Question 7

Was improvisation more important than calculation in the Unification of Italy?

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Briefly set out the course of unification 1852-70:

• Development of Piedmont

• Secret diplomacy/ war/plebiscites

• Sicilian revolution and Garibaldi

• Intervention of Piedmont and annexation

• Venice and Rome incorporated

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• Cavour’s plans – knew unification needed European diplomatic and military help to succeed

• Developed state on West European, liberal free-trade lines

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• Victor Emmanuel persuaded reluctant Cavour into Crimean War to divert attention from domestic problems (note that it used to be believed that Cavour had taken Piedmont into the war to put his Italian ambitions in the European spotlight)

• Thus his actions at Congress of Paris were more opportunist than calculated

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• Cavour showed diplomatic calculation at Plombieres and in engineering the Austrian attack on Piedmont

• Outcome of war not very satisfactory – almost disastrous for Italian unity

• However the decision of Parma, Modena and Tuscany to join Piedmont made Cavour’s diplomacy appear a success (and this was thanks to Ricasoli and Farini)

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Garibaldi:

• More single-minded and purposeful than Cavour

• Garibaldi was an adventurer – his Redshirts made an opportunity that Cavour exploited so that Naples joined Italy

• 1860 Garibaldi’s march on Rome

• Cavour disliked Garibaldi and wanted to thwart him as much as he wanted to gain Naples

• He used threat of republicanism to prevent Garibaldi’s solution

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Even if Cavour did plan for unification it began because of Napoleon III, and was completed because of Garibaldi

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Other factors:

• Economic and wider political factors

• Germany and Italy being pushed towards unification due to need for administrative centralisation and economic consolidation

• Political vacuum appeared in both areas due to Austria’s decline

• Improvisation and calculation affected the timing of unification