at the head of his volunteers from the Lega
tions southward. This was the project of Mazzini, who was there in
Italy, unseen, but organising and influencing all; he sent arms to
Ancona, and prepared insurrection there and in Sicily, the signal foi
*
whose outbreak was to be the advance of Garibaldi. The Italian hero
and his volunteers entered into the project with enthusiasm. Ricasoli
and Farini, then at the head of the provisional governments in Tuscany
and the Legations,—it was just before the annexation of those provinces
—yielded a reluctant consent, and they required that Mazzini himself
should not come forward. On the eve of his advance Garabaldi was
stopped by an order from the king.
In the following year, 1860, Mazzini planned and prepared the
Sicilian insurrection; though he remained in the back ground during the
movement that followed, because it was thought that by coming for
ward, he would increase the risk of open hostility from the Emperor of
the French. Sicily was chosen as the scene for initiating a general move
ment having Italian unity for its scope. Rosolino Pilo and Crispi were
the principal agents in organising the insurrection; both were Sicilian
refugees; they went disguised from England to Sicily for the purpose,
and the former was in effect the chief of the insurrection until Garibaldi
arrived. He was killed just before the taking of Palermo., The plan of
the intended movement was this:—“It was proposed that revolution, be
ginning in Sicily, should pass thence into the kingdom of Naples; all
Southern Italy once gained over to the national cause through popular
�28
Sicilian Insurrection—Garibaldi lands.
action, the Venetian states would be attached by sea and land, in concert
with internal insurrection. It was hoped that Victor Emanuel would
be then forced to cast in his lot unreservedly -with the Italian people,
lest he should lose the prospect of the Italian crown; and the people of
the North and South thus united, would say to Louis Napoleon, “ Now
deliver up our capital. You may remember how the Sicilian insurrection,
which broke out prematurely, maintained itself for about six weeks un
til Garibaldi landed at Marsala from G-enoa with just a thousand volun
teers. On his march towards Palermo he first encountered four thou
sand Neapolitans whom he defeated at Calatafimi. His little force was
then joined by two or three thousand of the insurgents under Posilino
Pilo. As he advanced towards Palermo, an army of twelve thousand
men issued forth to meet him; and here Garibaldi made use of a strata
gem which just illustrates his genius. Out of the direct road to Palermo,
a road branches off leading to the mountains and the ulterior of the
island; but Garibaldi knew that out of this road, at a distance of some
twenty or thirty miles, there branched another which returned to Palermo
on the other side. Instead of meeting the twelve thousand Neapolitans,
Garibaldi took the road leading into the interior, and they immediately
followed in pursuit of him. When he arrived at the branch road which
led back to Palermo, he with his little army turned into that, sending on
his artillery, however—he had two guns—still upon the road into the
interior. The twelve thousand Neapolitans, following the track of the
guns and other signs of the march of troops which were purposely placed
to mislead them, went on into the interior; and were still pursuing these
two guns, thinking they had Garibaldi before them, after he was in
possession of Palermo. By this stratagem he got rid of nearly half of
the garrison of the city.
’
At Palermo, Garibaldi was soon joined by thousands of volunteers
from Northern Italy. With nearly thirty thousand men he arrived at
the Straits of Messina, and gained another battle over a Neapolitan
army at Milazzo. But the Piedmontese Government dreaded the
spreading of revolution, and made an effort to prevent Garibaldi from
crossing into Naples. Victor Emanuel himself wrote to him desiring
him not to cross, while at the same time severe measures were taken
to prevent anymore volunteers from embarking in the ports of Northern
Italy. Garibaldi, however, was firm, and crossed the Straits.
From Calabria he advanced without resistance to Naples. The
Neapolitan soldiers on his road seemed awe-struck. As the vanguard
of the volunteer army approached, bodies of troops joined in the shout
—“Viva l’Italia! Viva Garibaldi!” and eithei' fraternised with the
volunteers or retired and let them pass. Once, a few officers, Mario,
Missouri, and some others, miles in advance of their army, came sud
denly upon a force of six thousand Neapolitans. They expected to be
made prisoners, but they cried—“ Viva l’ltalia ! Viva Garibaldi! ” There
was magic in the sound. Six thousand, men laid down their arms, and
the shout—“Viva Garibaldi! Viva l’ltalia!” was echoed to the skies
*
One may almost imagine that these men heard the voices of the martyrs
who for so many years had been dying for the great hope of national
unity, saying to them, '“ Ye, also, are Italians : stand by ; let Italy’s
deliverer pass!”
�His Victories.
29
The King dared not wait for his approach, but fled from Naples to
Capua-, taking with him the remains of his army, about forty thousand
men.
What military pomp, what glitter of royal ceremonial, can compare
with the glory of that heart-felt enthusiasm which saluted the entrance
of Garibaldi into Naples ! He came worn and ragged; his army was
miles behind ; he was accompanied only by half-a-dozen officers as
ragged as himself. No glittering epaulets, gold lace, or plumes. But
the Neapolitans beheld him in his old red shirt with a radiance around
him ; he was encircled to their eyes by the bright and glorious aureole
of the Italian idea.
Soon afterwards, on the 1st October, was fought the battle of Maddalena, or of the Volturno, near Capua. There eighteen thousand volun
teers completely defeated the entire army of the King of Naples. The
battle was obstinate and bloody ; it lasted from dawn till evening. In the
army of the King of Naples remained his choicest soldiers. There were
his guards and his Swiss battalions ; and Garibaldi said of them after the
battle, that they fought better than he had ever seen French or Austrians
fight. It was the last battle of this marvellous campaign. The original
plan of the movement, as it was projected when the Sicilian insurrection
was prepared, had so far been carried out precisely as it had been in
tended, but it was only half completed; and now it was arrested; not
by the force of the King of Naples—his last effort in the field was made
at the Volturno, and ho could only hold out for a time at Gaeta or in
other fortresses ; not by the power of Austria or of France ; but by the
Piedmontese government and the moderate party, simply through fear
of the democratic tendencies inherent in popular insurrections and in
these volunteer forces.
I have told you how Cavour tried to dissuade Garibaldi from crossing
the straits into the kingdom of Naples. Failing in this, he foresaw
that Garibaldi would triumph throughout the South, and would advance
through the Roman States along the shores of the Adriatic to Venetia.
Then Piedmont would be forced into war with Austria, not in alliance
with a foreign power, but in alliance with the revolution. At all risks
he determined to avoid this ; he hated or feared the revolution more
than Austria. Fie took a bold step ; he resolved to anticipate Garibaldi
and. the revolution, and to occupy the ground before them, by sending
a Piedmontese army into the Roman provinces on the Adriatic, so to
enter the north of the Neapolitan kingdom. The diplomatic documents
of the time show the motives by which Cavour professed to be influenced
in explaining the step to the French Emperor. Baron Talleyrand, the
French Ambassador at Turin, reporting a conversation with Cavour,
thus repeats his words :—“ If we are not in Umbria and the Marches
bexore Garibaldi we are lost; the revolution will invade central Italy :
we are forced to act.” And Thouvenel, the French Minister, in a
diplomatic circular of the I Sth October, thus reports Cavour’s own
exposition of his motives, made to the Emperor at Chambery, by the
Italian envoy Farini:—
e< Signor Farini has explained to the Emperor the very embarrassing
and dangerous position in which the triumph of the revolution, to a
certain extent personified in Garibaldi, threaten to place the Govern-
�Cavour sends an Army to the South—His Motive.
ment of his Sardinian Majesty. Garibaldi was on the point of freely
traversing the Roman states, raising the populations as he went, and,
had he once passed that frontier, it would have been impossible to
prevent an attack upon Venice. The Government of Turin had but one
mode left open to it to prevent that eventuality, and that was to enteri
the Marches and Umbria as soon as the approach of Garibaldi had
pioduced disturbance there, and then advancing, without infringing on
the authority of the Pope, to give battle, if it should be necessary, to the
revolution in the Neapolitan territory. Afterwards to request a con
gress to decide upon the destinies of Italy.”
ko, you see, this army which was sent to invade the Roman provinces
and enter the kingdom of Naples, was sent not so much for the sake of
completing Garibaldi s victories—Cavour did not doubt his triumphant
advance—as to supersede him and the revolution ; to give battle to him
if he persisted. Garibaldi yielded, as he afterwards told Cavour in the
chamber at Turin, to avoid the risk of civil war; and retired broken
hearted to his little Island of Caprera. He was even insulted by the
offer of pensions and a dukedom; it seemed as if the men of the govern
ment were as incapable of understanding him as of imitating him. The
remnant of his glorious and now veteran army of volunteers dispei'sed.
Apostles of an idea, they had fought neither for gold, nor a decoration,
nor the smile of a prince. On the long road from Marsala to the
Volturno how many of them had fallen 1 At Calatafimi, Palermo,
Melazzo, and on the Volturno. When, after his last battle, Garibaldi
decreed a medal for the thousand who started with him from Genoa,
little more than four hundred were found alive to receive it.
Before Garibaldi gave place to the royal army and the royal govern
ment, he. did the best he could, however, to place the King under a
moral obligation to continue and complete the work himself, in which
he was thus superseding his, Garibaldi’s, own action. The election
of the King by the population of the South was certain, Garibaldi had
inscribed the name of Victor Emanuel on his bannei’ in association with
that of Italy. Now he took care that the form of the plebiscite should
be no unconditional election; no mere annexation of the South to the
Kingdom of Piedmont. The form was as follows :—We vote that Italy
be one and indivisible, with Victor Emanuel and his descendents for
constitutional kings. This clearly signified that the South united with
the North under his rule, in order to accumulate the force of twentytwo millions of Italians in his hands, and render him strong enough to
make Italy, one, by driving the Austrians from Venice, and the
French from Rome.
When Cavour, in the Parliament at Turin, announced the King’s
acceptance of this vote, he for the first time proclaimed the adhesion of
the Government to the principle of unity; but while doing so, there
w’as some sign of evading the obligation of practically completing this
unity ; for he said that wai’ for the Venetia would at that moment be
displeasing to the great powers, and that, though Rome would, no doubt
be theirs, it must be with the consent of the Emperor of the French.
I do not condemn Cavour that, up to this period, he, or the Pied
montese government, did not work for unity. True nationality resides
in the hearts of a people, and the effort to constitute themselves as one
�Cavour’s Policy.
31
State should come from them, and be the expression of their conscious
ness that they form together one collective life. If this movement for
unity had been fomented by a Prince or his minister, it would have
sunk from being the assertion of a right, and from the dignity of a
principle, into the vulgar wickedness of royal ambition and State
aggrandisement. But though a Prince cannot initiate a truly national
movement, he may obey the call of a people whose aspiration to
national existence is manifest, and help them in the struggle : and I
do condemn Cavour that, after 1860, when the king might have said to
European Governments:—“Behold, I am not led by ambition; I but
obey the call of the Italian people : ”—he then evaded or indefinitely
postponed the fulfilment of the implied condition of Victor Emanuel’s
election. I know it may be argued with some show of reason that
postponement might be the wisest course, the surest path to eventual
success. But then it should have been postponement for a few months
only, postponement for the sake of preparation. Whereas Cavour,
instead of arming the country, encouraging the formation of more
volunteer forces, making all possible naval and military preparations,
showed the old spirit of subserviency to Louis Napoleon, and distrust
of the Italian people generally, but especially of all those who had
been instrumental in the revolutionary changes that had made Victor
Emanuel already king of three-fourths of Italy.
It is a common mistake in England to suppose that Cavour worked
for the unity of Italy ; and, as he represented the influence and action
of the Piedmontese Government, it is important to correct this mistake.
It originated, I imagine, in this way :—After the banner of unity had
proved in the hands of Garibaldi to be that of victory, and the
Piedmontese Government accepted it as their own; the moderate party
and the members of the Government, in their eagerness to identify
themselves with this banner, began to speak and write of it as if it
had long 1 epresented their aspirations and their aim. This tone was
natural enough, and to be expected, in the ministerial press of Italy;
but it was curious to observe how an influential portion of our own
pi ess blindly followed the example; and many of our newspaper
correspondents in Italy adopted this tone after 1860, whose letters of a
year or two before remained to show, that, at that time, it never
occurred to them to connect the policy of Piedmont, or of Cavour, with
what they then still considered a dangerous and Mazzinian Utopia.
The truth is, that, up to I860, the policy of Cavour, as far as it
extended to Italy generally, was in favour of a settlement of the
countiy on the basis of a federation of States; and whenever he
spoke of Italian nationality, he meant no more than this. Indeed, at
the Congress of Paris, in 1856, he proposed a still further division of
Italy,.by forming the Legations into an eighth Italian State. His great
ambition, and his aim, almost from his first becoming minister, had
merely been to form Piedmont into a kingdom of Northern Italy by the
acquisition of Lombardy, and, perhaps, some further aggrandisement at
the expense of Austria. And, to carry out this aim, he had always
looked to the help of France. It was but a repetition of the old policy
begun by Ludovico Sforza, imitated by many Italian statesmen, and
condemned by almost every historian—that of bringing in the French
�32
Cavour's Policy.
against the Germans. This help, of course he knew, was to be pur
chased only by concessions, either to France or to the Imperial Family J
and it was at length so purchased in 1859. Two years previously, he
had encouraged intrigues and conspiracies for revolutionising Naples,
and placing a Murat on the throne ; always with a view of obtaining
the favour of the Emperor of the French ; and the proposal to form the
Legations into a separate State, was probably made with the idea of
giving a throne to a Buonapartist Prince.
One circumstance alone seems to connect Cavour’s policy with a
thought of unity. He was supposed to give secret encouragement
to a society called the National Society, formed in Piedmont two or
three years before the war, by La Farini and a few of the more
advanced moderates. This association acquired some importance
by enrolling Garibaldi for a short time among its members, though
he separated from it after the peace at Villafranca. Its programme
may be. thus described:—Independence, Unification. The substitution
of the latter' word for unity, signifying that Italy was to be made
one as by some agency acting upon her; it pointed to the exclusion
of revolutionary or popular action in the work, and implied rather
the operation of regular armies. The idea of the association appeared
to be the extension of Piedmont, little by little, as any combination
in European politics might give help from without. Such support as
Cavour gave to this association was no doubt given in part because it
opposed Mazzini’s teaching of popular action ; and also because, in case
the tendency to unity proved a reality, it would attract that tendency to
Piedmont as a centre. Still, not only his avowed policy, but his actual
efforts were directed to a settlement of Italy as a federation of States.
And it is remarkable that after Garibaldi was in Sicily, at the time when
Cavour hoped he would not extend the revolution beyond that Island,
negociations were going on between the Piedmontese and Neapolitan
governments for a settlement of Italy as three States ; a kingdom of the
North, one of the South, and the papacy in the centre; with some sort
of federation or alliance between the three. I confess, my own opinion
is that Cavour was one of the last among the Italians to acquire faith
in the achievement of unity. He represented essentially the views and
feelings of the moderate party; and the leaders of that party, material
ists themselves, without enthusiasm, love, or genius, were slow to believe
in the devotion of the multitude to a grand and unselfish idea. Cavoufll
had faith in the power of interests rather than ideas ; and was not the
man to devote the energies of a life to realise a great conception of uni
certain practicability. And when the events of 18G0 had convinced the
most sceptical that unity was the true goal of the movement, instead of
looking to means corresponding in grandeur with the aim, instead of
stimulating the enthusiasm and developing all the powers of the country,
his plan for working in the direction of that aim, was a revival of the
French alliance against Austria of 1859. In the meantime he tried to
lull the people into inertness by vain hopes, teaching them that if they
remained tranquil all might be done for them by their great protector^
Negociations were undoubtedly going on continually for such an alli
ance ; the terms discussed were a cession of the island of Sardinia, and
co-operation with France in a war for the provinces on the Rhine in
�Party of Action in the Italian Chamber.
33
case Prussia came to the aid of Austria ; as Prussia probably would do
if Austria were attacked in Italy by the French. Such negociations
might or might not have come to any thing, they terminated at the
death of Cavour; though subsequent Italian ministers have been
inclined to the same policy.
Even if independence of Austria could be thus achieved, what wellwisher to the Italians would desire it? Independence and unity for
Italy form one of those aims whose value depends upon the manner of
achieving it. The limbs might be put together; the form might be
complete in all its fair proportions, and Italy remain a corpse. The
consciousness of independence, the sense of theii’ own power and dignity,
all that constitutes a nation’s life—the spirit that should animate the
body—might yet be wanting. I confess, for my own part, had I the
power now by merely opening my hand, to give the Italians at once a
complete and independent national existence, I would not do it. For
their own sakes, and because I wish them well, I would not do it. Let
them win it for themselves. Let them obey God’s law—fulfil the duty
first, then enter on the enjoyment of the right.
When the Giovine Italia first raised the banner of unity, their expec
tation of practical success was logically founded on the conviction that
a people of twenty-six millions can be independent and united, if they
resolutely will it. During a long apostleship of thirty years, they have
striven by precept and example to rouse the Italians to a new life of
enthusiasm and energy. They intended that the Italians should deserve
and become fitted for national existence by the very struggle to obtain
it. I remember in one of his earliest addresses to his disciples, the
founder of the Gio vine Italia thus wrote :—
“ Think how grand,, how religious, and holy, is the work that God
confides to us ; the creation of a people! It never can be done by
crooked ways, or court intrigues ; nor by doctrines invented just to meet
the circumstances of the moment; but only by long struggles, by the
living example of austere virtue set to the multitude, by resolutely and
unceasingly teaching the truth, by the boldness of faith, by the expen
diture of our blood, and by such a solemn, undying, never-failing
enthusiasm, as should be stronger than any suffering or misfortune
that can afflict the heart of man.”
Who can dispute either in a practical or a moral sense the soundness
of this teaching ? Who can deny that it was the very way to accomplish
unity ? And even whenever the monarchy and its regular forces have
come in and taken part, it has been because the people were acting
without them.
When the North and South were first united under the sceptre of
Victor Emanuel, the party of action had resolved to give the monarchy
a fair trial as a means of completing unity. In assembling the first
Italian Parliament, Cavour applied to the elections for Italy the electoral
suffrage in use in Piedmont. This suffrage is so narrow that probably,
on the average, the sitting members have not polled more than three
hundred votes apiece. The use of this suffrage, together with the exer
tion of Government influence, had the effect pf introducing into the
chamber a large majority of the moderate party. This result was
assisted Ho doubt by the fact that the candidates of this party were as
D
�34
Attempt on the Venetia stopped.
loud in their expressions of devotion to unity during the elections, as
if they had been working for it all their lives. Thus a state of things
which had been brought about by the people acting under the influence
of the party of action, was to be regulated in its development by the
moderate party ; and here was an inevitable source of future discord and
confusion. Nevertheless the party of action, represented by about a
sixth of the entire chamber, acted loyally, and laboured constitutionally
to obtain the arming of the country, and a development of all its powers
to bring to a completion the great national work. First, they endea
voured to obtain the introduction into Italy of a system of militia,
resembling that in Switzerland ; where, out of a population of a million
and a half, it supplies two hundred and fifty thousand armed and trained
men. It would have given more than two millions in Italy. Failing in
this, they struggled for permission to form volunteer regiments as in
England. But these and other efforts which they made for arming the
people were all made in vain; and even the regular army was but very
gradually and slowly increased.
When the party of action, after nearly two years of patient trial,
found that the monarchy would not spontaneously continue the move
ment, it turned again to work out its mission in tho old way. Prepara
tions were made in the spring of 1862, for a movement in the Tyrol,
and the Italian provinces of Austria. Insurrection and an invasion of
volunteers were to take place at once. Some twenty or thirty thousand
volunteers would have entered those provinces at four different points,
and communications were established with Hungarian troops in Italy.
While these preparations were in progress, both Mazzini and Garibaldi
appealed to Rattazzi, then Minister,—the one appealing to him in
writing from England, the other personally—in this sense:—They
entreated him not to check such a movement, if only in the interest of
the monarchy itself. A Government, they said, based upon a half
accomplished revolution, cannot remain secure if it ceases to identify
itself with the aim of the revolution ; and the continued postponement
of any preparation for accomplishing this aim, must eventually lead to
anarchy and civil discord. They promised him that if the attempt
should fail, the party of action would take the whole responsibility,
and the Government should not be compromised; but that if the
insurrection maintained itself successfully for two or three weeks, the
Italian Government could then step in, and the leadership of the war
with Austria should be abandoned to it. Rattazzi seemed half to
acquiesce.
Before these preparations were mature, all was stopped by the Italian
Government. It was said, and probably with reason, that Louis Na- 1
poleon, informed of what was going on by his spies or those of Austria,
sent orders to Ratazzi to do so. Volunteers were flocking towards the
Austrian frontier’ in small separate bands. Suddenly, four hundred
were arrested at once at Sarnico ; others at Brescia. Two officers,
Colonels Nullo and Catabene, were arrested in the presence of Gari
baldi, who had just arrived at Sarnico himself. It was during an
impulse of indignation at this check, which he imputed to the orders or
the influence of the Emperor of the French, that Garibaldi went to
Sicily, and commenced the movement against Rome which terminated
at Aspramonte.
�Garibaldi prepares to move on Rome.
85
When Garibaldi conceived this project of attaking the French in
Rome, Mazzini was not at hand to counsel him; and when he wrote
from Sicily to Mazzini in England, to say what he was doing, the latter
answered:—“ You know I thought it would be wiser to organise a new
attempt on the Venetia rather than to move on Rome, but now you
have raised the cry, ‘ Rome or Death,’ and the people of Sicily have
responded to it, we must go on. I am with you with my whole heart,
and hope to meet you at Naples.” He left England and was already
in Italy, on his way to join Garibaldi, when he heard of the disaster at
Aspramonte.
No doubt this enterprise of Garibaldi was imprudent. What then ?
Have not all freedom’s battles been fought against fearful odds ? Had
not Greece a hopeless cause against Persia ; has not Poland against
Russia ? But however imprudent this enterprise may have been, it was
not so desperate as our newspapers seemed to think it. It was under
taken in the hope that the Italian army would refuse to act against
him. Nor was this hope altogether unreasonable, for until he reached
Aspramonte, it had refused to do so ; and the regiments which acted
then, had been selected and brought from Northern Italy on purpose.
If he had approached Naples, that city would undoubtedly have declared
for him. Then, the country with him, and the army not against him,
the king must have changed his ministers and joined him too. There
would have been people, army, prince,—all the powers of the country
combined in the great enterprise. When Garibaldi found the troops
prepared to act, his hope of success was extinguished in a moment; he
never dreamt of civil war. And what can be grander than his majestic
figure when he was a target for the bullets of the royal soldiers, and
exclaiming to his volunteers “ Non fate fuoco ? ”
I must say I rejoiced to see that in judging this attempt, public opinion
in England, after vibrating for a few days, took the nobler side. Let a
man conquer, thousands glorify his name, be his cause divine or devilish;
but most among us visited with our sympathies the conquered, the
wounded, the imprisoned. We told the down-fallen that he was still a
hero for all who love a righteous cause.
Under the Government of the Italian kingdom—a kingdom brought
into existence by the movement for unity—a Government identifying
itself by its professions with this principle—we see the two men who
have been the Apostle and the Warrior of the movement; one an exile,
the other wounded.
And in my opinion, the policy of tbe Government, or the moderate
party, is as unwise as it is ungenerous. The national movement is from
its nature essentially democratic in every country; it is the first great
step on the true path of democratic progress in Europe ; but when
Mazzini, after the peace of Villafranca, invited the King to identify
himself unreservedly with the national aspiration; when Garibaldi a
year afterwards dragged him into connexion with it, by coupling the
name of Victor Emanuel with that of Italy in all his proclamations in
Sicily and Naples, they were drawing him into the only path for the
safety of his throne. Mazzini told him the truth when he said:—“If
you have a soul capable of loving or understanding the Italian people,
you know you may trust to their gratitude for your reward,”
D 2
�36
Future Prospects of the Italian Movement.
I imagine your sympathies have been raised during this narrative in
favour of the party of action ; and this, not merely because in this party
has resided the whole initiative of the movement, but because it includes
all that is most generous and manly among the Italians; all that gives
hope of the uprising of that people to a nobler character and a better
life. And this party in Italy is but the type of such parties which exist
elsewhere. In Poland, it has suffered as in Italy; in Hungary too ;
wherever this national aspiration exists, or is growing up, such a party
is formed or forming. Its members are the three hundred of Ther
mopylae; the forlorn hope of the movement.
In every country the many, high or low, rich or poor, are incapable
of sustained devotion to an unselfish object. For the poor, there are
daily wants, and daily wants are selfish counsellors ; the rich are often
frivolous, corrupt, and sensual. The many may be roused from time to
time into enthusiasm and heroism, but they sink again into intervals of
apathy and inertness. The party of action represents in each country
the sustained, unflagging, active devotion to the cause. Theirs is not
merely the courage of the warrior, which has led them often, few in
number, badly armed, undisciplined, to confront numerous and disci
plined legions; but the courage of the apostle; the devotion to a
cherished faith, which lias led them to encounter imprisonment, exile,
death—and death called ignominious—by the executioner or the hang
man, even before their cause was thought noble by the many. When
unsustained by applause or sympathy, they suffered, supported only by
the conscience, and by the glorious faith, >that the truth they proclaimed,
however condemned it might be then as a folly or A, sin, would one day
triumph ; the seed they died to sow, sooner or later, would bear fruit.
In regard to the future prospects of the Italian struggle, it would, of
course, be idle to speculate beyond the anticipation of certain general
results. I have no doubt, however, that the party of action will, before
long, succeed in producing a movement in the Venetia and the Italian
Tyrol, which will drag the government into war with Austria. A war
so initiated, would be a war by the Italian people, not for themselves
alone, but in the name of the principle of nationality ; and would
necessarily be carried on in alliance with what is called the revolution.
There would be insurrection in Hungary; perhaps in other parts of the
Austrian Empire. The movement in Poland would revive; and the
three nationalities which are preparing to rise upon the ruins of the
Turkish Empire, would probably begin the struggle. These three
nationalities are—the Greek, which would extend beyond the limits of
the present kingdom ; a Roumaine nationality, forming round the
Danubian principalities, and which ought to take in some territory
belonging now both to Russia and to Austria; and a Sclave nationality
of which Servia would be the. nucleus.
The leaders of the national parties in all these countries are in com
munication with each other, and a general and simultaneous movement
has been for some time in contemplation. It was the knowledge that
such a movement was preparing, which induced the Russian government
to order the forced levy in Poland in the beginning of last year, which
drove the party of action in that country into a premature and separate
insurrection, Many circumstances combined with the want of prepara-
�^^Future Prospects of the Italian Movement.
37
tion to prevent the example of Poland from being followed at the 'time.
Among these were the slowness of Garibaldi’s recovery, which made it
impossible for him, last summer, to take part in a campaign ; and the
prudent attitude of neutrality assumed at first by Austria towards Poland,
which assisted the moderates of Hungary in checking insurrection in
that country.
The result of such a war by the Italians against Austria for the
Venetia, can scarcely, I think, be doubted. Austria is strong in a con
test with any great military power ; in such a contest her armies will
hold together, and the question of success becomes little else than a dry
calculation of mere material elements; the comparative strength of the
artillery, and the numbers of the men, who are influenced on one side
by no higher motive than on the other, and are scarcely less machines
than the muskets that they bear. But Austria is weak against insur
rection of her own subjects; then there are moral elements at work,
which give enthusiasm to one side and paralyse the other. For evi
dence of this, we need but compare the power she displayed, in 1859,
against France and Piedmont, with her feebleness in 1848, in the contest
with popular insurrection in Hungary and the Lombardo-Venetian pro
vinces. But, besides all the power of revolution, of volunteer forces, and
popular insurrection, there is now a regular force of three hundred thou
sand soldiers at the disposal of the Italian Government; and, large as is
the army of Austria, still, from the extent of her dominions, no part of
which can be denuded of troops, she never has been able to bring more
than one hundred and seventy or one hundred and eighty thousand men
into Italy.
Perhaps it may be asked;—If the Italian Government disposes of an
army capable of carrying on war successfully for the. Venetia, why
should it be assumed that the initiation of the war will come from the
party of action, instead of from the Government? The answer to such
a question may be found in much I have already said, but, at the risk
of repetition, I reply:—The Italian Government, by postponing any
advance for four years, has not only shown that it has not the desire to
advance, but may be said to have lost the right to do so. The king is
bound by his relations with other governments, and it is only under
manifest pressure from his subjects that he has a right to act.
Without such pressure, it would be but a war of aggression, and a viola
tion of treaties on his part; and the government of Victoi Emanuel has
*
now contrived to keep his subjects tranquil for four years without either
Rome or Venice. In the meantime, it has accepted—and with rejoicing,
too—the recognition of his dominions, as they are, from France, Russia,
and other Powers ; this recognition being given, professedly, on the
supposition that the government would not attempt to extend those
dominions. The attitude of the moderate party, which holds the reins
of government, is now what it has always been. It opposes every
attempt to advance, but whenever insurrection succeeds and an advance
is made, it advances too, in ordei' to secure what is gained to the mo
narchical interest; then its opposition is directed against the next step.
And now both the practical and moral requirements of the problem
demand that a fresh initiative of action should come from the people.
Of course the result of such a war would depend much upon the
t
�38
Louis Napoleon’s Position in Italy.
neutrality of the Emperor of the French. But so long as the Italians
made no attack on Rome, he could scarcely find a pretext for acting
against them; and Austria once driven out of Italy, or weakened by
internal revolution, they might turn to Louis Napoleon, and treat with
him on a footing of equality for the evacuation of their capital. Let the
Italians but have a chance of taking their two enemies in turn, and if
they do not win their national existence, they do not deserve it. The
power of either France or Austria to retain its hold on Italy, is derived
from the presence of the other in the country.
My sketch of the Italian question would be incomplete, did I not
devote a few words expressly to an estimate of the past and present
attitude of Louis Napoleon towards Italy. And whether I look to the
past, or endeavour to raise the veil of the future, the Emperor of the
French appears always to me the worst enemy of Italian unity, indepen
dence, and liberty. The Emperor of Austria and the Italian Princes
inherited their positions in Italy. In struggling to maintain their power,
they have been defending what they considered rights. They have been
the necessary and open enemies of the national movement, which grew
up among the Italians always with a knowledge that these enemies must
be encountered and overcome. But Louis Napoleon created his position
in Italy for purposes of his own ambition : he came, a new, unexpected,
unprovoked enemy.
Those among the Italians, whose policy it has been, of late years, to
persuade their countrymen that he is at heart not unfriendly to the
Italian cause, generally assert that he is not altogether responsible for
the restoration of the Papal Government, in 1849 ; they say, too, that
Austria might have restored it if he had not; and then they point
triumphantly to Solferino and Magenta. These views have even some
times found an echo in England. Now, the expedition to Rome was
sent in consequence of an agreement entered into with the Pope by the
French Government—Louis Napoleon being President of the Republic—
that the Papal sovereignty should be re-established. The Roman Re
public was destroyed as a preliminary step to the destruction of that of
France; French soldiers were to be taught at Rome to fire upon a
republican flag; and Louis Napoleon was sagacious enough to foresee
that the Papacy, restored by him, would be for ever dependent on him
for its existence at Rome; and might become a great power in his
hands, both to forward his designs on the French crown, and for future
influence in Europe. Nor was therein Italy, at the time of the French
invasion, any power that was capable, as far as we can judge, of over
throwing the infant republic of Rome. You may remember, I told you
that the Romans, so far from fearing Austria, were making preparations,
before the French invasion, to take the offensive against her, and to
send an army to act in concert with the Venetians, and with renewed
popular insurrection in Lombardy. Even during the armistice with the
French, the triumvirs appealed to Oudinot to make the armistice certain
for fifteen days—it could be broken at twenty-four hours’ notice—that
their forces might go out from Rome and give battle to the Austrians.!
“ If you will grant this,” said the triumvirs, “ we are convinced we shall
as easily drive the Austrians from our territory as we have driven the
Neapolitans.” And there can be little doubt but they would have done
�The Papal Church at Rome.
39
so. We must bear in mind that the Austrian armies always dwindled
as they approached Central Italy; every city taken had to be garrisoned, and the force was but small which was advancing in the Roman
States. Oudinot, however, refused, and a few days afterwards received
an order from Louis Napoleon to put an end to the armistice and take
possession of Rome at once.
Nor was Louis Napoleon more a friend of the Italians in 1859, when
he declared war against Austria in the name of Italian independence—
why did he not make them independent of himself ?—and received gravely
and self-complacently the acclamations of the people, hailing him as their
“Magnanimous Liberator,” than he was in 1849. There is a fable, per
haps familiar to most of you, of a wolf and a shepherd. The wolf,
feeling disposed to vary the mode of his depredations on the sheepfold,
took an opportunity, when the shepherd was asleep, to steal his hat and
cloak, and, putting them on himself, in this costume gained easy access
to the sheepfold. This wolf, I think, must have been at a school kept
by a fox, he was so cunning. But the wolf, though he had on the shep
herd’s cloak, was the wolf still, with all his wolfish instincts; and when
Louis Napoleon, in 1859, put on the hat and the cloak of a “ Magnani
mous Liberator,” he was the same Louis Napoleon, with the same in
stincts and interests of a despot, as when, in 1849, he sent word to
Oudinot to put an end to the armistice and enter Rome.
The national movement never incurred a greater risk of having its
course perverted or arrested for years, than it did in 1859, through that
scheme for a federation of States under the Presidency of the Pope, and
with a Buonapartist Prince on some Italian throne. It would have
been a condemnation to perpetual feebleness and dependence upon Louis
Napoleon. And he now holds the capital of Italy, keeping the country
in confusion and the movement in suspense, stimulating discord, and
striving to keep the Italians in both moral and material weakness.
Connected with the subject of the French occupation, there is a ques
tion which occurs to the minds of most people :—What will become of
the spiritual authority of the Popes in Italy, when the temporal power
falls with the retirement of the French ?
It was always evident that with the realisation of unity, the temporal
sovereignty of the Popes must cease; it did not necessarily follow, how
ever, that the spiritual authority would fall too. But the spiritual
power, as’an influence on the religious feelings and the minds of men,
has long been dying in Italy, whatever may be its prospect of duration
in other countries. If, however, it had any vitality remaining a few
years since, it certainly received its death-blow by the French invasion,
and restoration of the temporal sovereignty. Oudinot took Rome at
the cost, not merely of the blood of three thousand of the noblest,
bravest hearts of Italy, but at the cost of the last chance for the con
tinuance in that country of the spiritual authority of the Popes.
The Papal Church in the Middle Ages, as a religious agency, helped
the nations of Europe in their moral development, awoke in the soul a
feeling of human dignity, protected the humble and defenceless, and
fostered the noblest creations of the human mind in that age; but its
temporal power acted always in an opposite sense. A struggle gradually
ripened between the liberty which the Church herself had fostered in
�40
Conchtding Remarks on the National Idea.
the hearts of Christian peoples, and the local temporal despotism for
which she strove ; till at length, in the sixteenth century, she abandoned and sacrificed her religious mission for the sake of this local
political power; she sought foreign aid to prop it, and the alliance then
commenced between the Papacy and European despotism for mutual
support. From that time, the influence of the Church upon the Italian
people began to decay, and, in 1848, the truth became at once apparent,
that the Papal power in Italy had no hold on the sympathies or real
religious sentiments that were in the hearts of the multitude. Never
did revolution express more clearly the will of an entire people. No
arm among the subjects of the Pope was raised to support his government. In a population of less than three millions, three hundred and
forty-three thousand men voted in the elections for the Assembly,
though knowing that excommunication hung over the heads of all who
voted ; and the abolition of the temporal power of the Popes was decreed
by this Assembly with only five dissentient voices. Yet there are living
elements of religious life among the Italians, and perhaps some new
organisation of the Church will arise from the links of charity and goodwill which bind the people to the parochial clergy in contradistinction
to the Roman Hierarchy.
Let us now, in concluding, return to a consideration of the Idea
which produces and regulates these attempts—the great Thought that
floats over Europe.
The sketch I have given you of the Italian movement has been presented chiefly to illustrate the nature of this Idea, and throughout the
narrative I have taken pains to show that the movement has arisen
from no artificial impulse given from without, and that the Government
has exercised no real leadership, for here lies the whole question of the
nature of the motive-power at work. The probable vitality of the
movement, the grandeur of its results, its beiug a movement of creation
introducing a new system and a new era, all evidently depend upon the
fact that it represents a force coming from within, and is the expression
of feelings and ideas in the people’s hearts. So I have taken pains to
place in their true light the respective positions held by the moderate
*
party and the national party, or party of action; and to show clearly
the parts played in the great drama by Cavour on one side, and by
Mazzini and Garibaldi on the other; for while the former represents
only the influence and action of the Piedmontese Government, the two
latter represent the aspirations and the action of the Italian people,
As often happens at any great crisis, before a great coming change,
there rose up in Italy the representative man—the O
genius who peneX
J
X
trated the secret of the future, and with his breath wakened into life
and into flame the smouldering fire. Then by his side there gradually
appeared the yet more dazzling figure of the warrior; the two together
incarnating the force, grandeur, and devotedness of the popular aspiration.
The definition which I gave you of the national idea towards the
opening of my first lecture, corresponds, as you may have observed,
with the general views concerning it expressed by Mazzini more than
thirty years ago ; and you have seen how his views have been confirmed
by the course of events. He who could discern the coming movement
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�Concluding Remarks on the National Idea.
41
while yet preparing in the world of thought, before it had shaped itself
into facts which all can see ; who could detect, so long ago, what was
real and living, and contained the germs of the future, in the political
agitation of the time, and, identifying himself with it, become instru
mental in the fulfilment of his own predictions, ought now to be accepted
as an authority for the real signification and future tendency of the
movement. And those who for so many years were accustomed to call
him prophet in derision, because he foretold the rising up of nationali
ties, and declared there was an instinct of national unity in the hearts of
the Italians, which needed but to be awakened,—now, that they can no
longer dispute the truth of his predictions, ought in fairness to hail him
prophet in another sense.
I believe all that vague feeling of love of country, which throughout
history we find manifesting itself almost like an instinct in the heart,
and which has led so often to sublime acts of heroism and self-devotion ;
which gives a sense of wrong and degradation under a foreign rule, and
makes each man feel himself a participator in the greatness or glory of
his country,—I believe all these feelings, to which we give the general
name of patriotism, are developing into a purer and higher sentiment,
and taking a more definite form, in this great idea of nationality ; this
idea raising the conception of the nation by connecting it with the sense
of a duty owing by the nation to humanity. And those populations
which are agitating to break through the arbitrary and artificial arrange
ment of states created by conquest or diplomacy, in order to define and
constitute their own collective or national lives,—whether they are
forming according to race, language, religion, historical traditions, or
geographical boundaries which sometimes mark a country as by the hand
of nature for the abode of one people,—are guided above all, in the
groups they form, by an instinctive sense of having common tendencies,
and a common aim or mission, at which they are to work together in the
organisation and division of human labour.
One word now as to our own attitude and the policy of our Govern
ment towards the movement.
With this grand European problem before us; this immense hope of •
national existence fermenting in the minds of European peoples, and
the soil of Europe upheaving with the germs of young nations bursting
into life to replace the old empires that are dying,—with all this
before us, let us no longer dream that there is only a malady that may
be cured by some doses of constitutional liberty, or local concessions of
semi-independence. Those who always counsel moderation, or gradual
and prudent change, may give us excellent advice. Ours is a normal
state of healthy existence and pacific progress ; there is no question of
our national existence, or of defending or recovering our independence ;
but while moderation may be wisdom or virtue in one case, it may be
folly or cowardice in the other. If you are satisfied from what you
have heard, that the movement corresponds with the wants of the age,
and that it must advance by revolution ; that is, by the efforts and
struggles of the populations themselves; then revolution in those
countries ought to be for us a subject not of apprehension but of hope.
We are ready enough to applaud or sanction accomplished revolution,
revolution that is successful ; but this is not enough, it is revolution yet
E
�42
Our oum Policy towards the Movement.
to come, and attempts at revolution, we should approve. The move
ment is in its infancy. That which is right when achieved, it is right
to endeavour to achieve ; yet think how apt we have been to condemn
the actors in unsuccessful attempts, as silly or wicked disturbers of the
public order ; but, let success once crown their efforts, we have hailed
them as wise, and virtuous, and heroic. This acceptance of the accom
plished fact is but the cowardly and atheistical worship of success; it is
the very spirit which on Mount Calvary would have joined in the cry :—
Crucify Him ; Crucify Him I and a few centuries later, would have
bowed down to kiss the foot of the representative of Christianity, when
he sat in royal robes upon a gilded throne. In the everlasting battle of
good with evil, truth with falsehood, failures precede success ; martyrdom
, , paves the way to victory ; and the martyr is as great as the conqueror.
1 Among the great Powers of Europe, our Government is the only one
which can at all be said to represent the people, or to be the expression
of their collective thought and feeling. Hence, ours is the only one
from which any good will towards this movement might be expected.
The principle of non-intervention has often been proclaimed by Eng
land : this principle is susceptible of two interpretations. If it means an
isolated policy, adopted by ourselves alone, it is simply indifference to
all that may be going on in Europe, which does not touch our own im
mediate interests ; in effect, neutrality between good and evil. But, if
it means a principle of policy to be recognised in common by the great
Powers, as binding upon others as ourselves, and which would give us
the right to say,—“ If you interfere for evil, we will interfere for good,”
—it is the best general principle we could support in favour of the move
ment. Hitherto, apparently, we have scarcely understood it in this sense.
The Austrian empire was saved, and the national movement arrested
in 1849, by flagrant violations of the principle ; by the intervention of
Russia in Hungary, and France in Italy. And during the war with
Russia, we seemed rathe’’ to repudiate than to support it: we might
have said to Russia,—“ Let the elements of dissolution the Turkish
empire contains within itself, work as they may; we will not suffer
intervention on your part, either to hasten her dissolution, or replace
her domination by your own.” Instead of this, we proclaimed the
existence of the Turkish empire to be necessary to the balance of
power. It was a policy calculated to help the designs of the Czar, by
making the young nations which are preparing to rise upon the ruins of
that empire, look to him as their protector; for let the slave once
despair of freedom, and he may accept a new master only from hatred
of the old.
The policy of our Government has generally been little else than
making head against the necessities of the day : but if, once comprebending where there is life and where death in Europe, it should rise
abo/e the political combinations of the day, and extend its views to the
future; it might, without plunging into any revolutionary crusade,
create for itself the sympathies of those peoples destined to rise, win a
moral supremacy in Europe, and prepare a wreath of new and true
alliances for England’s brow.
*I
*
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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Italian unity and the national movement in Europe
Creator
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Barker, John Sale
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 42 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: "These lectures were lately delivered at Brighton". [From preliminary page]. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Author not given on title page, taken from KVK. Date of publication deduced from author's preliminary note dated June 1864.
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[s.n.]
Date
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[1864?]
Identifier
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G5249
Subject
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Italy
Politics
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Italian unity and the national movement in Europe), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Conway Tracts
Europe-Politics and Government-19th Century
Italy-History-1849-1870
Italy-Politics and Government-19th Century
Nationalism