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Some stood for a Republican Government, others for the leadership of the Pope and still others that of Piedmont. A people which had seemed dead had arisen to new and vigorous life, breaking the spell which bound it and showing itself worthy of a new and splendid destiny.”Garibaldi was born in 1807 at Nice, then an Italian town. His part was to enter the Sardinian Navy and win over the sailors to the plot. Several of these societies also promoted Italian nationalism and the idea of a unified Italian political state.
Victor Emmanuel resigned his crown in favour of his brother Charles Felix. In the case of the Papal States, the Inquisition, the Index and all the paraphernalia of medieval church government were restored.A corrupt and inefficient administration created a lot of discontentment. Victor Emmanuel was to marry his 16-year-old daughter to Prince Napoleon, the cousin of Napoleon. Murat fought in the Battle of Leipzig and despite France’s defeat in Leipzig in 1813, Murat reached an agreement with the Austrian Empire in order to save his throne.However, during the Hundred Days, the period in which Napoleon although defeated, returned from his exile and tried to consolidate power again, Murat realized that the European powers meeting at the Congress of Vienna, intended to remove him as well from power. However, much depended upon the impression which Garibaldi could produce on the mind of the people of Sicily. This society superseded the Carbonari as the centre of nationalist agitation.
It became a mission of his life to westernize Piedmont and eventually the whole of Italy.He was convinced that railways, factories, banks, milk and business enterprises as working in France and Britain were the only road to economic prosperity in Italy. He was always prepared to analyse them patiently and carefully in order to find out a solution.By 1854, he had succeeded in running Piedmont on sounder business-like lines. France promised to support Piedmont in a war with Austria on the condition that Cavour provided a pretext which would justify the action of France in the eyes of the people of Europe.The Austrians were to be driven out of Italy. “Use the good fortune that presents itself to you. It was under these circumstances that Victor Emmanuel entered the territory of Naples at the head of his army. He reminded the Italians that they had no citizenship, no country and no national flag.
He was able to create a faith among the people for the holy task. Much to Emmanuel’s dismay, this latter term was never enforced, however, and the French made no attempt to expel the Italian garrisons that then assumed control over the regions since the outbreak of the war.In return for French backing, Cavour ceded Nice and Savoy to France. There was no resistance. In 1858, he formed an alliance with France, one that included a pledge of military support if necessary, against Austria, Italy's major obstacle to unification. Italy was first united by Rome in the third century B.C. There were people who wanted the throne to go to Charles Albert. Access to History: The Unification of Italy 1789-1896 (4th rf., Hodder Education, 2015), textbook.[5.]
Cavour appealed in these words. “Out of this mud, Italy will be made.” After victory over Russia, the Congress of Paris was held in 1856.It was before that Congress that Cavour was able to condemn the Austrian rule in Italy and raise the Italian question from the level of a local question to that of an international question. The people of Paima, Modena and Bologna also demanded union with the kingdom of Victor Emmanuel.It was found difficult to carry into effect the terms of the peace of Villafranca. The name of Garibaldi was on the lips of everyone and it was difficult to oppose him. Mazzini considered the liberation and unification of Italy as a religion.He was prepared to live and die for it. Secret societies began to spread all over Italy and the Carbonari was the most important.It had its mystic rites and symbols, but it concealed and fostered a determined political purpose which was the expulsion of the foreigner and the achievement of constitutional freedom. Now we have got one. The diplomacy of Austria could not induce them to go further than that. The progress of Garibaldi, became a simple triumphal march.He was received by the people as “a second Christ.” On 6 September 1860, the King of Naples left for Gaeta and on 7 September Garibaldi entered the capital by train from Salerno alone ahead of his army. Mazzini described the condition of Italy in these words “Country, liberty, brotherhood, all are wrested from them; their faculties are mutilated, curbed, chained within a narrow circle traced for them by men who are strangers to their tendencies, to their wants, their wishes; their tradition is broken under the care of an Austrian corporal; their immortal soul feudatory to the stupid caprices of a man seated on a throne at Vienna.”The restorations of 1815 were followed generally by reactionary or demoralising administrations.
After the end of the Crimean War in 1856, Cavour took further a more intensive programme of economic development.He tried to acquire more military and economic strength for his country. The situation in Italy was highly favourable to the national cause. All the subjects were thoroughly watched.